Fourteen:
Face Off

She was neck deep in data when her little mole in security alerted her to Mace's arrival. She hurried into the conference room and said, "Harry, Oliver Mace is on his way up." She hoped that her voice wasn't shaking too badly; after what had happened that morning, she was honestly afraid to be in the same postal code as the man, let alone the same room. Harry had soothed her ruffled feathers, but it wasn't as if she didn't already know what Mace was capable of. She knew Harry had already called for his own team to go in and monitor the children, but she was still terrified that something might happen because she'd held her own and not been intimidated by Mace.

Harry got up from the table and shot her a suffering look before he went to meet the odious man at the pods. She watched them take the circuitous route to Harry's office, as far away from her desk as humanly possible, and let out a shuddering breath.

Adam noticed the immediate tension, and came to her desk. "You have an issue with Mace?" he asked quietly.

She hesitated, then nodded. "This morning, his team took Sam and me down to the cells. She was fine: gave them only the information they already knew. I… however… wasn't." She looked down at her desk, not meeting his eyes. "He tried to intimidate me into betraying Harry and Tom, and he threatened my family."

Adam contemplated her for a moment, then said, "Did he have something to lord over you? Something that was worth more in the long run than any information on Tom Quinn or the Section's response to his going off the deep end?"

Ruth nodded, and looked up at him. "Yes," she said quietly.

"I need to know what that is."

She swallowed hard. "I can't," she said simply. "It's not just my secret –"

"Ruth, did he turn off the cameras?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Did he touch you – did he do anything in any way to –"

"He pinned me to the wall and kissed me," she spat. "I bit him and kneed him in the balls – of course I'm scared to death to be anywhere near him. The last time something like that happened to me, I was raped. By my own husband. If my secret was big enough for Mace to risk that to break me, why the HELL do you think I'll play confessional for you?"

"Because I'm trying to protect you," Adam said simply. "And your family. I need to know."

Her hands were shaking and her voice trembled. "Everyone saw Harry and me in his office, didn't they? I've heard all the tittering. They're working, but they're all… talking."

Adam hesitated and nodded. "Yes, they're concerned that it's a bad time for you and Harry to suddenly start necking in his office," he said. "I keep telling them to focus, that that's not what we're here for."

She knew he'd seen them as he'd come onto the Grid, and said, "We're normally careful. We don't let the personal cross with the professional. But he got shot yesterday and I was so glad he was all right that I just – I – it was my fault, Adam. The kissing in his office was my fault."

"How long have you two been involved?" Adam asked. "I only ask because Harry is very fierce to protect your family…"

"Eight months," Ruth said quietly. "We've been married two weeks." There it was: the confession. "He knows what the girls mean to me and he loves them dearly, as well." She swallowed hard. "I feel dirty now; cheap, like I sold myself."

"Don't," Adam said. "You love Harry; he loves you. Sometimes, that's the best you can hope for in this business: to find someone who you can love, regardless of the consequences." He took a deep breath and said, "I won't tell anyone, Ruth."

"Please don't," she murmured. "It was for your ears only – operational data." She smiled nervously up at him. "Thank you, by the way."

"For what?" Adam asked.

"For not judging me."

Adam said, "It's not my place to judge you."

"Everyone else is looking at it as if I'd just… shagged the boss. And it's not like that, Harry and me. It's not," she said quickly.

"Ruth, I don't need to know that," Adam said firmly. "It's okay," he assured her, patting her shoulder gently. "It will be okay."

He headed over to check on Sam and Zoe, who were embroiled in something, and she thought that she might be able to get used to Adam on the Grid, if that came to pass. He was kind but ruthless and he smoothed feathers and calmed situations better than even she did.

Mace and Harry squared off in Harry's office, then Mace stormed out.

Ruth felt him lean over her chair and he breathed in her ear, "Your husband is a –"

She fought the urge to scream, instead rising from her chair and facing him directly. "Don't." She took a step back, catching the corner of the desk on the back of her thigh and flinching, knowing there would be a huge bruise come morning. Another bruise, another reminder of Mace.

"Do you really think you can defend Tom?" Mace scoffed. "You're nothing but a pedalpusher, Evershed, and you're going to pedal straight into a hornet's nest –"

She caught Adam's gaze and hoped he could read the unsettling panic she felt. "It seems I already have, Mr. Mace," Ruth hissed.

Harry stormed out of his office and grabbed Mace by the back of the neck with his good hand, yanking him away from Ruth. "So help me god, Oliver, if you ever – EVER – touch my wife again, I will hunt you down and I will kill you," he shouted.

Mace's face registered surprise, or something akin to it. "So defensive over her?"

"You disabled the CCTV specifically to intimidate and sexually assault one of my officers because she is close to me," Harry growled. "I think that puts you on the same level as the people who assassinated Sir John Stone. Maybe even lower. Definitely lower. They at least had conviction – you, on the other hand, will roll over for anyone with a doggy biscuit."

Ruth had taken the chance to get away from the brawl going down, and was standing shoulder to shoulder with Adam; they were flanked by Danny and Zoe, who were watching the proceedings with some surprise. Ruth swallowed hard, knowing that Harry had outed them out of necessity, but it was going to make everything so much harder.

"You would really believe the word of that… scheming whore?" Mace laughed. "Really, Harry, you've lost your touch –"

Harry's hand went round Mace's throat. "If you come near her again, if you so much as breathe on my wife, if you touch her, if you threaten her or our children, if you come within arm's length of her for ANY reason, I will destroy you, Oliver Mace. I will take great pleasure in watching you writhe and beg for mercy; and there will be none to be had. Do I make myself clear?" His grip intensified, and Mace began to make choking, strangled noises.

"Harry," Ruth called out, "don't. You're better than him. Let him walk away."

Harry looked at her for a long moment, then released the chairman of the JIC and said, "Are we understood, Oliver? I will not hesitate to protect my family."

Mace rubbed his neck and coughed a little before he rasped, "The great Harry Pearce, brought to his knees by a woman and children…"

Harry's face contorted into something ugly, cruel, and he said, "Don't forget that I know about your little second wife in Nicaragua, Oliver. And your son. Do not for one moment think that I know less of you than you know of me. The difference between us is that I would never think to harm your family. Get out of my sight before I do something I will regret."

She'd never seen this side of him; dark, angry, cruel in ways that defied explanation. She didn't ever want to see it again, but it seemed to be effective. Mace scurried away like the roach he was, and the Grid fell silent, just watching Harry squeeze his good hand into a fist over and over again. Suddenly, he relaxed and he reached up to run his hand over his face, smearing droplets of sweat across his forehead.

"Malcolm," Ruth said, getting the other man's attention. "Can you erase the last few minutes of the CCTV footage? The last thing we need is someone getting a hold of film of Harry strangling the chairman of the JIC."

Harry glanced over at her, worry and regret etched onto his face. "Thank you, Ruth – I'm – I'm afraid I've made a mess of things."

She shook her head and smiled a little. "Thank you for coming to my defense. Though, really, I could have just kicked him." Ruth hesitated for a moment, then walked over to him and gave him a hug. He held her close, and she felt his labored breathing and tension. "I rather liked your method, though – much more intimidating than asking if my blowjobs were the best this side of the Atlantic."

He released her, nodding stiffly. He looked at the team and said, "Ruth and I have… been keeping a secret."

"I should bloody well say so," Colin said.

Ruth took Harry's hand and threaded their fingers together so there was no doubt that they were together. The team would probably jump to all the wrong conclusions, but she wanted there to be no doubt as to their commitment to one another. "We were married about two weeks ago," she said. "It doesn't affect our work, so please don't say that we've done something horrible and god-awful. Don't cheapen or demean it."

Harry exhaled and said, "There will be time for this later – right now, we need to be focused on Tom, on proving his innocence and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Herman Joyce was responsible." He was still sweating, tiny beads of perspiration dotting his forehead.

"Harry, have you taken your pain pills?" Ruth asked.

"No," he said stubbornly. "I don't need them clouding my mind."

Heedless of the reactions of everyone else on the Grid, she turned him and led him back to his office. She got the painkillers off his desk and got him a glass of water from his cooler. "Take them," she said softly. "Don't make me invoke wife's privilege to maim and destroy. Not here."

"I couldn't hold it back," Harry confessed. He took the pills and drank the water. "I couldn't hold back my rage at what he'd tried to do to you and I – I overreacted."

She shook her head and leaned against the edge of the desk with him, looking out at the Grid. "I think you reacted just enough," she murmured.

"I could have killed him," Harry said simply. "I wanted to."

"I know you did," she whispered. "That you stepped back from the abyss shows that you're not the same kind of man he is."

"I was, once," Harry sighed. "Ruthless, ambitious, focused…"

"What changed you?" she asked.

He looked up at her and said, "Honestly?"

She nodded. "Truthfully."

He exhaled and said, "I met this gorgeous brunette at a pub… and she made me want to be a better man, even if she wasn't mine to have."

She held his hand and murmured, "We'll find something that proves Tom was innocent, Harry. I know we will."

Harry grunted in reply.

"And when this is all over, you and I are taking the girls away for a few days and hiding," she promised, squeezing his fingers.

It was the best idea she'd ever had.

Running away.

END PART FOURTEEN