Early Spring 2006

Harry sat on the sofa in his house watching television in the middle of the day for the first time in…longer than he could remember. Scarlett was delighted to have him home during daylight hours. She snuggled up on his lap, her tail wagging like mad. It made him smile to see his little dog so happy. At least one of them was pleased.

"You're a good girl, Scarlett, yes you are," he murmured as she licked his face. She soon settled down and let him lazily scratch her ears as he flipped channels. He found a quiz show to watch and wasted some time yelling answers at the screen. All he had was time, now.

Being given the sack was one of the more inconvenient things he'd experienced in recent years. It was even more obnoxious that Juliet bloody Shaw had been the one to do it. Not that he wouldn't have tried to hand in his resignation to the Home Secretary. It had been his decision to release Khurvin, who had turned around and murdered two of his agents. Disasters had resulted from Harry's leadership before, when his judgment calls had been wrong, and the HS had politely refused his resignation. It was the thing to do, in circumstances such as this. It rankled that Juliet had beat him to the punch here.

But Harry had no doubt that somehow, Adam and the team on the Grid would sort things out, and Harry would be reinstated. How soon, he couldn't be sure. As it was, they were all going through the rather pointless farce of having him surveilled and cutting off all contact with his team pending a disciplinary hearing.

"I'd like to see them try to discipline me," he grumbled. Scarlett looked up at the sound of his voice. He grinned at her and nuzzled her wet little nose. "You know that's right, don't you, Scarlett? You know I could blackmail every single one of those disciplinary committee members, and they know it, too."

His pointless musings to his dog were cut off by the doorbell. Scarlett had been well trained not to bark but she jumped off the sofa and stood ready for action. Harry hauled himself up as well, noticing that took a bit more effort than he was really comfortable with. His shirts had gotten a bit tighter. Sitting around wasn't going to help that one bit. Perhaps he should use the time off to try to get into shape and lose a few pounds. A few stone, more like.

Harry checked through the doorhole to see a delivery man with some bags of what looked like Chinese takeaway. He frowned, knowing he hadn't ordered any food, but answered the door anyway. "Yes?"

"Harry Pearce?" the delivery man asked.

"Yes."

"Food deliver for you, sir. All paid for. Receipt in the bag."

Harry took the enormous bag and the man walked away. Harry gave a glance at the van of officers he knew were put there to watch his house. He closed and locked the door behind him.

He carried the bag of food right into the kitchen and opened it up. "What have we here?" he wondered aloud.

The receipt the delivery man had told him about was right on top. But it wasn't really a receipt at all. It was a note. And he'd know that handwriting anywhere.

Harry, I don't know that you're used to being shut up in the house, so I wanted to make sure you had some proper food to eat. My neighbor works for a Chinese restaurant, and he gave me the boxes and agreed to bring this to you. I'm afraid it's not actually Chinese food, though. I made some proper comfort food for you, since I had a feeling you might need some comfort. I made it all, so it's probably awful, and you don't have to eat it. I just couldn't do nothing. And since I can't come see you myself, this is the best I could do. Take care of yourself, please, and don't get into any more trouble. Yours, R

Oh she was a clever one, that Ruth. And to think she'd been worried about him and made packs of food for him herself. On the back of the note was a numbered list, presumably corresponding to the numbers on each of the boxes. Bubble and squeak, shepherd's pie, sticky toffee pudding, beef stew, blackberry fool, Yorkshire pudding.

Overwhelmed with his love for her and missing her something fierce, Harry immediately tucked in to the food—which wasn't as awful as Ruth proclaimed but perhaps not as good as his mother would have made—and began formulating a plan. He was still thinking about it when he went back to the television a bit later. And then he had it.

Harry took Scarlet for a walk to his newsagent and made the drop for Adam. Within two hours, he was at the dog track.

"Ruth's worried about you," Adam said, "She's worried you're living on crisps and canned tuna."

He had to chuckle. It amused him that Ruth worried Harry couldn't feed himself. He was actually a perfectly good cook. And he now knew he made a better shepherd's pie than Ruth did. Maybe he could make it for her sometime. Maybe they could make it together. But he just told Adam to thank her for him. He couldn't say too much just now, not with MI-5 listening in.

They chatted about Wes and the dogs and banal things for a while until they walked together over to the kennel areas. Harry took out his whistle and set the dogs to barking madly, interfering with the surveillance. He asked Adam to get Khurvin's file to him. And when he shook Adam's hand, he passed him a note.

When Adam got done being yelled at by Juliet, he asked Ruth to discreetly copy Khurvin's entire file onto a memory card for Harry. She smiled, pleased Harry was working out a way to get back to work, where they desperately needed him. She asked Adam how Harry was doing, but he just said, "Not now." As he walked away, however, he slipped a folded sheet of paper into the files Ruth was carrying.

She immediately hurried back to her station and unfolded it, hiding it so no one would notice her reading. It took everything in her to keep a neutral expression when she saw the familiar neat scrawl on the page.

Ruth, I want to thank you for the food parcels you sent. Everything was wonderful, and I should expect your cleverness by now, but you always seem to astound me. Is there nothing you can't do? Your kindness and concern for my wellbeing is, as always, a great comfort to me. I'm not sure how I ever earned such care from one such as you, but I treasure it. Keep your head down, work hard, continue to be just as clever. I hope to see you very soon. X

She traced her finger's over his last line. He hoped to see her very soon. When 'very soon' might be, she wasn't sure. But Ruth suddenly found herself positively giddy at the prospect.