"Reinforcements," a low voice called through the open door.

Ruth lifted her head, blinking bleary-eyed and exhausted at Frank Holland, the long-time head of A Section who had been quite friendly with she and Harry over the years. When she turned her eyes to gaze out through the windows of Harry's office she saw a bevy of officers fanning out to replace her burned out team, and she heaved a great sigh, somehow both relieved and sad all at once.

"Come on then, Ruth," Frank said, not unkindly. "Up you get. Your team hasn't slept in forty-eight hours. You're all rostered off for tomorrow. Go home and get some sleep. I'll man the fort."

It wasn't easy, turning over Harry's desk and command of the Grid to someone else, even someone as likable and well trained as Frank Holland. Ruth had been sitting in this chair for nearly eight hours now, from the moment the bomb exploded and mobile service dropped and she lost all contact with Harry and Lucas. There were phone calls to take - from the PM, from the head of Six, from the Met, from Special Branch, from every-bloody-body - and rescue efforts to organize. She had sent Tariq down to the bomb site with the head of one of their teams and every bit of kit that he thought might prove useful, and he had finally established a link between the office and Harry. Harry's suspicions regarding the mysterious disappearance of the Met Commander had proved correct, as the man had been found sitting in his car a few streets away with a hole in his head; either he had been part of the Nightingale conspiracy and took his own life when things went pear-shaped, or Nightingale had taken it upon themselves to remove him in order to add to the chaos. Either way, someone on site had to assume command, and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that that someone would be Harry.

Harry, who was at this very moment still at the bomb site, and staunchly refusing to leave.

"Thanks, Frank," Ruth said as she slowly began to gather up her things. Her team was in ruins; Ros was gone, most likely dead - though the efforts to put out the flames and slog through the wreckage in search of bodies continued - Lucas was injured and giving the doctors at St. Thomas's no end of grief as they insisted he stay overnight and he insisted he had to leave, Tariq hadn't slept properly in a week, and the other analysts and support personnel were all dead on their feet. The time had come to leave, but there was one last thing Ruth needed to do.

"I'm going to arrange a car for Harry," she said, noting the way Frank's brow furrowed as if in interest, not caring in the least what conclusions he was drawing. "Will you call ahead to the bomb site and let them know to expect me?"

All the information Frank needed was laid out neatly on the desk, lists of phone calls made and those calls waiting to be returned, lists of who was in charge of what piece of the operation and who would step in to relieve them, numbers and figures and party lines to trot out when uncomfortable questions were raised. Everything was in hand, all operations running as they should, and she knew that he could this one thing for her, however strange he might think it. To his credit, he did not ask any questions.

"Of course," he said.

And that was that.

It was nearing 2:00 a.m. when Ruth's car was finally waved through the security cordon surrounding the smoldering remains of the hotel. She'd rung Harry's personal driver, and the man had come at once, seemingly unconcerned by the way she presumed to order him about. They had developed a somewhat friendly rapport, and she knew that he bore a deep respect for Harry. Mike wanted to see Harry home safe and sound just as much as Ruth did.

The bomb site had been well contained, and where before it had all been in chaos now everything she saw spoke of order and efficiency. Equipment and people moved to and fro beneath the emergency lighting, and Ruth wound her way closer to the spot where Harry had told her he was setting up camp. A tent had been constructed, bristling with wires and voices, people coming and going with determined looks upon their faces, and she knew that was where she'd find him, right at the heart of things. When she arrived, the first thing she saw was Harry and Tariq arguing with two young men she recognized from Thames House, part of their reinforcements.

"Now see here," Harry was saying in his best boss spook voice, and Ruth decided that moment was as good as any to assert her presence and smooth over any ruffled feathers.

"Harry," she called his name softly.

All the anger, all the aggression, all the fight seemed to leave him at once as his eyes fell upon her. He did not smile, could not smile, not when Ros's body lay buried in the rubble behind him, but she could see in his face that he was grateful for her presence. She felt much the same. They had lost an invaluable member of their team, a dear friend - to Harry, at least - but they still had each other, and they were still too relieved to feel guilty for that fact.

"Ruth," he said, his voice as warm and low as hers had been. "I'll just be a moment."

"No, Harry," she countered, more authoritatively this time.

The chagrin on his face might have made her laugh, had their circumstances not been so very dire. She rushed on before he could voice his objections.

"The interim Met Commander is handling organization and the DG has ordered us to go home. All of us. That means you, Tariq," she added. The young man would have worked until his very heart gave out if they asked it of him, she knew, but the time had come to send him home, to protect what remained of their shattered team. "Your driver is here, he'll take you home," she continued, returning her attentions to Harry, trying to communicate to him with a look that she had no intention of sending him home alone. "Let these men do their jobs, Harry."

She could feel the eyes of their replacements on her back, knowing that if she looked at them she'd see both awe and curiosity on their faces. No one ordered Harry Pearce around and lived to tell the tale, and everyone knew it. Likely this little exchange would provide fodder for the rumor mill for days to come, but Ruth was too bloody tired and too bloody scared to care.

For a moment it looked as if Harry meant to disagree with her, to assert his authority and insist that he would remain in place, but at long last his shoulders slumped, and he gave her a little nod.

"Very well," he said, and some of the chains of panic that had wound over Ruth's heart eased their grip, just a little. It had been a truly horrible day, but they were going home, together.

"Tariq, do you need a ride?" Harry asked, scrubbing a hand across his face, suddenly looking so much older, so much more broken, than he had a moment before.

The techie shook his head, and Ruth reached out to Harry all unthinking, driven by some subconscious need to touch him, to reassure herself that he was real, that he was all right, that they really had survived this ordeal. If Harry thought it strange or unprofessional he said not a word, simply took her hand and laced their fingers together, following along behind her as she led the way back to Mike, waiting to take them home.

They did not speak, on the long drive to Harry's house. They each murmured a soft good-bye to Mike and then stepped through the front door, together, in silence. They did not speak as Ruth led Harry, not to his bedroom, but to the kitchen, her hands on his shoulders guiding him gently to a chair where he slumped and sat staring moodily off into the middle distance while Ruth fixed them each a cup of tea and a few slices of toast. They did not speak while they ate, though Ruth had reached for him the moment she sat down, wrapping her hand around his own and refusing to let go, choosing instead to maneuver rather clumsily with one hand so that she could maintain that connection to him. They did not speak when at last she parted from him and carried their dishes to the sink, when she stood behind him and placed a tender kiss against the top of his head, when he rose ponderously to his feet and wrapped his arm around her waist, and together they mounted the stairs.

They did not speak until they were lying in bed together, Harry bare-chested and wearing only his trunks, Ruth swaddled in one of his old t-shirts. In the darkness they wound themselves together as tightly as they could, both of Ruth's legs wrapped close around one of Harry's muscular thighs, one of her hands tracing idle patterns against the smooth skin of his chest while the other slid beneath his head, fingers splayed in the soft curls at the base of his neck. Both of his arms held her tight to him, his hands idle, his heart too heavy to do much more than hold her close.

"I'm sorry, Harry," Ruth whispered into the darkness.

He was not shaking, was not weeping, was not cursing his fate, and there was no tension in him; in the darkness she could not make out his expression, and she realized in that moment she had no idea what he was thinking.

"You've nothing to be sorry for," he told her gently, and the fear that had been nipping at her heels from the moment the bomb went off began to recede, ever so slowly. He was here, he was with her, and he was holding her tight, and she knew she could not ask for more than this. "If anything, I should be apologizing to you."

The fear roared back with a vengeance so quickly that it left Ruth feeling a bit dizzy. She was exhausted, she was heartbroken, she was feeling so many things all at once she hardly knew what to do with herself. Ros was gone, Ros who had before this day seemed so invincible, so far above the petty human failing of mortality. The HS was gone as well, the entire international intelligence community was reeling, nuclear war had only just been averted, and Harry was apologizing to her in a tone of voice so very sad and so very hopeless that it left her feeling nearly hysterical with doubt and grief. Through all the tumult of the last few years Harry had been her constant, her touchstone, her anchor, the one person who remained strong and true when everyone else around them failed, and she could not bear to lose him now.

"Harry," she breathed, but in a moment he was speaking again.

"All I do is bring you grief, Ruth," he said in a heavy voice. "You've lost so much, so many friends, so much time, and it's all my fault."

Ruth shifted, rolled across his body until she was sitting astride his hips and looking down at him. Harry had never looked his age so much as he did in that moment, closing his eyes rather than face her, every line and every mark of his body speaking to the years of grief and pain he'd endured.

"It isn't your fault, Harry," she said sternly, and when he still refused to look at her she leaned down and kissed him once, firmly and determinedly. "You did everything you could. The Pakistani President is still alive and the bloody apocalypse was averted because of what you did today."

He opened his mouth to protest but she barreled on, heedless. "Yes, Ros is gone. And yes, I feel that pain, too, Harry. I might not have been as close to her as you were but she was a member of our team. Our family. It hurts me, too. But Ros made her choice. And you did everything you could for her, and I am so proud of you." Her voice broke as she spoke the word proud, tears filling her eyes unbidden as she realized just how true that sentiment was. She was so proud of him she nearly burst with it; Harry had done the unthinkable, had restored order out of chaos, had led the charge to save the civilians, had - with her help, of course- averted disaster. He had fought the good fight so long and so well that there were hundreds, thousands of people the world over who only lived today because of his efforts. He was brave, and strong, and decisive, and she was proud to know him, to love him, to belong to him, to claim him for her own. She had never met a man greater or more terrible than Harry, and her love for him breathed like a living thing in her chest, fierce and true and proud.

"Ruth-"

"We all made our choices. You gave me a chance to leave, remember? More than one. I made up my mind a long time ago, Harry. Yes, this life hurts. Yes, we've lost more friends than anyone has a right to. Yes, Ros's death should be avenged. But there is no one, no one, I would rather stand beside than you. I choose you, Harry."

As she came to the end of her rather grand declaration Ruth reached and took Harry's hand in her own, lacing their fingers together and holding on tight. At last his eyes opened, watching her with a sort of wonder, a depth of love and vulnerability she had rarely seen there before. Sometimes Ruth rather felt as if this choice had been made for her, long ago, as if the first time she met him in that interview room so many years before, the first time he reached out and shook her hand and let his honey brown eyes wander over her a cord had sprung up from the ether, binding their souls together, irreversibly, eternally, inevitably. There was no one and nothing she wanted more than Harry, and she would do whatever it took to keep him, for as long fate would allow.

"I love you," he murmured into the quiet, running his hands along the slope of her back, drawing her down towards him. Ruth intended to answer him in kind, but he did not give her the chance, his lips claiming hers in a hungry kiss that did more to reassure the pair of them than any words could ever hope to do.

Their hearts were aching, but they would mend, as they always did, so long as they clung to one another.