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Chapter 21 – Trust
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The operation to place a tap inside TerraPharm's London headquarters was well underway by the time Ruth was called in. Tariq was in her usual position, running point from the technical suite, with Erin and Dimitri in the field. The young male officer was the subject of today's undercover frivolities. Currently, he was lurking in the downstairs reception of TerraPharm's London headquarters, pretending to be a health and safety spot-checker, come to look at their technical department. Ruth, loitering near the phone, was waiting to play the role of the London office, once Tariq re-routed the TerraPharm receptionist's outgoing call. It was a role she routinely had to play, due to her particular talent with accents. She didn't mind the inconvenience, however. It was actually one of the more fun aspects of her job.
"About thirty seconds," Dimitri informed them causally, over mikes, as they watched the receptionist move over towards the phone, on the CCTV screen.
They had captured surveillance of the reception fairly easily, through the security system's link to the local police. Being secure, these days, was rather a choice over who to be open to, thought Ruth, her hand on the phone. You either chose to let yourself open to criminals, or to spooks and spies. She didn't dare wonder which she would rather allow in.
"We have audio and video capture, phone line ringing out..." Tariq replied, tapping madly away at his computer then pressing enter, looking over to Ruth.
She bit her lip.
The phone rang once, then twice, then she picked it up, copying the greeting the Health and Safety receptionist had given her when she had called five minutes previous.
"Good morning. This is HSE Merseyside Electrical department, Rachael speaking. How can I help you?"
It was a mouthful, but the bored drawl she had copied off of the department's real receptionist did wonders for authenticity. She could see Tariq smiling in her peripheral vision at her Liverpool accent but, over the phone, she was sure it was more than convincing.
"Oh, hello," the receptionist from TerraPharm greeted her, hands on hip from what Ruth could see on the screen. "This is Sarah from TerraPharm reception, London. We have a representative from your organisation here, today, saying he's been sent to do a spot check on our electrical storage?"
Ruth paused for a long moment, audibly tapping on her keyboard, then answered.
"We do have a scheduled visit. You should have a Mr Michael Taylor with you, authorisation number Delta Tango one five six."
"Thank you, just a minute."
She and Tariq glanced over to the screen, watching as Sarah the receptionist went over and asked Dimitri for his card and – after a bit of requisite faffing around – Dimitri produced it and flirtingly handed it over.
With those big eyes and perfectly symmetrical face he would go far, with flirting, thought Ruth to herself. He and Erin, both, were what she had always imagined spies to be like. Young, beautiful people living fast, dangerous lives. It had been a bit of a surprise to find that most spooks were more like her. Reclusive Malcolm in his technical lair, lanky Tariq and his enormous computer system, Calum Reid who was so good in the field but lacked, so completely, any form of social graces in a personal situation. And Harry, of course, Harry who was just Harry.
On the screen, Dimitri and the receptionist flirted a moment longer then the young woman motioned for him to head through, with one of the security guards, and came back to the phone and Ruth.
"That's him all checked out. Thank you for your time," she chirped, and then the line went dead.
Ruth hung up, too.
"Reckon Dimitri has a chance?" Tariq asked, jokingly.
"Unlikely," Erin chipped in, over comms. "She's far too pretty."
Ruth smiled, sensing the slight note of displeasure, under the light-hearted tone of the other woman's voice. It was a joke, but not a joke. Erin would rather scalp the nice young woman on reception than see her and Dimitri out on a date together.
Such was attraction, Ruth supposed. She could acutely remember wanting to hit Juliet Shaw, when she had first come onto the scene. Though Harry had expressed no overt interest in the then-National Security Coordinator, there had been little signs of how well they had known each other. They sat a little closer together than regular colleagues. He did not react when she lay her hand on his arm or his back as she read over his shoulder. They finished each other's sentences, sometimes. It had driven Ruth insane, watching from only a few feet away. Though she could never admit it, to Harry, she had been perversely pleased that Juliet had turned traitor while she was away. It removed her from any position of threat.
Turning her attention back to her computer screens, Ruth switched the video feed to the surveillance cameras along the corridor which Dimitri was following, listening into his feed as he chatted to the security guard about his favourite football team. Without a doubt, talking sports was the easiest way for a young male to gain the trust of a stranger, in the field. Fitting the description of a football fan almost perfectly, Dimitri was better at it than most of the others. He babbled on and on about keepers and the back line and offside passes, arguing good-naturedly with the security guard on the matter of a particular manager's choice to remove a star player from one of the most important games of the season. By the time they both reached the server rooms, which Dimitri had requested to see, the guard's body language read as if he and Dimitri were the best of friends.
"Right, what do you need to look at?" Ruth heard him ask, over the comms.
"I'll need to see a rota for who comes down here, to clean, but apart from that it's just a look around – make sure there's no cables loose or water damage."
The guard nodded.
"Right. I have a rota just down the hall. We can pick it up on the way back through."
"I'd prefer it now, if that's not a problem," Dimitri requested, sounding a little more business-like. "I actually need to be out of here in about twenty minutes. Really busy day ahead and I can't afford to run behind."
The guard nodded his head enthusiastically.
"Al'right mate, I'll leave the door propped open but you'll be restricted to this corridor and the room, because you don't have a keycard. If there's any problem, just give me a shout. Oh," he paused, as he reached the doorway, turning to Dimitri, "and the lights are a bit dodgy down here around eleven. They have power surges, or something, due to the water heaters coming on." He pulled a grimace. "Might cut out for a couple of seconds at a time but its nothing sinister."
"Thanks mate," Dimitri echoed his use of vernacular, then lifted a hand in a wave and headed deeper into the room, brow furrowing as he looked down at his clipboard.
The first page, Ruth knew, was a copy of a Health and Safety checklist they had requisitioned from archives. The pages underneath, however, were an instructions sheet with directions through the server room hidden every seven lines down.
From their position in the technical suite, Ruth and Tariq watched him manoeuvre through long, dark passageways, picking his way between tall server towers.
"Bleeding hot in here," he commented, as he reached the back of the room and knelt by the one marked out on his map.
"The fans usually keep the room at an average temperature of 18 degrees," Tariq informed him, in the voice of someone who thought his trivia on the matter was interesting. "But that won't be working, right now, because the light is on and the door is not sealed. Normally, the air is pumped out through the venting system and is actually used to heat the water tanks above the room before heading out of the building. Really, its quite a smart system," he finished, looking to Ruth.
"Thank you Professor Masood," Dimitri grumbled, over comms.
Ruth chuckled, but then shrugged when Tariq looked inquisitively over at her, mouthing 'what'? They were a nice lot, really, she thought, her team – Harry's team. It was part of the reason why she liked working here, besides Harry, of course, and besides the feeling of purpose. GCHQ had been much more of an exclusive environment. She had worked in an office, surrounded by colleagues, but her tasks had always been more individual. She had spent less time bonding with her colleagues because they had less to bond over. Here, the team shared life and death.
She did not know Tariq as well as she would like to, she thought, as the young man went back to work. She suspected none of them did, in fact. He seemed to spend much of his time holed up in the technical suite and she knew, for a fact, that he continued to eat more than eighty percent of his meals in the staff canteen. He barely went home, he never left over lunchtime and he had turned down every invitation which had been extended to him, so far, to meet up with the others at the pub, after work. That said, Ruth had not gone out much with the new team either. She had used to join Jo and Zaf a lot, back in the old days. Back then, though, they had all felt a bit invincible. She could remember laughing and joking at the end of an operation as if their surviving was the most natural thing in the world. Now, Ruth thought, each victory was chased with the knowledge that next time they could not be so lucky. Now, she could acutely feel that they could lose one another at a seconds' notice.
The thought was a sobering one.
"Right," Dimitri announced, over the comm. lines. "I'm done attaching the clamp. You should have access."
Tariq tapped away for a moment.
"Tariq?"
"Yeah, hang on two secs..." tap, tap, tap. He frowned. "I think you're on the wrong wire. We're getting a corrupted stream. Move the clamp down one and screw in again, a little looser this time."
Dimitri did as he was told, his breaths and movements sounding loudly over the microphone. Ruth kept tabs on the corridor, watching for the Security guard's return.
All too soon, he reappeared on the screen.
"Dimitri, you have company in about twenty five seconds," Ruth commented, in a calm voice.
"It's okay," Dimitri told her. "I'm almost there."
Another few seconds passed, and they heard a quiet curse.
"Damn it. Slipped free."
"You have twenty seconds," Ruth gave him an update.
"Okay."
Another five seconds. More cursing.
Erin stepped in.
"Dig the clamp in and Tariq will try to compensate for the corrupt stream, later," the Section Chief commanded. "We can't allow ourselves to be discovered."
"I've almost got it," Dimitri insisted.
"D – that's an order," Erin spoke, her voice a little sharper this time.
"No, really, I've almost-,"
There came the noise of something clattering to the ground and another swear word, a little dirtier this time.
"Dimitri!"
"...almost got it," Dimitri growled, shifting, his microphone hissing with the proximity to the electrical equipment. "Just another few seconds..."
"Officer Levendis," Erin snapped, causing both Ruth and Tariq to jump in their seats. "Screw the clamp, stand up and walk away or I will have to report you for insubordination!"
There was a cold silence on the line for two seconds, then a click, a shuffling, another clunk and then the sound of Dimitri standing up.
"Thank you," Erin sighed.
Tariq and Ruth exchanged the smallest of glances.
It was a well known fact that there was something going on between Erin and Dimitri. Up until now, it had remained a rather quiet and unspoken-about fact. If they were sleeping together then they were not letting it affect their working relationship. Over the last few days, Ruth had picked up on the slight awkwardness between them and gathered that they had perhaps encountered some argument, in their personal life. Whatever it was, she thought, it had now just spilled into the professional. Knowing how hard it was, to keep the personal and professional separate, Ruth knew she should not judge, but she could tell, by Tariq's face, what he was thinking. 'This is why you should never sleep with your boss'.
This was the pitfall she and Harry had to avoid, she thought, biting her lip and directing her attention back down to her work screen.
On the CCTV stream, the security guard had arrived at the door just as Dimitri emerged from it.
"Excellent timing," the young officer chirped, his voice the antithesis of what it had been moments earlier. "Everything's checked out in there, so let's just have a look at that rota."
Tariq and Ruth breathed a sigh of relief.
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The security man led Dimitri back to the front of the building and he got back into his car, pulling out of the parking lot and heading down the street before signing off comms. Erin remained on a moment longer, to thank them all for their cooperation, then she signed off too. With the data stream thankfully coming in uncorrupted and Tariq busy tapping at his computer, Ruth decided to work on her own tasks. Saying that the techie should send over what he needed her to analyse as soon as it was ready, she disappeared back through to her station and spent the rest of the afternoon chasing numbers up and down her screen.
At around two, Tariq finished his investigation of the TerraPharm network and siphoned off an enormous chunk of data for her to sift through and the digits across her screen became letters. Some of it was in English, some of it French and the rest Mandarin, but all of it was the same degree of frustrating and confusing. There were scientific data reports, procedural documents which were as long as Thames house, enough laboratory data to clog up the MI5 mainframe for six weeks and countless financial dockets. Ruth spent the rest of her day trying to match up expenses budgets to bank accounts, trying to find where the money which had gone to their assassin had come from. The bank account where they had found the original link was long-since closed down and it was almost impossible to backtrace account details without having access to the banking system. So, Ruth was stuck with budget reports. And more budget reports. And, just to top it off, more budget reports. She was almost glad when five o' clock came around and Harry popped in to ask her to review some documents an asset had intercepted from the FSB.
As six o' clock rolled around, she finished them too – their contents being a rather graphic explanation of the interrogation of one Helena Garber, a CIA operative caught red-handed in Moscow. The woman in question had been involved in a joint task force started in this very office, to deal with an intelligence gap on the ground in Russia. Five years on from its conception, the operation had been handed over to Six and they were running it, now. At least, they had been until three of their field agents vanished, some time last September. Ruth daren't think what had happened to the other two if this report of what had happened to Helena Garber, the point agent on the operation, was true. Burned, electrocuted, beaten, raped, half-drowned, pushed until her heart stopped then resuscitated. It turned her mood from bored to slightly depressed and anxious about the state of the human race, in under an hour.
Walking it through to Harry's office, she stopped by Tariq's desk, to see if he had found any better news.
"Not much to go on, to be honest," the young technical officer told her. "So far, I've found three employees worldwide who fell off the grid sometime late last year, two who committed suicide, two in a car crash and one in a fatal stabbing. Interestingly enough," he commented, "the one who was stabbed was married to one of the missings."
Ruth pulled a face.
"I've sent photos of the lot of them to Dimitri," Tariq continued. "He's driving over to the safehouse where our favourite assassin is being held, to hold them up and try and elicit a response. Nothing guaranteed, I suppose, but better than nothing."
Anything was better than nothing, but both Ruth and Tariq knew this wasn't a lot better.
"Yes, worth a look," Ruth agreed with a sigh. "Anything on the financial aspect?"
"Nope. You?"
"No."
They both took a moment to stare wearily at the screen on front of Tariq. Sooner or later, the information they were looking for would rise to the top of the pile. It was all a case of entering the right keywords, finding the right connections, having the right eureka moment at exactly the right time. It was all a matter of time, Ruth thought, giving a little yawn to herself.
Tariq stretched and leant back in his chair.
"Calum's back on tomorrow afternoon," he commented.
"All things going well."
"Team finally back together."
"Indeed."
"Well," Tariq said, "I was thinking we should all go out for drinks, or something, to let off steam. Do you fancy it?"
Ruth only just managed to hide her surprise. Only earlier that day she had been musing on how much of a social pariah Tariq was and now here he was, suggesting a work night out. So it was again that Ruth slid back down to the bottom rung of the socially adequate. Again.
"I suppose we could arrange something," she nodded, mind falling back to all of the times she had headed over to the George with Jo and Zaf and Adam, after a long day's work. "A couple of drinks, after work. Some food."
"Sounds good," Tariq grinned, clearly delighted to have arranged his first ever social work outing. "I'll ask Erin and Dimitri when they get back in for their debrief. You heading home now?"
Ruth nodded.
"After I finish this." Her eyes drifted over to the door into Harry's office from the technical suite. "How did Harry look, last time you saw him?" she asked, absently. She had caught sight of their boss as he rose from his desk earlier, to speak to Tariq, and he had not looked happy. Now, his blinds were closed and the light inside the office was low. "I have to bear bad news," she explained, looking back to Tariq, holding up the file. "Intercepted intel from the FSB. A joint-op agent down, in the field."
Understanding drew across Tariq's eyes.
"Ah, I see. Not good." He looked over to the office, to where Harry's blinds shielded him from view. "I think he's a little fed up, to be honest. Meetings and all."
"Fabulous." Ruth watched the closed blinds for one more minute then heaved a very long sigh. "Well, I suppose I should get this over with."
She looked back to Tariq to bid him goodbye and found him with his lips parted, clearly on the verge of asking a question.
Now, Ruth had never been able to read peoples' thoughts, the way the real spooks seemed to, but this time she did not need to. Tariq's eyes said everything. This was about her and Harry. Their friendly interchange about going out for drinks had put him at ease and now he felt confident enough to ask about her personal life. She startled at the intent. Her body responded in the way it always did to fear. Her heart tremored faster. Her lungs felt as if they were grasped in iron bands. The strangest heat rushed up the skin on the back of her neck. She was hot and cold at the same time, freezing as she burnt alive.
Ruth did not know why the thought of the team knowing, about her and Harry, made her feel physically sick but she supposed it must be accumulated terror of a hundred little fears, all compounding on one another. There was no one single problem, so it had to be all the little things – all the little questions which niggled at the back of her mind before she went to sleep. Would they treat her differently? Would it change them? How was it supposed to work? What if it effected them? What if there was some legal issue they had overlooked? What would people think? What would people say, about him, about her?
The truth was, Ruth was a coward. She had always been a coward and she could hardly change what she was simply because she was in love. It didn't work like that. How it did work she was not sure. How she was supposed to become brave, in order for her and Harry to move forwards, she did not know. She knew she would have to figure it all out eventually, she supposed. She did want them to move forwards, after all. It was just... just terrifying.
Somehow, however, she managed to control herself. Barely, but surely, she managed not to falter or run away. Instead, she gathered herself and asked Tariq, in a pointedly calm sort of voice, if there was anything else he needed. For a moment, her colleague looked at her, as if he were going to go ahead and ask the question anyway, then he drew back. The intent fled from his eyes and he replaced it with a slightly sheepish smile.
"No, that's all," he cleared his throat, swivelling his chair back around to the computer screens.
Ruth swallowed and nodded.
"Okay then."
"Okay."
Turning on her heel, then, she walked slowly the long way around to Harry's office, heart thundering all the way. She knew it was not Tariq's fault, or any of the rest of their faults, for wondering about her and Harry. She knew it made sense and she knew, she really did know (she was not naive, or stupid, after all) that they were going to have to tell them eventually, but the thought of actually doing it made her entire body itch and squirm. She just wanted it all to bloody go away and for her and her boss to go on living the beautiful secret life they had been living. She did not want to bring their relationship into the real world because the real world was a dangerous place. Here, on the Grid, things were damaged and changed, picked apart and irrevocably broken; and Ruth did not want that for them. She just wanted them to be safe.
Reaching Harry's door, she knocked thrice and waited, feeling a bit giddy from Tariq's almost-question. She shuffled her feet, tapped the file against her hands and, finally, at Harry's gentle 'come in', was able to push through the door and step quickly inside, pulling the door back into its closed position behind her.
"Hello," she greeted him, a little breathlessly.
Harry glanced up, with the tiniest frown.
"Something the matter?" he asked, eyes lowering to the intercepted FSB file, clearly dreading what she was about to tell him.
"Oh," Ruth shook her head. "No, nothing like that." She took a steadying breath. "Just rushed back up the stairs," she lied, slightly.
"Right," Harry yawned, looked in no mood to pick apart lies from truth.
Ruth cleared her throat.
They sat and stood a little longer, watching each other. Ruth was the first to speak.
"I looked through this," she said, walking over to sit in the chair opposite Harry's at the desk. "It's not a happy tale, I'm afraid, more of a tragedy."
Harry grimaced.
"I expected as much."
"I've put a translated synopsis of the interrogation on the front, but the most interesting part is their recommendation the desk officer gives here," Ruth pointed. "The American must not have given them anything to go by because he classifies it as low grade intelligence and advises his superior to continue looking for a second 'nest' of officers in Moscow."
"When..." Harry began, wearily, letting Ruth step in and finish the sentence.
"When the second team were stationed in St Petersburg," she confirmed. "I suppose it's the best we could hope for, under the circumstances."
"I suppose," Harry rubbed his hand over his head in that way he had that made Ruth want to reach out and pull him to her. "At least that's something."
He looked dog tired. Mentally and physically worn out.
"How were things this afternoon?" she asked.
"Dismal," Harry sighed. "The budget the DG has assigned us for the next three months is ludicrous, Jim Coaver won't talk to me, the Home Secretary's office has filled my voicemail with messages asking about 'progress' on the Consul Wood case, Calum Reid's Bradford operation is looking unsteady, Juliet is making unreasonable demands and Richard Neilson is a colossal prick."
Ruth frowned slightly.
"Harry..."
"Well he is," Harry mumbled.
A pause.
Setting down the folder, Ruth slipped her hand slightly across the table, her fingertips coming to rest just at the ends of his. It was barely a touch but it was enough. Harry let out the remainder of his breath in a low sigh and raised his dark, tired eyes to hers. Sliding his hand forwards, he ploughed his fingers between the grooves of hers, pushing them up across the back of her hand.
"Oh, it wasn't that bad," he admitted, wearily. "I'm just-,"
"-tired," Ruth finished for him.
The edge of his mouth twitched into an almost-smile.
"Completely."
Giving him a little smile, Ruth sighed and shifted her hand underneath his, turning it over on its side so that their fingers could curl around one another's.
"I'm going home soon," she admitted, giving him a gentle squeeze. "You're very welcome to come back, even if its just for dinner."
Harry looked momentarily wistful, but then sighed and shook his head.
"Can't," he answered, a little miserably. "Too much to do. Paperwork up to my ears, half a dozen problems with this new lot of potential officers, and tomorrow I'm supposed to be figuring what to do with Juliet, in a meeting with the Home Secretary and some legal fiend."
"Sounds wonderful," Ruth stated, to hide her slight disappointment at him having to stay.
"Oh, it will be. Bureaucracy, politicians, lawyers and Juliet Shaw... my favourite sort of afternoon."
"Please try not to shoot anyone."
"I'll do my very best."
She smiled and they watched each other for a long moment, Ruth pondering all of the different conversations they had held in this very room.
They had been through such a lot together here, she thought, her eyes drifting across Harry's desk and up to the shelves behind him. She had flitted in and out of here on their very best and very worst days. On the best, she had entered with butterflies in her stomach, giddy with love. On the worst, her body had been sick with tension, over their latest troubles. She had seen this place through every kind of eyes a woman could have. Curiosity, anticipation, lust, love, nerves, fear, heartbreak; she had felt it all, here. She had watched Harry and herself grow old and more broken, before her eyes. And she had fallen in love with him over and over again. So many times.
Tonight was not a night to ruminate on that, though, thought Ruth. Tonight, Harry needed to work and she needed some well-deserved sleep. They could take more time, together, some other time. Right now, they both had other priorities – much as the thought of their first night alone, since they had first slept together, made her feel a little sad inside.
Pulling her hand back to her side of the table, she gave him a smile and stood up from the chair.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Harry said, looking a little apologetic.
"I'm home tomorrow," Ruth reminded him, gently.
"Oh damn," Harry shook his head at himself. "Of course. Rest day."
"Some of us occasionally take them, you know."
Harry laughed, softly.
"Okay."
"Goodnight, Harry."
"Goodnight."
There was another long look exchanged then Ruth cleared her throat and started the retreat, knowing that if she did not start moving soon then she never would.
Giving him one last smile, she walked over to the door, glancing back as she reached it to see Harry already poring through the report she had handed over. One of these days, she thought, making her way out into the corridor, he was going to work himself to death. It was inevitable. If the guns and the terrorists didn't get him then it would be the long hours. Men his age regularly died of stress-related strokes and heart attacks, Ruth reminded herself, feeling the fleeting anxiety as she always did when she thought of Harry's welfare. And wouldn't that be buggering unfair? They finally make it to some semblance of 'togetherness', after all these years, and they were ripped apart because of Harry's love of alcohol and chocolate covered pastries.
Returning to her desk, Ruth rifled through her belongings, deciding the cross-check she was working on really did need a little more attention before she headed home. Perhaps taking a little longer on it than she really needed to – perhaps hoping that Harry would suddenly be finished for the day and able to return with her – she spent another hour and a half making sure every one of her tasks was either finished or transferred to someone who would take care of them, during her absence. Then, pulling on her coat, she headed off towards the glass security doors. As she stepped through them, she noticed that Harry was still in his office, head propped up on his hand, frowning deeply.
It was probably for the best they spend the night apart, Ruth told herself, as she walked down through the building to the front exit. Managing time was one of the biggest difficulties, in new relationships. With her and Harry, that was going to be complicated by their spending most of their working days in each other's periphery. She saw him at least a couple hours every day. Some days, they worked together from start to close. It could quite easily become too intense, she reasoned, as she smiled at security and headed out into the cold street, wrapping her scarf more tightly around her face. Besides, she had other responsibilities to remember. Poor Fidget, for example, had been quite neglected in all of the excitement. Cats had a wonderful ability to take care of themselves, but she really did owe him a little more attention, now and again. A quick pat and a feed was not quite the quality time he was used to – when she had used to spend her evenings with him on the sofa, rather than with Harry in bed.
The bus home took longer than she remembered, but it was quite pleasant just to sit and read her book for once and not have to worry about holding up conversation, or holding herself back from jumping the man who was driving her. Arriving home, she headed through to her kitchen, stuck a potato in the oven and dug through her fridge for suitable toppings. Fidget was not the only thing being neglected, she thought, as she dug out a plastic container of tuna mayonnaise which was the only in-date box in the fridge. She was going to have to go shopping sooner or later.
Setting it on the counter, she drifted off into half-hearted daydreaming and jumped in the air, nearly ending herself, as Fidget trotted up and ticked the back of her tight-clad legs with his whiskers. Recovering herself quickly, she dipped down and picked up her ancient cat, carrying him through to the living room to sit while she waited on her dinner cooking. Setting him on her lap, she stroked his back for a while, giving him the attention he had been denied over the last few days.
"I know," she sighed, tickling behind his ears and smiling as he purred and rubbed himself against her sides. "You feel abandoned, but you shouldn't. Whatever happens, you'll always be my man, won't you?"
Fidget sat up and watched her for a moment then, clearly realising that his quest for extra treats was fruitless, gave himself a little shake and padded lightly away. As he left, Ruth wondered if she was fated to being left, by all the men in her life. It had certainly been the case so far.
It probably had to do with her gravitating towards men who were missing or searching for something, she reasoned. Her first serious boyfriend had been a quiet young man who left her when they went to University claiming that they both needed to 'explore his horizons'. He had ended up travelling South America and then joining Greenpeace. Her second serious boyfriend, who she met in her third year at Oxford, was nearly ten years her senior but split up with her because he thought 'neither of them was mature enough for a serious relationship'. (Within six months of this, of course, he had met and become engaged to a beautiful exchange student from New York – who, Ruth might add, was only in her second year). Her fifth boyfriend was Gary Hicks. He had spent the few months they were together telling her how important she was, and how glad they had graduated from friends to lovers, then he had received a job offer which involved a transfer to London, and he had ended them in the blink of an eye. He broke it to her kindly, of course, but it had been obvious there was no real decision to be made. The dream came first. She came second.
Ruth was used to rejection. She was almost entirely sure that it would never happen with Harry, though. Harry was different. Like the others, Harry was missing something, searching for something. For once, however, Ruth thought what he was searching for might be her. He had done the rest. He had chased his dreams and lived the reality, had a career, fallen in love, been married, made a family. Now, maybe, he needed what she could offer.
It wasn't much, Ruth thought – she had never deluded herself that she could offer any man a lot, riddled with insecurities and narrow ambitions as she was – but it was maybe what Harry needed. Someone to just be with. Someone to trust.
She would do her very best to make sure she could be that, for him. She wanted him to trust her. Although, she reasoned, it would mean that he would have to learn to trust himself a little more. As it was, there were moments where she felt him shy away, drawing back from intimacy because it had only ever ended badly for him. It was a conditioned response, Ruth realised, after the first few days. He was not so unlike a dog who had been offered food then given a kick when he had taken it. He was hesitant about coming forwards again, even if he was hungry, even though the want and need was strong. Caution could pervade a person and it ran deep inside of Harry.
Maybe one day she could heal him a little, she thought. It was not why she was involved in the relationship. All she had ever wanted was him, after all, just as he was. Just Harry. There was no expectation riding on them. At least, not for her. There might be for him, she thought, thinking back to the flickers of intention she had seen in his eyes. Sometimes, in the little moments, she caught glimpses of what he wanted, for them. He always seemed too scared, however, to push for. Eventually, time would make them braver, Ruth thought. Eventually, she would feel safe enough to tell people and he would be less cautious as a result.
She would figure it out eventually, she thought, watching Fidget play with the tassels on the couch throw. She had to. She couldn't lose him again.
.