"This is a dream," Harry whispered into the darkness.
Ruth hummed, turning to press a gentle kiss to the bare skin of his chest, just above his beating heart. "If it is, I don't want to wake up," she told him.
Though she could not see his face, she fancied she could feel his smile, his affection articulating itself in the tender brush of his hands against her back as he held her close.
"It's as if I've just seen the sun rise after seven years of darkness."
He could be a dramatic orator, when he turned his mind to it, but there was no fond smile tugging at Ruth's lips just now, for she could hear the bitter truth of those words. She shifted slightly, resting her chin against his chest so that she could see his face. Oh, that face, the one she loved best in all the world, wrinkled and worn and unaccountably sad, just now. They were lying tangled up together in her bed, enjoying a few moments' peace before dawn, before they would be rushed into the festivities of Gabe's birthday party. They had learned their lesson, after Thursday morning's disaster, and so Ruth had slept in a soft shirt that covered her from shoulders to mid-thigh, and Harry had pulled on his trunks - though he had refused to dress properly, grumbling about the infernal heat. She was glad of it, for the brush of his skin against hers, though grateful too that should Emma come bounding in once more they would spared the worst of the awkwardness of such an encounter.
She studied him for a moment, soft belly and broad shoulders and warm hazel eyes, gazing at her and yet not seeing her as he recalled some far off sorrow. They had not spoken about it, she realized, what had happened to Harry while she was away. They had talked of Ruth, her journey, of Emma's birth and all the steps of the winding road that had led Ruth to this place, but not once had Harry spoken of his own path. He had told her that Ros had taken charge of the Grid in his absence, and Ruth turned that piece of information over and over in her mind now. Why Ros, and not Adam? Adam was the senior agent, more gregarious, better at charming politicians and inspiring loyalty in his comrades. Surely he would have been a better fit for the position?
A lot can happen in seven years, Ruth thought, her heart suddenly full of dread.
"Tell me, Harry," she said softly.
He blinked, shaking his head slightly as if dispersing the cloud of melancholy that had fallen over him. With a gentle hand he reached out and ran his fingers through her dark hair, and in the furrow of his brow she could see him trying to decide how much to tell her, to choose between necessary evils and avoidable truths.
"That isn't your world any more," he murmured, as if he thought with such simple words he could dispel her curiosity and save them both the pain of what was to come.
"It will always be a part of me, Harry," she countered at once. "How do you think I've survived this long? That world, that place, it made me who I am. And I know you know that. Tell me."
For a moment he was silent, still frowning at her, the delicate joy they had so lovingly nurtured between them turning sour with the weight of tragedies and old disagreements. Stubborn old mule, he had called her once, and though she had bristled at the jibe she knew that it was true, that she was at least half as stubborn as he, and she would refuse to let this moment pass without having the truth from him. Perhaps he saw the determination in her face, for at last he sighed, and spoke.
"We lost some friends."
That was a rather delicate way to put it, she thought glumly. Fear had begun to simmer low in her belly in a way it had not done for years as she pondered all the implications of his words. Some friends. More than one, then. But who? Did she really want to know? Could she stand not to?
"Harry-"
"Zaf was first," he said heavily.
The tears were swift and sudden, though not entirely unexpected. Ruth drew in a ragged breath, closing her eyes for a moment, trying to be strong for Harry's sake though her heart was breaking. Zaf, dear, sweet, charming Zaf, Zaf who was always ready with a joke and a sly grin. I smile at every pretty woman I pass. She could almost hear his voice, as clear as if he were standing beside her, and not long dead. Those were not the last words she'd ever heard from him, but she had treasured them in her heart, had in the early days of her exile imagined crossing paths with him on some sunny beach, the way his eyes would grow wide with wonder when he saw her belly large with child, the way she would laugh at his disbelief when she told him Harry was her baby's father, the way he would stop at nothing to bring her home. Only she had never seen him again, and now she never would.
"And then Adam."
She could not stop the tears that spilled down her cheeks, or the choked sob that escaped her. Harry tightened his grip upon her as she buried her face against his chest and wept for Adam, Adam who had been so kind to her, so strong, so devastated by the death of his beloved wife. It seemed so cruel, that fate should have torn Wes's father from him after the loss of his mother. Wes, that angel faced little boy; he'd be sixteen or so, now, with his whole life ahead of him, and no parents to help him through. Adam and Fiona had both been so wonderful, so vivacious, had seemed to Ruth's timid eyes to be indestructible, and yet they were gone, and Ruth remained, mourning their loss with everything she had.
After a time she quieted, and Harry prepared himself to deliver the final blow.
"We lost a young man called Ben Kaplan. You never met him. I think you would have liked him, though."
Ruth felt a passing pang of sorrow for this stranger, but it was nothing like the grief that overwhelmed her at the thought of Adam and Zaf. She let the moment pass, waiting for the rest of it.
"And Connie James."
At that name Ruth looked up at him sharply; she recalled Connie's name from a hundred different files she'd pulled from Registry over the years. Connie had been an analyst during Harry's days as a field agent, put out to pasture in the late nineties; how had she once more become embroiled in the darkness of the Grid, and why had Harry spoken her name so dispassionately?
"Is that all?" Ruth prompted him after a moment. She did not want to press him for details, not now, not yet, but one day she would. One day she would make him tell her, one day when she was more accustomed to the sheer gravity of these losses, when she felt she could bear it. Today, though, she prayed his tale was through.
"No," Harry confessed in a low, gruff sort of voice. "I'm so sorry, Ruth. We lost Jo as well."
If she had wept for Adam, it was nothing compared to how she wept for Jo now. Jo, young and vibrant and sweet, Jo who was not meant for their world, who had been drafted in quite by accident, who had been so full of promise. Ruth could think of nothing more heinous than the long list of lives snuffed out too soon that Harry had just laid out before her, and so she laid against him and let the tears take her, painting his skin where her cheek brushed against his chest. And through it all he held her, let her pour out the brokenness of her heart, for every name he'd given her this morning and all the others she carried etched in her memory. I promise you, there will be time to grieve, he had told her once. Perhaps the time had finally come, now when they were older, and wiser, and sadder, and safe, finally, from the threat of further calamity. Perhaps the time had come to grieve, and to heal, here in this place where their daughter slept just down the hall, where the sun burned so brightly that all the horror of their past was banished into nothing more than faded memory.
Ruth could not say for how long she lay there weeping, but at last the tears had run their course, and she had no more left to shed. Beyond her bedroom window dawn was breaking, burning away the demons that haunted them in the night. Her friends were dead, lost to unspeakable violence, but their ghosts were quiet in the early morning stillness. This place, this room, this house, this town, was not meant for such shadows.
"Promise you'll come back to me," Ruth breathed, her voice ragged and worn from the toll her emotions had taken. They had lost so much already, and though she knew that Harry had committed to his chosen course, that it was intention to leave his life behind and make a new one here with her, with Emma, with their whole family safe and well, the bite of fear still lingered. So much could happen, in a month, so many things could go wrong. Harry might be ready to leave the Service, but the Service did not so easily grant safe passage to its best and brightest. Men like Harry left in body bags, more often than not, brought low by bullets or by a heart attack at their desk. Men like Harry did not escape unscathed.
"I promise," Harry swore, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. He meant it, she knew, longed for nothing more than the life they'd imagined for themselves, but she could not shake the sense that such promises were beyond his power to keep. That had been the hardest thing, about her former life, the inescapable truth that her life was not her own. The Service took what it wanted, her time, her friends, her spirit, her body, even, and she was powerless to protest.
No more, she thought, a fierce, possessive sort of defiance building up inside her. She had died and been reborn, had carried her child through calamity and fought tooth and nail to build a good life for herself, and she would be damned if she let anyone or anything take it from her.
Without warning Ruth rose up, kicking aside the thin covers to straddle Harry's hips, her palms planted on the rise of his chest. His hands rose up reflexively, wrapped around her wrists, not pinning her in place or pushing her away but clinging to her as if he were a drowning man and she a liferaft. For seven years she had missed him, ached for him, clung to her love of him as a child to her favorite toy, and now he was here. He would see their daughter grow, would play with his grandchildren, would grow old and fat and happy in her embrace. They would live their dreams.
"You're mine, Harry Pearce," she said with some heat. The rest of that thought - and no one will ever take you from again - remained unspoken. Before he could respond she bowed her head and captured his lips with her own, hungrily, desperately. He seemed to understand what she was trying to convey, with the sting of her teeth and the surge of her tongue between his lips, and he responded to her at once, flipping them easily. He fell upon her like a man possessed, and she returned his passion with every ounce of love she possessed, cradling him between her thighs and catching her fingers in his hair, her heart beating out a rhythm of Harry Harry Harry as he divested her of her clothes and buried himself inside her once more. This was right. This was real. They were home.