Catalysis

by kalabangsilver

Ruth and Harry try to balance work and their new relationship amidst the chaos of the Grid. Set post9 AU.

25. Chapter 25

.

Chapter 25 – From Embers

.

Dinner was wonderful. From her first experience of dating Harry, Ruth had decided that her boss must have either blackmail material on half of London's elite or a very hefty paycheck, considering the luxury to which he treated her. Having since ruled out the latter of her suppositions (by a sneaky look at his personnel file) Ruth was left to marvel at what spectacular material he must have to manage this repeat performance. It had to be damning.

Despite not having reservations and despite the Michelin star restaurant being fully booked up for two weeks, they were quietly 'squeezed' in, after Harry gave his name, to a comfortable little table at the back of the room. The owner, himself, greeted Harry with a handshake and a slightly wary expression as he assured him that the specials tonight were excellent. The waiters, Ruth noticed, all seemed to be more attentive than they were to the other customers. There was definitely something afoot. When she asked Harry how exactly why they were being treated like royalty, however, her mysterious lover just gave her an innocently boyish smile and said 'charm'.

While charm played its part, Ruth doubted it was the whole reason. Charm would suffice as an excuse for now, however. After all, it was impolite to look the gift horse in the mouth. So, she just relaxed and let her companion help her to her seat, pour her a drink and gently lead the conversation around. He was a wonderful dinner date, really, she thought as she watched him across the table. It was, after all, a case of playing a part and spies were generally very good at that. Harry Pearce, Section D, could become Harry, the charming dinner date, just as easily as he became Harry, cool and effective killer. He could be anything he wanted to be. He certainly fit in here, thought Ruth, looking about herself – so much better than she did. The restaurant was hardly a flashy one, in fact, it was almost understated in its opulence, but it was definitely expensive and exclusive. And Harry just seemed to fit.

She was getting used to it, though. The daunted feeling which she had felt upon him first leading her through the front door, was beginning to fade. His gentle ways had helped with that. He was so careful with her, so surprisingly thoughtful as they sat, and talked, and ordered and ate. He told anecdotes and laughed at her jokes and teased her, for not being adventurous with her food choices. In return, he made small innuendo about being adventurous and told him off for buying expensive wine.

"I get to do this, now," he defended himself, to the reprimand. "I get to buy things for you, whenever I feel like it, and you, in turn, get to do anything you like with me." He raised his glass. "That is what being in a symbiotic relationship is all about."

"Not so symbiotic," Ruth pointed out, drinking a sip of her own wine and smiling at him over the rim. "The arrangement seems to swing more to my benefit than it does to yours."

Harry just shook his head with that secret smile he sometimes wore.

"Not true," he told her softly. "Not even close."

They drank and ate and discussed things quietly between themselves, dithering between courses and playing over topics that they had played over many a time. They talked about the past and laughed, for once. They talked about work and their leads all flatlining, and frowned a little. They talked about themselves and soothed the feeling in the air back to pleasant, then finally conversation slipped to Graham and what Harry was going to do about the loan.

Giving a sigh, Ruth's lover told her that he thought he might go through with it. Whatever feelings Ruth had, about the dangerous nature of giving that amount of money to an ex-drug addict, who would happily see him swing, Graham was his son and Harry could not let a chance to be back in his life slip past. She agreed, softly, watching the softness in his eyes as he talked of his children, thinking that his being a father was probably what saved his humanity, all those years ago – what held him back from becoming completely absorbed and lost inside his work. Sure, over the years he had made poor choices. He had been reticent to compromise and so he had missed out on what fatherhood had truly to offer. But, she thought, he had loved in the same manner in which he did all things – passionately and with purpose. It was a little bittersweet to see that it was only now, with years on his side, he was finally mature enough to be a father. Now, when all Graham wanted was money and not love.

"I suppose it is a desperate grasp at a second chance," Harry sighed, as they pondered over the subject. His eyes were focussed down, on the table, his fingers toying with the stem of his wine glass, helplessly lost in the depth of their conversation. "I often wish he was just a child again and I could start all over."

"Nobody gets to start over," Ruth pointed out, "but, sometimes, if we're really lucky, we get to move on from the past."

Harry gave a soft noise of disbelief.

"It happens," Ruth insisted, tilting her head to catch his downcast gaze. "Look at us, after all."

A sad little smile pulled at her lips as she thought of their first date – how little they knew each other and how already invested she was in their future. On that night, in that moment, she would have given her life to him. She would have given everything. It was blind puppy-love, but it had been so very, very potent. As morning dawned and reality clawed, however, she had spooked. As her colleagues joked and teased and, though it had all been in good nature, it had not seemed so, at the time. Ruth had withdrawn fully and convinced herself that her future was more important than risking it on some heart-based fling. But heart-based was sometimes not stupid, she had learned over the years, as the emotions inside her failed to fade. Sometimes that first feeling you have towards someone, that first emotional connection, is right. Sometimes you need to trust your gut. Sometimes you need to be brave.

"We are very lucky," Harry agreed, softly, finally meeting her gaze. "Not everyone gets the chance or mutual inclination to move on, from the past. It is very rare."

"Yes," she nodded, "but when something unlikely happens it doesn't mean it should be dismissed because it is unlikely. It should be fought for. It should be embraced."

There was a brief pause, while Harry played with his glass a little more.

"You know," he eventually sighed, "if I was a lesser man, I would accuse you of being changeable, Miss Evershed. Only the other night you were telling me to temper my enthusiasm – not to embrace it all too readily."

Ruth let out a little laugh.

How easily he misunderstood a situation.

"I don't offer advice, Harry," she smiled, gently. "I'm just the sounding board."

Her lover frowned, so she took a sip of her wine and elaborated.

"It's how we work. You talk at me. I offer information and the opposing argument. You talk some more and then you weigh everything up and make an informed decision." She shrugged. "It's what we have always done."

The comprehension dawning across his face was beautiful. It seemed to catch in his eyes and light him up entirely. Ruth watched with interest as he played this new information over in his mind, doing exactly what she had told him he would do – weighing it up, making a decision on what it meant. Then, slowly and carefully, forming a response.

"It is what we've always done at work," he pointed out, looking slightly worried, as he said it – as though she would suddenly come to the conclusion, from his words, that they only worked in an operational capacity and needed to be ended as quickly as possible. "When we're at home-," he began,

Ruth interrupted, with a soft voice.

"At work, at home..." she smiled. "Whatever we become, I'll always be the analyst, too. It is where we started and that is important. It's part of who we are."

Harry watched her, for a moment, with endless eyes. Then he nodded.

"I know that."

They sat and drank their wine and waited for a few minutes as their deserts were brought and they tasted them. True to the rest of the meal, they were delicious and the perfunctory comments were exchanged about texture and taste and the calorific content of cream (and Harry's lack of need of any more calorific content). Ruth happily devoured hers, being uncharacteristically hungry, while her lover picked his way gently through his, spending most of his attention on watching her eat.

After their comfortable silence had stretched on for a couple of minutes, Harry said, softly,

"Do you know, the first time I asked you out to dinner, I had not even considered that my being your boss would be a problem?"

Ruth halted, stirring cream around the periphery of her plate.

A small frown creased her forehead.

Harry was astoundingly backwards in certain situations but she could not imagine that even he could perceive his being her boss as not being a potential hazard to starting a relationship. There were pitfalls too numerous to name. They could fail at the personal because she could not get over what he was during the day. Their personal relationship could have detracted from their working one and made rank and hierarchy difficult to manage. There were infinite ways that his being her boss could have (and still could, Ruth forced herself to remember) be problematic. As a man who did risk assessment for a living, Harry could not possibly have overlooked them.

"You cannot be serious," she eventually stated, bluntly, focussing her attention on his face again and setting down her desert spoon.

Harry gave a rich laugh, all the tension of their previous conversation draining from his face.

"I am, I assure you."

Ruth raised an eyebrow.

"So, you thought that would all go swimmingly, did you? No clashes of interest, or emotional compromise?"

"Well, initially, I thought that, if we could not work and play together – so to speak – then I would just find another analyst and you could transfer to another department."

Ruth let out an indignant puff of air.

"Well its nice to feel essential!"

Harry watched her, closely, with the hint of a smile playing around the left corner of his lips.

"Initially," he repeated, slowly. "And ill advisedly."

A long few seconds passed.

Ruth watched impatiently.

Finally, Harry began to speak again.

"Then," he sighed, "I took you to dinner and we started talking and I realised, about halfway through starters, that I could not hope to find someone who fit your job as well as you – nor someone who fit me as well as you – and I had actually put myself in a bit of a tight spot." He shifted in his chair, eyes deep and focussed solely on her. "If you had excelled at either the professional and professional, exclusively, I could have steered us towards one relationship or the other but, as it turned out, you were far too good at both. You were brilliant, even. Calm and funny and perilously intelligent. I realised I had shot myself in the foot by asking you to diner because now I could not possibly think of you in a strictly platonic way again. Although," he granted, "I suppose, I had not been thinking of your strictly platonically for quite some time, at this point."

"Good to know..." Ruth said, very softly.

Harry smiled, a little bashfully, at that one.

"Anyway," he cleared his throat, "for about ten minutes, I tried very hard to let conversation run flat and not to let myself enjoy the dinner, because I was hoping how well we worked together was just initial spark and that we could somehow go back to being slightly awkward workmates. That way," he explained, "I wouldn't have to worry about having to choose between keeping you in my life professionally and keeping you in it personally. Then, you said something completely innocuous..." Harry told her, with a far-off look in his eyes, "...you made some silly, incredibly sharp little comment about Chaucer... and I realised that if I didn't have you I was going to die."

"That's a tad dramatic, is it not?" Ruth asked, through a tight chest.

"Dramatic, but it was how I felt," Harry admitted, looking back over at her.

Ruth swallowed, watching him with rapt attention.

Her heart was thundering, slightly, in her chest. Her heartbeat was pulsing heavy in her ears. She had expected to talk of Graham, tonight. She had expected to talk of work and their past and even their previous dinner date, (after all, they had only been for two), but not like this. Harry was not an open person. He did not share deeply emotional experiences. This was new and completely unheard of, in their short relationship together, and it was nearly as terrifying as when he had stood on that rooftop and given her that ultimatum; love or nothing.

"I resolved to take you home," Harry continued, with slightly sheepish eyes, for the first time since he had started to explain their evening together. "I thought I could."

Ruth was not sure whether to feel slightly offended, or relieved that she had not misinterpreted the way he was watching her, for the latter half of their dinner together. She had read it in him, then, and so hoped that it was true – hoped and feared, actually. While Harry had been going through his train of worries, she had been doing the same. She had run hot and cold all evening, caught between terrified of moving closer and terrified of missing out on such an opportunity. Harry Pearce. Asking her to dinner. Harry Pearce, watching her with softly hungry eyes.

"I planned to seduce you, when I gave you a lift home."

"But you didn't," Ruth pointed out, gripping the stem of her wine glass so tightly she could feel it press into the bone of her finger. "As close as you came was the front door..."

"Where I almost kissed you,"

"Yes," she smiled, despite the nerves over talking about it. They had been so close, their faces just inches apart, the scent of each other and their combined want heavy in the air. If he had leant forwards and kissed her, Ruth would have invited him in. She would have drawn him to her and there would not have been a thing on heaven or on earth which could have pulled them apart. They were both lust-drunk and heady with their crush. Ruth could remember his hand ghosting over her side, the closeness of him and the anticipation, and then the surge of disappointment when he had nipped in to kiss her cheek chastely instead. "I remember," she told him, marvelling at how detailed the memory was, even then.

"I can remember thinking how perfect we would feel together,"

Ruth blushed, remembering the same, and nodded.

"But... I stopped."

She frowned. "Why?"

She had always wondered why. It had been one of her most pondered-over questions, in the aftermath of their short encounter. She had tortured herself over it for weeks, wondering if she did something wrong, feeling both relieved and heart-wrenchingly disappointed that it had not happened, but never knowing why.

Harry fixed her with a strange gaze, looking a little shy.

"Because, as I was musing over how perfect we would feel together," he began, hesitantly, "I suddenly realised that I didn't just want to taste you as a passing distraction. I realised that this little love that I was feeling – a love I thought was just attraction, lust, opportunity and a bit of mid-life crisis – was actually something much more than that. It blindsighted me completely," he admitted. "I realised that I did not just want a relationship with you, which may fall apart in a few months time, but-what's-the-difference. I realised that I was falling in love with you and wanted a future together. And then I realised that my being your boss was going to be a problem."

Only then... how very Harry.

How very Harry all of it was, Ruth thought, watching him watch her with eyes so sincere. He was so sudden and impulsive where emotion was concerned – exactly the opposite of how he treated cold fact. In the meeting room, in the field, on the Grid, he was level headed and stoic as a stone. Throw a bit of emotion into the mix, however, a bit of true human interaction, and his resolve crumbled.

"I did not want you as my analyst," he continued, across from her. "Or, rather, I did, but not just as my analyst. Nor did I simply want you as my lover. I wanted both and more. I wanted everything, but I had no plan for everything, I had no idea how to tell you how I felt – that I had never felt this close, this perfect, with anyone – and I was worried that 'we' meant more to me than it did to you. So," he sighed, long and heavy, "I decided to give myself time to work it out. I stepped away."

"And left me on my doorstep alone," Ruth finished.

A moment passed.

"Do you forgive me, for that?" he asked her, softly.

Ruth nodded.

"It took me a while, though," she added, a little sheepishly.

"It took a long time to forgive myself," Harry admitted. "There were a couple of nights when I could have hit myself in the face for walking away, in pursuit of something more – nights where I convinced myself that we could have worked it out, even if we had started as a one night stand."

A little smile twitched Ruth's lips at that thought.

She had shared it, often enough, but even as she had thought it she had known it was not true.

"We wouldn't have made it," she told him.

"I know,"

"Oliver Mace would have used me to rip you to shreds."

"He did anyway," Harry pointed out, "but I get your point. We had no solid foundation. They would have torn us apart and we would have had nothing to fall back on."

Ruth fingered the stem of her glass, thinking of the foundation they had, now; years of companionship, of friendship, rock hard and built of both victory and defeat. They worked, now, because they understood each other fully. They had seen the worst and best of each other and accepted it. If they had fallen into bed that night, in their early flush of love, they would have fallen away just as quickly. Neither had been keen on compromise, at the time. Things were different, now. At least, Ruth hoped they were.

The other evening, when they had been lying in bed, talking around the subject of his eventual retirement, Harry had said that he would miss working with her but their being together at work no longer seemed so important to him as it did, in the past. It had only seemed important, at the time, he said, because they had nothing else to base their interactions on. Now he was allowed to know her in a private life, he had said, stroking along the curve of her shoulder, he was a little less terrified about the day the Service booted him out the door. He had always hated the idea of losing her.

Ruth had just lain beside him and hoped that sentiment still rang true when applied to her leaving the Service, rather than him. It would make her decision, over what to answer the Home Secretary, that much easier. She was almost sure what she wanted to say, but she did not know – not quite – how Harry would take it and that scared the living daylights out of her. She could not lose him. He meant everything to her. If he did not want her to leave, it could cause a fraction line, down their fragile new relationship.

But they were built on solid foundations, she reminded herself. Things were different, now.

.

Sitting across from Harry, at the table, discussing the dual nature of their personal and professional relationships would, perhaps, would have been the perfect time to bring up her job offer, but Ruth did not bring up her job offer. Instead, pushing her glass gently aside, she slipped her hand across the table and, entwining her fingers with his, asked Harry if they could go home. He said yes, asked for the bill and paid – much against her insistence to split it and to a little good-natured bickering on the way out of the restaurant.

They took a taxi home, Harry having learned long ago not to trust his driver with any intimate knowledge of his personal life, and spent most of the ride sliding their fingers over one another's, in the back seat of the car – an small, extended sort of foreplay which lasted up until they arrived back outside Harry's townhouse. There, stepping out into the cold night air, Ruth paid for the taxi before Harry could object and, as it drove away, they turned back to each other with an air of expectation.

"I take it you won't leave me standing on your doorstep?" she asked, a little breathlessly.

"Only if you mention it again," he warned back, nudging her back until her tight-clad legs brushed against the freezing stone of his garden wall and making her squeak slightly in surprise and mutter his name.

"And here I was thinking that knights were all gentlemen," she complained, as he brushed his lips against the rise of her cheekbone.

Harry laughed, low and warm.

Ruth's lips parted, to form another indignant reply, but failed, right away, as he leant into her and kissed her firmly on the lips. His skin was warm, so deliciously warm after the sting of the cold air, and she could not help but fall into him. They were good at kissing, she thought, hazily through the pleasure. They were so good at this part. They were getting incredibly good at other things too, but Ruth hoped that this little game would never become superfluous, or neglected. It was far too wonderful for that.

Harry seemed to enjoy it every bit as she did. He enjoyed it with her legs against the garden wall, he enjoyed it as he clicked open the gate and nudged her through, he even enjoyed it as he led her up the garden path, walking backwards a few steps between embraces. As they stepped close enough to the house to set off the automatic lights, they both paused, for a moment, startled by the illumination, then their eyes adjusted and they picked out each other again, leaning into kiss again.

Their lips were just brushing, when an obnoxious cough from the porch caused both of them to jump and whip around in fright.

"Apologies," came an unfamiliar voice. "I don't mean to interrupt but if this goes on any longer I might actually vomit."

The voice had emanated from a young man sitting on the lowest step to the house. As her eyes swept over him, Ruth felt a strange feeling of déjà vu. The young man – and he was fairly young, he could not have been more than thirty – looked familiar but, at the same time, was obviously a stranger. Ruth was almost one hundred percent sure that she had never met him in her life, but then there was something about him... something about his wirey build and shaggy blonde hair, and those eyes... She frowned. Eyes just like-,

She turned to Harry.

"Graham?" she asked, softly.

Harry nodded, jaw tightening.

"What are you doing here?" he asked his son, in a tone so antagonistic that Ruth could only wonder why it had taken them nearly ten years to get back into contact. "I said I'd call you later."

"Looks like you would have been too busy," Graham replied, lightly, giving a groan as he pulled himself to his feet and dusted off the back of his trousers. He was in a short black coat with what looked like work clothes underneath. With only the collar of his shirt giving any other colour than black, Ruth could see how he had been almost invisible, without the lights on. (How long he had been sitting there, stock still, not to set the automatic sensors off, however, was a little worrying). "Besides," Harry's grown son hopped down off the bottom step and stepped towards them along the garden path, "I was in the neighbourhood,"

"I said I'd call," Harry repeated, guardedly. "You could have done the same courtesy, before turning up."

"You were out and mother says you generally don't listen to your messages."

Standing a few feet apart, they were glaring at each other like two mortal enemies, thought Ruth, watching the scene unfold raptly. Not a civil word had passed between them since Graham had – admittedly a little obnoxiously – burst in on their embrace. It was so strange, to see Harry this way, she thought, stepping slightly away from him and turning to look at the scene from a different angle. Both men looked as if they were sizing each other up for a battle to the death. It was such a far cry from the softness that had lurked in her lover's eyes, when he talked of Graham earlier. It was hard, seeing the way they looked at each other, to believe that Graham was even Harry's son. Although, she supposed, anger that much could only truly be fostered between two people who knew each other. And cared.

"Maybe we should all go inside," she suggested, quietly.

Graham turned, as if noticing her for the first time, and inclined his head politely, causing Ruth to start slightly.

"Good idea," he commented, almost pleasantly. "It's freezing out here."

It was strange, thought Ruth. The moment his eyes were off his father, they became instantly less antagonistic. And those eyes were so like Harry's that it was startling. The same colour, the same flecks of darker iris, around the edges, the same light eyelashes that fringed them thickly. It was not just anatomy, either, he had the same look in them, as if he had seen too much in his short life. He probably had, Ruth reasoned. She had read his file and it contained drug and alcohol addictions, jail time, hospital visits and rehab. Graham had circled the drain closer than most. And come back.

"I'm sorry, I don't think we've met," Ruth stepped forwards, emboldened by the man-boy's reaction to her suggestion. "I'm Ruth."

"The girlfriend?" Graham asked. If there was any loaded intent in his words, he hid it well.

Ruth glanced at Harry, then nodded.

Graham extended a hand.

"Graham." He gave a wry smile. "I'm the child that you have either heard nothing about, or far too much."

Ruth took his hand and shook it, just a little hesitantly.

His fingers were longer and slimmer than Harry's, but the palm was smaller. He was younger and slightly taller, but he would always be slighter than his father, by the look of him, no matter how much muscle he built. Stepping back to Harry's side, Ruth turned to her lover and nodded towards the house.

"Shall we?"

Harry, who had not spoken a word since his aggressive snap at his son, cleared his throat and muttered something like; "probably best not to make a scene on front of the neighbours," then the lot of them trouped inside, pausing for the requisite forty seconds as Harry disarmed his two security systems and Graham politely asked Ruth what the time was and told her that her dress was very nice.

Tipping into the front hall, Harry headed straight for the kitchen while Graham dawdled a little behind him and Ruth took up the rear, not sure if she should follow them or excuse herself to the upstairs and wait out the inevitable argument out of sight. Part of her wanted to run but the other part of her, the curious spook part, wanted to see more of this strange man who had grown from the child who Harry had created. It was so strange, to see parts of him – like those eyes – which she had always considered to be uniquely Harry, mirrored in another living being. He was like a shadow of Harry – like a warped reflection. Younger, slightly different, but still recognisably the same in many ways.

The sight of him sparked a memory of the photograph Jane Townsend had left in her possession, the day she had unexpectedly dropped in. After slipping it into Harry's bathrobe pocket, Ruth had completely forgotten about it but it contained a picture of Harry and his baby son, the elder the spitting image of what the younger looked now. Wondering if the photograph was still in the pocket where she had left it, Ruth almost started when Graham turned to her, in the darkness of the hallway, and cheerfully asked;

"So have you two known each other long?"

Harry's head popped out of the kitchen and he barked, "Graham – kitchen – now!"

It was so reminiscent of him on the Grid that Ruth had to pinch herself to realise that the kitchen was not Harry's office and Graham was not the wayward Calum Reid, about to be given a dressing down over some operation gone wrong.

"I was just trying to make conversation," the younger Pearce told his father, as he sloped past into the kitchen, leaving Harry and Ruth standing alone in the hall.

Harry turned to her.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, in an almost whisper. "I didn't expect him to actually come here. Traditionally, we don't go for face-to-face contact."

Ruth shook her head.

"It's fine, honestly. Go to your son."

Harry looked mildly frightened to be reminded that he contributed half of the DNA to the man inside of the room, but nodded.

"I should tell him what I've decided," he nodded, as if saying it aloud would make it true without him having to go through the motions.

"You don't have to hide the lady away," Graham called, from the kitchen. "I promise not to misbehave."

Ruth looked to Harry.

"Do you want me to go upstairs?" she asked, nervously.

"To be honest, I think he'll behave better if you're there," Harry told her, sounding a little depressed about it.

"I can stay," Ruth offered.

"Only if you're sure."

"Of course I'm sure," she frowned at Harry, then bustled past him, into the room. "Would you like a cup of tea?" she asked her lover's grown son, sitting at the counter top.

Graham looked mildly surprised that Ruth knew her way around the kitchen so well. Perhaps he, like his mother when she had walked in on Ruth, had assumed her to be the subject of a one-night stand, or a passing fancy. Determined to show him otherwise and provide solid backup to Harry, whom Ruth had never seen so overcome by a situation in all her life, she turned to the kettle and took it over to the sink, filling it up with water and then sticking it back on the boil. As Harry shuffled back in and took up a seat at the opposite end to the counter from Graham – neither of them talking yet – she went into the cupboard and selected three mugs.

"How do you take it?"

"Milk, no sugar," they both chorused, then both looked disgusted to have cemented their similarity.

"I'll have it with only a dash of milk, if that's okay," Graham asked, stretching his fingers. "Need as much hot liquid as I can get. Nearly froze me nads off, sitting on that step for so long."

Harry shot him an angry look, whether for the language or the friendly demeanour, Ruth could not tell.

"That's no problem. You two get on with whatever you need to talk about," she added, gently pushing them into the conversation because it certainly did not look like they were going to get there themselves. "Don't mind me."

She clinked and went about making tea, listening to the two cough and shuffle around behind her, then Harry eventually take the upper hand of the situation and ask how Graham was, to which his son sarcastically pointed out that they had seen each other last night and this was hardly a social visit.

"I just need to know if you're going to give me the loan," he said, quite calmly, without a hint of nastiness about him. Clearly past disputes were to be set aside when asking for large sums of money. "If you can't afford it, or don't think it's wise, then it'd be better if you just came out and said it straight – then I can make other arrangements."

Ruth watched the pair of them in the reflection of the dark glassed window.

They looked so startlingly alike. So wonderfully alike.

From what little Harry had told her about Graham, and from the bits he had implied, she had expected not to like him – to find him argumentative and combative. And, sure enough, when he was around Harry, he was a little combative. But he was also polite to her and rather more in control of himself that Ruth had expected. That said, she supposed, he was now no longer a drug addict. Two years sober, five years clean, and one year in a steady job at a reputable employer. He was cleaning his life up and no doubt the last few years had leant themselves to a lot of growing up. He was not the young man who had disowned himself from Harry, seven years ago. If Harry could accept that, she thought, then maybe they could make progress.

.

Quietly, Ruth finished making the tea and handed it over to the pair of them, quietly slipping out of the room once they had started talking in earnest. As she moved to the living room and sat there, she heard the voices rise and fall a couple of times, but any arguments quickly dissipated again and she continued to read her book, sipping at her now-lukewarm beverage.

About fifteen minutes after they had first arrived in the kitchen, Ruth heard the scraping of chairs across the floor and the shuffling footsteps that signified Graham was leaving.

"I'll be in touch, over the next few days," she heard the young man telling Harry, as they walked down the hallway and stopped outside the door to the living room.

Ruth turned her head to catch sight of them, standing in the doorway.

"I'll have arrangements made on this end," Harry nodded.

There was a moment where neither of them seemed to know what to do next, then Graham held out his hand.

Harry shook it.

Ruth watched, with bated breath, from the sofa.

As they parted, it was not to any sort of mutual forgiveness, but there was a shared look of relief across their faces. Graham had come and got what he wanted. And, that Graham had come and they had talked without throttling each other, was Harry wanted. There had been mutual gain, then – even if forgiveness was not yet on the cards – and there was now the potential for so much more to come out of it. Harry was going to lend Graham the money. Graham, in return, was going to stay in contact. How Harry was going to enforce that, Ruth was not entirely sure but, from what she had gathered from her position in the next room, he was paying Graham the money in two instalments.

Turning from his father, the young man nodded to Ruth, across the room and she smiled back.

"Nice to meet you," he told her, lightly. "From what my mother says, you're not as young as the girl that he had here the other day – Rachael I think her name was – but I think you're nice. Too nice for him anyway," he added, then turned back to Harry. "See you later."

Harry stared.

Ruth stared.

Looking suitably smug, Graham turned on his heel and walked from the building, leaving them both in what he obviously assumed to be a pre-argument stupor.

The door slammed behind him and Ruth continued to stare straight ahead. She supposed that, if there had indeed been another woman in Harry's life – and she had not been, in fact, Rachael – that this would indeed have been a pre-argument. As her eyes lifted slowly over to Harry, however, and his slid onto hers, she could not help but feel a hint of a laugh tickling her lips.

"Ouch," she said, softly, as her partner groaned and rubbed his face in the palm of his hands.

"I'm so sorry..." he murmured, turning and walking into the room, over to the curtained window and peering out to watch his son's retreat.

"He plays the long game," Ruth noted, setting down her empty tea mug on the table and pulling the blanket she had wrapped around herself a little more snugly. "He picked up that I was not the woman his mother learned about, right away, but he waited until it was most advantageous to play the card."

"He can be a right little prick, sometimes," Harry agreed, quietly, watching his son disappear from sight then pulling the curtains to again. "Then again," he sighed, turning back, "I suppose he learnt from the best." Slipping his hands inside his pockets, he turned to face Ruth, looking sincerely apologetic. "Ruth, I feel terrible about all of this. It's really not fair. Every time you come here I seem to have one confounded family member or another dragging themselves through our personal business. And I should have said something," he added, wincing to himself, "about that last jibe but, to be honest, he just caught me so off-guard..."

"It's fine," Ruth smiled. "He's angry and he's trying to hurt you. I can understand feeling angry at your parents. I went through my fair share of teenage angst when my mother remarried."

"Except he's no longer a teenager," Harry pointed out. "He's twenty bloody seven."

"Twenty seven is the new seventeen, Harry," Ruth toyed, leaning back against the couch and beckoning him closer with her eyes. "Haven't you heard?"

He gave a soft grunt of disapproval.

"So what did you two agree on?" Ruth asked, eager to find out what had happened, during their discussion.

"All of the money, in two instalments, on the condition that I get business updates of every purchase, every customer, every detail of his new business, that I get to meet his new business partner in person and that he comes around here for dinner once a week, for at least an hour each time, and we have a civil conversation."

The last point threw her a little, but Ruth was willing to admit it was a good idea.

"Enforced bonding."

"It sounds dreadful, doesn't it?"

"It sounds better than where you are, right now," Ruth countered, gently.

Harry sighed, then walked over and flopped down on the couch beside her.

"I'm caught somewhere between angry and exhausted beyond belief."

"I'm sure its a common place, for you," Ruth commented, watching him fondly as he closed his eyes and leant back against the couch cushions.

He made a soft noise at the back of her throat.

A moment passed.

"Does that theory on twenty seven being the new seventeen have any scientific basis?" Harry asked, darkly, "Because I think he is actually aging backwards."

Ruth laughed, softly.

"I don't think so. But, if it does, it can't be all that bad. By that theory, forty is the new thirty, too," she smiled.

Harry opened one eye and looked at her, for a moment, then flopped back against the cushions and groaned.

"What?" she asked, frowning.

"You are only forty..."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Forty one. And sometimes it feels more than 'only'."

"You're so young and..."

"...nubile?" Ruth suggested, hopefully.

A smile curled his lips upwards at her playful suggestion, but Harry did not say anything.

Giving a soft sight, Ruth shifted, moving so that her body was facing his side-on and she could stroke his hair back from his face. It was getting a little shaggy around the edges, she thought, slipping her fingers through a soft half-curl. Soon enough, he would be looking as untidy as his son. Leaning forwards, she pressed a kiss into his forehead.

Affectionate moments in public they were still quite shy about, Ruth thought, but they were getting better at intimacy within the safety of their own homes. In just over two weeks, she had changed from being constantly nervous and cautious in Harry's presence to being able to almost fully relax. It was easier when his eyes were closed, too, Ruth thought, moving her lips further down to kiss the side of one temple. It was somehow less confrontational, without the scrutiny, and she felt as if she could do or say almost anything to him. It was getting to know him as an equal, she realised, tracing the soft lines down the side of his face, rather than as her boss.

He was still her boss, of course, but he was more than that now.

Now, she could do things like this...

"Being young and nubile-," she started, in a half whisper. Harry's lips curled up again, revealing just a little bit of white tooth. "-I have a voracious sexual appetite." Harry chuckled out loud. "And," Ruth continued, pushing past the butterfly nerves in her stomach, at being so bold, "if you'd like, you could take me upstairs to whet it, whilst you gloriously forget everything about your current complicated family situation." She pressed one final kiss against his head then lay her cheek back down against it. "...if you would care to, that is."

"If I would care to?"

She rubbed her cheek slightly against him, feeling their skin slide.

"Yes, but only if you stop feeling sorry for yourself," she stipulated. "Maudlin doesn't suit you."

His hands had slipped about her before she knew what he was doing and, in just a few seconds, he had lifted her gently from the couch, up to her feet and snug against him. Her dizzy head rested against his shoulder, face pressing into the hot skin of his neck. He smelt of cologne and whatever warm, masculine spices it contained. And Harry. Just Harry.

As she revelled in the success of her gamble, on blatant sexual distraction techniques, Ruth's lover reached down and cooped up her legs as well as he body, turning to carry her from the room. He was really rather good at the whole soppy romantic business, she thought, as she clung on a little tighter. Though she giggled and protested that he was going to drop her/bump her/break her, he negotiated the doorway and the long hallway with ease, arriving at the bottom of the stairs with them both intact and him only very slightly out of breath. Clearly age was not everything, she thought, as he shifted her a little higher, ignoring her insistence that he should let her down to walk up by herself. Clearly Harry was strong enough for both of them.

She buried her face deeper into his shoulder as he playfully threatened to toss her off the top banister and dug her fingers in tightly to the fabric of his jacket, listening to the now much heavier cadence of his breaths. This was not something she would do often, she resolved, for fear of hurting him. But just every now and then, often enough to stroke an ego, could not harm. He was hers, after all. It was her pleasure to keep him happy.

As he lay her on the bed and slipped his hands down to delicately remove first her shoes, then her tights, then start to unbutton her dress, Ruth murmured love to him and felt secretly so very glad that he had left her on her doorstep, five years ago. If he hadn't, then they would not be here, together, now. It might have taken them longer to get here, but that was just the path of their story. They were never meant to be some violent love, with a violent end. They were meant to burn slow and deep and maybe, just if they were lucky and the variables all fell into place in the right moments, rise up, finally, from the embers. They were meant to be slow and deep and beautiful.

As he made love to her, she told him that, whispered it against his skin.

Harry looked like he agreed.

.