A/N: To those of you in the States, Happy Thanksgiving! To the rest of you, I hope you have a lovely Thursday. I'll be out of town for the holiday, so there won't be another update until at least Sunday.

"Thanks, lads. We'll take it from here."

Will breathed a sigh of relief as the Russian released his hold on his arm, shook hands with the Englishman, and clambered back into his SUV. After a tense hour or so driving through London, taking turns seemingly at random, the Russians had dropped him off in front of a rather unremarkable looking house on a quiet street. Several broad-shouldered men in nondescript suits were standing in front of the house, and their leader, the one who had spoken, offered Will an easy smile.

"Come on then," the man said, gesturing towards the house. "Let's get you a cup of tea."

"Did Harry send you?" Will asked as he followed the man into the house. He supposed Harry had to have been behind all this; why else should he have been delivered into the hands of these clean-cut Englishmen? They didn't look like criminals; if anything, they looked a bit like the men who worked with Harry, with their neat haircuts and nondescript sort of faces.

"He did indeed," the Englishman said. "My name is John. Harry sent word that you're to stay here, just until the trouble dies down."

"And where is here, exactly?" Will asked. They'd made their way into the kitchen; the other men had left them, and John directed Will into a chair while he set about making them a cup of tea.

"MI-5 safe house," John answered. His reply was brief, and his tone brooked no argument.

Will nodded, and spoke no more. He took a moment to look around him, to examine the house in which he found himself. It was well-appointed; the furniture was heavy and wooden, and all of it matched. There were no photographs, and no television in the sitting room they'd bypassed on their way here. All in all it was comfortable, if utterly lacking in any sort of identifying feature. But John said it was a safe house, and safe it must be; Will never would have expected to find spies hiding out in such a place, and he hoped that no one else would look at it twice. He was grateful for the respite; for the first time in twenty-four hours, he actually felt safe. Here in this house, with MI-5 officers to watch over him, knowing that Harry had stepped in and rescued him from an uncertain fate, Will breathed a sigh of relief.

Mani's men bundled Harry into an echoing, empty room, threw him down on a rickety chair, and left him there alone. He took several deep, steadying breaths, trying not to think about how thirsty he was, or how hungry. It had been hours since he had been taken, first by Sarkisian, and then by Mani. He'd been dragged all over London, to Moscow-on-Thames, and then finally to this derelict warehouse, and he was dreadfully weary. He'd had no proper rest in days; first he had endured the Sugar Horse madness, and then Tiresias, and now he was here, about to face God only knew what sort of horror.

He was fairly certain he knew why Mani had taken him; Mani had been trying, very quietly, to get his hands on the uranium Harry had secreted away for years now. Though Mani had covered his tracks well, word of it had reached Harry's ears long ago, and he had often wondered when, or if, their paths might cross again.

He had the answer now. Mani and his men had faked his execution, no doubt with the intention of forwarding the video to Section D, and buying themselves some time to extract the information they so desperately wanted. Harry didn't fancy the notion of being tortured for the second time this week; he was already exhausted, already hungry, already thirsty, and already bleeding from several different wounds inflicted by his Russian captors. He knew he'd need to maintain a clear head, whatever Mani chose to throw at him; he could only hope that Lucas and Ros would see through the smokescreen, and find him in time. It was a weak hope, the thinnest thread, but it was all that held him together.

So Harry took deep breaths, and stretched his legs out in front of him, and waited for the worst.

Nearly a full day had passed, and no word came in from Harry. Will had not seen hide nor hair of the other men keeping watch over this house; he'd spent most of his time sitting quietly on the sofa while John paced nearby. The house had no telly, and no radio, but the bookshelves were well-stocked, and he tried to pass the hours with his nose buried in an old copy of The Odyssey. When darkness fell John made a rather spartan meal of pasta and a thin tomato sauce, and then ushered Will upstairs to a small room where a clean bed and a bathroom equipped with a pile of fluffy towels awaited him.

The morning brought with it no news, and no sign of Harry. John had taken several calls on his mobile, but each time he had walked into the expansive garden, and spoken in a voice too low for Will to hear.

What's taking him so long? Will wondered. When he first arrived, he assumed he'd only need to stay in this place for a few hours, but the longer he sat, the more anxious he became. What if John weren't telling him the truth? Though Will had asked, more than once, John had not allowed him to make a call to anyone, not even Harry, and he had staunchly refused to answer Will's questions regarding the Russians. Yes, John was certainly treating him better than the Russians had done, allowing him freedom of movement within the house and feeding him and speaking to him in a gentle, even tone of voice, but there was something hard about his face, as if he were the sort of man who was hiding a secret, and would do anything to keep it.

There was very little for Will to do, and he found that even his mother's favorite books weren't enough to distract him from the strangeness of his current situation. He thought about her as he lounged about the house; wondered where she was, wondered what she would make of his having been kidnapped by a group of mad Russians, wondered if all of this had something to do with her. Surely it must, he thought; why take him, otherwise? He was nobody, just a kid who worked in a bookshop.

A kid who spent Christmas in a house full of spooks, he reminded himself.

It was nearing lunchtime, and he was rummaging about in the kitchen cupboards trying to find something to eat that wasn't pasta, when he heard a commotion at the front door. Intrigued, he slipped into the front hall.

John was showing another man into the house. The newcomer was a tall man with dark hair and a kind, expressive face, carrying a small black holdall and looking around in confusion. "It's only temporary," John was saying. "Just until we get this mess sorted."

Poor sod, Will thought as he looked at the dark-haired man. This fellow didn't look like a spy; he looked bemused, and scared, rather like Will himself. Just another ordinary citizen, Will supposed, drawn into a world he could not comprehend. Will knew how that felt.

"Who is he?" The man asked, nodding towards Will. He had a slight accent; Greek, maybe? Will didn't have time to place it before John responded, and shattered his world.

"George, this is Will." As John spoke, the dark haired man – George – gave Will a brief nod of acknowledgment. John looked between them, and then smiled a strange, almost vicious sort of smile before he continued. "George," he said, "Will is your wife's son."

There is a woman, though, who also knows what I want. The one who was with you in Baghdad.

It had been hours, since Mani had spoken those words, and for all that time, Harry's heart had continuously pounded a desperate, broken rhythm in his chest. He was not the sort of man who prayed, not the sort of man who trusted in hope, but he would have gladly fallen to his knees and prayed to every god in every tongue, in that moment, if by so doing he could ensure Ruth's safety. For two long years Harry had dreamt of her, had fallen asleep to the sound of his own thoughts reminding him over and over again that she was safe, that she was well. The thought that Ruth, his Ruth, that bright, brilliant, gentle woman, might be once more drawn into a web of violence and lies and horror, because of him, because of who he was, because of the things he had done, was intolerable.

For a time he tried to convince himself that Mani was playing him, trying to use Ruth to get to him with no means of actually reaching her, but the longer he sat, the more his doubts grew.

Connie knew where she had gone. Connie, that traitorous, treacherous cow, had given the Russians a list of every MI-5 safe house, including the one where Will had been staying; could she have given them Ruth's location, as well? Could she have done such a thing, sold such a secret, betrayed someone she had never known, someone she had watched over from afar for two long decades? A week ago, he never would have believed such a thing was possible. Now, though, now that he knew the truth of who Connie had been, he was afraid.

And beneath that fear, another, more insidious emotion was brewing. Harry longed, in his heart, to see her again. He longed to see her face, to hear her voice, to find himself captured by the warmth of her ocean-blue eyes. No matter the unpleasantness of his circumstances, a small part of him wanted nothing more than to see her again. How could he even think such a thing, he wondered, berating himself for the flicker of hope that blossomed in his chest when he thought of how it might feel, to see her brought into this room with him.

So he sat, and waited, and warred with himself, warred with his fear and his hope and his desperate, ill-fated love of this woman, until the sound of the door creaking on its hinges broke him free of his reverie.

His heart, which before had been racing, seemed to stutter to a halt in his chest. His field of vision went blurry, as everything and everyone around him faded down to a single point.

She was here.

George stared at Will.

Will stared at George.

John laughed and walked away, whistling.

As they brought Ruth in and sat her down in the chair across from him, Harry struggled to keep his expression neutral. He couldn't help the slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth; he wasn't sure whether he wanted to smile, to reassure her, or whether he wanted to leap to his feet and do his best to beat Mani to a pulp with his bound hands.

She was lovely; she always had been. Her face was drawn, frightened but reserved, and as she looked at him, he felt the walls he'd built around his heart crumble away into nothingness. He had loved this woman, had loved her fiercely, loved her still. His love for her had kept him going, when the world around him shattered into chaos. His love for her had given him strength, when he stood alone in a room with Davie King, and murdered that man for her sake. His love for her had led him to nurturing her son, giving the lad a place to stay and an ear to listen, whenever he needed it. His love for her had given him the words to speak to young Wes Carter, when his own heart had failed him. That love was everything to him, and as he looked at her, he wondered how it was that he had survived so long on love alone, without her by his side.

"Friends, reunited," Mani said in a voice dripping with false camaraderie.

"What have you done with my husband?" Ruth asked.

It was no more than Harry expected, really. Connie had told him there was another man, a man who shared her bed, and though he had desperately clung to the hope that she was lying, he had known in his heart that Ruth was too lovely, too beautiful, to special, to escape the notice of some kind-hearted man. What hurt him was not that Ruth had found someone else; what hurt him was that Ruth refused to look him in the eye, that the first words she spoke were not for his benefit, but for her own reassurance.

"Were you two just friends back then? There was an obvious connection and everybody else out there was at it like rabbits. Adrenaline, I suppose."

As Mani spoke, Ruth staunchly refused to look at Harry, her gaze focused on the floor. Harry found he could not take his eyes from her face. He drank her in, wondering what she was thinking, what she was feeling, how on earth he was going to get her out of this alive. If he did nothing else today, he was determined that he would ensure Ruth's safety. He owed her that much.

He felt strangely frozen, as if he'd been lifted out of his body, and was watching all of this unfolding from a distance. So many times he had dreamed of what he would do, what he would say, if only he were granted the chance to see her again. He had thought often of finding her in some sunny corner of the world, on some beach, on some back street in Paris, and thought of how it would feel to cross the space between them, to see her smile, to pull her into his arms, to kiss her. He had only kissed her twice before, and the memory of those two kisses cut him like knives, in that moment.

How did she feel, upon seeing him again? Had she longed for him, as he had for her? Had she thought about him, while she lay beneath her duvet in the darkness? He feared the answer to those questions. She would not look at him now, and he was afraid, deep in the darkest corner of his soul, that she had not thought of him at all. After all, how could he really expect someone like her, someone soft and gentle and hopeful, to love someone like him? It would seem that she had found love, had found someone she was not afraid of, someone whose gaze she could meet unreservedly, and married him instead.

The longer she sat in silence, staring at the floor, the more convinced Harry became that she had never truly loved him. Surely, if she had, she would be watching him now, as he was watching her. Surely she would be as hungry for him as he was for her. The wheels in his mind were turning so quickly he could hardly keep up with his own thoughts, racing ahead of him before he had a chance to consider all the evidence before him, conjuring pictures of this man, her husband, and the pair of them together.

"You two, though?" Mani continued, heedless of the turmoil that gripped Harry. "You know, it wouldn't surprise me if it was all quite chaste in a frightfully outdated, Brief Encounter kind of way. "

At those words, Ruth lifted her gaze to his face, and all of his doubts vanished in an instant.

He saw in her eyes everything she felt for him, everything he felt for her, reflected back with a radiance that stunned him. Before she left him, they had developed a sort of silent means of communication, had learned the art of exchanging a thousand words with no more than a single glance. And when she looked at him now, he heard her voice, echoing in his mind like a tiny, tinkling bell.

For in her eyes he saw his own heartbreak. He saw his own memories, saw his own heart, saw his own hopes and his own desperate fears. Whatever she had done, whatever she had become, whoever she had wed, she was still his Ruth. And she knew it, as well as he.