I scramble upright, heart lurching, looking for Ruth; she is not in the room. Swinging out of bed, I don't even stop to put on slippers before I go to find her, padding swiftly down the hall in my bare feet. I peek into the guest room outside my wing; no Ruth. I go downstairs, turning on lights as I go, checking all the rooms. It's the middle of the night, and her clothes and bag are still upstairs, so she can't be far…I check the library, thinking she may just be looking for something to read, but the room is empty. I turn back towards the kitchen; as I enter, I notice that the conservatory door is ajar, and looking through it, I see her, silhouetted in the grey pre-dawn light against the glass. She is sobbing silently, her shoulders shaking. I cross to her quickly, and she struggles for self-control, knuckling her fists into her eyes as I approach. "I'm sorry…I didn't mean to wake you," she gets out between sobs. I sigh, and pull her into a tight hug. "Tell me, my darling…please, talk to me. What is this thing, this terrible sorrow, that is eating you alive?" Ruth stiffens, and she chokes out, "I can't…I can't…" she buries her face in my pyjama jacket, and weeps like a child bereft.

It is very late, I am tired, I am beyond worried for her, and now, I am determined to get to the bottom of this. "You can tell me anything, anything at all…" she shakes her head against my chest, and I gently lift her chin with my finger so I can look her in the eye. "I'm sorry, but this has gone on long enough. Surely you don't want to end up at Tring?" My voice is firm, despite the hammering of my heart; her eyes flare in shock at the mention of Tring, but she says nothing. "I think Harry's started to wonder if he should refer you to one of our psychologists, along with Fiona. He's worried about you, we're all worried about you, but we don't know how to help you, if you won't speak about it." Ruth stares at me in disbelief; I hold her gaze until she looks away. Eventually, she nods, shivering, and I register the chill of early morning for the first time since I shot out of bed in alarm. "Come back upstairs, where it's warm, and we'll talk."

Once we are back in my room, I guide her to the armchair, which I turn to face the window seat where I settle myself, after fetching my soft, old wool dressing gown and draping it around her shoulders. Clutching it closely, she is silent for a long time, but I wait patiently, my eyes on her face, until she begins to speak, her voice small and colourless. "I haven't told you about how my father died," and when I frown and interject, "Yes, you did, it happened when you were eleven, in a car accident," she holds up a hand to stop me. "That's right," she confirms, "but I haven't told you why he died." She looks down at the floor, and sniffs. There are few things more objectionable than someone sniffing; I get up to fetch a couple of handkerchiefs. She dabs at her eyes, and blows her nose with one; the other, she wrings the life out of, twisting it endlessly between her hands as she continues.

"It happened at the end of July, three months after I turned eleven. I had gone into town to visit the library, because I had read everything at home, and somehow I had lost track of time...Mrs Peters, the librarian, found me, halfway through The Hobbit, curled up in a beanbag in the corner, just as she was about to lock up for the night…our house was a few miles outside of Exeter, and I had missed the last bus I was allowed to catch…Mrs Peters let me use the phone, and I called home. Mum was upset with me, because Dad had only just arrived home from work…she called me thoughtless, and irresponsible…but Dad took the phone away from her, and told me that he'd come and get me; he understood perfectly, for who wouldn't lose themselves when reading Tolkien for the first time?"

Ruth's voice trembles, and all I want to do is to gather her into my arms, but I daren't break into her reverie, now that she is finally talking. " 'I'll be right there, Ruthie, quick as a wink,' he said, and rang off. That was the last time I ever spoke to him…he was killed as he was coming to collect me. A Continental lorry driver had fallen asleep at the wheel, and his vehicle veered headlong into Dad's car…" her voice is barely more than a whisper, and I lean forward to catch her words…"I thought it was my fault…they trusted me to do what I was supposed to,but I wasn't where I said I would be…and my father died because I was too busy enjoying myself to bother about the time…" My heart is wrenched with pity and compassion as I begin to see where she is headed. Ruth draws a shuddering breath; this is taking a huge toll on her, but she seems determined to see it through.

"I told you, before, about being sent to boarding school…I thought I was being punished, that it was because of me that my father had died…I wasn't even allowed to go to his funeral, because the adults thought it would only upset me…as if I could be any more upset…" she looks up at me, for the first time since she has started to speak, and her eyes glitter with unshed tears. "I never felt that I was able to mourn my father properly, and it did something to me… it was as if I was stuck, unable to move forward…I couldn't talk about it, so I just bottled it up and carried it with me for years..." a long silence ensues, and then she says shakily, "When I missed the red flash at Havensworth, and I couldn't find that terror cell, I felt awful…I kept thinking, if only I'd gotten back to the Grid earlier, if only I hadn't been off duty that weekend…and then, D-D-Danny died…I so wanted to say goodbye to him properly, and when Harry pulled me out of the funeral…it felt as if it was all happening again, that I was never to be allowed to grieve the ones I love…it was overwhelming…and then, to have the weight of Harry's expectations dumped on me…" her gaze drops back to the handkerchief she has worried into a wrinkled, twisted mess during her agonised confession.

I nod, aching as I witness the depth and intensity of her pain, considering everything she has just told me, and a few things she hasn't. So, Harry applied emotional pressure, to get her out of the funeral…why am I not surprised? I seethe inwardly, even while I acknowledge that he is, after all, the Head of Counter-Terrorism first, and a man who is in love with his employee, second. I would expect no less of Harry bloody Pearce, his sense of duty always comes before anything else, and it's a good thing for the country that it does, but dear God, sometimes it comes at a high cost…I drag my mind back to the here and now, focusing on the problem as I see it; somehow, it seems that two very different, but equally traumatic, sets of events have become inextricably enmeshed in Ruth's psyche, and neither has been properly resolved. No wonder, then, that she has chosen to retreat behind the walls she first erected as a confused child, bewildered and lost in her grief, and burdened by misplaced guilt.

Leaning forward, I take the ruined handkerchief from her, gently enfolding her hands in mine, and begin to speak, choosing my words carefully. "My darling, none of this is your fault, none of it. Your father's death was a tragic accident but it occurred because he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and yes, Danny died on our watch – our watch – but he made a choice too, Ruth. He didn't die because you went to the Midsummer Ball, or because you couldn't find that cell – none of us could; not Adam, not me, not even Harry. If you really want to blame someone for his death, blame the psychopath who pulled the trigger…or those men in planes, that bright September morning in New York, who changed our world forever…" As I speak, her eyes have risen to meet mine, still shimmering with tears. I can bear it no longer. What can I do or say, that will ease her pain? How can I help her to see the truth?

"I've never told anyone this before," I start hesitantly, "But, when my father died, I wasn't there. Every other weekend, for the year that he was ill, I went home, except for that one. I was so tired from shuttling endlessly between London and Wales, and I just wanted one weekend to myself. The doctors said he was stable, Mother seemed alright for once, and so I stayed home, and that Sunday morning, he died…I felt so guilty, as if he had died without knowing how much I loved him, because I wasn't there…I was a terrible son, who had failed him when it mattered most. I could hardly look people in the eye at his funeral… I was sure they would see what a selfish person I was. My father was the bedrock of my world, yet I hadn't made the effort to drive a few hundred miles for him…I even began to think that if I had been there, it would have made the difference, somehow. I soldiered on, for a while: I went to work, I spent time with my increasingly distant fiancée, I drove back to see Mother each fortnight, enduring her reproachful looks and pointed silences, all the while feeling as brittle and hollow as a dried reed drifting on the current. And then, one night, when I was in Dunvant, I thought I would go up to the church tower, where my father and I used to look out over the valley. It was so peaceful up there, so beautiful; and as I stood there alone in the dusk, a thought came to me." I pause, the lump in my throat making it difficult to continue; Ruth's eyes beseech me to go on, but I cannot look at her as I recount one of the most painful moments of my life; I focus on our joined hands instead.

"I realised that everything I was looking at, was exactly as it was, when I had last stood there with my father; nothing had changed out there, even though my world had fallen off its axis. And it was so unfair, so unfeeling, that I could hardly breathe…my father was such a good man, but he had died in terrible pain…and yet here, there was no sign of it. It seemed as if the valley should have been laid waste at the injustice of it all, blackened with sorrow at his passing…I had never felt so alone in my life, as I did at that moment; and then, it struck me that the view from the tower in a hundred years' time would be much as it was now, and would have been exactly the same, whether I had been at my father's bedside or not; and I knew that the blackness and sorrow was really within me, poisoning me, and that this is not what he would have wished for me …I wept, then I howled, is the only word for it, until I thought I would be ill, until no more tears would come…it was dreadful, and soul-rending, and utterly, utterly necessary…and when I had finished, I felt the first peace I had known since my father died."

As I finish speaking, I am aware that the very air in the room seems to be charged with emotion, with the relief of sharing deep secrets long held, and I look up to see Ruth's face, lit by the rosy light of dawn, which has crept in on us unawares; her eyes are filled with sadness, and compassion, and yes, the faintest beginnings of hope. I know that this is just the beginning, but I can sense that the walls with which she has surrounded herself for so long are starting to crumble."Come here," she whispers, before kissing me with more ardour than I have ever known; and still holding her by both hands, I lead her back to bed.

Our joining is the most shattering experience of my life thus far; as we merge, I feel that our very souls, battered and bruised as they are, are melding, so erotic and tender is our lovemaking. We begin slowly, delicately, each careful of the other, rediscovering all the pleasures our bodies are capable of affording, but tempered with a certain rawness too, the tattered edges of grief giving way to a new, deeper vulnerability, as terrifying as it is exhilarating. Afterwards, I feel not quite real, until Ruth, lying on my chest, limp and boneless from our exertions, begins to snore softly, and the sunlight starts to slant across the floor towards the bed, proving that this is no dream.

Neither of us has to go into work, and when we finally rise, late in the morning, I set out to show Ruth the rest of the house; I haven't stayed in my pyjamas past seven o'clock since I was a child, but today feels like a long-awaited Christmas morning... When she sees the drawing room, simply furnished with a pair of long Chesterfield sofas in oxblood leather, a fine silk carpet, and an elegantly carved fireplace, her only comment is "It's a very…restrained …room," until she looks up and her mouth falls open in astonishment. "Is that a Robert Adam ceiling?" I nod, enjoying her surprise as she takes it all in: the delicate plaster curlicues, the exquisitely rendered figures in the central and corner medallions, the sheer size and scale of it. "I've only ever seen anything like this in English Heritage or National Trust properties…how can you bear to leave this amazing house?"

Chuckling, I pull her down onto one of the Chesterfields, and stretch out at full length; she copies me, snuggling into my side as I slip an arm around her. "When I've had a particularly trying day, I sometimes come in here, and lie down, just like this, and lose myself in the beauty above…I think of all the people who have met here, all the things that have occurred beneath this roof…it gives one quite a sense of perspective, really." Ruth is listening to me, but her eyes are roaming over the ceiling; soon she begins to point out this couple, or that figure in the cornice, and together we make up stories about the paint and plaster people, forever dancing overhead. Ruth laughs out loud, the first time I have heard her laugh in weeks, and once more I feel a nearly overpowering urge to ask her if we can finally come clean…after all, Colin knows, Adam seems to know, and God only knows what Harry knows; but I hesitate, afraid of what her answer might be. Not yet, not just yet…be patient, I counsel myself. Ruth, meantime, has propped herself on one elbow, while deftly unbuttoning my pyjama jacket with her other hand.

Mildly shocked – it's broad daylight, and we are in a formal reception room downstairs, not my bedroom – I close my eyes in surrender as she leans over, caressing my skin with a touch so light she barely brushes the fine hairs; I shudder in pleasure as gooseflesh rises beneath her fingers, and she plants butterfly kisses down my sternum, the ends of her hair tickling me as she moves. "Pears'," she says, unexpectedly, and I peer at her, nonplussed. "You smell of Pears' soap, and warm cotton, and old leather – but perhaps that's just the sofa…" She breathes deeply, and moves to lie on top of me, her eyes bright blue as she rests her chin on my chest. The feeling of her soft body against mine is incredibly distracting, as I shift my weight to settle her more comfortably. "It has such an old-fashioned scent, Pears'…it suits you." I thank her for the compliment, wondering where her mercurial mind is leading us now. "It makes me feel safe…you make me feel safe, Malcolm."

And then I hear myself say, as I interlace my fingers through hers, "Ruth, don't you think it's time that we admitted we're together? It would seem that people might have started to suspect something's going on…" I trail off as her body goes rigid, and she rolls off, disentangling our hands, and crosses to the sofa opposite; I sit up, buttoning my jacket in consternation. Too much, too soon... damn!

"Who?" she says sharply, and I regard her warily. "Well, Colin worked it out, and I think Adam must have too…he certainly knows something, anyway. You didn't seem to mind Danny finding out…what do you imagine is going to happen, if people did know about us?" Ruth stares at me. "Danny was never meant to find out, and I've told you before, I don't want them to talk about us…I won't be gossiped about." I sigh, "My love, people already are speculating about us…maybe it's because I sat next to you at the funeral, or because we've been seen once too often talking in the tea room – who knows, and quite frankly, who cares? I don't even care if Harry knows, any more. There have been romances on the Grid before, and no-one turned a hair…Adam and Fiona are married, for heaven's sake, and Harry's got no problem with them working together." In my growing agitation, I have started to pace up and down before her as I make my point.

"They used to talk about me, laugh, and whisper behind my back…the whole school…it was so humiliating…" Her voice is flat, her eyes opaque as ice. "They didn't understand why I was so quiet, why I shrank away from their games and their cliques and their endless chatter…and then they found out, I don't know how, but when we came back after that first Exeat, it was all over the school that my father had been killed…can you even begin to understand how that felt?" I feel a stab of shame at my behaviour, but now that the subject has finally been broached, I can't seem to help myself; all the pent-up frustration of the last few months over the secretive status of our relationship is threatening to vent itself like steam from a volcano.

Trying to maintain my usual calm countenance, I sit down beside her. "I can't imagine how awful that must have been for you, but this is different…these are our friends and colleagues, not a lot of malicious schoolgirls. And don't you think they have a right to know?" She shakes her head decisively. "I can't live my private life in public, Malcolm. I just can't." Churning my hands through my hair, I try to find a counter-argument, but can come up with none that will withstand her stubborn insistence. An insidious little thought worms its way into my brain; what if it's not her, but me? "Ruth, are you ashamed to admit that we're together?" I ask in a voice that is considerably less steady than I would like, as I recall Danny's reaction to discovering us at Havensworth. "Of course not...you're wonderful to me, the kindest, gentlest, most loving man I've ever been with...can't you see, this isn't about you, it's about me. And there's something else, Malcolm, something that worries me even more than being talked about…in our line of work, relationships are a liability…just look at what happened because they knew about Adam and Fiona…" I breathe slightly more easily, hearing this. Ruth is right; officers of the Service are regularly reminded of the dangers of being compromised, or worse, through their personal relationships. Secrecy is security for us, and our security depends on secrecy. I can't argue with that; it is central to everything we do, the cardinal rule. I exhale slowly, conceding defeat, striving for equilibrium.

After a minute or two, Ruth leans against my side. "It's hard for you, I know. I'm sorry that I'm so difficult…you deserve so much more. Someone nice and normal, someone who isn't in the Service. Someone less broken…" I give her a rueful half smile. "But then, they wouldn't be you." "So I'm broken, then?" she asks indignantly, eyes flashing, and daringly, I counter with, "If the shoe fits…" She gives me an appraising look, humour playing around her mouth, before pulling me to my feet. "Aren't you going to show me the other rooms?" And just like that, we are back on an even keel. I can see that being with Ruth will never be dull, but after a lifetime of loneliness, I am learning to adapt to the ebb and flow of our relationship, even as I realise that I have only just begun to understand this brilliant, flawed, beautiful woman, now standing on tiptoe to murmur in my ear, "A kind heart he hath: a woman would run through fire and water, for such a kind heart..."

Well, quite.

A/N: Ruth is quoting from The Merry Wives of Windsor. Shakespeare, of course.