So, yes, I am back with this story. After another long absence. But the good news is, I have almost written the rest of it now, so I can update fairly quickly. It's a story that captured my heart and I just could not leave unfinished. So, if anyone is still following this story after all these years, I hope you enjoy.


"Harry, we're in trouble."

Those were most certainly not the words Harry had wanted to hear upon accepting Dimitri's call. That was not to say he had exactly been expecting a gung-ho, happy-slappy officer, but he had been quietly harbouring the hope that the ex-SBS would know how to diffuse the incendiary device. Given that he had forwarded the photo Rawle had sent him to Dimitri only a few minutes ago and the young man was now calling with those negative opening words, it did not bode at all well. His heart rate was already through the roof.

On top of contending with a serious terrorist threat, he was seriously worried about his Ruth, who he observed, was growing weaker, paler, and sicklier by the minute. Her breathing had quickened dramatically to an almost primal pant, catching occasionally to a point where she barely even breathed at all, screwing her eyes shut in agony against whatever excruciating pain was ripping through her, despite her almost tearful insistence that she was alright. His beautiful, brave, selfless Ruth was so infuriatingly stubborn that she refused to admit that anything was wrong, and he suspected that this attitude would probably go on until the crisis had been averted. If it was averted. Harry had never felt so utterly useless in his entire life. The threat his moral compass knew he had to deal with was all the way up in the clouds. where he could not actually physically do anything, and the one his heart desperately wanted to resolve was playing out in front of him. All of his instincts were screaming at him to get Ruth to a hospital immediately, consequences be damned; to force her to let him help her as he so desperately wanted to do. But they had about fifteen minutes before that plane landed, the bomb detonated and a national crisis erupted, and he knew his moral compass would never let him abandon his job, nor would Ruth ever forgive him if he did. They were both ridiculously ethically compromised, wired to serve their country and the Security Services regardless of how they were currently treating them with disdain.

"Tell me something good, Dimitri." Harry growled, certain his already fragile and overworked heart was breaking as he watched his poor Ruth clench her fists so tightly and bite so hard she drew blood. He spied crescent shaped cuts on the palms of both her hands from fighting to keep her pain under wraps, while her knuckles, like her pallid face were almost completely white. He placed his free hand heavily on her two smaller ones in a bid to give her some sort of anchor to hold on to, and felt a small sense of relief when she gripped his hand back. At least she was accepting some form of comfort.

"Harry, I don't know what you've heard, but the word trouble doesn't equate to good." Dimitri's voice sounded back candidly, and Harry could tell from the uneven tone in the young man's voice, despite his lame attempt at humour, that he was incredibly uneasy.

"Then find me a bloody silver lining because we have about fourteen minutes until that thing detonates."

"Harry, that 'thing' is a very skilfully built incendiary device, and not a simple matter of cutting a few wires."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked urgently, sweat beading both his brow and under his collar. He glanced over at the laptop, which was still resting in Ruth's lap, and was just in time to see the clock's computer count down another minute. They were running out of time.

"The thing that looks rather like a mobile is a five digit password component. It's incredibly modern and expensive tech – not just something thrown together by an amateur."

"Well, we are talking about Mikhail Levrov." Harry responded agitatedly, wincing as he felt Ruth grip his hand so tightly he thought it might lose circulation. He squeezed back; it was the only thing he could do to support her in that moment. "Levrov's had unlimited access to the best Russian tech by numerous benefactors and terrorist cells for years. We've just never had jurisdiction or indeed probable cause to bring him in."

"I think if we stop this madness we definitely have probable cause." Dimitri said grimly, and Harry could practically envision the younger officer rolling his eyes.

"If. There is no if, Dimitri." Harry informed him firmly, with a confidence he didn't feel. Even though he was beginning to despair, he wore the badge of seniority in this operation. He, as always, had to be the strong, solid, uncompromising Section Head who stood on the wall and barked orders; calling the shots, however hard they may be to call, in order to get the job done. "We do this and we do this now. How do we disengage the bomb?"

"It needs a passcode of five digits."

"Letters or numbers, Dimitri?" Ruth suddenly asked softly, her voice sounding severely strained. The enormous purple bags under her eyes contrasted drastically with her pallid face, and Harry was concerned that she looked about ready to pass out. Yet here she was still following the operation, still doing her job to the very end. Once again, Harry did not know whether to be supremely proud of her as her former boss or utterly terrified for her health as her partner.

"It could be both." Dimitri answered lamely, also sounding incredibly stressed. Harry imagined that at that moment, Dimitri was feeling just about as useless as he felt.

"That means it could be almost anything." Harry barked in frustration, aware he was starting to shout but completely at a loss as to how to stop himself. "We don't have the time or the resources to hack Levrov's computer for a password. And anyway, I'm not even convinced we could without someone operating from his actual terminal."

He felt Ruth squeeze his hand comfortingly, and his distressed eyes met hers. Irrespective of how ill she looked, she flashed him a brief, gentle smile which helped somewhat to temper his panic. Never mind him keeping her anchored; she was the one doing that for him. And he was so very grateful for her presence in this crisis, even though he knew what it must be costing her. He gripped her hands back, smoothing his thumb over the ridges of her knuckles and he took a deep breath.

"There must be an alternative, Dimitri. Some sort of back door." He paused, furrowing his eyebrows in deep thought. "Could we remove one of the components? Disconnect the circuit and we disconnect the device, yes?"

"No, absolutely not." Dimitri replied emphatically. "Repeat, Harry, do not remove one of the components. That device is incredibly volatile. You try to remove any component and it will instantly explode. They're built in such a way to prevent them from being stopped by foreign hands. The passcode is only an in-built safety – a last resort in the event the bomber is given instruction by their employer to abort the mission."

"And of course, our bomber is currently out cold." Harry iterated, seeing a sick sense of irony that they had drugged the only person on that plane who had the passcode. Not, Harry had to admit, that they probably would have gotten it out of him.

Both he and Ruth heard Dimitri sigh loudly over the phone, followed by a frustrated grunt and a sharp, swift bang. Had he not given up on betting years ago, Harry would have gambled that Dimitri had just kicked the nearest solid surface. He could sympathise; he really rather wanted to do the same thing.

"Ten minutes." Ruth urged, and their stricken eyes met. Hers no longer shone their gorgeous shade of cerulean blue, but were instead grey, downcast and fearful. "Harry, we need to call Rawle."

However, Harry was suddenly gripped by a sudden, overwhelming wave of fear; one he had rarely encountered during Grid operations, because the adrenaline of keeping everything running had always kept him focused – grounded in the present by deciding what needed to be done. However this time was different, because he didn't know what to do. The love of his life was fighting goodness only knew what, and, as had been the case throughout this entire bloody Russian partnership ordeal, the odds were stacked against them. They had not the resources or technology to stop the bomb. It was going to explode, the country was going to dissolve into mass panic, and they were going to fail. They had no hope. They had nothing. Harry stood frozen, terrifyingly unable to move.

It was a peculiar thing. As Ruth watched the man she loved completely freeze, and in discerning the complete and utter blind panic in his face, she felt some of her own fear dissipate. A few minutes before she had felt a sudden wetness between her legs, which she had steadfastly avoided peering at, because it suggested either her waters breaking (which was really appalling timing) or blood, the reasons for which she desperately did not want to think about. She was utterly and completely petrified. But now so was Harry, and it was a testament to just how overwhelmed he was that he was virtually catatonic. So now was the time she had to take snap out of her fear and take control; block out the pain, pray her son or daughter was going to roll with the punches and stay with her, and try to work out the passcode. It was her job. It was what she was trained to do. Codes. Logic. She could do this. She had to. She swallowed hard, unfurled her hand from Harry's, and gently took the phone from him.

"Dimitri," she said softly, closing her eyes and stifling another scream into her gritted teeth. Waves of pain rippled mercilessly through her abdomen, down her back, and into her pelvis. It felt like her entire lower body was on fire. Her breath caught momentarily.

"Ruth?" DImitri checked, and she could practically hear the frown in his voice. "Ruth, are you ok?"

"Yes," she ground out absently, before she could even comprehend what that phrase meant. "Yes I'm... I'm fine." Fine. She was certainly not fine. This might possibly be the least fine she had ever felt, but she had to keep going. For as she glanced across at Harry and saw that he was still virtually catatonic, with only his mouth opening and closing limply, completely at a loss, she knew it was her turn to shoulder the burden. Rubbing her aching belly one last time, she removed her hand from her abdomen and gripped Harry's sweaty palm. "Dimitri, I need to ring off and call David Rawle."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I couldn't be more help." Dimitri uttered grievously.

"Thank you for all you have done." Ruth assured him quietly, ducking her head and glancing down at her abdomen, unsure of what the future would bring, but positive her gut was telling her that not everything was going to work out well. "If everything goes to hell... just... just... thank you. For everything."

There was a pause, and perhaps Dimitri suspected that something was wrong because he said very slowly and cautiously, "Ruth..."

"Got to go, Dimitri. Take care." She rang off quickly before her emotions could get the better of her. Harry was still looking very much as if he had retreated inside his head, and he did not seem to have picked up anything of what had happened in the last couple of minutes. For this, Ruth could not help but be thankful, though she did feel profoundly relieved when Harry started to squeeze her hand back. Perhaps his thoughts were returning to some degree of coherence.

Ruth made short work of dialling the phone to the other number in its memory and it took only one ring before it was picked up. Apparently Rawle had been waiting on tenterhooks for them to get back to him, and Ruth could not blame him one bit. The poor man must be absolutely terrified; she only hoped he would not freeze too.

"Harry?"

As another tide of pain threatened to rip though her, she clenched her toes, dug her feet stubbornly into the ground and focused on the laptop's clock. Six minutes. They had six minutes.

"It's Ruth Mr Rawle." She said shortly.

"Please tell me your expert knows how to deactivate this bloody thing." The usually mild-mannered man said, his voice wavering slightly. "I've been staring at it for the last fifteen minutes and I'm positive that at this rate, I'm going to explode before it does."

Ruth glanced anxiously across at Harry who appeared to be coming back to himself. His eyes had taken on less of a glazed look, his posture was less hunched, less defeated, and he seemed to be more aware of what was going on around him. She felt his gaze on her and knew that he was now fully listening to the conversation, so she switched the phone to its Speaker setting before setting it down on the coffee table in front of them. She felt Harry squeeze her hand once, and their eyes met. Ruth understood the message he was relaying. Thanks for holding the fort when I couldn't. Gritting her teeth once more as another bout of white hot agony coursed through her like an electric current, she tried to manage a half smile as if to say 'no problem'.

"I – I must prepare for landing." Sokolov stuttered shakily over the speaker, and both Harry and Ruth's soft expressions turned once more to terror. "It is near time. You must do something now."

"I second that." Rawle added hoarsely.

"Okay, Mr Rawle, there is a device that looks like a mobile phone attached to the other components in front of you." Ruth said, gathering all of her remaining strength, courage and wits. It did not matter in that moment that her vision was starting to swim. She had to do her part. There was no one else.

"I see it." Rawle answered grimly.

"It needs a five digit password – it can be either numbers or letters. That is the only thing that will impede that... that monstrosity from detonating."

Harry was a little surprised to hear a slight note of anger in Ruth's voice as she talked about what they were up against, but he could not say the tone was entirely unwelcome. It showed a fire in her that he had not seen for some months; a steely determination that at least ignited a tiny spark of hope deep within him. It was enough to spur him into action.

"Five digits." He brainstormed softly, before an idea shot to the forefront of his mind. "A date. It has to be a date. At least half of all passwords consist of a date."

"Oh fantastic. What are we supposed to do? Pick a date at random and hope for the best?" Rawle growled.

Ruth glanced at the computer's clock, and although her eye sight was becoming distinctly fuzzy and her head was swimming so much she really rather felt she was about to pass out, she seized a handful of the sofa beside her, clung on for dear life and managed to articulate:

"Three minutes twenty."

"What do I do?" Rawle demanded instantly, panic now totally dominating his voice.

"Get the keypad setting up, Mr Rawle." Ruth replied, trying to calm the other man, even as another hot wave of agony seared though her. Her breath caught once again as she desperately tried to stifle a scream. Once she was sure she had done this successfully, she breathed out through a small 'oh' shape in her mouth, albeit very, very shakily.

"Okay. Done it. What now?"

"What's today's date?" Harry suddenly asked her.

"April 12th." She answered immediately, for although she felt at death's door, she still determinedly kept a firm grip of her faculties.

"Twelfth of the fourth, two thousand and eleven." Harry guessed quickly. "The day everything changes. For England, for Russia, for American, and especially for this terrorist cell." He caught Ruth's eye. "12411. It has to be."

"Right. Are you sure?"

"No, of course I'm not bloody sure." Harry muttered to Rawle, the deep worry lines in his face and his faint pout as he swallowed betraying how stressed he was.

Ruth had to admit that it was a pretty darn good guess, however waves of doubt rolled into her gut. She did not know if the 'waves' were due to the strain her body was currently under, but as a rule she had always trusted her gut. Maybe her gut had never been any good when it came to personal relationships, but it had served her well too many times as an analyst for her not to speak up.

"No. No, it... it doesn't feel right. It's too... obvious." She negated softly, shooting an apologetic glance at Harry, who looked ever so slightly hurt that he had been shot down so quickly. His ego swiftly recovered, and he schooled his facial expression to match. Now was not the time for petty pride. Trusting Ruth's instinct was usually the right decision. For what had come about when he hadn't? Her attack. And seeing her now, looking so blatantly poorly yet striving so spectacularly to fight for her country, his heart told him that he could not displace this trust again.

Rawle let out an aggravated huff, but it came out as more of a groan, "So am I entering 12411 or not? I'm guessing we only have one attempt at this."

The man was right. The wrong decision would mean the end of everything for the passengers on that plane as well as hundreds of Londoners' lives. Harry hesitated, but met Ruth's concerned gaze and knew at once that he had to trust in her.

"No." Harry eventually answered, his eyes never straying from Ruth's. "Repeat, no, do not enter that date."

Ruth's tired gaze flickered to the clock. "Two minutes forty five." She whispered.

"This is ridiculous. We're firing aimlessly and we're out of time." Rawle announced realistically, before pausing. Harry and Ruth thought they caught the distinct sound of a guttural sob, before a long, shuddering breath. "I mean it, Harry." He muttered in a softer tone, his voice sounding entirely wrecked. "Tell my wife – you know – the usual. What you people announce after an incident like this. That I loved her; that I'm sorry for spending so much time away over the years. And especially... tell her about this bloody conspiracy."

"You can tell her yourself, David. This isn't over yet." Harry replied stubbornly, but privately harbouring the belief that maybe David Rawle was correct. Maybe this time, they had truly lost.

"Oh, get your head out of the clouds you pompous, self-righteous arsehole!" Rawle spewed suddenly, very much taking Harry aback, for the man had always been so calm and collected. Then again, he could hardly blame the politician. "We're going to die up here. You know it, and I know it."

"There must be something! Another date perhaps?" Harry looked to Ruth for confirmation, yet she could not give him that satisfaction. Her heart of hearts told her it was not a date. Not with something as important as this. This was about greed; about ideology; about an idealistic future Russia craved for by a fanatic. And it was at that moment that Ruth felt a light bulb flicker to life in her mind. She had an idea, and she had absolutely no clue if it would work – but it was definitely something. She removed her hand from Harry's so that she had double the capacity to access what she needed on the laptop. Catching the determined frown overtaking Ruth's features, Harry's heart gave a leap and he paid close attention to what she was doing. In spite of her foggy vision leading her to miss a few keys, she had Mikhail Levrov's file up on the screen within seconds.

"Good idea." Harry praised. "He's the ringleader – and Dimitri said most likely only Zykov and his employer would know the password. So it must be something personal to Levrov."

Without warning, Harry suddenly propelled himself upwards in sheer frustration, making Ruth jump slightly. Within seconds, he was pacing energetically up and down the dusty, carpeted floors.

"Levrov's date of birth?" He called aloud, flinging an arm out in question. "How about his date of birth?"

Again, Ruth sincerely doubted this, but dutifully checked the date, "It doesn't match. It would be six digits instead of five."

Possessed by sheer panic and unbridled rage, Harry aimed a short sharp kick at the coffee table.

"There's something, there's always something!"

"Give it up, Harry." Rawle insisted softly. "Lord knows, I already have."

"No, we don't give up!" Harry yelled forcibly, his breathing increasingly ragged with each stretch he paced. "We are Spooks and we are British – we do not give in to terrorism!"

"British I may be, Harry." Rawle said lifelessly, and Harry absolutely loathed how calm the other man had suddenly become. "But I'm not a Spook. I'm a Politician. And sometimes as a Politician, you have to know when you're beaten."

"I'm now in descent. Putting landing gear down." Sokolov's choked voice sounded over the Speaker. The man appeared to be crying, as betrayed by his quiet weeping and intermittent sniffs. "I am so sorry for my part in this. I... I did not know. I just... I just..."

"Nadya." A small voice suddenly announced amidst the chaos.

Harry stopped dead in his pacing and turned around to look at the woman he loved. The name meant absolutely nothing to him, but Ruth had uttered it with such a quiet resolve that she had his complete attention.

"Nadya is Levrov's granddaughter." She explained faintly, one hand clasping her abdomen once again whilst she winced in pain. "They share a bond that he has with absolutely no one else in his life." She glanced back at the screen in front of her. "There is literally... dozens and dozens of snippets of footage of them together She's only a child, but they're constantly seen together – he absolutely dotes on her."

Harry frowned; he had to admit that Nadya did fit the five digit limit, but why her? Out of anything else – why would his granddaughter's name be the passcode standing between them and the detonation of a vile, catastrophic bomb?

"I don't understand? Why Nadya?"

Ruth blinked a few times to try to get her vision to stop swaying. Perhaps then she would be able to get her thoughts together enough to convey them to Harry.

"This whole vendetta – though it is based on greed and cruelty for people like the Gavriks' and Towers – it's actually based on a personal ideology for Levrov. He wants Russia to be great again, even if it means an international crisis – war, even. He sees it as patriotism; that he's doing the right thing. And to him, he's doing this not just for the good of himself and his trade, but for the good of his people, his family, and future generations."

Ruth swallowed, unable to push back a lone tear as it cascaded down her cheek. She rubbed her aching stomach, steadied her rapid breathing in spite of her thrumming heartbeat and looked resolutely up at Harry.

"What we do, we do for our children."

Harry was stunned by her insight, but not entirely surprised. The woman truly was a marvel, and for her to have connected to Mikhail Levrov's train of thought, almost because of her pregnancy and the fight she had put up throughout, was overwhelming. Perhaps Ruth mistook his silence for doubt, because she added.

"In Russian, Nadya is translated as 'hope' or 'promise'. Promise for the future. It would be fitting for Levrov to program the passcode for a bomb meant to signify the dawn of a new Russia, to a name meaning the word 'hope'." Their eyes met, and Harry observed the quiet confidence he had trusted in so many times on the grid. "It's too much of a coincidence to mean nothing, Harry."

They heard an automatic message playing over the plane's speaker system, advising the passengers to prepare for landing. They were seconds away from an international incident, and once more, even though he was a wanted criminal, it fell to Harry Pearce to make the call. He was sure there was a sick sense of irony somewhere there.

"Harry? What do you want me to do?" Rawle asked hoarsely, and Harry was spurred on by the fact that the politician's voice was not entirely lifeless anymore.

Ruth's eyes flickered to the clock. "Thirty seconds."

"A decision, Harry!"

Harry's eyes bore into Ruth's for a moment, before he turned away and swallowed. His mouth was almost completely dry of saliva and his throat felt like sandpaper. A picture of Ruth lying brutally beaten and violently raped flashed to the forefront of his mind – the last time he hadn't trusted her. He couldn't make that mistake again. He wouldn't.

"Do it." He said swiftly. "Nadya."

"Which spelling?"

"N – A – D – Y – A." Ruth spelled out quickly, before pushing the laptop to the side of her, so that she could grip the sofa with both hands. With Harry's back turned, she was physically unable to keep concealing her pain, and her whole body crumpled in defeat. She could focus no more as she was hit by a sudden, overpowering wave of nausea, which accompanied by the white hot searing pain emanating from her lower body as well as her spinning head, led her to finally feel entirely overwhelmed. She felt like she was splitting open and could do absolutely nothing about it. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear the roar of an engine as well as the clunking of wheels against a surface and it registered faintly that the plane was landing. Yet the sounds were growing further and further away; less and less distinguishable until all she could hear was the thud of her heartbeat and white noise. Her breaths were coming in wild, primal pants. And then all of a sudden: she just couldn't breathe at all.

"Are you sure?" Rawle was demanding doubtfully.

"JUST DO IT, DAVID! DO IT NOW!" Harry snapped, shoving his sore head in his hand, crossing the other one across his chest as he waited for the inevitable to happen.

He waited.

And waited.

And waited.

But the explosion never came.

Harry swiped the hand covering his eyes slowly down his face, hardly daring to believe his ears. He heard the whirring signifying the plane's engine slowing to a stop, then a female voice – probably the air stewardess from before – informing the passengers that it was safe to unbuckle their seatbelts. And still the explosion never came. Yet all seemed silent in the cockpit. Standing stock still, Harry tried several times to find his voice. Finally he did, but was forced to settle for a croak:

"David?"

Silence. Nothing but pure quiet.

"David, are you there?"

There was another pause, and just as Harry was about to allow the adrenaline-fuelled panic to claim him once again, he heard the release of an enormous, shaky breath.

"H-Harry?"." Rawle's hoarse voice finally sounded over the speaker, seemingly a little dazed.

"David, what's going on? Are you alright?"

There was another pause.

"I... I think it's stopped." Rawle croaked confusedly, clearly not entirely believing his luck. " The... the device... it gave a small chink like a safety catch being put on and it just... stopped."

It was Harry's turn to ask if the other man was sure this time, which he did.

"I – I think so. The whole thing was thrumming before, now it's just... well... dare I say it... dead."

Harry closed his eyes, and finally let out a wavering gasp of exaltation. They had done it. Despite the absolutely astounding odds against them, they had actually done it. Amidst his shock, he thought he heard a sharp thud behind him, and took it to be Ruth depositing the laptop on the coffee table.

"Harry, you tell your Ms Evershed that she's a bloody miracle worker."

After allowing himself a moment to recover from his disbelief, Harry realised what David Rawle had said, and felt an enormous swell of pride for his incredible Ruth fill his entire being. If they had listened to his original idea, the whole plane would have blown sky high by now. And central London with it. This was Ruth's achievement. She had stopped the bomb from detonating. Despite her obvious physical distress, she had proved herself to be the Spook he had always known her to be – bright, dependable, intelligent and thoroughly, thoroughly brilliant. However it was on this thought that Harry truly processed the thud he had heard mere seconds before. And he felt the cold hand of dread seize his heart. That thud had not sounded like the plastic casing of a laptop tapping against the hollow wood of a coffee table. It had sounded like something altogether softer hitting the carpet.

It was at that moment that Harry turned and felt his heart plummet to the ground. Ruth was lying prone on the floor, eyes closed, face pale, body unmoving. There was blood on the sofa where she had been sitting.


So anyone want me to continue after such a long time? If you enjoyed the story and want to read more do let me know. Thank you for reading. All the best xx