The Grid was in full swing as it always was during an operation. Ruth got there early, and people were at their desks, working hard. It was nice, actually, to see something so normal. As she had traveled to Thames House on the Tube that morning, having showered and eaten some toast while she got dressed after Harry left, Ruth felt her anxiety increase. Everything was different now. Harry had spent the night in her bed. Harry had asked her to marry him. And Ruth had said yes.
But of course, though her life and her heart had changed in the last two days, the rest of the world had not. Abib needed to be taken out, Lucas and Dimitri were coordinating on that ship leaving Morocco to do it, and the world would keep on spinning. Later, after the operation was a success, she would go to Harry and they would discuss what to do about their circumstance. The engagement ring hidden underneath her blouse felt very conspicuous against her breast, though she knew it wasn't noticeable to anyone. But Ruth was very aware of it. She found herself eager to put it back on.
Lucas checked in when he boarded the ship, and all that was left was to wait until he made contact again. Tariq would be monitoring the GPS. Ruth went to her desk to get to work on some other things. She had just gotten some results that she'd been waiting on when the pod doors opened.
Harry was looking around with an expression on his face that looked frighteningly close to defeat. Ruth didn't like that look. But she knew she couldn't very well ask him what was the matter, not here on the Grid. Instead, she printed off the report she'd just received and walked toward him, hoping to manage a professional interaction after their weekend of maintaining not one ounce of professionalism between them.
"The former Home Secretary's autopsy came through, Harry. Heart attack," she said, handing him the report. Her eyes and her tone betrayed her concern for him, she was sure, but there wasn't much that could be done for it now.
"How sad," Harry responded, his eyes glancing over the pages she'd given him.
But Ruth's gaze was trained on his face. "Not really," she answered flatly.
He looked back up at her, but Tariq interrupted. For the best, probably. They had to keep their focus on what they were doing. Harry followed Tariq and Ruth went back to her desk.
Ruth hated operations like this, though she'd never say it. She hated when the field team was so far away. It was stressful enough when they were in London. And Ruth rationally knew she could mobilize anyone anywhere in the world at a moment's notice with the force of MI-5 and her own ability to effectively communicate in any language needed, but still, not being able to expect their team to come back onto the Grid within about an hour of finishing their operation always seemed to ratchet up the tension.
Everything was fine for a few hours, Ruth going through her other projects while checking in with Tariq and the Hanover Star's progress. Harry was in his office looking sullen, but she did her best to keep from looking up to check on him too often. They would speak later. Something was bothering him, and she didn't like that she didn't know what it was. Her ring practically burned against her chest as the cruel thought entered her mind that perhaps he had changed his mind and wanted to tell her that they couldn't be married. It had not occurred to Ruth until that moment that it might be Harry to be the one to have doubts about them. He had always seemed so sure about his love for her, about wanting to be with her. It was Ruth who had put the brakes on anything he attempted. It was she who had to look out for them both as he tried to barrel ahead with that foolish certainty. But he was as human as anyone else, and his faith in love and in her might be shaken. She wasn't arrogant or naïve enough to imagine that he would be without questions about their future.
A call came through to interrupt her dark musings. A woman gave Lucas's emergency protocols and asked to speak to Harry, and the MI-5 operator had put her through to Ruth. Figured. Ruth quickly transferred the call to a mobile to take into Harry's office.
Ruth stood by as Harry spoke to Beth Bailey, private contractor. The ship had been boarded by pirates, and Harry instructed Miss Bailey to tell Lucas to stand down and get off the ship. When he hung up the phone, he looked even more worried.
"They'll be alright, Harry," Ruth assured him, hoping to do something to help that defeated look that had once again taken over his face.
"That will be all, Ruth," he answered, dismissing her.
She paused, wanting to protest, but she knew she couldn't. They weren't Ruth and Harry here. They were Senior Analyst and Section Head. She had to follow his orders. And she would. They would have time later to discuss the rest. She turned and left his office.
Harry came out of his office to check in with Tariq, and seeing that everything was in order, he went to leave. Ruth watched him closely and was about to turn back to her computer when Tariq exclaimed that the GPS signal had cut out. And the signal for the sat phone was jammed.
"Alert the admiralty," Harry instructed Ruth. She did so without hesitation. Their team was in the middle of the ocean on a cargo ship with a terrorist and a group of pirates and now they were invisible.
The worry on Harry's face deepened, as did Ruth's concern.
Nothing changed for another hour or so, when Ruth was informed by the navy that Lucas and Miss Bailey had been picked up in a lifeboat. Lucas called them from the car on the way to the airfield. The call was played through the speaker by Tariq so Ruth could hear from her desk. Harry paced back and forth between the desks as he spoke to Lucas. His voice and demeanor were calm, but Ruth was still worried about him. But she also knew that Harry liked to have a focus, something to distract from the personal. No one on earth could compartmentalize things like he could. Whatever was upsetting him had no place here while he was leading his team. Even so, she continued to surreptitiously watch him even as her fingers flew over the keyboard of her computer, taking notes of things Lucas reported and getting started on the research she knew she'd need to do or assign to other analysts as soon as Harry gave the word.
Tariq found a potential target, the Queen launching a new aircraft carrier at Plymouth tomorrow. Harry also told him to cross-reference everything between Abib and Talwar, the Al-Qaeda hacker. Ruth informed him that Abib's personal communications were heavily coded and it would take weeks for GCHQ to decipher them.
"We don't have weeks!" Harry snapped in response, causing Ruth to jump slightly. He did not usually direct that tone at her, but it was a clear sign he was getting close to a breaking point. He gave his final instructions and walked out of the room.
Ruth knew she had a job to do, but Tariq was getting started and she couldn't allow Harry to just walk away. She stood up to follow him. She found him standing with his head resting on his arms against the back of a chair in the briefing room.
"Don't worry about Dimitri," she said, saying the first thing that came into her head that could potentially be comforting. "He was SBS. They fight sharks for fun." The attempt at levity was a bit stupid, but it was all she could do just now. After all, she couldn't just take him in her arms and ask him what was bothering him. This was neither the time nor the place for that. But she had to do something.
He paid no mind to her dry humor. "Does it ever stop?"
"It's not your fault, Harry."
He just sighed and put his head back down. Ruth knew a brushoff from him when she saw one. Later. They'd talk later. She turned and went back to work.
Tariq needed to harness public computers' processing power to get through the coded messages between Talwar and Abib. Ruth knew she needed to take a different approach. She let the world fall away, the anxiety of Dimitri alone on that ship at Abib's mercy, the knowledge that some kind of horrific attack was being set on U.K. soil that they needed to find a way to thwart, the worry over what might be bothering Harry. She focused all her not-insubstantial brainpower on this.
When she found something, she immediately took it to Harry, entering his office without knocking, as always. "Harry, I've been reading Talwar's unsecured public posts on known AQ forums. I might have found something," she announced, passing pages to him and sitting down in front of his desk. "Sometimes his Arabic is really off. Odd phrases, consistent with someone translating from English." She was stammering slightly, as she often did when her thoughts moved too fast for her tongue.
"Well, we don't even know his nationality," Harry pointed out.
"He talks a lot about the mountains and having to move, avoiding the CIA, though nothing specific, obviously." She paused for a breath. Harry just watched her intently as he always did when she was bringing him analysis like this. She continued, "But twice, he mentions watching the sunrise. The usual, the dawn of a 'global Islamic caliphate' bit."
"And?" he asked expectantly.
"Well, the sunrise times don't corroborate with the Middle East. They're Greenwich Mean Time."
"Well, that could place him in any other English-speaking country in our time zone."
"Yes, of course, but then look here." She reached across to the pages she'd put in front of Harry. "March Eleventh, Talwar apologizes for not posting. His internet was down because of a thunderstorm. The only place with a localized thunderstorm that afternoon was the southeast of England." Harry's eyes widened. Ruth carried on. "I think he's here, Harry. In London. I think he's always been here."
Harry's jaw tightened. He exhaled slowly. "Thank you, darling," he breathed.
Ruth could not help the little smile that escaped her at that. Having him call her 'darling' was lovely. It was especially nice in the midst of all of this. Knowing that they still had that connection between them, knowing that they could have their romance and their happiness and continue to do the vital work they were so good at doing together. This could work. It would work.
She nearly reached out to touch his hand when his phone rang. He answered it immediately and barked, "Pearce." After a brief pause, he hung up the phone. "Lucas is back."
Harry and Ruth both went out to the Grid to check in with Tariq. No sign of the ship. Lucas came through the pods a moment later and they all updated him about Talwar. Lucas had Tariq send a message to Talwar, posing as a friend to Abib, and all that was left, once again, was to wait.
At last, they got a response. They found the IP address. They found Talwar. Ruth sent for CO-19 and Lucas went to join them. They were so close to ending this, Ruth could almost taste it. But she also knew how much they needed to do before they could succeed. There were still far too many things that could go wrong. She knew this life better than most. She knew better than to be optimistic just yet.
Next thing she knew, Tariq announced that the Hanover Star was back online, and Dimitri was calling in. With a small exhale, Harry instructed Ruth to call off the armed response and to put intense surveillance on Talwar.
When she returned, Harry had gone into his office. She saw him looking out his window onto the Grid with that defeated look again. She went to join him.
"What's the matter? It worked out. Danger averted. Dimitri's safe." The cheer in her voice sounded hollow even to her. She couldn't hide the worry anymore. If she ever had.
"And what about next time? What about when it doesn't work out?"
She frowned. "We deal with it like we always do." It wasn't like Harry to talk like this, and she didn't understand where it was coming from.
"Is it ever time to stop dealing with it? To just say no?" He sighed sadly. "I don't want to go to any more funerals."
"What's this about?" she demanded softly.
"I've handed in my resignation."
Ruth felt her heart drop to her stomach. He handed in his resignation? To the Home Secretary? Just this morning? Harry hadn't said a word to her about it. He had woken up in her bed and kissed her and left to hand in his resignation without telling her. He had asked her to marry him and spent the night in her bed and didn't tell her he was planning to resign. The betrayal was all the worst for the way it blindsided her.
She turned away from him, looking out the window beside him, unable to look at him and not just scream at him. They were in front of a window. There were people around. People who did not and indeed could not be privy to their private life. She let out a huff of frustration, trying to get ahold of her emotions.
Ruth tried to find the words to process what he'd just told her. "I know that Ros…"
"It's not that," he interrupted. "It's everything. I just don't want to feel like I'm covered in blood anymore."
She frowned. "I've never heard you feel sorry for yourself before."
"I don't think I do. It's just the realization that I make a negligible difference."
"That's not true," she insisted.
He gave a tight smile of resignation. "I think it is. The bodies keep falling away on both sides. The enemy strikes, we strike back." He took a deep breath. "I think it's time for somebody else to stand on the wall for a bit."
"This isn't you," Ruth protested as the panic started to well up in her throat.
"I am leaving," he said calmly. "I want to feel clean. And I have come to realize that I cannot live torn in two, if I even live through this job at all. I cannot have the zenith of happiness at home with you at night and the depths of tragedy here each day. I have never had anything that tempted me away from this job, from this duty. But now that we are starting to build a life together, I want us to truly be together, away from all of this."
"You think we aren't together here?"
"I can't see how."
"We—"
"That's enough, Ruth." Harry Peace, Section Head, had returned.
Ruth stood there, staring at him, wondering what the bloody hell she was supposed to do now. She had a million things she needed to say, and not a single one of them she could say here. Later, she'd told herself all day. Well, later had come and it still was not the right time.
She had no idea how to possibly handle this. Harry was leaving her. Oh he still planned on marrying her alright, but their life was not just what they shared off the Grid. In fact, almost none of their life was away from the Grid. Nearly all their time was spend here, and he wanted to throw that away. He wanted to leave and be clean, but how could he not understand that they were in this together? That Ruth was in this job after everything that happened because of him? This was where they belonged, on the wall, together.
But Harry was right. That was enough for now. All the rest would have to wait. Again.