Harry was trying to reconcile the anger he was feeling towards George, with his overwhelming need to help Ruth. Calm sensible Ruth, who had dropped the phone like a hot potato and told him she wanted to stay on the beach for ever. Ruth who unlike him, wasn't inclined to fly off the handle, only to apologise later. Well, this particular response he wasn't going to regret, which was why he was taking a moment to ring George and ask him why he hadn't stuck to the bargain? To leave him in no doubt that Ruth had saved Nico's life, at great mental and physical cost to herself. Stopping just short of calling him an idiot, before arriving back on the beach, to find Ruth rocking herself like a child who had been abandoned. Leaving him with questions to answer. The first of which would be to go back to the beginning and tell her that George had found his photograph amongst her things, and of course his number. Before going on to explain what he'd been doing in the run up to her accident. Combined with a huge smattering of this is all my fault. When in truth he just wanted to sit there with her and tell her that he wouldn't let anyone hurt her, ever again. All of which he'd always intended to do, but in his own time and not when she'd just come out of hospital and was all over the place. Her emotions just as Bridget had predicted they'd be. Sky high one minute and rock bottom the next. More importantly, if he could understand that, why the hell couldn't George? He was the doctor after all.

'Why has George got your number, Harry?' Didn't give him the luxury of thinking time, other than to tell her that George had promised that he wouldn't stop her from seeing Nico again. Coinciding with Ellie arriving with a second blanket and the flask which he'd asked for. With an unspoken, if you need me you know where I am expression, before leaving him to it. The to it, which in this case he had no intention of rushing. Even if it took all night for him to get Ruth to understand the whys and wherefores of the last ten days. As long as she was comfortable and free from pain, he intended to do this his way and certainly on their own. Unfolding a blanket, he used it to cushion Ruth's back and then with all the gentleness that he could muster, given that his hands were far from steady, he persuaded her to drink her tea. Both of which he managed without any resistance. Sufficient that he felt confident enough to kneel down in front of her and tell her that he understood and that he would never leave her. Waiting for a rebuff that didn't come, he instead saw a brief glimpse of a well and happy Ruth. Recognition that she knew he was there for her, but in no way implied that he was home and dry. It was a start though. On the plus side, it was a beautiful evening and with the sky full of stars, somewhere deep within him, the romantic side of his nature was telling him to keep going. Making a move until he was close enough to put his arm around her shoulders. His reward coming when she leant against him and closed her eyes. Giving him the opportunity to wrap the second blanket around the two of them and to persuade her that they'd both be more comfortable if they were lying down. A suggestion that she accepted for what it was and thanked him for being him. As opposed to being George he hoped. All the while, with the time not keeping pace with his heartrate, as he waited and then waited some more, until she adjusted herself against him and, 'I don't know what's happening to me Harry and I need you to help me to understand,' she told him.

'I was at a meeting of the JIC when George rang the grid, so it was Malcolm who took the call,' he told her. Determined to tell her the truth, but at the same time keep it as simple as possible. Her reaction to hearing Malcolm's name and she moved closer. 'By the time I got back to the grid, Ros had already talked the army into flying us here,' and he felt rather than heard her reaction. Something that was repeated when he said, 'I knew where you lived, I always had and until recently, I'd always intended to leave it at that.' Changing again, to one of unspoken understanding, when he said, 'George insisted that you wouldn't have taken Nico anywhere without telling him and because the police weren't taking it seriously, he begged me to come over.' Before getting down to the real nitty gritty, which he knew came with a risk of setting himself up for a fall. 'I was all over the place. Imagining all sorts of scenarios, each one more awful than the last. But nothing had prepared me for watching the CCTV of you at the market with Nico. Just seeing you again, after two years of imaging what you were doing and whether you'd look the same. You looked so happy Ruth, that I honestly felt like going home. But then I saw your face change when you realised that Nico had wandered off. By the time you got to ice cream van and there was no sign of him and when you started to run, I was running with you. The horror on your face when you saw him sitting next to Mani, was when Ros stepped in. Persuading me that going on a one-man crusade wouldn't get you back, otherwise who knows what I'd have done. It was then that George insisted that Ros and I stayed at your house, where to be honest, things only went from bad to worse. He told me that he'd always known that there was somebody else and that's when he produced my photograph. He'd been through your things for clues and had found the Thames House number. It felt like a dreadful invasion of your privacy and you know me, I rose to it big time. Despite it being what ultimately saved your life, we very nearly came to blows. I told him that he should be concentrating on helping us to find you and to stop being small minded. He reacted. I responded. It wasn't my finest hour.'

Not responding to anything else, although he knew that she was processing every word, 'you slept in my house?' she asked him.

It was hearing her saying my house and just as it had then, it hit home. 'Ros did, I just couldn't,' he told her. 'You were everywhere. I could see you, I could feel you, so I took myself off for a walk. A long walk into the hills at the back. I had no idea where I was going, I just needed somewhere to think. Damn near got lost and as it turned out, it only made me feel worse. That's when Ros arranged for us to move into the barracks. It was the turning point. Being somewhere that had a familiarity about it with people that understood and had the resources to find you. The only trouble was, that it took another two days, by which time it felt as though we were back to square one. Seeing you being hoisted into that helicopter and during the journey with you, I honestly thought I was going to lose you all over again. It was a few days after that, when Paul and I were walking back from the hospital, that he suggested that I stay here and when you were well enough to come out of hospital, you did as well.'

At the end of what felt like the longest explanation of his life, Harry was sure that Ruth had fallen asleep. She hadn't, she was just trying to take it all in and make some sense of it. Ros had been there. The army looking for her and Harry had been out of his mind with worry, were all mixed together with her thoughts about George. The man who had never hurt her, other than by what he'd said. So why was it that she didn't want to see him again? Especially as she now knew that he wasn't going to prevent her from saying goodbye to Nico? Why did she have this terrible urge to run away, rather than face up to her responsibilities? Was it because of what had happened the previous night with Harry, which let's face it she'd instigated? If it was, then why did she feel so guilty? Because it had been the single most beautiful experience of her life. She and Harry were made for each other, she'd heard someone say at the hospital. So why was her head flip flopping between believing they had a future together and in the next moment, convincing herself that she didn't deserve to feel this happy?

'We need to go to bed Ruth,' finally succeeding in getting her back on her feet.

.

'I'll come to you,' Bridget suggested to Harry, having talked it through and decided that the hospital environment wasn't an appropriate venue for her to meet Ruth. She wasn't in the military, where in almost all cases, what was discussed ended up on someone's record. Ruth was a civilian, whose trauma was based on her being kidnapped by someone she knew and that made a difference in the way she wanted to approach things. Ruth having told Harry that she needed to talk to someone impartial about how she was feeling, despite Harry having told her that he had no intension of going back to Thames House. A decision that he'd made the moment that he'd seen her again and not as a result of what was happening now.

In a quiet corner of the garden, ideally with just the two of them, became three after only a few moments. Ruth insisting that she needed Harry to be there and in Bridget telling Harry, who'd brought her a cup of coffee, that if he stayed, then he had to remain impassive, no matter what he heard. Which shouldn't have been difficult for a man who'd spent the best part of twenty years schooling his expression. Except that Bridget had witnessed every expression that had crossed Harry's face during Ruth's time at the hospital, so wasn't entirely optimistic that he'd do as she asked him.

Bridget who up until now, Harry had never seen wearing anything other than her uniform, looked in civvies, very calm and not at all like the people who did the psych assessments at Thames House. Which was why he trusted that she'd find a way to help Ruth to open up, but without it being an ordeal. Thoughts which in Ruth's case he was about to find out, were and had been since they'd met in Baghdad, almost entirely about what had happened and with a desire to see him again. That when she'd kissed him goodbye on the dockside, her apparent ability to cope had only lasted until she'd turned her back on him. That she'd asked the tugboat man to tell her when he'd walked away, at which point she'd fallen apart. Arriving in France and finding a place where the owner didn't want to know the precise number of days that she wanted to stay, or who she was and where she'd rarely left her room. A battle that had raged for days in her head, fighting against her need to call him and beg him to come over and take her back. Balanced with the knowledge that she'd done the right thing by leaving. How she'd told people that she was recently bereaved, as an excuse to explain her behaviour for the best part of two months, by which time she'd arrived in Cyprus.

How George had found her one evening after work, standing in the hospital grounds and gazing out over the sea. How he'd persuaded her to come over to his place for a meal and how they'd eventually come to a mutual arrangement, that would involve her looking after Nico when he was on a late shift. That she'd moved in with him because it had felt like the most sensible option. But that after a month she'd moved back to her flat because she'd sensed that George wanted more than a work based relationship. He'd denied it and said she was imaging things, so she'd eventually gone back. How despite him trying to get her to sleep with him, it had only been recently that she'd given in. Never once during sex, had she not felt guilty because it wasn't him. In fact, on one particular occasion, she'd almost told George. Believing that she wasn't any good at faking it, so telling him was better than him asking her direct. But she hadn't and neither had he and then he'd gone on to propose marriage, which had left her with no choice other than to refuse him. That despite this, she still felt guilty, because her actions had nearly got Nico killed and George didn't deserve to be left on his own.

Harry who had almost stopped breathing, when Ruth had said she'd had to force herself not to ring him and beg him to come and take her back, had been even more surprised to hear her say that when she'd slept with George she'd wished it was him. The realisation that the happiness that had kept her going was her relationship with Nico and he nearly intervened. Except that her final words that she didn't deserve to feel this happy and he looked to Bridget for answers, because he simply didn't have any.

.

'How are you pain levels on a scale of one to ten?' Bridget asked Ruth. Having suggested to Harry that he made her another cup of coffee so that she could talk to Ruth on a one- to one basis. Ruth no longer resisting and Harry getting the message.

'Which ones?' asked Ruth, all too predictably.

'You tell me.'

'The pills are working, but I hate taking them and they make me feel nauseous. As for how I feel about myself, I honestly don't know anymore.'

'Apart for the other night?'

'Yes, but that was down to Harry and his patience. Something that he's not noted for as a rule,' was a tiny glimpse of the other Ruth. The one that Harry had described to Bridget as never lost for words and with a smile to match. Harry who Ruth still didn't know had spent hours sitting next to her hospital bed. Reading to her. Telling her how sorry he was and pleading with her to wake up. Proving that there were two sides to every coin and more importantly gave Bridget the opening that she'd been waiting for.

'It takes two to tango Ruth and nobody's forcing Harry to give up his career for you. He loves you and it's what he wants. Just as well then that you love him, isn't it? As for George, he's just one more in a long line of disappointed men and he's not your responsibility Ruth. Nico will grow up with happy memories of his time with you. The guilt that you're feeling will diminish and the sooner you accept that, the easier it will be to move on. Take what Harry's offering you and leave Cyprus together. If you still need to be by the sea, then there's a lot of it to choose from.'