Adam's first impression of Ruth's house, when Harry who he can't help but notice is the one to open the front door, is that it feels like a home. Unlike the house that he and Wes share and without Fiona, is just somewhere he eats and when the gremlins leave him, he sleeps. That they need to find somewhere else to live, is heightened even further by the lack of pretention when Harry ushers him into the sitting room where the furniture makes no attempt to match. Causing him to reassess, not only the aspirations that he and Fiona had had to buy somewhere larger, but the time they'd wasted discussing colour schemes.
Thoughts which are temporarily interrupted by Wes, who pops his head around the door and says, 'Ruth wants to know if you want beans Dad?' A simple enough question at a time when he is starting to feel sorry for himself again so says no. But without the thank you, which he knows is not only unacceptable but is at a time when he should be telling his son how much he loves him and that he'll try to spend more time with him. And his friends, who need to know grateful he is that they're doing everything humanly possible to cheer him and Wes up.
The summons from Ruth that, 'it's on the table', in the same way that she commands attention on the grid, not that she'd ever recognise it, as he follows Harry into what is an equally mix and match kitchen and they sit down, gives him his first real chance to watch Harry and Ruth as a couple, who without the need to be careful around each other are just as he'd imagined them to be. The weight that lives on Harry's shoulders and Ruth's intense expression when she's pouring over intel, replaced by a calm. Which if it wasn't for Wes chattering away twenty to the dozen to Harry about what he'd liked to do for the next few days, which is more than he's said to him, is confined to playing football and eating fish and chips at every opportunity, says it all. That he himself is more than happy to kick a ball around, because it will enable him to get some fresh air in his lungs he accepts. That Wes is quite happy to eat chips with everything, causes him to re asses not only his ability to cope on his own, but their recent eating habits and the need to get back to eating healthily.
.
'Don't make the same mistake as I did with Graham, talk to Wes,' says Harry.
They've finished dinner and he and Adam have been dismissed from the kitchen, because Ruth and Wes, 'are happy to clear up,' she'd said with an expression that inferred he'd know what she was talking about. Which means that she's recognised the downturn in Adam's mood and expects him deal with it. Something which he knows will require the assistance of a couple of whiskeys and an upturn in the heating. Both of which he does whilst thinking that he'd feel a whole lot better if Ruth was there to help him.
But it isn't until later, by which time Wes has fallen asleep on the sofa, that he suggests to Adam, 'that he and Wes might like to stay here while he and Ruth were away.'
Something which Ruth, who in addition to making up the spare room, had been trying and failing to remember life without Harry, had suggested during what had been one of her, 'we have to do something about this Harry,' conversations.
A suggestion, which to his relief Adam finally accepts in the same way that a drowning man would have grabbed hold of the rope he was throwing him, which means that again it is close to midnight when he checks the alarm, uses the bathroom and walks bare footed across the landing. Before he climbs into bed and edges across until he can wrap his bone-weary body around Ruth. Ruth whose body is warm and relaxed and doesn't react to him touching her. The sound of her steady breathing suggesting that she's been asleep for some while, he doesn't begrudge. It gives him time to relax and reflect on what had been a strange evening, not only because Adam and Wes are asleep in the room next door, but against all the odds he and Ruth seem to have achieved something. Not forgetting that sooner rather than later, he'll have to tell Catherine and dare he hope Graham, that going into work every day has been eclipsed by the need he feels for a woman who has not only opened his eyes to the possibility of a future that he's never believed he deserved, but has the rare gift to be able to turn chaos into calm.
Calm which means that he sleeps well. Better than he's slept in years without sex and with only a single tot of whisky. Both of which are significant. The first because sex with Ruth is beautiful and to have woken her the previous night wouldn't have achieved anything, the second because he no longer uses drink as a crutch. That and because they don't have to go into work for another three days.
Which means that when he's donned his dressing gown and padded downstairs into the kitchen where he finds Adam already up and drinking a cup of coffee, he's acutely aware of how in terms of their home lives, he and his Section Chief have swopped places. That he should demand that Adam goes to Tring, he knows will be received with nothing less than an outright refusal and telling Adam that it will get better, is nothing short of crass. He also stops himself, from suggesting to Adam who is opening the back door to let Fidget in, Adam likes cats he remembers, that if it will help, he and Ruth will stick around, rather than go away for a few days, to where they haven't had time to discuss. Instead making himself a cup of coffee, before bending down to stroke Ruth's cat who is winding its way around his legs. A cat who most certainly knows he prefers dogs.
Unlike it's owner who greets him with, 'you should have woken me,' with no conviction whatsoever from the doorway. Resisting what has become the norm when she and Harry are on their own, which in this case would have been be to walk over to where he's eating toast and lick the butter off his lips. But today is different, because Adam who yes to her offer to stay, is upstairs unpacking and the last thing that Adam needs to see, is them in any kind of sexual encounter. Particularly one which will result in them having sex in her kitchen, for what if it happens will be the second time. The first never to be forgotten and is the reason that she needs to buy a new tablecloth.
Their own packing involving Harry going home to his own house, during which time Ruth gives Adam a brief tour of what's where and what she doesn't have that might keep Wes amused. Which apart from the TV amounts to nothing, other than the contents of her fridge and of course Fidget. That and because Scarlet who Harry is going to bring back with him, in the hope that hair and fur will be as compatible as they are, the former of which Adam has promised they'll take for a walk and the latter he'll treat like gold dust, means that they leave far later than they'd planned and in the hope that by the time they get back, Adam will be feeling better.
.
'I've been thinking,' Ruth tells him, having taken over the driving now that they're well away from London, heading in in a westerly direction to nowhere in particular. 'That as we've made this commitment to each other, why don't I let Adam and Wes stay in my house until he finds somewhere else for them to live?'
'Or sell it and move in with me permanently, I'm sure Adam would buy it,' says the voice of a happy man from the passenger seat. Which she doesn't react too, other than to wish that she'd said it first. The self which has been imagining living with Harry on a permanent basis and way before Adam had said that he needed to find somewhere else for him and Wes to live.
'Why not,' she eventually says, without admitting that she'd live in a cave if he asked her too, knowing that he's smiling at her and more so when semi urban turns into completely rural and he suggests that they stop for what by now will be really late lunch at the next pub that they see.
.
The warmth when they walk through the door and the out of the way feeling, backed up because apart from them, the only occupants of the bar are a couple of hikers and the landlord's dog which is asleep in front of the fire.
'I'll just,' she tells Harry, nodding in the direction of the ladies, not only because by now she's desperate, but having glanced at a poster on the wall, she knows they're within spitting distance of the coastal town where her parents used to bring her on holiday when she was a child. That and because at home somewhere, she has an album of photographs to prove it and knows that if her parents were alive now, how happy they'd be that she still remembers those days.
'Ruth?' asks Harry who's chosen a table near the fire and tells the landlord that they'll order in a moment, because she's lost what he likes to think of as her bounce.
'I've been here before, not this pub but to the area. You'd laugh if saw the photographs, I was such a skinny little,' is as far as she gets before one solitary tear runs down her face. Harry who never goes anywhere without a clean handkerchief, producing one in an instant.
'Happy tears,' she tells the man who'll she'd never be able to introduce to her parents. Something that suddenly feels important.
'Two rounds of sandwiches,' Harry tells the landlord who is still hovering, 'and a pot of tea please.'
.
That done and with Ruth dry eyed , Harry insists that he drives, for what is another hour, before they book into a hotel on the headland. Overlooking the harbour where her father had gone out fishing for crabs, while she and her mother had sat on the beach and drawn pictures in the sand.
A happy time before the divorce, before Peter, is just a small part of the story that Harry is encouraging her to tell him, with a patience that would have surprised all but the few people who know how much he loves the woman who is closing a wound which has held her back from committing herself emotionally.
'And now?' he asks her, holding his breath as well as her hand as he waits for an answer.
'I've got that back and it's all because of you,' she tells him. A short answer on which his whole life, or what is left of it has turned.
One that continues over the dinner that he owes her, in a small and surprisingly full restaurant which means that they can talk to each other without having to whisper. About the area, about looking for a place here if that's what she wants and at some stage seeing his children together.
That he loves them, Ruth has never doubted, but the depth of that love which he's never told another living soul he assures her, says more about their relationship than about the man who is sitting across the table from her and is why, after he's paid the bill and when they are walking back towards the hotel, she has this overwhelming desire to have him hold her.
In the shadows yes, but not the shadows where they hide from the rest of the world at work. This is different, this is who they really are. This is special.
.
Truly amazing though comes later when they're in the promised bathtub before they go to bed. A bath that doesn't have bubbles which means that there is nowhere to hide, what in Harry's case is the start of a middle age paunch that when he's lying down disappears and in Ruth's, is a sudden rush of shyness that is causing her to blush.
Why she doesn't know, other than this is a first for her. Only to increase, when Harry who had walked out of the room, returns with a bottle of wine and two glasses and says, 'can I tempt you?'
Harry who is also naked, but in his case, it isn't his eyes that he's struggling to control. Which after clinking glasses sees him joining her beneath the water. Insisting that she continue to look at him, by lifting her chin until their eyes meet and in his case with the anticipation of what she is about to find out, is only the preparation for what she will tell him in the morning, is the closest thing to heaven that she's ever experienced.