Title: "Why Can't I Breathe?" minor S4spoilers!
Summary: Formerly known as "Memoirs of a Broken Heart." Rewritten and heavily edited. Happy Ending this time! Based on the song "Why Can't I?" by Liz Phair.
A/N: Inspired by a scene in the movie 13 Going On 30. My ultimate fave movie! Highly recommend it, so go see it, LOL.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spooks or its characters. I'm just having fun, no money is being made.
Why Can't I Breathe? -
By
Sakura
'Ruth! Ruth! This just arrived for you, it was left at the lobby, anonymously.' Jo panted, she had just run at full speed from the lobby. She stood by Ruth's station, leaning on the low wall that covered the occupant that sat at the desk.
Ruth silenced her with a hand in the air, she was deeply focused on the computer monitor in front of her. They were in the middle of an op, Jo had such impeccable timing, speaking sarcastically of course.
'Alright, give it here.' Ruth reached out an open hand, still staring at the suspected terrorist, Ahmed Baswalli, whose office they had bugged for surveillance. She did not turn to face the younger woman, she just took the note from her with unusual briskness.
Jo left as soon as Ruth gripped the note, she could tell that Ruth was rather peeved at the distraction.
Ruth watched the shifty eyed man on the monitor for a few seconds more as he sat quietly at his desk in his office fiddling with a pencil. It was hard to believe that this man was about to supervise a thermonuclear weapon sale in two hour's time.She decided that it wouldn't hurt to take her eyes off Ahmed Baswalli for a few seconds, and quickly opened the note in her palm.
-Meet me at the Eye Sore at10:30 pm. Don't be late. Need to discuss matter of utmost importance and urgency-
xx
And that was what it said. Ruth jumped when Zaf waltzed rather hurriedly over to her desk, trying not so subtly to read what she had in her hand. One of these days he was going to send her into cardiac arrest.
'Adam says he's in, here's a comm on his frequency,' Zaf gave her an earpiece and she put the note on the table so she could put the earpiece on.
Zaf reached over to pick it up, and out of reflex, she slapped his hand so that he dropped the note before he could read it. He put on a mock frown and held a hand over his heart.
'Oh my dear woman, you've hurt me!' Zaf was exasperating, and his cheeky disposition only irritated her further.
'So what is it? A love note?' Zaf winked and left her station before she could retort.
She exhaled moodily and turned back to her monitor, hoping inwardly that no one else would come and disrupt her while she was providing technical oversight for an operative in the field.
Ruth knew exactly who sent the note and what it meant. It was from Harry, she knew because 'The Eye Sore' was what he had unceremoniously dubbed the London Eye. She tapped the earpiece on and checked on Adam.
'How are you doing?'
His somewhat mechanical sounding reply rang in a few seconds later.
'I'm about to enter Baswalli's office.'
'Ok, inform me as you go along. I've disabled the alarm for about 10 minutes, you need to get in and out as quickly as possible. Activating the loop, now.'
She hit some keys on the keyboard and activated the loop to feed the security cameras in the corridor and the office.
She watched the screen as the door to the office opened and Adam entered. The man at the desk shot up from the chair and cried out, 'Who are you?'
Adam kept his cool as always.
'Felix Johnson. MI-5. I need some information from you Mr. Baswalli. Now, we can do this the nice way and talk here in this office, or we can do this the ugly way, and talk at an interrogation room at HQ. Which do you prefer?'
Ruth was glad to see that Adam was finally beginning to get back to his normal self. It had taken him months to get back to being himself again, Fiona's death had affected him like no other.
'What do you want to know?' Baswalli was the epitome of fear, Adam had this one in the bag.
'Good man.'
Ruth spoke once more into the comm, 'OK, Adam you've got 7 minutes.'
'I've got this one Ruth, this op's as good as done.' Adam switched off his earpiece after that, but he knew she would still watch through the monitor.
After releasing a tense breath, Ruth heard familiar footsteps tapping her way. Harry came up from behind her to check on their progress.
'How's Adam getting on?' His voice sent shivers up and down her spine.
'He's got him talking right now.' Ruth looked at him and met his eyes.
Harry was wearing that distant expression that he had whenever she was around, again. Ruth wondered what had caused the change in him.
Harry leaned down and whispered.
'I need to talk to you tonight. It's urgent-,'
'Yeah, I know I got the bloody note.' Ruth all but hissed. Harry looked at the floor and actually looked guilty for a moment. She hoped that her expression showed how hurt and angry she felt inside.
'Right then.' A raised eyebrow. She bit her lip to stifle a biting remark. He had the nerve to wonder why she was so prickly?
And he walked away.
Ruth sat back in her chair, picking the little piece of paper back up to ponder her boss-turned-friend-turned-lover's peculiar behavior of the past few weeks. She knew that their relationship was deteriorating from the inside out.
She knew that something wasn't exactly right between them, when they had the rare chance to be alone together away from the grid. He wasn't all there in his eyes when he gazed at her.
Harry had also developed a weird habit of staring at her at the most random places; like during briefings or when he was sitting in his office looking out through the glass windows. And when she met his gaze, when she realized she was being eyed up, he would look away as if he hadn't been looking in the first place.That was bound to have caused some suspicion amongst the other people on the grid.
She wished he would realize that everyone else wasn't as thick as he thought, and that they would eventually put two and two together. Not once, but twice, she had interrupted gossip sessions including Adam, Zaf, Malcom and Jo in the corridors by the Registry. She knew by the looks on each of their faces that they were talking about her and Harry.
Harry's penetrating gaze was immensely unnerving, especially when she could feel his eyes on her even when she was turned around. Ruth had heard the others talking about how he practically 'eats her with his eyes' and she assumed that was what he was doing. But it still bothered her all the same.
She felt that he was drifting father and father away from her. He didn't really talk to her anymore. But he kissed her with a newfound hunger. Was their relationship becoming solely based on desire?
Ruth didn't want to be a part of another relationship that started out with passion and ended on a bitter note. She wanted to be a part of something strong and true, which was cliche, yes, but worth it in her eyes. And she didn't want it to be with anybody, she wanted Harry, which made this all the more unbearable.
She crumpled the note and threw it into the bin. A sharp pain stung her heart.
He was going to leave her. She had ignored the obvious signs for quite a while, but now it was impossible to will away. After all of her relationships gone bad, she thought of herself as a good judge of character. Ruthshook herself and tried to focus on documenting their latest operation.It wasn't long before she felt the eyes on her again.
TBC...
A/N: Ooooh, tension...: 0 P No more writer's block, YAY! sighs I'm glad I was still able to write this, I was afraid that I would lose my inspiration after my dad ERASED all this from my computer yesterday. I've had to spend hours rewriting everything, and then edit everything in one day. Hope it was worth it.
