Of course, she is sat on his doorstep.
She probably could have found a way to let herself in. Never failed in winding her way into even the most impenetrable fortresses before. Russian intelligence systems, guarded hospital bedsides, his rusted old heart. His top rate security system would have been no match for her had she wanted to wait for him inside. But, no she chooses discretion over her own comfort, as always, and is huddled on his doorstep, in the cold.
She hasn't spotted him yet. Is she asleep?
"There's a key under the mat.", he offers, a half attempt at a joke.
She starts and looks up at him. Not asleep but exhausted, her eyes red from crying, he supposes. She registers the joke and sighs, shakes her head slightly. Looks at him deeply.
"Harry." It's a warning, maybe, that now isn't the time for mirth. Or a plea to meet her on whatever emotional plane she's on. She doesn't want to joke. What she does want remains, as ever, a mystery.
"We can't do this on the doorstep, I'll be under surveillance soon."
"Already. The blue Honda four cars down and the same man has walked his Pomeranian down the road twice in the last hour." She half whispers, her eyes glinting slightly.
She's good. She can see his little expression of pride and he watches her blush. He loves watching her blush.
"So, will you come in then?"
She frowns from the doorstep where she's still sat. As though that wasn't her intention. Looks at her feet, then up at him from under her hair. "I'm not sure that's -"
"You've been sitting out here for an hour in the November cold and you weren't intending to come in? For christ's sake." Without reply, he holds his hand out to her, which she has little choice but to take, pulls her up to standing. They're face to face and he, too knocked to remember his composure, looks at her lips for a fraction too long.
"I, I should, really, go."
"No, there's something I need to tell you." He doesn't give her time to argue, sliding past her to open his door with a 6 digit code and a key. When he's done inputting the alarm code in the hall, she's still in the doorway. Indecisive. Hovering.
This is exhausting. She is exhausting. His head is ringing still from Lucas, John's blow, from his conversation with Towers, from the hours she was in danger. His hand goes to his face, buying himself a second to summon up the patience he needs for his impossible woman.
"Ruth, it's important." He manages.
A man with a Pomeranian walks past behind her and she is won over. But doesn't take her coat off once she's inside and refuses his offer of tea.
She's quite capable of questioning his choice of drink though.
"Are you sure you should be -"
"Quite sure I shouldn't be. But I've done quite a few things I shouldn't today so why stop now."
It's the first time either of them has mentioned - what? - any of it. He hasn't seen her since he walked off the grid, all grand proclamations about it being his turn. John fell. He called in his report, straight to the Home Secretary, then the DG, a brief largely unsuccessful attempt by someone from medical to look at his head and by the time he was back on The Grid, she was gone. He'd been checking the roof when Towers had called.
"She, uh, she was quite. Um. You know. We really thought you were going to -" was Tariq's mumbled explanation as to her whereabouts. Harry thought about driving to her house, explaining himself there but he wasn't sure it'd be best with an inquiry looming to take a late night drive to the house of the woman he'd just bargained a state secret away for. But here she is, in his house, in his living room. Still wearing her damn coat.
He sips his whisky and she grimaces.
She starts "Harry," and he knows she's about to say something about the whole thing. Admonish him again for loving her, try to make him feel better about John, warn him about his capsizing career, scold him for walking to his death. He can't bear any of it.
"Albany doesn't work. Never has. It was a deterrent. An important deterrent. A state secret. But not a useable weapon. I wanted you to know. I couldn't say, before. If we'd managed to get it back it would have been imperative that it still seemed, well, in any case. You deserve to know. I don't know if that makes things any better or worse or if it'll make you hate me any less, Ruth. But there it is."
She's listened with her eyes fixed on his shoes. Hands in pockets. She lifts her palm to her eye, wiping something away. And then nods and walks out of the door.
That's that then. He's lost her. Again. Quite why this time, he doesn't have the energy to parse. Maybe the lie. Maybe his flat tone. Maybe the culmination of years of disappointments. She's always running away from him for one reason or another. And maybe she should. She deserves better than all this, after all. Better than a defeated old spook soon to be shoved out into the cold.
He collapses on his sofa. Head painful, heart aching. Too tired to notice that the front door doesn't slam. He should try to take his shoes off but he'll be damned if he can do anything with his hands except hold his whiskey glass right now. Tries anyway, all fingers and thumbs.
"Fuck." he murmurs. No use. He thinks, for a second, he can still smell her perfume. Maybe he is concussed.
"Stop fussing." Not concussed, then. She's back in the room, real, devoid of her coat and shoes but carrying his first aid kit. He doesn't even know where he keeps his first aid kit. He's not sure he knew he had a first aid kit.
"How did you find that?"
"I'm an analyst." she murmurs, popping it down and sinking to her knees in front of him. That does something to some low part of him that he can't afford to pay attention to right now.
"Ruth, you don't have to -"
"Keep still." She doesn't look at him once just busies her small hands taking off his shoes. He can smell her shampoo. A night on a bus, a lifetime ago, the citrus scent of her.
When she's got his shoes off, she pops open the first aid kit and assesses it. Even now in this all together confusing moment, he loves to watch her think. Her furrowed brow, chewing her lip, head slightly to one side. She's so entirely beautiful to him in ways he could never hope to express. He feels on fire with her so close. Feels like he might burn her up if he's not careful.
She's decided on her tools and moves next to him on the sofa. Far closer than they normally sit. She pours some kind of antiseptic on a cloth and without asking, wipes it across the graze on his head.
"Shit" he grimaces and he catches her smiling at him.
"Bet you didn't give poor Amelia Johnson more than thirty seconds to check you over."
"Twenty." This makes her laugh and that makes his stomach drop in that awful, exhilarating way that reminds him of being an teenager and a field officer all at once.
She applies more of the stinging liquid, dabbing gently. Her face so close to his. Those blue eyes.
She's concentrating on her task, applying a plaster with much more gentleness than he deserves when she murmurs "I don't hate you."
He lets out a shaky sigh of relief, almost a laugh. "Are you sure? You've more right to than most."
She seems to be done with the plaster but her hand stays up, near his head. She dips her head and swallows. He knows that tell, summoning up courage.
"It's the only thing I'm sure of, Harry. I'm angry at you. Near constantly. Infuriated by you. But I don't hate you. Might be easier if I did." It comes out like a whisper, her cheeks red.
"Easier than, what, Ruth?" He aims his question just behind her head. Can't quite look at her.
"Than this. All this." She looks away for a second, sighs "Loving you." Her breath is shaky and she's on the verge of tears. She's being incredibly brave. For her, this speaking of the truth of her heart is scarier than walking onto any roof top gun to head. He knows that.
He should say thank you. Instead, he takes her hand from his head and holds it in his own gently. "Ah."
"Ah." she echoes.
Their eyes meet for what feels to him like the first time in months, in years. And he sees fear in her eyes but something else. Need. And love too.
He moved himself a fraction closer to her. "Why did you come here tonight?"
"I don't know, Harry. To shout at you some more."
"You haven't done much shouting."
"Evening's not over yet."
He implores he with a look and a dip of his head for most honesty.
"I came because I needed to see you, alive, for myself. Because I didn't know whether you'd be arrested tomorrow for all this. Because I didn't want to go back to my pathetic flat where Beth has the audacity to kill two men and yet still can't manage to take the bins out." He laughs. He wants to kiss her for that. For everything.
"Well, I'm here. No arrest on the cards but an inquiry at the very least."
"We'll get your through that, Harry. We can work that out." She's earnest and stern. Not going to take no for an answer on that one. He should tell she's done more than her fair share of sort out his mess.
"I - uh, I need to - you, you. You wouldn't have given it to him if it had worked, would you?"
He knows what she wants him to say. Who she wants him to be. He equivocates, "It would have been the hardest decision of my life, Ruth."
"That's not answer, Harry."
Would he have told Mani where the uranium was if the team has been slower, if the boy had died and it had been a knife to her throat? Would he have given John Albany if it could have been used to murder and maim discriminately but in doing so saved her?
No. It would have torn the heart right out of him but he could never place that burden on her. She couldn't have borne a life bargained for with so much death. It would have been a cruelty to her – and a betrayal of everything they've fought for together.
He turns his head so he's almost whispering in her ear, not looking at her "I would not have given him Albany if it worked, not for anyone. Not even for you."
She kisses him then. Her hand to his cheek turning his face to hers. Small and chaste and intoxicating. He's not quite sure what he's done to deserve it but he's scared if he asks she might vanish again so instead he watches her blush - that blush will be the death of him – and watches her stammer out,
"Thank you, Harry," her hands are turning in her lap again" I still think your career might be too higher price to -"
"No." His hands go to hers again. Stilling them. His head hunched towards her so she can't escape his eyes. "I won't have you imply for one second that my job is worth you life."
She looks up at him, "It was once before."
Ah yes, she has him there. She always has him. So he does the ungentlemanly thing and presses his one advantage. He moves a strand of hair away from her face and hears her breath hitch.
"I was never actually consulted on that plan, I think you'll recall. I had this rather brilliant but wayward analyst at the time who took the decision somewhat into her own hands."
She frowns. "Wayward?"
"Quite wayward." They smile at each other. He doesn't know what's happening but their hands are joined and their faces are close and his head is throbbing a little less. He would live inside this moment if he could, safe with her, with Ruth. He doesn't need anymore than this – though, fuck, he does want more.
She's slipped into another thought.
"John told me I was the only person he was ever afraid would figure him out." He thinks of the Home Secretary calling her a dogged brilliant bitch.
"And that surprises you? We've all terrified of you, Ruth and that intellect of yours. Why do you think I'm so desperate to keep you onside?" He's hoping for another smile, a laugh, god please another kiss.
"I told him, I told him what you asked me. And, I told him what I said. When I said no." Her eyes flick up to his, he assumes, to see if this has wounded. It hasn't. She's here, now, sitting in his living room with no shoes on. He doesn't care a jot about anything else. How to tell her that?
"He told me to be brave. Selfish for once. And I thought - but he did also tell me he would shoot me in the back of the head." She laughs but it's a miserable one.
What is he meant to say? Tell her to listen to John Bateman. That even desperate men sometimes speak the truth. Tell her he doesn't care about marriage as long as she will sometimes come here and sit in his living room with no shoes on. He will take anything he can get.
He can't think.
"Are you tired?" He asks.
"I – I mean, yes. Exhausted, really."
"Me too, Ruth. So tired. I don't think I can unknot all this now, here. John Bateman. Us. I don't want to say anything that might make you – " Even now in trying to say the right thing he is inevitably saying the wrong thing.
"Bolt?" But she's smiling a little at him so maybe all is not lost.
"I was going to say uncomfortable."
"Yes, imagine if things were to be – uh – uncomfortable between us." She's teasing him. Playful. Alive.
God, when he'd seen her lying in that room. He'd thought –
"I need to sleep, Ruth." is what he says, not quite what he means and she is blushing now. Not delightfully. Painfully. And standing. And packing away the first aid kit and -
"Sorry, I – I'll go, I shouldn't have, of course you're"
He grabs her wrist, still seated.
"You need to sleep, too."
The blush is more delightful but the eyes warning.
"Harry – "
"I don't mean. I'm not trying to seduce you, Ruth, have you seen the state of me? I couldn't do half the things I'd – " He hadn't meant to say that part aloud.
"Oh, for Christ's sake." He puts his head in his hands, waits for her to mumble and apology and leave.
But she's brave tonight. Braver than he's seen her before. Maybe she has listened to John.
"I do need some rest." is all she says. And then she's slipping off his jacket for him, undoing his watch. Small hands working with such gentle precision. As though this is how they always touch. The rule and not the all too rare exception. She slips off the denim thing she's wearing and she's in a strap top and skirt. She's so pale.
"I don't think I've ever seen your arms before" is what he mumbles out which makes the corners of her mouth twitch.
"We shouldn't go - ah - upstairs. They would, they'd see the light and any hope you'd have of convincing the enquiry you traded away Albany for anything other than your office, uh, office crush would be lost." Office crush? To have her, to have this, reduced to such a measly thing.
"Yes." She's right. And a bed would imply things he can't follow through on right now and might push her new found bravery to it's limits. He shifts on the sofa so that he is lying down with enough room for her to join him.
And she does. Her body flush against his. Her hair in his face. They're not looking into each other's eyes but that's a blessing maybe because there's suddenly moisture in his.
"Is this -" he wants to make sure she's sure.
"This is -" her hands move to his and she brings his arm around her to hold her. "everything, Harry. Sleep now. I haven't strictly decided if shouting is all together off the table for tomorrow so you need your rest."
He nestles his head into her neck and hears her sigh. His hand is resting over her collar bone. Their shoes are off and they are lying together on his sofa. She kissed him. She can shout at him every day for the rest of his sorry life as long as she will be close enough for him to smell her orange shampoo.
They fall asleep, together.