Harry was asleep, or at least he seemed to be; his breathing was steady, slow and deep and even, his eyes closed, the weary lines at the corners of his mouth relaxed, his whole face soft and warm and lovely. He looked like a man who did not have a care in the world, Ruth thought as she lay propped up on her elbow beside him, studying his face intently though she remained still as a stone, determined not to wake him. This was supposed to be a holiday for him, a chance to restore himself, and she knew he needed the rest; more than that, though, Ruth did not disturb him for she could not fathom what she might say should his eyes flutter open and soft questions drip from his lips.
What are you thinking, he would ask her in that tone just this side of trepidatious, demanding entry into her private world and yet at the same time seemingly utterly terrified of such vulnerability. Her thoughts were a maze through which Harry had only rarely emerged unscathed, and he knew that as well as did she. No, it would be better for them both if he slept, and kept his questions to himself, and gave Ruth the time she needed to work through the problem at hand.
An entire lifetime had passed in the course of a bare few hours, from their meeting, to their tumbling together, the cataclysm in the hotel, their return to this safe haven. Ruth felt dizzy, and revitalized, and terrified; how, she kept asking herself. How could this have happened? Harry, returned to her arms, as hungry for her now as he was the day he whispered his proposal into her unwilling ear; she had dreamt of him so often that it was difficult to believe he was really lying beside her, close enough that if she could only find the courage to reach out her hand she might press her palm against his chest and feel the beat of his heart beneath his skin. She had dreamt of him, but in her experience such dreams only ever turned to ashes in her hands.
What was to become of them, when the sun rose? That was the question that troubled her most, at present. It had all seemed so much simpler a few hours before, when they had been lying in this same bed, sweaty and sated and delirious with love of one another. Harry had whispered every word she had ever wished to hear from him, had told her how ardently he loved her, how nothing in the world mattered more to him than her, how the burden of Albany she had carried for two long years was no threat, to her or anyone else. He had talked of a simple life, books and flowers and long walks together, without danger or grief or pain. Oh, the picture he had painted, the life he had offered her, simple, and elegant, and theirs, wholly, as it always should have been. That dream she wanted, more than words could say, but she could not fathom how they might go about getting it.
Harry would have to go back to London, of that there was no doubt. And Ruth, likewise, was resolved to return to Bradford. They would have to speak to their employers, and decide on a place to live, find a house and pack up their belongings and wade through the detritus of ordinary life that they had so often ignored while they lived their lives in the heart of the Grid. Boring things, ordinary things, the details of two rather sad, rather lonely, middle-aged people who had quite without warning chosen to completely detonate their own lives; they would have to wade through all of it, together. And then at the end of it they would simply be, standing together in the house that they had chosen, forced to face one another without the adrenaline, the fever which had so often consumed them in the past. Everything about their falling together had been heady and desperate; six years before she had been terrified, truly, of losing her position, derailing her career by choosing to bind herself to him. And then she had willingly walked away from her coveted position and her family and her home and her cats, all for his sake. Her fears had proven themselves well-founded, for in loving him she had lost herself. And then for two long years she had languished in a forgotten corner of the world until blood and pain reunited them once more, and they had fallen together in a haze of grief and tormented hearts, their every moment together colored by the shadow of death, the knowledge that they could at any time be torn asunder by the work they did. And then, of course they were, were utterly shattered by Harry's past, by Ruth's connection to him, and she had left him a second time.
And then tonight, oh tonight had been a fever, a delirium the likes of which she had never known, the sensation of a ticking clock hanging over their heads as they wrangled with one another, rushed straight into a solution neither of them had expected or planned for. Too fast, too fast, every moment carrying with it a new demand, a voice in the back of Ruth's mind shrieking choose, choose now, or you shall lose the chance forever. They had raced into one another's arms at a breakneck pace, and now all that remained to Ruth was a vast, yawning uncertainty.
Would he grow tired of her, come to resent her for the way she had stolen him from the world he had inhabited for the last thirty years and more, the diminishment of his own power, the loss of his prestige, his life grown small and boring for her sake? Would she chafe at sharing her life with this man, when it had been so many years since last she had lived so intimately with another? They had been apart for two long years, and she could not help but wonder if they would find one another so indelibly changed as to be utterly irreconcilable. All her earlier premonitions of ruin had come to pass and she remained truly, deeply scared that this happiness too was cursed for devastation.
And yet she had leapt from the precipice all the same, had closed her eyes and taken Harry's hand and flung herself out into the great unknown, trembling from head to foot and yet casting her challenge into the teeth of fate with an uncharacteristic sort of arrogance. She had chosen, at last, to seize the dream that had languished unfulfilled in her heart for six long years, this dream that she and Harry were more than star-crossed lovers, that they could grow old and fat and happy together. The yearning in her heart for him, for them was so strong she very nearly began to weep as she looked at him; never, in all her life, had she wanted anything so badly as she wanted the future he had promised her, and never had she felt more certain that all her hopes were destined to turn to disappointment.
Harry wasn't scared, though. Harry had stripped himself down to his trunks and kissed her cheek and pulled her into his arms beneath the duvet, had whispered it will be all right, Ruth, you'll see with the sort of conviction only he could muster. Harry was sleeping now, safe and sound in the knowledge that they had done the right thing, that they had every cause to hope. She wished, oh how she wished that she could share his optimism, share in the peace that colored his features as he slept.
How could it be, she wondered, that Harry could be so certain while she remained paralyzed by doubt?
Look at me now, and tell me you didn't love me.
It seemed as if an eon had passed since the moment when he stood before her on the pavement and whispered those words with heat and longing dripping from every syllable. He made it sound so easy, as if her love of him were the only thing that mattered, as if it admitting to it was the only obstacle that had kept them apart for so long. Ruth knew better; she had known she loved him since that night at Havensworth, when she had gone to him against all her better instincts and thrown her lot in with his, irrevocably. They had been bound since that night, down through the years, tied to one another with chains no man could break, not Harry, not George, not Paul; sometimes Ruth felt as if God himself could not sever that cord. He had asked her to marry him once, and suddenly it occurred to her that no matter the answer she had given him, no matter the nights they had spent apart, she had committed her heart to his long before he asked it of her. Every man she had been with since had been an infidelity for even when they were separated by miles, and years, and bitter words, she was his, and he was hers.
Til death do us part.
He would be hers, her Harry, no matter where she went, no matter what she did. If she left him now, if she let doubt steal her joy and returned to dreary Bradford and never heard from him again he would remain in her heart, inextricably, for all the rest of her days. Why then, she asked herself, should she not take this chance? She would love him, want him, need him, whether he was in her bed or a world away from her, and so then it seemed to her that if her heart was destined to break at least this way she could say that she had tried. She would give him her all, every piece of herself, would love him recklessly, wantonly, would be brave and reach her hands towards the very heavens for his sake. She would try, and if the day did come when it all fell to pieces, even that seemed to her to be a better end than wasting away in Bradford, eaten alive by what ifs and might have beens.
He was hers, and she was his, from this day until her last day, and suddenly a great swell of love began to rise in her chest, cresting like some vast wave, washing over her until she was trembling from head to foot, breathless and overwhelmed. She loved him, and he loved her, and they had done it, finally, had set a course for the horizon, together. One day, one day soon, she would wake in a bed far from this place to find him sleeping just like this, and she would slip down the stairs to start the kettle, and he would come padding after her in his robe, and they would sit down together in the quiet stillness of the morning with nowhere to go, nothing to do, but love each other, forever.
Quite suddenly she found that she did not want to let Harry sleep a moment longer.
As gently as she could she slid over him, settling herself down atop his hips, the blankets falling away as she straddled him and let her palms rest on the warm skin of his chest the way she had wanted to do for an hour now. The heat of him seeped through to her very bones, and a wild grin broke across her face unbidden. He was hers, her Harry, and they were free.
Slowly he began to wake; his hands moved first, reaching for her, finding purchase against the soft skin of her thighs, and then he sighed contentedly, and then the corners of his lips turned up in a satisfied grin, and then at last his eyes fluttered open, clear and warm and full of adoration as he looked at her.
"Ruth," he breathed her name, his voice hoarse but not displeased.
"I love you," she answered in a rush, the pads of her fingers tracing the lines of his chest.
Broad hands squeezed her thighs gently, and a soft hum echoed from the back of his throat.
"I had to tell you," she continued, leaning forward to press a reverent kiss to the corner of his mouth. "I had to tell you how much I love you, how much I want you, how-"
Still she leaned over him, lips brushing his skin as she spoke, but he cut her off, lifted one hand to tangle in her hair and held her to him as he kissed her, hard, tongue surging, lips pressing, a gasp escaping her at the passion of his response. He could be so eloquent, when he wanted to be, damn near poetic at times, could strike fear into the hearts of his enemies and inspire loyalty in his team and cow the very pillars of political power in London but in this moment he had no words for her. The reassurance he offered her was too fervent for words; in his kiss she could feel the very yearning of his soul, and she answered that longing with one of her own, lowered herself to lie atop him and caught her hands in his hair and gave herself over to the beauty of the moment. She knew that devastation might lie in wait for her, that months from now she might look back on this night and weep at her own folly, but she had come to realize, at long last, that protecting herself from such pain was not worth the grief of being separated from him. Let the heartbreak come for her if it would, she told herself; first she would have her joy.