"I'm sorry about…all that," Ruth said, running her fingers through her hair and trying to reestablish her sense of equilibrium. "It seems like everything makes me cry, these days."

"No need to apologize," Harry, said giving her a warm little smile before crossing the kitchen to turn his attentions back to their neglected pasta.

As he went back to cooking their dinner, Ruth was seized by a morbid sort of curiosity about Harry's previous experiences with pregnancy; had Jane gone all weepy over every little thing, too? Was he remembering those days, comparing Ruth to his ex-wife? That part of his life was a mystery to Ruth; in all their years together, he'd only spoken briefly about his family, and what little he'd said had only been revealed during the course of the investigation into the November Committee, so many years before. On the hunt for answers and telling herself that she needed as much information as possible about Catherine in order to successfully complete the op, Ruth had taken a little stroll through his confidential personnel file. It was the one and only time she'd ever done that, with any of her colleagues, and if she were being honest with herself, it wasn't just professional curiosity that compelled her. She was just beginning to feel the start of…something, between her and Harry in those days, and she desperately wanted to know the story behind his beautiful, sorrowful eyes.

So she'd looked him up, and looked up Jane and Catherine and Graham, too, for good measure. She saw the official reprimand in his file, regarding his liaison with Juliet Shaw, and felt her stomach churn with an emotion that felt uncomfortably like jealousy. And that was before she'd ever even met the woman; when Ruth first read Juliet's name in Harry's file, she never imagined that one day they'd be working closely with her, that Ruth would be forced to sit and watch the sparks flying back and forth between Harry and his former lover. When she returned from Cyprus, Ruth had been horrified to learn the extent of Juliet's treachery, but a very small part of her had felt relief, knowing that Harry would never be tempted to return to that woman's arms again.

As for Jane Townsend, very little information was available. Oh, the service kept tabs on her, monitored communication between Harry and his ex-wife, of which there was almost none. Ruth had been forced to paint her own picture of Jane's character, making all sorts of assumptions and then guiltily reminding herself that she did not, and might not ever, know what had really passed between them. Should she feel a certain kinship with Jane now? She wondered. Their children would have the same father; would their paths ever cross? For a moment she entertained herself imagining what it might be like to meet the woman for coffee, and laugh together about the man they shared in common, all his faults and all his glories. No, Ruth thought, she'd probably try to scratch my eyes out instead.

What she felt at this moment was not camaraderie, but rather the slight sting of jealousy. When she was pregnant, Jane had been blessed with a certainty about herself and Harry that Ruth lacked. They'd been properly married, had taken vows and decided to start on the journey of building a family together. Ruth had no idea what she and Harry were to each other, really; neither of them were capable of discussing their feelings, and there was a small part of her that hated Jane, for finding it so easy to lay to claim to his heart. Then it again, Jane might well be the reason he was so difficult to connect with emotionally. Either way, while Jane had struggled with the sickness and the hormones and the exhaustion and the heartburn that Ruth now found herself faced with, at least she'd been able to go to sleep next to Harry each night, able to comfort herself with the knowledge that her children would have a father, that she would have a hand to hold. Ruth envied her that certainty.

"You've gone all quiet on me again," Harry said from across the room, and Ruth cast about for something to say, not wanting him to know that she'd been too caught up hating his ex-wife to speak to him.

"Are you going to tell your children?" she said finally.

He gave her a look that said quite plainly that he thought her question was completely ridiculous.

"Ruth, we're going to have a baby. Do you really think that's the sort of thing I'd hide from them?" he asked quietly. She heard the question he'd really meant to ask her, lingering just below the surface; what sort of man, what sort of father, do you take me for? Do you really think so little of me?

"I meant more, when were you planning to tell them," she amended contritely.

Harry took his time to answer; dimly she realized that while they'd been talking he hadn't just been cooking pasta, but he'd been making a nice tomato sauce as well. He'd chopped onions and mushrooms and sautéed them and set the whole thing to simmer on the stovetop, and the smell wafting over to her from his direction was absolutely heavenly. Who knew Harry could cook?

"Not for a while yet," he said finally, turning around and leaning back against the countertop to look at her while they spoke. "Catherine's back in Israel, just now, but she'll be home in a month or two, and I'll probably tell her then. I'll have to rely on her to get word to Graham, he's refusing to return my phone calls at the moment."

Ruth hung her head, feeling slightly ashamed for raising the subject of his strained relationship with his children. There had been some trouble with Catherine after she left, she'd learned, when she'd nearly gotten herself killed and Harry had to go in guns blazing to fetch her from a Hezbollah hospital. That thought almost made her smile; no matter how estranged from them he may be, Harry was still willing to drop everything, abandon the Grid, and fly halfway around the world if his children needed him. The peanut would be lucky in that regard, she thought. She could not have asked for a braver, more dedicated father for her child.

"How do you think they'll take it?" she asked timidly, fiddling with the hem of her blouse. She'd never pressed him for information about them before, his son and daughter and this chapter of his life that for so long had remained closed to her. She knew it pained him, that he wasn't closer to them, but she didn't know how he really felt, about the state of things between them, and she didn't know how his relationship with them might affect his feelings towards her and her baby. It wouldn't be fair, to say this was his second chance at having a family; he already had a family, and they deserved their father as much as the peanut did.

"Oh, not well, I'd imagine. Catherine will be thirty this year, and Graham's not far behind her." Oh Christ, Ruth thought, as the full implications of their age difference hit her square in the chest. Catherine was only about nine years younger than she; if the roles were reversed, and Ruth had been in Catherine's place, learning that her father was having a child with a woman young enough to be his daughter, she'd be livid. There was more to it than that, though; he was fifty-six bloody years old. When the peanut went off to University he'd be seventy-four; oh God, don't start crying again, Evershed, hold it together!

"Ruth?" his voice was soft and gentle, and she clung to it like a life raft, dragging herself away from the sea of distress that threatened to drown her.

"Maybe they'll get used to it, in time," she said, not believing a word of it.

Harry just grunted, and turned his attention back to the sauce simmering behind him. "What about you?" he asked. "Have you told your mother?"

Oh, God, my mother.

Just as Harry had never spoken to her of his family, she had been tight-lipped when it came to her own. Harry hadn't needed to sneak around and hack through firewalls to peruse her personnel file; he'd read the whole bloody thing, cover-to-cover. He knew about her father, taken from her too soon, knew about the years she'd spent alone and miserable at boarding school, knew about her mother's remarriage and her disastrous relationship with her stepbrother. There was so much between the lines, though, so much heartbreak hiding beneath the obvious familial discontent, and Harry didn't know about that, because she'd never told him.

Never told him, for instance, that she had yet to inform her mother that she was still alive.

While he waited for her to speak Harry plated up their supper, doling out two generous portions of pasta and smothering the lot with the sauce he'd made. He carried the plates the table, and set one down in front of Ruth, before going to fetch her another glass of water. When he was done shuffling around and came to sit across the table from her, Ruth kept her gaze determinedly focused on the food in front of her, rather than meeting his eye and risk revealing the truth she desperately wanted to keep from him.

Once again, though, she was reminded of just how well he knew her, how easily he could read each tiny flicker of emotion on her face.

"Ruth?" he asked kindly. "What aren't you telling me?"

She shook her head. "You'll think I'm horrible."

"Oh, I doubt that," he answered mildly. He was still looking at her, she could feel it.

"I haven't told my mother that I'm…back," she said. Her voice sounded small and brittle, even to her own ears.

Harry whistled. "Christ, Ruth," he said. "We couldn't tell her that you were still alive, even the service had to believe you'd…died. You mean to tell me she still thinks you're…" his voice trailed off, as if he couldn't bear to say the word dead aloud. Not for the first time, Ruth wondered what Harry had gone through, during her time away. She knew how their separation had pained her, knew how she'd longed for him, how she'd dreamt of him, how the manner of her return had broken something deep inside her that might never truly heal; had he suffered the same?

"They'd already buried one child, David and my mother," Ruth started to explain. She really, really didn't want to have this particular conversation with him, but she felt the need to come clean, to justify what must seem to him to be a callous, selfish act. "How could I just walk up to the front door, and tell them that I was the one who came back, and not Peter? Can you imagine how devastated David would be? Mum gets her daughter back, but his son is still just as dead. I'd never be able to explain it to them, not properly, and I can't bear to think of how little they'd trust me, after something like that. And now, it's a million times worse, because I wouldn't just be telling them about me, I'd have to tell them about the peanut, too."

"The peanut?" Harry echoed, looking equal parts amused and exasperated.

"It's what Beth's been calling him, the baby," Ruth explained.

"The peanut," he said again, leaning back in his chair and smiling, just a little. "I like that," he added softly.

Ruth nodded, and took a long sip of her water, just to give herself something to do with her hands. Though dinner smelled wonderful, her stomach was roiling with doubt and guilt, and she didn't trust herself to eat anything, just now.

For quite some time neither of them said a word, as Harry digested her little diatribe and she fiddled with her glass. Did he think her heartless, for denying her mother the opportunity for a tearful reunion? Was he gearing himself up to give her some sort of speech, to make her feel guilty for not considering her mother's feelings?

"It's your decision, Ruth," he said finally, raising his fork and scooping up a pile of pasta. "But don't you think they deserve the chance to meet their grandchild?"

Ruth nodded glumly.

"I could go with you, if you like," Harry suggested, and she looked up at him sharply. "We wouldn't have to tell them that I'm the peanut's father, we could just tell them I'm your boss, and I could lend some credence to your story."

Dear, sweet Harry, she thought. How very like him, willing to allow himself to fade into the background, willing to deny himself the opportunity to claim their child as his own, if it meant things might go easier for her. And she knew now what a sacrifice that would be for him; she could easily read the pride in his face whenever he spoke about the baby.

"I'll think about it," she said. "I can't promise you more than that." For just an instant it looked like he might push her for more, but in the end he just nodded, and set about eating his supper. After a moment, Ruth followed suit.


Overall dinner had gone quite well, she thought. They did not speak about their family troubles again, and instead travelled to safer topics of discussion, like the fact that all around them the world itself seemed to be on fire. Ruth much preferred heated debates about the state of affairs in various Middle Eastern countries to indulging in navel-gazing and self-doubt. When they were both finished, Harry scooped up their plates and dropped them in the sink, assuring her he'd clean up later. At a loss for what to do next, Ruth was about to suggest she call a cab to take her home when Harry intercepted her, and suggested instead that they take their glasses (he was drinking water, too, she noticed with mild amusement) into the sitting room. He caught her off guard, and she felt she had no choice but to agree.

So it was she found herself curled against the arm of his plush sofa, while he sat comfortably in the chair across the coffee table from her.

"How have you been feeling?" he asked, bringing their conversation back around to the baby, and the reason Ruth had come here in the first place.

"Oh, not so bad," she lied.

"Ruth," he said in a tone of voice that told her he didn't believe her, even for a moment.

She laughed; she couldn't help it. How strange it was, to sit here in this room with him again, to spend time in his company and not feel the burden of guilt and grief that had consumed her since the day of Ros's funeral. Before she came here tonight, her imagination had run away with her, full of visions of frosty silence and harsh accusations. To her surprise, he had been warm and considerate, had not pushed the question of their relationship, had made her feel…welcome, and at peace, for once. She supposed they had the peanut to thank for that; faced with the reality of having someone other than themselves to worry about, they'd managed to put aside their own troubles, if only for one night.

"It really hasn't been that bad," she protested. "I'm not feeling as ill as I did, in the beginning. I learned quickly that I usually only got sick if I didn't eat. And yes, I do have terrible heartburn and everything makes me tired, but it's nothing I can't handle."

Harry nodded. "That's good. Promise me you'll tell me, if it gets bad? At work, I mean. I think you've earned a few days off here and there, if you need them."

And then he had to go and muck it all up, by reminding her that he was her boss, and shattering the fantasy of a happy family she'd started to build for them.

"I told you I don't want special treatment, Harry," she said warningly. She meant it, too; she couldn't bear it, if her ability to do her job came under question, couldn't bear the whispers and the knowing glances people would exchange behind her back.

He muttered something under his breath that sounded vaguely like mule. It should have made her smile, to hear that word falling from his lips. Years ago, when she was freshly exiled and running for her life, she'd sent him a postcard and signed it mule, wanting to remind him of their connection, of how much they shared, of the fact that she had never forgotten a single word he'd spoken to her. The reminder of that history, the use of that nickname (the only one she'd ever had, with the exception of Gary Hicks's infuriating insistence on referring to her as Ruthie) should have come off playful and sweet, but instead it churned up memories she'd much prefer remained buried. Their history had made them, had bound them together, but it had torn them asunder, too, and she still hadn't found a way to unpick it all.

She'd run the gamut of emotions tonight, from anxiety to affection to fear to guilt and back again, and it left her feeling exhausted and out of sorts. If she was confused, trying to figure out what was going on inside her head, how much worse must it be for him, trying to predict the unpredictable? Perhaps she could blame it all on hormones, but that was only part of it, and he knew it as well as she. Ruth had always been confusing, and difficult to keep up with, in the emotions department, to herself as much as to Harry. Poor love, she thought sadly. He deserves better.

So for his sake, she tried to bury those more morose thoughts, and decided that it might be best if she made her escape now, while they were still on somewhat good terms with one another, before she put her foot right in it.

"I should probably be going home, Harry," she said, somewhat regretfully, rising from her seat on the couch and digging her knuckles into the small of her back where her muscles had grown tight and sore.

He took his cue from her, also rising, and if he was baffled by her sudden attempt to depart, he hid it well.

"I'll call you a cab," he said.

For the space of a heartbeat she was overcome by the memory of that night he'd shown up at her door, reeking of whiskey and sadness, and she recalled the barbed words she'd thrown at him in an attempt to protect her heart while he stood before her, laying his own bare. How could she have thought that he was not open enough for her? Everything he did screamed the truth of his feelings for her; perhaps she simply hadn't been listening.

Suddenly, she found she really didn't want to leave, after all.

Maybe Harry was remembering, too, because instead of reaching for his mobile, he took a step towards her, and then another, and then another, until he was close enough for her to reach out and touch him.

This is a bad idea, a little voice whispered in the back of her mind, but even as the thought occurred to her, she found her hand was reaching up, almost of its own accord, coming to rest on his broad chest, just above his heart.

Thump thump thump. She could feel the beat of his heart, there under her palm, speeding up to match the pace of her own. There was a look in his eyes, a look she'd come to know well, during the fortnight she'd spent in his bed. That was the look he always gave her, just before he leaned in to kiss her.

She should have stepped away. Only a few hours ago they had been no more than colleagues to one another. Only a few hours ago, she'd been doggedly lying to him about the existence of their baby. Only a few hours ago, she'd very nearly died while he listened in, powerless to stop it. That's adrenaline withdrawal, she thought.

Who cares?

When he lowered his lips to hers, she did not stop him. She rose up on her toes to meet him, wrapping one hand around the back of his neck, drawing him as close to her as she could manage.

Oh, bugger.