A/N: This chapter comes with a special offering of my sincerest thanks (along with all the love that I possess) to the beautiful starserendipity. Thank you for being my muse and for your never-ending encouragement and support. This story would not exist without you; none of my stories would.


For days Beth watched and waited, looking for some sign that all was not well. Ruth was calm and quiet, a look of serenity gracing her features even amidst the unhinged chaos of the Grid. Harry was Harry, steady and stern, his eyes softening every time he looked at her. Dimitri was in rare form, cracking jokes and even managing to drag the occasional almost-smile out of Lucas, as improbable as that seemed to Beth. And then there was Lucas himself; he weaved his way in and out of the action with practiced ease, his absences plentiful, but always explained away with a shrug of his powerful shoulders. If Ruth noticed, she said nothing, though there were moments, few and far between, when her general aura of peaceful acceptance would diminish somewhat and that little furrow would appear between her eyebrows and her gaze would flick over to Harry's office, her whole body taut and tense as Beth watched her struggle with whether or not she ought to say something. In the end, though, Ruth's concerns went unspoken.

Beth had known that digging into Lucas's activities would be harder, without Ruth by her side, but she hadn't realized quite how impossible it would become. Being the Senior Intelligence Analyst had many perks, it would seem, and among them was the clearance required to pull reports from any operation at will, and access to the GPS tracking system. Beth was not cleared to access any of that information, and she did not possess the hacking skills necessary to take it by stealth. Frustration overwhelmed her, as the days dragged on; how could she chart Lucas's movements, without any assistance?

The answer came to her one day during a briefing, as Harry made some passing comment about the possibility of planting an agent in London's homeless community. Among those who slept on the streets there were people who needed food, needed money, needed booze, and they moved about the city with ease; no one ever looked twice at a homeless man. And thus her idea was born; she knew Lucas was frequenting St. Thomas's, but she wanted to know specific dates and times, and in order to get that information, she needed eyes on the hospital.

And so, though eventually the idea of using the homeless network for their current op was vetoed, Beth set up a network of her own. She provided pay-as-you-go mobiles to three likely candidates, and purchased one for herself. The deal was simple; if they spotted Lucas near the hospital, they told her where and when, and were paid for their time. So far only one of them had tried to cheat her; he'd sent her a message saying Lucas was at the hospital when he was in fact sitting at his desk right across the Grid from her. The other two were as good as their word, and checked in with her regularly. That Lucas was visiting Maya Lahan with alarming frequency was well-known to Beth; in an attempt to gain broader perspective, she set her watchers to keeping an eye out for anyone else who had come to make personal calls on the lovely doctor, as well.

It was early days yet, so she wasn't concerned that no new connections had been made; she would watch, and wait, and bide her time.


Ruth was in a rather melancholy mood, by the time Friday rolled around; they'd managed to stop the bombing of a church, but in the process she's spent a week buried beneath the vitriolic screed spewed by the hateful fear-mongers behind the planned attack. Working in such close proximity to violence and the very worst of human nature left her feeling pensive, and so she decided that it would be for the best if she spent Friday night alone. Since their revealing conversation the week before she had slept in Harry's bed every night, and come in with him every morning, whispers be damned. What could they possibly say to hurt her, when she was already pregnant with his child? There was no use trying to hide the truth, when it was so blatantly obvious, and so she set aside her fears and tried to embrace her newfound confidence in her relationship with Harry.

Tonight, though, she didn't feel the need for his comfort, didn't want to tell him about all the worries weighing on her mind and then sit and listen while he tried to solve her every problem. Harry had an innate need to fix things, and she loved that about him, truly she did, but sometimes she just wanted to sit with her sadness. Sometimes she reveled in it, that feeling of desultory sorrow, unable to focus on any one thing, able only to feel. Perhaps it wasn't a good feeling, but she remembered all too well what it was like to feel nothing at all, and so on occasion she allowed herself this indulgence.

Of course she was able to suffer her despondency alone; she and Beth went home at the same time, sitting next to one another on the tube, unspeaking but still together. It was nice to know that the girl was there, should she feel the need to talk, and nice also to see Beth's willingness to give her space, that quiet understanding that sometimes no words are needed.

When they reached the flat, Beth set about scrounging them up some supper, muttering about how she'd been eating far too many take-aways of late. Ruth joined her, and they stood together in the kitchen, chopping up vegetables while the cat wound round their ankles and mewled up at them pitifully. With a start Ruth realized how much she had missed the girl's companionship of late; for weeks she'd either been with Harry, or worrying about Harry, and she was glad to have the opportunity to spend time with a friend, away from the storm that had been raging in her heart.

"Not so very long now," Beth murmured while they cooked. "How are you feeling?"

Ruth gave her a wan little smile. "I'm all right, really. I feel a bit…odd, you know. She's shuffling everything around in there," at this Ruth laid her hand fondly on her belly, "and it feels almost as if I'm being compressed, somehow. And I'll never get used to the feeling of her moving about. If I think about it too much I get frightened, to be honest. There's a little person in there, and she can move, it's just…"

"Weird?" Beth supplied with a little grin.

"Very," Ruth answered. "And my back aches and I can't go more than thirty minutes without rushing off to the loo and everything makes me tired. I can't believe there's two months still to go."

Beth poured their vegetables into a pan, while Ruth got the noodles going.

"Do you think you'll be ready?" Beth asked her.

God, no, Ruth thought glumly. How could she ever be ready for this? Pregnancy was one thing; the peanut was still a part of her, and taking care of her right now consisted of nothing more strenuous than remembering to eat and sleep. Once the peanut was born, though, everything would change; there would be a real, living, breathing, screaming child, dependent on Ruth for everything, and that thought terrified her more than words could say. All the parenting books in the world didn't seem to help her, either. Everyone had a different theory, on how best to raise a baby, and most seemed to agree that as a mother she ought to just know, inherently, what was best for her child. Ruth had never spent time around babies, had never really wanted a baby of her own, and now that she had one on the way, she was paralyzed with fear.

The peanut would look to her, to meet her physical needs, but more than that, the peanut would grow into a child, a little girl whose entire worldview would be shaped by her parents, and Ruth keenly felt the weight of that responsibility. Her own life had been so tumultuous; Ruth had always struggled with regulating her emotions, and making connections with other people had never come easily to her. How could she teach her child to be brave and kind and hopeful, when she herself was so often swept away by doubt and grief? How could she and Harry teach their child to be strong and independent, when they had experienced so much horror, and wanted only to keep her safe? She supposed that if it came to it she could teach their child how to read, but she could not fathom teaching her how to live.

"We set the nursery up last weekend, and we're still trying to buy all the things we'll need," Ruth said, ignoring the more personal aspect of Beth's question and focusing instead on the practical details involved in welcoming her baby to the world.

"So things are good, with you and Harry now?" Beth asked with a keen glint in her eye. Ever the spook, Ruth thought ruefully.

"I think so, yes."

"That's good," Beth responded, and their conversation ground to a halt, neither of them willing to pursue that particular avenue of discourse any further. They worked together in silence, their dinner slowly coming together.


When they had finished eating, Beth watched with some amusement as Ruth shifted uncomfortably in her chair. There was clearly something on her mind, but she just as clearly didn't want to share it, and Beth waited patiently to hear what she had to say. Ruth did eventually find her voice, just as Beth was finishing her wine.

"I've been thinking, it's probably time I cleared those boxes out of your closet," Ruth said.

Beth sat up a little straighter at those words. Unbeknownst to Ruth she had discovered long ago that those boxes contained the last remains of Ruth's old life, and she'd been deeply curious about them ever since discovering the nature of their contents. She gave a little nod, and then suggested, "I could help you, if you like."

Ruth smiled up at her gratefully. "I'm not supposed to be lifting heavy things, and some of them have books inside. I would appreciate the help."

And so Beth topped up her wine, and they trudged down the hallway together. Beth pulled down the first box that came to hand; it was fairly heavy, though not so large as to be cumbersome, and she dropped it on her bed next to Ruth, who turned to it with trembling hands.

"What's in there?" Beth asked, already knowing the answer, but feigning ignorance for the sake of preserving Ruth's feelings.

"After I…left, internal affairs seized all my possessions, and they went through the lot of it. It's a long process, and my things kept dropping to the bottom of the list as more urgent demands came in. They released things to my mother one box at a time, and she sold most of it. This is what was left, after two years."

Ruth eased the top off the box, and Beth peered inside, eager as a schoolgirl. She was rather disappointed; this box seemed to contain a few articles of clothing, and several stacks of records.

"They kept your clothes?" she asked, watching as Ruth pulled out a flouncy, rather bohemian looking blouse, in a vaguely floral pattern of reds and browns.

"I'm not sure there was really any rhyme or reason to it," Ruth told her. She ran the blouse through her fingers, her eyes faraway. Most of the clothes in the box were ruffled and pleated and so much…more than what Ruth wore nowadays, and Beth watched as her flatmate shuffled through them, wondering at the change in her. The Ruth Beth knew favored black and navy and dark purple, her skirts long and simple, her blouses neat and utterly unmemorable. How different must she have been back then, Beth wondered; they were just clothes, but they seemed to her to be pieces of another person entirely.

At Ruth's orders Beth fetched a bin bag for the clothes; Ruth had decided to donate them. The records went back into the box, and Beth took another from inside the closet. This second one contained books, and lots of them, and was so heavy Beth nearly toppled over when she tugged it free from its perch. Ruth pulled each volume out, one by one, running her hands lovingly along their spines and smiling, greeting them as old friends. Half of them had titles in languages Beth could not decipher, but one near the bottom of the box caught her eye, and she pulled it free, turning it over in her hands.

It was a book about cats, about their physiology and their evolution in the context of human history. Ruth's attention was focused on another text, and so Beth flipped open the cover of the cat book, stopping dead in her tracks when she saw there was a small note tucked inside the front cover.

Happy Birthday, Ruth, was all it said, but it was written in a very familiar heavy black scrawl. Harry wrote this, Beth mused; Ruth must have noticed her sudden silence, because she was looking at her strangely, and then she caught sight of the book.

"Oh," she sighed, and without a word Beth handed it over, sensing its value to her.

"I thought this one was lost forever," Ruth said, running her fingertips over the book's cover.

"There's a note inside; was it a gift?" Beth asked, hoping she wasn't being too obvious in her curiosity.

Ruth nodded, her cheeks coloring faintly. "It was the first birthday present Harry ever gave to me, a long time ago."

"He gave you a book about cats?" Beth's amusement was not feigned; she couldn't believe that Harry Pearce could be quite that…clueless.

"We didn't know each other all that well, at the time," Ruth said, rushing to his defense as ever. "He knew I liked cats so…" the corners of her mouth ticked up as she struggled not to smile.

Every time she turned around it seemed Beth encountered another reminder of the long, fraught history between the two of them. Harry had never given anyone else on the Grid a birthday present, as far as Beth was aware, and that he had chosen to give one to Ruth, so early in their acquaintance, seemed to speak to a bond that existed between them long before their romance had bloomed.

"It feels like something that happened to someone else, now," Ruth said softly. Her whole demeanor had shifted; it seemed that her initial delight at finding the book had been replaced with a deep sorrow. "It wasn't so very long ago, but so much has changed…we've lost much, he and I."

"But you're still here," Beth reminded her gently, wanting to see her smile again. "You're still here, and so is he, and you've got the peanut now, too. Maybe that doesn't diminish the pain, but it ought to give you something to be happy about."

Ruth reached out and patted her fondly on the leg in an old-fashioned, almost motherly sort of way. "You may be right about that," she said.


"I hope you don't mind me calling," Harry said, and Ruth smiled, stretching out luxuriously beneath her duvet. Spending so much time in Harry's bed had reminded her of her fondness for sleeping naked, and she was indulging tonight, telling herself that she'd chosen to forgo clothes in the face of the oppressive summer heat, when the truth was she just liked the way it felt.

"You seemed a bit out of sorts when you left, and I wanted to make sure you were all right," he continued.

"I was feeling a bit sad, before, but I'm all right now. Beth and I made a lovely dinner, and then she helped me go through some of my boxes."

Harry grunted on the other end of the line. "Find anything interesting?"

Ruth's gaze flicked over to her nightstand, where the cat book sat, having just been read for the first time in years.

"Oh, we found all sorts," she answered.

They were both of them quiet for a time; even face-to-face they were neither of them particularly loquacious, and these occasional silences didn't bother her. She liked to hear him breathing on the other end of the phone, liked to know that he was there, with her, thinking about her.

"I was wondering," he said hesitatingly, "if – when you do move in – if you might like to…move in to my room, with me."

Ruth smiled at his tentativeness; she'd been wondering when he'd bring this up. The offer to move in with him had originally been extended with the caveat that she could have the spare room to herself. Though she liked the idea of having that option, should either of them feel the need for space, she had no doubts as to where she'd prefer to sleep.

"I would like that," she told him in a low voice. "I would like that very much."


Beth had nearly drifted off to sleep when the ringing of her mobile shattered the stillness and set her heart to racing. She fumbled for it in the dark, realizing at the last second that it was her pay-as-you-go, and not her work mobile. What on earth? She wondered; it was far to late for either of her assets to be ringing her.

"Yes?" she answered, hoping she didn't sound as tired as she felt.

"I've found him, miss," the reply came. It was Marcus, the younger of the two men currently in her employ. He was alarmingly young, if she were being honest with herself; every time he called her miss she felt more like a headmistress than a spy. "I'm down by Battersea, and he's here, miss. He's meeting someone."

Beth's stomach clenched tight with fear. "Can you see who he's meeting?"

"'Course I can," he told her indignantly. "Only this crap mobile you gave me don't take pictures."

Beth ran her fingers through her hair, thinking hard. "Ok, Marcus, listen to me very carefully. I want you to get a good look at the man he's meeting. I need you to remember everything about him, ok? And then I need you to meet me tomorrow morning, in the usual place."

"Sure thing, miss. Will you bring me coffee?"

"Marcus, I'll buy you a full English breakfast if you can tell me what that man looks like tomorrow."