A/N: This chapter follows the beginning of episode 9.7
When Beth dragged herself inside the flat, the lights were off, and the cat was curled comfortably on the sofa, one eye cracked open and watching her blearily in the darkness. Ruth's bag was hanging on a peg by the door, the only evidence that her flatmate was currently in residence. Beth sighed when she saw the bag; she was glad that Ruth was home, but given the state of silent darkness she'd encountered upon arriving home, she could only assume that Ruth was asleep. It wouldn't do to wake her just now, no matter how troubled Beth was; Ruth was eight months gone, and had endured enough stress for one day. Beth's worries would have to keep for a few hours more.
She shuffled into the kitchen with a vague notion of fixing herself a cup of tea and a bit of toast; while she was busy filling the kettle, she heard the sound of Ruth's bedroom door opening, heard the quiet rustle of the other woman walking down the hall.
"Beth?" Ruth's voice was soft and gentle, and Beth found herself feeling rather relieved. The prospect of spending the entire night stewing over what she'd learned today was grim indeed, and she was grateful for the chance to unburden herself to Ruth. Ruth will know what to do, she thought. Ruth always knows what to do.
Beth turned to face her, offering her a tired little smile. Ruth's petite frame only emphasized the size of her rounded belly, so much more obvious now that she was dressed in a pair of soft cotton shorts and a t-shirt, rather than the endless parade of long skirts and cardigans she wore to the office.
"I'm glad you're awake," Beth told her. "I need to talk to you about something."
Ruth nodded, and waddled over to the table, collapsing into a chair with a sigh, rubbing her hands over her face in a familiar gesture that was equal parts exhaustion and apprehension. Without another word, Beth finished making her tea with a cup for Ruth besides, and joined her at the table.
Where do I start? She wondered. Ruth was clutching her mug in both hands, staring down at her tea as if she hoped she might find the answers to their questions inside. Go back to the beginning, she told herself.
"I know you told me to stop looking into Lucas," she began, flinching as the weight of Ruth's ocean-blue gaze shifted away from her tea, and onto Beth. There was something about Ruth's eyes; they were mesmerizing, in a way, and Beth was suddenly, sharply reminded of the story of Medusa, whose gaze turned men to stone. Oh, Ruth didn't have snakes for hair, but she could trap you with a look, freeze you in place and make you spill all your secrets.
"Oh, Beth, you didn't," Ruth sighed, running her fingers through her hair.
Beth took a deep breath, and told her the whole story, starting with her plan to use homeless men as assets, and going all the way through Marcus's death, and her trip to Malcolm's house earlier in the evening. By the time she finished her throat was scratchy and raw from speaking so much, and Ruth had once more dropped her eyes down to stare unseeing at her tea.
"I'm so sorry, Beth," Ruth told her sadly. "I never should have involved you in this."
The way she spoke, it sounded almost as if she felt responsible for what had happened to Marcus, and Beth wanted to laugh aloud at the absurdity of it. There was only one person to blame for that, and that person was Beth herself. She might as well have strangled the boy herself, so complicit had she been in his ultimate downfall. If she'd done as Ruth asked, if she'd been more careful, none of this ever would have happened.
"We have to tell Harry," Ruth continued, and Beth felt her insides go cold at the very mention of his name. What would Harry do, when he learned of her betrayal?
Before she could give voice to her fears, there came a gentle knock on the front door of their flat.
"I'll get it," Beth told her; Ruth had a hard enough time moving around these days as it was, and Beth wasn't going to give her cause to exert herself unnecessarily.
Beth moved cautiously down the hall toward the door, her heart pounding in her chest. Who the bloody hell is knocking on our door at half past two in the morning? She wondered. One possibility sprang to mind immediately, and when Beth opened the door to find Harry standing on the other side, she wasn't surprised in the least.
"Miss Bailey," Harry said, still using his best Grid voice despite the lateness of the hour and Beth's relative state of undress and the fact that they both knew he was only standing on her doorstep because he'd come round to grovel to his lover.
Beth stepped aside, wordlessly holding the door open for him. He entered the flat, and she closed and locked the door behind him. They hesitated there in the foyer for a moment, each of them wondering whether they ought to say something to the other.
Beth broke first.
"She's in the kitchen, and I'm going to bed," she told him quietly, and just like that she left him, making her way back to her bedroom. Let Ruth explain this whole sorry business to Harry; Beth was too tired, too emotionally and mentally and physically drained, to even consider such an undertaking. And besides, Harry would take this news better, coming from the one person he loved more than anything in the world.
Good luck, Ruth, she thought.
Ruth was not entirely surprised, when Harry came walking into her kitchen. They'd fought, at the office, and she had told him in no uncertain terms that she wanted to be left alone tonight, so of course he had come to her, the way he had done before, his eyes beseeching and sorrowful, all at once. She couldn't find it in her heart to be cross with him; after everything Beth had told her, she was actually glad that he had come. There was so much she needed to tell him.
"Ruth," he spoke her name on a dejected sigh, tucking his hands in his pockets and rocking on his heels in her kitchen doorway, concern and doubt radiating out of him in waves.
Ruth finished her tea, and dragged herself to her feet.
"Come to bed, Harry," she murmured, crossing the kitchen to stand by his side. She reached out and folded his hand in her own. For a moment he stared at her in confusion, but then he seemed to finally process her words, and he gave her a sad little smile and squeezed her hand.
Ruth led him to her room and shut the door behind him, wishing it could be that simple for them to hide themselves away from the horror of their lives outside those walls. Harry looked as tired as she felt; he stood still as a stone, and let her divest him of his jacket, tie, and shirt in short order. There were no fleeting kisses, no teasing caresses, no whispered promises of desire; she was helping him undress because she wasn't entirely sure he could manage it on his own, trying to tell him without words that she forgave him, that she loved him, that he was safe, here with her. His belt and trousers were the last to go, and when he was stood before in nothing but his trunks, they wound their fingers together once again, and made their way to the bed together.
He wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her temple.
"There are things I need to tell you," he murmured sleepily. For her part, Ruth had things to tell him, too, but they were both much too tired and much too sad to get into all of it tonight.
"Sleep," she told him. "We'll talk in the morning. Sleep now."
And so they did.
When Ruth woke in the morning, Harry was gone. He'd left a note under her mobile on the nightstand. Ruth, it said, I thought you'd earned a bit of a lie in. Took the liberty of turning off your alarm. We'll talk when you get to the office. –H
Of all the bloody arrogant, self-righteous things to do! It was Martha's first day on the Grid and Ruth had intended to be there when she arrived. A quick glance at her mobile told her it was already well past nine in the morning; she launched herself out of bed as quickly as her pregnant body would allow, and dragged herself off to have a shower, swearing like a trooper all the while. Bloody Harry, she thought, bloody meddling Harry.
Her anger festered throughout her commute, though it wasn't all directed at Harry. She was angry with herself, too, for not speaking to him about Beth's concerns when she had the chance. That was one conversation she didn't want to have with him on the Grid; in her mind she imagined he'd be much more willing to listen if they were curled up in bed together, rather than facing off in his office. He had taken that choice away from her, and though she knew he was only trying to be considerate, the fact that he had decided she wasn't capable of doing her job made her absolutely livid. It was a bit hypocritical of her, she knew, to be cross with him when only just a few weeks before she'd told him herself that it was time for her to take a step back, but this felt different, somehow. Making that decision on her own was one thing; hearing it from Harry only made her feel like a failure.
By the time she made it to Thames House she'd worked herself into quite a state, and she was spoiling for a fight. Martha was waiting for her, sitting behind her desk bright-eyed and eager as a puppy, and Ruth struggled to contain the groan that nearly escaped at the sight. Martha gave her a little wave and started to approach her, but Ruth turned on her heel and made a beeline for Harry's office instead. First things first, she told herself.
She barged into Harry's office and found him standing by his desk, clutching a large white envelope, his face a study in remorse. That expression drew her up short; what could possibly make him look so forlorn, so hopeless? She did not forget her anger, but she pushed it to the side, concern and compassion for him taking its place for a moment.
"Harry?" she kept her voice low; there was an eerie sort of stillness to his office just now, despite the bustling chaos of the Grid beyond those walls. There was something tomb-like about the air, rarified and still, and it terrified her.
"This came for you via the Greek Embassy," he told her, holding out the envelope. Ruth took it with trembling hands; for a moment she fancied she could hear the dim sound of a gunshot, echoing in the vault of her mind, followed by the alien sound of her own screams. Nothing good could can from this, she thought.
"We set up a forwarding address under your alias; standard procedure after an extraction," Harry continued in a voice heavy with regret. Every word he spoke seemed to pain him, but still he carried on. Ruth could not look away from the envelope in her hands. "It's about the house you owned with…George."
They had not spoken about him, not really, in the nearly two years that had passed since his death. For so long George had seemed to stretch like an ocean between them, preventing them from facing one another, and though they had touched on her life one night as they lay together in her bed there was still so much left unsaid. A question rang in the air between them, a question asked and never truly answered. Did you love him?
Ruth knew the answer, felt it in every fiber of her being; no. The answer was no, she had never loved George, would never love George, could never love George, not as she loved Harry, but she could not bring herself to say it so plainly. It felt like a betrayal of the worst sort, to admit that she had never loved him, and he had died for her anyway.
"His family need to sell it, and, erm, they want your permission. There's a letter in there too. I'm sorry, Ruth." Harry continued to speak, his eyes on her all the while, but Ruth could not face him. The envelope in her hand felt heavy as a gun. "This must be-"
"It's fine," she cut him off, unwilling and unable to have this conversation with him just now. It was all too much: Harry's baby, heavy in her stomach; Lucas's betrayal, heavy on her mind; Beth's heart, drowning in self-recrimination; Martha's eyes, eager to please and utterly unaware that she had signed her life away. All Ruth wanted, in that moment, was to go home, go back to sleep, and not wake up for a long, long time. "I'll take care of it," she told him, and with that she turned and all but fled from the room, willing herself not to cry.
