As they walked, Harry was certain that young Doctor Noble could surely hear the pounding of his heart, so fiercely was it beating in his chest. These last few months seemed like nothing so much as a dream, one he and Ruth had conjured together, a fond wish never to be realized. It was certainly real now, though; the doctor was leading him down the corridor of the hospital's maternity ward, leading him to the room where he would meet his daughter. His flesh and blood, living, breathing daughter. His, and Ruth's.

He keenly felt the weight of that responsibility, having so utterly failed his older children. When he was young and brash he'd given little thought to the impact of a casual word, to the consequences of one too many nights spent on the Grid rather than at home; he'd assumed that his children we resilient, and that they'd get on fine without him. And they were, and they did, and as they grew they came to hate him, in a way, to mistrust him, to see him as a stranger; Catherine had denied him, had sat having a drink with Danny and said with a straight face that her father was dead, not knowing he was listening in all the while, the last fragile pieces of his heart shattering at her words. He might as well have been dead, for all the good he'd done while they were growing up, and he knew that now. Over time he'd made his amends with Catherine –oh God, he realized, I have to ring her – and he longed to do the same for Graham. And as for Sophia, he had a chance to make things right before he ever got them wrong.

Not that he was off to a good start, he mused as he walked. Her birth had very nearly been a catastrophe, and all because of him, because someone wanted something only he could give. It didn't bear thinking about, what might have happened if Lucas hadn't given Ruth the mobile, if the ambulance hadn't gotten to her as quickly as it did. And he hadn't been in the room, when Sophia was born, and she was nearly an hour and a half old already. Harry had already missed her first breath, her first wailing cry; what more would he miss, in the years to come?

In the days leading up to this, Harry had given some rather serious thought to retirement. And as he walked, Harry decided it was time to stop thinking, and time to start doing. He'd come damnably close to losing everything today, and he wasn't going to waste another moment.

"Here we are," Doctor Noble said with a sigh, ushering Harry into a private room near the back of the ward. There was a small couch on the far side of the room, and a big empty space where the bed ought to have been. There was also a strange, square plastic contraption in the corner, decked out in all sorts of electronic bells and whistles, with a very pretty nurse standing guard over it.

"This is Mary, she's the duty nurse this evening. She'll help you with anything you need," Doctor Noble said, and without so much as a handshake, he turned on his heel and departed.

"Don't mind him," Mary said with an easy smile, turning back to her odd little box. "He's had a long day. Or long night, I should say."

He's not the only one.

"Where-"

"She's right here, love," Mary said. Harry stared at the nurse in bewilderment; there wasn't a baby in sight. "Why don't you have a seat there on the sofa and I'll bring her to you."

Harry gave a little nod and crossed the room, feeling a bit befuddled. Nothing about this night made sense, but there was nothing new about that; he'd been feeling confused and out of sorts since the moment he'd first learned Ruth was pregnant. He supposed he'd better get used to it; chances were, with Ruth and Sophia in his house, nothing about his life was really going to make sense for a very long time to come.

The truth behind the box became apparent as Mary turned to him, and carefully crossed the room with a very small bundle tucked into the crook of one arm, and a miniature portable oxygen unit clutched in her free hand. When she reached his side, she very carefully nestled the oxygen unit next to his leg.

"Here we go, love," she murmured quietly as she placed Harry's daughter in his arms for the first time. "Watch her head, watch her head."

Harry stared down in wonder at the little person in his arms, at her soft, delicate face, at the thin plastic of the oxygen delivery tube tucked underneath her tiny button nose.

"She's so small," he whispered in wonder. He didn't dare speak too loudly; he hardly dared breathe. She was Ruth in perfect miniature, with her mother's high, sharp cheekbones and soft lips in the shape of a perfect little bow. Her eyes were closed, thick lashes resting in a fan against her cheeks, the pale skin of her head dusted with a smattering of soft, dark hair. Sophia Grace was lovely, and almost unbelievably small. Harry was truly, deeply terrified he might hurt her, might crush her in his hands that seemed practically gargantuan in comparison.

"Just under five pounds," the nurse told him with a smile, still leaning over him as if she didn't quite trust him with the baby, either. "She's good a size, considering how premature she is."

"And she's healthy?" Harry asked, unable to tear his eyes away from his daughter's face. She was wrapped in a soft white blanket, her head nestled in the crook of his elbow, and Harry was certain in that moment that he'd never held anything more precious in his life.

"We're monitoring her lung function, but so far, she's doing quite well. The oxygen is a precaution, just now. We'll see how she's doing tomorrow, and maybe she'll be able to go without it. All her other responses so far have been normal, but the big test will come when it's time for her to eat. Which should be any minute now."

Mary straightened up, and gave Harry a fond smile he never saw. "I'll go see where your wife's got off to. No sudden movements, yeah?"

Harry nodded; he didn't think he was going to be moving, suddenly or otherwise, for a good long while yet.

"Hello, little one," he murmured, feeling his heart rate double as her gossamer eyelids fluttered at the sound of his voice. "You gave us quite a scare, back there."


Ruth came back to herself slowly, the grogginess fading away, her consciousness slowly returning and bringing it with a rush of pain. She groaned, and turned her head on the pillow; her whole body felt heavy as lead, but in the midst of her confusion and her pain there came a sharp, terrifying sense of incompleteness, the sensation of something vital having got mysteriously lost. By the time she managed to open her eyes, she'd isolated the feeling; the peanut wasn't with her, any more.

"Harry?" she asked, her voice nearly shrill and laced with fear. He was sitting beside her in a distinctly uncomfortable looking chair, a small white bundle sheltered in the crook of his arm. When he heard her voice he looked up at her and smiled, and then he reached out with his free hand and took hold of hers, giving her a little squeeze.

"It's all right, Ruth. You're all right, the baby's all right, everything is fine."

She couldn't help it; at those words she burst into tears. For the last few hours – well, for the hours she'd been awake – Ruth had been consumed by fear, unsure of what Lucas was plotting, terrified when she'd discovered the baby was coming entirely too early, horrified at the words "emergency C-section" and the sight of Harry being dragged from her side. It was all too much, the release of all that fear at once, the boundless joy that replaced it, overwhelming her all and making it hard to breathe. The peanut had made it, after all, had survived Ruth's very worst nightmare and come through well and whole.

Harry rose carefully to his feet, and through the haze of tears and her own racking sobs, Ruth caught sight of the chords stretching from the bundle in his arms to the little machine beside him.

"Is she-"

"She's all right. They're giving her oxygen, just in case. There was some concern about her lungs, but she seems to be doing fine."

Her tears fell all the harder, at that; he'd told her Sophia was fine, but even so, seeing her child hooked up to machines when she was only a few hours old brought the sharp taste of fear back into her mouth.

"What's going on here, then?" the nurse asked as she came bustling back into the room. It was well past midnight, but for all that the woman seemed rather chipper as she bent over Ruth's bed and pushed a few buttons. Beneath her Ruth felt the bed begin to rise, felt her body shift into a sitting position, and with this change in position came a fresh wave of pain, but through her tears Ruth could not find the words to tell the nurse what was wrong.

"She's been through a lot in the last few hours," Harry explained rather blandly.

Ruth couldn't help but laugh; that was the understatement of the century.

"I think I know what'll help, love," the nurse said. "How would you like to hold your daughter?"

Ruth nodded dumbly, taking a few deep breaths, desperately trying to steady herself. She held out her arms and Harry gently eased his blanket-wrapped bundle down into her grasp, mindful of the oxygen tube all the while.

"Oh," Ruth sighed as she looked into her daughter's eyes for the first time. "Hello, Sophia," she whispered. Tears were still sliding freely down her cheeks, but Harry reached out, and brushed them from her cheeks.

"She's so small," Ruth whispered.


Harry couldn't seem to stop grinning. Here was Ruth, wan and pale but mercifully alive and blessedly alert, holding their daughter in her arms, giving voice to the very same thought he couldn't seem to shake. It didn't seem possible, that this tiny little person was real, was here, was theirs, forever. Ruth looked so natural, holding Sophia like this, and as he watched her tears slowly subsided, replaced with the soft little glow he'd come to associate with her over the last few months.

"She's beautiful, and so are you," Harry told her, because he simply couldn't keep the words inside him any longer. He leaned over and kissed her forehead, wanting to stay right here, by her side, for all the rest of his days.


As Ruth held her daughter, she felt the brush of Harry's lips against her forehead, and she smiled. They'd made it, somehow, had managed to come through this together, and there was no one in the world she wanted by her side more than Harry. She had a dim memory of hearing him tell her that he loved her, and she was almost certain that she had replied. She hoped she had, that her response hadn't just been a dream; she wanted him to know what she had always been too afraid to tell him. It seemed so silly now, that she had ever been frightened by what she felt for him; her heart was so full of love she wasn't sure she'd be able to contain it, anymore. She also wasn't sure she'd want to.

Ruth opened her mouth to speak, to tell him, but in that moment Sophia began to cry, very softly, her little eyelids fluttering and her little lips parting to let forth a burst of sound.

"You might try feeding her now, love," the nurse suggested. Ruth started at the sound of her voice; she'd quite forgotten that she and Harry weren't alone, at the moment.

"Will it be all right, after the anesthesia?" Harry asked nervously.

"It's mostly out of her system by now," the nurse answered, "she's just fine to nurse, if this little one cooperates."

The nurse leaned over and very carefully removed the oxygen tube from underneath Sophia's perfect little nose, and then helped Ruth rearrange her hospital gown, baring one of her breasts and gently laying Sophia down on her belly.

"There you go, love," the nurse said in an encouraging sort of voice as Sophia began to shuffle around.


Harry had never seen anything quite as lovely as the smile on Ruth's face when Sophia latched on, and began to nurse. She looked almost beatific, in that moment, and he wanted to capture the image of her in his mind, wanted to plaster it on the inside of his eyelids so he could see it every time he closed his eyes.

"That's a good start," Mary said approvingly. "I'll be back in just a few minutes. If she can keep it down, we'll take that as a very good sign indeed."

Ruth reached out and took hold of Harry's hand, tugging him towards her. He went with her willingly perching on the edge of her bed and cradling her hand between both of his own.

"She's amazing," Ruth said, smiling up at him wetly.

"She is," he said. He could think of no more to say; there weren't enough superlatives in the world to describe the transcendence of the tableau before him.

He was just on the verge of telling her he loved her. He'd said it once before and he dearly wanted to say it again, wanted to say it now and keeping on saying it every day for the rest of his life. There was no way to know for sure if Ruth remembered their earlier frantic declarations, not without asking her, and he very much wanted to ask. He wanted to ask why she'd finally agreed to the name Sophia, and he wanted to ask her to marry him, properly, and he wanted-

The stillness of the moment was shattered by the ringing of his mobile; all three of them jumped at the sound, and Sophia briefly lost her grip. Ruth shot him a disapproving look as he fished his mobile from his pocket and she carefully helped Sophia latch back on.

"It's the Home Secretary," he said apologetically as he stared at the screen. Part of him wanted to hurl his mobile against the wall and be done with it, but there was another part of him, the Section Head part, that knew full well he needed to speak to the man.

"Pearce," he said gruffly as he answered the phone. Mary came shuffling back in, casting a reproachful look his way as she crossed to the other side of the bed to check on Ruth and Sophia.

"Harry, for the love all things holy, please tell me MI-5 didn't blow up a warehouse on the wharf this evening."

Harry sighed.

"It was an operational decision," he said, hedging his bets.

"Well, it was a bloody stupid decision," Towers shot back. "We need to meet, now, to discuss the fall out; this is going to be all over the morning papers."

"That won't be possible, Home Secretary," Harry answered as casually as he could manage. At the words Home Secretary Mary's head had shot up, and the look she gave him now was more appraising than anything else, as if she was wondering what sort of man this was, who'd found his way to her ward.

"Harry-"

"Ruth's had the baby," Harry interrupted. He still couldn't quite believe it, even though he was looking right at Sophia as he spoke.

There was a moment's pause, and then Towers said, rather uncomfortably, "Oh. Well. Uh. Congratulations, Sir Harry. Give her my best."

"Thank you, and I will."

"I suppose our meeting can wait until the morning." No doubt Towers thought that was a rather magnanimous gesture, giving him the night off, but Harry had other plans in mind.

"I would like to meet with you tomorrow," Harry began, though he almost stopped speaking altogether when he saw the way Ruth's face fell at those words. He soldiered on, though; he had a feeling she might like this next bit. "I need to hand in my resignation."

Ruth gasped and squeezed his hand, her eyes filling with tears once more as she stared at him in confusion. For her part, Mary was trying to be as unobtrusive as possible while her gaze darted back and forth between the pair of them. He could only imagine what she thought of all this, as a casual observer, but frankly, he didn't much care.

"Come now, Harry-"

"If you need any further assistance this evening, Home Secretary, you'll need to speak to Dimitri Levendis. Good night." And with that Harry ended the call, and promptly turned off his mobile. For the first time in ten years, he was utterly unreachable, by his own choice. It felt damned good.

"Harry," Ruth whispered his name, sounding equal parts uncertain and hopeful, and he simply couldn't stop himself. Harry leaned forward, mindful of Sophia still nursing merrily pressed against Ruth's breast, and kissed her, hard.

"I love you," he said, leaning back just far enough to look into her glorious blue eyes. "Sod the bloody Home Secretary. The only place I need to be is here with you."

Ruth looked overwhelmed, in that moment, as if words were quite beyond her, and rather than respond she cradled his head in her hand, and drew him back to her for another kiss.

"I love you," she breathed against his lips when they parted. "I love you."

Harry smiled, and kissed her again.