A/N: This is the epilogue to this story. I had a huge amount of fun writing it, so I hope you enjoyed reading it. Thanks again to all those who have left reviews. I have enjoyed reading them.
Ruth began work the next day, arriving with Harry, walking through the sliding doors beside him. No-one on the floor of the Grid seemed perturbed. Ruth watched carefully, as heads lifted and turned to watch them. There was no shock, no sniggers, no words spoken behind hands, but there were smiles, and greetings of, `Welcome back, Ruth.' Before Harry turned to enter his office, he caught her eye and winked at her, an intimate, `I told you it would be fine' kind of wink. She smiled back.
Ruth had no sooner seated herself at her desk, and turned on her computer, than Erin stepped up and leaned towards her, one hand on the end of Ruth's desk.
"Is everything fine with you?" she asked. "Your injury, I mean. Are you well enough to work?"
"I believe so. I've promised Harry that if I feel any level of exhaustion, I'll go home."
"Good, and how is Harry? After his night in the safe house."
"Harry's fine. All he needed was a decent meal and a long sleep." Followed by some truly magnificent sex, she thought, smiling to herself.
Ruth looked up from her monitor, but Erin had gone.
"She means well," Calum whispered from the desk next to her. "That was her way of saying it's okay with her if you and the boss are sha-"
"Calum!"
"Sorry. Inappropriately familiar comment. My mouth speaks before I have time to check the content it's about to deliver. Just in case you care about what I think, Harry has been much nicer to me since you've been …... you know. So you and he have my blessing …... for what it's worth. Anything to make my life easier."
Ruth decided to ignore him before she heard anything else that fell unchecked from his mouth. She gave him a weak smile, and then busied herself on her computer. She knew Calum meant well.
Ruth spent the morning checking and re-checking the details around Ed Field's activities since he'd been decommissioned from the CIA. Lucy had already created a significant dossier on the former agent, but Ruth was able to identify his presence in Eqypt and Libya, Syria and Turkey in the past six months alone. It was possible that he had influence all around North Africa and the Middle East. His involvement with the Gavriks and Russia may only be the tip of an enormous iceberg of activity. She had yet to uncover a clear and definite pattern of activity, but it seemed that his brief had been to create instability in countries with stable economies. It was possible that his plan to have Harry implicated in Elena Gavrik's murder was just a small part of a much bigger plan.
The day passed quickly for her, and by the time 6pm came around, she was ready for home. She looked up to see Harry standing beside her desk.
"Home time?" he said, holding out her coat for her to step into.
She nodded, and then stood while he held the coat out for her, and she slipped her arms into the sleeves. As she turned her back towards him and closed a couple of buttons on the coat, she felt his arms slide around her waist, and his lips on her cheek.
"Someone might be watching," she whispered.
"Then they'll see their boss displaying affection towards his partner. Nothing wrong with that, is there?"
Ruth turned in his arms, and looked up at him. "I suppose not," she replied, before he kissed her lightly on the lips.
"It's only Dimitri, Erin and Calum. Everyone else left an hour ago ….. as you should have."
"I might leave a bit earlier tomorrow," she said. "I'm quite tired."
"It's my turn to cook dinner," Harry said, leading her from the Grid, his hand on the small of her back.
After dinner – which Harry had cooked, and even cleaned up after – they sat together on the sofa, Scarlet curled up at Harry's feet. Every so often, he'd rub his socked foot over the old dog's back, just to let her know he was there, and wasn't about to go away.
"I have something I want to show you, Ruth," Harry said after a long while, sitting up and away from her so that he could undo the buttons of his shirt.
"God, Harry, you're insatiable. You'll have to do all the work, though. I'm beat."
He'd opened the buttons, but his shirt was still closed. "This isn't about sex, Ruth. Even I am exhausted today. I'll need at least another day or two to recover from our weekend." He turned to face her, keeping his shirt closed. "Do you remember what I promised you while you were emerging from unconsciousness after you were shot?"
"Something about matching wounds. I can't remember."
"You told me that I talked bollocks."
Ruth sat back against the back of the sofa, and watched Harry's face, trying to recall the words he'd spoken. All she can remember was that it was a very strange thing for him to be promising.
"Does this ring a bell?"
Harry opened his shirt, and pulled it off his left shoulder – the shoulder where he had a knotted scar from where Tom Quinn had shot him. Ruth had run her fingers over and around that scar many times, but last time she'd seen Harry's naked torso – only that morning when they'd showered together before work – there had been no tattooed heart around the scar, and no `Ruth' written inside the heart, the lettering curly and ornate.
"Harry!" she said, reaching out to touch the heart and her name within the heart. "But it's not a tattoo. Were it a tattoo, your skin would be red and sore. What is it? Who did it?"
"This afternoon when I said I had a meeting with Towers, I went to Camden. You know that woman who paints kids' faces at the Camden market? I rang Alec yesterday while you were in the shower, and I got him to book me in to have it done this afternoon. What do you think, Ruth?"
"It's lovely, even if it is a little weird."
"Weird?"
"It's not like you to have your body painted with a woman's name."
"This isn't just any random name, Ruth. This is yours." He waited for a moment, but she didn't reply, her attention being fully taken by his uncharacteristic gesture. "Ruth, just before you woke up after your operation, I promised you that if you came back to me, I'd have a heart with your name inside it tattooed around my own gunshot scar. The paint should hold up for a few washes, but eventually it will wash off. What do you think? "
"I like it, but why didn't you have it tattooed? Surely that represents a real commitment to us, while this is – what? - two or three days."
"More if I don't wash."
"I prefer you washed, thank you."
"Besides," Harry went on, "I hear that it really hurts to have a tattoo."
"Harry, you're sporting a bloody scar from where Tom shot you at almost point blank range, and you're being all girly about the prospect of a tattoo hurting?"
"I hate needles. Always have."
"Now I know what to have put on your epitaph …...
Harry Pearce
loving father of Catherine and Graham
devoted partner of Ruth
Hates needles, prefers being shot
Rest In Peace"
"That makes me sound a bit psycho, Ruth."
"If the cap fits."
"Do you mean it?"
"Do I mean what?"
"That you'd put yourself on my epitaph and declare us as `devoted'."
"I don't see why not, although why any sensible woman would be devoted to someone who prefers being shot to having a tattoo is beyond my comprehension."
"I didn't say I preferred being shot."
Ruth began running her finger over the scar, and around the heart on Harry's shoulder. It was when her finger followed the flow of the letters making her name that she again spoke.
"Will you have it tattooed into your skin if I do too?"
"You mean, you'd have a heart with your name inside it tattooed around your scar? Why would you do that?"
"No Harry, I'd have a heart with your name tattooed around my scar. It represents a commitment. I'd have to wait a couple of months until the skin around the wound is no longer tender, and by then we'll know for sure whether we're a goer or not."
"Do you think we might not stay together?"
"No, Harry. I see us staying together forever. We've lived through so much, and we're still here. Most couples don't have to endure even half of what we have. What we've been through has served to weld us to one another, and we're now inseparable. Were I to lose you now, I'd have a difficult time going on. I would, but I would only be half alive. I love you, and I want to demonstrate that – to you, to myself – in some way which cannot be broken. Separation is too easy, divorce is easy, but having a tattoo removed is hell."
Ruth pulled Harry's shirt closed, and began to do up the buttons. He reached down to her and touched her lips with his own. "Thank you," he said.
"For what?"
"For loving me as powerfully as you do."
"It's not easy …... but it's worth it."
Suddenly Scarlet jumped up on the sofa and settled in the space between them. Harry went to grab her and put her on the floor.
"Leave her, Harry. I love you enough to be able to share you with your dog."
He leaned back, and reached across Scarlet to hold Ruth's hand. His gaze said `I love you', while Scarlet's look at Ruth through furry eyebrows said, `When are you leaving?'
Ruth lay back against the back of the sofa contented, fulfilled, her hand in Harry's. So long as Scarlet never learned to speak, her life with Harry would be wonderful.