A/N: I'm having to hurry this along. My list of unpublished stories is building up (5 and a bit at last count).
Thank you to all who have followed and reviewed this story. This is the final chapter.
Harry wakes suddenly, unsure of where he is. It's when he hears the toilet flushing from down the hallway, that he manages to put together the pieces of his personal orientation puzzle. He is in the MI-6 safe house in Kent, and he is here because Ruth has had to go into hiding …... just in case they have not captured the last of Mace's men.
He looks across as Ruth crawls back into bed. It is the dark pink flannelette pyjamas she's wearing which brings back the events of the night before.
"Ruth," he says quietly, and she jumps, putting her hand over her heart as she breathes in deeply.
"Jesus, Harry, you scared me."
"We should talk," he says, and she looks at him warily and nods.
When Ruth sits up against her pillow, watching him, waiting for him to begin, Harry realises that she expects him to do the talking. He has no idea what happened last night, so he is hardly the right one of them to be initiating this conversation. He lifts himself up so that, like Ruth, his back is resting against his pillow. Then he takes a deep breath before he speaks, hoping that what comes out of his mouth is the right thing to be saying, because he is afraid that their whole relationship – their future – depends upon his choice of words.
"Ruth," he begins, "do you remember last Friday night? The night we met for dinner at Oliver's."
"Of course I remember."
"Do you remember how it felt to be able to express our feelings for one another? And then the sex afterwards …... do you remember that?"
"Yes. Why do you ask?"
"Because for me, nothing has changed. I still feel the same way. Nothing could ever change that. I have loved you for – oh – more than four years now, and two of those were spent apart from you. Do you not think that my feelings for you, my regard and respect for you has not already been tested? We spent two years living apart from one another, and you lived with another man, and I had several short-term, meaningless affairs while you were gone, and yet still we love one another. Do you not think that the strength of what we are, what we have, can't stand a test like what happened to you in the early hours of Friday morning? Because I have no doubt that my love for you is stronger than that."
Harry has been looking at Ruth while he speaks, and she has found it difficult to maintain eye contact …... not a good sign in his estimation. He feels like he is locked in battle for the survival of their relationship, but he has no idea what it is he's battling. There is something within Ruth which is fighting being with him. As he sees it, she is afraid of being with him - she always has been - and why that is, he has no idea.
"I know it is, Harry," she says at last. "I have no doubt that you will love me for the rest of your life. There are not many women who can say that about their partners."
"So …... what's going on?"
"I'm not used to …..."
Ruth stops, and looks down at her hands, which she has clenched together on top of the duvet. Harry desperately wants to take her hands in his and rub them between his own hands, to reassure her, but he doesn't.
"Not used to what, Ruth?"
When she looks up at him, he again sees the beginnings of tears in her eyes. He longs to hold her, but it's not yet the right time for that.
"I'm not used to being loved like this. When Fred Jenner was tying me up, it was clear he was planning to rape me, and I thought, `Just my luck to have this happen when Harry and I have just begun. He'll not want me after this.'"
Harry can hold off no longer. He reaches over to her side, and draws her to him, only then realising that while Ruth is wearing long, warm pyjamas, he is wearing nothing at all. He and Ruth had removed his sleep wear last night as they'd been preparing to make love. He pulls her close to him, and lies back against his pillow, his arms holding her tightly, like he'll never let her go. He knows that he could talk and talk about this for the rest of the day, and she'd never believe him. He needs a different approach.
"Ruth," he says, his mouth very close to her ear, "how would it be if you imagined that you are a woman who deserves love …... the kind of love which I have for you. How would that feel?"
Harry feels her thinking …... her whole body seems to vibrate with her intense thoughts. "That would be wonderful, Harry."
"So, what about you keep imagining that – that you deserve to be loved whole-heartedly. When we wake up tomorrow morning, make your imagining be like putting on your underwear …... you create it before you begin the day."
Ruth turns to look at him, and to Harry's relief, she looks far more relaxed. "I'm sure it's not that easy. I've been doubting my worth ever since …..."
"Ever since what, Ruth?"
Ruth takes a deep breath, and then speaks softly against his shoulder. "Ever since my father died."
Harry suspected as much, but hadn't been prepared to launch into a discussion about Ruth's father, not unless she initiated it. "I'm not your father, Ruth, and I'm sure he didn't want to leave your life when he did. Like it or not, I'm planning to live to a great age …... with you. My love for you will only end with my death."
They hold one another for a long time, and then Harry feels Ruth struggle to sit up, after which he feels her hands on his chest, and her lips on his. He relaxes into the kiss, and then, after he feels his own body react to the kiss, he allows his hands to wander to Ruth's clothing, as he begins to open the buttons of her pyjama top. They struggle to maintain lip contact while he is taking off her top, and she is pushing her pyjama pants down.
Harry pulls out of the kiss, and suggests that he deal with her pyjama bottoms, while she takes off her top. Of course, he has an ulterior motive. As he slides her pants down, he allows his fingertips to graze the skin of her hips and rounded buttocks, and as he pushes them over her hips, his fingers find the delicate skin of her inside thighs. She feels wonderful. And warm. After he's pushed them to below her knees, she kicks them off, which allows him to shift down the bed to bury his face between her legs.
As he licks and sucks and murmurs against her sensitive skin, he reaches up to touch her breasts with his fingers. This feels so good for him; he hopes she enjoys it just as much. He feels Ruth squirming beneath him, just as he notices her breathing becoming heavier.
"Now, Harry," she says, her voice rasping.
He slides back up the bed, kissing her breasts on his way, and then burying his face in her neck, where he sucks on her skin, drawing it into his mouth.
"How do you know I'm ready?" he asks, lifting his head to look at her.
"You're always ready."
He smiles at her, and then she lays her hands on his cheeks, and places her lips on his, allowing the kiss to deepen and become intimate. Harry enters her while they're still kissing, Ruth having parted her legs, and wrapped them around his waist. He slowly buries himself deeply inside her, and then waits. He wants this to last – no popping of corks, no desperate fuck this time. This is a celebration of them – he and Ruth – and they deserve their love-making to be slow and languid. When his breathing settles, Harry begins moving slowly inside his loved one, and she moves with him. It is as though they are in a rowboat, cast adrift on the sea, moving gently, in sync with the undulating waves. Harry is sure he can hear the slap of water against the hull of the boat, and the distant cries of seagulls, although a part of him also knows he is hearing the slap of his skin against hers, and her small cries from deep in her throat as her passion builds.
They each lose all sense of time and place. They forget they are in an MI-6 safe house in the country. They forget that they have been parted for two years. They forget for a time that it was only a little over 24 hours earlier that Ruth had been assaulted when she'd been in hiding on a boat in the Gillingham marina …... and that her assault had had no connection with her having been in hiding. It was just some random man who'd been turned down by her, and had acted out his anger towards her, as he'd previously done with other women, but had to date managed to escape being caught.
They move together against the pillows in a gentle rocking motion, enjoying their closeness. It is Ruth who first feels the tightness deep within her, signalling her approaching release, and she grasps Harry's shoulders, and pulls him closer to her, as she lifts her buttocks off the mattress in an effort to get closer still to him. Having successfully held off his own completion for some time, Harry senses the change in his lover, and begins to sink himself deeper into her, increasing the speed of his movements.
They collapse together, and Harry rolls on to his side, taking her with him, so that they lie together, facing one another. He is exhausted, but he has just enough energy to exchange a few light kisses.
"Alright?" he asks.
"Mmm, nice," is Ruth's reply.
16 days later:
Harry enters his office after returning to the Grid from an early morning meeting with some members of the JIC. He'd even received an apology from Jonathan March from MI-6, who had sworn that Mace was on the level, and that Harry had been over-reacting. He looks around the Grid to see everyone busily working – everyone except Ruth, who is missing from her desk. It is her first day back at work, and already she's not at her desk. Where can she be? Jo, seeing his frown, indicates with her eyes that Ruth is on the roof. Harry nods, and quickly leaves his office.
He steps through the door and on to the roof, and while he waits for the door to close behind him, he watches the figure hunched over the balustrade, his heart bursting with emotion for her. It is less than a month since Malcolm had sent him on that ridiculous clandestine blind date, and in that time, so much has changed, ultimately for the better.
He then quickly approaches her, and stands beside her. When he looks down at her, he is surprised to see she is crying.
"Sweetheart, what is it?" he says, resting a hand on her cheek so that his thumb brushes away the tears.
Ruth responds by leaning against him, even though it was she who had decided that there should be no demonstrations of affection between them while they are at work. Harry supposes that because the roof balcony is not part of the work place, the normal rules of engagement do not apply to them while they're there. He slides his arms around her, and pulls her against his chest until her sobbing eases.
"What is it?" he says again.
"It's this." Ruth shuffles inside her coat pocket, and removes her passport in the name of Ruth Evershed. "Malcolm gave me my new – old – identity back, and suddenly it overwhelmed me. The past two years on the run. I don't know how I did it, Harry."
"Neither do I," he says quietly, close to her ear.
"I'll be alright. I just needed to let it all out. I've been bottling up my feelings for so long."
"Take as long as you like, Ruth." Harry has dropped his arms from around her, but still stands close to her, leaning into her.
"I've been so keen to get back here to work, to rejoin your bloody Brotherhood, that I'd forgotten that I've been running for two years. And then it hit me that I no longer have to run …... that here – with you, with the others on the Grid – I'm safe. It is here that I belong."
When he doesn't answer her, Ruth looks up at Harry to see him gazing across the London cityscape, a smile on his face. "What?" she says.
His smile widens as he looks down at her. "I was thinking …... about the name – Brotherhood - to which you object so violently -"
"Not violently, exactly …..."
"But you do object to it, don't you?"
"Of course. It's sexist, not to forget that it could also describe Mace and his cronies, the JIC, men's clubs throughout the world, the Taliban, the Nazi party -"
"Steady on, Ruth. It's just a word."
"And words can hurt, Harry. They can also exclude people …... like half the population for a start."
"How about we run a poll on the Grid, and offer a prize to the best name for a collective of Grid personnel?"
"If you like, Harry. I'm just glad to be back here – with the others, with you. It's so good to be back."
Harry again slides his arm around her, and pulls her against his side, and gently places his lips against her temple. "It's good to have to back."