Starts of angsty but then everything turns into a bit of a fairytale because I'm like that sometimes and because there's only so much Ruth misery I can deal with before I crack. Also, I realised whilst writing this that I have my own random canon for various characters that wended its way into my fic. Hope no one minds. The poem quoted at the end by Dimitri is called Ode to Hope (how appropriate) by Neruda. Enjoy :)

The strain of the past few days, hours, seconds is too much and she breaks down. She senses Tariq behind her, instead of manly and stoic; there are trickles of water at the corner of his eyes too and it reminds her of just how young he really is. Standing behind her ever so silently is another chance for him to give a show of solidarity (she knows a part of him loves her in that childish adolescent idealistic love kind of way; the kind of helpless puppy dog love that never quite wears away.) His fingers even now could be about to reach out and offer comfort around her shoulder but she knows he will never quite dare (It's like that with idols. You get afraid that if you get too close they will crumble. The reality is always dustier than the image you build up for yourself.)

It doesn't matter anyway. Her fingers are across her face and her whole body moves in motion with her tears. Does she cry for Harry? Does she cry for the Lucas that she thought she knew who let his own moment of definition go? In the end he went as silently as Tariq's tears; no fanfare, no moment of tribulation and epiphany, his feet and his heart and his mind led him off a building. That was all. (Stop questioning that which is known- is there no end to human cruelty? Greece wasn't so idyllic it cancelled out love and the wine bottles weren't drunk because of immeasurable happiness only it was those things that were withheld and went unsaid.)

He's standing on the balcony listening to the Home Secretary lay out the facts. "They're throwing you out into the cold, Harry." Of course, they would, it's just what they did best. "I'd prepare for life after the force if I were you." There's no one. The one woman he sees in the twilight doesn't want him anymore. She'd specified that. (What life is there left in this balding middle aged existence?)

He stands and frowns at the receding sky line and resents it.

Ruth does not place a hand on his. She does not touch him at all. In her mind, she had given up that right when she sent him to face Lucas with hardness and pain in her eyes and voice and heart. She just stands there and wonders how long it will take for his sixth sense to intervene.

Not long it turns out. He turns. "Ruth?" His voice is ragged. Perhaps he too has been crying?

"I made a mistake," she says steadily. She draws closer to him. She repeats it with as much emotion as she can muster. "I made a mistake."

He doesn't say anything.

"Everything I have told you before now about... us... has always been a lie, but I won't make the same mistake Lucas did and let the growing lie and the discovery of it rule over me forever. I can't keep being passive. I can't keep claiming I don't feel, or that I don't have a heart that loves, because I do. This job, what it does to us, I don't think I'll ever come to terms with that and it's because I feel so deeply that I cannot. I was so afraid that I was becoming desensitised, that one day I'd wake up and the deaths would no longer matter, the sacrifices would no longer matter and so I confused these things with you, with my love for you, and let it poison what we could have had."

She talks like one in a dream. She has wanted to articulate these fears since Tom waded into the blue and vanished, no even before that, when she had first realised Tom was on his way out.

"I think I..." she stopped and looked at Harry who had his mouth set in a hard line. "I'm talking too much and selfishly about myself. Harry, I should have said earlier that I love you."

Finally Harry spoke, colourless. "Albany was a fake, Ruth. I didn't give up a real state secret, not for you, not for Lucas."

She put one hand over his where it rested on the balcony. "Can you forgive me Harry?"

"Only if you can forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive- not anymore."

He looks pensieve. "They're throwing me out to the wolves Ruth. Will you stand by me on this one?"

She put her head against his chest and whispered into it, "Yes."

His fingers keep her against him. He is smiling. "I love you Ruth. I want to grow old with you."

And then they say nothing at all. Ruth is finally held and wanted like she's always wished to be, and Harry has his dream in his arms and real hope in his heart.

Dimitri saw Ruth walk up in the direction of the roof. He bit his lip and ducked his head hoping nobody would notice. (If he had looked around he would have seen Tariq restful against his keyboard, staring slack jawed at the place where Ruth had stood and the desolation in his eyes.) Dimitri didn't see. He put his own barely formulated feelings away, and decided to throw away that particular key. (Just because someone spoke your language and understood your country didn't make them yours.) There was always Beth after all, she of the lovely eyes and the acerbic wit. Besides, Dimitri had always loved a happy ending.

He remembered Greece; the pounding soothing blue of the ocean and the clear skies. He breathed in and out, slowly. Dimitri imagined Ruth and Harry locked in the embrace that they should have been in years ago. He was surprised. He was strangely pleased rather than jealous. Then he put those thoughts behind him. It was the future that mattered now, he thought, as he began to recite a poem for the two above like a prayer. His mother had loved it and so had he (because Mum had).

"Oceanic dawn

at the center
of my life.

Waves like grapes,
the sky's solitude,
you fill me
and flood
the complete sea,
the undimished sky,
tempo
and space,
seafoam's white
battalions,
the orange earth,
the sun's
fiery waist
in agony,
so many
gifts and talents,
birds soaring into their dreams,
and the sea, the sea,
suspended
aroma,
chorus of rich, resonant salt,
and meanwhile,
we men,
touch the water,
struggling and hoping,
we touch the sea
hoping."

Beth looks up as Dimitri pauses. "What are you quoting, Dimitri."

"Nothing," he grins sheepishly.

She looks at him hard. Something unspoken passes between them and he sees that somehow she understands. She ends the poem.

"And the waves tell the firm coast;
"Everything will be fulfilled."

Dimitri's mouth curls into a smile. There's a similar one on Beth's face. They feel, for all the world, like the only ones in the room.

Everything feels vindicated, justified and possible...

It's a lovely feeling.

Poor Tariq has no one :( Dimitri just wrote himself into this fic. Whoops. I like him though, so he is allowed to hijack my Ruth/Harry stories. Hope you feel more hopeful and happy after the doom and gloom of the last two chapters :P I tried to be kind.