I do actually have a vague idea how this story is going to go along now. Anyway, short little update...

It was exactly midday when Ruth left the grid to go down to registry and collect a host of files they needed. Chris leant back on his chair, watching her departing figure as his eyes looked her up and down. Not bad at all he thought to himself. "Is she seeing anyone?" he asked to no one in particular as the pods closed around Ruth. He turned and saw Harry who's hands had frozen flicking through a sheaf of paper he was meant to be reading.

"Who?" he said in a low voice, his eyes burning a hole in the paper he was clutching onto for dear life. Unfortunately Chris didn't see the warning signs, focusing as he was on the beautiful woman who had just left his eyesight.

"Ruth Evershed," Chris said, turning his chair to finally face Harry who was still studying the papers in his hands.

"Why are you asking me?" Harry asked, still not facing him.

"Because you were the one standing here," Chris said honestly.

"I don't discuss any personal matters about my staff," he said. Looking up from his hands he glared at Chris, pure hatred boiling in his brown eyes. Chris looked completely bewildered at this reaction. All he'd done is ask about Ruth. He hadn't sold himself out to Al Queda! "I have work to do," Harry added, storming back to his office, just refraining from running.

"My God I've made an impression there," Chris said as his office door slammed shut. Dimitri, who had been passing looked in the direction Chris indicated.

"Yeah, he isn't going to like you on principle," Dimitri said. "And you've committed a fatal error as well."

"What's that?" Chris asked, genuinely interested in how he could have upset Harry so seriously so quickly.

"You're looking at Ruth."

"So what?" Chris said blankly.

"I just wouldn't," Dimitri said. He didn't know their history as he had only been here a few weeks himself and he didn't want to. It was enough for him to know that getting in between Harry and Ruth was a very bad idea. But if this guy wanted to do it the hard way, that was his decision.

"Oh, has he got a fantasy about her?" Chris asked. "Last fling of his career, something like that? Going for the younger woman he knows he can't have?"

"Stay out of it," Dimitri advised before leaving Chris to get on with some of his own work.

"This is crazy," he said to himself shaking his head.

Back in his office Harry looked at the half empty whisky bottle and thought he'd really had enough as the day hadn't yet squeezed much past noon. "Is she seeing anyone?" the words kept reverberating around his head around and around on a never ending circle of torture. In an ideal world he'd have been able to reply "Actually she's married." Or "That's my wife you're talking about." Either would have been very satisfactory to say to that jumped up idiot. He collapsed into his chair and grunted at the knock on the door. He straightened up when Ruth came in.

"God, what is it?" he asked seriously. "You knocked," he added in the silence.

"Nothings wrong," she said in her soft voice that he found so irresistible. "I'm just a little… worried about you today. You seem… off."

"I don't like that man," Harry admitted, though not the real reason why.

"You were never going to like him, because of the reason he's here," she said accurately. Harry didn't acknowledge she had a point. "He didn't ask for this and he's actually quite nice."

"Perfect," Harry grumbled.

She sighed, knowing this wasn't going to get anywhere, not when he was in a mood like this. She turned to the door and then stopped facing him. "I know its not my place and none of my business at all, but… I do think maybe you shouldn't drink so much when you're at work. Its only twelve." She blushed because she didn't feel comfortable criticising any aspect of him but the whisky bottle had been sitting in the middle of his desk. He looked at her, eyes soft as they went over her face.

"I know," he said in the light voice he reserved just for her. "Thank you." She nodded and then closed his door behind her. Harry closed his eyes and prayed for sanity