Thank you to all who have read this so far, and especially to those who have reviewed. I am interested in the responses to this fic because I am writing it as a bit of self-indulgence. I have had this story floating around me for the 3 months I've been visiting this site. I just wanted to put it out there and see if it worked. It looks like being 10-12 chapters in length.

oOo

They talked all afternoon, and well into the evening. These two people, both of whom had once had so much difficulty in opening up to one another, now more than made up for their previous reticence. A meal was delivered to the room at 6 o'clock, and Dimitri brought it into them and placed the tray on the table by the window. He noticed how they were sitting, their chairs pulled close together, their linked hands resting on Harry's knee. Dimitri envied them their easy and comfortable way with one another. He knew they'd struggled to find their way to one another, but he had always seen them as comfortable in one another's presence, like they had been born to be together.

"Are you two alright now?" Dimitri asked. "It's just that there are still some things which need my attention back at the facility. Do you want me to bring any of your things from there, Ruth?"

She thought for a while before answering. "Yes, I have a sponge bag in the bathroom – the bathroom off Room 22. It's green and red and white striped, and it has all my personal hygiene things in it." She would also have liked her underwear, but had no idea how to delicately articulate this in front of these two men, and she wasn't especially happy about the prospect of sending Dimitri in to search for her smalls. He might be a spy, but she was sure he would rather rescue a rabid dog than her underwear.

"Consider it done," Dimitri said. "You'll be alright then, Harry?"

"Yes, I think we're alright now, aren't we?" he said, looking at Ruth, who nodded. "I don't know about you, but there's nowhere else I'd rather be right now."

Ruth replied by touching his cheek with her finger. "Me neither," she added.

Over dinner, Harry suggested to Ruth that he was prepared to sleep in the single bed in the adjoining room of the suite they were in, so that she could sleep alone in the large bed.

"No, Harry, I don't want that," she replied. "We've spent so long apart, I don't wish to sleep anywhere but in the same bed as you from now on."

"I want that also, but isn't it too soon?"

"Harry, you took me out to dinner – when was it – over five years ago now, and I've spent the intervening years either being dead to you, or procrastinating. I don't want to do that any more. I just want to be close to you. The therapist in the medical centre told me on more than one occasion that you'd fallen in love with your new analyst. Felicity something? They told me you were planning to marry her. They even showed me a photo of her. She's quite beautiful."

"Felicity Sharma is my new analyst, she is beautiful, granted, but she's widowed, and like me, her heart is still owned by her late partner. The closest we ever came to one another was one night when we each confessed to the other our undying love for our respective dead loved ones."

"That's good to hear. Not that she's a widow, but that you're not in love with her."

"Never was, and never will be, but I do like her. She's a force of nature."

"It shook me up quite a lot when they told me you'd fallen for her. I was determined that if by some miracle I ever got to meet you again, I wouldn't hold back my feelings."

"Ruth, pardon my bluntness, but you seem so much more …... sure of yourself than you were previously. You don't hold back at all."

"That's part of the new me, Harry. Not many people get a chance to begin again from scratch."

"I also need to confess something else to you, Ruth. I didn't buy your cottage in Suffolk. I had a look at it around a week after you'd died, but I couldn't bear to be in it. It felt empty of you, but full of the dreams we had for living there together, and it would have been too -"

"Harry, there's no need for you to explain your decision to me. I wasn't here to help you make that decision, so I can't complain, can I?"

Harry nodded his reply. "So long as you understand why I didn't buy it," he added.

"Of course I do."

Harry was surprised and even shocked by the changes in Ruth. He had expected her to be different, but not in this way. He also knew that there were likely to be difficult times ahead. He wanted to have a sex life with Ruth, but not right now. It was too soon, and they had a need to reacquaint themselves with one another. He believed it to be important that they began their new relationship based on who they were, rather than who they remembered themselves to be. There were bound to be disagreements over where they should live, how they should support themselves, and whose responsibility it was to do what. He had been married, and so he knew that it would very likely be the little things which could potentially drive a wedge between them. Then there was Ruth's ongoing health. He had no idea whether there would be long-term complications as a result of her treatments. But neither did she. Chances are, they were both sitting on a time bomb. Or not.

They soon exhausted themselves with their talking, and so by 10 o'clock they were ready for bed. Harry accepted Ruth's invitation to sleep with her in the big bed. She was already tucked up on her side, her head on her own pillow, the one Harry had kept with him since she'd died, when he slid under the duvet, trying as hard as he could to not touch her. He turned towards her, aware of the warmth of her body under the duvet.

"You can touch me if you like, Harry," she said without turning to face him.

"I'd like to hold you if that's alright," he replied.

"It's more than alright," she replied, waiting for him to put his arms around her.

Harry slid closer to her, and put his arm around her, grasping her top hand and tucking their hands around her waist. Despite him wanting to keep his body away from hers, he felt her slide her buttocks back until they nestled into him. He groaned slightly, feeling the beginnings of a response from his body.

"Ruth," he said softly to her back, "it's been a long time for me, and I may get – er – hard, with you lying against me like this."

"God, sorry," she said, turning to face him. "I hadn't even thought of that. I don't want to upset you."

"I'm not upset, Ruth, just mildly aroused. I can handle it. Just don't squirm against me, that's all. I want to make love to you, but not yet. We have a lot of talking to do first."

Ruth rolled back on to her side with her back to him so that Harry could curve his body around hers, their hands linked around her waist. In this comfortable and natural state, they fell asleep quickly and deeply.

.

When Harry awoke it was barely light, and he was alone in the bed. He was not immediately concerned, as he checked the other room and the bathroom and toilet, all to no avail. He opened the door to the corridor, looking up and down, and still no Ruth. Not wanting to panic, but feeling his heart pumping hard and fast against his ribs, he quickly dressed and went downstairs. He checked the dining room and the bar, but no-one was about. Finding the front door unlocked, he ventured outside and walked down the driveway. He found her standing at the main entrance to the hotel, gazing eastwards.

"Ruth, what are you doing?"

"Harry. Come and join me. I'm watching the sunrise. Isn't it beautiful?" Her face showed wonder at this most everyday of events.

Harry stepped up to her and put his arms around her from behind, so that she leaned against him, her head resting against his shoulder. "How long is it since you've seen the sun rise?" he asked her, his mouth close to her ear.

"Months, maybe longer," she said. "We were …. discouraged from leaving the medical centre at night, so I spent each evening in my room. By the time I left the facility each day, the sun was up. This is the best time of the day, wouldn't you say?"

Harry reached around and kissed her cheek. "Especially now."

"Yes, especially now," she agreed.

"Ruth," Harry began, "you know that you're not yet out of danger. We still don't know who's behind this whole research project, and until we have them all in custody, your life may be in danger. You carry with you a lot of information which could incriminate the people responsible for this."

"I know, Harry. I'm sorry. I just wanted to see a sunrise."

"That's fine, Ruth. Wake me next time, and I'll come with you. I'm here to keep you safe, although I haven't always been able -", and then he stopped.

"Harry," Ruth said, turning in his arms, her face close to his, "you were not responsible for me being stabbed. You couldn't have stopped me from standing in front of you. That wasn't your fault." She reached up to put her lips on his. It was their first kiss since he'd kissed her cold lips on the day she'd died. It was gentle and soft, and very, very sweet. They each leaned into the other, willing the kiss to last longer.

The loud honking of a car horn and an accompanying shrill whistle from a car as it sped past the hotel caused them to jump apart. "This is hardly an ideal place for a private kiss," Harry commented, drawing her into his arms.

.

After they breakfasted in the dining room, they went back to their room. While Ruth was soaking in the bath, Harry's mobile phone rang. He picked it up and answered.

"Harry," said a fluid male voice, "I was intending giving you your notice, since you've missed the last two sessions with your psychologist, but your analyst also tells me you're some kind of hero, and that I should give you a medal, or some such rubbish."

"Home Secretary, how good of you to ring. What I have to tell you should not be spoken of on my own personal mobile, so if you'll hang up, I'll ring your private line with a safe phone. OK?"

"Very well."

Harry retrieved one of the pay-as-you-go phones that Erin had given him before he left London, and he rang back the Home Secretary on his private office line.

"Harry, tell me what you've done, so I can decide whether to have you knighted all over again, or put you in the Tower and throw away the key."

"I can't explain any of it on the phone, Home Secretary. It's somewhat …... bizarre. You'll have to come to Bristol. This is the address." And before Harry hung up, he gave the Home Secretary the address of the hotel, and to ask for Mr and Mrs Eamonn Price. He was aware that there was a slight possibility that the Home Secretary's journey to Bristol may attract the wrong kind of attention, but Harry also needed the Home Secretary on side, and to do that, he needed him in his own territory.

Harry then rang Felicity on another safe phone, and asked her to deliver in person to the Home Secretary her findings on the research team based in Bristol and Oxford. "It's important he gets it today, Felicity. I've asked him to come to Bristol. Ruth worked for him at the time she was stabbed. She's almost as important to him as she is to me – but not quite."

"And how is the lady in question?"

"She's – she's great."

"You hesitated. Is something wrong?"

"No, on the contrary. Nothing's wrong. Everything's wonderful. I guess I don't believe in miracles, even when I witness them."

"I understand that. Tomorrow you can expect a couple of security services doctors to want to take a look at Ruth."

"As long as they examine her here, in our room at the hotel, they're welcome."

"I'll see what I can do."

.

Ruth entered the bedroom still in her bathrobe, her hair wet, a towel in her hand. "Would you like to dry my hair for me, Harry?"

"Sure," he said, pleased that she was trusting him with such an intimate and personal activity. "Sit down over here by the window, and I'll stand behind you."

Harry stood behind her and gently rubbed the towel through her hair. He could feel his self-control slowly slipping as his hips touched her shoulders, and she murmured her appreciation of what he was doing. There was a very strong part of him was ready to say to hell with waiting, and to slip the robe from her shoulders and carry her to the bed. He needed a shower, a cold one, and fast. He dropped the towel on the table, mumbled something about needing a shower, and walked straight to the bathroom.