Had absolutely no idea where I was going with this story so apologies if this chapter is something of a ramble!
By the way, have I told you I love your reviews?
Thursday Morning
Ruth sits at her desk, head down, trying to lose herself in her work.
But the only thing she's lost in, is the thought that she has made love to Harry.
Like the spoons and the scar, she has vague glimpses of Monday night, impressions that are there and gone: the smoothness of his chest, the noise of rain and something to do with presents. But as hard as she tries there is little more.
His office is empty, the Inquiry continues.
"So, have you figured it out yet?" Dimitri plonks himself down on her desk "the great Monday night memory mystery?"
"It was nothing," she says lightly, "glass too much of wine," she smiles.
"You seemed to think it was more than that yesterday, Evershed."
"Yes well, things change."
"Okay," he decides not to press it and changes the subject. "Tariq's rigging a mic…"
She glances up.
"At the Inquiry. He's going to give us a shout when it's working."
"Maybe we won't want to hear it," she says sadly.
"Everything we do can sound bad, Ruth, depending on how they spin it."
"Most of what we do is bad. Good means achieved by bad methods."
"Yeah, but you're not worried are you? I mean, you trust Harry."
She looks at him.
"…Don't you?"
"I'm sure he has always done what he thought was right even when he was wrong."
"But hypothetically, if they come up with something really bad, you'll still trust him now won't you?"
"Hypothetically…." she repeats, the word hanging around her like a curtain shading her mind, "I don't know."
Thursday 2pm
Dimitri looks up, "You're back early."
Harry doesn't answer. He walks to his office.
It is the first time she has seen him since last night. He looks tired.
He is aware of her at her desk.
He sits still and silent.
And wishes he had taken the same tablet.
But for now all he can do is mourn the memory.
3 days Earlier - Monday night
He handed her the glass of water and watched her drink it thirstily. Moments later he kissed her as her eyes closed. He wrapped the duvet around her and carried her to the car.
Half an hour later she was in her own bed, her clothes neatly folded.
He knelt at her side stroking the hair from her face and then he kissed her for the last time.
Thursday 7pm
He watches her walk towards the pods. Her eyes studiously avoiding him.
"Ruth…" he calls from his doorway.
She won't even look at him. The pod door closes and she turns away.
Friday Morning
"We're on," calls Tariq.
Dimitri dons his headphones. Ruth concentrates hard on the folder in front of her, refusing to do likewise. But after ten minutes she sees the look on Dimitri's face as his head lifts towards her, his eyes wide. She finally reaches for her cans and begins to listen to the accusations which are being levelled at Harry Pearce.
When Erin enters several hours later, it is to an unusually quiet and totally unproductive grid.
Friday 5pm
A seemingly defeated man returns to Thames House.
Erin follows him to his office with more than one question relating to current ops.
He answers concisely and with his usual decisive consideration.
"Thank god I can get some answers out of you," she says with a sigh.
He looks at her questioningly, "Problems?"
"Tough day," she says.
"Tell me about it," he mutters.
"It's your fault, actually."
"Most things are, Erin, fortunately you've discovered that early."
"I'm afraid not a lot got done today. They've all been monitoring the Inquiry."
"What?"
"Seems Tariq has got a feed."
Harry doesn't need to look up to know that she isn't at her desk.
"Ruth?'
"Went home early. Looked a little pale."
He knows then that he is damned.
Damned to the mockery of a memory.
And he knows that what he had foreseen had come to pass.
For two more days Harry sits in front of the panel of faces who are to judge him. Nothing is worse than the times and places they had revisited on Friday, nothing could surpass his culpability for the events in Northern Ireland and then the ill fated Operation Omega. He doesn't need anyone to tell him his failure and fault for the horrors that had occurred.
Worse still, for two days he doesn't see her.
Tuesday Evening
He stands by the window at home, a near empty bottle in one hand, glass in the other.
He doesn't react to the sound of the doorbell. Not at first. Then with weary tread he crosses to the door without relinquishing either bottle or glass.
"You look terrible," she says.
"Believe me I feel worse."
And he knows that she is here to admonish him and finally to judge him.
"You could always try and forget all about it, Harry. I know someone who has just the thing."
"Touché," he turns from the door. She can follow him or leave, it doesn't really matter.
He hears the door close as he pours another glassful. He surrenders the bottle. It is spent.
"You don't need to judge me Ruth, it's written all over your face."
"What you did…"
"I will regret always."
"Was wrong. You killed people."
"It seems to be an unfortunate fault of mine."
"Don't joke about this Harry."
"It's happened. I can't take it back. If I could, I would. But I can't."
"Can you live with it?"
"You'd be surprised, Ruth, at the things you learn to live with. I'm an expert."
He takes a long, hard drink.
She watches him intently.
"You know there were a lot of years that I put you on a pedestal, Harry. I thought you'd always do the right thing, would nobly resign if you'd done wrong, not that I believed you capable of doing the wrong thing."
"That must have been a long time ago," he says sadly.
"It was."
"No longer your knight in shining armour then, Ruth?"
"Scuffed and sadly tarnished armour, without a horse and well past his best."
"Thanks," he says, "very vivid."
He raises his glass only to find it is empty once more.
"Drink?" he asks.
"I'd rather not. You never know what's in it these days."
His head hangs before he pulls it up with an effort to look at her.
"Fine, then you make it. Mine's a coffee," and he slumps onto the sofa.
She hesitates, then turns to the kitchen.
"Besides, you know where everything is," he calls after her.
He picks up the bottle once again and tips it fully. Even the dregs will do.