This is a very angsty chapter. Things will take a turn in Chapter 3.
oOo
She quite quickly discovers how to get around in her new state of being. All she has to do is to think of a place, a person, and she is there. In an instant. She visits the Grid, her mother, and then Harry. The first time she visits him he is in his house after her funeral, and he is on the toilet, and she finds herself standing right in front of him, the closed door behind her. She is relieved to find him fully clothed, and sitting on the closed toilet seat, leaning back against the cistern, his eyes closed.. He is avoiding the people who are gathered downstairs to pay their respects to her. Go away and leave me alone, his thoughts say of the other mourners in his house.
Only Erin stays. She will not leave him on his own, although more than anything he wants her to go. Erin is concerned he'll take the easy way out, but Ruth knows he is unlikely to do that. He ignores Erin, and so eventually she leaves.
She discovers Harry is aware of the irony – that to discover the extent of his love for her, she first had to die. She has sacrificed herself so that Harry can discover the depth of his love for her, and by extension, his capacity for loving. From where she is now she can see that this has been a privilege. It is her gift to him.
It's just that to Harry, it feels like a curse. I always let down those I love, is his private mantra.
As well as his thoughts, Ruth can also sense his feelings.
He is carrying guilt – buckets of it, if in fact guilt comes in buckets. He knows that he should have been the one to die. The shard of glass may have been smeared with Ruth's blood, but it had Harry's name on it. He believes it will be impossible for him to ever get past that simple fact.
He still loves her – more than ever - and he misses her. He wants to wrap his love for her around him like a blanket, to keep him warm, and to keep himself alive and functioning. And he wishes to stay alive and functioning just so he can hold on to his memory of her. Towers has told him to stay away from work until he is ready to come back, if he ever wants to come back. Bloody Towers! Apart from his memories of Ruth, work is all Harry has left, and he needs it now more than ever. He has much for which to atone, and work is to be his avenue of atonement.
Day by day, for the remainder of his life, he will be paying for having not stood in front of Ruth when Sasha Gavrik approached him in a rage.
When Harry climbs his stairs to bed, Ruth accompanies him. She lays on the bed next to him, watching him as he twists and turns from side to side, longing for the oblivion sleep will bring him. She talks to him, hoping he will hear her.
"Harry, it's me," she says. "I'm right here, next to you. I won't leave you until you tell me to. I'll stay with you until you no longer need me."
During the night he is suddenly wide awake and cannot get back to sleep. She reaches out to touch his face, stroking his cheek with her finger. Harry suddenly sits up and looks around him. He sees nothing, but it appears he felt something.
Ruth stays beside him throughout the night. If only she had been able to do this while she was still alive. He wakes before sunrise, and remembering what had happened the day before, he cries quietly into his pillow, the words, "I miss you so much. I miss you so much," spoken between his sobs. Ruth feels what he feels, and again places a hand on him – this time his shoulder – but he seems unable to feel it. Were he to feel her touch again, and what's more, to be able to identify the source of that touch, Ruth has no idea what she will do. For all she knows, she could be setting him up for a breakdown.
Five days later Ruth sits next to Harry at her own funeral, just as she had at so many other funerals. She places her hand on top of his, but he shows no sign that he feels her touch. He is barely holding it together. To anyone other than she, he seems quiet and calm, even shut down. Her senses tell her that he is like a pane of glass being buffeted by strong winds. A sudden gust, a falling branch is all it would take to break him. He is terrified of breaking down, especially here. He wants to conduct himself with the dignity she deserves, even if it takes all the self-control he can gather to achieve this. Malcolm sits on Harry's other side, providing an oasis of calm and peace in a situation which makes little sense to all who are participating. Ruth's mother and step-father sit in front of Harry. Towers and the other members of the security services sit behind them.
As the mourners walk to the graveside, Ruth holds back. She suddenly considers her presence to be voyeuristic and somehow wrong. She stays by the church, just outside the doorway, watching from afar. Harry's body language displays a reluctance to be there, a desire to get it over with as soon as possible. He reminds her of a piano wire under strain, about to snap. Ruth doesn't follow the mourners to the pub afterwards. There are enough people there to look after Harry for her.
With the mourners gone, Ruth is hovering near her graveside, wanting but not wanting to go nearer, when a familiar voice causes her to spin around.
"Hello Ruth," her father says. He is dressed in the clothes he always wore around home on weekends, before he'd been confined to hospital. He looks young and healthy. "I've been watching over you these last few days," he adds.
"You didn't do much of a job, then, did you?" She allows him to embrace her. As pleased as she is to see him again, she is afraid he will expect her to go with him and leave Harry behind. She knows how it works. She's watched Medium, and Ghost Whisperer, and she'd even watched Afterlife, scoffing at the sheer improbability of it throughout every episode.
"Harry needs you," her father adds. "You have to stay with him for a while. He's not coping. We're worried about him."
"We?"
"All of us. Me, your Uncle Sid and Auntie Em, Harry's brother, his parents, and even his grandparents. There are a bunch of them watching on right now – your lot, you know?"
"My lot?"
"Security people – the spies who have died. Young people, most of them. Too young to be on this side of the veil."
Ruth has nothing to say to that. She wonders why she'd not thought of Danny and Jo and Ros and Adam and Fiona, Zaf and Tariq. She has now joined their little club.
Ruth's father continues. "Harry has to endure this, but for a while you'll have to help him."
"How?"
"You're the one who loves him. You'll know."
Then he is gone.
This – is this Heaven? - is nothing like GCHQ or MI-5. She has no manual or job description to refer to and follow. Like Harry, she is on her own. Up the creek without a paddle. Or a map.