Let's go round again?

Chapter Nine

As they sat together so near but so far apart her mind raced at a mile a minute trying to make some sense of the situation she found herself in. Yeah Gods! She was a mature woman, surely more than half way through her allotted time on earth yet here she was still prevaricating . Why had she answered the bloody phone? Why had she come to rescue him? Why had she let him get under her skin again?

If she were to be completely honest with herself she knew the answers to those questions and the thousands of others she had taunted herself with over the years. She knew the reason why she had never been able to move on and establish a permanent safe relationship with another man.

Yet would allowing Harry what he so obviously wanted be the right thing, the safe thing to do?

When she finally plucked up the courage to raise her eyes and look at him she was startled by the intensity of his gaze, a fact that really pissed her off because it seemed that even after all this time his lazer like regard could still get to her. And her mind flew back to all the times in the past when he'd stopped her in her tracks with looks like this, she'd been able to cope with them and him in the past but here in Harry's kitchen she was transported back to her first day on the Grid when she felt like an intruder; an inadequate intruder at that. One who was living on borrowed time, so keen to prove herself and so very afraid that someone would twig that she was essentially a mole sent to spy on and gather information about Harry Pearce and his team. A team she so badly wanted to join.

During that time she'd flung herself into her work with the commitment of a zealot all the while frightened that she would be discovered. She'd only been in post a week when she'd decided she would not under any circumstances live up to her part of the bargain. She'd had her doubts about it from the start but the more she got to understand just what Section D did and what a tight knit group they were the more she wanted to be a permanent part of it. And above all she knew that she could never, ever betray them.

And as the weeks and months went by some strange hybrid of a relationship seemed to be forming between her and Harry. She certainly didn't know what it was and she suspected he didn't either but it was most certainly growing and evolving in it's own curious fashion. But it seemed neither of them were brave enough to take a step into the unknown and find out what if anything was going on.

Then when Harry had finally decided that they needed to move on it had been her lack of courage that had stopped any chance of happiness they might have had. She would always remember the look on his face when she told him that there couldn't be a second date, lying to him, telling him that it was because she couldn't be talked about, that his authority would be brought into question when the main reason was that she was frightened of him or more especially what she knew he could do to her. He, would she knew be able to see into her very soul, would be able to strip away the layers of amour that she had clad herself in for so long, would be able to lay her bare so that if he ever decided he no longer wanted her she would be devastated, broken unable to go on. And she just couldn't take that chance.

Not even for him.

And then of course the heavens had conspired against them and she was torn from his side. How many times during her exile had she replayed those last moments on the dock? How often had she regretted not hearing the words he was desperate to say but at the same time pleased that she'd not allowed him the chance; because she knew that if she'd heard those words she would not have been able to leave him...ever.

But she, they had been strong. They had made the right choice, they had put Queen and country first and each in their own way they had suffered for that choice. And it seemed to her that they were destined to suffer for the rest of their lives. And suddenly she was so very angry, angry with him, angry with the service and bloody angry with herself and the way she'd allowed herself to be dragged back in to the whole sorry mess. And the fact remained that he had lied to her over and over again, had used her to get what he wanted. He was an enigma to her even after all their years together, in fact the only real truth she knew about him was that he was a ruthless bastard who would and had done anything to get his own way, to achieve his goals and how could she even be contemplating any sort of relationship with him when she carried that knowledge so deep within herself?

He'd been watching her closely, he could almost see the cogs in her brain turning as she analysed everything that he'd said to her, trying to formulate her response and not for the first time he wished that she would just let go a little and stop bloody over thinking every little thing. That was a side of her that both intrigued and frustrated him in equal measure; it always had.

But when her words came they caught him by surprise.

"You made me think I was special Harry, you made me think that we were important to each other, that we might, just might have something...Oh I don't know but something." And then before he could tell her that they still had something she carried on her voice full of bitterness and disillusionment "But that didn't stop you using me did it Harry? And in the end I had to understand that I was nothing more than an asset. You used me Harry just as you had used dozens maybe even hundreds before me. No don't even attempt to deny it. The truth of it is written all over your face."

He closed his eyes. He had known that this was going to be painful but he hadn't realized how raw it all was even after all this time.

"Yes, yes I did. I can see it now. It took a long time for me to come to terms with what I'd done to you. To us. But you were never, ever just an assetRuth."And he held his hands out to her in an act of supplication.

"Somehow that just makes it worse Harry."

And she pushed herself away from the table and out of the room before he could stop her. He sat for a few minutes torn; before he stood and followed her. She was standing in the sitting room gazing out at the rain as it lashed down the drops forming rivulets on the glass.

"Please Ruth" he said "Come and sit with me, please." And as he spoke he placed his hand on her arm and guided her towards the sofa happy beyond words that she made no attempt to resist him. They sat for a long time listening to the sound of the rain and the wind as it filled the room. Harry thought that he had lost her forever when she turned towards him and accused him once more "I was never more than a pawn in your sordid game was I Harry? You used my, my affection for you and twisted it until I did just what you wanted. And do you know the worse thing about it all? I fucking well let you! I was just so grateful that you seemed to need me …...for something! Anything!"

He watched as she took a deep breath and he knew then that it was all going to come tumbling out, all the hurt, all the angst, everything. It had been a long time coming and it would be painful, he knew that but if there was to be any chance for them he had to allow her to get everything off her chest.

"I watched you when you were with her Harry, you just couldn't take your eyes off her. If was if you were seeing her for the first time and you were transported back to Berlin and she was weaving a spell around you again. And I felt …..."

He knew what he hoped she'd felt; jealousy but he didn't say that instead he explained "Yes it was as though I was seeing her for the first time and I couldn't believe what a naive fool I'd been. Oh I don't mean I was naïve about what I was doing, I mean that I was naïve to think that she was what she was pretending to be. Young, scared and in love with me. We were in fact just using each other, both of us feeding off the adrenalin that our affair generated. And I can remember clearly that night being so glad that I'd made the decision to leave her there in Berlin. To walk away from her and the boy. Maybe I knew even then that he wasn't mine. Oh I don't know."

"Why did you put your arms around her in the park Harry? There had been so many times Harry when I would have given the world if you'd done that to me. I could have faced anything if you'd allowed me just a little contact like that. Why did you never try and touch me Harry? It was always me who came to you, always me who tried to …...Why could you do it for her and not for me?