Nineteen:
Shattered Looking Glasses Cut Deeply

While they'd been out at the train depot, the rest of the Royals had flown in via helicopter. Harry shouldn't have been surprised, seeing as how his father had installed matching helipads near the gardens a few years before (he'd seen the coverage in the Daily Guardian, which had speculated as to his father's continued run of ill health and the need for the politicos to come to him rather than the other way around). After ushering everyone inside, he'd been greeted enthusiastically by Prince Charles and Camilla, and been asked to hold the royal babies and give them kisses… all per normal. Ruth had hesitated, hanging back, and Harry had given her more than one suffering look.

Finally, after giving the babies back to their parents, Harry took a step back and said, "And, of course, Your Highnesses, you've yet to make the acquaintance of my wife." He gestured gently at Ruth, who timidly stepped forward. "Janet, you know of everyone, at least…"

"Yes," she said softly. "It's a pleasure to meet you all. Harry, I'm going to go check on Portia," she said, retreating.

The tension in the room was palpable, until Charles said, "Well, isn't she just as pleasing as a mouse, Harry!" The teasing in his tone was obvious, and Harry cracked a bit of a smile.

"Yes, well… I'm afraid we've gone and thrown her in the deep end," Harry replied. "Have you been shown to your rooms yet?"

The next hour or so was a flurry of getting everyone settled in their accommodations, and Harry finally got away long enough to find Ruth and Portia in the library. They were tucked up on the window seat in a blanket as Ruth read softly from a book that had seen many better days. Portia was nearly asleep in her mother's arms, and Harry thought it was the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen. "Are you two hungry?" he inquired. "The lunch buffet will be set up shortly."

Portia jerked out of whatever comfortable space she'd been in, and mumbled, "I'm hungry."

Ruth gave her a gentle kiss and murmured, "Then why don't you go see your granddad and nana and get some lunch?"

"Nana's here?" Portia asked, suddenly back to her exuberant, friendly self. "Oh, goodie! I want to show her my dress for the party. Sarah helped me pick it at the store because daddy was busy buying you a present, mom."

Ruth gave him a reproachful look that he interpreted as 'so much for spy DNA', and he stifled a chuckle. "Sarah and Graham are here, too," Harry said gently. "Why don't you go say hello and have a sandwich and some juice? Mrs. Whatley got some pineapple juice for you especially since it's your favorite."

Portia kicked her way out of the blanket and bounded off, all sign of her almost-nap erased in a few moments. Ruth sighed and looked up at him, closing the old, tattered book. "She's almost too old for this," she said very quietly. "She's always telling me that she's old enough to read to herself now."

"But she loves you reading to her," Harry countered. "She loves you and wants to spend time with you."

"I know," Ruth said. "But it seems like it's all going to be over too soon. Like I'm going to lose my little girl and it hurts already."

"She's just growing up," Harry said. "But you were all she knew for a long time; she'll not forget that in the future, my love."

She sighed and nodded. "I know; or, rather, I tell myself that I know that. I don't know if I really do or not."

Harry reached for the book in her hands, and smiled as he took it from her. "Through the Looking Glass," he said, memories washing over him like a balm. "My mum used to read this to me when we came to visit my grandfather. This is a first edition, you know, and well-loved. Alice in Wonderland is lurking around here somewhere."

"This library is full of treasures," Ruth pointed out. "I… I think it wouldn't be so bad, inheriting Kindwell."

Harry smiled and leaned in to give her a kiss. "Yes, well… history is always more when you're not living in it," he teased. "Visits to grandfather and grandmother are magical when you're a child. It's when adulthood and reality set in that you're likely to get knocked for a loop. I've never been fond of the lifestyle, the pomp and circumstance –"

"But it suits you," she murmured. "You were raised to carry an air about you, and you carry it still. Even with a gimpy knee."

He sighed. "Yes, well, I think I've been preparing myself for the inevitable. My father isn't getting any younger, and in point of fact, he's getting rather much worse for wear. He doesn't think he'll be around much longer; he's said as much."

She tangled her fingers with his and murmured, "Then I'm glad you and he have found a way to interact on common ground before it was too late."

Harry sighed and leaned into her, closing his eyes and reveling in the feel of her embrace. "I wonder if it's too little, too late. All of it. Him and me, you and I…"

"No, it's never too late," she murmured, brushing her lips over his skin. "I love you, Harry Pearce."

He held her closer, unable to tell her just how he felt; mostly, it was because he didn't really know. He loved her and Portia with an intensity that surprised him; he was aggrieved that he couldn't communicate his affections adequately. He hoped that she might understand, in time.

Elizabeth cornered Ruth in the corridor, in spite of Ruth actively avoiding her. "We need to talk," Elizabeth said. "In private."

"I'm not certain that privacy exists here," Ruth pointed out. "Not with the number of Security Service personnel in the building, anyway." She took her mother's hand in hers and lowered her voice to something barely above a whisper. "I know you have questions, and that Harry can't have answered them all. Even if you have signed the Official Secrets Act, technically, I can't answer them all, either."

Her mother nodded. "I understand, and yes… I do have questions."

"Give me fifteen minutes and I'll meet you in your room," she promised. "I've got to check on Portia and David."

"She's a lovely girl," Elizabeth said. "You've done a good job with her."

Ruth smiled sadly. "Maybe so, but… there's going to be some little part of her that will always wonder if Harry didn't love her enough and that's why we weren't together."

"He adores her," Elizabeth said firmly. "You only have to see them together to see how much they love one another. Which is a good thing. But looking at you and Harry… you both seem so reserved. Did you marry him because he's Portia's father or did you marry him because of all of this?" She gestured around them at the opulent paintings, wallcoverings, and antiques.

"I married Harry because I love him," Ruth said, lowering her voice to a dangerous whisper. "I always have done, mum. Since we met, it's been like… like this thing inside me, gnawing away at the parts of me that don't know what's coming. I threw myself at the mercy of the world for him, so he could keep fighting the good fight – don't you dare presume to tell me I don't love that man enough just because we don't drape ourselves in each other's skin in public. For god's sake, we're entertaining the bloody Queen! It's not proper to indulge in full on public displays at the best of times, let alone now. I would never have married him if I didn't love him, especially after so much time." Her blood was rushing in her veins, her heart pumping like she was running a marathon, her face flushed with a combination of anger, shame, and adrenaline. The terror of disclosing just how much she felt for Harry to an outside observer was almost overwhelming, and god knew if she had to do it again…

Elizabeth took Ruth's shaking hand and looked at the rings on her finger. "He has excellent taste." She paused, then glanced up at her. "In both you and jewelry."

Ruth swallowed hard and licked her lips. "I sometimes feel like… I'm not enough for him. Like he settled for second best. Especially now, knowing this is his birthright."

Elizabeth murmured, "Come with me, Ruth. Portia will be fine for a bit longer."

Ruth hesitated, then nodded, following her mother down the corridor and into a bedroom with yellow chintz wallpaper and a four-poster mahogany bed with navy curtains. "This is your room?" she asked.

Elizabeth nodded. "It's too much, really, but the gentleman butler and Harry insisted that it was the one I'd feel most comfortable in." She closed the door and gestured for Ruth to sit down on the bed, rather than the chaise – which was upholstered in blue and white toile, and looked to be older than the French Revolution. It was no wonder she felt uncomfortable – it was like being in a wonderland and not knowing which pieces were meant to be used for their purpose and which were meant merely as decoration. "Oh, Ruth…"

"There are so many things I want to tell you," Ruth admitted quietly. "But I don't know where to begin."

"Tell me… tell me about your hair," Elizabeth said. "You look so much like your father with lighter hair –"

Of course, she'd chosen that. Ruth took a deep breath, then said, "Life hasn't exactly been a picnic for me since I left. Last May… I was rushed to the hospital from work because I collapsed. I'd been having ovarian pain; just thought it was a cyst. I'd been having ruptured cysts since Portia was born, so it wasn't exactly out of the norm, but the pain was overwhelming. It turned out that this time, it was a tumor, not a cyst. We caught the cancer early enough that it could be extracted and I had radiation treatments afterward to make sure it went into remission." She stopped talking for a moment, taking a deep breath before she continued. "I lost part of my hair, and shaved the rest off. When it grew back, it was this color –" somewhere between light and medium brown with red and golden tones, rather than the deep brown of before, " - and quite a bit curlier than it used to be."

Her mother sat there, shock and horror written on her features. Ruth immediately felt like the destroyer of her nice, cozy little world, and she felt a pang of despair deep in her gut. "But you're in remission?" Elizabeth questioned.

Ruth nodded and murmured, "I have to go back in for another scan in a couple of months, but yeah. I'm okay for now." She didn't want to mention how horribly, terribly guilty she felt about surviving when Stephen, dear Stephen, had succumbed to his illness before her eyes at the same time she'd been slowly coming out of the darkness of hers. How even now, she didn't feel like she could ever face Catherine or the girls – her step-daughter and grandchildren, she reminded herself – without feeling that horrible anxiety that they would judge her harshly in beating the odds when he had failed.

It was a long time before Elizabeth finally spoke. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry that you had to go through that alone," she said quietly. "I would have dropped everything and –"

"I wasn't alone," Ruth said. "My friend, Stephen, was going through something similar. We supported each other." She swiped at the traitorous tear that had escaped her eye and began to roll down her cheek. What she felt was nothing compared to the devastation that Catherine was living with every day; what right did she have to think she should mourn him more than his own family? She shook herself and breathed, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to –"

Elizabeth gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead and whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you were ill and hurting and had no one to turn to."

Ruth's lips turned up in wry sadness masquerading as a smile. "That was nothing new, mum. Ever since I walked away from Britain, my existence was solitary and perilous." She sighed and closed her eyes, leaning into her mother's arms and holding her tightly.

"Harry told me…"

"I went around Europe for a while," Ruth murmured, her voice sounding hollow to her ears. It was dark, repetitious, memories that she'd glossed over because they hurt too much. "And then I found out I was pregnant. So I took a chance and went across the Pond, thinking that I should hide in the place no one ever thought I'd be. It paid off, and Portia and I were all that mattered after that. I couldn't face the idea of contacting Harry and putting any of us in more danger than we already were." She swallowed hard, a deep well of painful emotion bubbling up and choking her as the thin veneer of her fragile state began to crack and break. "Mum, I – I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Elizabeth frowned and held her closer. "No," she said softly. "What's past is past and you shouldn't apologize for making decisions you think were right."

Ruth closed her eyes, refusing to look at her mother. "I hate Janet Williams so much… I do. She's brash and full of confidence that she doesn't feel. It's so exhausting, trying to be someone you aren't for years and years at a time. I want to be Ruth again; but Ruth Evershed is dead. She's a posthumously-pardoned murderer, and I can never be her again. And what's in a name? Everything."

"Nothing," Elizabeth murmured. "Your name is nothing, so long as you're the same person. You're still my Ruth, no matter that you're calling yourself Janet now. Be true to yourself, and sod the others."

"I don't know why Harry still loves me," Ruth whispered. "I've done things – things I'd rather not remember. And he doesn't judge me, just accepts them, even though he knows what a horrible person I am. He's seen the worst of me and wants more – I'm not worthy of his love, mum. I think, some day, he's going to wake up and realize what a shit human being I am and walk away from me. And if that happens, he's going to take Portia away from me –"

"Ruth," Elizabeth said very softly, "you didn't see him, when he was mourning you. There is no way he's going to let you go now, even if you push him away. He's made his choice, and so have you. You're together, and marriage – life together – is a game of give and take. You can't expect the road to be easy, but you can't give up before it's even begun."

Ruth turned her rings around and around on her finger, feeling her heart clench as she did. "I love him," she said honestly. "I can't… I can't give him up now. Not after everything we've been through; together and apart."

"Then don't," Elizabeth advised gently. "Just… take it one day at a time. Don't overreact to the small things."

"Tonight is going to be an utter farce," Ruth said very quietly. "I don't know if I hate the idea of this party more or less than schmoozing with piss-poor actors and producers who would rather look down my cleavage than look at my face." She exhaled and mumbled, "I hate my job. I hate everything about it. It's just another piece of Janet Williams that Ruth Eversheld can't abide."

"Then I think… and you don't have to listen to me," Elizabeth said gently, tucking her dark hair threaded with silver behind her ear, "that you need… you should… make a change."

"I have commitments," Ruth mumbled. "A house and a mortgage and bloody awful medical bills –"

"And?"

"And… how can I just dump that on Harry? I've already dropped a child in his lap. A child he never wanted." Ruth swallowed hard. "It was very selfish of me to bring her into the world. I never thought I'd see him again, not after I went into exile. I wanted a piece of him to carry with me, a reminder… and it was selfish and stupid of me."

"No," Elizabeth murmured. "You aren't selfish. You've done your very best for that little girl and she is so loved – especially by her father."

"He had no idea," Ruth whispered. "He's such a good man, though. He never asked for a DNA test or –"

"Because it's obvious to anyone with eyes in their bloody head," Elizabeth said with a tinge of exasperation in her voice. "You were never one to revel in depression," she said sharply. "So wash your hands of it, Ruth. Take control of your life again – maybe you can't be Ruth Evershed again, but if you're so miserable, make a change."

Ruth finally pulled away from her mother and whispered, "I'm sorry I've upset you, mum. I didn't mean to."

"You haven't," Elizabeth assured her. "But please consider what I'm saying –"

Ruth nodded and exhaled weakly. "I will," she murmured. "I have to go check on Portia now." She couldn't handle the thought of compromising herself even more thoroughly than she already had. She didn't want to think about how broken, how full of despair she really had become. She couldn't handle another moment of reliving the past or her fears for the future.

She broke away and left in a hurry. Down the stairs, around the corridors, she found Portia and David tucked up in the smoking room with the television and DVD player. Neither of them looked up from the movie, and she felt a pang in her heart, knowing that she'd kept her daughter from her family for so long. It was painful, the knowledge that she'd probably hurt Portia by doing so.

She retreated to the White Bedroom, finding Harry on the phone. He glanced up and mouthed, "Catherine." Then he said, "Catie, don't worry so much – you and the girls just rest. Grandfather knows why you aren't here, and he's more upset that you were still insisting on trying to come after that. So just sit back and let Joe take care of you and the girls, if he's so inclined."

Ruth settled onto the bed and closed her eyes, curling in on herself and letting the disjointed sounds of his voice soothe her into a fitful doze.

He woke her up with a gentle kiss; she startled and inhaled sharply, her eyes widening in panic before she realized it was just him. "Are you all right?" Harry asked very gently, knowing that she wasn't. There was something so deeply wrong that she would never tell him the truth.

So it came as a surprise when she shook her head and simply said, "No. I'm not all right." She rolled over and wrapped her arms around his waist, tucking her face into his belly.

He wasn't sure if she was going to cry or not; he had no idea what was going through her mind, had no insight into her psyche. "Is there anything I can do?" Harry whispered, gently stroking her hair, her neck, her shoulders and back.

She shook her head and inhaled deeply, shakily. "No," she whispered. "It's… I can't talk about it anymore. It hurts too much."

His fingers stilled on her back; she'd not shared even that much before. "Okay," he murmured. "I'm sorry I can't help."

She pulled away and looked up at him. "I don't want to hurt you anymore," she whispered. "You or Portia. I'm sorry that I'm such a – a – a twat."

"You are anything but a twat," Harry said. He was suddenly keenly aware of the tension in her body, and he recognized it for what it was; he had looked in the mirror and seen the self-blame and hatred for years and years, and seeing it shadowed in her eyes broke his heart. "Oh, Ruth…" he sighed.

She interpreted his words as pity, and she pulled away abruptly. "Don't," she whispered. "You have no idea. Just don't."

"Don't what?" he shot back.

"Don't… look at me like that. I don't need your pity."

"Ruth, I've never pitied you," Harry said firmly. "Not ever. Most especially not now. I do understand; you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to." He reached over and took her hand, threading her fingers through his, pressing their palms together. "Just know that I'm here when you're ready."

He watched emotions dance across her face, each chased by the next, fleeting moments of pain, sadness, fear, and eventually… resignation. She glanced away from him, and when she looked back, the blank mask was back in place, the only hesitance being a flash of nervousness in her eyes. "I may never be ready," she whispered.

He nodded and leaned in to kiss her gently. "I love you," he whispered against her lips. It was simple, honest, brutal. Stripped of his secrets and the lies of spydom, all he had left was the wreck of a soul he might have tricked himself into believing he had. And that soul that may or may not exist belonged to her. He had nothing left to give but his love, and if she ever looked at him too closely, she might realize that he was just a broken old man. Such a beautiful, vibrant woman had chosen him, with all of his faults and failings; the notion that she could up and leave him again hurt him deeper than he would ever admit.

Her face softened. "I love you," she whispered back in earnest. She kissed him this time, a deep kiss filled with longing and a touch of stardust; she bewitched him in just a moment, a fleeting second in time that he wished he could capture and bottle it for posterity.

She broke the kiss and pressed her forehead against his, their warm breath mingling, their lips only a hair's breadth apart. When she spoke, it was like the earth tilted a bit, shifting its axis. "You're entirely too good for me, Harry."

He inhaled deeply, memorizing the scent of her; skin, musk, a hint of perfume and soap, the salt of her tears shed and wiped away. "I think you'll find that we're no better than one another," he replied very quietly. "

And with that quiet admission, he felt a bit of the darkness between them begin to ease, like a black curtain beginning to rise.

END PART NINETEEN