A/N- Thank you so much for your generous reviews! For a brief minute, I thought of quitting while I was ahead, but there is a semblance of a plot to this piece so hopefully you will find a few more things to enjoy. Cheers!

That morning, as he had done countless mornings before, Harry opened the door to his wardrobe and ran his fingers along an assortment of ties pondering which one to wear. He glanced into the mirror hanging inside the door and a sly smile spread across his face. For on that morning, unlike any other morning before, Ruth sat on his bed, wrestling with her boots, the black pouch containing the fragments of his life laid beside her. She stretched out her leg, and slowly raised the zipper, once again covering every inch of her body, leaving him to contemplate the eroticism of putting clothes on.

The room was redolent with the scent of her, of them and he closed his eyes, losing himself in the memory of waking up to it all. Wrapped around her, hard against the soft flesh of her thigh, he had selfishly awoken her, wanting to hear her soft moans and whimpers. They had moved with each other in the faint morning light, he attempting to memorise every detail of her skin, every dip and curve. No words spoken, no vows declared, silent, but for the sound the rhythmic breathing. The night had been coloured with a desperate heat, leaving the morning to be slow and tender. Spent, holding her body tight in his arms, he had tried not to think of what it would be like to wake up with this woman every morning. Instead, he thanked the gods for giving him one night with her and in the next thought he cursed them for fulfilling his imaginings, now, at the juncture of his life where his conscious hung heavy with transgressions and he had decided to walk towards judgement.

He shook his head and brought himself back to the present. He stared at that ties, letting his thoughts wrestle with each other one last time. Run, they told him, run away with her, but he knew that was not the answer. If only every decision were as simple as choosing a tie. His fingers fell to a red tie and a gold tie. Gathering them up, he walked over to her, holding both in the air, silently asking her to choose.

"The red one, I think," she said, looking pleased that he had asked, her wavering smile the only indication of the undercurrent of sadness.

Harry tossed the rejected tie on the bed and threaded the red one under his shirt collar. He held out the two ends, inviting Ruth to tie it for him.

"I don't know how to tie it," she stated.

Harry looked at her incredulously. "How can you not know how to tie a tie? I thought you knew everything."

"I know all the important things," she replied enigmatically, leaving Harry to wonder if she was alluding to their last conversation on the park bench or what had happened the previous evening in that room. She rose from the bed to stand in front of him, watching as he lifted his chin, fingers nimbly knotting the silk.

"I find it strangely comforting that you have never tied a man's tie," he mused.

"I may know a thing or two about buttons."

"Ah, but the tie is the most important thing."

As he spoke, she ran her fingers over the red silk and straightened out the knot. His hands reached up and captured hers. She remained focused on his tie, unable to look at him directly, blinking, concentrating on the faint pattern in the material. He ran his thumbs back and forth over her knuckles, a movement meant to comfort her but ultimately calming him. Her forehead came to rest against his chin and he gave it a gentle nudge, kissing her temple.

"You could have been Lady Pearce," he whispered wistfully into her ear.

"Maybe I like being Ruth Evershed," she said with a half smile. "Having lost the name once, I'm rather inclined to keep a hold of it now."

So many layers, he thought, and he would never know them all. He had assumed that she had kept him at arm's length because of guilt and remorse, never entertaining the thought that she was also desperately holding on to her identity and independence.

"You don't have to do this," she urged, "There's still time."

"I do. I have to face up to what I've done. It's because of my actions that Jim is dead."

"They'll extradite you."

"We don't know that yet."

He stopped when he saw the look on her face. He knew her catalogue of expressions, this one being the one that said if he would only stop being an idiot and listen to her everything would work out. He had seen the look many times before, the quality of which had always made him feel as though they were married.

"Come away with me," she whispered

It was murmured on a breath so quiet that he wondered if he had dreamt it, for it was a phrase she had uttered many times in his dreams. He inhaled slowly, letting out a sigh so deep it shook them both. It took all of his resolve not to capitulate. He knew that she was caught up in the moment, that she gave no thought to the repercussions of their fleeing.

"A life on the run is no life at all. Always looking over one's shoulder. Never at ease. No friends. You deserve more than that."

"There's a place-"

"You said it yourself; we forfeited that kind of life."

The expression on her face fell. She blinked and looked away, the edges of her mouth hardening. "Don't twist my words around. You know that was something completely different."

They stood in silence, acutely aware of how often their words had come back to haunt them, the sheer litany of conversations and remembrances that they could pull out from their shared past to use against one another. He did not want to argue with her.

"You would blame me; resentment would eat away at us. Going from city to city, changing passports, identities. I've seen it happen too many times. We would be built on lies, it would fall apart, and then where would we be?"

"You don't know how I would feel," she answered tersely, trying to pull away, but he held her hands fast against his chest.

"You sat on that bench chastising me for a life of secrets and now you want me to live more. It's got to end at some point, Ruth."

"If the CIA take you away, I don't see it ending well."

"I meant what I said in the car. When this is all over, I'm leaving the Service, but I want to go out on my terms. Not in disgrace. Thirty years deserves more than a place as a cautionary footnote of an agent gone rogue."

"You're assuming that they're going to play fair, that there will be a trial and you'll be exonerated."

"That's why you need to find out who killed Coaver. That's how you can help me."

She nodded but he was not fooled. It was her modus operandi, agreeing with him, giving him a false sense of victory only to come out with a contradictory sentiment. He took her chin in his hand, turning her face to meet his and looked directly into her eyes.

"You gave up your life for me once before; don't do it again."

Closing her eyes, she pulled her head away. Oh well, he thought, she was her own woman. He had lost any governance over her actions when he had let her walk off the Grid and into the Home Office. As a sign of partial surrender, she laid her head against his chest and he felt her sigh as he stroked her hair. She was younger that he, she could still have a life. He was broken and spent, it was his time.

"I'm going to be late," she spoke into his shirt. She placed both of her hands against his chest and gently pushed herself away. "If I go in now I can see if the extradition is going forward, find a legal loophole, something..."

She turned away towards the door, her mind already working on scenarios.

"Yes, you do that." He held onto her hand, letting her fingers trail out of his grasp as she walked away.

As she passed the bed she picked up the leather pouch and crossed over to the door. She paused and turned around.

"We don't have to say goodbye yet, do we?"

He looked at her framed in the doorway, closing his eyes to imprint the picture on his mind. "Not yet."

"But if we have to? If they take you...there might be people watching, listening...this might be the only time for us-"

In three quick steps, he strode over to her and placed his hands around her waist, reeling her into him. Their lips found each other with no searching, her arms fit perfectly in place, she fit perfectly in place. He inhaled her, tasted her, committed everything about the moment to memory.

She pulled away from him and kept her head down, quickly turning and bolting from the room. He could hear her boots tapping as she moved down the stairs.

The front door closed, the bang echoing throughout the empty house. He moved to the window, careful to stay out of view. Not that it mattered. If they were observing the house, they would know that she had spent the night. He watched as she walked away, her small form retreating in the distance. She had forgotten her coat, he realised. She would be cold. He wanted to bolt down the stairs and run after her with it, calling her name, if only to kiss her one last time. She would have no one to protect her. Stubborn woman.

A loud ring pierced the quiet of the house and his head turned sharply. It was the downstairs phone. He looked at his mobile lying on the dresser, silent, unmoving. He had shut it off the evening before. The muffled voice of Towers sounded from the answering machine. That did not bode well. A great weight settled on his chest and he found it difficult to breathe.

...

The river flowed from blue to green, to black, one clear now murky, but still continuing on. It lapped against the bank, ebbing back out, paying no heed to the passage of time or the woman who stood on its shore. The whirr of traffic hummed in the background and life carried on. No one cared. No one knew about the broken lives of people who disappeared into the shadows to protect them.

She couldn't breathe. With great effort, she inhaled and choked out a ragged sob.

She had unwrapped her secret about the house, hoping he would be able to understand that she had come full circle in her thinking. That she wanted more. He had stoically urged her to continue on and with one last soft kiss, walked away.

Bastard.

Where was his eleventh-hour plan, his get out clause, that strategic piece of information that would cause everything to fall into place?

She swallowed, letting the tears trickle down the back of her throat, watering a seed of anger that lay deep within her. She clenched her hands, squeezing her eyes tight, feeling the anger rise within her. He had given up, walked away, surrendered to an unseen opponent. Knocked off the board in one final move. All the pieces he had sacrificed; Ros, Jo, Tariq, even Lucas' betrayal, her own departure. Who remained to fight with him? No wonder the Russians had wreaked so much damage, emotionally compromising him, damaging his trust, compelling him to commit reckless acts as a last resort. She was furious that he had exposed the chinks in his armour, feet made of clay, for being vulnerable, for being utterly human. She needed him to be Harry Pearce, full of bluster and bravado, bowing to no one, ready to fight the good fight no matter what. She needed him to be the man she had fallen in love with. She raised her hand to her lips and another sob escaped.

A presence hovered near her elbow and she quickly brushed away a tear. It was Towers.

"I know this has all been very difficult for you, Ruth. I'm sorry I couldn't do more."

Ever the politician, he was always ready with a pat word for any occasion. She knew that he was glad to be rid of Harry. He had let slip in front of her how he thought the man had become a loose cannon and frankly wasn't sure how many more times he could go to the mat for him, that he had played all his cards with the Albany fiasco. Well aware that he was standing in acute discomfort, she did nothing to alleviate his unease. Let him stand there and wait. He knew nothing of them, of what they had given up. All that mattered was that he had his intelligence liaison. She looked sideways at Towers. Could she trust this man? He was a politician after all. She cleared her throat.

"I think I might need a bit of time to gather myself."

"About that, we do have a partnership agreement chugging along with kinks that need to be ironed out."

She gave him a hardened look and Towers took a step back, shifting his feet in the sand.

"I've left a revised copy on Margot's desk with my concerns and possible solutions."

He nodded. "I'll free you up for the afternoon then. You can still be reached?" he asked. She nodded. "Good. Do you need a lift anywhere?"

"No thank you."

Shuffling from one foot to the other, still not sure who was in charge and who had dismissed who, Towers turned and headed towards his car.

As she waited for him to leave, she looked back out over the winding river. The wind played with her hair, gentle, teasing, as indifferent to her state as the river. She inhaled a long, slow breath. She was alone. It was all up to her.

...

The taxi slowed down and she quickly stepped out. Keep your head down, find an opportunity, and make a move. She could hear Harry's voice in her head, words from every briefing, every operation. She had changed taxis twice; the third one dropping her off five blocks before her destination. As she walked towards the address she had memorised, she could feel a prickling sensation on the back of her neck.

Don't look back, you're always being followed.

The neighbourhood was a jumble of buildings covered in gang tags, old factories with boarded up windows, remnants of takeout meals strewn on the ground, the smell of petrol and rot. She pressed her elbows against her sides, securing the package under her coat, jamming her hands deeper into the pockets of her grey coat. She hated that coat. It reminded her of George and Nico and a loss that had hollowed out her heart.

Don't look back.

As she hurried past the dark, yawning lanes between the buildings, her thoughts turned to the night in the alley where she had met Harry. She closed her eyes, remembering the kiss, and without any effort, her mind slid to thoughts of his house, his bedroom, the faint trace of him lingering on her skin. Stop it, she ordered herself, stay focused.

Rounding the corner, she recognised a familiar silhouette; a man wearing a flat cap and grey Mac. She ran up to him, breathless.

"Hello, Malcolm."

She touched his arm lightly and he smiled at her in his quiet way. What she really wanted to do was hug him, sob into his chest and ask him to make everything better. Tell her that the past few days, weeks, even years had been nothing more than a bad dream and that she would wake up to the time when he was still on the Grid. He put his hand over hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. The small gesture was all the strength she needed.

"You found the place all right," he asked.

She nodded. "What about CCTV?"

"A neighbourhood that takes privacy into their own hands." He gestured up to a camera dangling from a lamppost.

For the first time in her career, she was thankful the there were no eyes.

Malcolm turned towards the door, his fingers moving to open a rusty padlock. He motioned for her to enter before him and she stepped tentatively inside. The interior of the building was dark, the ceiling low, the smell of decay permeating its walls. They trod on a wooden floor, pockmarked by time. In the dim light, Ruth could see to one side a long wooden counter, dotted with crumbling iron bars. Tellers' cages she surmised.

"Was this a bank, Malcolm?"

"Stanford, Harcourt and Smith. Money lenders I believe. Colin and I..." he paused for a moment.

Ruth stopped in the middle of the derelict building, and waited, inhabiting the memory with Malcolm. She had not thought of Colin in a long time, he belonged to her other life. The fate of a desk spook was assured, danger to their persons minimal, not like field operatives. A wave of sadness washed over her and she thought of Tariq. There had not been time to mourn him, his death was a blip in an operation spinning out of control. He deserved more.

"They killed a friend of mine. Tariq. A boy, really." She swayed toward Malcolm, her shoulder gently grazing his as they stood side by side. "Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one left."

"I'm glad you came to me," he said, looking down at her with a wistful smile.

"I was very sad that you weren't on the Grid when I came back."

"I couldn't do it anymore. The hardening of one's soul. I was afraid there would come a day when it wouldn't spring back."

She nodded, understanding his words. A part of her soul had frosted over and she also wondered if it would ever thaw. She had come a long way since she had first stepped on the Grid and the direction she had taken did not always please her. Those thoughts were for another day. She collected herself and they walked on towards the back of the building.

"After the Eerie exercise," Malcolm continued, "we decided we needed to be better prepared. And I'm glad we did. When Lucas showed up about the Albany business, I had to pick up and leave. I don't know what I would have done with all my equipment if I hadn't had this secure location. We snagged this property for a song as the neighbourhood as gone to rack and ruin. And it has this."

They stopped in front of a large steel door, the purpose of which dawned on Ruth.

"It's a walk in safe!"

"Precisely." Malcolm keyed a code into a surprisingly modern looking number pad. "Hoodlums can vandalise the rest of the building, but they can't touch what's in here."

The door opened, revealing a room that stretched across the back half of the building. The air hummed with a chorus of circuitry, illuminated by the glow of screens. Ruth walked in, slightly dazed as if she had entered a cyber wonderland. She stepped around, looking at the equipment, reverently touching items, assuring herself of their reality. Monitors sat on tables busily streaming feeds, scrolling through data, and behind that, shelves full of gadgetry.

"This is fantastic, Malcolm!"

"Of course, none of this is from the grid," he clarified a rather sheepish look on his face.

She gave Malcolm a knowing look. "Of course."

"Colin and I would come here and modify devices. It's amazing what you can find on eBay. I just carried on after he..."

Ruth touched his arm, needing to feel him and know that she was not alone.

"We're all pawns aren't we?"

"All but Harry. He's a knight." Malcolm smiled at his own joke. Looking up towards the ceiling, he was struck by another thought. "He is rather like the chess piece. Valuable in closed positions and full of unpredictable moves."

"That's the secret, isn't it? We have to play the game the way Harry would."

Malcolm pulled a chair out for Ruth and she sat down. He took up his position in front of a monitor, clicking through screens, windows displaying surveillance of the building. He turned back around to her and rolled his seat a little closer.

"Right then. How did he get himself into this mess?"

"It started with a woman-"

"Ah, doesn't it always with Harry," Malcolm responded.

Ruth looked away, her fingers wandering over to what looked like a Coms device, pretending to be absorbed in a gadget. She would not let Malcolm see that his remark had hit perilously close to home, although she sensed by the clearing of his throat and the straightening of his posture that he had realised the indelicacy of his comment.

"What about the murder of the CIA chap, how did that happen?" he asked, attempting to bring the conversation to safer ground.

"Jim Coaver. Harry kidnapped him, but he didn't kill him."

"Good lord, not again."

"What do you mean 'again'?" Ruth looked at him, perplexed. "Has this happened before?"

"Bob Hogan. But that was a national emergency. When you were away."

"See what happens when I'm not there to talk sense into him."

The corner of Malcolm's mouth tipped up at the obviousness of her remark. "You always had a particular sway over Harry." His brow furrowed. "Why weren't you there?"

"I've moved to the Home Office."

Malcolm sat back, and gave Ruth an odd look, his mouth hanging slightly opened as he processed the information. "Harry let you go?"

"He'd thought I'd be safer."

"Do you think," he said, holding his finger against his chin as he worked through his thoughts, "that someone wanted to get you away from Harry?"

Ruth opened her mouth, but no words came out. It would explain the feeling of unease cloaking the past weeks. She thought back to her dinner with Towers, his comments about her stifled potential, of being locked into a relationship, Harry's tentacles, subtly exposing her vulnerability, his words feeding her woefully undernourished ego.

"He said the power map is being redrawn," she murmured, more to herself than to Malcolm. He looked at her quizzically.

"I don't know," she continued with their conversation. "Ever since the Russian delegation arrived, nothing has felt right. For one thing, this extradition played alarmingly fast. His rights were completely trampled; there was no review court, no opportunity to challenge it."

"Is there a different law for spies?" asked Malcolm.

"No. Only for the rich." Ruth gave him a half smile. "They kept the fact that Gavrik was in the country away from us, the Security Services. Someone knew all of Harry's codes and they were able to break the encrypted files on level A assets in a matter of hours. It doesn't add up. There's something bigger going on here. We've both been around long enough to know the smell of political interference."

"A mole?"

"To what end? All I know is that there's an unseen hand playing us. We thought it was Coaver."

"Hence the kidnapping."

"Harry's a big fish, Malcolm; big fish are hard to catch because they don't take the bait."

"Unless you make the bait irresistible," Malcolm added, "like a CIA operative."

"Or an old lover and a long lost son." Malcolm blinked at the revelation but she chose to carry on. Malcolm had known Harry longer than she; surely nothing about the man could surprise him."At this point, we're already three moves behind."

"What do you propose we do?"

Ruth extracted the black pouch out from underneath her coat. She unzipped it and pulled out the passports. "New identities. These bank accounts need to be redistributed. These flash drives encrypted and stored securely. And plane tickets."

Malcolm glanced through the documents. "That should be easy enough." His attention caught by the names on the passports, he raised an eyebrow, looking at Ruth.

She shrugged her shoulders. "It was so I could access the funds as his widow." She pulled another paper from the pouch; the edges folded and creased from many handlings. She looked at the picture for a moment and then cleared her throat. "I need you to outbid me on this house.

Malcolm studied the picture but refrained from asking any questions, choosing only to nod his head. "Is that it?"

"We need to find out who is behind Coaver's murder and get Harry out from the clutches of the CIA before they get him out of the country."

He gestured to the paraphernalia around the room. "We do have all this, but we are, after all, only desk spooks, we can't take on the CIA."

Ruth suppressed the urge to tell him that she had killed a French assassin but decided it was best for him to remember the gentle Ruth he knew before she left.

"We were more than paper pushers. They still speak your name with reverence at Thames house."

He blushed at her joking flattery. She slipped the small leather bound book from out of the pouch and placed it on the desk between them. She ran her fingers over the cover and looked at him with a smile.

"And we do have a few old friends we can call on."

TBC