A violin played soft and low, the music filtering through an unobtrusively placed speaker. Harry was faintly conscious of the melody, along with the subdued voices of fellow diners and the tinkling of silverware on china, but it all faded into the background as he settled back to admire his companion. Ruth's hand drew intricate patterns over the red tablecloth, her fingers coming to rest on the embossed handle of her knife. There had been a ring on one of those fingers, the last time they had dined like this. Of course, the place where they sat now was far different from the one they had patronised all those years ago; this one had a more understated elegance. Half-shelled sconces on the wall, a small lamp on the table, wrapping them in a private glow, relegating everything else to the shadows, all of it serving to create the illusion of intimacy. Ruth's eyes glanced about the room, taking in their surroundings and then rounded back to rest on him.

"This is a bit more than a drink, Harry."

"I was hungry."

"Yes, but-"

"I think you're hungry too."

Her eyes hooked on his, holding his gaze for a heartbeat, then two, and then quickly sliding away. He didn't mind, it meant that he could watch her unencumbered. It was an easy journey down the line of her throat to the gentle rise and fall of her breasts, the light throwing shadows and highlights on her skin that were far too alluring. It was true, he was hungry, he hadn't had a proper meal in months, not since her return, and during the time that she had been away, the fare had been markedly empty and unfulfilling. Was she hungry? Was her appetite as keen as his? Best not go too far down that road. He cleared his throat and took a sip of his wine. It was rich and dark, an Italian red that she had chosen, ordering the bottle with an accent he had found utterly charming. This bottle didn't count; it was hard liquor that he had forsworn. He sat back, unable to keep his eyes from once again glancing back down to her breasts.

"I don't know if I'm dressed for this place." Her free hand rose to adjust the neckline of her jacket. She knew exactly where he was looking.

"I'll give you fair warning the next time."

Her fingers stilled on her knife and she let her hands drop modestly into her lap. He needed to step back - he wasn't playing fair. She had agreed to a drink and he had changed the rules in mid-play, taking her instead to a restaurant. It wasn't entirely his fault; it was the summer air, the heat trapped in the asphalt, rising to embrace them as they drove through the humid night. The entire city was held captive by the last days of summer, caught between two seasons. Who was he to resist that feeling of exquisite limbo?

"Have you been here before?" she asked.

"I've driven past it a few times and I've always wondered what it was like inside."

He wouldn't tell her how he had discovered the place or with whom. Nor would he divulge that he had spent the entire dinner with that other woman imagining that he was with her.

"You're lying," she challenged with a gleam in her eye.

He froze at the idea that she could read his thoughts. He did his best to keep his face impassive. "I am not."

"Yes, you are. You have a tell."

"I do not." He sat up, bristling at her assertion.

"The corner of your mouth." She moved her finger to indicate a spot on her bottom lip. "It moves ever so slightly."

Her lips formed into an engaging pout, the movement catching him completely off guard, leaving him delightfully mesmerised and more than a bit flustered. He was unable to discern if her gesture was entirely innocent or if she was flirting with him. In a rare fit of self-consciousness, he pressed his lips together, unnerved by the thought that she must have studied them in great detail to work out such a deduction.

"No one in our business wants to be told they have a tell." He adjusted his posture, pulling down his suit jacket, attempting to assert a modicum of control over the situation and his supposed tell.

"Well, I've known you for a very long time."

She met his eyes, a teasing smile on her lips, giving him a brief glimpse of the woman she once was. Perhaps one day she would come back to him, that Ruth of laughter and smiles. He took a deep breath. Surely, there was no harm in looking at her lips. He had seen enough horror, he deserved a moment of beauty; why not relish the novelty of finally having her to himself in a setting outside the Grid.

The waiter arrived with their entrees, interrupting Harry's indulgent musings. He picked up his knife and fork, stomach growling in anticipation, taste buds salivating over the piece of choice beef. Ruth did not follow his lead but sat perfectly still, her eyes lowered to her plate. He hesitated, motioning with his cutlery.

"Is anything wrong?"

"It's fish." She remained focused on the plate.

"Isn't that what you ordered?"

"Yes. I wasn't thinking..." Her hand hesitated near her plate, debating whether to push it away. "I haven't had bass since..." Her eyes rose to his, large and lost, as if she had broken something of great value and was afraid to confess the damage. She spoke to him in a whispered confession. "I had some on the grill when they came."

Her look shot straight through him, silently pleading with him to fix that which had been broken. His stomach knotted with the knowledge that the blame for her fractured life lay squarely at his feet. He didn't know what to do, how to help her. He searched for words that would bring their conversation back from the darkness that threatened to overtake it. His heart beat erratically with the fear that he would lose her down a well of memory. She looked away from him and out over the restaurant, a hardness stealing over her features. He found her behaviour disconcerting. When had this happened? This mastery over her emotions. It was highly commendable, the ability to divorce oneself from pain; it had saved him many times, but a small corner of his heart worried that she would become too much like him, so proficient in denying the pain that one day she might feel nothing. Her hand gravitated to her wine glass and she pushed it towards him.

"I'd like another glass of wine please," she said, her voice eerily flat.

He picked up the bottle and filled her glass. "You could order something else."

She shook her head.

"You could have mine if you like." He gestured to his plate.

She looked down at his meal. "It's a bit too raw."

The slice of beef, so appetising earlier, had revealed its pink centre, a trickle of rose coloured juice flowing onto the plate. How fitting that his meal should still contain blood. His grip tightened around his fork; she wasn't referring to his dinner. She took a large swallow of her wine and nodded, making an internal resolution. Picking up her knife and fork, she straightened up in her chair and gave him a faint smile.

"We can't avoid things forever, can we?"

It would always lie between them, that Pandora's Box of painful memories. They had not talked about George or the boy or anything that had happened it that room and if he had his way, they never would. He was painfully aware that he would always be trying to find a way to make it better. He cast his mind about, looking for a subject to distract her, coming upon and then tossing out, politics, world affairs, and work. Surely those topics were not the sum of him, he must have more to offer. They sat for a moment, eating quietly until he stumbled upon a thought.

"I have tickets for the opera on Friday."

"That sounds nice."

"It's Tosca."

"Italian melodrama, that doesn't sound like you," she observed drily.

"One can only listen to the Ring Cycle so many times."

"True."

At his comment, the softness returned to her face. His shoulders relaxed and he felt a small sense of relief that they had for the moment managed to navigate past an emotional whirlpool.

"Do you know it?" He took a bite from his meal, closing his eyes to savour the taste.

"Is it the one about the artist and the singer?"

"Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore."

"I live for art, I live for love." Realising what she had said, her eyebrow rose and she gave him a look, suspecting that he had set her up to say those words. Instead of the moment turning awkward, she volleyed back at him. "Do you know the solo the tenor sings?"

"Something about stars, I believe."

"O, dolci baci, o languide carezze." She looked past his shoulder, a soulful quality to her voice.

"That's not what it's called." He pointed his fork at her. "I know that much."

"It's a line from the piece." She returned to concentrating on cutting up her fish.

Of course, she could quote the libretto. She knew the opera inside and out. She knew everything, including his thoughts before he even had them.

"What does it mean?" he prodded, having a faint inkling of the translation.

"If only you knew someone who spoke Italian." She popped a piece of fish in her mouth and gave him an impish smile as she chewed.

Hypnotised by her wine-stained lips, he forgot about his meal, leaving his knife and fork to hover above his plate. He shook his head.

"Someday you'll tell me."

She shrugged her shoulders and took a sip of her wine. He reached for his glass, mirroring her actions. He missed wine. It softened the edges of everything, including him. He rolled it around in his mouth, tasting the tannins, the liquid loosening his tongue, the words flowing forth.

"I get the season, though I oft times end up giving them away."

He did not tell her that he avoided certain performances knowing there would be a colleague or a politician attending that night. There were so many things he had never told her but at that moment, basking in the amber glow of the small lamp, he wanted to tell her everything. They had reached a juncture in the conversation, two different paths presenting themselves to him. In the past, when confronted with the opportunity, he would let the moment quietly slip away but tonight was different. Perhaps it was the wine talking or the remnants of his earlier courage, or that he was sailing on a stream, content to go where the current carried him, but he needed to ask the question.

"Would you like to go with me?"

She took a deep breath, her eyes dropping back down to her plate.

"It doesn't matter, I was just wondering. Shame to waste a ticket." He eased the question back. He had overshot and listed perilously close to the edge.

"This fish is actually very good," she said, her fork scraping the plate, evading the question.

The subject was changed, the course corrected, and he relaxed a fraction hoping that all was not lost. He desperately wanted the evening to continue in the earlier vein of ease they had found.

"Care for some dessert?"

"No, thank you." She looked at him and saw his disappointment. "But we should probably have a coffee before you drive home."

...

The car glided through the night, the traffic proving uncharacteristically cooperative, much to Harry's dismay. Not a slowdown or delay in sight that would extend the evening and keep her alone with him. The radio played quietly, strains of a classical guitar piece, evocative and lonely, drifting on the breeze that blew through his half-opened window. For most of the drive, they had chatted amiably about everything and nothing and had fallen into a comfortable silence. At least, that's what he had assumed. He glanced over at Ruth. She was leaning back against the headrest, her eyes closed, the ever present furrow of thought missing from her brow. He smiled at the discovery and turned his attention back to the road. They could be driving home together, after a day on the Grid, falling asleep, falling into each other. He gripped the steering wheel, and inhaled a deep breath; steeling himself from letting his thoughts stray too far. At a traffic signal, he stole another look at her, his eyes travelling down her body, the seatbelt sitting across her breasts, her palms turned up in her lap, her legs in black boots fading into the darkness under the seat. A wave of tenderness washed over him and he wanted to run his finger across her cheek or place his had hand possessively on her knee. She drew in a sharp breath as if he had touched her, and he quickly turned back to the road. She sat up in her seat, blinking.

"Did I nod off? Sorry."

"I have been known to do that to people."

She brushed her hair back and craned her neck, looking about to see where they were. "We're close. It's just past this street." She motioned with her hand.

After a few blocks, he pulled up outside a row of houses, their gardens ringed with iron fences; each building carved into flats, he supposed. He found a space between two small cars and shut off the engine. There was a soft click as her seatbelt slid back into place and he reached down to undo his own.

"I'll walk you in."

"That's alright," she assured him.

Her hand rested on the door handle as she twisted her body around to look at him. She placed her free hand on his forearm, her lips slightly parted as if she were about to say something. He leant his head in, anticipating her words, waiting for her to speak, but she was silent. His eyes fell to her lips, the memory of the pout she had shown him earlier rising to the forefront of his consciousness. She didn't move. The breeze sighed through the window, caressing the back of his neck. The evening was warm and inviting and so was she. Her face was so temptingly near, he need only move a fraction to feel her lips under his.

"Goodnight Harry."

Her words broke the spell. She turned away but he refused to let the moment go. He grabbed her hand and held it to his forearm.

"Why did you have dinner with me?"

"I agreed to a drink," she corrected him with an indulgent smile.

"Why?"

She closed her eyes. "I didn't want you to be alone. Not after everything that has happened."

Before he had time to quell it, a wave of disappointment washed over him. He looked away, attempting to school his features back into his usual stone of indifference. He could try to hide his feeling but she knew him too well. She tilted her head in apology, her eyes silently asking him to understand. The only thing he could do was be gracious.

"Thank you for keeping me company."

She squeezed his arm reassuringly. "Thank you for the dinner."

She opened the door, and eased herself down, giving a little jump as she left the Range Rover. She turned back to him with a soft smile and closed the door. He watched as she walked up the path and waited until she was safely in her house.

He let out a long, tortuous sigh as he dropped his fist on the steering wheel. Damn. That's all it had been to her - an evening of support for someone who was dealing with loss. He couldn't be mad at her, he couldn't fault her, it was a very kind gesture. But after the evening they had just spent together he knew that is not what he wanted. He would have to once again lock up his feelings for her if only to save his sanity. It was just as she said, everything was still too raw.

He pulled the car out of the spot and drove into the night, the leaves rustling in the breeze as the radio continued to play. The air flowed through the window but the scent of her still lingered on, tantalisingly out of reach. It had been so easy to lose himself in her company, forget the grief of the past few days. He briefly closed his eyes and imagined the taste of her, feeling like a starving man who had glimpsed a feast, and could not bear the thought of returning to bread and water. Deep within him, a tightness grew, his skin tingling as he remembered the shade of her lips and the glow of her skin. So close. So close. He resigned himself to another sleepless night but it would not be the heat that kept him awake.