A/N - Thank you so much for reading and reviewing, always very much appreciated. You may have guessed where this is going and I've given myself the challenge of keeping these two in cannon but it will take a few more chapters to get them there.

Harry stood at the corner of her desk, silent as a shadow, noting every detail as she moved. Turned away, absorbed in her phone conversation, Ruth remained oblivious to the man who was observing her. Her shoulders were slightly rounded, the muscles of her back moving as she wrote down a piece of information. The faint outline of a bra strap showed beneath the blue fabric of her dress, a single stray hair sitting beside it. His fingers rose to remove it but stopped when she swivelled in her chair. Her eyes widened in surprise as she turned around and saw him. Holding up her hand to indicate he should wait, she ended the phone call and then looked at him expectantly.

"Come." He took a step away from the desk.

"Where?"

There had been a time when she would have followed him unquestioningly.

"The Home Office."

"What about Lucas?"

"He's busy." Impatience coloured his tone. "I need to meet with the interim Home Secretary and convince him that the threat of Nightingale is still real. And you need to extract a bona fide guest list for the funeral."

She nodded. "Let me get a few things together."

"I'll wait for you downstairs." He turned and walked away, giving her no opportunity for any further questions.

The lobby was dark and oppressive, making his decision to go outside and wait that much easier. He had spent far too many days in windowless rooms; he deserved a moment in the sun. The heat enveloped him as walked through the large wooden doors, the last vestiges of summer still clinging to the city, unwilling to make way for the burst of autumn. He gingerly walked down the steps, his spirits elevated by the sun. As he waited for his car, he checked his mobile and scrolled through his messages. It was an attempt to keep his mind occupied, a measure so he wouldn't have to think about her or the previous evening. He had debated the wisdom of bringing her along to Whitehall, but they needed a concrete list of guests and he didn't want to deal with a placeholder Home Secretary alone.

She finally arrived carrying a black leather briefcase, the handles long enough to fit over her shoulder and before he could ask what was inside, his mobile chimed. He motioned towards the waiting car as he took the call and opened the door for her. As she stepped into the car, the length of her leg stretched out behind her and he immediately lost the thread of his phone conversation. He asked the caller to repeat the words and continued on with his call as they settled themselves in. This time, she would have to wait. He rang off and turned to her.

"What's in there?" He motioned to her briefcase.

"Notes on Nightingale, indicators of possible resurgence, loose ends. A list of protocols for the funeral for a Member of Parliament. And I might need to take notes."

He couldn't help but smile. How different from his Section Chiefs whose only armour was their bravado. He settled back, taking a moment to enjoy the pleasure of being in the back seat of a car with her.

"I use a car when I go to Whitehall. It's faster, I can take calls." He felt compelled to explain why he needed a driver.

"It's not that far."

"There's always traffic."

"Such a nice day, everyone should be outside." She absently rubbed the corners of her briefcase and looked wistfully out the window.

She too deserved time in the sun. He should bring her to the Home Office more often. He looked away from her and out his own window. No, he had to keep their time alone to a minimum. Neither of them had mentioned the previous evening and he was certain that he could move beyond it. It had been one lovely night, never to be repeated, an outlier in their professional relationship.

The driver deposited them at the doors of Whitehall and they made their way towards the inner sanctum. It was the fate of all civil servants to outlive the tenure of the politicians they served but it did not make transitions any easier. The loss of Lawrence hung around him like a cloud. One more death. He needed a Home Secretary he could trust; he didn't have time to babysit a temporary one. They were ushered into the familiar office only to see an unfamiliar face sitting behind the desk. The young man rose and walked towards them holding out his hand.

"Miles Stanhope," he introduced himself.

Good Lord, this one was even younger than Lawrence, Harry observed. He shook the man's hand in return. "Harry Pearce. This is my Intelligence Analyst, Ruth Evershed."

Stanhope took his seat behind the desk, motioning for the two agents to take their seats across from him.

"We're a bit of a travelling circus round here of late. We've lost two Home Secretaries in the space of a month. I've got the file for now, but that's temporary, so I'm depending on you, Sir Harry."

"We'll certainly do our best." He felt no compulsion to tell the young man he need not address him by his title.

"I suppose we should start with the threat level," Stanhope prompted.

"Should the Prime Minister of Pakistan attend the funeral, we believe there may still be a significant threat to his life."

"So not to the British people?" Stanhope asked.

"Any threat to an individual on our soil is a possible threat to the country." He made no effort to hide the disdain in his voice.

Knowing that Harry did not suffer fools lightly, Ruth stepped in. "We haven't completely ruled the group that was behind Andrew Lawrence's death. We believe we know the source of their financing and there may still be a network of foreign operatives, the extent of which we are still determining."

Harry glanced at Ruth. She had not mentioned Nightingale by name, a wise move considering Stanhope was still an unknown quantity. She remembered the rules. Keep your cards close.

Stanhope nodded. "Prime Minister Modassa has asked for one your agents specifically. The fellow who rescued him from the hotel."

"We can certainly arrange that." Harry obliged. "But to assure everyone's safety, we need a complete list of all the guests at the ceremony."

"It's become a bit of a beast, you see. Everyone wants to be there. Lawrence is now being touted as a hero for sacrificing his life to avert a nuclear war. There's talk of a state funeral."

Harry sat forward in his chair. "The security involved in that would be phenomenal."

"That's not possible," Ruth interjected. "State funerals are reserved for Royalty."

Stanhope blinked and considered her statement. "Are you sure about that?"

"Positive," Ruth responded, leaving no room for argument.

Harry suppressed a smile, amused that the man would have even doubted Ruth. It had been the right decision to bring her along.

"It's imperative that we have a list of attendees," Ruth continued.

"The list is changing daily," Stanhope deferred.

"We need something to work with." Harry lifted his chin to illustrate his point. "Miss Evershed needs to do background checks."

"I'll have something drawn up later today and you can have your girl take a look at it."

Silence dropped on the room like a lead blanket. Ruth stiffened beside Harry, her fingers curling into a fist on top of her black briefcase. Before she could respond, he spoke, his voice low and precise.

"To clarify, Miss Evershed is not 'my girl'. She is a senior member of the team and a highly trained Intelligence Officer whose work has no doubt saved your life on more than one occasion."

Stanhope looked as if he had just found himself in the middle of a minefield, uncertain which way to step. "Yes, of course..."

"I'd be happy to assist in any way with compiling the information," Ruth offered, her voice unnaturally sweet.

Stanhope shifted around in his seat, vainly grasping at a way to maintain control over the meeting. "We could certainly use your help." He cleared his throat. "When would be a good time?"

"Now," Ruth stated flatly.

Harry did not suppress his smile. She may not be Ros but Ruth was certainly not a pushover.

Stanhope looked between the two agents and then reached to pick up the phone.

"Gwen, I'm sending Miss Evershed out to you. Please make sure she gets all the information she needs."

Ruth rose to leave but Harry remained seated his eyes trained on Stanhope as he spoke.

"Thank you, your cooperation is greatly appreciated." He slowly stood. "I certainly hope your tenure as Home Secretary ends on a far happier note than the last two." A little extra fear never hurt anyone.

He took his time exiting the room, leaving Stanhope with no doubt as to who held the cards. When he entered the outer office, Ruth was already in conversation with Gwen, her case open and files extracted. He caught her eye and beckoned her over to him with a nod of his head. She quickly excused herself and his chest expanded with the knowledge that he could to summon her from anywhere in the room with a nod. When she reached him, he placed a hand on her elbow and bent down to her ear.

"I've a meeting with the JIC," He glanced at his watch as he spoke. "I'll be back to check on you in two hours. Don't let them get away with anything."

"Do you want me to put a call into your driver?" she asked.

"No, I'll do that."

She nodded. After all, she was not his secretary. As he turned to walk away, she caught his arm and stopped him. Puzzled, he leant back in to hear what she had to say.

"So, I'm not your girl then?" she whispered. He blinked at her in surprise, not sure how to respond. She waited for a moment, looking as if she enjoyed his unease. "Good to know." She gave him a pert little smile and walked away.

He watched as she left, having no idea what had transpired. It felt like flirting but surely she was joking, having a little dig at Stanhope for his derogatory comment. Or did she mean something else? He tucked the exchange away in his mind, vowing he would take it out to analyse during what he expected to be an insufferable JIC meeting, where he would no doubt be a pincushion for every needle of responsibility in Lawrence's death.

...

The day hung humid, the air unmoving with an edge of brine to it. The midday rays reflected off the water and Harry squinted against their sparkling brightness. The heat burned through his dark jacket and a line of perspiration formed under his collar. In a fit of rebellion, he shrugged off his jacket and draped it over his arm, flexing his shoulders as if releasing a great weight. The cool of the concrete balustrade seeped through his shirtsleeves as he rested his forearms against it. He closed his eyes, the sun warm on his cheeks, wishing he could stay in that one spot and leave the realm to its own fate. It was a favourite place of his along the embankment, down from Whitehall, and yet a world away. There was a presence near his shoulder and he opened his eyes to find Ruth standing beside him.

"They only had the sparkling kind," she explained, juggling two green bottles. "I'm rather partial to it; I developed a taste for it years ago."

She paused for a moment, her eyes darting over the whiteness of his shirt, a strange look stealing over her face. She moistened her lips drawing his attention down to her mouth and the air stilled around them, suspended in the afternoon heat. A hint of a breeze caught the moment, carrying it away and she remembered her original intent. She handed him a bottle with one hand while struggling to keep the strap of her satchel over her shoulder with the other. He took the bottle and helped to move the strap up her arm, his fingers brushing over her shoulder, small and compact beneath his hand. A twist had formed in the leather and he slowly smoothed it out, giving him an excuse to let his hand linger a bit longer. She accepted his familiarity without flinching and gave him a fleeting smile of thanks. She opened her bottle and plopped the straw down the neck, slipping her lips over it, sipping the drink like a schoolgirl. Ever since she had demonstrated his tell with her own mouth, he had found his eyes continually wandering to her lips. He would have to do something about that fascination. He looked back out over the water and twisted the lid off his own drink, taking a sip straight from the bottle. They stood in silence, listening to the water lapping against the stone, the murmur of conversation as people passed by, the hum of the city that pervaded even the quietest spots.

"What time is it?" she asked.

He looked at his watch. "We've still got a few minutes."

The JIC meeting had ended early and she had been far more adept at wheedling information from Gwen than he had anticipated. He had given his driver a large buffer of time to return and pick them up and instead of calling to say that they were early, he had suggested they take a few minutes to enjoy the weather before heading back.

"Do you want to sit?" He looked around for a bench.

"I sit all day."

He nodded, disappointed at being denied the opportunity to sit beside her. He adjusted his weight so that he was leaning closer to her, but kept his attention out over the river.

"You've taken off your jacket," she observed.

"It's very hot. I don't remember it ever being this bad. Blame it on global warming."

"Climate change," she amended. "Extreme variations in the weather. More of a global climate disruption. Not always heat."

He turned to face her, casually leaning his elbow on the railing. Her voice held that rambling note of awkward explanation that he hadn't heard from her in such a long time. He took another swig of the sparkling water. Normally, he couldn't stand the stuff but if she drank it, he would drink it too. She looked remarkably cool, still in her jacket, nonplussed by the heat. Perhaps she had adapted to it while in Cyprus

"I've booked the chapel that Ros requested," said Ruth, "It's a few days after the memorial for Lawrence. She deserves a day of honour to herself."

He bowed his head. A scattering of dry leaves lay at his feet, a sign of the impending season change. He brushed them with his toe, the fragile husks crackling under foot, concentrating on them, letting Ruth's comment go answered.

"What do you think of Lucas as Section Chief?" he asked, changing the subject. She did not respond right away and he looked up to gauge her reaction.

"I think he would be good."

He nodded and looked back out over the river.

Ruth squinted at him. "You have reservations, though." She understood his silence as being an agreement. "Did you have reservations about Ros?"

"Yes."

"And she turned out to be one of your best. And she didn't come to us under very auspicious circumstances."

He couldn't explain that there would only ever be one Ros. That she had been cut from him, Athena-like, and forged stronger by the crucible of loss. He had lost a piece of himself. Fate would only allow him one such lieutenant in his lifetime.

"I worry about the past. His past," he quickly amended. "That Russia may come back to haunt him."

"Do you mean politically or emotionally?"

"They did hold him for eight years."

"I don't think you need to worry about his loyalty."

"I'm worried about the toll it took on him psychologically."

She followed his gaze out over the river, absently circling the straw around the neck of the bottle. "For all our failings, we humans are very resilient creatures. Traumas from out past don't have to define us."

He looked at her askance, wondering if that was indeed true.

"It's complicated.," Harry continued. "He had a wife, you know."

"Yes, I saw the file. She was an asset for a while."

"When we were double blinding Kachimov. She married someone else while Lucas was in prison."

She did not immediately pick up the thread of the conversation and he turned to see if she was still paying attention. Her fingers had moved down to the label on the bottle and she was picking away at it.

"Some people move on when circumstance are out of their control," she murmured without looking up.

"And in some, the past lingers forever."

A breeze skimmed along the river and up to where they stood, briefly breaking the humidity. The wind stirred her hair, blowing a strand across her eyes, and she tucked it back behind her ear.

"What did Lucas do?" she quietly asked.

"He burned her."

"That must have been very hard."

"It was. I'm not sure if he has truly let her go."

She closed her eyes at his thinly veiled words. In the distance, a church bell tolled the hour.

"We should go back," she said.

"We should," he echoed, unable to hide the note of yearning in his voice. On that one last day of summer, he wanted to reach out and touch her, slide his fingers along her jaw to the nape of her neck, twine them in her hair and give into his fascination with her lips. Instead, he straightened up and attempted to shrug on his jacket.

"Would you hold this for me?" He held out his water bottle. He slipped into the jacket, tugging at the lapels, pulling the sleeves down over the cuffs of his shirt.

"Why do you wear a jacket all the time?"

"Protection."

"From what?"

He didn't answer but looked at her from under his lids. She knew his Achilles heel, the spot he needed to protect. That the jacket was everything about the Service that kept them apart and at the same time wove them together. As long as he wore the jacket, he was her boss and everything about them was neatly defined by the parameters of the Grid. He took his bottle back from her.

"I suppose we can't toss these in the river."

"Only if there's a message in it." She gave him a crooked smile.

He stood looking into her eyes. What message was she sending him? One of friendship, he conjectured. The smile faded from her face but she held his gaze. There was a glint in her eye, a spark of promise, he was certain. She turned her head away from him but he had seen it; a faint message of something more.