A/N: Thank you for the enthusiasm for the first chapter. I hope that this continues to live up to expectations.
Ruth is thinking that it's high time she went to bed, when there is a knock on the front door. It is a gentle and tentative knock, so it could be one of her neighbours, or it could be …... Well, it's not going to be Harry, is it? He doesn't visit her at home, not unless he's invited, and she hasn't invited him, not this time.
"Harry -" she says dumbly, as she opens the door.
"I'm sorry if this is too late, Ruth, but we really need to talk, and you were not answering your phone."
She steps aside to let him in, thinking about his last comment.
"Not answering my phone? But you didn't ring."
"Perhaps you need to check your phone," Harry says, following her down the hallway to her sitting room.
Ruth shows him to a comfy chair beside the fire which is not turned on, and then leaves the room to make them a pot of tea, and to check her phone, which she'd left on the counter beside the cooker.
She carries the tea into the living room on a tray, and she places it on the coffee table.
"You were right. My phone was turned off."
"Why? That's not like you. What if there was -"
"An emergency?"
"Well, yes, but -"
"Is that why you're here, Harry? To remind me to turn on my phone."
"Of course not."
He gets up, and takes the teapot from her, and begins pouring the tea. He adds milk and sugar to their cups, and hands hers across the table to her. He then takes his own cup, and sits back in the chair.
By this time, Ruth has turned on her phone, and is listening to the voicemails.
"You rang me five times!"
"I was worried about you."
"You needn't have. I just wanted to get away from everything and spend some time on my own."
"Is that all?" His biggest fear is that she wants to be as far away from him as possible.
"No." She carefully sips her tea. "Nice. You know exactly how I like my tea, Harry."
Harry doesn't reply. She still hasn't answered his question. He really wants to know why she left the Grid in such a hurry. Had she been running from him? It had certainly looked like it.
Ruth doesn't answer him straight away. She's not sure how much she should tell him. What would he think of her were he to know she'd been out with Simon Lawson, and to avoid meeting him again, had cancelled at the last minute? It is then she realises how much his opinion matters to her. She is so cautious around him, so careful. Is this because she doesn't want him to know how terribly flawed she is?
"You changed the subject, Ruth. What's the real reason you left the Grid in such a hurry? Did someone say something to you? Did they offend you?" `Did I offend you' is implied.
Ruth shakes her head, and sips her tea, concentrating on the cup she holds between her hands. "Would you like the fire on, Harry?"
"Don't change the subject. I am quite warm, thank you." To prove a point, Harry stands and removes not only his coat, but his jacket as well, and he throws them over the back of another chair. He'd already removed his tie in the car, and left it on the passenger seat. The top two buttons of his shirt are undone, providing temporary distraction for Ruth.
It is then that Ruth recognises that Harry is not about to let this go. He is not about to give up. She sighs heavily, and carefully places the cup on the coffee table.
"My leaving the Grid when I did had nothing to do with you, Harry. I needed to come home …... to be somewhere I felt safe. Sometimes it happens like that."
Harry sighs, leaning back in his chair, annoyed by his own insensitivity. "I'm sorry, Ruth."
"It wasn't your fault, Harry."
"Then whose fault was it?"
"I shouldn't have accepted the first dinner invitation. I should have -" Seeing Harry's face stricken and hurt, Ruth suddenly realises there's been a miscommunication. Will things always be like this between them? "Not you, Harry. I don't mean the dinner with you. That was …..." Lovely, delightful, surprising, memorable ….. burned into my heart.
Harry is barely breathing. He has no idea what Ruth is talking about. Then he remembers why he is here – to fight for Ruth, for them. "What dinner are you talking about, Ruth?"
This time, Ruth puts down her cup, and takes a breath before she speaks. "I went out to dinner last week with someone I'd known at university. I ran into one of my old friends from uni in the street, and she married …... To cut a long story short, I agreed to go out to dinner with her brother-in-law. I didn't enjoy myself. I kept looking at my watch, waiting for it to be over, and then when he asked me to have dinner again, I said yes. I can't explain why. Somehow, saying yes was easier than having to tell him that I didn't want to do it again, and then having to explain myself." Ruth is looking at her hands, busily grasping the bottom of her shirt. "I was supposed to have dinner with him tonight, but I rang and cancelled – on his voicemail. Then I turned my phone off and came home." She looks up at him then, and shrugs, hoping he won't think she's too stupid …... or cruel. "I wasn't talking about our dinner, Harry. Our dinner was …... lovely." After all this time – over three years – the memory of their one dinner together still warms her at night.
Of course, he knows she'd had a date last week, but hearing her talk about it has made it real. He doesn't know how to react. While part of him is jealous, angry even, mostly he is relieved. Look at it this way …... she was meant to be with this other man now, and yet he is the one sharing a pot of tea with her. That must be a good sign, surely.
"Have you anything stronger than tea, Ruth?"
"I do, as it happens."
Ruth has always kept a bottle of single malt in her cupboard under the cooker. She tells herself that she does it in memory of her father, who also enjoyed a good whiskey, but she knows that's a lie. She keeps it in the hope there will be nights like this one, where Harry turns up unexpectedly, asking for a drink. She takes the bottle and two glasses into the living room, and places them in front of Harry. "You can do the honours," she says.
They each sit in their seats – he in a chair near the cold fire, and she on the sofa, her bare feet curled under her – and sip their whiskey. There is so much they each want to say – need to say – that neither knows where to begin.
Harry keeps reminding himself why he is here, and that to fight for her will demand he be brave, perhaps even foolish.
"Ruth," he says quietly, and she looks up at him, a flash of fear in her eyes. "Would you mind of I sat on the sofa next to you?"
"Why?" As soon as the word is out of her mouth she regrets it. "What I mean is …... oh, alright."
"I won't if you don't want me to. I'm quite happy here, it's just that -"
Ruth shuffles across to make room for him beside her. She pats the seat, and looks at him, smiling. He puts his drink on the coffee table, and covers the short distance between them, sliding close to her, so that his knee touches hers. She leans a little towards him, her hand on her own thigh, an invitation to him to touch her.
"You …... you seem to want me here, Ruth. Why did you sound so unenthusiastic when I asked?"
She sighs heavily. There's a lot of that going on tonight, he thinks. "I often say the …... exact opposite of what I mean, what I want. Like when I accepted Simon's dinner invitation, and then the second one. I didn't want to go out with him in the first place."
Harry takes a while to let that sink in. One of the things he loves about Ruth is her complexity. She is an enigma, even to him, and he knows her better than anyone. Getting to know her has been like peeling an onion. There are just so many layers to her. Perhaps, then, words are not the most useful means of communication.
Very carefully, he reaches across and places his hand on hers. He can feel Ruth's slight intake of breath, and then she turns her hand under his so that they can entwine their fingers. Harry turns his head towards her and smiles, but she is looking at their hands. He is barely breathing.
Harry wonders would it be too bold of him to reach across and kiss her, when her phone rings. They both jump, and their hands spring apart. Ruth leans forward to pick up the phone. She makes a face, and shows him the screen ….He reads Simon calling, as the phone keeps ringing.
"Do you want me to scare him off?" Harry suggests.
"It's my problem, Harry. I have to deal with it."
"Just tell him the truth, Ruth. That's all any man wants to hear. We're simple creatures. Just the truth."
Ruth gets up as she answers, and wanders into the kitchen, her end of the conversation just a series of umms and ah-hahs. He tries not to listen in, but he is curious as to whether she will be able to tell this guy she doesn't want to see him. That she's seeing someone else. Well, almost.
He turns to watch her as she wanders back into the living room. "... and I can't see you again, Simon. It isn't fair on you to string you along. I'm sorry if you got the wrong idea. I thought it might have been …. no, I don't think that's a very good idea. I can't just drop everything and …... Simon – I won't be meeting you again. We have nothing in common. …... Well, there is someone, but that's my business..."
Ruth takes her phone from her ear, and looks at it. "He hung up on me," she says.
"You told him the truth, Ruth. It worked."
"Most of what I said was the truth. I find it hard to be cruel to someone." She puts the phone down on the table, and sits back beside Harry.
"Believe me, Ruth …... keeping the truth from a man is much more cruel than being blunt with him. He'll get over it. His pride has been hurt. When you agreed to go out with him again, he believed he'd passed the first test."
"And had I turned down his invitation to have dinner again?"
"He would have felt he'd failed, but at least he knew where he stood with you."
They are sitting together on the sofa, watching one another. They each know that this conversation is no longer about Ruth and Simon. There is still an event which took place over three years earlier which was never resolved, never fully understood. She'd had to leave the country soon after, and now she has only been back a few months, during which time most of their conversations have been about work.
Harry is leaning against the back of the sofa, his head turned towards Ruth, and her body position mirrors his. They look at one another, both recognising that this is an important moment between them, perhaps a turning point. He reaches out and touches her cheek with his knuckles. When she doesn't object, he allows his fingers to run the length of her bottom lip, then back and forth. Ruth grasps his hand between her own, and turns it so that her lips touch his knuckles in a soft kiss.
She holds his hand between hers, resting it against her chest. He could reach out with his thumb and touch her breast.
Dare he?
