A/N: So, my brother still has not been found officially. Life continues to be difficult. Thus, this chapter is long and rambling and might not make much sense. And I kind of don't care anymore because at least it flows.

Nine:
Decisions

Harry was late coming home, as usual. Nine became ten, became eleven, and she wondered briefly if he would come home at all – or if he'd stay in his office, sleep on the sofa. She took to the computer to see if she could find out what was keeping him, but aside from hacking into the MI-5 mainframe, there would be no way for her to figure it out. And if she did that, she would be committing herself to a lifetime sentence of being their best friend.

Despite two weeks, she still hadn't come to a decision about rejoining her compatriots in arms. Ruth just wasn't brave enough to fully commit herself to a life like that again. She'd had it all, once. Now she might just be content to have none of it.

But there was a little voice in her head that reminded her that she'd thrived on the danger, the quiet complexity of her life in Five –

She was just about to give up on him when the front door opened and Scarlett went running, woofing quietly at Harry as he came in. "Down, girl," he said softly but gruffly. "Don't wake up the whole house."

She met him in the hallway, surprising him. The tension in his shoulders was incredible, and she gently stroked his shoulders with deft, nimble fingertips. "Long day," she commented very softly. "Is everything all right?"

"It is now," he sighed, leaning into her touch. "I'm taking tomorrow off, barring anymore national emergencies."

She pressed a kiss to his shoulder and murmured, "Did you lose anyone today?"

He stiffened a little, then said, "Four CO19, three of Five's."

She flinched. "And the cell?"

"Neutralized."

"Good," she said very quietly. She didn't know how to phrase it, but she finally said, "Anyone I know?"

"No." The word was simple, curt, effective, and she was silent again.

He turned and wrapped his arms around her, breathing in deeply. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I forget sometimes that you're really here; that going to New York and getting you and Jamie wasn't just some dream I'll wake up from in the morning. It's days like today that I needed you most when you weren't here. And now you are, and I don't know how to react."

"Don't apologize," she murmured.

"Everyone else asleep?" he asked.

"Rose was up watching a movie in her room," Ruth said softly, "but I think she's gone to sleep now."

He nodded and leaned into her. "I love you," Harry said very quietly. "So much."

"Harry… I'm not going anywhere," she whispered. "What happened today that has you so rattled?"

"I can't tell you," he said, frowning. "Just know that I love you and I need you."

She stood up on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss. "I need you, too," Ruth said. "Upstairs, Sir Harry – it's time to get that tie off you."

They hadn't made love since they'd gotten back – he was too busy, she was too uncomfortable. But they did hold each other at night before awkwardly parting in the early hours of the morning so he could go to work. But now, seeing how emotionally shattered he appeared, her heartstrings tugged and she wanted nothing more than to feel.

"Harry," she murmured as they climbed the stairs, "I love you." It was quiet, a soft declaration, reiteration, of their affection, of their place in the world. "And I need to tell you something."

"You're pregnant," he deadpanned.

"No," she huffed. "Not physically possible – I don't have the bits anymore. Total hysterectomy when Jamie was born," she added unnecessarily. "No, it's… Ros came to see me a ways back and asked me to come back to Five."

Harry stiffened a bit, then said, "Yes. I know. She told me."

"I told her I needed more time to make a decision," Ruth said softly. "I still haven't decided."

He took her by the hand and led her into their bedroom, shutting the door behind them. "We almost lost Ros and Lucas today," he said, voice low. "And very nearly London. All I could think about was you and the kids, here, not knowing anything. And it was selfish of me to wish you'd been directing the Section D operation, but god help me, I did wish it. Because you would have been there and safe and –"

She silenced him with a kiss and whispered, "If I go back, it changes nothing, Harry. I'm still a mum and a wife and –"

"You always were," he said, returning the kiss. "Nothing changes."

"You won't be there," she said, a little sullenly.

"No, but maybe you'll do better work when you're not trying to impress me enough to get me to take you to bed," he teased.

She punched him in the shoulder. "OI!" Ruth snapped. "As I recall, you're the one who was distracted all the time."

He smiled down at her and said, "Not all the time. When you weren't on the Grid, I wasn't distracted."

"Shenanigans," she replied, poking him in the gut. "You were thinking about me and the girls incessantly. You told me so yourself." She poked him again, and he grabbed her wrists, turning them so she was pinned to the door by his bulk, her hands stretched above her head. She moaned softly and blinked at him, waiting for his next move.

He shifted, pressing the weight of his lower body against hers. She whimpered and tried to move, but she was firmly against the door. "Harry," she breathed.

"Have you decided?" he asked.

"Yes," she murmured; not about Five, but about the more immediate, the need for him – she'd decided it was overwhelming and she should do something about it.

"And what have you decided?"

"That we'd best not fuck against the door, or one or both of us might throw our backs out."

He looked at her with bewildered amusement. "I meant about work –"

"I haven't decided about work," she admitted, looking a bit sheepish.

"So you thought you'd just get me wound up a bit?" he asked, shifting his hips again, pressing just that much harder against her. She moaned and closed her eyes, trying to keep her bearings. "Well, it worked."

"Mm, good," she breathed. "We've been woefully chaste as of late, and I know you need to unwind after today –"

He growled and nipped at her neck, making her breath come faster, a moan rising unbidden from her throat. "I'm sorry I've neglected you," he groaned.

"No, you aren't," she murmured, whimpering a little as his hardness pressed against her. "You've got a world to save – you aren't sorry you've neglected me. If you've neglected me at all, which you haven't. We've been trying to make things normal, haven't we?" She whimpered again, her voice trailing off into nothingness as she tried to concentrate on something, anything, that wasn't to do with what he was doing to her.

"Normal?" he echoed. "I don't like this version of normal. I want our normal from before – before we were trying for a baby. When we'd shag ourselves silly and have fun with the kids… this is bullshit, Ruth. I love you, for god's sake!"

"And I love you," she murmured, feeling like everything had already waved bye-bye on the road straight to hell. "But love isn't everything, is it?"

He growled again and said, "Two weeks, Ruth, and we haven't –"

"So work with me to change that," she snapped, moving her head and capturing his lips with her own, barely reaching him. "Don't shut me out, Harry."

He released her and took a step back, away from her. She felt bereft without him, where only moments before, he had been the focus of her entire part of the universe. He unknotted and yanked viciously on his tie, then started to get undressed. "I'm not shutting you out, but I'm not going to force you to do something you clearly don't want to do –"

"Whoa, hold up," Ruth said sharply. "Who said I didn't want to shag you senseless? You're being bloody unreasonable and repressed and god knows if I paraded in front of you with a sign that said 'FUCK ME NOW' on it, you'd still be initiating this ridiculous conversation!" She fumbled with the sash of her dressing gown, eventually getting the knot undone, and took it off, flinging it out of the way. Her nightshirt and knickers followed suit, and she noted with some pride that Harry had stopped dead in his tracks in a state of partial dress, his fly unzipped and his lime green trunks showing through. "So do I need the sign, Harry, or am I going to have to get myself off? Because if things are so bad between us that you don't want to fuck me, why the hell did I leave New York?"

His mouth was open and he tried several times to speak, but no words came out.

"Oh for pity's sake, it's not like you haven't seen me naked before," she scoffed. "Many times." Her brazen nakedness had her hesitate for a moment. She looked down and didn't like what she saw, but she'd not been happy with her body in a very long time, so what did it matter? She inhaled sharply, realizing in a flash that he wasn't happy with her body, either – that's why he hadn't pushed her back into bed. That's why he was so distant. Oh god, and here she was, trying to seduce him when he was disgusted by her –

Ruth grabbed her dressing gown and flew into the en suite before she made an even bigger fool of herself, in tears of stunned anguish. He didn't want her anymore. It was like a knife straight to the heart and she leaned over the vanity in physical pain as she broke down completely.

It was over, then, their bliss. Some things were just too much to overcome.

She didn't hear him come in, didn't know he was there until his arms came around her and his voice broke through her panicked grief. "Ruth," was all Harry said.

It made it all that much worse; he would be kind to her, tell her that everything was going to be all right even though it wouldn't, it couldn't be – not if he didn't love her anymore. He probably had a gorgeous personal assistant and a tea girl who flashed him leg on a regular basis and what would he want with poor plain old Ruth with her extra baby weight and a spare 10 pounds that had gone on about since she'd come back to Britain. It was all the mash and onion gravy, if she had to be honest. And the cottage pie. God love cottage pie.

She stopped crying, sniffling miserably, her cheeks red, her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot, tears mingling with runny nose as she tried to swipe it all away with the face towel. "I'm sorry," Ruth whispered. "We need… we need to find a way to carry on for the kid's sake, don't we? Even though this is… it's over."

He was very quiet. "Did you meet someone?" Harry finally asked. "Was it some random bloke?"

Her chin quivered; of course he'd think that she'd been the one to cheat – that's just how the male mind worked, and she had done before, hadn't she? "No," she whispered. "There's been no one but you for a very long time, Harry. I just… this isn't working, is it? I'm no good for you anymore. You've lost weight, got fitter – I've put it on and gotten rounder. You don't even look at me; you look through me. And the look on your face when I just got my kit off – god, Harry, you're breaking my heart and you don't even know it, do you?" She bit her lip and looked away. "What's her name?" she whispered.

"What?"

"The woman. What's her name?"

"There is no woman," he denied. "No woman but you." He sighed and nuzzled her neck, and she wished she knew if he was telling the truth or just… blowing smoke. "Ruth, how could you think it?"

"You don't want me," she said simply.

"I'd think our little door display proves your hypothesis to the direct contrary," he whispered. "I could barely keep my cool –"

"Why did you, then? Why must you be so in control?" Ruth asked.

"Because loving you is dangerous," Harry snapped. "For you; for me. It's the most terrifying, the most helpless, thing I've ever done in my life. It's reckless to be up to your neck in secrets and lies and to love someone so deeply that you'd give anything to see them safe. Do you understand?" His face was flushed, his eyes practically glowing with fire, desire, a need that she wasn't sure she could ever quench. "I can't tell you the things I want to tell you; I need you, Ruth."

It hit her like a lightning bolt right between the eyes; it wasn't love keeping them apart, it was the job, the everything that they couldn't give rise to a voice. He was giving her an ultimatum without voicing it, and she felt her heart shudder to a halt before it began beating again. "Harry," she said very quietly, "I'm calling Ros tomorrow to tell her I want to come back."

In some deep, sick way, the job was part of them; it was as much a part of them as any piece of their love. It was what kept them balanced, it was danger and intrigue, and just something that they couldn't give up without a fight. She had to admit: she liked it. And she liked the way he got powerful, dark, masculine in a way that couldn't be described when the danger got to him.

Five was like a drug.

And she was going to take another hit, if it meant not losing him.

"Don't say that if you don't mean it," Harry said quietly.

"I mean it," she said. "But just as a desk spook – none of that field work for me, Harry. I've got to keep myself out of the firing line now we've got Jamie."

"I'll make sure Ros knows it's off limits," Harry said firmly.

"Stop being the boss for just a minute and just… stop," she said quietly. "Your PA?"

"Hermione, yes," he said. "What about her?"

"She's what, twenty-something, all legs and tits?"

He looked confused. "No, she's pushing sixty," he said, "and what do I care about her legs or her tits?"

Ruth exhaled quickly. "And your tea girl?"

"Ianto?" Harry replied. "Clearly not a girl."

She almost laughed in relief. "Oh my god, you must think me a barmy –"

"No," Harry said softly. "I'm just confused as to why you think my go-fer man is a girl and my secretary is out to seduce me. When, clearly, none of the above is happening. I'd be glad to introduce you to Ianto, though – he's always looking for a new lady to go shopping with. He loves shopping with Rose."

Her nervous joviality vanished in an instant. "How old is this Ianto?" she asked.

"Ruth, relax – he's gay," Harry assured her. "He's very happily in a relationship with a young man outside the Service. He and Rose were in school together; I hired him because they're friends, that's all."

She nodded tensely. "Okay, well –" She exhaled and said, "Okay."

"Ruth…"

"I want you so much," she admitted. "So much it feels like the world will end if I lose you. And I thought I had – I convinced myself that I'd lost you because you looked like you couldn't bear the sight of me."

"I was surprised," he said. "Shocked, actually. You never just strip off and there you were, doing just that and – and I almost had a coronary."

"Look, I know I'm getting fat," Ruth said. "Comes with snacking on Jamie's leftovers. I'll slim down once I get back to work and start forgetting meals again."

"Ruth, listen to me – I don't care," Harry said firmly. "You're lovely, just as you are – extra padding or not. Though, tell the truth, I love having a bit more of you to hold onto." His eyes were smiling and so were his lips. "I love that your breasts fit better in my hands now, and that your bum is delectable – and if I could get away with telling you not to diet those pounds away, I would. But I have a feeling you might kill me in my sleep for that."

She contemplated his words for a moment, the sincerity behind them, how much he loved her being implied implicitly, and then she turned to him, drawing him into a passionate kiss. "God, you old snake charmer," she whispered between kisses. "You're not quite right in the head, you know."

"As long as you don't leave me, I'm all right with you thinking I'm a dozy pillock," he whispered back. "Ruth, I know I'm not exactly emotionally forthright – but I love you. I worship the ground you walk on. If you ever left me again, I would go stark raving mad. Do you understand?" His hands came up to cup her face, echoing her gesture on the docks years ago. "We've been apart far too long in this life, my beautiful wife."

"You do say the most wonderful things sometimes," she murmured.

"Sometimes?"

"Yes, well, when you're blustering about who washed your white shirts in with the reds accidentally and what kind of a spy wears pink shirts…"

He at least had the decency to blush. "Yes, well, it was my own fault and I shouldn't have shouted," he said with a sigh.

She smiled and murmured, "Harry, I fancy you rotten – even in a pink shirt. You're especially sexy when you're blustering about like a madman."

"I doubt anyone else would feel the same way."

"Good thing you're not in love with anyone else," Ruth whispered.

"We don't have to have sex tonight," Harry said quickly.

"Oh, yes, we do," Ruth replied. "We've had a dreadful row, haven't we? And now we have to make up properly. And making up properly involves all of the pretty words we've been spewing… and then an earth-shattering round of fucking."

"I'm too tired for earth-shattering," Harry sighed.

"Me, too," she admitted.

"Raincheck on the earth-shattering," he said, "but we definitely can't wait to make love. I don't think I could handle another row like this."

She licked her lips and said, "So you don't find me repulsive?"

"Absolutely not, you silly bird," he said with gruff affection and loving desire in his voice. "I love every inch of you, even the super-intelligent, smugly obnoxious bits," he teased, giving her a gentle kiss. "Now get away from the mirror before it lies to you again."

"The mirror doesn't lie," she said.

"Bullshit – it was telling you that you weren't beautiful enough to be loved by me," he said in a less than gentle tone. "Which is a lie."

"Harry, stop," she murmured. "Mirrors can't lie because they're not animate objects with powers of speech, you stupid old git."

He paused, then looked relieved. "Okay, well –"

She looked down at him, still in his unzipped trousers, black socks, and lime green trunks, and laughed. "You're in a state," she teased.

"So are you," he challenged. "Did you put anything on but the dressing gown?"

She blushed a little and looked down at herself, barely contained in the robe. "Uh… no."

He smirked. "Oh really."

"Yes, really," she sighed. "And it's a size too small, so, really –"

His hands worked at the sash, hastily tied, and his lips smiled when she was revealed to him. "So we'll get you a new one," he promised. She blushed a little and fiddled with the open waistband of his pants, already seeing that – despite, or perhaps in spite, of their argument – he was sporting an erection. "You know I find you irresistible," Harry said softly. "Always have done."

She opened her arms and wrapped them around him, pulling him close so they were belly to belly, chest to chest, so close as to wish to be in one another's skin. They stood like that for a long time, how long she couldn't say, just holding on for dear life.

Then the kisses began in earnest. Soft, gentle kisses became increasingly passionate, almost violent in their yearning and want. She could feel her lips bruising and swelling as they kissed, and Ruth was thrown back to a place and a time when they'd shared so much want like this. She pulled back and whispered, "Are you trying to seduce me, James?" Her tone was mild and teasing, but her voice was husky and full of all the want she'd been fighting not to feel.

"Oh, Ruth," he said with a small smile, "we've moved so much beyond that now, haven't we?"

She laughed and said, "Get your pants off, Sir Harry. You look ridiculous."

He rolled his eyes and sighed in that long-suffering manner of his. "Yes, dear," he said softly, pulling away and divesting himself of his remaining clothes in a hurry.

She led him away from the bathroom and straight to bed. Simple, sweet touches and kisses gave way to a deeper passion, until they were sated, limbs tangled together, hearts racing. She curled into his side and he pulled the covers up over them. "It's late," she murmured.

"It's early," he contradicted. "But I'm not going in tomorrow."

"Should I?" she asked softly.

"Call Ros and tell her you want two more weeks," Harry murmured. "You've got to survive Christmas, remember? And then Jamie will go to school and Malcolm can watch him in the evenings."

Ruth sighed and closed her eyes. "Christmas," she commented. "Bloody hell, I hadn't even been thinking about it. I'm going to have to go shopping…"

He gave her a kiss and whispered, "Or I can send the teaboy out with our Rose to do it for you."

She laughed. "A teaboy named Ianto… it's all very Torchwood, isn't it?"

He grunted. "I can't understand you and the girls being so obsessed with Doctor Who and Torchwood."

She kissed his chest and whispered, "My dad and I used to watch it together."

He traced small circles on her back. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to –"

"It's okay," she murmured.

"We watched as a family while you were away," Harry said quietly.

"Thank you," she whispered, closing her eyes. "For everything, Harry."

END PART NINE