Seventeen:
Breaking Point
It warmed up a bit and the first spring flowers began to poke through the winter permafrost. Ruth was happy, buoyant almost, when Jamie brought her the first crocus from the garden and blathered on and on about flowers and daffodils.
Life went on around them, and Ruth's prying into Lucas's life had yielded not much more than they'd had to begin with. Either she was rusty or he was just better at hiding things than she was at uncovering them. Either way, they were at an impasse; they tried to be friendly, but he clearly sensed danger and had gone a bit to ground.
Ruth and Harry, however, plunged onward into blissful oblivion. They were even closer on a fundamental, primal level than they'd ever been before. The vaguest touch meant more to them than a kiss, a quick shag, or even a long cuddle. It was like they had been on the Grid before she'd been forced to leave; an understanding of the darker side of things, but a comfort in the darkness when they needed one.
The grandchildren spent more time with them now; Sundays were specifically set aside as family time. Everyone would come over for an afternoon of fun and games, and Ruth and Harry would work together to cook Sunday supper. It was usually pasta; no one was complaining, though.
Rose got a job working in a shop; Daisy broke up with her boyfriend. Jamie learned to climb up on the uppermost part of the roof from the attic and scared the life out of Malcolm and his parents. Malcolm and Elizabeth decided on a long engagement and Elizabeth spent every other weekend with them, carefully working at cultivating Ruth's trust and love again. Catherine accepted the job of making the new recruitment video for MI-5, as well as several other minor videos like the sexual harassment video and the 'what to do when you're on fire after an explosion has rocked central London and Sir Harry Pearce is giving you a bollocking over the phone' video.
The wheels of time crept forward exonerably.
The day that Ros sent her into QMK Technologies as a translator, the day Ruth was caught amidst the Chinese and the CIA, barely with backup, she was sore, bloodied, and sick to her stomach about losing Dr. Chang to the Chinese. She felt like the worst possible spook – the one who had to admit failure in the face of everything. Ruth winced as she sat gingerly at her desk, trying not to look anyone in the eye. Ros had already assured her that she'd followed all of the protocols and that she had done as well as anyone would have, but Ruth could feel the faint damning in her praise.
Ten minutes till five, the pods hissed open and Harry burst onto the Grid. "Rosalind, a word," he said in a furiously cold tone, all but dragging Ros into his former office. The door slid shut and the shouting match began.
Ruth went into the kitchenette and made herself a cup of tea, trying to avoid everything. Unfortunately, Dimitri followed her. "You could have –"
"Don't," Ruth said, holding her hand up. "Don't tell me what I could and should have done, all right? There's a reason I'm not a field officer. I am a desk spook. I did the best I could, Dimitri."
"You could have been killed," he finished. "You should have gotten out when you were ordered to. You're not like the rest of us: you have a family, people who rely on you."
She glowered at him, eyes narrowed over the edge of her mug. "You want to protect me because I have a family?" Ruth scoffed. "No, I'm sure you want to cover your arse because I'm the Director General's wife. Isn't that it?"
Dimitri sighed and said, "Believe what you like, Ruth."
Harry appeared in the doorway. "Mr. Levendis, I would like to thank you for the speed with which you, Lucas, and Beth responded to my wife's aid this morning," he said in a calm, measured tone. "Ruth, we're going home."
"I have work to do," Ruth said, finishing her tea with a swig. "As do you." She winced slightly as the cut on her lip – the bruise on her jaw – ached from the movement.
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Are you certain you want to make a public spectacle over this?" he asked in a no-nonsense tone that rankled and got beneath her collar. "You hit your head on a patch of concrete, Ruth. You should never have come back to the office."
Ruth knew she would never win, so she gave up the fight. "Fine," she muttered.
"And I've spoken to Ros about using you in the field –"
"Harry, I am not a child!" she exploded. "This is my job – I do my job, whatever is asked of me. You know that; and you do not get to dictate whether or not I am put into a dangerous situation."
"Do you think this is a game?" Harry hissed angrily.
"No – do you?" she shot back. "Do you honestly think you can sit up on the seventh floor and move us around like pawns without consequences, Harry? Have you forgotten what it feels like to be the one on the ground, making the decisions you have to make to survive? Have you forgotten the adrenaline and the danger and the way you feel afterward when it all wears off?"
He closed the gap between them very quickly and Dimitri tried to move between him and Ruth. Harry swatted him away and merely grasped her jaw very gently, examining the bruising and her cuts. "No," he sighed, "I haven't, and I cannot abide that Ros put you into that kind of danger without adequate training or forewarning."
"It was my choice," Ruth said softly as his thumb caressed her lower lip. "I speak Mandarin – they needed someone who did."
"Please come home with me," he insisted. "You need to rest."
"Harry, you can't just sweep in here and act like my husband," Ruth said firmly. "We're both still at work –"
"Medical recommended you go home hours ago," Harry said in an equally firm tone. "So don't you tell me how to act, Ruth. We are going home, now. Get your things. Mike will drive us."
"You're the DG – you have meetings and you can't just swan off because I hit my head and got a bloody lip," she said, irritation waxing.
"I cancelled everything that wasn't important," he said, "because my wife was injured in an operation and is a bloody stubborn MULE and won't go home and sleep. The fact that I'm going to have to carry you to bed and tie you to it in order to make you rest is beside the point. The point of fact is this: I need officers beneath me who know their limits and know when to quit. You do not; you will be taught a lesson."
Dimitri cleared his throat. "Sir, if I might?"
Harry grunted a response that neither of them really caught.
Dimitri said, "There's not much you can do right now, Ruth. Everyone else is working hard at tracking Dr. Chang and the team that took her. Go home and rest."
Ros spoke up from the doorway. "Yes," she said. "Go home and rest. I need you fresh in the morning, after we've had time to filter the information and all that's left is the dregs. That and Sir Harry is unbelievably cross at me for allowing you to be put into danger – so I'd rather he take you home and put you to bed than continue raving at me like a bloody nutter."
Ruth huffed. She was annoyed, nay – furious – at the double standard. Lucas was expected to come straight back to the Grid and continue on like nothing was wrong even after he'd been injected with some bloody poison or another, but because she was married to Harry, she was getting sent home? It wasn't bloody fair, and it smacked of favoritism.
"Ruth," Harry said, his voice softening from the imperious Director General's shout to her tender, loving husband's imploring, "please come home with me. We'll order in a Chinese, watch a movie with Jamie, and pretend like today didn't happen. You were very nearly killed on my watch and it makes me sick to think about it; let me take you home, my love. Please."
She didn't want to give in, but her head was pounding – and the idea of putting her feet up and taking a painkiller made her feel like her point was absolutely not worth sticking to at the moment. "Oh, bloody hell," Ruth sighed irritably. "FINE. Fine, Harry. You're getting your way; I'm going home, you insufferable arsehole."
She stormed past him, past Ros, out to her desk to gather her things. Several of the other members of the team watched her surreptitiously and she shot them annoyed glares. If they thought she was being held to a different standard, what hope was there of ever fitting in?
Harry came over and put his hand on the small of her back; she pulled away and muttered, "Don't bloody touch me. You're getting your way after throwing the best tantrum; don't expect me to like it."
He sighed and murmured, "Ruth, I'm just concerned – you rattled your brain, clearly, when you hit your head."
"Oh, stop it," she muttered. "Just… stop. Please. And you're not sleeping with me tonight, so you can take your pillow to the spare room when we get home."
"What spare room?" Harry challenged. "Our whole damn house is full now –"
"Fine, you can sleep on the bloody couch or the floor in Jamie's room or in the dog's house – I don't give a damn!" Ruth said. "But you are not sleeping in the same bed as me, not after this petty display of chauvinistic idiocy!"
"Ruth, GO HOME," Ros insisted.
"Yes, please," Tariq added. "I didn't need to know about your sleeping arrangements. I don't think anyone did, really."
Ruth looked around the Grid at the concerned glances, and she whacked Harry soundly with her purse. "I'm very cross with you," she hissed.
"Be cross with me," Ros said. "I called Harry downstairs since you decided to disregard doctor's orders."
Ruth smacked him again with her purse. "We will discuss this in the car," she hissed.
"I'm certain we will," Harry sighed.
This time, when he put his arm around her protectively, she shrugged it off. But when he did it again, undeterred, she scowled and allowed it. If he was going to be an ass about things, she couldn't keep fighting him off in all of his possessiveness. She would wear herself out doing that, and he would never get the point that way, would he?
Once in the car and on the road, she turned to look at him, cold fury bubbling in her veins. "You can't just do that," Ruth said icily.
"Do what?"
"You're the boss," she reminded him archly. "You're the bloody Big Mack Daddy Spook, Harry. You cannot, must not, be seen to take more interest in any one member of any one team than in the organization as a whole. Favoritism cannot be allowed –"
"Oh, shut up," Harry grunted. "You've used your words, now hear mine. I love you, Ruth. I had no idea – none at all – that Ros had involved you in the Chinese affair. If I had any idea of that, I would have stopped her before you had even left the building. You are not a pawn, and you are not a field officer. You were almost killed today, and I cannot allow that to stand." He gently touched her face, where the bruise was creeping up to her cheek. "There are a few perks in my job, and one of them is being allowed to terrify the hell out of my Section Heads when they do stupid shit. Ros knows she's not to use you off the Grid for any reason whatsoever and –"
"Harry, you cannot dictate what my job is!" Ruth snarled. His touch was hurting her; her head was aching and her stomach churning. "I was needed today –"
He kissed her, then, a full-on desperate kiss that shocked her. "You're hurt," he whispered. "You could have died, Ruth. I need you more than anyone else in Thames House. Do you understand? I cannot and will not allow you to be sent into the field needlessly."
"It wasn't needlessly," she whispered.
"They could've called another section and gotten someone who spoke Mandarin – don't tell me you didn't jump at the chance," he said, looking hurt. "Ruth, you don't understand –"
"I do understand."
"You were unconscious for ten minutes," he said sharply. "And you rushed back to the Grid like you were perfectly all right –"
"Harry, I'm fine – it's just a headache," she sighed. "You're being an overprotective bear! Stop it! I was totally all right by myself for four years, you stupid old git, and I can handle it myself!"
He knew she was going to be sick before she did; "Pull over," he ordered Mike, and got the door open so Ruth could vomit in the gutter. He held her hair back, whispering soothing words of love as she heaved her guts up onto the Westminster street. "It's all right," he whispered. "You just need to rest and stop shouting."
"You can't just do this every time I bump my head," Ruth mumbled when she was through and they were on their way again.
"Just watch me," Harry said firmly.
Ruth looked up and said, "Lucas? Do you know Stephen Owen from Section G?"
He frowned. "No – why?"
"He's been arrested. Crashed the mainframe and diverted twenty-four thousand pounds out of one of our slush funds into his personal bank account."
"That shouldn't be possible," Lucas said. "Is it?"
She contemplated his choice of verbage; she knew Stephen Owen wasn't technically capable of doing it, but someone else could easily have done. Lucas's casually dismissive tone flipped a switch in her brain, and she saw him clearly for the first time. She knew there was danger in this, far more than Harry and Ros would ever give her credit for handling, but she had to push him until he stepped into the light.
"His user ID and password were logged at the time of the crash," she said. She was going to give him an out – a compassionate way to come clean. "He's only twenty-two. He'll serve hard time for that."
Lucas was dismissive, and said, "A traitor is a traitor."
In that moment, she felt properly afraid of him, what he was capable of. What they were all capable of doing when pushed.
It was truly terrifying.
END PART SEVENTEEN