He loves her, it's as simple as that. That it also happens to be the only thing about their relationship that isn't tarnished by death and regrets, hadn't mattered when he'd asked her. Well not to him anyway. Only for her to tell him that there had been thousands of times, thousands for Christ's sake when if he'd asked her the same question she'd have said yes. And as if that hadn't been bad enough, because Ros had chosen a church that was miles from where they both lived, he'd had to drive her home. Had not being the right word, because even if she'd told him that she never wanted to see him again he'd have done so and willingly. And yet here he is just a couple of hours later, driving up to Scotland for no reason other than to add one more death to the list that only she knows about, instead of digging his heels in and pleading his case with words that weren't about bums on seats at their own funerals. All of which is now making him wonder if despite telling her that they need to move on, if either of them will ever recover sufficiently to be able to work together again.
.
'I really do think we should be getting back to the grid,' Tariq tells Lucas when he pulls up in front of a pub.
'Rubbish, Dimitri and Beth are there, they'll ring us if we're needed. Besides I'm hungry.'
That's as maybe, but if you're going to ply me with drinks in the hope that I'll tell you where I think Harry and Ruth may or may not have gone or more precisely might be doing, then you're going to be disappointed, was just one of the many things that he'd been thinking about when Ruth's voice had been echoing in the virtually empty church. Because not only does he like and respect them both, but based on his instinct and Harry's body language, he's now convinced that they mean far more to each than just colleagues. The former of which and for a reason that he can't quite put his finger on, he can't apply to Lucas, who he sees as dark and brooding and with a history that he suspects holds a lot more secrets than Harry's. Whether he's also harbouring the idea of becoming the next Section Chief now that Ros has - gone to a better-place sounds better than is dead, he has no idea? What he does know though, is that Lucas isn't someone that he wants to get on the wrong side of and for that reason alone he follows him into the pub.
.
If he hadn't sprung it on her like that and without a single word of endearment, would she have said yes or even suggested that they needed to go somewhere that wasn't a graveyard to talk about a future that didn't include marriage, when the only time that they've been intimate has been in their joint imaginations, Ruth doesn't know? What she does know, is that Harry had taken accepted her rejection with the same stoicism as he does when he's faced with far less monumental disappoints, rather than persuade her otherwise.
That though had been over two hours ago and now that she's had a shower and changed into clothes which don't suggest that she's been to a funeral, after which she'd rejected a marriage proposal from the only man she's ever loved, she's sitting at her kitchen table with a pot of tea and several slices of buttered toast in front of her, with something else to worry about. Which is why the hell, given what he'd asked her, had she then handed him that wretched file? Only for him to tell her that he was going to deal with it the moment that he'd dropped her off and more worryingly, that he was going to drive there and back during what was left of the day. It's not as if she's his wife is she, otherwise is a sentence that she can't finish, or can she stop the tears which are now streaming down her face.
Five hours later.
He knows that telling Ruth that he was quite capable of driving back in the dark, at the end of what has now been an interminably long day, had not only been ambitious and therefore fool hardy, but had been down to his need to gauge her reaction. Only to discover that when he's walking back down the drive, having done what he'd come to do, that his legs aren't functioning properly. It's the cold he tells himself. That and Blake asking if there was anything he could do for Ros and then calling Ruth a dogged brilliant bitch. It has nothing to do with the sudden need of her that is causing his body shudder under the weight of his desire to bury the memory of hearing the last gasps of a dying man, does it?
Could he or should he even ring her? Would she even answer? are altogether different questions. Best not he tells himself climbing into his car, knowing that he needs to put some miles between where he is and wherever the hell he's going to stay overnight.