Prior to Harry bringing Andrew Lawrence onto the grid, he had met him in reception before taking him on what is laughing described as a warm up tour of Thames House. Designed to convince whoever the recipient of said tour is and those who work anywhere other in Section D who know for a fact that this is nothing but a joke given that Dolby occupies an entire suite on the fourth floor, that the higher up you spend your working hours, your ability when it comes to keeping the country safe is greater than those who put their lives as risk on a daily basis, given the number of colleagues whose names have been added to the glass wall during the time that Ruth has been away.
In the same way that first appearances when you meet people can be very deceptive as Ros had learnt to her cost as early as her first day, despite her father having been partly if not entirely to blame for Harry being taken prisoner and only at the last minute saved from being burnt to death by Adam and Zaf's timely intervention, which is why she knows that to ignore Ruth's ability both as an analyst and someone who can cut you dead verbally, will be a mistake. That hating Ruth when she had told her to stop hiding behind metaphors when she'd said that hunting for a bomb which was being imported was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and later when she had produced the photographs of her father cavorting with what Adam had described as whores, is a sentiment which after she herself had been raised from the dead, forced as Ruth had been to go into exile but in her case to Russia, only to return on the day when Adam had been killed, had made her accept that her attitude towards Ruth should they ever come face to again had to change. Set in stone only hours later when Harry had come back to the grid having been to deliver the news to Wes, his loss at that time made even greater because the only person he would have almost certainly turned to for support and taken with him had been well and truly out of his reach. Although whether or not Andrew Lawrence's first impression will be the same as Price's had been in that Ruth is not only petite, an unlikely partner for Harry and generally blends in with the background, rather depends on whether Harry chooses to introduce her as his senior analyst which may well lead him to recognise her name as having been the person who had sacrificed herself to save him, in which case it will make him less trusting of the entire team than he might have been? Either way, both she and Harry have agreed to let Ruth take the lead and only intervene if Ruth looks to one or the other of them to add to what she is saying.
Scripted or not, but genius is Ros's first thought when Ruth opens the meeting by saying, 'I'm sure Harry and Ros will have said this when they came to see you the other day Home Secretary, but on behalf of the rest of Section D I want to congratulate you on your recent appointment,' effectively putting her on the front foot when it comes to getting answers before taking the first step to what eventually proves that Lawrence hadn't been a plant brought in to replace Blake, when she asks him, 'can you tell us how you came to have a meeting with Russell Price.'
A meeting which as Lawrence goes on to explain hadn't been in his diary, that Price had door stepped him coming out of Downing Street after a late night meeting with the Prime Minister and yes he had agreed with Price that it was a good idea to get both the Indian and Pakistan delegations together under one roof and as soon as possible, but that he had also made it clear that not it was totally inappropriate to approach him unannounced but that it wasn't his or Price's decision to make, before adding that if Harry hadn't rung him this morning, omitting at a time when normal people would still be asleep, he would have called Harry himself. All of which proves what he and Ruth had suspected, that Price had been trying to deflect whatever it was that was on his own agenda.
Causing Ruth who is as usual on the same train as Harry to add, 'do you have any knowledge about an organisation called Nightingale Home Secretary, which Nicholas Blake suggested to Harry is endemic to the point of having members not only in governments around the world, but police forces and the security services?' Delivered, in such a way to suggest that she thinks Lawrence who seems just as concerned as they are and will do whatever it takes to resolve this world changing situation, is even less informed. Which leads to the decision that a meeting with both parties should be arranged at a date and venue after Harry and the team have looked at locations where the security of those attending can be guaranteed.
And is why when Lawrence gets to his feet, 'I'll walk you down Home Secretary,' says Ros, not only because she wants to judge his mood when he is out of the spotlight but because it is obvious that Ruth's legs have stopped working and after Harry has shaken his hand that he isn't going to budge, which also gives Jo and Beth the hint that they need to get back to their desks where in Beth's case she adds bloody hell where did that come from to the already growing list of assets that she has applied to Ruth. Whereas Jo had known Ruth's worth from the day when she had talked Angela Wells down, when Zaf and Adam had still been alive, when there had been a lot more banter than there is now and at a time where you knew who the enemy was.
Prevented from voicing it when Ros returns and says, 'Jo, you and Beth start looking for suitable venues, Dimitri grab your coat because we're going to take a look at the tower where Walker fell to his death, because I agree with Harry and because your approximately Walkers height and weight, I'm going to see what it would have taken to not only lift him but throw him forward given where he landed,' before adding, don't worry I won't drop you and we'll get some lunch on the way back so make sure the rest of you get something to eat.'
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Re appearing from the meeting room without having heard what Ros has said, after a morning which has drained every ounce of Ruth's energy sees Harry acknowledging Jo's look to say don't worry we've got this, before fetching his and Ruth's coats and with his hand on her back, ushers her out through the pods. The idea being that rather than make do with a sandwich which he assumes Beth has been across the road to buy for the others, he wants Ruth and by extension him to get a breath of fresh air and for a moment at least to stop thinking about what might lie ahead. Trusting his team as he had when he and Ruth had spent the best part of ten days together so rather than face whatever new hell will ruin or even prevent them from visiting Malcolm whose most recent trip had taken him to Canterbury and the cathedral, which he had described as awesome, he opens the car door as he always does for Ruth before driving them home.
A home which he has concluded sooner rather than later needs to be one they choose together. As they did the cottage where their stay had been cut short, built to make you feel that as soon as you closed the door behind you that the world outside couldn't seep through the cracks and stifle your ambitions or worse still put an end to them entirely, because as he knows only too well as much as he would like to put his own personal happiness before that of his job, until the members of Nightingale are unmasked, any chance of him hanging his coat on a hook next to Ruth's on a permanent basis is about likely as him telling her he doesn't love her anymore.