Sadly I don't own any of the characters of Spooks – that honour goes to Kudos and the BBC.

Well here it is! It's taken me much longer than I thought (I find moving people around, getting them from one space to another, or dealing with cups and things, really difficult) but it's been much more fun than I expected, (playing God with Harry and Ruth is bliss)

Although I'm not sure what to say when anyone asks me 'what did you do on your holiday?' I think you're the only one's who'd understand!

I'll be back with some thank you's, but I want to see if I can get this posted in under an hour. I'm rubbish at computers…

But I hope you enjoy it, and agree with me that re-watching box sets of Spooks is time well spent…

Chapter five

"Send up heat!" yelped Ruth ineffectually kicking the bottom of the radiator. She wasn't normally prone to fits of temper but sometimes inanimate objects had it coming, and she cursed as she limped over to the kettle

"And why don't you turn up?" she called to no-one in particular, checking her watch for the umpteenth time.

Stirring her tea, she looked out over the garden, the winter sun glinting on the frosted grass, the bare trees, their last few leaves hanging to the branches like yellow dusters, and the calm the view afforded her lasted a good ten seconds before she checked her watch again.

"Oh come on!"

Harry was due back that afternoon, and she knew he'd go straight from the airport to the office (he always did) had planned to be there when he arrived (she always was). But with the plethora of new security checks it had taken three days to get an appointment with an approved heating engineer and now she was trapped in waiting hell.

"Look, I just want them to narrow it down" she said to the woman at the call centre, whose weary tone suggested her entire life consisted of telling exasperated customers to stay put and wait. "You must be able to find out where they are?" she said, a familiar noise bursting through in the background.

Buzz buzz…

"Never mind!" said Ruth "Thank you. They're here".

"Coming!" she called to the shadow at the door. "About bloody time," she muttered to herself.

She opened the door and froze, her eyes wide, her heart seized, in one of those moments that makes poets and angels necessary.

"Harry!"

"Ruth!" said Harry, similarly transfixed.

"What are you going here?"

"You weren't at the office."

"I booked the day off."

"And that's when I got worried."

Spooks never do anything on doorsteps, and so they stood and stared, and smiled at one another until Ruth realised he was waiting to be asked in. She stepped aside.

"Thank you"

They moved inside where the wonder held and they gazed at one another, and gazed at one another, and gazed at one another still, until Harry broke the silence.

"Miss me?" he said, eyebrows raised.

Ruth bounded towards him, mindful of his wounds, but driven by a need to cover his face with a hundred kisses, as if at any moment he could disappear.

She pulled back to see his eyes, and guided his face toward hers, kissing him on the mouth, a long slow kiss, gliding and sweet, slowly becoming more urgent and breathless, all the time just proprietary enough to turn Harry on. He slid his arms around her, and she could taste his smile.

"Are you laughing Harry?"

"I'm ridiculously happy Ruth" he said. "Ridiculously."

The laughter was replaced by an intense searching as he held her face in his hands. She tried to kiss him, but he held her back, prepared to watch, prepared to wait. For now was a moment Harry had looked forward to for years. Ruth had kissed Harry many times - after their meal on the cheek, twice on the dock on the worst day of his life, and a dozen times since he'd walked through the door.

And now, finally the moment had come.

Now Harry was going to kiss Ruth.

He closed his eyes and tilted his head, dipping down, hovering over her lips, tantalising her, determined not to rush….

Buzzzzzzz buzzzzzz.

"Don't answer it" said Harry not moving.

"I have to."

Buzz buzz buzz.

"No you don't" he said, edging closer, his breath touching her lips.

Ruth put her hands on his shoulders.

"I love you Harry. But…"

"But you love hot water more" sighed Harry, righting himself.

"Sorry" said Ruth, slipping out from under him. "Be right with you!" she called.

Harry slunk over to the sofa and sat head resting on his fists.

Ruth answered the door. The engineer was a cheerful young back man, bearing a tool case and multiple apologies and she welcomed him in. The door saved him from the full force of Harry's glare, but the tailwind got his attention.

"Y'alright Boss?" he asked.

"She's the boss" said Harry sullenly.

The young man looked at Harry, looked at Ruth, and then with an alacrity that almost restored Harry's faith in the British workman, refused Ruth's proffered cup of tea, and asked to see the patient.

When Ruth returned to Harry she tried not to smile.

"He's not going to work any faster just because you glare at him."

Harry's expression suggested he thought it was worth a try so she disappeared into the hall and returned wearing her coat.

"Are we going somewhere?"

"Yes" said Ruth holding out her hand. "Garden."

She led him through the kitchen, where the young man gave him an encouraging nod, and onto the patio, where they stood against the back wall, shielded from prying eyes by trees on two sides, the bricks warmed by the sun.

"I have seen the truth in a shaft of sunlight" said Harry, pushing a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"Now where were we?" said Ruth with a smile.

"Tacky my love," said Harry "Very tacky."

And as some smiles reach the eyes, so some kisses start in the soul, and bracing himself against the wall with his left arm Harry leaned in and slowly and deliberately slid his mouth over hers. He tasted and teased her, gradually increasing the pressure before dropping away to feather kisses down her neck, returning to her lips, gently opening them encouraging her to respond as he increased the pressure of his body against hers, finishing with several slow strong thrusts of his tongue, before pulling back to breath.

Ruth struggled to retain her balance. "Jesus Harry" she said. "Where did you learn to kiss like that?"

"Learn?" said Harry, puzzled, but also rather pleased himself, "I didn't 'learn' anything Ruth. I've wanted to kiss you for a very long time, under lots of different circumstances. It just sort of came together."

He smiled.

"Missed one."

He kissed her again.

"What one was that?"

"Balcony. Just before I selfishly nearly got myself killed."

"Oh so that what that look meant." said Ruth.

"That's what that look always means" said Harry.

Holding her hand, he closed his eyes and turned his face to the sun, a beatific smile on his lips

"You're watching me." Said Harry, not opening his eyes.

"I'm watching you breath." Said Ruth.

"Ah."

Ruth touched his face, and he turned toward her, and she looked into his eyes, searching for something.

"It's gone." she said.

"What's gone?"

"The sadness." She said. "It's not there any more."

"No." said Harry.

"What happened?"

"You called" he said, leaning in to kiss her. "You called when you didn't have to."

Ruth moved him back gently.

"No I mean what happened?"

"Does it matter?"

"It does to me, I was scared."

"You were scared.."

Harry paused, torn between not wanting to lie and not wanting to tell the truth, before not wanting to lie won out.

"I was terrified." He said, pulling away. Ruth held onto his hand and waited for him to say something. He didn't.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want me to."

"Ha!" laughed Harry, letting go of her hand. "Ruth you can get information out of bloody anywhere, what chance do you think I have of you not getting this out of me?"

"We can talk later."

"I don't want a 'later' hanging over me." Said Harry, who knew a deferred sentence when he heard one. "There've been too many laters with us."

Ruth looked at him adoringly, and Harry found himself laughing in defeat.

"This is never going to go away is it?"

"Not as long as it has this hold on you, no."

Harry unhooked her arms from around his neck, and moved her several yards away.

"Something you said that night, well, it got me thinking." He said raking his hands over his scalp. "You see until then Ruth I'd pretty much believed all I had to do was find the space or time to convince you how much I loved you and then somehow everything would be alright. It had never occurred to me until that night that although you would undoubtedly be a good thing for me, I just might possibly be the worst thing in the world for you."

"I didn't say that."

"Not precisely. I…"he wavered, working out how little he could get away with "filled in the gaps with information of my own " he said.

She touched his arm, but he moved away and sat on the wall and began to find his hands fascinating.

She started towards him, but he waved her back. "I can't do this is if you – I need you over there" he said waiting until she'd retreated to the appropriate distance. "That night I told you I was at my club. Well what I didn't tell you was there was a woman there. Early forties, tall, elegant, beautiful, manicured, married to an Ambassador, you know the type.

"A Whitehall Wife." Said Ruth disliking her already. Harry nodded.

"Anyway we got talking early on in the evening, about music, about why you should always buy German music on Deutsche Grammophon that sort of thing …Then I had business to do, and she did whatever she had to do, but before she left, she came and found me, took me to one side and told me her husband was going to be out of the country for the next four months, her children were away at school, and if I wanted to finish our conversation I should call her. Then she gave me her card, and just to seal the deal, she leaned in and whispered in my ear that she'd already been security cleared so that should save me a lot of time and fuss."

Harry finally looked at Ruth.

"The thing is Ruth, I knew exactly what she wanted."

"I think I've a fair idea what she wanted too." huffed Ruth.

"No you don't, not that!" said Harry "Not sex. I mean it involves sex, but that's my reward, it's not what she wants."

He started to pace, willing her to understand.

"I'm not a good looking man Ruth, and please don't" he said, before she could demur "I'm being objective, not insecure. I'm not a good looking man but I know I have other qualities. I'm an alpha male, I have charisma. I'm good at being charge. Provided I'm not standing next to you I pass for intelligent. I'm not a hedge fund manager but I'm not exactly poor. And I've got a title which doesn't hurt. And capping it all, next to the Sebastian's and Timothy's in the Foreign Office, I pass muster as a Bad Boy."

He threw his shoulders back, his physical presence changing.

"Not afraid of violence, not bound by the rules, something of the night about me."

He withdrew to the wall.

"She was vain and shallow and frightened and bored and I knew exactly what she wanted. But you…?"

He shrugged, bewildered.

"You loathe violence, you don't give a fig for social status, you're smarter than I am, and if you had to chose between a million pounds or the life of a cat, then that's one bloody lucky cat that's all I can say!"

He sunk his head in his hands and Ruth started towards him.

"Please don't. And there's George" he said. "Don't worry, I'm not going to say anything bad, but I didn't have to be a spook to notice he was tall dark and handsome, a conspicuously good father, and what did he do for a living? He healed people! The perfect Anti-Me. No wonder you were relaxed. So anyway," he said before she could interrupt "I decided if I truly cared about you, and was in any way an honourable man, then I should leave you well alone. That's why I left, and sent all my stuff through Judy."

Ruth took his face in her hands.

"Would it help if I said I loved you now more than I ever had?"

"Yes." said Harry "But why?"

Before Ruth could answer the engineer tapped on the window and gave her a cheerful thumbs up.

"Stay there." she said.

Despite the intensity of her discussion with Harry, Ruth thanked the engineer profusely and once he'd gone, touched her hot radiators and nearly did a dance. She tapped on the window.

"Come on in, the temperature's lovely." She said taking off her coat.

Harry, came in, and sat on the kitchen table. Ruth realised he was waiting.

"How are you feeling?"

"Nervous and edgy" he said "And no, the irony is not lost on me."

Ruth made him take off his coat and then she parked herself in front of him, put his arms around her waist, and linked her hands behind his neck.

"How do I love thee Harry Pearce, let me count the ways…?"

She kissed him.

"First, well, we're more alike than you think Harry."

Harry looked doubtful.

"Tell me did you want to be knighted?"

"God no."

"You loath establishment one up-man-ship almost as much as you loath politicians."

"Almost" said Harry, cheering up slightly.

"And if you wanted money, you'd leave the service and join some private security firm."

"The Halliburton Express."

"Exactly. And away from your sterling moral character, I don't know if you've noticed Harry, but I don't do well in the modern world."

Harry tried hard not to look like he'd just been called old.

"And no, I didn't just call you old." Said Ruth. "Even when I was at University, I couldn't understand people getting drunk, and going to parties, when they could be learning Coptic, or reading John Donne. I find popular culture noisy and shrill and drunk on sensation. And do you want to know the best thing about being dead? No dinner parties. No more being stuck on the spare chair surrounded by faux ironic conversations, masking that peculiarly English kind of loneliness. The fear of dying without ever having loved something greater than themselves. I love you because you care Harry. Even running off like an idiot into a blast zone – you did it because you cared. I've nearly lost you twice Harry. It's not going to happen again."

"I've done bad things Ruth" said Harry, the weight pressing on his soul "Things I'd despise another man for doing."

"You've done good things too" said Ruth "More light than dark. You're a good man Harry Pearce."

Harry's eyes were wet, his breathing unsteady.

"What about George" he said. "What if he were alive?"

"If George were alive I wouldn't be here." She said and his face fell. "But if I hadn't been in love with you, I'd have never have met George. The circle starts and ends here Harry, it always has."

Harry nodded.

"And work?"

"Well" she said "They've been gossiping about us sleeping together."

"Yes?"

"And in an hour or so it'll be true." She started playing with the back of his neck. "The rest we'll let crinkle out."

Harry stood and wrapped his arms around her.

"I love you."

"And you know that thing you do when you lean in and whisper in my ear…"

"Yes" said Harry.

"Very sexy."

"Oh really?" he whispered, enjoying himself.

Ruth took his hand and began leading him towards the bedroom but Harry stopped.

"You do know" he said, touching his left side "I'm not exactly match fit?"

"Oh Harry" said Ruth, "I'm the best analyst you know. I'll work something out."

She opened the door. Harry followed her in.

"Ridiculously happy Ruth" he said. "Ridiculously."

(Ta da! Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed it, and agree with me that now they're going to be happy. And hey, they've done marriage, and now sex – now they've got all the fun of dating to look forward to. Go Harry! Go Ruth!)