4

Togetherness

This was inspired by 9.1. SPOILER if you have not yet seen the episode!

I had to write it, right after the end. Hope you like it! HRFan.

A few weeks after 9.1

He relives that moment between them constantly. 'We couldn't be more…together than we are right now', she had said softly.

He had stared at her, eyes filling with tears, clenching his jaws to stop the dam from bursting, humbled by the honesty and wisdom of this woman whom he has loved for longer than he can remember, cherishing her words for what they were, a declaration of love.

But now that that she has ever so slightly opened the door to happiness, he wants more. He knows that he shouldn't. He knows that she is right – that conventional couplehood is not for them. He knows too that a man who is over the hill of the fifties and hurtling towards the start of his seventh decade is not supposed to feel that kind of yearning – for actual words of love, for a deeper, longer more intimate touch than a fleeting movement of the fingers over thick winter coats, for late-night chats contrary to what he intimated to her….

She's lost weight, he muses. So have I for that matter. But she's obviously not eating enough…He sighs. If she wanted you, really wanted you, as a man, and not merely a friend, she'd have given you signs. So she doesn't want you that way. And that's why she said 'no'. He remembers what it felt like, after Ros' funeral, to stand so near her, to place his hand on the small of her back, to breathe in her hair, to feel his lips so close to her cheek that if she had turned her head a fraction he would have felt the taste of her skin….

He snaps a pen into two pieces. For God's sake, Pearce get a grip! At least she loves you, even though you did all those things..even though she's clearly figured out what exactly happened to Blake…'What?', he barks as the door of his office slides open. 'Oh. Hi. It's you', he mumbles, sounding particularly ungracious but angry with her, somehow, about his acute frustration. 'What is it?', he asks accusingly.

She raises her eyebrows. 'Some new intel on this contact of Beth's…not good. I think you should come and see it.' He rises from his chair with a nod, and as he walks to the open plan office, making sure he doesn't go near the possibility of even the risk of brushing against her, she finds herself longing for him. She was so sure of herself, so sure that turning him down was the right thing to do. So sure that his direct declaration of love – for she knows he wouldn't have asked her to marry him if he did not love her – would be enough. And yet…since that fateful day, she's been wondering, obsessively so. She wants to run her hands down his craggy, tired, lined face and smooth the fatigue out. She wants to unknot his back and hold him in her arms as he sleeps. She looks at his large, solid, warm hands and wants them on her, exploring, caressing, stroking…

'Ruth? Are you coming?' he barks again. She sighs. Instead of bringing them closer, as she had hoped, the day of Ros' funeral, and all that they said and did not say, is standing between them, pulling them apart from each other. Since she tried to talk to him one evening, late at night, and was rebuffed pretty clearly, she hasn't found the courage to try again. 'I'm coming. Sorry, I was…miles away.'

She walks to Tariq's desk hastily, somehow manages to analysis the data he is presenting to them, her mind half on the task at hand, and half on the complexities of their relationship. She knows Harry is annoyed with her for being absent-minded. Well, tough, she grits her teeth. You spring a marriage proposal on me out of the blue, at a funeral for God's sake, and since I more or less told you I loved you we've been dancing around each other so yes, I have things on my mind…

A long while later, she sneaks a glance towards Harry through the glass panelling of his office. He looks both utterly focused on the files he is reading, and utterly defeated, his normally stocky frame floating in his suit. This can't go on, she thinks bleakly. Either way we've got to jump off the fence. She looks at her watch: it's close to 7pm. This gives her an idea.

She looks around her: Beth is out in the field, Lucas, who is acting more and more strangerly lately (must tell Harry about it), Tariq has gone…She shuts down her workstation, and barges into Harry's office without knocking. 'Harry?'

He looks up, unsmiling. 'Yes?'

'Could we go somewhere private? There's something I'd like to ask you.'

'Ruth', he sighs patiently. 'If it's about work you can tell me here. If it's not…I don't think that it's such a good idea.'

She falters, but rallies. 'Please. It won't take long. I promise.'

He rubs his hand over his eyes. 'OK. Let's go to the rooftop.'

Neither of them says a word as they go up. The London skyline is as beautiful as ever under the glittering lights of the city and the stars…They lean on the rail. Her mouth goes dry, and she is not sure, suddenly, that this is such a good idea. 'So. What did you want to ask me?'

He sounds less abrupt, less uptight than downstairs, so she takes the plunge. 'Would you like to have diner with me?'

His jaw drops. And then he collects himself and turns away from her, to face the city he loves so much. 'Did you take me all the way up here to ask me that?', he asks.

'Yes, I thought it'd be best if…Harry, we…'

'Why?'

She grips the stone underneath her hands, unaware of its coldness. 'Because I assumed that you would say no, and start explaining why we couldn't, and I tought that this conversation was best held away from the Grid.'

'So if you were convinced I would say no, why did you ask?'

'Because…' Her throat is tight, suddenly, and she struggled to get the words out. 'Because I miss you. I miss our…friendship. We used to be able to talk, you and I. But now…since Ros' funeral…we seem to have lost it. This connection between us…Also, I've been thinking about what I said that night, after you averted the explosion…'

'I can't do this, Ruth', he cuts in tiredly. 'I can't do friendship. Not with you.' She steps away from his as if he had hit her, her face stricken with grief. He steels himself against the impulse to take her in his arms. 'Please try to understand. You rejected me that day. I know you think you didn't. I know you think you offered something more real, something more honest. And in a way you did, and you were right. We can never be together the way normal people are. People who haven't killed, people who don't lie for a living…' He snorts bitterly. 'And yet…what you offered, so…kindly, so honestly, so…lovingly…I can't accept it.' He looks down on the grounds. 'I thought I could', he adds in a strangled voice. 'But I can't. I'm sorry'.

'What if…' – she is on the verge of tears – 'what if there is another way?'

'What do you mean?'

'A way half way between this, and the little house in Sussex?', she asks shakily. He faces her, not daring to hope yet. 'That night… you said that we couldn't be more together than we were then. We were standing three feet apart from each other. Without touching. And yet you said…'

'There are different kinds of togetherness, Harry.'

He smiles wryly, sadly. 'Oh believe me, I do know that. But the togetherness you want….it's not enough', he says almost inaudibly, unwilling to meet her eyes and humiliate himself even more than he feels he has, wanting to go, wanting her to leave, so that he be alone and nurse his pain.

She begins to shake. ''What I said to you then…that we'd forfeited our chance for that kind of life…but we haven't forfeited our chance for a different way of doing it, have we? For spending time together away from here. For being intimate together. Those things….we can have them, can't we? We could be together more….Not in a semi in Sussex but here, in London, working together, not even necessarily living together, but sharing more of themselves with each other than we are. Would you be happy with that? Because I would…Harry…' She stops, overwhelmed by her feelings for him and by the way he looks at her – the look he had at Havensworth centuries ago, and after Ros' funeral, full of love and longing.

She steps towards him blindly, until she almost touches him. He catches her and frames her face in his hands. 'I love you', he whispers. And without even waiting to hear her answer, he kisses her. He feels as if he will never want to stop exploring her mouth, her lips, her tongue which is now meshing with his and fanning his desire.

After a long long time they pull apart. 'I love you', he repeats. 'And I want you.' He rests his forehead against hers. 'So much…if only you knew.'

'I'm here' she whispers. 'I'm here. And I'm not going anywhere.' She reaches up to him. 'I love you too', she says clearly, firmly, lest there should be any ambiguity. He starts smiling, his wide, rare, beaming smile which transforms his face and eyes, taking years off him. 'Let's have diner together tonight…and on Sunday…would you like to come with me to the country? We could drive down to the Costwolds and spend the day there…would you like that?'

She kisses him. 'Yes', she murmurs against his mouth, rejoicing in the soft moan of pleasure he lets escape. 'And when the time is right….'

'When the time is right', he promises, desire pulsing through his veins, 'we will be together. Properly.'

'Together?'

'Together, Ruth.'

The End.