Home Run - Chapter 1

[Tea Lady]

No it’s not April fools day. TL has had a go at some fanfic. It’s probably going to be around 12 chapters. It’s mainly Harry/Ruth angst with a healthy dose of Ros, Malcolm, and Jo.

Huge thanks to JHyde for the help and advice and for teaching me about adjectives Also thanks to Aria for the encouragement.

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Takes place mid 8.1. Mani is about to order George’s execution but Ros and Lucas get to the warehouse in time. Mani is arrested. George and Nico are rescued by SO19. Harry and Ruth are safe.


Chapter 1

Even though Mani does not resist, Lucas is forceful as he hands the captive over to the two young field officers. His captors do not hesitate and push Mani into the cold warehouse wall. They frisk him for weapons, not caring if he is in any discomfort. The thorough search finds a mobile phone and a rusty old flick knife in his suit pockets and they are swiftly handed over to Lucas. Curious, Lucas opens the knife. Contrary to its initial appearance, the five inch blade is razor sharp. Lucas pulls his fingers away from the gleaming blade, wishing to keep them attached to his hand.

Was Mani planning to use this? He reflects for a moment, closing the knife and putting it safely in his jacket pocket. 'Thank goodness we got here', he murmurs to himself.

Satisfied that Mani is divested of any weapons, the officers seize a suited arm each and start to lead him from the room. Mani has not uttered a single word since Lucas and his officers crashed into the near empty room of the warehouse, just to the south of London Bridge Station. Before the trio reach the door however, Mani manages to turn his head slightly over his left shoulder and glares back into the room. Harry is still seated on his wooden chair in the middle of the room, struggling to free himself of the handcuffs Mani had taken great pleasure in attaching to his wrists, only the day before.

Mani smiles wryly. “I will see you later Harry,” he calls with disdain.

Harry’s head snaps up but he deliberately doesn’t meet Mani‘s eyes. His mouth starts to open but then realises, surprisingly, that he doesn’t have the energy to speak, to respond. The moment’s gone, Harry tells himself. Let it go now. Mani lost this one.

Even though Ros has been on her mobile to the Grid, updating an anxious Jo, she has kept her eyes fixed on Harry. In fact her gaze has not wavered since entering the room, fast on the heels of Lucas. Harry had initially brushed her away dismissively when she had offered him her help. Now spent, emotionally and physically, Harry had to acquiesce. He needed to get out of that damn room, to breathe again. To see Ruth, to speak to her, to make things better.

Now kneeling at his feet, Ros manages to loosen the handcuffs in just a few seconds. Harry winches as Ros gently pulls one of the locking arms out of his flesh where it has dug in, overly and torturously tight. The right wrist is covered in blood which has soaked through the arm of his white shirt, but Ros doesn’t say anything and she quickly stands, moving away from him again. Nothing needs to be said.

Using the chair and his left arm as a lever, Harry manages slowly and painfully to get to his feet. Suddenly his bones feel every one of those fifty six years, remembering that it was only yesterday that Mani’s thugs had dragged him from the boot of a car into the old warehouse. He had tried to resist when they neared the back door, sensing his last chance for an escape, before they wrangled him inside. But they had caught him, after only a few metres. It was futile really. Harry was not twenty five anymore and he had not slept or eaten for forty eight hours.

As recompense for the failed attempt, they had kicked and punched him in the stomach and back and then left him in a locked room, alone, struggling to breath and hurting. With darkness falling he had lost consciousness, or maybe it was just the sheer exhaustion that finally forced him to close his eyes. Some hours later, he woke, slumped on a wooden chair in the middle of the room, daylight streaming through the gaps in the boarded windows.

He snaps back to the present as Ros puts her hand out to support Harry, her gaze still unmoving, as he tries to bear his weight and walk. She holds his arm for only a fraction of a second before he pulls away.

“Harry let me help you…”

“Ros I’m OK,” he interrupts. His voice is low, almost drained of emotion, but he manages a half smile for her and holds her stare for a few seconds longer than she is expecting.

It is then that he realises that Ruth is still in the room, near the doorway, standing behind Lucas. He can see that she is remonstrating about something and is already out of her plasticuffs, arms flailing.

She is as far away from me as she can move, he tells himself.

Lucas has his mobile clasped to his ear, but suddenly he puts his hand on Ruth’s shoulder. Harry doesn’t hear what Lucas says to her but it’s obviously important as Ruth turns quickly, leaving the room heading for the stairwell. Ruth has not looked at, or spoken to Harry, since their rescue over half an hour ago and now she appears to be leaving in quite a hurry.

Harry hesitates for a second. He doesn’t understand her sudden coldness. She is alive. They are alive. He can’t leave her like this, not after everything that has happened. He needs to talk to her, make her listen.

“Ruth,” he calls out after her, and he is already following, heading for the same stairs.

Half way down already, Ruth grudgingly stops when she hears his voice calling her from above. She knows that if she didn’t stop, he would not let her go. Go to her family.

Harry winces as he climbs down to her, his body aching. It is only then as he tentatively approaches her that he realises that she has not once asked how he is. Whether Mani and his thugs hurt him. Now inches from her body for the first time in years, he pushes these thoughts to the back of his mind.

“Ruth… please…where are you going?”

Hesitantly, she looks away from him, finding a spot on the wall to look at rather than focusing her eyes on him. It is immediately clear to Harry that she does not want to be here, with him, having this conversation. There is pain etched on her face and something closely resembling disgust, Harry thinks.

She clears her throat, “er.. Lucas has arranged for my family to be brought here. They should be here any second. I-I need to know they are alright Harry.”

There is silence for a moment and she finally meets his eyes just for a second before looking away again.

“Oh…I…understand Ruth but I w-wanted to say….well need to say th….”

“Harry, NOT now. I can’t do this now. You always make it about you don’t you? My life once again revolves around you. Not anymore.” Her voice raised, she almost spits the words at him.

Taken by surprise at her curt manor Harry physically moves back from her and staggers a little, his legs heavy with fatigue. Still, she doesn’t register his physical pain, his discomfort, but continues her attack, “I’m going to see my husband. The man you were going to let die and…and I will try to sort out the mess you have made of my life, AGAIN.”

Ruth turns on her heel, but Harry lurches forward and grabs her arm in a vice-like grip, stopping her before she can run away again. She recoils but he will not let her go, not like this, he can’t. He doesn’t understand what has happened to her in these lost years.

“Ruth, please,” he is almost begging now, “It doesn’t have to be like this. I want to help you, to help…”

Mustering what is left of her strength she manages to pull out of his grip, before he can finish his words. Hurrying down the stairs, she doesn’t look back. Leaving him standing there, alone, with the feel of her on the tips of his fingers.

Bringing his hands to his tired and unshaven face, he realises that he is likely to cry any second and he can feel the unfamiliar sting of tears forming behind his eyes. He trembles, lowering himself to the step on which he stands, to sit.

How has this happened? How have I found her again, only to lose her in such a spectacular fashion? Only Harry Pearce, he berates himself, only I can screw things up so badly…Christ!

He still loves her, without a shadow of a doubt. He knew it, without hesitation, the moment she was walked into the room, Mani’s thugs forcing her into the chair opposite him. Nothing had changed, really it hadn’t. Time had stood still those three long years and he had felt himself back on the dock with her, her cold hands stroking his pained face. She was still beautiful. Still Ruth, but not his Ruth. Now she was someone else’s Ruth.

Remembering clearly the black and white image on the laptop from the CCTV, Harry suddenly finds the strength from somewhere and scrambles down the stairs, following where he thinks Ruth has gone. He has decided there is something he just has to do. Picking up his pace, he realises he needs to see this “George”. The one who now holds Ruth’s heart. The one that Ruth has found solace with on Cyprus.

Harry felt he didn’t quite believe it. That Ruth was in love with someone else; started a new life with another man. Her life was me…the Service. She couldn’t want anyone else…could she?

Harry frantically finds his way through the labyrinth of rooms, out of the building. In the car park Ros is already there with Lucas, talking with Special Branch. Scanning the area quickly, his eyes soon alight on two people at the far end of the car park. He gulps and his whole body shakes. He wants, no, he needs to look away, but he can't pull his eyes away.

This is what I deserve. I must see this, he tells himself.

There she is, Ruth, in the arms of another man. George. Pressed up firmly against his tall, slim, muscular body, it seems as though they are just one person. Ruth’s arms are locked around the back of George’s head; her head rests contently on his chest, eyes firmly closed. His arms were round her back, holding her tight, his tanned hands resting just above her slender waist.

Harry has never touched her like this. And in this moment, he knows he never shall.

TBC.