Home Run - Chapter 2

[Tea Lady]

Thank you for your kind reviews of chapter 1 and again to JHyde for all your help.

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Chapter 2

Ruth wearily climbs into the back of the Lexus, George sitting beside her. An unknown field officer is driving them to another safe house in north London. The officer explains that they are to stay there and await further instructions from the Grid.

Unable to shake the feeling in the pit of her stomach that this 'situation' is not yet over, Ruth quickly decides to keep her doubts to herself. There was no point worrying George further now. He has been through enough. They all have.

Nico is soundly asleep in the front of the car, resting his head on the door, oblivious to everything that has gone on in the last few hours. Oblivious to the fact that he and his father were only seconds away from death.

It is early evening now and none of them have really slept more than a few hours since leaving Pafos airport the night before. The three of them landed at London Gatwick in the early hours and Ruth had got them all to a safe house as quickly as she could. Well, it had been safe until Mani’s men had turned up, having followed Ruth back from Thames House. Her first visit to her former place of work in three years.

Her head resting on the back of the car seat, Ruth closes her eyes for a few moments. Her mind is racing. She can't quite take in what has just happened in these preceding hours.

Have I dreamt it? That feeling in the pit of her stomach and the unfamiliar ache in her chest told her no. Have I really just seen him, the same man I see and touch in my dreams most nights? The man I talk to in my sleep and holds me so tightly I sometimes never want to wake up?

Recalling the look on Harry’s face when she had first seen him, he seemed to Ruth much older than she remembered. Not just that, but more afraid than she had ever seen him before. But yes, it was Harry, no mistake. Those eyes…

“Ruth, Ruth, are you OK?” comes the voice of the man beside her, interrupting her thoughts. “You seem a million miles away, Ruth.”

Quickly snapping back to reality and addressing the man beside her now, “Yes…yes…George, s-sorry. It’s all just been a bit of a shock, you know, being here, being back in London, and then all this happened… I…,” her voice trails off and George can barely hear her.

“Ruth, I was asking you what on earth happened in that old warehouse. What were all those police doing there? Is this something to do with the spy thing you told me about earlier? Those men in Polis, at our house?”

The only response from Ruth is her head turning away from George, to look out of the car window. Seemingly deaf to George’s questions. George is unrelenting, though.

“It’s just that I don’t understand. Nico and I were playing football in the garden and then all of a sudden, all these policemen came crashing in with guns. I thought we were safe there? You said we were safe there Ruth, that they would catch those men?”

He is firing off too many questions and Ruth knows she has to get her thoughts together quickly. The driver tilts his head slightly backwards, curious about their domestic spat. Ruth guesses he is monitoring what they say.

“George, please. Everything is all right now. You don’t have to worry.” She is trying not to sound irritated in her response, but knows she is failing badly. To be honest, she doesn't really care one way or the other at this moment.

Taking a deep breath, she makes another attempt to try and keep the peace. “When we get to the safe house we can talk then….I just need to rest for a few minutes, George. I can hardly think…I’m so tired. Please, George. Please…”

George sighs heavily and looks at her for a moment. At a loss to understand what his wife has got his family involved in. She isn't being fair, really she isn’t. Men that Ruth had been involved with, many years ago, had been after them, after her, for information. He knows that much. But not much else.

George takes a breath and lets it go. He isn’t getting anywhere with Ruth now and he doesn’t want to start a blazing row, not with Nico in the car.

“OK OK! But Ruth, we will talk about this…whatever this is.” George is starting to sound equally as annoyed and weary.

London is passing by slowly outside the car window and Ruth allows herself to close her eyes again. George is at least sated for now. Realising that she is being unfair on George, on herself, Ruth puts Harry away again. Back in that place in her mind she had learned to close away, so she could continue to live.

Nothing good ever came of wanting something I can’t have, she says to herself. I can’t help what I dream when I close my eyes at night, but I sure as hell am not going to let him into my waking thoughts. Not after all this time. Not after everything I have been through. George doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve any of it, but I can't tell him. I can’t tell him about Mani, about the uranium, or Baghdad.

No matter how much Ruth wants George to know the truth, to try and repair the damage she had done to their relationship in the past twenty-four hours, a little thing called the Offical Secrets Act, stops her. That piece of paper she had excitedly signed all those years ago as a new recruit at GCHQ, a piece of paper she still believes in. Still. Even after everything she has been through.

Anyway, if her instincts are right, as so often they are, she doesn't want to put George and Nico in any more danger than they already are. The less they know, the safer they would be. It would mean lying again to George, but it would be for their own good. She cannot let George and Nico down again and is certain they would never find out the true extent of her duplicity. It is time to start repairing bridges and planning for their return to Cyprus, to their home in Polis overlooking the calm waters of Khrysokhou Bay.

Yes, that’s what I want…I want to go home. To Cyprus, Ruth comforts herself. She then joins Nico and allows herself to sleep.

TBC.