On With the Snow (Chapter 3)

[Nia M]

On With the Snow

Set after 5.4 (but 5.5 didn’t happen) and in January. Flashbacks relevant to the plot also feature heavily (and are in italics).
Fluffy Ruth/Harry in the early stages of a relationship, with possible hints of Zaf/Jo.
No real spoilers as such, but you might recognise one particular line from S8. Title is from the song by ‘The Get-Up Kids’.
For anyone who doesn't know me, I have an obsession with Ribena. You'll see what I mean...


Chapter 3

Their initial laughter after Ruth’s passionate eruption simmered down to simple smiles and, as had become a habit for them, they fell silent. On any other day one of them would have excused themself under the pretence of returning to work, but with the absence of any worthwhile endeavours they had no excuses or distractions, and were content in their companionable silence.

Ruth began fiddling absently with her necklace, tugging at the mismatched beads and twisting the chain through her fingers. It was a tendency she had whenever she was nervous, and she was never more nervous than when she was with Harry. Not scared of him per se, but scared of who she became when she was with him. She had always been bumbling and disorganised, but her confusion over Harry was just astronomical.

If it had been hard for him to ask her out for dinner in the first place, it had been nigh on impossible for her to ask him out for a drink, especially after what had happened the previous time. Their burgeoning relationship had been incredibly volatile – it still was – and she had never been one to freely express her feelings. And neither had he, if his Charlie Chaplin impression was anything to go by, so it was little wonder that he had diverted attention away from his admittances about his ‘grand tour’ by swiftly changing the topic back to thermobaric bombs.

It was just as well, as she had been on the verge of implying that she would not be at all averse to joining him. It would have been a big risk, a spontaneous decision, to gamble their delicate developing bond and throw all sense of restraint out of the window in the hope that it would pay off. But she couldn’t risk obliterating their fragile companionship, even if the outcome could lead to something so wonderful.

As she had later proved by succumbing to her fears, to lose that would be unbearable.

***

They still hadn’t found the necessary ice-breaker, and Ruth continued twiddling with her necklace. Harry’s eyes were drawn to the amber and brown beads that she ran through her fingers, and his thoughts immediately went to the matching bracelet he had managed to procure for her. He had intended to give it to her for Christmas as her Secret Santa gift. Not that he wouldn’t have given her something anyway, but Adam and Ruth – specifically Ruth – had convinced him that Zaf’s mulled-wine induced idea might actually pay off as a team bonding exercise, and he had magically ended up with Ruth as his recipient.

It was no coincidence, he knew that much – especially since he was fully aware that she had got him in return. She might have managed not to look at him when she was given the piece of paper with his name on it, but Jo (who had been doling out the name-cards, and who Harry had a sneaky suspicion had swapped several names around when she distributed recipients’ names) hadn’t exactly been discrete in glancing in his direction as she handed over the paper.

But then had come the dinner fiasco, and he couldn’t face giving it to her. The whole scheme was anonymous, but she would have known it was from him; he had commented enough times on her necklace for it to not be him. It was quirky, warm, a tantalizing mix of different shades, and yet it was both complex and simple at the same time. Just like its wearer.

The bracelet was identical, with one exception. Instead of the long, ivory-coloured centre bead, it held a semi-transparent amber heart. He had hoped it would communicate the very thing he was incapable of. So how could he have still given it to her, after all that? Instead, he had opted for the generic choice of present of a nice box of chocolates; he would hold onto the bracelet in the hope that someday, he might finally get the opportunity to give it to her, and get the courage to admit what he felt. Though it was still out of reach for now, he was increasingly hopeful that he would one day get there.

Suddenly, they were plunged into darkness.

***

It was only a few moments after the room fell black and its occupants let out collective sharp intakes of surprised breaths that the emergency power kicked in. Now illuminated by dimmer lighting and the flicker of computer monitors, the Grid glowed an eerie soft blue. It might have been quite tranquil, had it not been for the sudden increase in energy from the air-conditioning unit.

As Adam and Zaf emerged from the meeting room, they were met with the sight of their esteemed boss on his hands and knees, scrambling around the floor as he tried in vain to recover the hundreds of pieces of paper that had been blown out of their neat piles by the fans. Ruth was jumping up, snatching at yet more papers as they were launched around the room.

“What wouldn’t I give for a camera right now,” muttered Zaf, unsuccessful in his attempts to smother his laughter. Adam wasn’t much better; the two of couldn’t meet each other’s eyes without dissolving back into hysterics.

“Stop laughing and help!” ordered a maroon-cheeked Harry when he noticed them. He stood up, trying to recover his dignity as Ruth continued to flounder in paperwork. Quite literally, this time. Zaf and Adam managed to reign in their laughter to occasional chuckles and they dashed over to the air vents to try to find some way of shutting them off.

By now, Malcolm, Ros and Jo had come onto the scene, alerted first by the sudden loss of power, and then by a cacophony of mad cackling. Malcolm immediately made his way through the mess to help Adam and Zaf (all the while muttering something that sounded peculiarly like ‘bloody amateurs’ under his breath) while Jo launched herself into the fray. Ros slid stealthily back down the corridors before she could be roped into the madhouse.

Despite their combined efforts (or perhaps because of...) Malcolm, Adam and Zaf were unable to switch off the fans, and the Arctic winds continued to blow across the room. Harry eventually conceded defeat and pulled out his mobile, stabbing aggressively at the number pad as he dialled an all too familiar number; Thames House Maintenance.

“Get someone up here immediately,” he snapped into the phone. Adam edged closer to hear the reply over the deafening noise. Even standing right behind Harry, it was very difficult to pick out the words.

“Can’t...maintenance... system...generator... snow...”

Whatever the missing words were, Harry was livid.

“Then get someone up to the back-up generator!”

Through the placating voice on the other end of the phone, Adam caught the words ‘Health and Safety’.

Harry exploded. “Health and Safety?!” he exclaimed incredulously. “This is a couple of inches of snow outside MI5 Headquarters, not a toddler on a bloody bomb site! Get someone out there right this minute!”

More sycophantic mumbles followed; Adam could almost see the steam coming out of Harry’s ears. “You do realise that we are responsible for preventing terror attacks, don’t you?” he continued.

Ruth stifled a laugh; they hadn’t had any work to do since the previous day, and even that had all been paperwork. Even so, the threatening undertone in Harry’s voice seemed to have made no difference. “If you do not get the power working within fifteen minutes,” he warned, “do I need to outline the consequences not only for your incompetent self, but for the entirety of the nation’s security?”

After a long pause at Harry’s end, he finally receded with an exasperated sigh and stabbed the ‘end call’ button none too gently. Ruth, having finally given up on retrieving the documents, looked at him inquisitively. He gestured that they should all follow him into his office, and he shut the door firmly. It didn’t fully block out the racket, but at least Harry didn’t have to shout anymore to make himself heard.

“They can’t ‘risk’ going out to the back-up generator on the roof until it’s stopped snowing,” he replied, in a tone of voice that suggested he would very much like to outline the definition of ‘safety risk’ to the maintenance team, “which it doesn’t seem will happen for another few hours. Looks like we’re stuck with minimal emergency power until then.”

“Can’t we relocate to another part of the building?” asked Zaf. Malcolm shook his head.

“Our computer systems won’t work out there,” he replied in exasperation. “They’re static systems, and without prior authorisation I can’t-”

“A simple ‘no’ will do,” Harry interrupted, his irritation clearly wreaking havoc with his normally calm self. “We can’t run in cables from the other sections either; the whole building’s gone down.”

“What about a manual override for that?” Jo indicated the air-cons. Again Malcolm shook his head.

“It doesn’t have an override so, short of pulling down the ceiling, we can’t do anything.”

“And we are not doing that,” insisted Harry. “Not after the grief we got for the last damage report.”

“Do we have any systems actually working?” Adam dared ask.

“Well apparently the air-conditioning unit has power, but apart from that we’ve only got our own databases, via computers on minimal power. The heating’s down, the lighting will be temperamental, and if we try to access any external databases then we risk killing our own systems. Oh, and the plumbing’s fine too. Just assume that everything else is temporarily dead.”

“Basically we’re sitting ducks if anyone is planning on a terror attack within the next couple of hour,” added Malcolm. “This would not have happened if they had listened to my advice about snow-proofing the power systems,” he insisted. “I warned[/align] them that the current system would not last in these conditions, but they were too stubborn to listen, and now we’re stuck here in the freezing cold until-”

Harry held up a hand to hush him.

“The kettle had just boiled; get yourself a cup of tea, Malcolm,” he advised, knowing full well that a nice hot cuppa would do wonders for his old friend.

“Actually,” began Ruth sheepishly, “I used up the last tea-bag yesterday... I’m sorry; I forgot to bring a replacement box today.” She looked apologetically at Harry.

He had already forgiven her. “Looks like it’s plain hot water then,” he suggested.

Jo let out a sudden gasp of inspiration and ran out over to her desk and began rooting through the carrier bag of ‘basic commodities’ that Zaf had bought on the way into work. The others looked on in confusion until she returned triumphantly a few moments later, brandishing a bottle of familiar purple liquid.

“Hot Ribena, anyone?”

[TygerBright]

next time I'd better be careful what I ask for.. your timing is EVIL
I'm still 3 rounds short of tonight's quiz and have to wait to read this chapter until at least midnight ...

and HOT RIBENA?!? I really hope it's rasberry...

[Nia M]

Nope, blackcurrant all the way

Good luck with the quiz

[Silktie]

I like this story - had been following it on FF.net so won't comment on each chapter, but had to comment on this one. Poor Harry with the bracelet - I can see him chickening out of giving it to her after she turned him down. I hope he gets a chance to give it to her in future.

*Settles back to wait patiently for next update.*

[Tea Lady]

A good story. I can imagine Harry buying a present for her like that, poor chap.

[lwhite53]

Jo setting up the "secret santa" gift swap -- so like her. And Harry and the bracelet . . . awwww. OK folks -- what's Ribena?

This is really fun. Patiently (or maybe not so) waiting for more.

[Nia M]

Ribena is a fruit juice drink, most commonly made with blackcurrants, although they do now do other flavours. They also do a kind of squash that you can dilute with water. And it's the most amazing drink possible!!

Am so glad you guys are enjoying this, but I might hold back the next chapter here until I've written chapter 5