On With the Snow (Chapter 6)

[Nia M]

Thanks TygerBright for the fic banner, the colouring of the bracelet image, and the ice picks/icicles idea...

Harry scraped some snow of the roof of a nearby car and handed some to Ruth, rolling his portion into a compact ball, as she mirrored his actions. “Ready?” he asked, when they had finished. She nodded once, and drew her arm back, poised to throw.
“GO!”

---

They had been wrong about the others. While Harry and Ruth had been debating whether to partake in the snowball fight, Adam, Zaf and Jo were already surreptitiously primed and ready to fire. They had known that Harry wouldn’t refuse Ruth’s please; she was his ‘rose-tinted blind-spot’, as Ros so frequently put it.

And so while they may have appeared to be easy targets, supposedly unawares and unsuspecting, it was they how had the element of surprise when, having seen in the reflection of a car that Harry was about to launch a snowball in his direction, it was Adam, not Harry, who gave the command.

---

“GO!”

---

It didn’t quite turn out as Ruth and Harry had expected. On Adam’s command, the other three launched the snowballs one after the other at the pair in a constant stream of missiles. Ruth nearly dropped her snowball in surprise, and tried to duck the bombardment. She was tempted to yell out jokingly, “Take cover!” but before she could do anything of the sort, she felt, not for the first time that day, herself be dragged forward by Harry.

He pushed her in front of himself, towards a line of cars parked by the pavement as they rushed for shelter from the onslaught of the fierce flurry of snow, his hand in the small of her back to direct her. When she tripped up the curb and onto the pavement, he grabbed at her flailing arm to stop her falling – again – and steadied her, their eyes meeting for the briefest of moments before he pushed her down behind a car and they collapsed, chests heaving with flushed excitement and unsteady breaths, against the shiny silver vehicle.

Ruth leaned back against the car, head tossed back as she laughed up at the sky, and then she dropped back down to meet Harry’s bewildered smile. Properly meeting his gaze, they both burst out laughing, and she revelled in that she was seeing a side to him that she knew was hardly ever exposed.

When their laughs subsided, Ruth noticed that she still had the remnants of her snowball clutched in her gloveless hand, so she crushed the icy coldness, and dusted the remaining flakes off. She made as if to poke her head around the car and seek out where the other three were, but Harry caught her hand. Almost immediately, they drew their hands apart in shock; her at the sudden touch, and he at the iciness of her palm.

“Jesus, Ruth, you’re freezing! What happened to your gloves?”
He took hold of the hand he had just dropped, and placed it palm-to-palm with her other, before encompassing both her hands with his own, and rubbing them together, trying vainly to generate a little heat into her fingers. Instead, she could feel a sudden rush of heat flow in her face, and - once again - she cursed her susceptibility to blushing, and chewed on her bottom lip to keep herself from saying anything.
It was Harry who broke the silence.

“There, that’s better,” he said, and he reluctantly relinquished his hold on her hands, before fishing out his own gloves from his pockets. As he did so, another object became dislodged from his pocket, and tumbled out.

“What’s that?” asked Ruth, reaching down to pick it up. Hampered by surprisingly slow reactions, Harry’s attempts to retrieve the fallen object before she did failed, and he hand darted out to clutch at snow.

“Nothing,” he murmured, silently willing her to hand it back before-

Too late.

“It’s got my name on it,” she said, frowning in curiosity, her voice conveying the question she wanted to ask.

Harry held out his hand for the small parcel.

“Ruuuth...” he pleaded, drawing out her name. She smirked at him slightly.

“Haaarrryy...” she retorted, surprising herself at her own sudden confidence. It was the bracelet, she supposed silently.

Harry, too, marvelled at how much more confident and comfortable she was with him today; without the snow she would never have dared to speak in such a familiar way to him.

“Harry,” she tried again, “why does it have my name on it?”

“Er...” Damn, he thought, fresh out of excuses. “It was supposed to be your Christmas present.”

“But you gave me chocolates...?” she replied, her memory never failing her when it came to Harry.

“It was going to be instead of the chocolates,” he explained. “Before we-”

“Before I was an over-sensitive fool and said we shouldn’t see each other again?” she offered gently.

One look at her face and he laughed again, before quickly stopping himself in case he had hurt her feelings. He hadn’t, if her slightly guilty smile was anything to go by.

“Why is it in your pocket?” Ruth asked. “Were you ever going to give it to me?”

“Perhaps, if the moment was right.”

“And is it?”

His head snapped up, and she blushed, wondering if she had been too forward.

“Yes,” he replied softly. “I think maybe it is.”

Tentatively, she turned the small parcel over in her hand, chewing her bottom lip anxiously.

“Well, aren’t you going to open it then?” he asked nervously. She nodded quickly and peeled back a corner of wrapping paper. Harry’s eyes lingered on hers while she unwrapped the small present, his pulse racing fretfully as he anticipated her reaction.

He need not have worried.

“Oh!” she gasped in delight as the amber bracelet tumbled out into her hands. “Oh, it’s beautiful!” Her eyes shined as she beamed at him. “Thank you, Harry, it’s...”

She unconsciously ran her thumb over the central bead, the translucent golden heart.

“Here, let me,” offered Harry, taking the bracelet from her unresisting hands and fastening it around her wrist. “A perfect fit,” he declared, stroking the clasp where it touched her skin. Her audible intake of breath as he did so brought him back down to Earth and, conscious that he might be going too fast, too soon, he took up the gloves again.

“Here,” he said, holding them out to her. “We can’t have you getting frostbite, can we?” Numbly, she shook her head. “Who else would make me cups of tea when everyone else has gone home?” he joked.

As she didn’t seem to be making a move to take the gloves, he reached again for her hand, and held the glove open, coaxing her into it. She slid her hand into the leather, still warm from his pocket, and flexed the warm material experimentally, the bracelet a consoling weight at her wrist. The well-worn leather moved with a practiced ease, and as its pair enveloped her other hand, she could not help but think that, when she did eventually come to remove the gloves, she would be left with the lingering scent of Harry on her fingers.

It was a delectable thought, and she beamed at him warmly and openly. He returned the smile, and then jerked his neck in the supposed direction of the other three.

“Retaliation time?” he asked, leaning towards her conspiratorially as he spoke.

She nodded. “Definitely,” she asserted, and turned so that she was sat back onto her knees, facing him. Now that she was turned fully towards him, he could see the other side of her face, where, just at the corner of her right eye, a small cluster of snowflakes had gathered. He reached up and cupped the side of her face with his palm, and her eyes fluttered closed as he gently brushed away the moisture. When he grudgingly drew his hand back and she opened her eyes, he unconsciously found a quick excuse to touch her face again in tucking a stray curl of hair behind her ear, before finally letting his hand drop to his side. She averted her eyes, suddenly shy, and scooped up a handful of snow, suddenly back to the business of ‘retaliation’.

Harry’s face fell. To him, it was as though Ruth couldn’t acknowledge whatever it was the two of them shared – as though she didn’t dare to put it to words, or actions, like he did. Well... whenever he could find the words to explain what it was between them, he would... but the point still stood! Even so, he wished that she could overcome her inhibitions, and verbally admit that they shared something. But then, she wasn’t like him in that way, and her flustered shyness was one of the many things that had drawn him too her to begin with.

She shifted a little uncomfortably under his piercing gaze, her enormous coat rustling as she moved. “We’ve been sitting here a while,” she commented. “Do you think they’ll have given up yet?”

“That’s unlikely, considering we’re talking about Adam Carter,” warned Harry, and he pushed himself up from the ground, careful to keep his head below the top of the car. Ruth mimicked his actions, ducking next to him, and scraping a handful of snow off the car window. He stood back, as best as he could while bent double, to let her scramble past. “After you,” he gestured, and they crept around the car cautiously, ready to show once and for all that they should never be underestimated...

---

This time, it was their turn to surprise the others, who had in fact almost given up on Harry and Ruth returning to the snowball fight. The other three weren’t exactly strategically placed either, standing in the middle of the empty road, huddled together, and, quite frankly, gossiping.

“Are they ever going to cotton on to the fact that they are both infatuated with one another?” Zaf asked, incredulous at the apparent display of blindness from his boss and Section D’s Senior Intelligence Analyst.

“That’s a bit harsh, Zaf,” countered Adam. “They just need a push in the right direction.” Catching Jo’s warning glare, he quickly amended himself. “Just a gentle shove though.” She nodded, appeased.

“Mind you, they’re taking an awfully long time over there,” Zaf observed. “Do you think they’ll be rejoining us?”

“Why don’t we go find out?” asked Adam, as if it were the simplest question in the world. “What are we doing standing here and waiting to get attacked?”

“Ros wouldn’t wait,” pointed out Jo.

“Ros? In a snowball fight?” asked Zaf dubiously.

“Well, she’d certainly win for starters,” replied Adam. “We’d have no chance!”

“That’s if she didn’t freeze all the snow to solid ice before-hand,” muttered Zaf.

“Even then she’d still find a way to win,” added Jo. “She’d probably come at us with ice-picks or something.”

“Or icicles.”

Zaf shivered. “I feel sorry for Malcolm...” he said.

Adam shrugged nonchalantly. “He didn’t seem to mind,” he replied brazenly.

Jo looked at him, decidedly unimpressed. “Are you trying to become Cupid or something?” she asked. “First Harry and Ruth, and now Ros and Malcolm... What next?!”

Well, what came next was an incredibly high-pitched shriek from Adam, as a well-aimed snowball from Harry collided with the back of his neck, and icy water seeped down the back of his shirt. Zaf and Jo near jumped out of their skins at the sudden screech, and immediately turned to the source of the snowball, only to be met with their own incoming missiles.

Seconds later saw the start their very own, rather different, re-enactment of trench war-fare, with each side sheltering behind cars as they launched round after round of snowballs at their opponents. As they had thought, the other three – or at least Zaf and Jo – had seriously miscalculated Harry and Ruth’s ability to throw snowballs in quick and very accurate succession at a given target, and were rapidly regretting the very suggestion of a snowball fight.

“Who’s... idea... was... this?” panted Jo as she only just managed to avoid a face full of snow. She hid behind Zaf who almost instantly was pelted at, the two of them quickly crouching down at ground level.

“Blame Adam,” replied Zaf breathlessly, narrowing his eyes at the guilty colleague.

Adam spied the two of them stooped low to the ground. “Oi!” he shouted. “A bit of help would be nice!”

Grumbling profusely, Jo dug her mittened hand into the snow and gathered up a handful, rolling it into a compact ball. She wasn’t to know that among the snow she had picked up nestled several large chunks of gravel, and it wasn’t until she heard the audible gasp of pain from Ruth that she realised her mistake.

“Ruth!” came the cry of several voices, and all thoughts of friendly combat were soon forgotten at the sight of her flinging her hand up to the side of her face, wincing as her fingers made contact with the battered corner of her left eye.

“Ruth?” Harry asked frantically. “Ruth, look at me.” She opened her eyes slowly, even this slightest action sending a stab of pain through her face. “Careful,” he murmured soothingly. “Just concentrate on me.” After blinking rapidly for a few seconds, and brushing the snow off her face, all the while insisting that she was fine although her actions uncovered tender skin and the beginnings of a swelling, which would undoubtedly soon blossom into a magnificent bruise, Ruth forced her eyes up to meet Harry’s.

Under the gaze of his intense concern, it took all of her resolve not to ask him to kiss her better.

It took all of his resolve not to offer to.

[TygerBright]

the bracelet, the bracelet, the bracelet, the bracelet.. finally. took him long enough
new fave chapter but feeling slightly guilty now
hope the next one's not finished yet

[Nia M]

*snort*
Not at all

I just remembered I didn't post this here and felt guilty

[TygerBright]

that makes two of us then
I have all the ingredients incl. icicles, just need a quiet moment.
I wish I could put Adam's "Oi!" in a picture .. can hear it loud and clear in my head.
and the image of Ros freezing snowballs with her cold-laser-eyes ..ROFL

[Nia M]

Such a good word, 'Oi!', isn't it?

I can't wait to see what you're cooking up

[Aria]

Very enjoyable, Nia. Hope you update soon.

[Nia M]

Thanks Aria
I'm working on Ch7 at the moment, but it may take a while. Somehow I'm not quite in the same snowy frame of mind at the moment... *is blinded by the sunlight*

[Tea Lady]

Good luck with chapter 7 Nia. I am enjoying this.

I think I read this chapter already on fanfic but can't remember if I reviewed or not, sorry.

Perhaps R/H need to go somewhere and get warmed up?

[Nia M]

I didn't know you were on FF!

Great suggestion though

[newagent]

ah found ch6.

Will Harry take Ruth home and nurse her injury? Oi! Oi!