THE NEW YEAR
(a Harry & Ruth Fanfic)
As the celebration raged across the lake from where she stood, Ruth leaned against a tree, arms crossed and smiled. She looked at her watch. 11:17. She turned and walked back up to the house she had lived in for the past three years. It had been five years since she last saw him. Every year at this time, she began to think of her resolutions. Would this be the year? Could she end her exile and return to the life she had always lived? Could she reunite with the one man she adored more than any other?
She knew the answer to that without even thinking it. It was not meant to be. She remembered the first day she had started working at Thames House. When she’d met Harry there wasn’t anything particularly different about him than any other man she had worked for. At least not at first. However as time went on, she began to feel herself drawn to him, as he was undoubtedly drawn to her. She realized that there was no way she could express her feelings for him, nor him for her due to the politics of the job, so they were resigned to wandering around ignoring the inevitable. Ignoring the obvious.
Then when she had to leave, she wanted to finally let out the emotions and declare her love for him. He was on the verge of doing the same, but she stopped him. She had no choice. It couldn’t be like that. What kinda of woman holds her feelings in and finally lets them out only when there are forces dividing you? So she told Harry not to say it. She knew it, that’s all that mattered. And he knew.
Oh the look on his face nearly tore her apart. She wanted to take him in her arms and hold him. Beg him to protect her from the forces that were taking control over their lives. But she didn’t. Didn’t, couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Whatever the reasons, for the past five years she regretted it. She wished she had said something. Anything, just let him know how she felt about him. To put it out there and damn anyone or anything that would stand in the way.
She had just sat down in her chair, on the deck when she heard a noise behind her. She sat up, turned around and froze. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.
“Harry?”
Harry stepped forward, taking the scarf from around his neck. “Hello Ruth”.
Tears welled at her eyes, as she stood up and looked at him. “How…I …how?”
“Well, Ruth, you send someone THAT many postcards, eventually you can be found” he said with a wry smile.
“Oh Harry” she gasped as she stepped around the chair and ran to him. Harry opened his arms and took her and held her tightly. He felt her lips on his and his eyes instinctively closed. How long had he waited for this moment?
She stepped away and looked embarrassed. “You got my cards.”
“Yes. I have to say you are quite the globetrotter”
“I never went to those places.”
“No?” he asked, a hint of a smile.
“I bought them online. Then I mailed them to friends and contacts I had in other countries and cities around the world for them to post from there. That way if they were found they wouldn’t know where I was really staying. At least that was the plan, anyway.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, it took a lot of searching to find you, so I think you’re safe. It would take someone that really wanted to find you.”
“And that someone was you, huh?” she said smiling.
“Very much so.” He said.
Ruth looked at him for a few moments before speaking. “Would you like to walk down to the water?”
Harry looked away down towards the lake. His eyes moved up and took in the massive celebration across the way. “They really love their New Years Celebration around these parts, don’t they?”
Ruth laughed, “That they do. So what will it be Mr. Pierce? Will you escort me down?”
“I would be honored, Miss Evershed”, he said as he took her outstretched hand.
As they made their way from her house down to the water, Harry chuckled. “You know, I spent so many years searching for you. I had this whole spiel that I wanted to say to you, and now that I get here I’m drawing a blank.”
“Well, we have time. You still have, “ she looks at her watch. “27 minutes left in the year. Better get thinking, though. “ she said.
Harry was filled with a warm feeling in his chest as he watched her smile at him. They reached the bottom, and Ruth led him over to the left to where there were several chairs sitting around a campfire.
“I had planned for some people to join me tonight, but they were not able to make it” she said. She looked at Harry, as she sat down. “Just as well, it turns out.”
After she had sat down, Harry then lowered himself into the seat beside her. They sat there quietly and watched the people yell and dance and shoot off fireworks across the lake. Harry slowly counted to three silently and then turned to Ruth.
“Ruth, I know what I wanted to say to you”
“Really? You only have 20 minutes left in the year. I hope this is monumental because then I’ll have something to give me a lasting impression of this year”
“Ruth, you seem…different. What I mean to say is that the way you talk, your whole personality seems different to me.”
“Is that a good different or a bad different?”
“Oh no, it’s definitely not a bad different. I was just surprised. You always were quiet and kind of introspective. “
“Well, Harry, I normally am. I’m just very excited to see you after so long. I’ve wanted to write you for so long and tell you exactly how I felt, but I never was able to write anything beyond the usual hellos, how are things, things are good here. That kind of thing. There were some that I got a little more personal but I was afraid to open up. What if you didn’t agree with what I wrote?”
“Ruth, I could never disagree with anything you say.”
Ruth laughed, “well I don’t know about that, but thank you.”
“Ruth, I love you.” Harry said. He then leaned back in the chair and looked back at the water. Then softly “there, I said it.”
Ruth stared at him, obviously surprised. “ I – I—“
She looked down at the ground.
Harry looked back at her and the look on his face said it all. “Oh I’m – I mean I shouldn’t have said that…Ruth, I’m – “
“I love you too Harry.” Harry looked at her as she brought her head up to face him and he could see tears. “I’ve loved you for a long time, but never said it. I was afraid. Afraid of what others would say about you, or afraid of what you might think. Afraid of rejection.”
“Oh Ruth, dear, why would you ever think I would reject you? I’ve wanted to say I love you for what seems like eternity. I wanted to tell you on that day at the boat –“
“I know, but I didn’t want you to. I was afraid of what would happen if people knew. I was being forced into exile and I knew there was going to be pressure to find me. I didn’t want anyone to know that there was anything between us. That’s why I sent those cards from all over the world. I had to at least send you something to let you know I was thinking of you. I had people I knew to send them from all over, just in case they got intercepted and people knew they were from me.”
“I couldn’t risk them finding me, Harry. I had to hold out hope that when I did get to see you again, it would never be in those circumstances. That when I got to gaze into your eyes once again, I would see the longing that resides in mine, and not the sadness and pain that would develop from my capture.”
Harry sat there with a look of being stunned on his face.
“And Harry I can’t lie to you. I would want nothing more than to take you right now.” Harry’s eyes widened a bit.
“But we can’t. Because if this is the last time we were to see each other, I want to remember something sweetly innocent. Perhaps I’m a bit old fashioned or a naïve young girl at heart, but I would like to think of our love as yet to be fulfilled. Because I want to believe that this will not be the last time we shall meet, Harry. “
Tears form at the corner of Ruth’s eyes.
Harry leans over to her and takes her hands between his. “I most assuredly promise you that it will not be. The entire of Parliament could not prevent us from being together, at the time that you decide it to be so. Understand me on this my dear.”
Ruth pulls her hands away to wipe away her tears. Harry reaches out and gently holds her face, and looks straight into her eyes. “I will sacrifice everything I have for you. I would walk into Thames House right now and tender my resignation, and be back here before the Sun goes down on the first day, if that’s what you asked of me.”
Ruth stares at him with a mixture of love and doubt. “Please tell me you’re not having a laugh at me”
“Ruth, my dear,” Harry said with a small smile. “Never at your expense.”
Ruth stands up and walks away and begins pacing back and forth in front of one of the trees, as she wipes her tears away.
“Don’t say that if it’s not true. Please don’t tell me all that if you’re not serious.” She said softly.
Harry leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. “Say the word, and it’s done. Just say the word, and I will leave this flat and put my affairs in order. The next time you’d see me, would be the beginning of the rest of our lives.”
Silence fills the air as she leans forward and supports herself against the tree.
“What’s your answer, Ruth?”
THE END
