A sequel to the oneshot 'Stuck in Snow'. You don't need to have read it but it might help. Starts a wee bit angsty but there's fluff on the horizon.

He often closed his eyes and thought of that moment stuck in the snow. The stillness. The solitude. The softness of her skin.

He had thought it perfect. He had thought it the breakthrough that both of them needed. The moment when everything changed. The moment from which they could move on.

But then the moment came.

Dimitri swept the snow from the window and even though the interior was steamed up they still couldn't fail to see his extremely shocked expression peering through the window.

And now here they were.

There was a knock and the office door slid open, Ruth said nothing, eyes on the floor, she put the new intel onto Harry's desk and left.

"Ruth," she paused.

"Thanks."

She shut the door.

Harry wasn't used to having doors slammed in his face, physically or metaphorically, apart from by Ruth. She had slammed, locked and bolted the heaviest of doors on him the moment that Dimitri had found them in the back of Harry's car. That wasn't strictly true, there were several moments when extreme mortification was her only emotion. But then the big black hole which she desired to come and swallow her up failed to appear. It was then the door shut.

"It could have been worse." he whispered as they sat in the back of the snow plough.

"Worse?"

"Dimitri, could have appeared a few minutes earlier."

She had given him a withering look. He thought it probably the last time she had looked him in the eye for the last three months.

He understood her embarrassment. He was not happy either about being caught in a state of undress with Ruth, under a blanket, on the back seat of his car. Not happy at all. It would have been bad enough a stranger but for it to be Dimitri's face that appeared, he wondered how much worse it could have got. It could have been the whole team peering through the window, that would have been worse. It could have been several minutes earlier and then they would all have been significantly more embarrassed, or possibly slightly impressed. Still best not to think on that.

He had hoped that her red faced shame would fade and that she would remember how wonderful that time together in the snow had been. That she would remember that she loved him, that she'd told him as much, that he had told her.

It was all forgotten, her shame had wiped it away.

But he remembered.

"Dimitri!"

The bellow rang out from the office. Dimitri caught Beth's eye, "Well, what do you expect?" she said, distinctly lacking in sympathy.

"Report." Harry didn't even look up.

Dimitri hesitated. He wished Harry would just be done and hit him, or post him somewhere far away.

"Report, where is it?"

"You'll have it this afternoon."

"Not good enough, I'll have it now," he still failed to look up.

"Harry, I'm sorry, I really am. I didn't do it on purpose." Dimitri thought it was time to try and clear the air, or get punched. Right now either would do.

"If I'd known you and Ruth were…..were…." Bad idea, he thought.

Harry suddenly stood up.

"No, you didn't think did you? Did nothing occur to you for one single minute? Did you not wonder why neither of us had actually called in for assistance? Was that not a bit of a clue, Sherlock!"

Dimitri hung his head. He could have replied about the lack of signal, the increasingly bad weather report and his attempts to contact them, but he chose not to.

Harry sat back down.

"Harry, if I could take it back I would, I swear. I hate to see Ruth like this. It's not just you that she avoids. She won't look at me, either. I look at her and see Ruth, she looks and me and sees only my face at the window."

Harry stared at him.

"I'm sorry, truly."

Eventually Harry sighed, "Report" he said.

Dimitri nodded and headed out.

"And Dimitri, I'll have it now."

"Yes, Harry."

Ruth did her job, she did her job and went home. She slept and returned to work the next day. She no longer looked into Harry's office as she worked, she no longer felt the need to be where he was, to seek him out on the roof, to accidentally run into him in the corridors. She no longer wanted to lose herself in his eyes. She couldn't see past Dimitri, past his face, past what he had seen, what he would tell everyone he had seen. She couldn't bear it. She had wiped what had gone before and whenever she thought of Harry whispering that he loved her, or the feel of his lips it was only ever accompanied by a face at the window and all was gone and tainted with the same horror.

She needed a break from the office, she had things to do, important things, away from here.

She picked up her coat and passing Beth, said simply that she had to go out. Beth nodded.

Dimitri called, "See you later, Evershed."

"Bye" she muttered, but failed to look at him.

Harry needed to buy a present for Catherine's birthday. He didn't know where to start. He wished Ruth were talking to him.

He wandered the shops aimlessly, waiting for inspiration to strike. It didn't.

The traffic stopped and he crossed the road, not really knowing where he was going next and feeling like he was running out of the right kind of shops.

Then he saw her.

He stopped and stared, fixed, fixated.

A horn blared and then another. He was standing in the middle of the road, stopping traffic.

He didn't move.

It was Ruth.

"Move!" one of the drivers yelled out of his window.

It was Ruth. Shopping. She had bags.

"Get out of the road!"

The horns blared again.

"MOVE!"

It was Ruth. She had just stepped out of Mothercare.