DISCLAIMER: Not mine, no profit, just a little bit of idle daydreaming written down in the hope it might provde some enjoyment - the characters that you recognise belong to Kudos and the BBC; the characters that you don't are mine. [Canada, I hope, will not take offense at what is meant to be a little bit of complimentary light-heartedness...]

SUMMARY: Not every evening is spent stuck reading files on the Grid...[Timeline: circa s10 (i.e. a little while in the future)]

AUTHOR'S NOTES: My first attempt writing Spooks and Harry/Ruth and my first attempt posting on . Something will go wrong, of that I'm sure...

"Ruth!" called Jo the second the pods opened, enabling her to be heard on the Grid, only to get no response from the Intelligence Analyst, who was obviously engrossed in something.

"Ruth! It's 5pm!"

"What?" Bemused and distracted, Ruth looked up in the direction of her friend and colleague.

"It's 5pm Ruth..." repeated Jo, coming to stand by Ruth's desk and starting to carefully mark her place in the various books and files that she had open, clearly suggesting to the rest of the officers on the Grid that, for Ruth Evershed at least, the working day was over.

"And?" asked Ruth, frowning: she never stopped work at 5pm.

"You need to get changed... for tonight..." explained Jo patiently, smiling with gentle humour at her incredibly brilliant yet sometimes extremely distracted best friend.

"Tonight?" Still not quite returned to the present, having spent the last few hours absorbed in the significance of a coded warning that was delivered in Modern Greek but appeared to be a bastardised translation via two if not three languages from the Ancient Greek that Euripides had written the original in, Ruth wasn't quite catching the significance of Jo's prompt.

"Dinner? At the Palace?" reminded Jo carefully, all too aware that the rest of the Grid were by now all eavesdropping on their conversation - she really should consider getting them sent back for basic tradecraft refreshers.

"Bugger!" exclaimed Ruth, everything falling into place, causing her to stand up abruptly, neatly dislodging the three files she had been balancing in her lap having run out of convenient desk space some time ago.

"Don't worry about it... everything's here..." explained Jo, taking her friend by the arm and leading Ruth off the Grid, away from the prying eyes, and ears of the rest of the team, "...it was all delivered yesterday."

"Of course it was..." agreed Ruth, beginning to calm down as she started to remember the various bits of the plan for the evening, starting with the fact that everything she needed in order to get ready had been delivered to the Grid yesterday so that all she had to do now was get dressed and go... "...I can't do this Jo!"

"Stop panicking Ruth, you do it brilliantly..." reassured Jo, hoping that Malcolm would have returned from Section C by the time Ruth was changed - he had a real knack for calming Ruth down in these sorts of situations.

"But it isn't ME!" was the panicked wail from Ruth that the Grid heard before everything went silent as Jo lead her away to the Grid's bathroom.

"What dinner at the Palace?" asked Jack Stone, a young blonde agent that reminded Jo, Ruth and Malcolm so much of Adam and who right now, had been with Section D just over four months.

"State Banquet, I thought Special Branch were handling it..." replied Vicki Harter, a Field Officer recently transferred across from Six who was still trying to get to grips with the group dynamics of Section D, something that caused Malcolm and Ruth no surprise, having witnessed a rather similar transition by Ros some years earlier, "...and who'd send her undercover?"

"That's a bit harsh Vic..." chastised Jack cautiously, not entirely confident enough to argue with the more experienced Officer but knowing that she wouldn't have picked on the Intelligence Analyst in that way if either Jo or Malcolm were within earshot.

"She's bonkers..." protested Vic, not entirely sure if she was feeling jealous of Ruth because she was getting to go out in the field tonight and thus livening up an otherwise rather mundane week for Section D or whether it was a more general jealously based on the fact that it was clear that Ruth was well liked and had many friends on the Grid whereas Vicki still felt like the untrusted interloper.

"...but brilliant! She's a legend around here...." gushed Jack, clearly somewhat smitten with the talented brunette.

"So why's she going to the Palace tonight?" asked Vicki, deciding that, personal feelings aside, this was an interesting mystery that would serve as a useful little distraction for a few minutes whilst they solved it.

"Who's she going as? Obviously a legend..." suggested Jack based on Ruth's parting wail, starting to work away on his computer, intent on trying to work out what was happening.

"Black Op?" suggested Vicki, pulling up the guest list and failing to find the name 'Ruth Evershed' on it.

"Hardly, since the Boss evidently knows..." decided Jack, nodding his head in the direction of Jo's office which was of course empty as Jo was still helping Ruth, "...I can't find any legends on the guest list though..."

"Maybe she's not going as a guest..." suggested Vicki, pulling up the list of people working that evening at the Palace.

"Interesting..."

"What?" asked Vicki, looking up in expectation.

"The DG's going..."

"Really? Doesn't he normally?"

"In theory yes... in practice, don't we normally find a reason why it would be a bad idea for him to go?"

"True... so why's he going tonight?" wondered Vicki, forgetting their little investigation into Ruth's attendance for the moment.

"Maybe we couldn't come up with an excuse?" said Jack, frowning.

"When have we ever struggled to come up with an excuse?"

"It is the Canadian Prime Minister..." concluded Jack, as if it explained everything.

"Ok, so there's no excuse..." agreed Vicki, returning to her cross-checking of the banquet staff list.

"Jack, where's Ruth?" asked Malcolm, coming through the pods a few minutes later.

"Jo's helping her prepare."

"Good..." With a look of relief, Malcolm deposited his files on his desk and started taking his jacket off.

"You were worried?"

"That she hadn't noticed the time and was running late," explained Malcolm, settling down at his desk to see what sort of chaos had ensued in his absence.

"Jo dragged her off at 5..."

"Good," concluded Malcolm, starting to become absorbed in his work once more, much to Jack's disappointment.

"Malcolm..."

"Yes Jack?"

"Why is Ruth going out tonight?"

"Because she has to," explained Malcolm succinctly, unwilling as always to be drawn into detail about his old friend's personal life, knowing far too well how easy it was for the Grid to gossip and how upset it made her.

"What's her legend?" asked Vicki, joining in the conversation, her earlier attempts at finding it yielding nothing.

"Legend?"

"For the Op..."

"Op?"

"Tonight, at the State Banquet - what's her legend?" clarified Vicki with exasperation. Did he not follow anything that wasn't a computer system?

"Ruth doesn't go out into the field," stated Malcolm firmly, noticing the time and looking up from his work obviously in anticipation of Ruth's return to the Grid since he ignored the agents and turned his chair so that he was looking in the direction that Ruth and Jo had disappeared in.

"But..." Jack got no further with his question as suddenly he was hit on the arm with a file by Vicki, "...hey!"

"Look busy!" she instructed fiercely, minimising the state banquet guest list file and opening up the first file she grabbed on her desk.

"What? Why?" asked Jack, starting to shuffle around in his seat, attempting to see what had caught her attention, only to realise, "...Shit! It's the DG!"

"I can't do it..."

"Ruth, you look wonderful..."

"I can't do it Jo..." repeated Ruth, wringing her hands nervously together, the fingers of her right hand instinctively starting to fiddle with the rings on her left hand.

"All you need to do is walk back out onto the Grid..." coaxed Jo, picking up the small evening bag and light shawl that completed Ruth's outfit.

"It's not me..." protested Ruth, "...I mean, it is me, but it isn't - I don't wear these clothes, I'm not this person..."

"Ruth, you're babbling..." chided Jo kindly as she grasped her friend gently by the elbow and started leading her back towards the Grid.

"But I've got work to do, the translation, it's not the proper translation, well, it is a proper translation but, well, it's in Modern Greek you see and..."

"Ruth, I don't need the translation tonight..." murmured Jo gently, pleased that, despite her verbal panic, Ruth was at least following her out of the bathroom, back to the Grid.

"Why Lady Pearce, you have just proved Sir Max Beerbohm wrong!" exclaimed Malcolm when he saw her appear, leaping to his feet and heading towards her.

"I have?" asked Ruth, frowning as she tried to place the reference Malcolm was alluding to, her mind immediately distracted with the puzzle of a literary reference and therefore missing the rather amusing sight of Jack and Vicki nearly dislocating their skulls as their heads snapped up in shock.

"He wrote '. . . but beauty and the lust for learning have yet to be allied.' You, my dear, have allied them..." complimented Malcolm, gently pressing a kiss to her cheek as he squeezed her hand in encouragement, knowing how much she really didn't like having to dress up despite carrying it off so well.

"Beerbohm... Zuleika Dobson!" concluded Ruth, grinning with satisfaction at completing the puzzle.

"I hope there aren't two black owls in our future Malcolm..."

"Certainly not Harry! How are you?"

"As well as to be excepted... Jo, why couldn't you think of a suitable excuse?" asked Harry Pearce, one time Head of Section D and now, regrettably as he saw it some days, the DG, stepping down from the pods.

"It is Canada Harry..." said Jo, as if that explained everything.

"So it is... darling, you look sensational, but don't listen to Malcolm," he said as he literally drank in the sight of her, the dark silver silk dress shimmering just like her eyes did when they were dancing with amusement or delight. Despite her protestations that she really didn't enjoy the formal events they occasionally attended, she really did know how to wear a classic evening gown and this evening's was no exception, with the neckline concealing just the right amount of everything to be alluring and the cut of the dress revealing just enough to be provocative.

"Why shouldn't she listen to me Harry?" asked Malcolm grumpily, having felt rather pleased with himself for the reference.

"Yes, why Harry?" asked Ruth, stepping forwards and sorting out her husband's white tie whilst she waited for his answer.

"Because, darling, you have proved Beerbohm wrong every day I've known you..."

"Harry..." protested Ruth, blushing heavily.

"It's true darling, and you're going to have to accept it..."

"And if I don't?" asked Ruth, her eyes sparkling with humour as her earlier nerves eased: as long as Harry was with her, she could do this.

"I shall keep telling you until you do, you stubborn old muldyr..."

"Muldyr?" Mouthed Jo at Malcolm, smirking at their friends' conversation.

"No idea..." mouthed Malcolm in response.

"Muldyr?" repeated Ruth carefully, pondering it for a moment as she eyed him critically, "...Norwegian?"

"Close... Danish," explained Harry, grinning slightly. It was a silly game, but one he enjoyed playing with her.

"Only you two could have 'mule' as a term of endearment..." laughed Jo, drawing them out of their own little world and back into the group.

"He started it...Danish?" retorted Ruth quickly,

"Most geographically appropriate..."

"Of course... what do the Inuit say, I wonder?" mused Ruth, wondering if that would count as an appropriate topic of small talk this evening as she reached for her shawl which Jo still held, only to be interrupted by Harry.

"Wait, you're not ready yet..." he said quickly, realising the error of his words a split second later when she started fidgeting again.

"Ruth!" He called, grabbing her hands in his, stopping her nervous fidgeting.

"Yes?"

"I think you need this..." he suggested, reaching into his trouser pocket and pulling out a necklace.

"Harry..." chastised Ruth gently, feeling embarrassed all over again now at her husband's generousity.

"I'm being presumptuous, I know..." he agreed as he held out the necklace, patiently waiting to put it on her.

"Very..." agreed Ruth, biting her bottom lip in order to keep control of her emotions. Even now, after all these years, he could still overwhelm her with his gruff tenderness and generosity.

"What can I say, I couldn't resist..." As he spoke, he reached forwards and draped the sparkling diamond necklace across her collarbones, before reaching behind her neck to fasten it, pressing a gentle kiss to her lips as he clicked the clasp closed, guessing he'd probably startled her into speechlessness.

With Jo's assistance, he helped Ruth with her shawl and, with a nod of thanks towards Malcolm, Harry placed his hand in the small of Ruth's back and started to guide her towards the pods.

"See you tomorrow Ruth!" called out Jo, moving to stand next to Malcolm as they watched their friends leave.

"Bloody hell..." The sound of the pods sealing shut behind Ruth and Harry was augmented by Jack's exhalation.

"Remind me why we don't have a swear box?" asked Malcolm rhetorically as he sat down at his desk again whilst Jo started to tidy up Ruth's desk a little more.

"That was the Director General..." continued Jack, obviously still in shock.

"And my predecessor as Head of Section D," confirmed Jo, scrutinising a post-it note for a moment before deciding that it might be useful and so re-sticking it onto Ruth's monitor.

"She's married to the DG..." agreed Vicki, hoping that she was doing a slightly better job than Jack was at concealing her shock.

"It's the only way she'd be Lady Pearce..." remarked Malcolm, shutting down his computer.

"How? I mean when? I mean..." Jack was standing up now, half formed questions tumbling from his mouth.

"Do you think we need to send them back for basic research 101?" teased Jo, turning off Ruth's monitor.

"They certainly don't make them like they used to..." agreed Malcolm, pulling on his coat, "...drink at the George?"

"Sure..." agreed Jo, having dumped her coat by Ruth's desk when she'd returned to the Grid earlier.

"They keep that quiet Malcolm," observed Vicki cautiously, starting to see Ruth in a different light to how she'd previously, arrogantly regarded her.

"Not really Vicki, I guess..." Suddenly, Malcolm felt very old and the Grid felt full of ghosts as he realised what the issue was, "...I guess it just isn't gossip anymore," sighed Malcolm, stepping into the pods.

"What is it then?" asked Jack, pulling on his jacket, wondering if they would be able to persuade Jo and Malcolm to tell them about it over a drink.

"A proper romance..." declared Vicki, following Malcolm's lead and exiting the Grid.

"Jane Austen would have been proud..." agreed Jo, looking one last time at the Grid and, like Malcolm, seeing the ghosts of their past before shaking her head as if to clear the image from her mind and heading through the pods: Harry and Ruth proved that they always had hope of a future...

Thank you for reading.