TITLE: The Dance Begins Again
RATING: K
CHARACTERS: Ruth and Harry
SPOILERS: Very vague series 9 (if you haven't heard of Beth, where have you been?)
SUMMARY: They've been like this for years; a strange, twisting waltz pulling them first closer, then further apart, but always holding them at a slight distance
A/N: I'm not sure if I like this. Hmmm. Also, the closing quote is from the musical 'Wicked'.

The Dance Begins Again

Amy Littière

Another evening, another life lost, another city saved; another silence, blanketing a London rooftop at dusk, and another day when the unsaid hangs thick and strong in the air between them. She can't decide, she realises as she stares out across the river with the glimmering lights of life and hope winking back at her, whether she preferred it before, when they were freer, more open, less entwined, or if she likes it better now, in this tangled web which may or may not be a relationship.

She watches as a tiny boat passes across her eyeline, chugging peacefully along the river, and wonders, not for the first time, how much of what goes on in reality the people in her city honestly know. She suspects it's not a lot; why would they suspect? They're drip fed information, and they're tangled up in their own complicated lives. Why should reality stop to bother them?

A few more moments of peaceful silence, and she hears the little hatchway on to the roof creaking open. Her insides react oddly to this knowledge, but outwardly she sighs; only one person would be wandering out here at twilight. Only one other person would be here at this time. Only one other person has such a monogamous commitment to their work, and that person often elicits such reactions from her. She decides not to turn around, and instead waits, listening to the heavy footfalls approaching her across the roof, and to the low, husky tone in his voice as he whispers her name.

"I should have known you'd be here." He says, and she smiles, nodding. Yes, he should have known she'd be here, if, indeed, he didn't already. "Why, though?", he asks. "What are you still doing here?"

"I get no peace at home anymore." She shrugs.

"Beth?"

"Yes."

"You don't mind her being there, though?" he asks, leaning up against the railing beside her, a hair's breadth between them, and tension tingling, tangible in the air.

"No." She concedes. "I just need somewhere quiet to think, sometimes."

"It's been a hell of a day." He agrees, and the dance begins again.

They've been like this for years; a strange, twisting waltz pulling them first closer, then further apart, but always holding them at a slight distance – save for the one moment when the music stopped, and lips touched, and worlds collided... and then the reprieve ended, the music began again, and the dancing continued.

She's tired of dancing, she realises, as they stand in awkward, empty silence. They shouldn't be like this. They're so alike, the two of them, with their morals and their passion, their beliefs, their experience, their skills... and their stubbornness. That's what's keeping them apart. Only one of them ever chooses to let their music pause; the other always continues the dance, though from a distance, and here, in the milky glow of the first shafts of moonlight, on a London rooftop at dusk, she decides that this is her time to pause. On her side, the music stops. She leans closer to him, her head resting on his shoulder, and rests her hand across his, smiling a little as she does so.

The next move is his to make. She has given him his reprieve; do with it what he will.

"Close your eyes and leap"