A/N: I'm pretty sure that this is going to be the end. It sort of makes it look like a sequel is an impossibility, and, much as I might like to write one, there's only so much I can do with this little world.

The next challenge is Beth/Dmitri... everyone ships them implicitly, but no one writes them! What is this nonsense, I ask ye?

Thank you all for reading and being so supportive – when I started this story, I could never have imagined it might be so popular.

Love, hugs and suchlike xxx

Epilogue

In a normal world, the passage of time is marked with pages in a diary or birthdays or Christmases and New Years. On the Grid, it's marked with funerals, deaths, resignations and an ever-changing team. Slowly, though, over the years, Ruth has begun to come to terms with the way things work. She's getting used to mourning colleagues and to choosing poems for funerals. Much as it pains her, she knows that death and their line of work are intrinsically linked.

Of course, the black line that is time in MI5 does have some brighter days: Joanna and Zaf's wedding; the reappearance of colleagues thought long-lost, whom everyone has missed in Lucas North and, regrettably, Juliet 'The Witch' Shaw; new and wonderful team members in Tariq, Beth and Dmitri; and, occasionally, in the same constants that everyone else has. Christmases have been very similar, these past ten years.

Ruth had never imagined herself having a family, but since that twenty-fourth Christmas, and that gentle, loving New Year on the Grid, she's had one. It's not a conventional family, by any means, but it's hers. Harry, Ruth, Catherine (now very resolutely "Cate") and Graham have shared Christmases and lives for ten, blissful years, now, and each one has been as perfect as the first. Of course, things have changed: Harry's children are no longer children, and Harry no longer has to do all of the cooking for himself. Scarlett has a cat to play with; Fidget has a dog to torment.

Mostly, then, the brighter days have cancelled out the darker ones. Ten years have passed, and they are both still alive. That's always been the main thing.

In their lives, too, there have been darker days. There was that fateful afternoon in a churchyard after a funeral when Harry asked her to marry him, for starters. The look on his face when she said no had almost broken her: but she had always sworn she would never get married – and they didn't need a piece of paper or a pair of rings to tell them they loved each other. Love each other. It hadn't been the same for a while after that, but, slowly, decisions were explained and accepted, and things became the same, but different. They couldn't be more together than they are now, and no one can ever take that away from them.

They live together, now, too. It was a snap decision, almost a month after that wonderful New Year, when Harry noticed how Ruth had barely spent a night at home since, and how Fidget had somehow materialised in his kitchen, he suggested that they make it official. Ruth's little house was only rented, anyway, where as Harry's was owned, entirely, as a gift from a rich grandparent, so it made sense. It still does. It's never made more sense.

Three years ago, the biggest change in their lives (until this afternoon) happened: Karin handed in her resignation. At just forty-five she had been Section D's youngest Head for a long time, and she felt as though she'd done what she had to for her nation. She'd made the money she needed to retire into obscurity, working for the services as a freelance advisor occasionally, and she was happy. That, of course, left a gap: and Harry, although he didn't expect it for a moment, was promoted. The security of a desk job was an immense relief to Ruth – by then, she'd already had to visit the hospital three times to see if he was already dead or not. All of them had been close calls.

Ruth, too, had been offered a promotion, into another team, as Section Chief, despite being a desk analyst. She declined. The Grid was her second home: Section D were her second family. It's not that she lost her ambition: it's that she's got a job she loved, where she is happy. In her eyes, no one could ask for more.

So: this afternoon. The Grid is bored. Dmitri and Beth sit in a corner, flirting, Tariq plays with a new gadget of some kind, and Ruth stares at a computer screen wondering quite how she can put what she has to into words. It takes her a while to realise that Jo, Harry's replacement as Section Chief, is staring at her. "What?" she asks, quietly.

"What's wrong, Ruth?" Jo asks, coming to sit on the side of Ruth's desk, watching her carefully, and trying to read the lines on her face.

"Nothing." Ruth sighs, "I..."

"Is it the HS's party this afternoon?" Jo asks, "you're worried how people will react? You and Harry?"

"No," Ruth smiles – although that is partly why. In the little breaks in their flirting that Beth and Dmitri create in order to give themselves a breather, they've been trying to work out why Ruth Evershed's name is on the guest list for the Home Secretary's birthday party that evening. They've narrowed it down to the fact that she must be "seeing" one of the other people on the list, because she's not part of the security detail, and as they've only been on the Grid a month and a bit, they don't know about Harry and Ruth. Some time ago, a silent pact was made between them that they should keep their relationship under wraps at work, for their own security and privacy, and, miraculously, they've managed to do it well. So much, after all, can be said in a laden glance, and when they're not at work, they have all the time in the world.

"So what is it?" Jo asks, genuinely concerned.

"I'm..." Ruth breathes deeply, pinching two fingers to the bridge of her nose in an attempt to think clearly.

"Ruth..." Jo sighs, "you can tell me. You do know that, don't you?"

"I'mpregant" Ruth whispers, frantically, and so quickly that Jo has to blink a couple of times, thinking hard, before she clocks on, her eyes widening:

"Pregnant?" she asks, a little louder than she intends, and ears all around the Grid prick up. "Sorry!" Jo intones, as she hears Harry's office door opening. A look of utter confusion on his face, he crosses the Grid in a few quick strides, and crouches in front of Ruth's seat, concern etched on his face. Taking her hands in his, he looks up at her, and asks, "really?" in hushed tones. Jo walks away; this moment, between the two of them, is too beautiful, too private, too intimate to be disturbed.

"I... I thi... yes..." Ruth says, a little half-smile on her face. "I... I didn't know how to... tell you..."

"Like this." Harry smiles, leaning up to kiss her briefly on the lips, "this is perfect."

"Perfect." Ruth echoes, still nervous. "You... you're not angry?"

"Why," Harry asks, smiling, "would I be angry? I love you, Ruth Evershed, and I always have. Besides, Cate will be happy. She can babysit." He kisses her again, and this time, she wraps her arms around him and kisses him back, perfectly content.

"Now," Harry says, "don't you have a party to be getting ready for?"

"This night is sparkling, don't you let it go
I'm wonderstruck, blushing all the way home
I'll spend forever wondering if you knew
This night is flawless, don't you let it go
I'm wonderstruck, dancing around all alone
I'll spend forever wondering if you knew
I was enchanted to meet you"

- Enchanted, Taylor Swift

A/N: Thank you all for reading – one final review would be lovely. xxx