A/N

I have found a note from the serious, emotional, well thought out part of my psyche. It said "gone fishin'". So, until it returns, I can only offer you all this. Not to be taken at all seriously, so any mistakes are meant in a pure nonsensical sense I am sure.

A 5 part story, title says it all.

I hope it makes you laugh or, failing that, I hope it at least puts a smile on your face :)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or locations, they all belong to Kudos, Monastic, BBC etc. No copyright infringement intended... can you imagine the disaster Spooks would be if I was in control?

The 5 Times Ruth Tried to Write a Love Letter, and the 1 Time she Succeeded

Beth pushed open the front door and breathed a sigh of relief as she entered her shared flat. It had been a long day at work; correcting a confused Lucas, placating a grumpy Harry, nodding dumbly at an over enthusiastic Tariq and fighting off the advances of a suave Dimitri. Day in, day out. Once during the day, when Lucas poked himself in the eye with his coffee spoon, Beth did wonder whether she was put here as some divine punishment.

Home safe now, she thought gladly and made her way into the living room. One of the lamps was lit up and Beth could see Ruth sitting on the sofa, back to the doorway, scribbling furiously on a piece of paper.

Beth rolled her eyes. Ruth had taken her first ever day off work and she had spent it... doing work. Typical.

"Hey Ruth," she called out. Ruth seemingly jumped out of her skin and dropped the paper and pen she was holding, pushing it hastily under the sofa she was sitting on. It slid along the hardwood floor, out the back of the sofa and skidded to a halt at Beth's feet.

Like a good spook, Beth leaned down and picked it up, perusing the contents.

"My dearest beloved," she read out, frowning, "you writing a love letter Ruth?"

Ruth buried her head in her hands and Beth could make out a muffled response;

"The sofa has no back to it, does it?"

"Nope, sorry," Beth grinned and walked over, sitting herself down next to Ruth with a heavy sigh. She continued to scan the contents, "you've written this all wrong you know."

"How?" Ruth lifted her head up, defensive despite her flaming cheeks, "I'm describing how I feel!"

"I see," Beth nodded, "is this before or after you and Harry both elope over the hill yonder to Wuthering Heights?"

Ruth snatched the paper out of her hands quickly and hugged it to her chest.

"How do you know that name?"

"God Ruth, it's a classic. I'm not stupid."

"Oh yeah? Who wrote it?"

"... Kate Bush?"

...

Several glasses of wine later and both Ruth and Beth sat on the floor in front of the sofa, crumpled balls of paper strewn all over the place.

"My darling?" Ruth enquired, trying hard to coordinate pen to paper. It was actually harder than it looked after a whole bottle of Shiraz...

Beth snorted.

"Nnno," she slurred slightly, "thass like... thass too formal."

Once again, Ruth ripped the piece of paper out of the pad and scrunched it up.

"H-how am I s'pos'd to start a letter to my boss then...? One who," she paused to quell the urge to vomit, "who also happ'ns t'be the man I am in love with...?"

"You love him?" Beth asked, smiling drunkenly, "thass like a fairytale... but with guns and terrorists and bombs and stuff."

"...an' then Cinderella, in her hasty midnight escape, left behind her... crystal USB stick," Ruth started to laugh.

"and the prince, s-saw it and, and then he picked it up and returned it to the fair maiden," Beth paused dramatically, swinging her glass of wine and spilling some on the sofa, "as she had... a tracking device on her!"

Both laughed hysterically at the otherwise absurd story. Ruth was the first to sober up a little bit;

"That wine is going to stain our sofa."

...

"I think," Beth said aloud from her position upside down in the armchair, "that the letter should be... less formal!"

They were both still quite drunk, but Ruth felt compelled to clean the wine stain on the sofa while Beth felt compelled to ...hang her head upside down somehow.

"Believe it or not," Ruth waved a cloth at the younger woman, "it's not exactly an informal situ-situ," she sighed and tried to wrap her mouth around the word, "situ...ay...shun."

"Lemme write it for ya."

"You!" Ruth snorted and carried on trying to wipe the stain.

"Yesh, me, why the hell not me!"

"I've read your... letters to men who you bring home Beth."

"And what's wrong with 'em?"

"Somehow, I don't think 'show yerself out' will quite c-convince Harry of my feelings."

"It's short and to the point, s'all."

"Beth, you spell 'yourself' wrong in it."

Beth pushed herself upright and out of the armchair, stepping to the side of Ruth as she worked.

"Ruth, there comes a time in every flatmates life when she has to trust her roomie. Let this be that time, please."

Ruth stood silently and contemplated it for a moment, before saying;

"... You used that last week when you said it was a good idea to sell water on the internet."

"...I did?"

"Yep."

"Huh. Well anyway, let me do this for ya, please? I really wanna see you two together, you both deserve it... what d'ya say?"

Ruth sighed.

"Fine, you win. I trust you fully. Just... let me read it over before you go handing it to him."

"Ruth, you won't regret it!" Beth hugged her flatmate briefly before grabbing up the pen and paper.

"Why do I trust you?" Ruth grumbled good-naturedly, vigorously rubbing at the stain.

"I really don't know," Beth replied, solemn despite her tipsy nature, "I mean, you even trusted me when I told you that ketchup gets out wine stains."

Ruth looked at the red stained cloth, then back at Beth. It took a few moments and several more glances before she looked at the now ketchup-covered stained sofa.

Beth practically skipped out of the room.

Ruth buried her head in her hands.

"Oh shi-"

...

Ruth walked onto the Grid the next morning in sunglasses.

"Ruth, I hate to be the one to break it to you," Dimitri said with a smirk as he dropped a file at her desk, "but it's December."

"Yes, it is isn't it?" Ruth replied absently, taking her coat off, "are you always this stupid, or are you making a special effort today Dimitri?"

He raised his eyebrows.

"Someone's a mean drunk."

Ruth smiled apologetically;

"Sorry, hangovers aren't my thing."

"Say no more," Dimitri smiled back and walked off, hoping to catch Beth for some harmless flirting.

It was at that moment Harry walked out of his office, a serious expression on his face... no difference there then, Ruth sighed.

"Everyone, briefing room, now!" he barked abruptly. Ruth winced at the sound. How on earth was she going to last the day with this headache?

...

The briefing room was hotter than usual. As Ruth looked around, she wondered if anyone else thought the same. They all seemed to be in t-shirts, looking cool and relaxed. She made a mental note to ask about the clothing conduct. Whatever happened to suits?

Harry wears a suit, he wears nice suits, she thought to herself happily, sometimes he wears suits with bracers... oh, don't go down that particular road of thought Ruth...

Harry appeared at the head of the table, effectively stopping her train of thoughts, until she saw he was wearing bracers... oh dear god...

"I have had a threat." Harry announced, looking around.

Beth, looking a darn sight better than Ruth (who was still adorned in sunglasses) leaned forward, alarmed.

"A threat? Against your life? By who?"

Harry picked up a piece of paper off of the table and passed it round.

"This was sent anonymously to me in the early hours of this morning," he stated, watching for their reactions. Lucas glanced over it, his face a picture of horror, and pushed it roughly towards Ruth.

She picked it up.

She wished she hadn't.

Harry watched her closely as she scanned the contents. He wondered why she was wearing sunglasses but, looking at the rags the rest of them seemed to wear, sunglasses weren't the most surprising item he had seen someone wear in here.

Ruth clasped her hand to her mouth, fighting down the urge to vomit.

"Horrible, isn't it?" Harry said sympathetically. Ruth nodded blindly; it was all she could do. She handed it over to Beth who took one quick glance at it and passed it on. She looked unsurprised at the contents.

"I think the red patch could very well be blood." Harry said.

"Or red wine!" Beth piped up, before looking down at the desk.

"Red wine?"

"Well," she muttered, "s'just ... don't go being all pessimistic and assume the worst. It smells like wine."

"You smelled it!" Harry looked at her incredulously.

Dimitri was the next to receive the paper and picked it up, sniffing it.

"Smells like berries," he said aloud, "so we're looking for a murdered carton of Ribena if you're right Harry."

"Yes, well, anyway," Harry looked flustered but pushed on further, "if you read the contents..."

"I can't, Harry, it was just too awful!" Lucas shuddered.

"Hey!" Beth looked almost insulted, "it's not that bad!"

"I think it's in some sort of code, or another language." Harry sat down, waiting for someone to give a golden nugget of information that could lead them to the threat.

"Well, it's not Russian," Lucas said immediately.

"... It's not?" Dimitri asked, passing the letter back to Ruth, "then that leaves the Chinese."

"It's ... it's not Chinese," Ruth whispered, just enough for Harry to hear her. She shot a mutinous glance at Beth, but Harry was nonplussed.

"It's not?"

"No."

"Then we've hit a dead end. Do we even have any more enemies? Well, you're our analyst Ruth. What language is it?"

"I really don't know," Ruth said honestly, passing the paper back to Harry.

Beth gave a small indignant gasp and muttered, "Bitch" under her breath. Ruth kicked out under the table.

Lucas grunted in pain and clutched his shin.

Harry was ignorant to everything that was going on.

"Look here," he said, reading off of the paper, "yo Sir Strutsalot of Hazza, methinks you a hottie, totally m'type. Wanna get down tonite? Call me."

He threw the paper down, frustrated.

"If it's not a different language, it must be code for some sort of attack. "

"So we need to crack the code," Dimitri said, looking around, "and figure out the threat. Well, it's no good sitting around is it?"

"You're right," Harry announced and stood up, "right, Beth and Dimitri I want you to get on to GCHQ, see what they can do to help our situation. Tariq, I want you to ... Do what you do best I guess. Lucas, I need you to make us some coffee. Ruth, can you-Ruth?"

He looked concerned at his favourite analyst. She had her head buried in her arms on the table.

"M'fine," she muttered, trying to pull her head up. It felt so heavy...

"I think you need to go to the medical area."

"We have a medical area?" Beth asked, surprised.

"Yes, it's not used very often though. People tend to die, not feel ill."

"Ah."

"Ruth," Harry gently placed his hand on her arm, "are you sure you're alright?"

"I'll be fine," she stood up shakily and tried to walk out of the room with as much poise and grace as she could. Okay, so she tripped over a few chairs on the way...

...

Outside of the room, Ruth pulled Beth to the side.

"What the hell was that!" Ruth hissed indignantly.

"Errr, a briefing?" Beth answered, feeling confused, "it's where we meet up for the day and discuss a serious threat and how to tackle it. Unless you're Lucas, in which case you just stare mournfully into mid-distance I guess."

"I meant the letter! The letter!" only dogs could hear Ruth now.

"Oh, that" Beth frowned, "I know, right! Talk about insulting me. I mean, have they no sense of romance!"

"Romance! That wasn't romance! That was... delusions of emotional competence!"

"Hey, don't get smart with me!"

"Me! Get smart with you! Judging by that monstrosity on paper, even if I did you wouldn't know!"

"Wow," Beth put her hands on Ruth's shoulders, "you need to breathe, Ruth, before you burst a blood vessel."

"What the hell do I do now?" Ruth asked miserably, "He's going to want me to analyse and decode it and tell him that some country's top agents are out to bring him down."

"Well, you have two choices as I see it; either go in there and admit the letter was from you... or invent a new enemy."

"Admit the letter was from me?" Ruth asked incredulously, "but it wasn't! You wrote it!"

"Yeah, but if I say it's from me, it's going to go down a lot worse, isn't it?" Beth felt like she was explaining how 2 + 2 = 4 to a child.

"I guess I have to go in there and explain," Ruth whispered dejectedly.

...

Harry was taking a sip of whiskey when he saw his office door slide open.

"Knock Knock, Ruth," He said with a smile.

"Who's there?" Ruth stood uneasily a few feet away, confused.

"Wait... what?"

"Wait what who?"

"No, I was imploring you to knock next time, knock, as in knock. Not knock as in knock knock."

"So am I knocking or knock knocking?"

"No knock knocking, just knocking."

"Ah. Right."

They both looked on in uneasy silence for a few moments.

"You didn't understand any of that did you, Ruth?"

"Not one bit, no."

"Very well. Why are you wearing sunglasses?"

Ruth panicked for a second. Harry was smart. If she told him she had a hangover from too much wine he would add it all up and figure it out.

"Er, it's a woman thing."

"Ah," Harry looked suitably awkward and eager to change the subject, "right. Well, what can I do for you?"

Not as smart as he appeared then...

"It's about that letter..." Ruth shifted from foot to foot, fiddling with the pen in her hands.

"Ah yes, the threat!" Harry looked very serious for a moment. It was quite cute, Ruth thought, "So, where are we on decoding it?"

"Well, it's not ... It's just that ... I need to tell you that..." Ruth stopped and started, trying to gather up the courage to spill it all; How she wanted so desperately to tell him her feelings, but could only write them down, how she agreed with Beth's stupid plea to be the one to write it, how she thought about him every moment of every day, how she had sneaked into his office once and stole a tie, just to have something of his near her, how- no wait, maybe not tell him that last bit.

"Ruth?" Harry waited patiently.

Ruth took a deep breath and felt the words slowly making their way up her body, tumbling off her tongue without her being able to stop them;

"It's the Egyptians! They want you dead!"

End of Part I

A/N

A few things I need to say;

Have you seen Harry walk? I think the nickname Sir Strutsalot is justified.

I don't know what happens, but the characters stereotype themselves like that when I start typing, I can't help it!

Review if you can please, it lets me know when I should just give up.