A/N: This final chapter follows on from the last one.

Thanks so much to all you kind reviewers. Strangely, I wrote the bulk of this story - both chapters - in one sitting, and it needed very little editing. I would like this to happen with every story, but it doesn't.

"I might need help getting dressed," Harry said to her as he opened the bathroom door to find her waiting anxiously. "Last time I broke my arm it was the left one, and Jane helped me dress. That was a long time ago. Just wait outside my bedroom, and I'll call if I need you." (He also remembered Jane had helped him undress, often leading to some tender moments between them, but Ruth had no need to hear about that.)

He was sure her eyes were taking in his legs, and his chest, both bare, or perhaps it was just his mind messing with him. Fortunately, he managed to put on his underwear, his jeans and a shirt, but he couldn't manage the buttons without a struggle.

"Ruth," he called, "I need your help."

She noticed how forlorn he looked when she entered the room. He hadn't yet combed his hair, so it was messy and sticking up in places. She wanted to smooth it down with her hands, but thought better of it. He'd closed the zipper on his jeans, but was having difficulty with the button. She pushed his hand out of the way, and stood close to him while she deftly closed the button, her hair tickling his chin, her fingers cold against the skin of his stomach. He tried to think of old ladies with bad breath and too much facial hair while her fingers slid against his stomach, behind the waistband of his jeans, only inches from a part of him which he was praying would not move in any way at all. Then her knuckles touched his chest as she fastened the two buttons of his polo shirt. He stared at the wall behind her, all the while longing to watch her, and remember her here, in his bedroom.

"Jumper?" she asked, and he nodded. She helped him put it over his head, and he put his good arm through the left sleeve, and she helped him straighten it at the neck. For a moment, her arms embraced him as she pulled down the waistband of his jumper, straightening it around him, and were he to move only fractionally, his lips would touch her temple. He fought the urge to put his arms around her – well one arm, anyway. He felt her breath on his throat, and smelled her perfume. "What about your feet, Harry? You'll need something on them."

"Socks will do."

"Do you have woolly ones?"

"I have woollen socks, but I'm not sure if they're woolly."

"Woollen will do. Have you finished with me now?" she asked, and their eyes met, embarrassment evident, his thoughts again having drifted into the realm of his private fantasies.

They sat at the table and ate in comfortable silence, their embarrassment having been left upstairs in Harry's bedroom.

"Wine?" he asked, and Ruth nodded, so he poured them each a glass.

"Are you taking painkillers, Harry?"

"Don't nag."

"I'm not. I just don't want you passing out downstairs. I don't think I could manage to even drag you upstairs."

He entertained a private scenario in which Ruth, having dragged his comatose body upstairs, and exhausted by her efforts, collapsed on to the bed beside him, so that when they both woke some time during the night, she'd fall into his arms, and they would make passionate and bone-crushing love. Cue music.

"Let me enjoy myself. Being knocked down by a car is no fun, I can tell you."

They'd finished eating the Chinese meal, and Harry had poured them each a second glass of white wine, when he addressed her presence in his house.

"Why did you feel the need to break in tonight?"

"I knocked on the door, but you weren't home."

"Do you always do that?"

"Do what?"

"Break in when the person's not home."

"Only with you, Harry."

"I suppose I should feel privileged."

"If you like. I came here tonight to answer the questions you asked me when we were on the roof today."

"You don't have to do that. If it makes you -"

"But I want to, Harry. I need to give you answers. It's the least I can do. I've had to think a bit about your questions, though. That's why I didn't answer you straight away."

"Didn't answer is right. You ran from me as fast as you could."

"I sometimes don't think very clearly in your presence. I had to get away from you …... and quickly."

His eyes held hers across the table, and he could see that she was uncomfortable under his gaze. He dropped his eyes to the glass of wine in front of him.

"I didn't love George …... well, that's not quite true. I loved him in a way, but I wasn't in love with him. Not like I was with you."

Was. She said was. What about now?

"It was a comfortable, predictable kind of love. It was pleasant, often a lot of fun, but not passionate. Not for me, anyway. I'd known passion. When our hands touched – you and me – it was like …..." Ruth looked away for a moment before she continued. "He always felt more for me than I did for him. And I always made it clear to him that my heart belonged with someone else. Strangely, he was prepared to accept that."

"So, if you were not in love with him, why …...?"

"Harry, this – what I'm telling you now – it's not all about you. It's about me. It's about what it was like for me when I was in Cyprus."

He waited while she took another mouthful of her wine. His eyes were watching her, and she was looking everywhere but at him.

"I'm also about to answer your second question, and I'm asking you to listen to what I say, so that you understand. I never meant to hurt you. Ever. But I was lonely in Cyprus. I missed you, I longed for you. I …... I ….." Her eyes filled with tears as she remembered the time she was alone in a foreign land. "I waited for you to come and get me. Do you know what I did almost every day I was there?"

He shook his head, not daring to speak, not wanting to break the spell.

"There was a bus between Paphos and Polis. It would arrive several times each day, and I'd make sure I was somewhere nearby so I could watch the passengers disembark. I even bought myself binoculars so that I could watch the bus from Paphos pull up in the square from outside the hospital while I ate my lunch." She hesitated, and began fiddling with the stem of her wine glass. Harry topped up her wine. "I'd watch the passengers get off the bus each day. I was hoping one of them would be you, Harry. Had you got off that bus at any time during my stay in Cyprus, George wouldn't have stood a chance with me. It was always you, Harry. It was always you."

Harry wanted to walk around the table and take her in his arms, but more than that, he wanted her to keep talking. How long it had been that he'd waited for her to say this.

"I knew that what I gave to George while I was with him is what I should have given you. It took me until I moved in with him to recognise that. Do you understand me?"

Harry nodded slowly, unable to speak.

"So, you see, I fell into his bed, as you stated it, because you didn't arrive on that bus. Had it not been George, it would probably have been someone else. It didn't matter much to me. It was you I wanted, but you didn't come for me. I believed that I would never see you again. Does that answer your question?"

"Partly -"

"Oh, I know …... you want to know …... if I loved you as I claimed to, why it was I didn't fall into your bed …..."

He nodded.

"Because you mattered, Harry. Because falling into bed with you was never an option. Not back then. The timing had to be right, because with you and me it was never just about the sex. We were always a whole lot more than that. We still are. I was so much in love with you, Harry, and despite myself …..." Ruth's voice was about to break, so she waited, he waited, both barely breathing. "I still am." The words were spoken so quietly they were almost a whisper, a rustle of sounds all but lost on the night air, but he heard them as though she'd shouted them from the rooftops.

And this is when both pairs of eyes – his hazel ones and her grey-blue ones – met across the table. The love is still there, is all he can think. She still loves me, just as I love her. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Q.E.D.

Harry couldn't move. He could barely breathe. Those three words: I still am, had just turned his whole miserable life 180 degrees. He didn't know what to do.

"Harry, I think this is when you're supposed to kiss me," she said, smiling across the table at him.

He rose slowly from his chair, almost knocking over his glass of wine with the plaster cast on his arm. His eyes never left hers. By the time he reached her, she was standing, reaching out to him. He put his left hand on her cheek and closed the gap between them. He touched his lips to hers, lifted them again to watch her face, to gauge her reaction. "Harry," she said, so he put his lips back where they belonged, on her own. The kiss was gentle, but the passion was palpable, building and surging, waiting to burst from them.

He drew away from her, and put his good hand on her waist. "I love you, Ruth Evershed," he said, and drew her towards him into a clumsy embrace.

After a while, Ruth pulled out of the embrace and put her fingers on the cut above his eyebrow. "Does that hurt?" she asked.

"Not now," he replied, smiling into her eyes. "Nothing hurts any more."

She put both her arms around him and squeezed. He yelped. "Ow," he said, "that hurt."

"Sorry. You're a little delicate tonight. Perhaps we can save this for another night."

"Kissing doesn't hurt at all," he said, leaning towards her for another good snog.

They retired to the living room with their wine, and sat close together on the sofa, his left arm around her, holding her close to his body. He planned to never let her go. For the first time, they talked about the three years she'd been away.

She spoke of her loneliness, how much she'd missed him, and he explained how much he'd wanted to travel to wherever she was and bring her home, but had believed it would put her life in too much danger.

She told him of her life with George and Nico, and he told her how he'd managed to live his life without her, hoping she was safe, but dreaming they'd meet again some day. He told her how he'd buried himself in his work in order to keep his fears for her at bay.

She spoke of sadness and homesickness, while he spoke of grief and longing.

She told him about her job at the hospital, and he told her about the deaths of Zaf and Adam.

Then they both cried a little, for what they'd lost, and for what they would never have again.

By the time they were finished they were smiling. They now knew how much of their lives they each had to share with the other.

"Will you stay with me tonight?" he asked her.

"If you want me here, I'll stay with you."

"I do, but I don't mean for sex," he said, "although that would be nice. If we tried making love tonight, any moaning I did would be from pain, not passion." Grinning at her, he said, "But I do need someone to help me dress in the morning."

"Oh Harry, you need a wife, not a lover!"

"Perhaps I need both, preferably in the one person."

He leaned down to kiss her, and this time their mouths opened, and the kiss was deep and passionate. Their hands moved across one another, until Ruth put one hand on his bruised thigh. "Sorry," she said. "It seems that every time I get near you I do everything wrong."

"No, Ruth. Tonight you've done everything perfectly."

"Including having broken into your house?"

"Especially the house-breaking. You did that brilliantly."

She reached up to place butterfly kisses on his cheeks, his chin, his throat, his neck, and he closed his eyes and lay back against the cushions, sighing with pleasure. He no longer has to live in his fantasy world with Ruth. She is here, beside him, and she's staying.

"Bedtime?" he said at last, raising his eyebrows.

She nodded, and so hand-in-hand, they climbed the stairs to spend the first of thousands of nights together.

A/N: I deliberately avoided George's death in this fic, as it was something which I think Ruth understood and accepted fairly quickly, and any residual anger she had around it was directed towards herself, rather than at Harry.

Next offering is called "Nighttime Conversations". I wrote it some time ago, and had told myself I shouldn't post it ... then I thought, `what the heck'. You'll see what I mean when I post it.