ficlet: 'distance' (spooks)
Originally, this was part of a longer fic, but I'm almost certain that it'll never be completed - so here is one of the more salvageable parts.
distance
Spooks; Harry, Ruth
374 words, G
Post-5:05. It’s never her.
He is shuffling though surveillance photographs, black-and-white, grainy and blurry, when he catches sight of the one face, in sharp and glorious detail, that causes his heart to miss a beat.
Of course: it isn't her. Logically, he knows it is impossible, that Ruth couldn't possibly be one of the people, one of the faces in the crowd moving along the dreary, anonymous street in London under suveillance by Section D. In his defence, however: the resemblance is striking. The same pale countenance, the brown hair falling softly across her face, the careful way she seemed to carry herself. It was the eyes, however, that set them apart, rendered her a complete stranger. The stranger's are dark, vacant, where Ruth's had been clear, misty - almost luminous.
He's getting too old for this business, he thinks wryly, to himself, dropping the series of photographs back onto his desk, leaning back in his chair. Sentimentality, seeing ghosts - it had been a long, long day, the digital clock on his desk reading 02:12, the other lights on the Grid dim, switched to the late-night power-saving mode. Even the lamp on her old desk, whose glow he'd grown so accompanied to seeing, even after everybody else had gone for the evening was off. A small comfort on those long nights - one which had since flickered out, like so many things in their world.
Inwardly, he marvelled at the way she'd managed to remain a part of his world, everywhere and nowhere at the same time. A cruel sort of irony - she could be anywhere in the wide, cold world they inhabited, just not part of his. He imagines her, for the millionth time, lovely and lonely, travelling through cities and countries in Europe, the same way he'd once dared to imagine they might, together. Her restlessness, not borne from a desire to take in the world's infinite beauties, but necessity.
The enormity of her sacrifice for him - for MI5, for England, weighed heavily on his back. Hours like these, he knew that he still had much to do, shouldering the burden with the knowledge that one day, one distant day, he might find a way to repay the enormous debt he owes her.
distance
Spooks; Harry, Ruth
374 words, G
Post-5:05. It’s never her.
He is shuffling though surveillance photographs, black-and-white, grainy and blurry, when he catches sight of the one face, in sharp and glorious detail, that causes his heart to miss a beat.
Of course: it isn't her. Logically, he knows it is impossible, that Ruth couldn't possibly be one of the people, one of the faces in the crowd moving along the dreary, anonymous street in London under suveillance by Section D. In his defence, however: the resemblance is striking. The same pale countenance, the brown hair falling softly across her face, the careful way she seemed to carry herself. It was the eyes, however, that set them apart, rendered her a complete stranger. The stranger's are dark, vacant, where Ruth's had been clear, misty - almost luminous.
He's getting too old for this business, he thinks wryly, to himself, dropping the series of photographs back onto his desk, leaning back in his chair. Sentimentality, seeing ghosts - it had been a long, long day, the digital clock on his desk reading 02:12, the other lights on the Grid dim, switched to the late-night power-saving mode. Even the lamp on her old desk, whose glow he'd grown so accompanied to seeing, even after everybody else had gone for the evening was off. A small comfort on those long nights - one which had since flickered out, like so many things in their world.
Inwardly, he marvelled at the way she'd managed to remain a part of his world, everywhere and nowhere at the same time. A cruel sort of irony - she could be anywhere in the wide, cold world they inhabited, just not part of his. He imagines her, for the millionth time, lovely and lonely, travelling through cities and countries in Europe, the same way he'd once dared to imagine they might, together. Her restlessness, not borne from a desire to take in the world's infinite beauties, but necessity.
The enormity of her sacrifice for him - for MI5, for England, weighed heavily on his back. Hours like these, he knew that he still had much to do, shouldering the burden with the knowledge that one day, one distant day, he might find a way to repay the enormous debt he owes her.