A Slow Beating Between Them - Harry Pearce/ Ruth Evershed, Spooks
Title: A Slow Beating Between Them
Author: Hestia8
Email: hestia8 at gmail.com
Fandom: Spooks/MI-5
Spoilers: Everything up to the end of s3. Those people waiting to see S3 abroad, do not read if you don't want to be spoiled.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to raynesdanser for the beta.
Need to know:
MI-5 - also known as the security service, or within itself, 5. Its role is to protect national security from terrorism.
MI-6 - also known as the sister service, or 6, MI6 is the international security service.
GCHQ - codebreaking and surveillance organisation in Cheltenham. Yes, Cheltenham.
JIC - Joint Intelligence Committee. The JIC, apparently, advises on priorities for intelligence collection and assesses performance against them.
Peter Firth (Harry) - Peter Firth has been in loads of things, including Equus, for which he won theatre and film awards. He had a small part in Pearl Harbour, it says here, and Mighty Joe Young.
Nicola Walker (Ruth) - Nicola Walker is one of those people who, if you watch a lot of British tv, you’ll recognise. She was in The Last Train, in three series of Touching Evil as DI Susan Taylor, and she was one of the folk duo who couldn’t sing at the beginning of Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Other information about the series, including actors, characters and plotlines can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/drama/spooks
Discussion, recaps, fic and icons can be found at spooky_doings. I would rec some R/H fic at the end of this essay if any of it wasn’t mine (and to date I’ve only posted 2 or 3 pieces). As a result of my incessant talking about it incredibly convincing arguments, other people have started putting R/H moments in their fics, so you never know what you might find…
Note: There will be a bit of digression in this essay, for which I apologise, but everything’s so connected in the Spooks world, and nothing really exists in a vacuum. I’ve tried to keep it to a minimum. If anyone gets confused or wants to know anything in particular, just comment and I’ll do my best to answer. Also, I’ve quoted producers, the actors and my own recaps.
Harry Pearce is head of Section B, an anti-terrorist unit in MI-5. Ruth Evershed is an intelligence analyst in the same department. He is a divorcee with two children who barely speak to him, she’s a single workaholic with a cat. They’re in love. They just might not know it yet.
Harry’s been there from the start. Ruth was introduced in season two episode two (I’m going to use the format 202 from now on to refer to the episodes), walking in on a meeting where Harry had neglected to tell anyone she was coming and dropping her files.
Ruth’s relationship with MI-5 didn’t get off to the most auspicious start, as she was seconded from GCHQ and everyone thought she was spying on 5 for them. Harry essentially kept trying to get rid of her on research tasks, and she kept finding the right answers.
NW: And obviously, Ruth’s perfect because for a period of time, Harry just wants her to go away and leave him alone, to get to the point.
Writer: That’s what I really like about this sequence, actually, that they send her into a corner to get her out of the way and she solves it.
On a personal level, however, there’s a connection from the start. Ruth’s mini-rebellious streak appeals to Harry; one of the first things she says is
‘Bugger the Home Office.’ She’s got an us-vs-them (even when she’s only been in that us for five minutes) attitude that he shares.
She doesn’t seem dissuaded by Harry’s trying to get her out of the way, as in 205, when the team believe that there’s been a dirty bomb over London and the country’s chain of command is dead, Harry supposedly has been affected and Tom and Ruth have to quarantine him so he doesn’t infect the rest of them. Ruth gets very upset, and while, yes, it was a very stressful situation, she’s only known him for a few weeks at this point and her emotions are already tied in with him (she’s not best pleased when he walks out the next morning, absolutely fine. In fact, she’s the only one who speaks).
Most of Ruth’s emotion is aimed at Harry (or Tom, but this isn’t an R/T essay) - she’s very good at impassioned speeches in his direction - when, in 208, there’s a chance she might be sent back to GCHQ, and in 210 when Tom has apparently had a breakdown and gone on the run, and in 310 where she completely breaks my heart, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Series 2 is all very subtle R/H. They have chemistry - but then Nicola Walker has chemistry with everyone, and could act against a bat and make it interesting, and even I didn’t see any of it then, I was too busy trying to find an angle for T/R. Then I read comments about it on the TWOP Spooks board, and suddenly my brain went ‘OMG!! They’re right!!’
Despite the shaky start, Harry quickly came to regard Ruth as one of his own, and she switched allegiance (well, ish - she pretty much hero worshipped Tom) from Tom to him when it looked like Tom had had a breakdown and gone mad in 210. She essentially agreed to support him in whatever he did, and she stuck to it, unlike Zoë and Danny who couldn’t decide whether Tom was innocent or not.
Season two ended on a MASSIVE CLIFFHANGER, as Spooks is wont to do. And, things carried on, went their ways, and we waited for DVDs. And waited. And waited. Finally, three weeks before the new series, they were released. And there were interviews*.
PF: And there’s something on the back burner there, which, um, it’s very much on the back burner…I’m looking forward to see how that develops.
PF: and it’s just come out of the process of working together, there’s this thing going on which we thought was intentional, but they all deny it, so…they all say we’re imagining it, so maybe we are. Maybe, I don’t know.
We find it every scene we do together, and we say that, and they say ‘no, there’s nothing going on’, and we play it, in the most discreet way
FP: They are just good friends. It’s a meeting of minds. I think they’re soulmates...and the writers love writing for them.
NW: Me and Peter are now convinced that Ruth and Harry share a love that will never speak its name…they’re actually deeply attracted to each other and in love with one another. The writers have said that it’s rubbish and we’re making it up…
PF: But we see it and we play it, but very understatedly, I think, so you wouldn’t know unless you were receptive to those kind of things. .
The actors themselves see it and play it up. The writers pretend not to have noticed. There is a hint that things are ‘on the back burner.’ Something is going to happen. Eventually. Maybe.
Then, ladies and gentlemen? Then, Series 3 started, I started having weekly squeeing sessions at the television, and my sister entirely gave up on me as a sane human being. To illustrate the sheer amount of R/H…stuff, I’m going to go through this episode by episode:
301: In Which Ruth Says She’s In Love With Harry
Harry was in hospital, having been shot by Tom at the end of 210. It’s very complicated so I’m not going to explain every detail. Some people from the JIC arrive on the grid and start tearing it apart. Ruth goes to visit Harry in hospital, but they won’t let her into the room. However, she manages to convince a nurse to pass a note. She does this by saying:
‘I’m in love with him. I’m having his child.’
I think I nearly fell over at this point, and I was sitting down. Canon!! Okay, so the child part was a lie, but she said she was in love with him!!
Ahem.
302: No R/H this episode, unfortunately, because poor old Tom’s having something of a conscience explosion. Shame…
303: In Which Adam Gets In On The Act
Then, in 303, new boy Adam asks for Ruth’s help with something, informing her that
‘Harry says you’re the soul of discretion.’
To which she gets all blushy and is obviously incredibly pleased. For Ruth, being complimented on her work is as good as it gets. They’re in a pre-relationship stage here, pre-flirting, even, still dancing around each other, and frankly it’s a bloody drawn out courtship because they’re STILL not together. Later on, Harry also reconfirms her place and importance (this time, to her face):
‘And now you intend to keep him on?’
‘I haven’t decided, but whatever I decide, whoever joins the teams, I still see you very much as one of the senior pros - to use an old cricket expression.’
304 - Harry’s daughter, shouting at her, she knows how to deal with him
In 304, Harry’s estranged daughter is introduced. We also get confirmation that he’s divorced. This leads Harry to become completely irrational and even more grouchy than usual (despite being in charge, Harry is every bit as fallible as the officers under him). And as someone else pointed out, she is denied a reaction shot when the team find out about Harry, quite possibly because she already knows. There’s some rather twisted R/H in this ep during a group meeting, because, as the one doling out the information, she’s the one in the firing line.
Ruth says that there’s something else [as well as the other info on the daughter], and he gets all shouty at her,
‘Something else? That’s your bloody middle name!’
And although Adam tells him shouting at Ruth won’t help, she says that it’s ok. Even when he’s like this, she’s good at handling him, just talking quietly and moving on.
305: In Which Ruth Attempts To Move On
In 305, there’s a potential roadblock in the way. His codename is Karl and MI-5 are watching him in case people want to blow him up. Ruth develops a crush. Harry has Sam checking on Ruth because he is clearly jealous, and not because she’s taking sensitive files out of the office or anything. No, he’s just jealous, and won’t do anything about it even though it’s plainly obvious she was only looking at Karl because she was getting fed up of waiting for Harry to make the first move.
Ahem.
NW: The biggest change [for Ruth] this season is that Ruth is looking for love, in all the wrong places.
Something someone said on a messageboard rings true here: Harry lets his team members go just too far before reeling them in. In this case, Ruth goes to a ‘scratch Mozart’ singing thing and talks to guy, and almost - almost! - kisses him, but then doesn’t, and he walks away, and she’s on her own again. Possibly she realised one day she might have to explain things, possibly she realised that she was too much in love with Harry to let it go for someone else.
The next day, Harry gives her a talk about mixing work and personal feelings (he can talk, as the evidence above from 304 will attest). She agrees with everything he says, and they share a Look. They do this a lot.
‘Ruth, whatever you do your spare time is entirely your business, as long as it doesn’t cross over with our business.’
‘I understand.’
‘I’m sure you do.’
‘I mean, can’t let that sort of thing get in the way of work, can we?’
‘Of course we can’t.’
Now of course work includes him.
Also in 305, Harry, Ruth and Adam are in Harry’s office having a meeting, and when someone is mentioned as looking for a long-term partner (for research), Adam, looking at both of them, says
‘Aren’t we all?’
Even their colleagues are trying to get them together.
306: In Which Nothing Much Happens (bugger)
306 is a bit of a dry episode, because some plot about Zoe being tried for murder gets in the way and we only have one R/H scene of about 5 words. It’s quite upsetting. Things get back to normal with 307, though, which is a fantastically Ruth-heavy episode, because she is great.
307: In Which Harry Is An Idiot
The main bit of R/H in this ep is when Ruth meets someone she used to know at GCHQ, and before they really have a chance to chat, Harry whisks them away. He obviously saw the look in her eyes and got jealous again. It’s a shame he didn’t do more with it, because said guy then turns out to be the bad guy, and he kidnaps Ruth and Danny has to solve it for him. I had such high hopes for Harry rescuing Ruth, and they were cruelly shot down by the writers. Bastards.
308: The Dreaded Rock Star ep
The best bit about this ep? The teaser for next time. But first, the episode. A rock star’s baby has been kidnapped, and 5 are investigating. No-one seems quite clear on why (writer shorthand for ‘we couldn’t think up a reason either’). There’s a great moment when Oliver Mace, who is the main evil government man this series, appears on the grid in front of Ruth and Harry. He and Ruth stare each other down, and there’s this hint that they know each other (and then he watches her walk away, a five second moment that is currently responsible for two of my fics). There’s also a strong ‘get away from my man’ vibe going on (or, depending on your view, a hint that he got there first…).
Later on, there’s a funny/sweet bit where she tells him how she’s got some information from a girl in the Greater London Murder Squad who wants to get into GCHQ.
‘Dear God, Ruth, is no institution in this country safe from you?’
‘Well, I’d like to think not.’ Yes, apparently, that counts as a big compliment, because she goes all shy and blushing again.
And the teaser: Harry is up for the Director General’s job. Ruth does a very bad job of concealing how upset she is.
309
Oh, good Lord. This episode killed me. I spent most of it staring at the screen, willing one of them to say something. This is the ep where even non-shippers started agreeing with me. As Liz and Rose on the_grid said:
Sometimes, you have to kind of squint and turn your head just right to see the "special relationship" between them, but this time it was utterly blatant... Ruth's coaching Harry in Sun Tzu's Art of War i.e. his job interview, was wonderful, amusing, and a touch of brilliance like most of Ruth's storylines minus one. I (Rose) have thought for some time that Harry really does think Ruth is his most competent officer and this is just one more piece of evidence in that direction.
Ignoring the A-plot, Harry has been asked to apply for the Big Job - that of director-General of MI-5. He asks Ruth to help him prepare. Cue lots of them on their own, being incredibly cute, and lots of lines that mean more than they seem to…
‘I think my strengths are that I hold on to certain things that I think are right and good.’
There’s a real feeling this episode that at the end of every conversation, every sentence even, that it could all start happening, if one of them could just say something.
‘Hypothetically, Harry, you wouldn’t forget about us would you? When you’re pacing the thick carpeted floor of your new office.’
‘I didn’t know I paced, Ruth.’
‘Only in a good way.’
They don’t, though (because that would be too easy), and the episode ends with Ruth walking off the grid to go out ‘only three days late.’
‘If anything happens between here and the pods, please don’t tell me.’
[she starts walking away]
‘Oh, Ruth.’
‘I’m not listening!’
310 - after which I am an emotional wreck.
Last episode of the series. Dear God, they know how to end a series. I won’t go into the detail to irrevocably spoil it for anyone, but have tissues close by.
I’ve quoted directly from my recap here, because sometimes straight transcription from the episode doesn’t work…
I can’t write down the sense of near-hysteria coming from Ruth here, but the frustration and desperation is fantastically conveyed by Nicola Walker, at the same time as Ruth attempting not to offend Harry with the birthday present idea…
She takes a deep breath, and then (this gets quicker as she goes on, and oh, poor Ruth)
‘Harry. I’m not difficult to work with, you know that. I try my best to do everything in time, and I make an effort to be cheerful in the office even when I’m depressed, I always meet deadlines -‘
‘Ruth. There are no immediate plans to send you back to GCHQ.’
‘Please. Take me seriously on this.’ He kind of looks at her, maybe actually starting to listen. ‘Something is wrong.’
‘Red flash the entire team and bring them all in. we’ll find out what’s going on here. But if they’re sitting in that meeting room in twenty minutes and we’ve jeopardised the entire operation, I take back what I said about GCHQ.’
Ruth nods and leaves the room.
Later on, after Danny’s died and Sam’s been sedated, he makes a pretty strong case for them being a pair, imho:
’Well we can’t be put under sedation, can we? We’re the ones who’ve got to stay focused and sort this out.’
After everything, after the loss of Tom and Zoë and Danny, they’re still there, and they’re still together. Whether the meaning of ‘together’ will change is something that remains to be seen.
A lot of the Ruth/Harry is in my head. And mainly my head, because although I’ve managed to convert people, I seem to be the only one writing it. If anyone knows of any other R/H fic out there, please tell me :) And I’m one of the few Spooks het shippers, come to think of it (I was considering calling this essay ‘The Loneliness Of The Spooks Het Shipper’ but in the end I went for a title from a popslash fic). However one thing I’ve always been good at with Spooks is extrapolation (and, in the case of Ruth, I’m usually right), so here we go:
Neither Ruth nor Harry have anyone to go home to. They both spend most of their time in the office. Pretty much, if someone else is there, Ruth is too, and even when everyone else has gone home. It seems fairly obvious to me that she regularly pulls all-nighters (poor cat). They’re going to have more contact than the others, through circumstances if nothing else.
So, seeing as we’ve had ten episodes this series, probably supposed to have covered 6 or so months, there’s been screentime and chemistry aplenty, and *still* nothing has happened, what’s going on?
Well, this is one of the worst things about being an R/H shipper. It is, quite possibly, a love that will never speak its name. Although the actors play it up (and the writers are clearly lying about there being nothing there), it might never get past the meaningful words and looks stage. And while that would be a shame for me, it might be what’s best for the show. It would be believable for the characters - they’re both confident within their chosen spheres, but outside of them, they’re lost.
Ruth gains a lot more confidence in herself in Series 3 - her appearance changes, she starts wearing more fitting tops, and grows her hair, and ties it back, showing off her neck. However, she never makes the first move, which is why this relationship could be over before it’s begun. She’ll do everything short of making the first move - she stalks Karl, for Christ’s sake - but she doesn’t seem to be able to take that first step. All we can really hope is that someone gets her drunk enough to do or say something.
There’s also the angsty fanfic option. It could all go horribly, disastrously wrong. They’re both spies, they both lie to people as a matter of course, and let’s face it, they’re not exactly sorted, sensible human beings. They’ve lost three important members of the team in the last six months or so, and the strain is showing. Harry has, apart from a ‘do-what-I-say-not-what-I-do’ attitude, a tendency to take his anger out on those closest to him. And while Ruth is not a total doormat, she’ll stand there and take it off him.
Then, finally, there’s the small chance of a happy ending. They already know each other’s flaws, and each knows what the other’s been through. There’s also no real indication that it would be some massive all-consuming love affair. It seems plausible to me that they’d just grow around each other. They’d wake up one morning, realise they were together, and just carry on. It’s what they do.
‘Well we can’t be put under sedation, can we? We’re the ones who’ve got to stay focused and sort this out. Help Adam, and find out where they’re holding the last hostage. I’m relying on you, Ruth. There’ll be time to grieve later. I promise you, there will be time to grieve, but not now.’ [310]
* I’ve also quoted here from a programme called Spooks: Access All Areas which was shown just after the end of S3. Because I am insane, hopefully within the next couple of weeks I’ll have typed up a transcript of it for anyone who’s interested.
Author: Hestia8
Email: hestia8 at gmail.com
Fandom: Spooks/MI-5
Spoilers: Everything up to the end of s3. Those people waiting to see S3 abroad, do not read if you don't want to be spoiled.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to raynesdanser for the beta.
Need to know:
MI-5 - also known as the security service, or within itself, 5. Its role is to protect national security from terrorism.
MI-6 - also known as the sister service, or 6, MI6 is the international security service.
GCHQ - codebreaking and surveillance organisation in Cheltenham. Yes, Cheltenham.
JIC - Joint Intelligence Committee. The JIC, apparently, advises on priorities for intelligence collection and assesses performance against them.
Peter Firth (Harry) - Peter Firth has been in loads of things, including Equus, for which he won theatre and film awards. He had a small part in Pearl Harbour, it says here, and Mighty Joe Young.
Nicola Walker (Ruth) - Nicola Walker is one of those people who, if you watch a lot of British tv, you’ll recognise. She was in The Last Train, in three series of Touching Evil as DI Susan Taylor, and she was one of the folk duo who couldn’t sing at the beginning of Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Other information about the series, including actors, characters and plotlines can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/drama/spooks
Discussion, recaps, fic and icons can be found at spooky_doings. I would rec some R/H fic at the end of this essay if any of it wasn’t mine (and to date I’ve only posted 2 or 3 pieces). As a result of my incessant talking about it incredibly convincing arguments, other people have started putting R/H moments in their fics, so you never know what you might find…
Note: There will be a bit of digression in this essay, for which I apologise, but everything’s so connected in the Spooks world, and nothing really exists in a vacuum. I’ve tried to keep it to a minimum. If anyone gets confused or wants to know anything in particular, just comment and I’ll do my best to answer. Also, I’ve quoted producers, the actors and my own recaps.
Harry Pearce is head of Section B, an anti-terrorist unit in MI-5. Ruth Evershed is an intelligence analyst in the same department. He is a divorcee with two children who barely speak to him, she’s a single workaholic with a cat. They’re in love. They just might not know it yet.
Harry’s been there from the start. Ruth was introduced in season two episode two (I’m going to use the format 202 from now on to refer to the episodes), walking in on a meeting where Harry had neglected to tell anyone she was coming and dropping her files.
Ruth’s relationship with MI-5 didn’t get off to the most auspicious start, as she was seconded from GCHQ and everyone thought she was spying on 5 for them. Harry essentially kept trying to get rid of her on research tasks, and she kept finding the right answers.
NW: And obviously, Ruth’s perfect because for a period of time, Harry just wants her to go away and leave him alone, to get to the point.
Writer: That’s what I really like about this sequence, actually, that they send her into a corner to get her out of the way and she solves it.
On a personal level, however, there’s a connection from the start. Ruth’s mini-rebellious streak appeals to Harry; one of the first things she says is
‘Bugger the Home Office.’ She’s got an us-vs-them (even when she’s only been in that us for five minutes) attitude that he shares.
She doesn’t seem dissuaded by Harry’s trying to get her out of the way, as in 205, when the team believe that there’s been a dirty bomb over London and the country’s chain of command is dead, Harry supposedly has been affected and Tom and Ruth have to quarantine him so he doesn’t infect the rest of them. Ruth gets very upset, and while, yes, it was a very stressful situation, she’s only known him for a few weeks at this point and her emotions are already tied in with him (she’s not best pleased when he walks out the next morning, absolutely fine. In fact, she’s the only one who speaks).
Most of Ruth’s emotion is aimed at Harry (or Tom, but this isn’t an R/T essay) - she’s very good at impassioned speeches in his direction - when, in 208, there’s a chance she might be sent back to GCHQ, and in 210 when Tom has apparently had a breakdown and gone on the run, and in 310 where she completely breaks my heart, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Series 2 is all very subtle R/H. They have chemistry - but then Nicola Walker has chemistry with everyone, and could act against a bat and make it interesting, and even I didn’t see any of it then, I was too busy trying to find an angle for T/R. Then I read comments about it on the TWOP Spooks board, and suddenly my brain went ‘OMG!! They’re right!!’
Despite the shaky start, Harry quickly came to regard Ruth as one of his own, and she switched allegiance (well, ish - she pretty much hero worshipped Tom) from Tom to him when it looked like Tom had had a breakdown and gone mad in 210. She essentially agreed to support him in whatever he did, and she stuck to it, unlike Zoë and Danny who couldn’t decide whether Tom was innocent or not.
Season two ended on a MASSIVE CLIFFHANGER, as Spooks is wont to do. And, things carried on, went their ways, and we waited for DVDs. And waited. And waited. Finally, three weeks before the new series, they were released. And there were interviews*.
PF: And there’s something on the back burner there, which, um, it’s very much on the back burner…I’m looking forward to see how that develops.
PF: and it’s just come out of the process of working together, there’s this thing going on which we thought was intentional, but they all deny it, so…they all say we’re imagining it, so maybe we are. Maybe, I don’t know.
We find it every scene we do together, and we say that, and they say ‘no, there’s nothing going on’, and we play it, in the most discreet way
FP: They are just good friends. It’s a meeting of minds. I think they’re soulmates...and the writers love writing for them.
NW: Me and Peter are now convinced that Ruth and Harry share a love that will never speak its name…they’re actually deeply attracted to each other and in love with one another. The writers have said that it’s rubbish and we’re making it up…
PF: But we see it and we play it, but very understatedly, I think, so you wouldn’t know unless you were receptive to those kind of things. .
The actors themselves see it and play it up. The writers pretend not to have noticed. There is a hint that things are ‘on the back burner.’ Something is going to happen. Eventually. Maybe.
Then, ladies and gentlemen? Then, Series 3 started, I started having weekly squeeing sessions at the television, and my sister entirely gave up on me as a sane human being. To illustrate the sheer amount of R/H…stuff, I’m going to go through this episode by episode:
301: In Which Ruth Says She’s In Love With Harry
Harry was in hospital, having been shot by Tom at the end of 210. It’s very complicated so I’m not going to explain every detail. Some people from the JIC arrive on the grid and start tearing it apart. Ruth goes to visit Harry in hospital, but they won’t let her into the room. However, she manages to convince a nurse to pass a note. She does this by saying:
‘I’m in love with him. I’m having his child.’
I think I nearly fell over at this point, and I was sitting down. Canon!! Okay, so the child part was a lie, but she said she was in love with him!!
Ahem.
302: No R/H this episode, unfortunately, because poor old Tom’s having something of a conscience explosion. Shame…
303: In Which Adam Gets In On The Act
Then, in 303, new boy Adam asks for Ruth’s help with something, informing her that
‘Harry says you’re the soul of discretion.’
To which she gets all blushy and is obviously incredibly pleased. For Ruth, being complimented on her work is as good as it gets. They’re in a pre-relationship stage here, pre-flirting, even, still dancing around each other, and frankly it’s a bloody drawn out courtship because they’re STILL not together. Later on, Harry also reconfirms her place and importance (this time, to her face):
‘And now you intend to keep him on?’
‘I haven’t decided, but whatever I decide, whoever joins the teams, I still see you very much as one of the senior pros - to use an old cricket expression.’
304 - Harry’s daughter, shouting at her, she knows how to deal with him
In 304, Harry’s estranged daughter is introduced. We also get confirmation that he’s divorced. This leads Harry to become completely irrational and even more grouchy than usual (despite being in charge, Harry is every bit as fallible as the officers under him). And as someone else pointed out, she is denied a reaction shot when the team find out about Harry, quite possibly because she already knows. There’s some rather twisted R/H in this ep during a group meeting, because, as the one doling out the information, she’s the one in the firing line.
Ruth says that there’s something else [as well as the other info on the daughter], and he gets all shouty at her,
‘Something else? That’s your bloody middle name!’
And although Adam tells him shouting at Ruth won’t help, she says that it’s ok. Even when he’s like this, she’s good at handling him, just talking quietly and moving on.
305: In Which Ruth Attempts To Move On
In 305, there’s a potential roadblock in the way. His codename is Karl and MI-5 are watching him in case people want to blow him up. Ruth develops a crush. Harry has Sam checking on Ruth because he is clearly jealous, and not because she’s taking sensitive files out of the office or anything. No, he’s just jealous, and won’t do anything about it even though it’s plainly obvious she was only looking at Karl because she was getting fed up of waiting for Harry to make the first move.
Ahem.
NW: The biggest change [for Ruth] this season is that Ruth is looking for love, in all the wrong places.
Something someone said on a messageboard rings true here: Harry lets his team members go just too far before reeling them in. In this case, Ruth goes to a ‘scratch Mozart’ singing thing and talks to guy, and almost - almost! - kisses him, but then doesn’t, and he walks away, and she’s on her own again. Possibly she realised one day she might have to explain things, possibly she realised that she was too much in love with Harry to let it go for someone else.
The next day, Harry gives her a talk about mixing work and personal feelings (he can talk, as the evidence above from 304 will attest). She agrees with everything he says, and they share a Look. They do this a lot.
‘Ruth, whatever you do your spare time is entirely your business, as long as it doesn’t cross over with our business.’
‘I understand.’
‘I’m sure you do.’
‘I mean, can’t let that sort of thing get in the way of work, can we?’
‘Of course we can’t.’
Now of course work includes him.
Also in 305, Harry, Ruth and Adam are in Harry’s office having a meeting, and when someone is mentioned as looking for a long-term partner (for research), Adam, looking at both of them, says
‘Aren’t we all?’
Even their colleagues are trying to get them together.
306: In Which Nothing Much Happens (bugger)
306 is a bit of a dry episode, because some plot about Zoe being tried for murder gets in the way and we only have one R/H scene of about 5 words. It’s quite upsetting. Things get back to normal with 307, though, which is a fantastically Ruth-heavy episode, because she is great.
307: In Which Harry Is An Idiot
The main bit of R/H in this ep is when Ruth meets someone she used to know at GCHQ, and before they really have a chance to chat, Harry whisks them away. He obviously saw the look in her eyes and got jealous again. It’s a shame he didn’t do more with it, because said guy then turns out to be the bad guy, and he kidnaps Ruth and Danny has to solve it for him. I had such high hopes for Harry rescuing Ruth, and they were cruelly shot down by the writers. Bastards.
308: The Dreaded Rock Star ep
The best bit about this ep? The teaser for next time. But first, the episode. A rock star’s baby has been kidnapped, and 5 are investigating. No-one seems quite clear on why (writer shorthand for ‘we couldn’t think up a reason either’). There’s a great moment when Oliver Mace, who is the main evil government man this series, appears on the grid in front of Ruth and Harry. He and Ruth stare each other down, and there’s this hint that they know each other (and then he watches her walk away, a five second moment that is currently responsible for two of my fics). There’s also a strong ‘get away from my man’ vibe going on (or, depending on your view, a hint that he got there first…).
Later on, there’s a funny/sweet bit where she tells him how she’s got some information from a girl in the Greater London Murder Squad who wants to get into GCHQ.
‘Dear God, Ruth, is no institution in this country safe from you?’
‘Well, I’d like to think not.’ Yes, apparently, that counts as a big compliment, because she goes all shy and blushing again.
And the teaser: Harry is up for the Director General’s job. Ruth does a very bad job of concealing how upset she is.
309
Oh, good Lord. This episode killed me. I spent most of it staring at the screen, willing one of them to say something. This is the ep where even non-shippers started agreeing with me. As Liz and Rose on the_grid said:
Sometimes, you have to kind of squint and turn your head just right to see the "special relationship" between them, but this time it was utterly blatant... Ruth's coaching Harry in Sun Tzu's Art of War i.e. his job interview, was wonderful, amusing, and a touch of brilliance like most of Ruth's storylines minus one. I (Rose) have thought for some time that Harry really does think Ruth is his most competent officer and this is just one more piece of evidence in that direction.
Ignoring the A-plot, Harry has been asked to apply for the Big Job - that of director-General of MI-5. He asks Ruth to help him prepare. Cue lots of them on their own, being incredibly cute, and lots of lines that mean more than they seem to…
‘I think my strengths are that I hold on to certain things that I think are right and good.’
There’s a real feeling this episode that at the end of every conversation, every sentence even, that it could all start happening, if one of them could just say something.
‘Hypothetically, Harry, you wouldn’t forget about us would you? When you’re pacing the thick carpeted floor of your new office.’
‘I didn’t know I paced, Ruth.’
‘Only in a good way.’
They don’t, though (because that would be too easy), and the episode ends with Ruth walking off the grid to go out ‘only three days late.’
‘If anything happens between here and the pods, please don’t tell me.’
[she starts walking away]
‘Oh, Ruth.’
‘I’m not listening!’
310 - after which I am an emotional wreck.
Last episode of the series. Dear God, they know how to end a series. I won’t go into the detail to irrevocably spoil it for anyone, but have tissues close by.
I’ve quoted directly from my recap here, because sometimes straight transcription from the episode doesn’t work…
I can’t write down the sense of near-hysteria coming from Ruth here, but the frustration and desperation is fantastically conveyed by Nicola Walker, at the same time as Ruth attempting not to offend Harry with the birthday present idea…
She takes a deep breath, and then (this gets quicker as she goes on, and oh, poor Ruth)
‘Harry. I’m not difficult to work with, you know that. I try my best to do everything in time, and I make an effort to be cheerful in the office even when I’m depressed, I always meet deadlines -‘
‘Ruth. There are no immediate plans to send you back to GCHQ.’
‘Please. Take me seriously on this.’ He kind of looks at her, maybe actually starting to listen. ‘Something is wrong.’
‘Red flash the entire team and bring them all in. we’ll find out what’s going on here. But if they’re sitting in that meeting room in twenty minutes and we’ve jeopardised the entire operation, I take back what I said about GCHQ.’
Ruth nods and leaves the room.
Later on, after Danny’s died and Sam’s been sedated, he makes a pretty strong case for them being a pair, imho:
’Well we can’t be put under sedation, can we? We’re the ones who’ve got to stay focused and sort this out.’
After everything, after the loss of Tom and Zoë and Danny, they’re still there, and they’re still together. Whether the meaning of ‘together’ will change is something that remains to be seen.
A lot of the Ruth/Harry is in my head. And mainly my head, because although I’ve managed to convert people, I seem to be the only one writing it. If anyone knows of any other R/H fic out there, please tell me :) And I’m one of the few Spooks het shippers, come to think of it (I was considering calling this essay ‘The Loneliness Of The Spooks Het Shipper’ but in the end I went for a title from a popslash fic). However one thing I’ve always been good at with Spooks is extrapolation (and, in the case of Ruth, I’m usually right), so here we go:
Neither Ruth nor Harry have anyone to go home to. They both spend most of their time in the office. Pretty much, if someone else is there, Ruth is too, and even when everyone else has gone home. It seems fairly obvious to me that she regularly pulls all-nighters (poor cat). They’re going to have more contact than the others, through circumstances if nothing else.
So, seeing as we’ve had ten episodes this series, probably supposed to have covered 6 or so months, there’s been screentime and chemistry aplenty, and *still* nothing has happened, what’s going on?
Well, this is one of the worst things about being an R/H shipper. It is, quite possibly, a love that will never speak its name. Although the actors play it up (and the writers are clearly lying about there being nothing there), it might never get past the meaningful words and looks stage. And while that would be a shame for me, it might be what’s best for the show. It would be believable for the characters - they’re both confident within their chosen spheres, but outside of them, they’re lost.
Ruth gains a lot more confidence in herself in Series 3 - her appearance changes, she starts wearing more fitting tops, and grows her hair, and ties it back, showing off her neck. However, she never makes the first move, which is why this relationship could be over before it’s begun. She’ll do everything short of making the first move - she stalks Karl, for Christ’s sake - but she doesn’t seem to be able to take that first step. All we can really hope is that someone gets her drunk enough to do or say something.
There’s also the angsty fanfic option. It could all go horribly, disastrously wrong. They’re both spies, they both lie to people as a matter of course, and let’s face it, they’re not exactly sorted, sensible human beings. They’ve lost three important members of the team in the last six months or so, and the strain is showing. Harry has, apart from a ‘do-what-I-say-not-what-I-do’ attitude, a tendency to take his anger out on those closest to him. And while Ruth is not a total doormat, she’ll stand there and take it off him.
Then, finally, there’s the small chance of a happy ending. They already know each other’s flaws, and each knows what the other’s been through. There’s also no real indication that it would be some massive all-consuming love affair. It seems plausible to me that they’d just grow around each other. They’d wake up one morning, realise they were together, and just carry on. It’s what they do.
‘Well we can’t be put under sedation, can we? We’re the ones who’ve got to stay focused and sort this out. Help Adam, and find out where they’re holding the last hostage. I’m relying on you, Ruth. There’ll be time to grieve later. I promise you, there will be time to grieve, but not now.’ [310]
* I’ve also quoted here from a programme called Spooks: Access All Areas which was shown just after the end of S3. Because I am insane, hopefully within the next couple of weeks I’ll have typed up a transcript of it for anyone who’s interested.