Recent events in Salute have made many a reader wonder what Harry has been keeping to himself with regards to his feelings and I thought there was no better time to explore them than Valentine's Day. This is basically Harry's love letter to Piper that he'll never write.
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There were a lot of things he wishes he were brave enough to say to her.
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He wishes he could tell her just how beautiful she is and that she would listen. He tells her all the time. About how he loves her red hair and how it catches the sunlight and looks like sparks of a flame, and that he loves to play with it and feel its silky smoothness as it wraps around his fingers. About how her brown eyes can shift from a honey gold full of warmth when she's happy to a ferocious and vibrant reddish brown when she's furious to a dark chocolate brown when he kisses her just right. About how he loves the way her cheeks get pink when she blushes, a contrast to her pale skin, and how he takes a twisted sort of pride from being able to make it happen when he gives her a compliment or he whispers naughty things in her ear. About her body being perfect for her and who she is, her hips that he likes to hold onto and her shapely legs and her breasts that are just right for his hands and her long neck that he can't seem to keep himself away from or her back which dips and rises in all the places he likes until it curves into her lovely bum. He worships at the alter of her body and she knows it. But there are the things he doesn't tell her, like how her smile is shifting and there's this little gap between her second and third teeth on the left side of her mouth and that he loves that little gap because it's perfectly imperfect and it's a testament to her bravery and her courage. He doesn't tell her that he loves the way her body fits in all the right places against his side when they cuddle or how her thigh is an appreciable weight on his when she flings it across in her sleep. He certainly doesn't tell her about how he loves her fingers, how they're a little short and stubby but with astounding dexterity and he loves watching them undo the buttons of his shirt. Or how he loves her lips and the way they quirk to the side when she's thinking or how they look when she pulls them between her teeth. Those are the things he doesn't tell her. And even when he does tell her, he can see in her eyes that she doesn't believe him even when she nods and smiles and blushes, and he wishes that he could get through to her and make her see what he sees. He wants her to understand that when he tells her she's the most beautiful woman in the world, it isn't just words. He means it.
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He wishes he could tell her how she is the smartest person he's ever met and how that intimidates him. Sometimes it catches him by surprise because Piper is certainly not the scholarly type and she speaks the way any normal person would — well, any normal person who uses an excess of profanity. He knows that people have underestimated her in the past and he doesn't do that purposefully but he forgets sometimes and then she'll say something utterly brilliant and it will stop him in his tracks. She does mental maths better than anyone he's ever known and she can quote literature verbatim without a moment's hesitation. What really throws him off guard is how quickly her mind works, how it puzzles and works its way around problems before he's even had a chance to grasp the situation at hand. It's not just the sheer power of her intelligence either but her astounding memory that holds onto everything she encounters. Sometimes, he worries that he's not intelligent enough for her. He went to uni and he's got degrees but not like hers. He's not smart like her and he knows he never will be and he's afraid to tell her that sometimes her brilliance scares him because he feels like he can't live up to her even though he wants to.
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He wishes he could tell her how frustrated he gets sometimes when she doesn't look out for herself as much as she should. It's a part of her, her carelessness and impulsiveness, and it's definitely the one part of her that he wishes she were more conscious of. He wouldn't ever say he wanted her to change because he loves her for all that she is, all the little parts that add up to make a whole. He just wants her to take her safety more seriously because maybe then he wouldn't be so worried all the time. He never wants to see her hurt. He knows she hates when he gets overprotective but it's so hard for him to hold himself back when she won't step up and take care of herself. Maybe it's a product of her youth and her naivety and she'll start to take on a more active role in her own well-being. He just hates being the bad guy when he tries to take care of her and wishes she knew how important she was to him so she'd take a little bit better care of herself, if not for her own sake then for his peace of mind. But he wouldn't know how to tell her that without hurting her feelings — or worse, her pride — and that's the last thing he wants to do.
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He wishes he could tell her how watching her work drives him crazy. It's the way she sort of curls in on herself so she looks small in her big rolling chair and how she'll stare at the screen while she's working on something and she'll tap her fingers on her chin and squint her eyes. It's the little movements, unconscious and uninhibited, that capture his attention, that reel him in and hold onto him. It's the way she chews on her lip mindlessly while she thinks things through and how it takes everything in him not to replace her teeth with his and tug on that lip until it's red and swollen. It's the way she rolls her eyes at her own mistakes and mutters corrections to herself under her breath. It's the way her fingers move at the speed of light over the keys when she's having a breakthrough and the way she beats down on the last couple of keys with a sense of finality before sagging back in her chair, a proud grin on her face. Watching her work is like watching his favourite show, the one that passes by and you don't realize the time has disappeared on you until it comes to an end. Piper might think he's weird but there is something so sexy about the way she works and although he can't figure out why, he sure as hell likes it.
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He wishes he could tell her that he thinks her ambition is so admirable. He's never met anyone who works as hard as Piper does. Every advancement she's ever gotten is one that she's earned with dedication and perseverance. And she doesn't know the definition of quitting. It's what pushed her to work ahead of her peers in school and what got her into uni years ahead of what was expected of her and what carried her through two difficult graduate degrees. It is what makes her so good at her work and he knows it's what's going to make her an amazing analyst. But when he tells her that he admires her work ethic, she rolls her eyes and reminds him that he's not her boss yet and what is this? A performance appraisal? And somewhere along the way the message gets lost and Harry isn't quite sure that Piper understands the amount of respect that Harry has for her ambition.
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He wishes he could tell her how much he envies her passion for life. Piper has this amazing mindset that allows her to throw herself head first into each and every day, to live it to its fullest and draw as much from it as she can. She wakes up in the morning with more excitement than Harry can possibly understand (granted, this is after her first cup of tea and not a second before) and she isn't easily swayed by setbacks. She just has an optimism that she carries around in her back pocket like her secret weapon that works past any negativity that comes her way. She is better than anyone he's met at just letting things roll of her shoulders, turning digs at her age or her gender into motivators to prove all of her doubters wrong. And she gets excited about everything — like if the barista makes a design in the foam on her coffee or if she finds a tenner lying around on the tube or if one of her favourite episodes of Doctor Who is playing on BBC on a rainy evening in. Harry wonders how she stays so positive when she has every reason not to be and sometimes, when he's really struggling, he'll come over just to spend time around her because hiding underneath her sarcastic quips and moody pouts when he interrupts her, she's got an infectious warmth that makes him feel more invigorated to carry on when things get tough.
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He wishes he could tell her how much his mum would like her if she could meet her. She would like Piper's carefree smiles and her humour and she would certainly like the way Piper teases Harry but then kisses him sweetly to make up for it. She would like Piper's enthusiasm and her taste in tea and also her taste in books. Harry suspects that Piper would like his mum too. She's a lot like Piper's mum, Sydney, but maybe a bit less conniving. Both of them have that same positive spirit and are full of love and Harry imagines that it would take about ten seconds for Piper and his mum to form a bond. So when Piper reluctantly asks about his mum, he's tempted to talk about how much her and his mum would get along. But then he just wishes that they could meet and he gets that burning ache in his chest, that heart-wrenching loneliness and misery full of lost memories of the place he used to call home and the people he used to call family. So he keeps it to himself and talks about her abstractly instead, as the distant mother figure. It's not really Anne but it's something and it makes Piper happy hearing what she can. He just wishes he could tell her the whole truth.
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He wishes he could tell her how much younger and more alive he feels when he's with her. Spies don't have a long life expectancy. That's the hard truth. Harry's been lucky to get out of tough scrapes with his life before and he knows that any day, something could go wrong and he might be taking his last breaths. He tries to live for today for that exact reason but there are days when he just feels worn out, physically and emotionally drained. Those are the days when his back hurts really bad and his knees get all creaky when he gets out of bed and he's got a headache by the time he's halfway to the bathroom. Those are the days when he wonders if it's worth it; he wonders if he should just give up and retire. He wonders when spying stopped being exciting and how he's not even thirty but he feels so old and just tired. And then Piper comes into his day, a whirlwind of activity and excitement and he finds himself being swept up in it. He can't help but smile when she smiles and he always feels lighter when she's by his side. She projects so much energy and vivacity and he takes it greedily, bolstering himself with it and using it to push himself back into shape when he slips out of order. When he's with Piper, he feels younger. Invincible almost. And there's something about the way Piper goes wild when he's making her come that makes him feel like he's in his prime again, like he could run a thousand miles and fly to the moon if he wanted to. She embodies the best things about being young — the carefree attitude and the unbiased outlook on the world and the belief in the idea that things will always look up even when it seems like they won't — and when he's with her, he's able to remember what that feeling felt like and to be 23 year old Harry again.
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He wishes he could tell her how she makes him better. He feels like that, most of all, is what he wishes he knew how to convey. She has no idea of the effect she has on him. It's clear in the way that his missions have taken on a new meaning. He has something to come home to now and that makes him more vigilant and alert, more careful, but also stronger and smarter and faster. He wants to be the best agent he can be so that he can make Piper proud and show her the side of the SIS that she doesn't get to see very often — the good side; the valiant side; the side of the angels. But it's more than just work. She's taught him things and forced him to hone skills he'd forgotten. She's made him more patient, and more open-minded. She's helped him learn to let go a little and not always worry about things being under his control. She's taught him the forgotten arts of compassion and consideration, the power of a kind smile, the meaning of little gestures, because those are things that she herself is so good at putting into her thoughts and actions. But it's more than that too. She's managed to find the little things about him that he's never been proud of and help him work on them, guiding him in correcting them so that when he looks in the mirror he likes who he sees. She's taught him to open up again, as slow as the process may be. She's reminded him of the value of talking to someone else about what's going on so it doesn't get bottled up until it festers and leaves a mess in its wake. Slowly but surely, she's helping him embrace the things he's kept tucked away for so many years — his family, his history, but most importantly his feelings. He's learned how to be a boyfriend with Piper, not just a quick fuck. He's learned about equal partnerships, and honesty, and trust, those things that he's struggled with for years. She's taught him the benefits of reciprocation. Piper has taught him how to love again.
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He wishes he could tell her that. That he loves her.
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But he can't. He doesn't know how.
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Between the two of them, when it comes to being open, Piper is always the brave one. And he's always the coward.