Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

With a sigh of relief, Robin pulls the dark wig from her head and plucks the hairpins out of her own hair, releasing it to fall open over her shoulders. At least the evening’s undercover work has been successful - she has good pictures of her mark, all the evidence she needs and then some. Satisfied, she fires up her computer and fishes the USB stick pertaining Roadrunner’s financial transactions out of her handbag and fires up her computer to look at the documents.

While the hard drive rattles into action and the screen brightens, she moves to the small kitchen to flick the kettle on. God, she’s tired. It’s late, the weak overhead light barely manages to vanquish the darkness in her front office and she’s exhausted, but she wants those files safely stored and sorted before going home to her little flat across town. She loves that flat, tiny as it is. Her very first own place, mostly furnished with cheap IKEA and second-hand appliances, but it’s hers alone. The thought of her comfortable bed makes her yawn.

The water’s just boiled and she’s filling a mug when she hears noise in the stairs. The front door slamming shut, two sets of voices - both deep in the baritone register - and two sets of feet are coming up the steps. In the uneven, heavy stomps of one she unmistakably recognizes her partner.

The office door is flung open and bounces back as Cormoran’s burly figure stumbles inside, and Robin jumps a little.

“Watch it, Gooner!”

Wardle follows, not making an effort to help when Strike staggers to the couch and sinks onto it to a familiar, resigned fart from the strained upholstery. A cloud of smoke, beer and whiskey has followed him inside, mixing with the damp wool of Strike’s coat. It’s been raining all evening, and his boots have left a wet trail on the floor.

“Go ahead,” Wardle says wryly. “Get your blood all over that terrible couch so you can finally ditch it. Fuckin’ obscene, the noises that thing makes.”

“Blood?! What do you mean - blood?!”

Robin hastily sets her mug down and takes five quick steps from kitchen to couch where Strike has burrowed into the leather, face first. When she reaches him to take a look, he moans defensively and turns his head away, leaving a bloody smear on the leather.

“What- Cormoran, let me see!” She kneels, worried and uncomfortable, both wanting to turn him over and not wanting to cross boundaries.

“Oh, it’s just a busted nose,” Wardle comments dismissively. “Nothing he hasn’t dealt with before. A dozen times or so.” He chuffs, producing his phone from his jacket when it chirps.

“You mean it’s actually broken?”

Robin has decided that making sure Strike isn’t bleeding to death is more important than respecting boundaries. Groaning, she pushes against her partner’s shoulder and keeps nudging until, protesting unintelligibly, he rolls onto his back, his head propped on the armrest.

“Fuck! Cormoran!”

His nose is broken. Even Robin can see that. A swollen mess, flattened in the middle, it looks properly smashed, and drying blood is smeared over the lower half of Cormoran’s face and has dripped onto his shirt. Someone - probably Cormoran himself - has made an effort at stopping the nosebleed and stuffed both his nostrils with tissue paper.

“God, you look horrible!” Robin is truly shocked.

“No’ like I w’s winnin’ any beauty prizes b’fore,” Cormoran comments, nasally and slurred. His breath reeks of copper and alcohol.

“Shouldn’t you go to A&E?”

Robin has taken a step back upon seeing all the blood, and then another step back towards the couch, wondering how she can help, what she should do.

“That’s what I suggested at the pub,” Wardle says. He’s observing proceedings with an air of nonchalant disinterest. “Gooner refused. Said it wasn’t worth it.”

“‘S correct,” Cormoran confirms, hiccuping. “S jus’ a little blood. Not like they c’n fix it or anythin’. ‘S long past that. An’ who cares anyway.” He waves an arm around, sounding fatalistic.

“I care!”

Robin has decided that fetching the first aid kit from the kitchen is a good idea, and she’s already rummaging through it when she returns to Strike’s side. Ripping open gauze and wetting it with disinfectant, she meets her partner’s bleary and shockingly soft gaze.

“Are you gonna tell me what happened?”

A pout forms on Strike’s lips. “Nothin’.”

“Yeah, right.” Robin shakes her head, unable to suppress a small smile at his sudden boyish and very guilty looks.

“Bar brawl,” Wardle throws in, leaning against the partition to the kitchen. “We were supposed to meet to exchange info, but when I arrived, Mr Doom Bar here was already pissed and starting a fight with-”

“NOTHIN’ HAPPENED,” Strike suddenly bellows and pulls himself into a sitting position. “S’ not important. Some bloke. Doesn’ matter.” He looks a little cross-eyed.

“It was your ex,” Wardle says, unperturbed.

“Whose ex?” Wetted gauze in hand, Robin halts.

“Your ex. Cuntliffe.”

“Matt?!” Robin stares.

Cormoran blinks innocently. Now that he’s sitting up, his nose is starting to bleed again.

“You got into a bar fight with my- with Matthew?!”

Strike sniffles. Fresh blood seeps through the tissue in his nostrils and trickles down the scarred path in his top lip onto his chin. Reflexively, Robin presses a wad of gauze under his nose.

“OW!” Strike jerks his head away, grimacing.

“For God’s sake!” Flustered and confused, Robin slaps the wad into Strike’s hand and gives it an upward push. “Here. Use this! You’re bleeding again! And - Matthew? How? What the hell happened?”

She’s looking at Wardle now since Cormoran is utterly useless. The DI shrugs.

“He said something.”

“Who said something? And what?” Robin is getting a bit angry. Why is it like pulling teeth with these two?

“Doesn’ matter!” Strike’s renewed bark sounds muffled. He’s pressed the gauze to his nose, and Robin sees that his eyes are watering from the pain.

Wardle casts him a concealed look of worry.

“Cuntliffe,” he says eventually, withstanding the glare Cormoran shoots him from his increasingly bruised eyes. “He was there with a couple of mates. Total coincidence. They were loud. And drunk. Heard him say a few… unflattering things. About you.” He flicks his head at Robin.

Heat rises in her cheeks. She should correct Wardle on Matthew’s name, but she doesn’t.

“Like what?”

The DI makes an uncomfortable face. “No need to repeat it, Ellacott. Not worth it.”

“But I want to know.” Red blotches have appeared on her face. She can feel them but doesn’t care.

A sigh from Wardle. “He said that you were-“

“FUCK’S SAKE, Wardle!” Struggling, Cormoran is pushing himself up from the depths of the sofa to stand. Swaying, he pulls himself to his full height and takes a step towards Wardle. Bloody and furious, he looks truly menacing. “Shut th’ fuck up, Eric! I don’ wan’ her to… Not ONE more word!”

Blood is dripping from his chin onto the floor now. For a second, Robin is afraid that Strike will hit Wardle. Never has she seen such a dangerous gleam in Strike’s eyes, such intimidation in his large frame. For the first time, she’s witnessing Strike’s other persona, the SIB agent towering over a suspect, the army sergeant facing a hostile.

Thank God, Wardle is as experienced in handling bellicose drunks as Strike is. Instead of provoking him further, he takes a step back and raises his hands in surrender. When he speaks, his voice sounds calm and conciliatory.

“S alright, Strike. Relax. I won’t tell her. You’re right. No need for her to hear this. You’re right. Sit back down before you fall.”

Robin, who has been hovering, sees Strike cant his head, weighing Wardle’s words. The cogs clearly turn slower in his intoxicated brain, and for a moment, he just stands there, blood-smeared and threatening. Then his shoulders droop, his large body slouches back to its less intimidating stance, and he slumps back onto the couch, deflating.

“Shit.” One of his large hands wanders to his nose to catch the blood that just won’t stop flowing.

“You could say that,” Wardle agrees, studying him with a mix of wariness and concern.

“Okay, enough.” Robin has fetched a dish towel from the sink and kneels in front of Cormoran who is now silently bleeding into his hand.

“You belong in hospital,” she states and gently holds the towel to Strike’s face, making sure not to touch his nose. “Everything else can wait. I will find out what happened, but we need to get you sorted first.”

Reaching for the towel and almost missing it in his drunken haze, Strike protests. “Not goin’ to A&E. ‘m not. ‘m abs’lutely fine. I will be… fine. You can’t make me.”

“No?” Robin glares at him. She’s nervous. Her partner is looking pale underneath all that red, and her worry for him is overriding her anger, but she’s holding on to it. She’ll need it to get this fool to relent. “Well, if you’re refusing, I’ll call an ambulance. You’re in no state to get away, and even if you try, you’ll have to go through me.” Widening her shoulders, she gives him the full display of her delicate 1,55 meters. He’s not the only one who can threaten people.

“She’s a feisty one.” A smirk warms Wardle’s deep voice. He’s leaning against the partition again, arms crossed, enjoying the battle of wills playing out in front of him. “I’d listen to her, gooner.”

Seconds tick by. Motionless, the crimson-spotted dish towel hiding much of his face, Strike appears to think. Then, miserably, he whispers: “I hate hospitals.”

Robin grimaces emphatically. “I know you do.”

How Strike, within a single minute, can have gone from menacing to heartbreaking is beyond her, but here he is, no longer looking dangerous but vulnerable and a little afraid. Sometimes, with all that armour he carries, with his burly frame and natural confidence, she forgets what he’s been through and that he, too, must feel small sometimes.

“I know you do,” she repeats, putting her hand on his arm. “But we really need to get you checked out. You’re losing quite a bit of blood, and they need to do something with your nose. We can’t have you scaring away clients looking like this.”

An affirmative snort from Wardle.

More stillness from Strike. He’s closed his eyes. Drip-drip. Blood trickles from the hand he used to catch it with. The other one has the towel in a death grip. Robin hears his laboured breathing. Then, a deep, resigned and muffled sigh. His green eyes open, almost translucent above the purple pooling underneath. “‘kay.” He sounds defeated. “But wha’ever happens, ‘m not stayin’.”

Relieved, Robin nods. “I think we can work with that. Up you go!”

On cue, Wardle is beside her, helping her pull Cormoran to his feet. “I can take you. Brought ‘im here in a patrol car I borrowed. It’s right outside.”

Together, they manoeuver Strike out of the office, down the stairs and into the police car. Her partner is silent, resigned to his fate. The smell of strong liquor on him is overwhelming, and more questions form in Robin’s mind: Why did he get so drunk when he was meeting up with Wardle for work? And if Strike looks this bad - what about Matthew? Did Cormoran injure him?

Praying that her partner won’t face assault charges, she scoots into the back seat beside him, a back-up towel in her handbag. Another emotion is adding to the confusion she feels: Strike got himself injured defending her, standing up for her, and she cannot help the flutter of elation in her chest at such heroism, even if it was foolish. Without asking, she leans over Cormoran to grab the seat belt and buckle him in. He mumbles a belated “thanks” into the dish towel, head tipped back against the seat.

“All set?” Wardle asks from up front.

“Yup,” Robin replies.

“With or without sirens?” The DI is angling the rearview mirror to look at Strike. A frown spreads on his stubbled and underslept face.

Although the dish towel is slowly saturating and in spite of Cormoran’s pallor, Robin shakes her head. Her partner hates this enough already - she sees it in the tightness of his body, in his red-streaked left hand balled into a fist in his lap. Even drunk, he hates it all, and, shuddering, she wonders what memories the trip to hospital is bringing back. Sirens won’t help.

“I think we can do without,” she says, fighting the urge to grab Strike’s hand and hold it. “St. Luke’s isn’t far from here. Just go.”

Deftly, Wardle pulls the sleak patrol car into traffic and speeds up quickly. And while no sirens cut into the relative quiet of a nightly Denmark street, Robin sees that they’re swathed in a rhythmically flashing halo of blue. Wardle, for all his coolness, is not taking any chances.

Chapter Text

2 ½ hours earlier

Strike entered the Lone Swan on a gust of cold wind and was glad about the warmth of the pub enveloping him. He had never been here before; Wardle suggested the place for their meet-up, close to the Met’s headquarters, but far away enough to not be frequented solely by policemen. The pub, to Strike’s delight, had a cozy feel to it - dark wood and worn-out leather, bleached by time and cigarette smoke - and his favourite beer on tap.

It was still early - Wardle wouldn’t be here until eight, but Strike didn’t mind having another hour to kill, and he was relieved to be able to rest his leg. On his feet all day, trailing Roadrunner’s assistant from one errand to another, his knee was sore and stiff. Luck had it that he found an unoccupied corner booth which gave him the privacy he preferred while still enabling him to have a full view on the expanse of the pub.

Passing by the bar, he ordered a pint and a large whisky and carried both to the booth he’d kept a steady eye on. He knew hard liquor wasn’t a good idea when he still had to work, but he’d had fish and chips earlier to soak it up, and today was not one of those days where staying sober was the better option. As he slid onto the bench and felt an angry twinge in his knee, he could not miss the irony that, on this of all days, his leg was particularly painful.

Like every year, he’d been trying to ignore the date, but - like every year - he’d woken up with the taste of iron in his mouth and the imaginary grit of sand between his teeth. Despite chilly temperatures and a steady drizzle, he felt dried out, skin prickling as if burnt by a merciless sun. The sound of buses rushing past him, in his mind, had transformed to the Diesel hum of military vehicles. From the susurrus of languages filling the crowded London streets, Dari and Pashto phrases had floated to the top, and in the tube, the face of an Arabic teenager had made him stop in his tracks.

It was ridiculous, Strike thought, how pleasant memories faded with the years - the faces of friends he’d lost, the details of places he’d been, the lines of favourite songs, the sound of his mother’s laugh - and how bad memories never did, rushing back as sharp and painful as if no time had passed.

Hoisting his smarting leg onto a bar stool and massaging his knee, his memory flashed him a set of alternating images: Of his intact right leg with the crescent-shaped scar on his ankle from a bike tumble as a nine year-old; of his leg after the explosion, his fatigues and the flesh underneath torn in shreds, the white of splintered bone shimmering through the ravaged red mass; of his leg post-surgery, swathed in bandages, a drainage tube protruding from the thick layers of gauze; of his leg with his brand-new prosthesis attached, glinting steel and black fibreglass, the flesh-coloured artificial foot smooth and hard without the distinction of individual toes.

The whisky was gone and his pint glass empty. From the nearby bar, the barmaid was looking at his elevated leg and at the artificial ankle peeking out between his sock and the hem of his trousers. Then she looked at his face and gave him an empathetic smile.

“Another pint, luv, and another shot?”

Strike nodded and started to move.

“Don’t bother getting up,” the woman said kindly. “I’ll bring it over.”

Before he knew it, he was three pints and as many whiskys down and pleased to find that the sharpness of the alcohol had chased the iron taste from his mouth. The pain in his leg had diminished, and the part of his brain insisting that it was six years ago had quieted down. Through the gentle haze of mild drunkenness, he registered the pub door opening and a group of men and women coming in, making their way to a table not far from Strike’s booth, chatting. They were all in office clothes, the men in suits and loosened ties, the two women in knee-length skirts and elegant blouses.

Strike had just been secretly admiring the curvy bust of one of them, when his brain, upon hearing the suave baritone of the man standing next to her, hissed a flag. He had his back turned to Strike, but his tall, slender frame, the dark, smartly cut hair and the underlying smugness of his voice were familiar.

The Twat.

“It’s not that I’m saying he doesn’t deserve the promotion,” he was proclaiming to his mates in a tone that betrayed it was exactly what he was saying. “But there are associates who have been working their arses off longer and harder than he did.”

The group nodded in unison.

“I mean, it’s all fine when you have connections…”

Strike tuned out of the self-opinionated speech, glad for the layer of cotton provided by the alcohol in his system. Robin’s ex-husband had always been a self-absorbed, sulky arse going behind other (Robin’s) peoples’ backs, and he wasn’t going to listen to his grandiloquent whining. Matthew had always made his blood boil - even before Robin had found out about the moron’s affair with that unbearable Sarah Shadlock. The way he’d treated Robin - without respect, without appreciation for her amazing skills and (his beer-loosened brain provided) for her dizzying beauty, had, more than once, made Strike want to chop his head off. How immense his relief had been when Robin, eventually, had put her foot down and terminated the marriage with the fierce determination he’d always known she had in her.

Instead of subjecting himself further to Cunliffe’s plaintive back-and-forth with his equally inclined colleagues, he gestured to the attentive barmaid for another pint. No whisky, this time.
A few minutes later, he was licking the foam of his fresh and deliciously tasting beer from his bearded upper lip, clumsily checking football results on his phone, when the mention of his own, unusual name made him look up again.

“...Cormoran Strike, wasn’t it? The one-legged detective!”

A chirpy blonde was looking at Cunliffe with big eyes.

“Yeah,” Matthew said, snorting. “Cormoran. What a stupid name.” He looked pleased when the blonde giggled at the exaggerated way he pronounced the Cornish name. “And he’s not nearly as brilliant as the press portrayed him after the Ripper murders. Dropped out of uni. Lived in his office, homeless, when Robin temped there. Total flake. I still can’t believe that Robin fell for this loser.”

Strike’s ears perked up. Standing around Matthew, all of his mates and the two women were hanging on Cunliffe’s lips now. Gossip. Slander. They lapped it up eagerly, and Strike was disgusted.

“For how long were they having an affair when you found out,” the blonde asked in scandalous breathlessness.

“Not long,” Matthew replied, voice full of disdain. “Didn’t fool me. Of course, Robin had wanted to jump his bones from day one. She’s always been that type, you know. Sleeping around. And I knew it, called her on it. No idea what she sees in that fat, ugly bloke.”

Hackles raising, Strike slid his artificial leg from the bar stool and, both palms on the table, hoisted himself upright. He didn’t mind being called fat and ugly. It was true, and he didn’t care. But Cunliffe basically calling Robin a slut…. Shouldering himself past the other pub guests, his ears picked up more slandering from Matthew.

“Thought she was smart, keeping it from me. But she’s never been particularly bright. She’s made everyone believe that she dropped out of uni because of the rape, but, in truth, she simply wasn’t intelligent enough, flunked her classes. The rape was a convenient excuse to-”

Matthew’s speech ended in a choked sound as he was gripped by the collar from behind and whipped around. Six foot three of intimidating, dark-eyed, boxer-faced male were staring him in the face.

“What did you say about Robin?”

Around the table, Cunliffe’s troop was frozen, speechless. One prematurely balding twenty-something with an artificial tan issued a half-hearted “Hey! What’s…”, then fizzled out. The pub was falling silent around them, heads turning.

The brass bell above the entrance jangled as a newcomer arrived, but Strike’s wrath was focussed on the accountant. Matt was staring back at him, too surprised to plaster his usual look of arrogance over his startled features.

“Strike” he almost squeaked. And then, regaining his composure: “Let go of me!”

“Is there a problem?” A familiar, calm and deep voice floated across the pub. A man came to stand next to Strike, and from the corner of his eyes, still fixed on Matthew, Strike recognized the compact, leather-clad figure of DI Eric Wardle, studying him with interest.

“Wardle,” Strike grated through clenched teeth. The London copper had an unnerving talent to show up at the most inopportune moments.

“Someone call the police!” Matt shouted shakily. “This man is attacking me. Do something!”

Wardle canted his head and said evenly: “I AM the police. DI Wardle. Let go of him, Strike!”

Two impulses warred inside Strike’s inebriated brain: To ignore the policeman and punch Cunliffe’s lights out, as he deserved; or to turn around and punch Wardle for interfering. It was his military training and what little good sense the alcohol had left him with that made him choose a third option, although it barred any fun: With a revolted huff, he unclasped his hands from the twat’s lapels and took a step back. Every pair of eyes in the pub was on him.

“You’re a lucky man, Cuntliffe,” he said, his tone corrosive even through the drunken slur. “You’re lucky that Robin Ellacott” - he stressed her maiden name - “is a kind an’ graceful human being who ‘frained… refrained from tearin’ you apart in court. And you’re lucky that this man” (he pointed at Wardle looking on, poker-faced) “is protecting your sorry li’l arse from gettin’ thrashed.”

Strike glared at Matthew, feeling himself sway a little. He really shouldn’t have drunk this much. In front of him, Robin’s ex was straightening his shoulders and looking around at his colleagues, his cockiness returning now that a police officer was present.

“Get this man out of here, officer,” he said, a trace of insecurity wavering under smugness. “He’s an alcoholic. I feel sorry for him, otherwise I would press charges. Poor, delusional bastard.”

Wardle’s hand closed warningly around Strike’s upper arm, preventing him from rounding on Cunliffe again. As drunk as he was, Strike felt the muscles in his body coil.

“Not worth it, gooner,” Wardle said into his ear. “Take a breath and walk away.”

And, to his own amazement, Strike did. It cost him every bit of self-control he still had, and he had to stare straight ahead, avoiding two dozen pairs of eyes - curious, tense, some filled with contempt, even pity - to overrule his boxer’s instincts and the burning need to defend Robin’s honor. Gnashing his teeth, Wardle’s hand helping, he turned around and started to limp towards the exit.

When, behind him, he heard an ugly laugh and Cunliffe’s snide voice: “Oh, let 'im have her. Fuck her, if he can still get one up. She’s damaged goods anyway.”

Wardle wasn’t quick enough. He clamped his hand tighter around his arm, but Strike slid out of his grip, an adrenaline surge giving him the speed and temporary balance he needed. Three quick strides, and he swung his fist at Matthew’s face. To the startled shrieks of several female guests, he felt his knuckles connect with the accountant’s still-grinning mouth, felt tissue and teeth giving way with a satisfying crunch. But he had swung too hard, his fist slipping off’ Cunliffe’s face, and his own momentum and precarious balance caused him to fall forward. Face first, he slammed into the edge of the table behind Cunliffe and, with a nasty sound, felt his nose break and spurt blood before he hit the floor.

“Ow! Fuck!” Matthew howled, hunched over, dripping blood onto him as Strike rolled around on his back. Strike was gasping, the pain in his face whitening out his vision momentarily until he blinked it back. Wetness washed over his upper lip, his mouth, his chin, and a copper taste tickled at the back of his throat. When he clutched his nose, pulling back immediately when pain flared, his hand came away crimson.

“Fuck! He knocked out my teef!” Matthew whined.

Hauling himself into a sitting position, leaning against a table leg, Strike’s large body started to vibrate with laughter and, if he wasn’t entirely mistaken, he heard Wardle chuckle somewhere above him.

Chapter Text

“Tea?”

Holding two disposable cups, Robin sticks her head into the treatment room Strike’s been bundled off to after an initial assessment by a triage nurse. Partly due to Wardle flashing his badge and partly due to the impressive amount of blood decorating Strike’s face and shirtfront, he’s been spared from sitting in the crowded waiting area of the A&E. Instead, they’ve put him in a gurney bed, hooked him up to a drip and packed his nose, telling him to sit tight until his x-rays come back.

“Yeah. Thanks.” Strike’s voice sounds distorted and nasal as he gazes darkly at Robin and reaches for the tea, the bruises under his eyes making him look very pale. His nose is a misshapen lump, rust-flecked gauze bulging out of his nostrils, and his lips are dry and cracked.

Robin gives him an encouraging smile and slips one of the cups into his left, unencumbered hand, avoiding the IV in his right. “Here. I let it steep as long as feasible. I don’t think it’s as hot as you li-... Wait.” She reaches for his cup again, frowning. “Are you even allowed? If you need surgery-”

“I won’t,” he replies briskly, practically snatching the cup from her.

Confused, Robin looks around. “Oh, what did the doctor say? Have your x-rays come back? ” She can’t see any films tacked to the lightbox or opened on the computer screen by his bed, and his chart, tucked into a holder by the door, looks undisturbed.

“They haven’t.” In spite of its muffled quality, Strike’s voice has an edge. “I’m not having surgery. Don’t worry about it, Robin.”

“Oh.”

Stunned and unsure what to reply, she watches her injured partner drink his tea. He’s focused on the task, trying not to stub his swollen nose on the cup and breathing loudly through his mouth between sips. Large as he is, the gurney bed seems incongruously small under him, his socked feet sticking out over the edge. Although it has to be uncomfortable, he’s kept his prosthesis on, opting to laboriously wrestle his boot off the stiff, artificial foot instead, and Robin thinks she knows why: Without his crutches, without his leg, he’ll be stuck, literally disabled, with no option left to do what he’s been considering all along - get up and walk out.

“Wardle still here?” Strike grumbles over the edge of the cup. The IV seems to have sobered him up, but it hasn’t helped his mood.

“Yeah. He’s outside. Had to make a few calls,” Robin replies.

“Tell him to leave. I don’t need a babysitter.” Broody and annoyed.

Robin purses her lips. “I think he might disagree.”

Strike’s eye roll ends in a wince as the movement pulls on his broken nose.

“You don’t have to stay either, Robin,” he adds, setting the cup down. “Go home. Thanks for your help, but I’ll be fine now.”

Hitching the strap of her handbag back up over her shoulder, Robin gives Strike a firm look. “I’m staying.”

He sighs. “Listen, Robin, I appreciate your worry, but it’s really not necessary for you to-”

“I’m staying.” She cuts him off. Green, blood-shot eyes meet hers in a mixture of anger and astonishment, but she’s determined to win this particular stare-off and doesn’t look away. As much as she respects Strike’s privacy, as much as she respects him, it’s against her nature to leave him like this, hurt and on his own. Even more so since she partly feels at fault for his injury: It may have been Strike’s heroics that put him here, but without Matthew and his slandering none of this would have happened.

In the car, on their way to the hospital, Wardle filled her in on what happened at the bar - leaving out Matt’s exact comments when Strike, from behind his bloody dishcloth, glared warningly at him from the back seat - and now that she’s learned Strike injured himself in her defense, she feels even more responsible. And, secretly and to her own consternation, she has to admit to a certain amount of satisfaction that Matthew, vain as he is, will at least temporarily be walking around with a gap in his hitherto perfect row of of straight teeth.

“Mr. Strike?”

A tall, lanky and tired-looking doctor enters the room, shuffling a fan of X-rays in his hands, before he smiles at Robin and Strike, unperturbed by the latter’s sour expression.

“I’m Doctor Narzary, ENT and plastics.” Without further preamble, he slaps the films on the lightbox and switches it on. A skull appears, frontal and in profile, and Robin’s neck prickles at the thought that she’s looking at Strike’s bones.

“As you can see, your nose is broken, here and here.” With long, slender fingers, the surgeon indicates two different spots on the blurry blotch that - apparently - represents Strike’s nose. “I’m afraid you’ll need surgery to fix it properly.”

A short, sharp inhale from Strike. He glares at the X-ray, then at the doctor. “And if I don’t have the surgery?”

The surgeon raises his eyebrows. “We could try to set it manually, under sedation, but the result would be suboptimal. Your old fractures make things difficult. You’re looking at a risk of deformation, inhibited breathing…”

“I’ll take that risk.”

Robin gasps. “Cormoran!”

“I’ll take that risk,” Strike repeats, pinning the doctor with a fierce stare.

“Are you sure?” Doctor Narzary studies him clinically, his dark eyes on Strike’s packed and lumpy nose. “I would really advise you to reconsider. Our plastic surgery department is excellent. If you need a little time to decide I can come back-”

“That’s not necessary,” Strike interrupts him gruffly. “I’ll sign whatever you need me to sign. Just set it as best as you can and let me out of here.”

“Cormoran!” Appalled, Robin tries to interfere again, although she can see that it’s pointless. The set of Strike’s jaw, the authority in his voice make it clear that she’s talking to a wall.

“I’m not debating this with you,” he tells her, toning down the sharpness somewhat. “I know you mean well, but this isn’t your decision, it’s mine, and I need you to stay out of it.”

Cheeks flushed, she gropes for something to say. He’s right. They’re friends, but she has no say in his life, and as much as she thinks his decision is based on bad memories and unreasonable fear, she also knows that intruding further in his personal affairs will only make him push back harder.

“I haven’t had a straight nose in fifteen years,” she hears him say, more gentle. “I don’t need one now.” And, to the surgeon, he says matter-of-factly: “Let’s get on with it.”

Doctor Narzary nods, apparently convinced by Strike’s steadfastness. “It’s your call. I’ll send a nurse to get you ready.” He grabs Strike’s chart and scribbles something into it. “But you will need to stay until the sedation has worn off enough for your wife to take you home.”

Face burning, Robin looks at the floor.

“That’s alright,” she hears Strike say, not bothering to correct the doctor. “As long as you don’t keep me here over night.”

Doctor Narzary shrugs, smirking sardonically. “Barring any complications, you and your crooked nose will be out of here in an hour or two.”

“Thank you.”

Alone again, the door slid shut against the noises of the A&E, Robin lifts her still-flushed face to see Strike tip his head back and close his eyes, sighing deeply. The premature lines etched into his features by permanent pain look deeper in the harsh neon light of the room, and she sees his hand err to his nose and then halt as he suppresses the urge to touch it, squeezing his eyes and running his palm over his forehead instead. The fight, it seems, has left him, and he suddenly looks beaten.

Robin, who’s taken a step back during the doctor’s consultation, moves closer to the bed again, fighting the urge to place a comforting hand on Strike’s arm.

“Pain still bad?” she asks softly.

Scratching one of his thick brows, Strike squints at her. “Robin,” he says, exhaling heavily, that one word holding all the exhaustion he must be feeling, sounding surprised to find her still at his side. He lets his hand drop. “Listen,” he continues tiredly, “this-”, he circles his injured face, “all of this is nothing I haven’t been through before. Several times, in fact. It hurts, and it sucks for a while, and then it heals. It’s not worth the excitement, and I certainly don’t expect you to stay and keep me company while I’m being a grumpy bastard about it.”

Disarmed, Robin cannot help but smile a little at the sudden self-depricating look on his battered face.

There’s a touch of humour to his words, a small warm spark in his eyes, and Robin is glad to see it. This hospital, being in here, has been doing something to Strike. Beneath the harsh front, beneath the menacing posture, she’s sensed fear and the shadows of what have to be traumatic memories. Whatever it’s called - PTSD, anxiety or something less dramatic - that’s turned him into this untouchable, poised-to-pounce version of the man she knows - it runs deep, and she’s relieved to see a trace of the familiar Cormoran shine through.

“You’re grumpy with or without a broken nose,” she tells him cheerfully. “I can handle it.”

The hint of a smile tugs at one side of Strike’s mouth. “One thing,” he says then, frowning again. “They won’t let me leave after the procedure unless I have someone accompanying me. It’s protocol. Would tie their panties in a knot if they did, liability and all that bollocks. I’d call Nick, but he’s in Paris with Ilsa for their anniversary-”

“I’ll do it.” Robin says quickly.

“Really? All I need you to do is get me home in a cab and see me up the stairs to my flat.” His eyes slide away from hers, suddenly embarrassed. “It’s… My leg. The sedation messes with my balance. After that, you can go.”

Touched by his insecurity, Robin nods vehemently. “Of course. I’ll be happy to. No problem.”

“Thanks.”

Something hangs in the air between them as the sad green eyes flit back to hers again - an odd blend of trust and shame and reassurance - and freezes Robin to the spot, afraid that, if she moves, if she opens her mouth, she’ll say too much and the crack in Strike’s armour will close again and, once more, leave her shut out.

“Mr. Strike?”

The door suddenly being pushed open makes them both jump. A sturdy nurse marches into the room, chart tucked under one arm, a tray holding pre-filled syringes and other paraphernalia in her hands. “I’m here to prep you for your procedure.” Deftly, she plops the tray onto the little table by Strike’s bed and casts him a taxing look. “You ready for this?”

Side-eyeing the assortment of syringes, Strike sighs. “Let’s get it over with.”

The nurse, whose name tag reads “Meggie”, pats his arm in motherly fashion, then pushes a lever on his gurney bed to lower him into position. “I’ll start the sedation before Doctor Narzary comes in and proceeds with the local anaesthetics. You’ll be aware of what’s going on, but you won’t remember much of it, promise.”

A doubtful scowl passes over Strike’s features. As he lays back, watching the nurse clip a pulse ox monitor to his finger and laying out instruments and bandages, Robin sees his pupils dilate and the hairs on his arms stand up in alarm. It’s an automatic reaction she knows from her panic attacks, and she hears Strike draw a few carefully measured breaths, counteracting his body’s fight-or-flight response. His heartbeat, now zigzagging across a small screen, skips and accelerates.

The nurse looks up, scrutinizing him. “Deep breaths, darling,” she says heartily, grabbing a blood pressure cuff to fasten it around his arm. “You’ll be fine.”

Turning to Robin, she adds: “You need to step outside now, luv. Don’t worry. I’ll get him back to you in one piece.”

Robin nods, but she feels rooted to the spot. The studiously subdued panic in Strike’s eyes, the sudden smallness of this big, strong man triggers her protective instincts. It’s not helping that, slapping false bravado over his pale face, he tells her to go, “I’ll be alright”, while his left hand clutches a fistful of bedsheet until his knuckles turn white.

But when the nurse, with an encouraging smile, flicks her head in direction of the hallway, Robin moves. She brushes her hand over Strike’s good leg, tense underneath the sheets.

“I’ll see you in a bit.” It sounds surer than she feels.

He blinks and swallows heavily.

As she walks outside and turns to slide the door shut, she hears the nurse talk comfortingly to Strike while covering his chest with towels and placing an emesis bowl within reach. Her stomach turns when she thinks of what’s coming at Strike. Guilt rushes through her, and anger at Matt. Will he ever stop turning up in her life like a bad penny?

Brushing her hair out of her face, she leans against the wall. There’s a small waiting area down the hall, but she wants to stay close, to be there as soon as they let her back into the room.

XXX

Fuck.

Watching the nurse arrange instruments on a tray beside his head, Strike tries to stay on top of his rising panic. The stout, efficient woman casts him uplifting smiles while she prepares him for the procedure, and he can tell that she’s one of the good ones - sure, seasoned, unflappable - but it’s all too much: the sounds and smells, the white walls and the glint of stainless steel against surgical blue cotton, the stretch of medical tape on his skin, the taste of blood in his throat; memories rush back in and make it difficult to tell himself that he is not losing a limb this time, that it’s not all happening again, that they’re only fixing his busted nose.

He’s gotten better at his, over the years. It’s not his first time back in a hospital, after all. Scrapes and bruises have sent him to A&E several times since his amputation; the knife wounds and broken nose inflicted on him by Donald Laing constituting the last time he’s been stuck in a gurney bed, sweating bullets and hating it all. It’s not as bad as it used to be. The smell of blood no longer triggers full-blown flashbacks, and he’s learned to breathe through the panic of being flat on his back and at the mercy of blue-gowned strangers. It’s better, but it’s still bad enough.

What makes it more difficult, this time, is Robin. Her concerned face, her unwavering assistance, her refusal to let him conduct this the way he’s used to - alone, snapping at intruders, quelching the fear with anger - are throwing him, and it’s hard to hold on to his facade when her warmth chips away at it. He feels bad for being so curt and harsh with her, an ungrateful bastard, but he knows it’s the only way to hold himself together. When she left the room, her hand brushing over his leg, he almost fell apart, and that cannot, must not happen. Especially not in front of her.

All too well, he remembers the look on Charlotte’s face when, six years ago, she’d cat-walked down the ward at Selly Oaks, to his bed, kissed him in front of a bandaged and awe-struck audience with predatory triumph in her eyes - only to give way to embarrassment and, if he’s honest with himself, thinly veiled disgust in the following weeks when she’d found him broken and - only once - crying in his hospital bed, the pus of his inflamed surgery scars oozing through the bandage on his stump.

No. He is not going to do that, be a ridiculous sissy in front of Robin. And he’s not going to spend one minute longer than necessary in this damn hospital.

The thing is: Deep down, he wants her here, with him, her warm hand on his arm, her blue-grey eyes kindly looking at his mess of a face. But not when he’s like this, bleeding and trembling, and all because of his own bloody fault, because he let that twat get to him, saying about Robin what he did, because…

“Alright, darling,” the nurse warns him gently, her hand pushing the contents of a syringe into his IV. “Here comes the good stuff.”

...because I love her.

Chapter Text

A minute or two after Robin has stepped outside, Doctor Narzary hurries down the hallway and, nodding at her, disappears into the treatment room. Before the door closes again, Robin catches a glance at Strike, eyes at half-mast, reacting sluggishly to the nurse pulling the packing out of his nose. Robin’s chest twinges in sympathy.

Poor Cormoran.

“How’s the idiot doing?”

Wardle, hands dug into the pockets of his leather jacket, strolls up to her.

“They’re setting his nose.” Robin shudders.

Wardle’s eyebrows knit. “What, here? Thought he’d need surgery. That thing looked smashed.”

“It is,” Robin says dejectedly. “But he refused to have the surgery.”

The DI snorts. “Being a dick about it, is he?”

“Yeah.” She sighs.

“Figures.”

Shuffling his feet, Wardle looks at the closed door, his dark eyes appearing to drill through it.

“Look,” he says. “I got a phone call from the station.”

Robin looks up. The policeman’s tone has changed from nonchalance to seriousness, and she has a hunch why.

“What is it? Is it about the fight? About Cormoran?” Her heart beats faster.

Wardle grimaces. “Yeah. I’m supposed to arrest him, take him to the station for questioning. Your ex is pressing assault charges.”

Robin’s stomach drops. Then, in a reverse motion, blood rushes to her head. If she’s honest, she saw this coming. Matthew would never let this go without payback. It’s a chance to hurt Strike. And - best of all - to hurt her along with him.

“He’s such an ass,” she hisses before she can hold it back.

“He is,” Wardle agrees, “but I’m afraid he has a point. Gooner got him good. Lost two teeth and needed stitches. He’s livid.”

“Two teeth… Look at Cormoran! Look at his nose!”

Furious, Robin points at the door through which she can hear the murmur of voices and, to her dismay, faint, low moaning.

“That wasn’t exactly Cuntliffe’s fault.” Hands still in his pockets, the policeman pulls up his shoulders.

“It’s Cunliffe, not Cuntliffe!” she snaps at him, fists balled, and has no idea why. Perhaps she has to yell at someone, and since Matt isn’t here, Wardle will have to do.

All of her fears, compartmentalized for the last hour, come rushing back: What if Cormoran gets convicted? What if he has to go to prison? What happens to him then? To the agency? To her? When she’d heard that Strike had injured him, she’d been certain of blowback; of Matthew storming into the office and demanding an apology, compensation, threatening to take this to the press. A small voice had warned her about more serious consequences, but some part of her still can’t reconcile with the idea that Matthew will not hold back when it comes to wreaking havoc on her life. That, after all this time, he still blames her for their failed marriage, that he’s still out for revenge and will not stop at harming those she cares about most.

Wardle quirks an eyebrow. “You’re not gonna hit me, are you?”

Huffing, Robin paces a few steps, both palms pressed against her temples, breathing.

“I don’t like it either, Ellacott, but I can’t just let it drop.”

Scratching his stubbly chin, the DI watches her trying to get a grip, discomfort in his dark eyes.

Still electric, Robin rounds on him. “You know I would never ask you to.”

“I know.” More beard scratching. It reminds her of Cormoran, and her fury goes out the window, replaced by the prickle of tears in the corners of her eyes. “Shit.” She wipes at them and stems her hands into her hips.

Wardle dips his head.

“Look, I’m obviously not arresting him, and he’s in no condition for questioning today. Take until tomorrow. Get a lawyer. Bring him to the station tomorrow morning if he’s ready for that. Otherwise, give me a ring and I’ll come by, take his statement. We’ll get the official paperwork done, and then we’ll see. I’ll talk to Cunliffe again. Perhaps he’ll change his mind. Perhaps you can work out a deal.”

Robin snorts. “You don’t know Matt.”

“No, but I know the type. Acidic, but impressionable. He’s a prick, but I also think he still has feelings for you.”

“What?!”

The DI shrugs. “In spite of what you lot think, I’m actually good at reading people. And when I just talked to him he was spittin’ poison like someone who still cares. And I mean ‘spitting’ literally, with that gap in his teeth.” The corner of his mouth lifts in a smirk.

“Wait.” Ignoring his pun, Robin narrows her eyes. “You just talked to him? On the phone?”

“No. He’s here. Just down that hallway, in fact.” He points with his thumb. “Gettin’ his lip stitched. Could barely understand him, looks like a blowfish.” Wardle doesn’t sound particularly compassionate.

Wordlessly, Robin turns on her heels and begins to march in the direction he indicated. Fury wells in her like a tide.

“Hey, what-... Wait!”

The policeman catches up with her, grabbing her arm.

“Don’t! You’re only gonna make it worse.”

Trying to shrug him off, Robin marches on. “Leave me, Wardle. He’s not going to get away with this!”

In her head, she sees a replay. Matt betraying her with Sarah. Matt lying to her. Betraying her again. Matt erasing Cormoran’s calls from her phone. More lies. Pictures of Strike overlay the internal slide show, gruff and complicated, but honest and worth every bit of trust she’s placed in him.

“Ellacott, stop!” Wardle has her firmly by her arm again and pulls her around. “Stop. This isn’t gonna help.” His voice has dropped to a calming near-bass, his dark brown eyes hold hers with a seriousness she’s never seen in him. “Trust me,” he adds. “Let me handle this.”

She glares at Wardle. Looks at his composed face. Breathes. Forces herself to think and push her hate for Matt back down. Back into that hard ball in her stomach that rolls around in it and makes her sick every time she hears his name.

But he’s not going to win this one. He’s not going to make her freak out and rupture and lose her cool. She’s not the insecure girl anymore that cowered to his snide grandeur. She’s smarter than that. Stronger.

“Right,” she finally says, exhaling. “Right. But you have to promise me to keep me updated on everything that’s going on. Let me know if there’s anything that I can do to help Cormoran. I could give a statement. I know Matt. He embellishes things. He’ll make it all sound worse than it is. I could-”

“Ellacott.” The dark eyes fix hers. With a squeeze of Robin’s arm, he lets go. “I’ve got this.”

Unhappiness still pulling at her mouth, Robin nods. “Okay. Okay.”

“Okay.”

Deflating, she gives Wardle a shaky smile. The policeman, poker-faced once more, replies with a curt nod.

Robin turns, ready to walk back to Strike’s room when an angry shriek startles her.

“YOU! How DARE you show up here! Don’t you think you’ve done enough to him?!”

Aghast, Robin swivels around.

Ruffled, irate and clacking along on stilettos, Sarah Shadlock totters towards her.

Chapter Text

For a startled moment, Robin is speechless.

Wardle uses his chance to step between her and the overdressed, infuriated woman.

“Miss Shadlock, I really don’t think this is the appropriate moment to-”

“You put him up to this!” Brushing the DI aside with her handbag, Sarah stalks past him.

Wardle is momentarily stunned.

“You did this,” Sarah screeches, poking a manicured finger at Robin’s chest. “You and that one-legged cave troll who calls himself a detective. I always knew that-”

“Cave troll?!” Robin gasps. “How dare you, you heartless, intrigant b-” She stops herself, cheeks turning crimson, fists clenched. In her head, she hears Cormoran’s deep voice: She’s not worth it, Robin.

She takes a deep breath and glares back at Sarah. “Cormoran’s a war veteran who lost his leg in service to this country. He is a great detective,” she says, voice almost in control. “And thanks to Matthew he is in there now, hurt and bleeding.” She points at the door to the treatment room. “I can’t believe you have the gall to-”

“Sue him? Oh, we do. Matt does. And believe me, your boss will pay for every cent of Matt’s treatment, and more! He’ll go to prison for this. And your poor little excuse of an agency will go belly up. If I were you, I’d start looking for a new job.” Her derogatory gaze wanders over Robin’s flushed face. “If you can even get one without a degree.”

Robin’s nostrils flare, her cheeks are burning and she can’t keep herself from taking a step and getting into Sarah Shadlock’s face, noses almost touching. Robin hisses: “At least I don’t use my tits to keep a job unlike others present.”

Sarah growls, and as her hands lift, red-lacquered fingernails glinting like claws, Wardle puts an end to the cat fight.

“Hey, hey, hey… ladies! Please!” The policeman pushes them apart. His voice drops to an even deeper register. “We don’t want to create a scene here, do we?” He shoots Robin a cautionary look. “Why don’t we all take a step back and leave this to the professionals?” Hands up like a referee, he exudes command and authority.

It helps Robin get a grip. Wardle, she knows, is on her side. On Cormoran’s side. And letting Sarah Shadlock provoke her into undue aggression is not going to help her partner’s case. As much as she hates this woman, as much as she feels like the injured party when it comes to Matt - it’s a legal matter now, and if her divorce has taught her one thing it’s that the law does not always correspond with justice.

She huffs and, with one last glare, she crosses her arms and turns away from Sarah to circle back to Cormoran’s room. Behind her, Wardle exhales in relief, but the quick tap-tap of Sarah’s stilettos comes after her.

“We’re not done here, Robin!” She ululates, appalled. “We’re not done, and when we are, you’ll wish you’d never met that hairy ape, and you’ll come crawling back to us to apologize, but we’re not going to-”

“Ma’am!”

When Robin looks over her shoulder she sees Wardle, not much taller than Sarah on her high heels, grabbing the blathering woman and planting himself in front of her, looming.

“I need to ask you to walk away now.” His voice has a sudden edge. “And this is me asking nicely.”

The fact that he sounds anything but nice is the one thing keeping Robin from rounding back on Sarah. That, and the doors of the lift down the hallway pinging open, releasing a figure in a wheelchair being pushed by a nurse. A figure with familiar, neatly cut hair and an ice pack pressed to his mouth.

Matt.

Sarah gives a little squeak and, ignoring Wardle, bustles off.

“Oh, poor darling,” she wails loudly. “I was going to get the car, but I ran into… into her.” With a derogatory flick of her head, she indicates Robin.

Wardle rolls his eyes, purposefully letting Robin see it, and she’s grateful for the little conspiratorial gesture.

“What did the doctor say?” Sarah croons dramatically as she meets Matt and squats to run her hands possessively over his arms and thighs, clearly avoiding the dried blood flecks on his shirt. Then she bats her eyes at the nurse. “Can he go home?”

The nurse - a tired-looking, lanky youth with a flimsy attempt at a moustache - points his chin at the folded sheets of paper and the small bag in Matthew’s lap.

“Those are his release papers. His X-rays came back clear. He’s supposed to ice his mouth, and his pain medication is in there. Schedule a dentist appointment and have him come back in ten days to remove the stitches.”

“Thank you, dear. I’ll take it from here.”

With a flutter of her fake eyelashes, Sarah pushes the nurse aside and takes command of the wheelchair. The nurse shrugs and retreats.

As Sarah steers the chair past Robin, lips pursed, Robin catches Matt’s gaze - dark and doleful. The ice pack covers most of his injury, but Robin catches a glimpse of a massively swollen upper lip and the bristle of black stitches. A pang of sympathy shoots through her. Matt looks miserable, his brown eyes dimmed by pain, his hand holding the ice pack trembling a little.

“Matt…” Old memories, fond memories, make Robin reach out a hand to brush his arm, but Sarah gives the wheelchair a deft push forward and snorts at Robin.

“Don’t you dare,” she hisses, and Robin pulls back.

Matthew doesn’t say anything. He turns his head, glancing reproachfully at her, his handsome face a puffy mess, and as they disappear around a corner, Robin suddenly feels like crying.

How could this happen? The most important men in her life - the one she used to love and the one she… How did they both end up injured, with her in the middle, feeling as if the rug has been pulled from underneath her? Cormoran’s chivalric act has turned from a foolish, endearing show of loyalty into a reckless stunt that could cost them their business. And what if Strike actually ends up in prison? What then?

Tears sting in Robin’s eyes, and she fights to hold them back.

A handkerchief appears in her blurry line of sight.

“I didn’t use it,” Wardle declares. “It’s just rumpled, I swear.”

“Thanks.” Robin wipes at a single wet trail on her cheek and sniffs. “I’m okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She takes a deep breath and pulls herself together.

“Listen.” Wardle clears his throat. “I have to leave, make a few inquiries. Text me when you know if you’re coming in with Strike tomorrow. Alrigh’?

His intense gaze roams over her, checking.

Robin brushes her hair out of her face and tucks the handkerchief into her coat pocket. “Yeah, I will. Thank you.”

She means it.

Out of nowhere, a lopsided smirk brightens the DI’s morose face. “Tell Gooner noses are overrated.”

And then he turns away and, hands in his pockets, saunters down the hallway.

XXX

Throb.

Nausea wells up in Cormoran’s stomach as he opens his eyes, the room swimming around him, his nose the painful center of the universe. He squeezes his lids shut again.

Throb.

“Cormoran?”

He tries again, blinking, and the room still seems distant and shaky, but after swallowing a few times he’s confident that he can keep his stomach contents down, and his eyes find the source of the soft question: Robin, smiling cautiously, at his side.

“How are you feeling?”

He licks his lips, breathing once, twice against the suffocating feeling of a clogged nose and clears his throat. Medical tape tugs at the skin of his forehead and cheeks where it holds a splint in place. Testing, he wrinkles his nose, and his stomach lurches at the stab of pain he’s triggered.

“Great.” It comes out as a distorted, nasal croak.

Compassion crosses over Robin’s face - she looks worn out, he thinks with an undefined feeling of guilt - as she reaches for something, out of sight, by the head of his bed.

“Here.” Gentle hands place a straw between his chapped lips.

Drinking, with his nose packed and swollen to hell, is a challenge, but he’s immensely grateful for the cool sips of water he manages to suck from the cup.

“Thanks.” Strike nods, struggling to get his thoughts in order. His brain feels like cotton.

“- when the doctor has checked on you and when you can stand on your own.”

“What?”

Bloody sedatives. Strike realizes he’s blanked out for a moment, missed half of whatever Robin’s been telling him. It’s an effect he knows well, and he hates it, that patchwork of awareness riddled with holes.

Robin frowns.

“I said the nurse stopped by. Everything looks good. They set your nose, and you can leave when the doctor has checked on you and when you can stand on your own.”

“Good… thanks.”

Strike looks around, willing the colours and surfaces of the room to stop blending. His hand stings, and when he lifts it, he blinks at the tube and the tape and the needle, taking a moment to puzzle out it’s an IV and that it’s his hand it’s attached to. This, too, is familiar: the fuzzy layer of disconnection between his brain and his own body.

“Cormoran…”

Robin’s voice again, and he tears his eyes away from his hand to look at her instead. Bloody hell, she looks exhausted.

“Wardle came to talk to me earlier,” she says hesitantly. “There’s something you need to know.”

Strike blinks. Why are her eyes so red?

“What?”

“It’s about Matt.” She has wrapped her hand around the raised bed railing and is nervously rubbing it with her thumb. “They brought him here for treatment, and Wardle’s been to see him.”

“He’s here?” The news makes Strike sit up - a bad idea; he feels dizzy immediately, and that refuels his anger. Anger and something else: Now that the alcohol has been washed out of his system, now that he sees how entirely done in Robin looks, embarrassment joins the medley of emotions churning in his stomach. In painful clarity, his memory replays the events of the previous evening to him.

“Oh God,” he groans. “I… I’m sorry, Robin. I’ve made a bloody fool of myself.”

He feels the sudden urge to hide behind his pillow. The Twat deserved what he got, but how could he have been so childish? What does Robin think of him now?

“You have,” she says, and when Strike dares to meet her gaze, he’s surprised to find a little twinkle of appreciation in her blue-grey eyes. “But that’s not it. Matt probably deserved it. I know how he can be. I know that you… well... “ Her pale cheeks blush a little. “I know you. But I’m afraid Matt is not just going to let this go.”

Premonition settles hollowly in Strike’s guts. The twinkle disappears from Robin’s eyes, and she turns serious.

“He’s pressing assault charges, Cormoran. Wardle was supposed to arrest you. He didn’t, obviously, but you’re due at the station tomorrow, and I’m not quite sure what happens then. You’re supposed to get legal counsel.”

Oh, Strike‘s brain provides. And then, with a two-second lag, the full extend of Robin’s statement hits him like a freight train.

“Fuck.” He brings one hand up and covers his eyes. His insides are free-falling. Shame floods him. Anxiety. He can’t look at Robin. The agency. Their jobs. Their future. Jesus Christ - what has he done?

“I… I don’t know what to say.” Wincing, he squints through his fingers at his partner. His cheeks burn. “I’m sorry Robin. I’m an idiot. I never meant to… You should go. You have every right to be furious. I’m an idiot!”

When his vision finally decides to focus, he recognizes blotches of mascara under Robin’s eyes. Has she been crying? Strike’s stomach drops.

“Robin…” He is at a loss for words now. Everything hurts - his nose, his head, his chest, and he deserves it. Every bit of it.

He expects Robin to turn on her heels and walk out the door. He expects a single tear to streak down her cheek in that defiant way he’s seen her cry before. He expects her to at least swear, her endearing Yorkshire accent bubbling to the surface.

What he doesn’t expect is her hand, warm and dry, to settle on his forearm. Or the brave little smile she gives him.

“We can talk about all that later,” she says firmly. “What do you say we get you out of here first?”

Chapter Text

Two hours later, Robin maneuvers an unsteady Strike up the stairs to his flat. They do it the way they’ve done it before - his hand on her shoulder, her arm around his back - but she still feels nervous so close to him. As he clumsily navigates one step after another, his hip brushes against her, and she can feel his body heat through his shirt. She can smell him, too, disinfectant, copper and sweat mixing with his usual aroma of cigarettes and soap.

The cab ride home had been a subdued affair. Although Strike had breathed a sigh of relief as soon as the hospital’s sliding doors had closed behind them, he’d sat brooding and wordless in the car, radiating guilt and a general impression of hating the world and himself in particular. She should have been mad at him, but it had been impossible. It hadn’t been necessary. Strike had been beating himself up inside, and it had shown in the way his large body had seemed to shrink in on itself, shoulders hunched, face turned away from her.

Robin had asked him if they should call Ilsa, but he’d shaken his head.

“It’s the middle of the night, Robin. And she’s in Paris. We can ruin her anniversary in the morning.”

“But you have to meet up with Wardle tomorrow! And you need to talk to her before that, get some advice. It’s important.”

He’d tipped his head back and moaned quietly. “I know. I know that.”

Robin had grabbed her phone. “Then let me text her and-”

“No!” Cormoran had sat up, glowering at her. “No! Don’t.” And then, less aggressively, he’d added: “I’ve created this mess. I’ll get myself out of it. Let me, Robin. This has got nothing to do with you.”

In Robin’s opinion, it had a lot to do with her. No matter how determinedly she tried to leave her disaster of a marriage behind her and cut herself loose from Matthew for good - it came back to haunt her. Of course, Cormoran had lost control, but she knew how hard he had to be pushed to resort to physical aggression. Large and intimidating as he was, he didn’t have to use violence to get what he wanted. A menacing look or a squaring of his shoulders was enough to cow anyone into submission. And, more important, it wasn’t in his nature to turn to violence. On the contrary: Cormoran usually took a lot of care not to appear threatening when it wasn’t absolutely necessary. Robin had never seen a gentler giant.

No, Strike had been pushed over the edge by the inexcusable behaviour of her ex-husband. What Cormoran had done was wrong and thoughtless, but he wasn’t the only one to blame.

A sudden lurch of her partner and an exclamation pull Robin out of her thoughts.

“Ah, shit!” He slips, his false foot landing hard on the step below, and she quickly grabs him by his belt. The impact travels through him, and Robin sees him clasp his nose and squeeze his eyes shut. “Shit! Shit, shit, shit!” He groans, clinging to the handrail and to Robin.

Wincing in sympathy, she steadies him and gives him a moment to breathe.

“You okay?”

“Yah.” Gritted through clenched teeth, it’s clear that he’s lying, and Robin smiles a little at his bravado.

“Come on, then,” she eggs him on. “We’re almost there.”

The apartment key is too small for Strike’s clumsy hands tonight, and she unlocks the door for him.

“Thanks,” he mumbles nasally, one hand braced against the doorframe, the other gingerly fingering his bandaged nose. “I’ve got it from here.” The splint must be awfully uncomfortable. It covers a good part of his face, much more massive than what she remembers from Matt after he broke his nose in a rugby match. But the doctor had explained that it was necessary to keep Strike’s painstakingly reassembled nasal bone in alignment.

As Strike limps into the room, grabbing the wall and furniture for support, Robin hovers in the doorway and shakes her head.

“I don’t feel comfortable leaving you alone.”

She really doesn’t. Strike looks awful, and his balance is clearly off.

A large hand waves dismissively at her.

“I’ll be alright.” He sounds gruff, but then he halts, turns around and gives her a reassuring look.

“Seriously, Robin, don’t worry. I’ll go straight to bed. Nothing’s going to happen.”

“What if you have to get up again? You’re off-balance, and you haven’t even taken your leg off. You could fa-”

“I won’t.” He cuts her off, and from his harshness she can tell she’s crossed a line.

They stand there, staring at each other, Cormoran with his blackening eyes and disfigured face and Robin torn between worry and anger.

Why does he always have to be so bloody stubborn?

“You know there’s nothing wrong with accepting help when you need it.”

The words come out snappier than intended, before she can hold them back. It’s 3 am, she’s had a rough day, and her self-constraint is all used up.

For a long second, Cormoran doesn’t react. Then he frowns, and his voice has a sharp undertone when he answers: “Robin. I appreciate you worrying about me, but I want you to go now. Let’s talk in the morning. We both need sleep.”

That’s true, and with her heart beating in her throat, upset and certain that she’ll only make matters worse if she opens her mouth again, she hands Strike the bag with his medication.

“Three times a day with food and water,” she says, as neutrally as she can. “Text me in the morning when you’re ready for Wardle.”

He takes the bag from her, an unreadable expression in his eyes. “Thank you.”

It’s maddening: That wall is back up around him, but she’s too tired and too overwhelmed to deal with it. And so she nods and leaves, with a lump in her throat, not knowing whether she wants to kick Cormoran or secretly camp out in the office to make sure he’s alright.

XXX

“Robin?” Ilsa sounds exactly like someone woken up by a phone call in the middle of the night. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry, Ilsa,” Robin replies. “But I didn’t want to wait until the morning, and Cormoran needs your help.”

“Cormoran?” Ilsa gasps. “What happened? Is he injured?”

For a second, Robin is surprised by the sudden terror she hears in Ilsa’s question - until she remembers that, not too long ago, Ilsa, one of Strike’s oldest friends, must have received a call like this, informing her that Cormoran’s leg had been blown off.

“Yes,” Robin says, hurriedly adding, “but it’s not serious. He broke his nose. He’s going to be fine. But he does need your help. Legal help.”

On the other end of the line, Ilsa exhales.

“What happened?”

“He got into a fight- started a fight,” she corrects herself.

“Where? With whom? Tell me exactly what happened.”

Ilsa sounds steadier now, factual; her attorney persona is slipping into place.

Robin sighs and wipes her hair out of her face. She’s sitting on her bed, still dressed, so tired she’s dizzy, and she knows she’s crossed another line by calling Ilsa against Strike’s instructions. But this is her mess as well as his, and she’s not going to let Strike’s refusal to accept help make things worse.

“Robin?” Ilsa urges.

Robin takes a deep breath.

“With Matt,” she says firmer than she feels. “He started a fight with my ex-husband.”

It doesn’t take long to fill Ilsa in on the night’s events, and although Ilsa remains admirably professional in her questioning, they’re both left frustrated at the lack of detail Robin can provide, not having been present at the scene. She wishes she’d been there. None of this would have happened if she’d been there, and retelling the story to Ilsa brings her back to wondering why Strike lost control in the first place. Robin has seen him drunk before, and he’s not the sort to become violent when intoxicated. Morose, yes, and a little indignant. But not physically aggressive. Matthew’s slandering must have tipped Strike over an edge Robin hadn’t known existed.

Ilsa’s sigh breaks into her thoughts.

“I should have seen this coming.”

“What?” Robin is taken aback. “Why?”

“We shouldn’t have left for Paris this weekend. We should’ve stayed with him. But we really thought he’d be fine. Or at least over it enough to not get triggered like that.”

Robin frowns in confusion.

“Triggered by what? What are you talking about?”

On the other end of the line, Ilsa seems to hesitate.

“You have no idea what day it is… was, have you? He hasn’t told you?”

Robin’s tired mind refuses to cooperate.

“No. What day?”

“The IED. He lost his leg six years ago today.”

Robin’s heart lurches in her chest.

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh.” She can hear Ilsa nervously clicking a pen. “It’s always been a difficult day for him, Robin. I don’t want to… If he hasn’t told you, I shouldn’t…” She breathes audibly, torn between confidentiality and the need to explain. “Let’s just say Nick and I always made sure to stay with him when the date rolled around, but for two years now he’s seemed reasonably fine. He assured us he would be alright, that we should go on our trip. It’s such a stupid coincidence that our wedding anniversary’s on the same date, and Nick was lucky to get a few days off…”

Guilt bleeds into Ilsa’s explanations while Robin clutches the phone to her ear, feeling terrible. She’s so exhausted, she can barely tell her feelings apart: sympathy, affection, shock, guilt… If only she had known…

“We’re taking the first plane out,” Ilsa decides. “Try to delay him going to the station until I’m there! The idiot is going to incriminate himself. I’ll try to get him on the phone and talk to him first thing in the morning. Don’t let him give a statement on his own!”

Panic surges through Robin.

“How am I going to do that?! He’ll be so mad that I called you, he won’t even listen to me!”

“Then make him listen,” Ilsa says assertively. “You can do this, Robin. He respects you. Please! He cannot lose the agency over this. It means everything to him. And I know it does to you as well. We’ll get him out of this. Together, alright?”

Determinedly, Robin nods to herself. “Yes. Yes, we will.”

After a few more instructions, Ilsa hangs up to pack and wake her unsuspecting husband.

In her flat in London, Robin shakily slips out of her clothes and into her bed, tired thoughts racing. One last look at her phone reveals no new messages, and she keeps herself from texting Cormoran to make sure he’s okay. She sets her alarm at seven which will give her barely three hours to sleep, but she needs to be at the office before Strike can do anything stupid. After all, he’s got everything to lose, and so has she.

Chapter Text

Dawn filters through the dirty skylight in Strike’s flat when he drags himself into his tiny bathroom. Unable to breathe through his nose, his face throbbing and sinister thoughts racing through his head, he’s barely slept, only dozed off a few times to be woken again by his own, open-mouthed snoring. Looking at his battered face in the bathroom mirror, he thinks he wants to puke: Underneath the splint and the medical tape, his face is mottled in purples hues, his eyes two puffy, dark-ringed slits. His head hurts, his nose hurts, his guts churn. But puking would be a bad, bad idea, and he swallows against the nausea and thinks that he deserves to feel like shit.

It’s nearly eight when he’s made it through a shower and downed a mug of scalding black tea, accompanied by ibuprofen. Running a hand through his still damp curls, he reaches for his coat and braces himself for the thirty minute trip to the police station. Ilsa will be mad at him, but he sees no reason to talk to her before speaking to Wardle. There’s really nothing she can do for him. The DI was there when Cormoran attacked Matthew - there’s no point in trying to tweak what happened or even refuse to make a statement. No running or hiding. He’s going to take the fall for this, and as much as it frightens him, he won’t delay the inevitable.

When Strike grabs his keys and his phone, he’s surprised to see its screen light up with dozens of missed calls and a flurry of text messages. He’d forgotten he’d muted it before crawling into bed. One text is from Wardle, asking if he’s going to come in today. The others, to his surprise, are all from Ilsa and Nick.

DON’T talk to Wardle until we’ve spoken! Call me!!!

Listen to her, Oggy! Don’t make this worse than it is!

In all likelihood, Strike’s brain is still not up to par, since he stares at the phone for several seconds, uncomprehending. Then something clicks into place, and blood rushes to his hurting face. He gnashes his teeth.

Robin .

XXX

Robin jumps in surprise when the office door is flung open. She’s in the tiny kitchen, making tea and hasn’t heard anyone approaching through the boiling water and the whistling of the kettle. The mug she’s been about to fill almost drops from her grasp.

Whipping around, she is faced with a version of Strike she’d last seen after going rogue on Niall Brockbank. Her heart skips a beat at the cold anger written across Strike’s disfigured face.

“You called Ilsa.”

It’s not a question, it’s a statement carved into ice.

Robin carefully sets the mug down and ignores the blush that is rising to her cheeks. Her voice sounds steady enough when she looks her partner in the eye.

“I did, yes, since you were not going to do it.”

Strike slams the door shut behind him so hard, it bounces back open, shuddering. He stabs a finger at Robin, coming closer.

“I told you not to.”

“I know,” Robin replies, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “But you need legal counsel, and you simply ignoring-”

“What I need and what I don’t need is my decision,” Cormoran cuts her off, green eyes blazing eerily in his bruised face. “And calling Ilsa on her anniversary in Paris in the middle of the night, when there’s nothing she can do-“ He shakes his head, snorting in apparent disbelief. “You had no right, Robin! No right!”

Cheeks crimson now, Robin knows he has a point, but she needs to make him see hers.

“If you talk to the police without counsel, you will end up making things worse than they already are! Ilsa knows the ropes. If she accompanies you, she will-“

“It won’t change a thing!” Strike barks. “I did what I did, and Wardle was there to see it. Fact. Nothing Ilsa can do. I will face the consequences of what I did, and none of this concerns you. It is my problem, not yours!”

“Oh, is it?”

Cormoran is standing right in front of her now, big, intimidating and too close, but Robin isn’t afraid. She’s angry.

“Is it?” she repeats. “Because the last time I checked the agency belonged to both of us, and if you’re going down for this, how long do you think I can keep the business going? How am I going to cover the caseload on my own? Pay Barclay and Hutchins? What about our reputation? This is my agency just as much as yours! My future, so it’s my problem, too!”

Cormoran stares back at her, breathing heavily, but Robin sees something shift in his expression. A flicker of insecurity that comes and goes.

“Whatever happens to me won’t affect you, Robin. Whatever money I’ll lose will come from my private account. If I go to prison, you’ll be fine running the agency without me. I’ll make it perfectly clear that you had no fault in this.”

His voice cracks a little when he continues.

“Stay out of this, Robin! You and Ilsa. Stay as far away from me as you can, and you’ll be fine.”

Strike is standing so close, Robin can smell the soap on him he must have used to scrub away last night’s blood and humiliation. The medical tape across his splint is attempting to peel off his face, and his lips are chapped from having to breathe through his mouth. Anger still radiates from him, but there’s something else underneath that she can sense in the way his body language clashes with the look in his eyes.

“Cormoran,” Robin says carefully. “I know you think you have to do this alone, but you don’t. You can’t! And I don’t want you to. We’re partners, remember?”

He blinks, shifting his stance, squared shoulders softening a little. Robin gives him no time to reply.

“And Ilsa is one of your oldest friends. And good at her job! And Nick-... We’re all here for you, and no matter how hard you push us away, we’re not going to back off.”

“She’s right, you know?”

A female voice chimes in behind Strike’s broad back, and when he turns to look, clearing the view for Robin, Ilsa Herbert is standing in the office, in a slightly wrinkled skirt and blouse, one hand on the handle of a small suitcase, intelligent eyes flashing behind her glasses.

“We’re not going anywhere, you big oaf. So you can stop being an idiot now and let me do my bloody job!”

Chapter Text

A susurrus of voices and office cling-and-clatter fills the Metropolitan Police Station when Strike and Ilsa approach Wardle’s desk. The general noise doesn’t die down, but several heads turn to look at Strike. His height and bulk in combination with his battered face can only partly be blamed for the attention; some of the officers know him, and their expressions turn gleeful when they recognize the private detective who’s interfered with their investigations every so often, gaining all the fame while making the Met look like amateurs. Strike spots DI Carver, openly sneering at him.

“Chairman of your fanclub?” Ilsa asks, not losing her professional poker face as they walk side by side.

Cormoran huffs but doesn’t have the energy to explain.

“Bloody hell, gooner,” Wardle greets him, swivelling on his rickety desk chair. “You look even worse than I expected!"

“Good morning to you, too, Wardle,” Strike grumbles.

“That your reinforcements? Ellacott 2.0?”

The DI gives Ilsa a head-to-toe scan, appreciating her blonde hair and luscious figure, and Cormoran bristles instinctively.

“She’s my lawyer, Wardle. Get it together.”

Unfazed, Ilsa steps forward and thrusts her business card at the policeman.

“Ilsa Herbert, representing Mr. Strike. Do you think we could take this somewhere more private?”

Wardle holds his hands up.

“Easy! No need to raise your hackles. I’m actually the only one here who’s on his side, you know? Follow me!”

He gets up and points them to an exit, taking the lead.

“Which is one of the reasons why I won’t be the one taking his statement. The other one being that I was a witness to the whole incident. This has got to be played by the book, I’m afraid. Cuntliffe’s lawyer already called and raised hell, saying that I was biased, and demanded that I be taken off the investigation entirely. Arsehole.”

They follow Wardle out of the open space office and into a hallway, leaving the snickering glares behind.

“So who’s taking the statement?” Ilsa asks.

“DI Vanessa Ekwensi,” Wardle answers, stopping at an interrogation room. “She’ll be taking the lead on this case.”

Cormoran nods in agreement. Vanessa is a great choice. She’s a good investigator, warmed up to Strike recently, no longer seeing his involvement as a hassle but as an asset. And she’s friends with Robin - a small detail that Matthew doesn’t know and will not find out if they’re careful.

“You know her?” Ilsa asks.

“Yeah. She’s okay.”

Wardle buzzes them into the room.

“Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee, a plastic surgeon?”

Wardle smirks at Strike, but under the snide humour, Cormoran senses seriousness. The policeman who’s formed an odd but important friendship with Strike is well aware of what is at stake.

Fresh off an airplane and up since the middle of the night, Ilsa could surely use a coffee, but she refuses with a firm shake of her head. Show no weakness.

Once more, Strike is glad to have her by his side.

“Make yourselves at home. Ekwensi will be here in a minute.”

Wardle leaves, leaving Strike and Ilsa alone in the interrogation room. It’s Met standard: a single metal table and three uncomfortable chairs in the middle, no windows and flimsy lighting, and a two-way mirror in one of the chipped walls painted in a color that couldn’t decide between pale green and sickly yellow. The room reeks of stale cigarette smoke and the sweat of guilty suspects.

Strike plops into a chair and ruefully pats the pack of Benson & Hedges in his coat pocket, but he’s not going to light up. Vanessa Ekwensi, as she’d let him know during one of their first encounters, has asthma, and even though Cormoran still suspects it was a lie, he’s not going to risk angering a potential ally.

Ilsa sits down beside him and looks at her notes. By the sheer amount of them, it’s clear that she must have set to work as soon as she’d ended the call with Robin, and she hadn’t stopped riddling him with questions ever since showing up at the agency.

Robin.

Cormoran still feels the shadow of a grudge against her, but it’s mostly dissipated. While he still nurses the opinion that she overstepped, he knows that she did so out of worry for him, and, deep down, he has to admit that she was right. Ilsa is a good lawyer and his best friend since childhood days, and he is in deeper legal shit than he’s ever been, with more to lose than ever before. Including Robin.

Scratching his chin, he looks at Ilsa.

“Ils,” he says ruefully, making her look up from her notes.

“Yes?”

“Thanks for coming.”

She gives him a fond smile that, for a moment, breaks the tight concentration on her face.

“You’re welcome.”

The blinds on the door rattle as it opens.

Vanessa Ekwensi, dark, graceful and poker-faced, enters the interrogation room. Petite and quiet as she is, Cormoran has learned not to underestimate the DI’s sharp observation skills and the relentless attention she lends to every case assigned to her. Businesslike, she slaps a file onto the table and sits down, no greeting extended, and places a small digital recorder between them.

“DI Vanessa Ekwensi,” she announces both to Cormoran and Ilsa and to the recording device,”interrogating Mr Cormoran Strike, accompanied by his legal counsel, Ms Ilsa Herbert, case number 61/7203.”

She folds her slender fingers on the tabletop and settles her dark, inscrutable gaze on Cormoran’s face. No comment on his injuries, no foreplay; she goes right into medias res.

“Mr Strike. Explain to me, in your own words, why you assaulted and injured Mr. Matthew Cunliffe last night.”

The interview continues much like Strike would have conducted it in his SIB days: factual, insistent, leaving no wiggle room for vagueness. Vanessa Ekwensi may not be as physically intimidating as Strike is, but her sharp questions and the authority she displays leave him exhausted and in a bit of a sweat when they are done. If she’s on his side, she does a bloody good job at hiding it.

Going over last night’s debacle in agonizing detail makes him feel even more terrible, for Robin’s sake mostly, and Ilsa has to keep him from plain-out admitting that he lost control and is the only one to blame. She intervenes when he’s in danger of incriminating himself, softening his statements and offering justification.

“Mr. Strike suffers from PTSD,” she explains with appropriate empathy, while Cormoran bristles inside. “The anniversary of his debilitating injuries sustained in Afghanistan triggered an emotional state he was not capable of managing properly. Mr. Cunliffe’s inexcusable behaviour pushed him over the edge.”

Vanessa nods, her beautiful face a block of black ice.

“You’re claiming he was mentally impaired at the moment of the attack?”

Cormoran hates this. Ilsa had told him that - other than pleading guilty and simply handing in his licence - their only viable strategy would be to blame his PTSD. Although he accepted his diagnosis long ago and, even while still recovering physically, diligently followed his therapist’s treatment plan to become a functional human being again, he still doesn’t like to advertise his mental health history. He worked hard to put his PTSD in the past, most of it at least, and he’s not thrilled about digging it all back up. And certainly not when it makes him look like a mentally unstable veteran who is prone to violent outbreaks.

“Yes, we do”, Ilsa confirms. “And I am happy to compile Mr. Strike’s medical records for you to confirm his mental health issues, if need be.”

Cormoran gnashes his teeth.

“Please do,” Ekwensi says curtly. Then she checks her notes. “Now, unless you have anything to add, I believe we-”

A knock on the door interrupts them, and Wardle enters with a sour face.

“Vanessa? Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Can it wait? We’re about to finish up.”

“No,” Wardle says firmly. “It can’t.” He casts Strike a cryptic side-glance.

“I’m coming.” The policewoman grabs her file, switches the recorder off and gets up. “I will be right back. Please excuse me.”

When she’s gone, Ilsa turns to Strike, and her serious face eases into concern.

“How’re you holding up, Corm?”

She puts down the pen she’s used to make notes and puts her hand on Strike’s forearm. Cormoran fights the urge to pull away, but this is Ilsa, one of his closest friends, and perhaps it’s not all that bad to feel her warm and reassuring palm against his skin that is prickling with nervous energy.

“I hate this,” he simply expresses his earlier sentiment and rubs his forehead. The medical tape itches, and his nose still hurts underneath the splint. “The whole PTSD thing, it’s… I wish we didn’t have to go there. I wish I hadn’t been so stupid.” He sighs. “I’m such an idiot.”

Ilsa squeezes his wrist.

“Yes, you are.” She smiles fondly at him. “And I appreciate the self-deprecation. But we have a strategy that could work, and if your PTSD diagnosis will get you out of this, we’ll use it.” She lowers her chin and looks at him over the rim of her glasses. “Got to be good for something that you got yourself blown up.”

Strike scoffs. And winces as it sends a stab of pain through his nose.

Abruptly, the door opens, and Vanessa Ekwensi is back, but she remains standing, and Strike sees Eric Wardle hovering in the hallway.

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” she says briskly. “But there’s been a new development.”

Ilsa frowns, and Cormoran, for an insane second, hopes that Matthew reconsidered and dropped the charges.

“We have to place you under arrest, Mr. Strike,” Ekwensi states formally.

Cormoran’s stomach drops.

“What?” Ilsa’s chair scrapes across the floor as she stands up, appalled. “We had an agreement that a formal arrest wouldn’t be necessary! My client has been cooperative and forthcoming. What happened?”

Wardle steps into the room, his dark eyes fixing Strike.

“Matthew’s lawyer claims you’re a flight risk, and, somehow, he got through with it. We have to detain you until your first court hearing.”

“Flight risk? Is this a joke?”

Ilsa is complaining loudly, but Cormoran zones out as she continues firing questions and accusations at Wardle and Ekwensi.

I’m going to prison, he thinks, and it feels as if he’s hit by a train he’s seen coming ever since his fist connected with Matthew Cunliffe’s face.

I’m going to prison, and Robin will never forgive me for this.

Chapter Text

Nervously, Robin sits down on the stool in front of the thick, scratched plexiglass that divides the prison’s visitors area into two worlds: one with worried-looking family and friends in street clothes and the other with inmates in washed-out denim. Clutching her notepad and a pen, she stares at the heavy slide door on the opposite side that frequently opens to let a prisoner enter or exit the cell block.

Her stomach does a little flip when Strike appears. A prison guard accompanies him, almost equaling him in height and bulk. Strike, clad in faded blue jeans, a denim shirt and a grey t-shirt underneath, obediently waits for the guard to gesture him to his designated cubicle before he sits down and greets Robin through the speech holes stenciled into the plexiglass.

“Thanks for coming,” he says hesitantly, and Robin cringes at the deep, yellowing bruises under his eyes. He looks like he hasn’t slept at all, his dark hair tousled and his stubble turning into a veritable beard. It’s been thirty-six hours since his arrest, and each of them is etched into Strike’s face.

“Ilsa will be here later,” Robin says, nervously, instead of a greeting. “Hopefully, with your release papers. She’s optimistic they’ll let you out. She’s at court right now, negotiating.”

One side of Cormoran’s mouth distorts dubiously.

“I doubt they’ll let me go. Did you know that Sarah Shadlock’s uncle is a retired judge?”

“Yeah.” Robin wrinkles her nose, disgusted and angry. “Barclay found that out. They’d have to have some kind of influence to take it this far.” She gestures at the prison in general. “But Ilsa has them review the flight risk claim. It’s ridiculous to base that on your international army connections and your single status. You have your own business! As if you’d simply abandon everything and flee the country to run from a minor criminal offense. Pffft.”

She puffs indignantly and is aware of exaggerating and talking too much. Strike is making her nervous, so completely unfamiliar in his prison outfit and with his large, bloodshot eyes looking guiltily at her. His broken nose, in combination with his physique and the prison surroundings should give him an air of menace, and they probably do to everyone else in the room, but not to Robin. To her, he looks forlorn and ashamed, and it hurts to see him this way.

“Ilsa said she’s trying to pull the disability card,” Strike says uncomfortably.

“Yes. This prison isn’t equipped for inmates with special needs, and neither are any other in the London area. At least not for amputees. Could be grounds enough to release you into house arrest.”

“Could be.” Cormoran shrugs, looking a little embarrassed. He’s still not used to discussing his disability so openly with Robin.

“Ilsa’s also worried about your safety in here. We all are.”

“I can take care of myself.” He says it defensively, as if she’s hit a sore spot. And, only just talking about his physical limitations, she probably has.

“I know that. We know that. But--” She has to force herself not to evade his intimidating scowl. “Ilsa had them let her check the prison roster. There are at least two people in here - inmates - who have every reason to hold a grudge against you. And they’ll have allies. Whereas you are a detective. Ex-SIB, even. No one is going to come to your aid if--”

“I can take care of myself,” he interrupts her, emphatically this time. “You don’t have to worry about me, Robin. You don’t!”

Whether his fierceness comes from defensiveness or the need to reassure her, she decides to let it go. Whatever Strike says, she will worry about him. But she knows that all he has left at this point is his pride, and she’s not going to curb his confidence any further.

“Okay,” she changes tack. “Then let’s talk about the battle plan. We have two angles to work, right?”

“Right.” Strike sits back again, and she sees his brain switching to ‘case mode.’

“One is Ilsa’s court strategy,” Robin continues. “You’re going to plead temporary mental incapacity due to PTSD and intoxication. That is, if Matthew doesn’t drop the charges.”

Cormoran winces. “Which isn’t likely. Unless we give him a reason.”

“Right. And that’s our second angle: Either convince him to drop the charges - that’s where I come in - or make him do it. I’ve already reached out to him and asked for a meeting. He’s agreed. That’s tomorrow, and I’m going to appeal to his good will and to his magnanimity.”

Robin rolls her eyes, already bristling at the thought of stooping in front of her ex. She swore that she’d never make herself small again in front of Matthew, but she’ll do it, for Strike and for her own future. She’ll do whatever is necessary.

Strike sighs guiltily.

“I’m sorry that you have to do this. I-- You shouldn’t have to do this.” He hangs his head. “Maybe we should reconsider. Maybe Ilsa should talk to him.”

“No.”

Determinedly, Robin shakes her head.

“No. If there’s anyone who can sway him, it’s me. You know it. I know it. I can do this.”

Reluctantly, Strike nods.

“Option number two,” Robin says, “find leverage against him. Something that’ll make him pull back out.”

“What could that be?”

Robin thinks. “I don’t know - yet. But Matthew has always been a pretender. A cheater, and a liar. There’s got to be something we can use against him.”

Strike purses his lips.

“Start with a background check, then. Work, finances, private life, including his fiancée. And surveillance? They can’t find out, or we’re in deep shit. But I think it could be worth it.”

Robin nods. She’s already expected him to suggest putting a tail on Matt.

“I agree. We don’t have much time, but we’ll make it count. I’ll put Barclay on him. Matthew’s never seen him or heard his name. And he’s good. After all, what do we have to lose?”

Strike makes a face, somewhere between devastation and defiance.

“More than I ever wanted to put on the line, Robin.” He closes his bruised eyes for a moment, then looks at her again. “I’m so sorry for putting you through all this.”

It’s hard not to lose her composure under that pained, deeply regretful gaze. It’s hard not to get angry. It’s hard not to cry. It’s hard not to tell him that she’d forgive him anything. That she already has.

“I know,” she says instead, as firmly and genuinely as she can. Her hand twitches forward, fingers stubbing against the plexiglass, where his larger one is resting, knuckles still bruised. “I know. So let’s focus on getting you out of here so you can make it up to me. Yeah?”

Jaw working, Strike looks away for a moment and clears his throat.

“Yeah,” he finally mumbles, so big and so small on the other side of the glass. “Yeah.”

xxx

Robin is back at the office, discussing Strike’s case with Ilsa, when they both look up at a quick rap on the agency’s door. Without waiting for an invitation, Wardle steps inside, looking his usual mix of fed-up and fatigued.

“Ellacott.” He nods at Robin. “Mrs. Herbert.”

Robin’s heartbeat picks up. Wardle never shows up personally unless it’s for a very good reason. “What’s going on, Eric? Any news on Strike?”

The detective looks around as if scanning the office for unwanted listeners, then he squints at the women with slitted eyes.

“Not really,” he says ominously. Hands in his jacket pockets, he motions at Ilsa. “Not as long as she’s here.”

Ilsa frowns. “Excuse me?”

Still jet-lagged and not as familiar with the Met detective as Robin, Ilsa doesn’t catch on right away, but Robin does. She rises to her feet, snatching Ilsa’s half-empty coffee mug from her grip and nudging her to rise from her chair.

“Oh, Mrs. Herbert was just about to leave! For court. Weren’t you, Ilsa?”

“What-?”

Her confused friend blinks, looks at Robin, then at Wardle, and then the shoe drops.

“Oh! Yes. Yes!” Ilsa gets up and reaches for her coat slung about the back of her chair. “And I’m late already!” Pointlessly, she looks at her watch. “God, I’m… I’ll talk to you later, Robin, alright?”

Hastily, she slips into her coat, grabs her handbag and briefcase and rushes out the door, blonde hair bobbing about her pretty face, and throws a last look at Robin before she’s out, half warning, half incitement.

Call me.

When the door is shut and they hear Ilsa’s heels click down the stairwell, Robin turns her full focus on Wardle. He’s pulled a chair in front of her desk and plops down, leaning forward on his elbows.

“What have you got, Eric?”

“Not much,” he says, but there’s a glint in his eyes. “I’m not part of the investigation, and I don’t have access to the case files. Vanessa is going strictly by the book and keeping me away from any intel - which is the right decision. We can’t raise any alarm bells with Cunliffe’s legal team. It’d only make things worse if they’d accuse us of compromising the investigation.”

Nervously, Robin twirls a pen in her fingers.

“But you’ve got something. So what is it?”

Wardle’s deep baritone lowers to a conspiratorial burr.

“Cunliffe’s medical file. Something was off when they treated him in A&E.”

Robin frowns and cannot help a flicker of worry lighting up in her chest.

“What does that mean, ‘something was off’. Is he sick?”

“I don’t know.” Wardle leans back a little, shrugging. “I only heard that it could factor into the case. In what way? No fuckin’ clue.” He huffs. “Maybe we’re lucky. Maybe he’s contracted an STD sleeping around, which would not sit well with his fiancée and her uncle at court. Maybe he’ll drop dead of a brain tumor in two weeks and spare us the hassle.”

When Robin gives him a dark look, he rolls his eyes and raises his hands.

“Look, Ellacott. I don’t have any details, but Vanessa went full Ice Queen on me when I asked her about it, so it might be important.”

Robin’s mind is already ticking through a dozen scenarios, good and bad.

“But if it’s evidence that could help Strike, and the police has got it, that’s good for us, right? Couldn’t Ilsa demand they clue her in? Doesn’t she have the right to, as Strike’s attorney?”

Wardle loudly scratches his stubbled jaw.

“Depends on the evidence. But whether it’s good or bad for Strike - what is Ilsa supposed to tell Vanessa when asked where she got the tip? She’d have to reveal her source, which would be me, which would be-”

“Bad, yes. Very bad.” Robin puts her face into her hands, rubbing her tired eyes in frustration. “It would compromise the case-”

Wardle grunts. “And me.”

“And you. And they’d take the investigation away from Vanessa and your precinct, and we’d be completely out of the loop.”

“Exactly.”

Robin groans. On the one hand, she wishes Wardle hadn’t leaked this new piece of information to her. Because he did, they can’t use it. On the other hand, the detective must be certain she never would have thought of investigating that particular angle - Matt’s financial records, yes, and his private affairs, but not his medical history - and she has to admit Wardle’s right. Matthew, for as long as she knew him, had been a drama queen with every little flu, but he had, in fact, always been healthy as a horse. And why would his health matter when it came to defending Strike‘s case?

Once more, she feels misplaced worry creep into her thoughts. What if Matt was sick? There was only one way to find out.

“Right. We can’t reveal you as the source,” she reiterates to Wardle, “and you can’t get us the actual information we need. Which means we have to obtain it ourselves. Make it look like we found it as part of our own investigation if it amounts to anything.”

Wardle scowls. “And how will you do that?”

Robin purses her lips, wondering if she can trust Wardle; if she compromises him or the case if she shares her idea with him. The Met detective, as casual as he acts, is a police officer to the core with a strong moral code. But he came here on his own time, on his own risk, bending the rules for Strike although it could damage his career. Robin isn’t entirely sure at what point in the past few years Strike’s and Wardle’s reluctant cooperation turned into a true friendship, but apparently it has.

“I have an idea,” she says to Wardle, still a bit nervous. “I know someone who works at the hospital where Matt and Strike were treated that night. He can help us get a hand on those medical records.”

Astonished, Wardle sits up straight.

“Who?”

“Nick Herbert.” Robin’s pulse quickens. “Ilsa’s husband.”