Work Text:
“Come with me.”
The words were out of his mouth before he realised he was going to say them. Strike froze. Robin froze.
“Um, what?” Robin scrubbed at the tears rolling down her face.
“Come with me.” His voice was low, urgent. Through the haze of exhaustion, alcohol and wearing-off painkillers, he struggled for coherent thought. He only knew that the feel of her in his arms, the scent of her perfume, had made leaving without her impossible suddenly.
“Just...leave? Now?”
“Come back to London. Come back to work. Come back to...me.”
They stared at one another, exhausted dark eyes meeting miserable grey-blue ones, looking for answers.
“All right,” Robin heard herself say. She saw the fierce relief replace the fear in his gaze. He grabbed her hand, and they started down the stairs. Behind them, the music faded.
Limping heavily, holding her hand in his bandaged one, light-headed with fatigue, alcohol and emotion, Strike pulled Robin along the path towards the gate, towards the waiting Mercedes. He hoped to goodness Shanker was there, and awake, and ready to go.
“Wait.” At the gate, Robin drew back. Strike turned to her. His dream, his brief euphoria, evaporated. She wasn’t coming.
“I—” She hesitated, looked back. He let go of her hand.
“He doesn’t deserve you, Robin.” His voice, stung with hurt, was harsher than he’d intended. How could he ever compete with the handsome, able-bodied young accountant who seemed to have an emotional hold over Robin that Strike couldn’t break?
Her eyes flashed to his. “I’m not thinking about Matthew,” she told him, her voice clear and cold. He knew at once he’d said the wrong thing. Again. “My family. Mum—” Tears filled her eyes again. “I can’t just run. They’ll be gutted. I need to explain.”
Strike stepped back, fuzzy-headed, able only to comprehend that she wasn’t coming with him. Back on the large patio, the doors had swung open. They could see Linda and Michael, Matthew and Stephen emerge, looking for Robin. They weren’t far away enough to go unnoticed for long.
“I’ll just go, then.”
“Robin!” Matthew’s voice was authoritarian. The flash of anger in Robin’s eyes gave Strike a moment of hope, but she turned away from him.
“Robin—” She turned back. Strike regarded her quietly. “Whatever you decide, you’ll come back to work?”
She gazed at him, her stormcloud eyes troubled. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she whispered. “Just let me sort—” her arm waved, encompassing her wedding, her new husband, her anxious parents “—this.”
He nodded, and they turned away. Strike let himself out though the side gate. Robin hoisted up her skirts and set off slowly back towards her wedding.
...
“What the fuck were you doing, running to him during our first dance?” On the hotel patio, Matthew was tight-lipped with fury but Robin, who knew him better than anyone, could see the fear behind his anger, fear that he was, once and for all, losing her.
She turned to her parents. “Can we just have a minute?”
Stephen looked swiftly from Robin to Matthew and back again, and turned to usher their parents away. He shepherded them back in through the doors, and then turned back and moved to sit on one of the patio chairs, out of earshot but within view. Robin was abruptly and tearfully grateful for her big brother’s support and tact. Stephen had always been her ally, her protector.
Shooting an angry glance at Stephen, Matthew took Robin’s arm and tried to steer her away, but she stood firm.
“Come with me, Rob, please.” Matthew begged.
How different it sounded in his northern accent. How different the pleading looked in his anxious hazel eyes. How differently she felt when this man, the one who she would once have done anything for, asked.
“I’m going back to London,” she told him quietly.
“To him?” Matthew practically spat the word.
“To work. To my own life. To my future.”
“With him.”
“Professionally, yes.”
“And personally?”
Robin hesitated. “I don’t know, Matt. Maybe.” The feelings that had exploded in her chest when Strike hugged her were too new and raw to be analysed properly. She could still catch the faint scent of him, occasionally, on her hair. He hadn’t smelled great, frankly, after all he’d been though in the last forty-eight hours, but it was still uniquely him.
“So that’s what this is. You have been having an affair.”
Robin sighed. “No, Matthew,” she said, resignedly. “He’s never so much as laid a finger on me.” Until just now, she thought. “But you probably won’t believe that, and I’m not sure I care any more.”
She turned away from him, her eyes seeking her brother, and Stephen rose from his chair.
Matthew grabbed her arm again. “Rob, please—”
“Let go of me, Matt.”
Matthew hesitated. Stephen stepped forward. Matthew let go.
“So that’s it?” he said dully. “You’re just going to throw it all away?”
Robin turned back to gaze up at him, absurdly good-looking in his suit. “You threw it all away ages ago, Matthew. And no, I’m not talking about your affair.” Behind her, she heard Stephen’s sharp intake of breath at her words. “I’m talking about your utter lack of respect for me and my job, that I only really understood when I found out you’d deleted Cormoran’s message. We’re finished. I’m going to go and find Mum.”
“Robin—”
Stephen stepped forward again, but Robin held up a hand and he stopped. It was abruptly abundantly clear to him that his little sister could fight her own battles, and win them.
“I’m not changing my mind. I’m going to talk to Mum.” And she walked away, leaving Matthew to stare after her, not quite bold enough to give chase with Stephen stood there, over six foot of solid-built Yorkshireman with a sister to protect.
Inside, Linda was waiting anxiously, and Robin allowed herself to be ushered into a side room by her parents. The whole room was watching the drama unfold, murmuring and gossiping, wondering what had happened to the battered detective, where the handsome groom was, why the bride, who had looked so tense and miserable all day, was suddenly calm.
“I’m sorry, Mum,” Robin said at once, before her father could even close the door to the little meeting room they found themselves in. “I don’t want to be married to Matthew. I should have called it off sooner. I’m sorry you’ve spent so much money on it all—”
Her father shook his head. “It’s not about the money, Robin,” he said quietly. “We want you to be happy.”
Tears had filled Linda’s eyes. “And safe,” she whispered. “Robin, love, are you sure you want to throw away the last ten years for that man?”
Robin gazed at her. How to make her mother understand? She absently rubbed at the scar throbbing along her arm.
“That man, as you call him, has given me the career I always wanted,” she said quietly. “And he’s done it by believing in me when no one else did.”
“We believe in you, love,” Michael said.
Robin shook her head. “Not in the same way,” she said. “You think I’m delicate, that I need looking after, can’t make the right decisions about my life and my career.”
“We were trying to protect you!” Linda exclaimed.
Robin turned to her. “I know, Mum, and thank you. But you were doing it by trying to decide what was best for me, by keeping me at home and not encouraging me go out and forge my career and find myself again. I understand why, but I need to be me now.”
“And Strike is the answer to that?” Michael looked at his daughter, trying to understand.
“Professionally, yes. He supports me and believes in me. He’s going to make me a junior partner—”
“He sacked you!” Linda cried.
“To protect me from the Shacklewell Ripper, to get me away from the case,” Robin explained patiently. “And then he drove all this way to ask me to come back and work for him. With him.”
Her mother and father looked at one another.
“And what about Matthew?” Michael asked.
Robin sighed. “He’s nothing to do with this,” she replied. “He’s my past, not my future.”
“And you and Strike...?” Linda asked.
Robin looked at her mother. “I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “I’m sorry, Mum. I’m sorry about all of this.”
Her mother shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she replied. “Your father and I will sort it all out. What do you want to do?”
Robin gazed out of the window. “I want to go back to London,” she said. She wondered what Strike would do when he got back.
“Then go,” Michael replied. He fished in his pockets and handed her his car keys. “The house key is on there too. You can go back home for the night, or you can drive straight to London. I can come down on the train and collect the car in a couple of days. Just go.”
Robin gave him a grateful look. “Thanks, Dad,” she said. She took the proffered keys. She didn’t miss the way her parents shrugged helplessly at one another as she turned to open the door.
When she stepped out of the little room, Stephen was waiting. He looked at the keys in her hand. “Come up to our room, mine and Jenny’s,” he said. “You can get changed there. I’ll fetch your case and work out a way to sneak you out.”
Robin squeezed his hand gratefully, painfully aware of the many eyes on her. “Thanks, big bro,” she replied. Stephen nodded, and placed his hand in the small of her back, shepherding her across the room to the stairs, his large presence deterring anyone from approaching.
...
Strike slept almost the entire way back to London, exhausted, drunk, miserable. Shanker drove in grim silence. He had no idea what had occurred at the wedding, but Strike’s prolonged absence had raised his hopes that, despite his old friend’s earlier protestations, Robin would be accompanying them back to London. The burly detective’s grim expression on climbing into the car had precluded any discussion, and his dark brooding had turned to snoring long before they reached the motorway.
Almost four hours’ sleep had barely taken the edge off Strike’s exhaustion. He stumbled from the car on Denmark Street, promised to settle the money with Shanker as soon as possible, staggered up to his flat. He paused only to remove his crumpled suit jacket, empty his bladder, down a large whisky and detach his prosthesis before collapsing across his bed where he sank into blissful oblivion for the night.
Early morning light and a severe dip in his nicotine levels dragged him from sleep at six. He groaned as he came to slowly. He felt, and probably looked and smelled, like death. His face ached. His head ached. His hand was sore. Every muscle he’d used in his battle with the Shacklewell Ripper had seized up. His back hurt from hours in the car.
At least the nicotine craving could be addressed relatively easily. Strike rolled off the bed, cursing at the pain, fumbling for his discarded jacket, and hopped, painfully and slowly, to the windowsill.
He lit a cigarette and pushed the window open, sitting down on the sill. Cool, welcome air washed over him. He sighed and gazed out at early morning London.
He had harboured half a hope that Robin might have followed him, that he might wake up and find her next to him. Idiot, he told himself roughly, smoking and scowling. What on earth had possessed him to ask her to run away with him? Too much alcohol, too much emotional overload from the last few weeks. At least she’d had the sense not to come.
He hoped he hadn’t deterred her from returning to work with his reckless exhortation. Would she have second thoughts, now? Would she want to come back to work for him when he had declared that he wanted more from her? How could he have been so stupid?
He sighed and lit another cigarette from the end of the first, wishing he had a coffee.
Over the next two hours he went through a slow and painful routine. Shower. Coffee. Cigarette. Painkillers. Another coffee. Another cigarette. Find some clean clothes. Attach prosthesis. Get dressed.
Hunger drove him from the building eventually. He limped slowly to the nearest convenience store, aching all over, the tablets having barely touched his pain. He bought the bare essentials - bread, milk, eggs, bacon - and limped back to his flat to make himself something to eat. At least he looked and smelled a little more human now, although a glance in the mirror had told him his black eyes were turning an impressive shade of purple already.
He pulled himself slowly up the stairs, carrying his bag, cursing under his breath each time he had to move his weight onto his prosthesis. More painkillers after food, he decided.
He reached the landing outside the office and paused, pale and sweating, before turning to ascend the final flight.
Robin was sat halfway up, in casual shorts and a T-shirt, waiting for him.
Shock, disbelief, delight, fear, caution. Strike stared at her, unable to quite believe she was here.
“Hi,” she said softly. “You look like shit.”
He barked a laugh. “Hi,” he replied. “You look...amazing.” His hungry eyes sought her left hand. No rings. His stomach lurched.
She indicated the bag dangling from his hand. “Breakfast?”
He nodded mutely.
“Great.” She stood and came down the stairs towards him to take the bag from him, peering into it. “I’ll cook.”
She turned and set off up the stairs to his flat. Nonplussed, his battered, aching heart daring to hope, Strike followed.