Work Text:
It’s always that bit harder to prove someone isn’t cheating, so when Robin walks into the office that afternoon there’s a spring in her step, her face illuminated by something more than the light filtering through the blinds.
He appears in the doorway of his office, mug in hand, leaning against the frame for a moment as he looks across at her. “You’re wearing the night shift well.” He crosses over to the kitchenette, turning back to face her as he flicks on the kettle. “How’d it go?”
“Good. Got everything I need.” Her smile broadens as he gets out two mugs, inclining one towards her. “Except that.”
He delves deeper into the cupboard. “This calls for a Friday biscuit.”
Robin smiles, reaching into the tin. “We need to up our celebration bar. Friday biscuits come out a lot.”
Biscuit rationing is an office policy they introduced with firm resolve, and seem to be dismantling with equal commitment.
“What’s the story then?” he asks, between mouthfuls.
“Nothing. No love notes in the in-tray, no footsies under the desk, no nightly rendezvous by the photocopier. Her dark secret is she loves the job.”
She thinks of all the evenings she’s spent working, not just to avoid going home, but to be here, somewhere that she’s always felt at home. Doing something she loves, and doing it well - she understands, she thinks, the pull that can have.
“Also, she loves a chat.” Robin affects a well-to-do accent and notes the crinkling round his eyes as she does so. “‘My team are great, but between you and me, it’s only when they’ve gone home there’s enough peace to concentrate.’ And then she talked to me for forty minutes. I had to stop hoovering every two minutes because she’d start up again.”
That crinkling deepens as he laughs, and she continues.
“Everyone I spoke to at the cleaning agency corroborates that. All those late nights working are exactly that, and we can prove it.”
He nods as he stirs the tea. “How’d it go down with Mr H?”
“He said - ” Robin takes out her phone and makes a point of scrolling through, “‘You’ve given me my life back.’”
“Nice. Very testimonial-worthy, I like it.” He smiles. “You’ve done well.”
Robin sits herself at the desk, the PC starting up with its usual shuddering groan. “I’ll get his invoice sorted.”
“You can leave it; we’ve got a new temp starting Thursday.”
“I’ll do it, might as well strike while the iron’s hot.” She grins up at him as he hands her her tea. “That could be your tag line.”
“I’ll put it on the door,” he says, eyes still glinting as he rests on the desk opposite her.
She holds out her mug towards him. “Cheers. To happy endings.”
He lifts his mug in response, although the toast goes unechoed.
“She’d rather spend her evenings with a spreadsheet and he hired us to check up on her. It’s not exactly rosy.”
“Cynic.”
How many times did she prioritise working over her relationship? She thinks - not with regret, but with empathy - how often clients’ needs seemed to be the more pressing. She thinks of Mrs H working alone in the office, and wonders if the parallel holds strictly true.
He smiles as he sips his tea. “The truth is, we’re not in the right line of work for happy endings. Happy people don’t need detective agencies.” He looks over his mug at her. “But we give people answers, and they can move forward.”
Robin’s mouth twists, wryly. “As Ilsa said to me, ‘The truth will set you free.’”
She is moving forward, she thinks. Mostly. She can make decisions without each one feeling like a battle or a disappointment; work is going well, and she doesn’t have to apologise to anyone for that; she has friends that know and care about her, not some long ago Robin she used to be.
Except sometimes she wonders if she’s really going anywhere, or if she’s stuck, holding fast to something not really hers, waiting for life to prove that just because her marriage and every other case end the same way, there’s still hope.
Maybe she’s thinking out loud, or maybe it’s written across her face, or maybe he’s just following her train of thought in that way he does, but when he says it, it surprises her all the same.
“There’s someone better out there for you, Robin”.
For one panicked moment Robin thinks he means, better than him, and it’s like a stab in the gut, both that he should know (although come on, detective, what did she think?) and that he should dismiss it so casually. Then sense kicks in and she realises, better than Matthew, and relief floods over her so hard that she half thinks she might break down and sob.
He notices (of course he notices) because consternation flickers over his face.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t - “ he starts, haltingly.
She shakes her head. “You didn’t. It’s fine, I - ”
I what? I’m not ready to move on because I never can see past my business partner?
“Even things you’re glad to let go leave holes,” he says, gently.
How did this happen? They were talking about a case, and suddenly they’re not, not at all.
“I don’t regret - Matt - I, I knew the answer, even before the clues,” she says, slowly. “But you’re right. We see all the things that go wrong. That’s got to wear away your trust.”
“You’re talking to someone who held on to the idea that love conquers all for a long sixteen years, so maybe I’m not as jaded as you think.” He thinks for a moment. “Not by the job, anyway.”
“By relationships.” She’s pushing, she knows it, but it’s so rare that he mentions Charlotte. It’s become a thing they have in common, ending life-shaping relationships they’d spent years trying to make work.
“Not all of them.”
There’s a moment then, when he holds her gaze across the desk, and she thinks he might say more, all those words he carries round with him slowly unspooling.
“Anyway - ” he says, breaking the moment, and Robin takes his cue and walks over to the kitchenette.
“They’re breeding,” she says, adding her mug to the collection stacking up by the sink.
She’s seen him rinse his cup under running water a hundred times, so she’s not sure what makes him head across and fill up the bowl, bubbles and all.
He gives her a sly glance. “Tell you what, when Mr H throws in his ‘happily ever after’ bonus, I’ll get us a dishwasher.”
“So my contribution to the business is to get you out of the washing up.” Robin rolls her eyes at him as she picks up a tea towel, although inside her brain a little echo has got stuck on ‘us.’
“Loading the dishwasher is still washing up,” he grins, handing her a mug still warm and gleaming with soap suds.
Robin fights to suppress the warm thread of domesticity stealing around her heart.
“We should get super-efficient Simon back, he was good with the washing up.”
“Like all our best temps, moved on to bigger and better things,” he rues, and then, catching her eye. “Or here growing cynical with me.”
The pull of that thread again, and Robin turns her full attention to the biscuit tin, giving herself a moment to subdue the smile softening her eyes with something more than merriment.
Silence stretches out between them, warm and comfortable. He tips out the water and turns back to her.
“You have to find the right people to trust. It takes - ” it’s a tiny pause, almost imperceptible - “time.”
“You trust me, don’t you?”
“With my life.” A smile threatens to break out as he cocks an eyebrow in her direction. “Not so much with the Friday biscuits.”
She laughs, shamefacedly brushing crumbs from her sweater, still processing ‘with my life’ that he skipped past so matter-of-factly. She looks up at him.
“You could lose hope, doing this.”
“Or you could not.”
She thinks about everything they’ve both survived to get to this point, how much hope they’ve each needed. How they keep believing - keep each other believing - that they can change things. She thinks of all the tiny moments that brighten her day, light striped through darkness across the office floor.
“Do you still believe in love?”
He takes the tin from her, that half-smile again and even though he turns away afterwards and it’s clear the tea break is done, for now, when he answers he’s looking her steadily in the face.
“I do.”