Chapter Text
“…temperature-wise still reasonably mild and feeling quite humid certainly through the morning…” the silent TV broadcast interrupted the discussion of two people. One of them turned off the sound of TV.
“Stop doing this,” the sound of broadcast is back. “It’s my TV, thank you,” woman’s voice was slightly irritated but at the same time she certainly had fun.
It was an early morning when Jackson Lamb came to Catherine Standish to ask her back to Slough House.
“Come on, Standish,” he took the TV remote and shut the sound one more time, “I know you wanna back. My office looks bad, these pricks don’t know how to function at work without you, there’s no one to buy me a proper bottle of whiskey! There’s a mess! Don’t be such a—” Lamb abruptly shut up when someone loudly and unevenly knocked on the front door.
Catherine wasn’t expecting for anyone. Lamb has been there for the past twenty minutes, her neighbors are usually at work this time of the day (and she was still unemployed because of Lamb, begging her to come back), River has his own copy of keys and usually he tells her if he is about to visit her. Moreover, he has to be on his way to the office.
Behind the door’s glass she could see blurred tall but not massive young man’s figure, he was leaning on the doorpost with his body.
“Ah. That’s River,” said Catherine. He must have had no time to let her know he’s coming.
“Right— wait! Why the fuck he is not at Slough House?” shouted Lamb from the kitchen but she didn’t hear him.
Sometimes River comes to help her, to ask for help or just spend some nice time here, bringing her favorite biscuits and tea. Sometimes it’s flowers. He needed a loving family during his whole life and she became his kind of adopted family. She appreciated this and did her best to make him feel like home.
“Hi, Cathe—” she had no time to greet his bloodied figure in response before he collapsed on her doorstep.
“River!” screamed Catherine when he fell unconscious in a front of her.
“What’s g— get off!” Lamb pushed Standish away and sat rapidly on his senile knees to check River’s pulse. It was steady and not so fast, “fucking hell, does he actually have days without the blood outside his body?”
“Check the pupils, Jackson. And the head. My God, River, what happened to you,” it was the rhetorical question.
“Looks fine,” he checked the pupils and put the phone with flashlight back in a coat pocket, “Come on, Standish, help me to drag this useless body inside if you don’t mind to stain your white carpet with his blood. If you do, then we just leave him outside,” suggested Lamb. He didn’t seem joking. Catherine preferred to leave this inappropriate comment without any reaction.
River’s face was a bloody mess - the bruised jaw, his nose was very possibly broken; dried blood in his light hair, that recently were blond and became more ginger now. Neither Standish nor Lamb knew if there were any damages to his ribs and other parts of this young unconscious body.
The clothes were a bit dirty and torn in some places as if he fell on the ground, possibly not just once; hands scratched and bruised too.
“We need to put him on a sofa. The floor is cold,” she changed the dragging position - River was a heavy man for a small woman like Catherine.
“Did he say anything?” asked Lamb with a groan when they were dragging River for one more time to the living room now.
“No. He just collapsed when I opened the door. No idea what happened to him,” frowned Catherine. Her mouth was dry and pulse faster than normally; she began to panic.
“Christ’s sake, Cartwright. You’re supposed to do a simple job in the evening and then back in the morning to finish paper stuff, why the hell are you in blood again…” Lamb wiped his own forehead with a sleeve and sat on a dinner chair next to the sofa. He was slightly shaking - a massive physical activity for a man of his age and health. River definitely wasn’t a lightweight person.
“I’ll bring the ice and the water,” said Standish and went to the kitchen, “keep an eye on him and don’t let to get upright if he wakes now.”
River was unconscious only for few minutes but it felt like hours. He found himself on a sofa, surrounded by blue walls and Lamb’s gloomy face looking at him.
“Oh, welcome fucking back,” shouted Lamb in River’s ear. Lamb exhaled barely noticeable but River caught that slight panic in his voice.
“Jackson!” Catherine came to the living room with ice packs, a glass of water and ibuprofen. She gave River the pill and the glass, holding it in her hand so he couldn’t drop it. “Morning, River. Please, let us know if you feel wrong, we’ll get you to the A&E. We need to know what happened,” she put the ice pack wrapped in a towel to his bruised face.
River didn’t answer, holding the cold towel to his face.
“What happened, Cartwright?” Lamb was pushy.
“Could you just— wait for a bit,” he winced and closed his eyes, trying to abstract from the dull pain in the face and body.
River felt like he is a guilty child that took a fight and ended up lying in a front of a loving mother and a grumbling father. The family.
“Cartwr—”
“Oh, shut up, Jackson! Don’t you see he’s obviously beaten up? We don’t even know how badly,” said Catherine. “Actually, leave this room for a while, I need to check River up. Go, go,” she gestured.
The arguing family, thought River. If he wouldn’t be in pain he would’ve smiled.
“Fine, mother Teresa,” Lamb left the room, “but I’ll be back.” Catherine didn’t pay attention for that.
“River, I want to help you but you should tell me what happened and if you need a proper medical help. You genuinely don’t look good and… you fainted on my doorstep,” she looked at his face with worry.
“ ‘m sorry. Didn’t want it to happen.”