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Annie knew it was River before she opened the door.
Not because he knocked in any particular way — but she hadn’t heard from him all afternoon, it was 6.45 on a Thursday, and who else would it be.
She opened it.
“Oh.” She smiled faintly. “Hi.”
River stood there with his jacket half-unzipped, hair still damp from rain that had already stopped, expression caught somewhere between relief and irritation. Not at her. At himself, probably.
“Hi,” he said. “Sorry. I—”
“It’s fine,” she said automatically, stepping back. “Come in.”
He hesitated for half a second — not enough to be rude, just enough to check he was welcome — then came inside closing the door carefully behind him like he always did. As if doors mattered. As if they needed securing.
Annie watched him shrug off his jacket, place it neatly over the back of the chair, and stand there with his hands in his pockets like he was waiting for instructions.
Which told her everything.
“Long day?” she asked.
He huffed a breath that might have been a laugh. “Something like that.”
She didn’t ask anything else. She’d learned — slowly — that River didn’t always arrive with words attached. Sometimes he just… arrived.
And that was the whole point.
She turned back toward the kitchen.
“I was just about to make soup,” she said. Then, glancing over her shoulder, amended, “Soup feels a bit… insufficient.”
His mouth twitched. “I don’t require feeding.”
“You always require feeding,” she said mildly. “Sit.”
He did.
Annie moved around the kitchen on autopilot — familiar motions. She took stock of the fridge with mild satisfaction. It was better stocked these days. Not for him. Just… because he kept being here.
Pasta. Eggs. Cheese. Something green that was still alive.
Good enough.
She felt him watching her — not in a heavy way, just present. Quieter than usual.
Contained.
“You okay?” she asked, not turning around.
“Yes,” he said, too quickly.
She hummed, accepting the lie for what it was: temporary.
“Right,” she said, setting a pan on the hob.
They ate perched at the counter, steam fogging the window, the kind of meal that didn’t demand conversation. River relaxed incrementally, shoulders lowering, jaw unclenching by degrees she’d learned to spot.
Afterwards, she took their bowls to the sink and nodded toward the sofa.
“I’m putting Bake Off on in ten minutes. No negotiations.”
He blinked. “What?”
“It’s Thursday,” she said, like this explained everything. “That’s what I watch on Thursdays.”
“You didn’t warn me.”
“You weren’t invited,” she said smiling at him. “You turned up.”
That got a proper smile — brief, but real.
“I can leave,” he offered, even as he leaned back into the chair like a man who absolutely was not going anywhere.
She glanced at him. Took him in. The set of his shoulders. The way he’d made it here and then stalled, unsure what he was allowed to want.
“No,” she said. “You can stay. But Bake Off stays too.”
“What if…” he started.
“I don’t want to hear it.”
He laughed then — quiet, surprised — and some of the tightness eased out of him. Not all of it. But enough.
They sat side by side on the sofa a few minutes later, the opening theme playing.
Annie tucked her feet under herself, blanket already within reach.
River sat very still.
She noticed, because she noticed everything.
“You can relax,” she said. “It’s just cake.”
“I’m relaxed,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow.
He sighed and leaned back, conceding the point.
Halfway through the episode, she felt him shift closer — not touching, exactly, just… aligning. Like he was matching his breathing to the room.
Good, she thought. That’s better.
On the screen, one of the contestants’ sponges collapsed as they lifted it from the tin.
Annie winced in sympathy.
“That’s the thing with baking,” she said, more to the room than to him.
River glanced over. “What?”
She nodded, folding her legs beneath her. “You’d think it would just be maths. Recipes, timings, temperatures. Very controlled.”
She tipped her head, thoughtful.
“But some days you just… don’t have the feel for it.”
A beat.
“That’s what I tell myself when my cakes come out flat, anyway.”
River huffed a quiet laugh — barely there — and leaned back into the sofa.
Annie didn’t say anything else.
She just covered him in the other end of the blanket without looking.
He exhaled like she’d loosened something without touching it.
They watched in companionable quiet. At some point, without commentary, his arm came to rest along the back of the sofa. And then around her shoulder. A quiet tug towards him. She exhaled and let herself settle against him.
After a while, he spoke — quiet, almost surprised.
“Thanks,” he said.
“For what?”
“For letting me be… like this.”
She glanced at him, then back to the screen. “You turned up,” she said, “that counts.”
He nodded, accepting it.
They watched for another minute — a judge talking too gently about structure, someone else panicking over icing.
Then Annie said, very softly, without looking at him,
“Are you staying?”
There was a pause.
Not hesitation — consideration. Like he was checking what he was allowed to want.
“Please,” he said.
Not dramatic. Not loaded.
Just honest.
She reached for the remote and forwarded through the adverts.
“Okay,” she said.
And that was enough.