Chapter Text
Jackson Lamb hoped he was dead.
He hoped he was dead – hoped that River Cartwright finally accomplished what countless KGB operatives, years of alcohol abuse, more cigarettes than grains of sand at the beach, and Diana Taverner couldn’t; he sent Jackson Lamb to hell.
Lamb was only half right.
Jackson Lamb wasn't dead, but he was in hell. That was the only explanation for the too-bright lights, Catherine Standish leaning over him with a concerned look etched on her face, and his hair apparently having been fucking washed. At least he had been unconscious for that. Someone had shaved part of his hair away, and he wondered if he should shave it all off, become another of the many anonymous, older men wandering around London.
Catherine had cried when she saw him awake. He bloody hated that. He hated the way it made him feel, hated that he didn't hate it as much as he thought he would. Hated that he couldn't take his eyes off her face while she adjusted the bed so he could sit up. Hated the way she held a straw to his lips, and he didn't have the energy to ask if it was whiskey.
He hated it all.
Dander hadn't cried at least. But she had looked really fucking relieved. He hated that, too. Guy wasn't there, but Ho and Coe popped in and out in the week before they released him. He hated that they came, hated that they cared enough to be there, hated that it meant something that they had.
He wished he were back in the fucking coma, at least then he wouldn't have to deal with the concern. His only concern while in the coma was the dreams. He had dreamt – vividly and horribly in a way that made his chest ache in a way it hadn't in years – while in the embrace of medical unconsciousness.
The dreams were of Ursula, mostly, like they always were, especially when things went wrong as they so often did since River Cartwright became one of his slow horses. He woke from those dreams with dried tears on his cheeks and a knife lodged into where his heart would've been if he actually had one. If it hadn't been replaced with an empty cavity when he watched the only woman he ever loved be tortured to death.
He had moved on then, dove into the work once he could walk again, even if slowly and painfully, every step a reminder of his failure as a spy, as a man, as a father. And then, when he killed the man whose betrayals led to the darkest days of his life, he opted out of everything; opted out of life as much as he could. He hadn't slept in a bed since the last one he shared with Ursula.
Well, other than a hospital bed.
He hadn't known that their night together before the Stasi picked him up would be the last moment of bliss he would experience before he finally shuffled from this mortal world. Lamb dreamt of that night more than he wanted to, less than he hoped, and each time he woke, it was as if she had been ripped away from him again.
Only his coma dreams were more vivid. He thought – briefly and hopefully, like a child who hadn't yet learned that hope was the enemy – she had come to usher him to hell, only it couldn't be her because Ursula wouldn't be joining him in hell, thank fuck. No, she was too good for that. Too good for him. Even if he hadn't gotten her killed, she would've been too good for him, and it would have been only a matter of time before she realised.
"You're not real. You're never real," he told her.
She hadn't answered.
She never did.
This time, he had dreamt of River Cartwright, too.
He had dreamt of coming back to the cabin and finding River dead; of his unseeing blue eyes snapping open as he accused Lamb, "It's your fault I'm dead. You failed me like you fail everyone."
And the kid hadn't been wrong. The only thing River had been mistaken about was not wanting to leave the Service. Lamb had tried every day since Cartwright showed up on Aldersgate Street to get him to quit – even offering a glowing recommendation that hurt more than the heartburn River gave him daily – and he kept coming back for more.
"River?" he had choked out as soon as the word managed to make its way past the boulder-sized lump that had taken up residency in his throat.
The last he had known was that the kid was in surgery. His voice was hoarse and barely a whisper, and for a moment, Catherine's tears worried him that some version of his nightmare had come true, that River was gone forever, another ghost to join the others, another soul that Jackson Lamb hadn't been able to save.
"He's not here, I'm sorry. But he's alright. Well," Catherine pursed her lips together. "Well, he's going to be alright. He's been released."
Dander reappeared like a tiny angry gargoyle, even though he hadn't noticed her leave.
"Yeah, his leg's fucked, but he'll be fine. Eventually," she explained, and Catherine fitted her with a look. "What?"
"Louisa's with him," Catherine added, and something released in his chest he couldn't – wouldn't name.
Better that way. Cartwright couldn't be trusted to stay put even when he was bleeding out; at least Guy will ensure he doesn't make himself worse than he already is. Lamb found himself nodding when all thoughts of words sounded as if they came from someone with a traumatic brain injury, though nodding was not the best choice either, and pain lanced through his skull.
"I'll get a doctor," Catherine told him and scurried from the room.
Fair enough.
He wasn't the best company in regular times, and especially not to Catherine Standish. For the best after yesterday – or Christ, how many days had it been? If Cartwright had gone from surgery to already being released, it had to have been longer than he thought. It was all a blank after the doctor rushed in while he was still in A&E.
"How–" he coughed, "–how long was I out for?"
"A week," Dander answered.
"Jesus fucking Christ," he wheezed, thought about saying something, then decided to lie instead. "Best sleep I've had in my life."
Shirley snorted what might've been a laugh, might've been a guffaw.
Jackson checked himself out of the hospital against medical advice as soon as he could hold a pen. He went home, passed out on his couch, and then called a locksmith the next day after he found Standish trying to finagle his kettle into working, as if it hadn't been broken since George Harrison died.
He made it a week before he gave in and decided to drive to Tunbridge Wells.
River Cartwright was going to accomplish making Lamb do the one thing he never thought he would do: willingly visit a Cartwright.
He hadn't been cleared to drive, and he could've asked Standish, but that would've meant actually driving with her and listening to her incessant nagging about his health and likely River's as well. Any time he had been in the car with Ho, he wanted to hurl himself from the moving vehicle. Coe would've been the perfect conversationalist – since the man wouldn't have said a fucking word – but Lamb wanted to spend time locked in a motor with the man about as much as he wanted to have another colonoscopy. Guy was already playing nursemaid to Cartwright, so that only left one of his horses.
"Your radio doesn't work at all?" Dander complained.
"No," he told her, closing his eyes and resting his head back against the headrest.
"Think you could've mentioned that before I agreed to drive you?"
"Could've," Lamb admitted.
Wouldn't have. At least not when there was a chance she would say no, though he doubted Dander would've missed an excuse to be out of Slough House for the day.
"Now, I know why you didn't ask Ho."
"I didn't ask Ho because I'd rather lick Coe's headphones than be stuck with him in a car for an hour."
"Fair enough," Shirley shrugged.
The kid didn't say another word the whole ride. Fucking bliss. Or it would've been if it didn't let Lamb's bruised mind wander to the last time he drove to Tunbridge Wells. His first introduction to the new head Dog had been her calling, asking him to identify River Cartwright's body.
"Jackson Lamb? This is Emma Flyte, head of MI5 Security. There's been an incident at David Cartwright's home, and we believe he may have shot his grandson, River. We need you to come out to the house to identify the body."
He responded with one word, the same word that usually came to mind with River Cartwright: fuck.
The hour-long drive was over too quickly then, much faster than it passed today. Then he hadn't wanted to make it to his destination, hadn't wanted to be the one to confirm the death of his most troublesome agent. River 'dying' hadn't been much of a surprise; the kid had a death wish so strong it was a wonder he made it down the Slough House stairs without issue. What Lamb hadn't expected was for the lad to die in the Old Bastard's bathroom on the wrong end of his grandfather's shotgun.
Lamb spent the drive attempting not to think about either Cartwright. Both left differing wakes of death behind them. Only one of them didn't care about it, though he did care about River. It was maybe the OB's only redeeming quality. If Lamb ever had a daughter, he couldn't say for sure he wouldn't have traded some cold bodies, guns and money for her safe return. And he couldn't say his daughter wouldn't have hated him as much as River's mother seemed to despise her own father.
Isobel Cartwright and Lamb would agree on their hatred of the old man, at least.
It would've been just like Cartwright Jr to be killed by the man whom he worshipped. The kid had that kind of luck.
But River hadn't died that night. And he hadn't died the next night when his half-brother murdered Marcus Londridge, and Guy pulled a grenade from the hood of his jacket. And he hadn't died a fortnight ago when Jackson dragged him through the woods, both bleeding and bruised in more than their skin. There were times when he thought he lost him, the first time he went down when that bullet pierced his thigh, when the noise he made echoed into the back of Lamb's head. And then each stumble after that, or the frightening moment when they made it back to the cabin, and River was nowhere to be found.
The kid hadn't died, then, either.
But the way he was self-destructing, it was only a matter of fucking time. There would eventually be another body to identify, one that actually was River one day, and it wasn't something Lamb was looking forward to. River had a lot of faults, a lot of flaws, the least of which was his ability as a spy, but the kid didn't deserve to die for his stupidity. Though Lamb wouldn't waste his breath offering that information to River on his own.
"Is this it?" Shirley asked, eying the Cartwright house as they pulled down the lane. "This is where River grew up?"
"It appears so," Lamb mumbled, unbuckling his belt as soon as Dander put the car in park.
He opened the door, taking a deep breath and releasing it before pushing himself to stand. The car door was cool under his hand as he clenched his fist around it, holding it tightly as vertigo fought against him. Standing up was harder than it had any fucking right to be, but he shut the door and pushed one foot in front of the other, following Dander to the front door.
She knocked, and Guy opened the door after a moment, looking more concerned than Lamb expected, though he hadn't seen her since the woods.
"You alright?" she asked, perhaps both of them, but her eyes didn't leave him.
He fucking hated it.
"Yeah, grand, where's Cartwright?"
Louisa shrugged and then turned, and the pair followed her to the living area. Last time Lamb had been there, they had gone immediately upstairs; he hadn't had time to inspect the ground floor, but it looked much the same as it had the other two times he visited. They found River sprawled across the couch, leg elevated by a pillow, held still over his sweatpants by a rigid brace from upper thigh to leg to halfway down his shin. The rest of him looked better than the last time Lamb had seen him, when he was whisked away to emergency surgery and the colour of his skin was competing with the gurney for who could be paler.
"You look better than I thought," Shirley told him in her very Dander-like way. At least some things never changed.
"Uh, thanks," River offered as she dropped into one of the armchairs.
Lamb walked to the other one and slowly lowered himself into it, not willing to admit how exhausting the ride had been. Sitting shouldn't make you tired, but that was the life he was living now. It was hard enough getting old, when your joints rebelled against you on a daily basis, and when old scar tissue made standing a reminder of decades-old pain that never truly left, but adding a TBI had certainly not improved his ailing health.
"Shirley, you want to help me make tea?" Louisa asked, but he didn't take his eyes off River, who seemed to be looking everywhere but at him.
"You can't handle a kettle on your own? Really pushing this slow horse thing, aren't you?" Shirley asked, then yelped. Lamb turned to see her rubbing the back of her arm. "Ow, what the fuck did you pinch me for? Okay, yeah, fine, I'll fucking help."
Dander followed Guy from the room, leaving them in unsettling silence, the only noise the crackling of the fireplace.
"About as subtle as a nail in the head, isn't she?"
River gave him half a lazy smile.
"How's the leg?" Lamb asked, belatedly reminding himself that moving his head to nod at the kid's appendage was more than his battered brain wanted to undertake at the moment.
"Uh, yeah, it's fine," River lied if the bulky brace and crutches leaning against the settee were to be believed.
River would likely rather get shot again than admit to being in pain. The black brace kept the limb rigid, and sitting still wasn't something that Cartwright did very well, judging from his time at Slough House. Lamb knew about recovery. It wasn't always the injury itself that did you in, but the stillness afterwards when the pain and healing skin kept you bedbound with nothing to do but think and mourn the life you almost had.
"That's a fucking lie."
Lamb probably could've said it nicer. Didn't matter. The sentiment still stood. River didn't need to be coddled. He had Guy and Standish for that. He needed Lamb for something else, something he wasn't sure yet he could give, but he was here for anyway.
Jackson Lamb never thought he would be a father. Fate – and the Stasi – saw that he wouldn't be. Falling for someone had been dumb. It was something someone stupid like River would do. It wasn't something he was foolish enough to do. Until it was. He had been naive to think he would get that, a woman who loved him, a child to raise.
And he didn't.
Instead, he got his idiot slow horses.
They were further proof that he would've been a bastard of a father. Not that they needed him as a father, he was their boss. They were supposed to show up, work for eight hours, then leave. Nothing more, nothing less. And they did for twenty years. For twenty years, he got to wait for the drink to take him to join the others in hell. For twenty fucking years, nothing mattered, and no one got hurt.
And then River fucking Cartwright stumbled through the door.
Of course, it was a Cartwright. A Cartwright led to him taking Slough House; why wouldn't a Cartwright blow down the house of cards he had precariously made there? Now his idiots needed him more than ever. Usually, the idiot in front of him, the others could more or less take care of themselves, minus Ho at least. If he weren't a genius with a computer, he would be about as useful as a bible in a whorehouse. Common sense really passed that one over.
The one in front of him had different issues. Mainly his hero complex. Though this time he hadn't rushed off in a half-cocked scheme to save the day. No, as much as it pained him to admit it, this time was Lamb's fault. He should've never brought the kid with him. He should've never done a lot of things with River.
"It's not – it's not a lie," River lied again.
"I had brain surgery, not a fucking lobotomy, though not surprised you think they're the same."
River frowned, and Lamb patted the pocket of his jacket for his cigarettes, belatedly realising he had left them in the car. He wasn't supposed to be smoking, but at this point, what was it going to do? Kill him? Who the fuck cares? Still, Cartwright would likely object to smoking in Grandad's house.
It was still strange being there.
Again.
"I've been here before, you know," Lamb told him.
"Yeah, I know, when Grandad killed Bertrand," River said. "You, uh, you came to identify the body."
"I did. You never thanked me for lying for you, by the way."
"Oh, thank you. Yeah, I guess I didn't. Thank you for–"
"You don't blow a joe's cover," he interrupted.
"Right," River nodded his head, then winced and tried to hide it. The bruising on his face was still stark, and his skin too pale, even if he looked better than he had the last time Lamb saw him.
"I meant I was here another time," Lamb clarified. "When you were a kid."
River's eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "You have?"
“You probably don't remember.”
His face scrunched up in the way that it often did when he was thinking. Or annoyed. Lamb didn't usually find himself caring about which it was.
"I don't, no."
"It wasn't long after you came to live here," Lamb continued. "I was on unofficial leave. I drank maybe a bit too much for a couple of weeks, and then when I sobered up, I realised that I didn't want to be a civilian – couldn't," he swallowed roughly. That was at least something River might understand, despite his attempt to jump ship for the private sector a couple of years ago, once he realised he wasn't going back to the Park. Jackson would never admit it to him, but he was glad they hadn't hired him. "So I asked him for Slough House and–"
"Wait," River interrupted, sitting up slightly straighter and trying and failing to hide a wince. "You asked for Slough House?"
"Yeah, that's not important. It was soon after Charles Partner’s death, and I didn't want to go back to the Park, or well, the old building, so I showed up here. He wasn't happy to see me,” Lamb huffed a joyless laugh.
River frowned. "No one from MI5 ever came here. Nan didn't want them to."
"Yeah, I can't really blame the woman. Your grandmother knew everything – or more than most wives did, at least – and for some reason still didn't throw me out on my arse when I knocked on the door."
Whatever Jackson Lamb felt about the Old Bastard certainly didn't extend to Rose Cartwright, even if he couldn't understand how she stayed married to David until her death. River smiled now, likely caught in the memories of his grandmother. Lamb had liked her then, was glad River had her and not just the OB to grow up with, though he hadn't thought much about the kid at the time.
"You were in the bath, I believe. Ironic considering the last time I was here."
River grimaced. Lamb hoped there was a toilet on the ground floor. He didn't fancy another trip to that particular bathroom in this lifetime, and it had been a long ride from London. At his age, he couldn't make it through the night without having to piss, let alone through an afternoon.
"But I heard you, later, talking with your grandmother, and it was the strangest thing, to hear a child's happy voice when my worldview had just been shattered. I think I hated your grandfather the most in that moment," Lamb admitted, surprising even himself with his confession.
River didn't say anything, and the silence of the room felt suffocating suddenly. Lamb pushed himself to stand – too fast as he fought the spots that danced across his vision like a flash mob – and took a step towards the mantle, finding a picture of River and David, both smiling, the former with his arms laden with chopped wood. He had never seen Cartwright smile like that before. Either of them. Any other time he witnessed David smile, it waslike a predator, teeth meant to appease, disarm, or kill, depending on the situation. And River, well, River never seemed to smile at all, especially lately.
"You seen him yet?" Lamb asked, more for want to distract himself from chucking the happy photograph into the fire than to know the answer.
River blinked in quiet confusion before seeming to understand the question. "Uh, yeah, Louisa took me last week. I've mainly spoken with him on the phone since then. He was upset, seeing me hurt, he kept asking if he had shot me. We thought it might be best if he didn't see me again until I could get the brace off. So, maybe in a couple of weeks."
The kid was lying to himself. Again. He had a habit of doing it, whether it was because of the danger of the situation or because he thought his career would never recover. Jackson had read the report on River's injury, the damage the bullet did when it lodged into his hamstring, and then ground around while River was dragged through the woods like an exceptionally tall and annoying ragdoll.
"Well, make sure you tell him I hope he gets gout."
River gave him a sarcastic salute, and it seemed so normal that Lamb almost forgot everything that had happened. But he couldn't forget. Not truly. Not when River lay propped on the settee like an injured foal.
Lamb cleared his throat, swallowing over the lump made from guilt lodged in his windpipe. "We never talked after – after everything happened with your grandfather."
"Talked?" River questioned with a confused tilt of his head.
"Yeah, you know, you make words, then I make words, and we go back and forth," Lamb snapped.
This was going well.
"I know what talking is,” River sighed. “It's just, it's not our thing. The first time I saw you after that at the pub, you told me I couldn't speak."
Jackson exhaled loudly through his nose, figured the one time the kid actually listened to him. "I said you could stay if you didn't speak. "
"Right, so like I said, we don't really talk to each other. It's not our thing. It's fine, I know it's not something we do anymore," River clarified.
Anymore.
The word hung in the air like a grenade, and Lamb waited to see if it would detonate. It didn't, but the kid wasn't wrong. There was a time, once, a car ride, when he did more than shout insults at Cartwright; he tried to comfort him, or at least prepare him for what a life in the Service would take from him. He could never fully prepare anyone for the loss, but it seemed he had failed particularly with River.
"I'm your boss, I'm not your therapist or your friend. I'm not–"
"Yeah, I get it," River cut him off. "Did Catherine make you come here? Is that where this is coming from?"
"What? No. If she knew I was here, then she would be here too, and as it is, I've seen more of her in the last few weeks than I have in the last twenty years."
River smiled, and something tore open inside him, sliced through his chest like it was made of paper. He collapsed into the armchair, ignoring the worried look River gave at the speed of his descent.
"Then what the fuck is going on, because I know you didn't come here because you missed me," River smirked before his face suddenly fell. "Wait. Are you – are you dying? Is that why you're here?"
"Fuck, no, you dolt. If I were dying, I'd be somewhere, not here like I don't know, anywhere that wasn't Tunbridge fucking Wells."
"Oh," River looked almost disappointed. "Then why are you here?"
That was the same question he had been asking himself the whole ride here. Why was he here? Somewhere deep inside him, he laughed at being so unsure, so unsure of himself. He was Jackson fucking Lamb, and here he was, shaking in his boots at a twenty-something year old twat who still thought he was James Bond, even though the world had already chewed him up and spit him out multiple times.
"The last time I saw you, you looked half-dead, so I guess I needed to see for myself."
"You just wanted to see me?" River asked as his face broke open in a shy smile.
Not quite the same smile from the photo, but near enough, near enough to make him want to run.
"I wanted to make sure you're okay," he said, the words tumbled out faster than he would've liked. "You did well," he added, slower this time. "Out there. Staying alive."
"Oh. Thanks," River offered.
There was silence again, and Lamb struggled to fill it as if it was a blanket descending on them, intent to suffocate.
"Did Guy tell you the pricks were organised crime?" he asked.
River nodded, seemingly lost in his thoughts.
"Bad luck," Lamb added.
River bobbed his head again. The fire crackled. Lamb tried to think of something to say that wasn't patronising or wouldn't make him vomit all over David Cartwright's living room. Why had he even come? Was it so he could make sure Cartwright was alive? Was it to make himself feel better? Because he didn't feel better, and he didn't think River did either.
"Why're you here, Lamb?" River asked, voice quiet.
"I don't know, alright? Is that what you want to hear?" he snapped.
River frowned. "Well. No, not really," River admitted. "If you feel bad yelling at me, well, don't. I'd rather you just get it over with, okay? I'm sorry."
If Jackson didn't know he had a head injury, he would start to worry he had a fucking head injury.
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"It's my fault, isn't it? I know they were organised crime, but I let them drive us off the road and if I hadn't been shot–"
"You never take responsibility for your fuck ups, but this you take responsibility for? The bit that wasn't actually your fucking fault?"Lamb blinked at him.
"You blame me for things that aren't my fault."
Lamb struggled not to roll his eyes. "You don't think I treat you fairly."
"You don't," River accused him. "Not since the first day. You hate my grandfather for whatever reason, and so you hate me, too."
"That's not why I hate you."
"So you do hate me, though, you admit it," River challenged.
Lamb sighed loudly. "Oh, for fuck's sake."
"Again, I ask. Why are you here, Lamb?"
"Because I couldn't not be," he blurted out. "Alright? Are you happy? I woke up from that bloody coma, and all I could think about was you and if you were okay."
River swallowed visibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing around the uncertainty of the situation, and when he spoke, his voice was quiet. "Well, why didn't you just say so?"
"Because I'm shit at this. I always have been," Lamb admitted.
Ursula had said enough to him about it; he could never say what he meant. Even the first time he told her he loved her, it had been the hardest and easiest thing he had ever done.
"You just have to show up and not be a dick, it's not that hard."
Lamb reached for his cigarettes, only to be reminded again that they were in the car. He debated calling for Dander or Guy and sending them for them, if only to waste time trying to find what he wanted to say, what he needed to say.
"Easy for you to say."
"Actually, it's not," River sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face. "I was a prick to Shirley the other day. And JK Coe. And Roddy, but I don't think that counts."
Lamb snorted despite himself. He couldn't fault the logic on the last one.
"Ho come around?"
River snickered. "Louisa wouldn't allow it. Did he visit you in hospital?"
"According to Standish, yeah, he did."
"He thinks he's your successor, you know."
For a moment, he was stunned into silence. Jackson Lamb had made it very clear from the moment he met Roderick Ho that he thought him to be an unsufferable – talented but unsufferable – prick.
“Of course he does, kid thinks he shits gold and pisses rainbows. He's never met an opinion more important than his own.”
“I could say the last thing about you,” River sniggered.
Lamb scoffed. “Difference is I'm usually right.”
River didn't reply, so Lamb assumed he couldn't think of a pithy response or objection. Silence settled again, less suffocating but not by much. Lamb looked at River again, really looked at him, took in the bruises and cuts and the brace, but what shattered him the most was the look on his face.
It wasn't the same face he saw when River first came to Slough House.
It wasn't the same face he saw when River escaped his grandmother’s attempts at bedtime and snuck into the study where he sat with the Old Bastard.
It wasn't even the same face he saw a few months ago before David lost the plot and Frank Harkness tried to kill him.
What did River see when he looked in the mirror? Did he see the young man with a bright career ahead of him when he started MI5 training? Did he see the little kid dropped off with his grandparents like unwanted luggage? Or did he see a man with a wounded soul and body that he wasn't sure would ever fully heal?
Lamb knew what he saw when he looked in the mirror, and he knew why he no longer looked at himself unless he had to.
“You threw yourself in front of me.”
“What?” River questioned.
“That bullet that lodged in your leg was meant for me,” Lamb clarified.
River’s face scrunched together in confusion. “I don't remember, but what does it matter?”
“It matters because you think it's the only way you're going to matter. It matters because you're so determined to die a fucking hero that you forget about living.”
“That’s not — that’s not what I'm doing,” River stuttered.
“I told you living is the hard part. Dying’s easy, and you, Cartwright, have never done anything the easy way. I don't want to bury you. I have enough ghosts. I don't want to add you to the list because you think dying is the only way you'll be useful.”
River looked away, and Lamb didn’t push for more.
He knew better than anyone that the real wounds — the ones that didn’t bleed, that didn't bruise — took the longest to surface, took the longest to heal.
“I know I don't say this often,” Lamb continued. “Or at all. But you have people who care about you. People that, God help them, want you around. I mean, maybe not your parents, but there are others.”
River snorted a laugh that did more for Lamb’s health than any doctor had.
"You lot don't make it easy, you know,” Lamb told him.
“For what?”
"Well, for everything. But you don't make it easy not to care."
A smile broke out on River’s face, and Lamb didn't know whether to return it or to cry at the fact that he had known the lad for almost three years and had never seen his face light up like that other than the time Roddy tripped up the stairs.
“You tell anyone I said that and you'll regret saving me from that bullet,” Lamb threatened.
River saluted him. “Yes, sir.”
“Don't call me sir either, makes me feel like you actually respect me.”
“We wouldn't want that, would we?” River snickered.
“Everything alright in here?” Louisa asked, appearing in the doorway, eyes entirely on River.
“Yeah, we’re good,” River said, looking back from Louisa to him; he felt himself nod, and for once, the concussion didn't punish him for it.
And for the first time in a long time, Jackson Lamb agreed.