Work Text:
Robin walked away from the hospital, feeling an odd combination of cheerfulness, nervousness, and regret.
Maybe I should have said something to him...
No. He wasn’t being forthright with her about the most important things. She hadn’t known about Madeline until Charlotte had launched the information at her like a javelin through her chest. She hadn’t known he was finished with Madeline until weeks after the fact. Until he could be honest with himself AND her, she wouldn’t be saying anything. Better to let things lay where they did unless he could ever change.
Fall out of love and fast.
Maybe Ryan could help her.
Feeling like a neurotic lunatic, she started to rehearse topics of conversation in her head for her date this evening, and then her phone rang. She did not recognise the number and had the wild idea that CID Murphy was reaching out to her from an unknown number to cancel this evening, perhaps there’d been an accident. So there was a breath of nerves in her voice when she answered:
“Robin Ellacott.”
“Don’t go out with him.”
Robin felt herself shiver and burn simultaneously.
“Strike?”
“No, it’s David Cameron. Yes, of course it’s me, Ellacott.”
Robin licked her lips. “Why not?”
His tone was gruff and brusque. “Not on the phone.”
She felt her knees buckle and one leg slipped under the other, but she managed to fall into a sitting position with her legs crossed, uninjured.
“Robin? You all right?”
“Yeah, I think so.” There was silence from both parties for several seconds.
“Come back inside.” Another tense silence before Robin could make herself speak:
“All right.”
“Right, see you in a second,” and she heard him mutter “Thanks very much” to someone else before he ended the call.
Robin stood up and marched briskly back the way she’d come, purposely not thinking.
When she rounded the corner into his room, he was staring at her. She could see sweat above his upper lip.
For some reason, as she sat down in the rather uncomfortable chair, her brain fell to the mundane. “How’d you call me?”
Strike blinked and continued to stare at her and seemed to start to speak several times before he finally succeeded: “Borrowed a nurse’s phone.”
“What did you say to get her to loan it to you?”
Strike’s stare became even more intense, and his jaw opened and shut several times again, and she saw him swallow, and his chest rose and fell rapidly before he said: “I told him I needed to ask this girl who also happens to be my best mate out on a date…”
Robin’s blood thundered, but Strike continued:
“Before she figures out this bloody policeman she’s seeing tonight is, err, a more attractive prospect than I am. He handed the phone right over.”
Robin laughed, but as humour left, pity came in its wake. “Strike,” she said. And though she didn’t say anything else, her tone had made him flush.
“So, errr, I know I can’t exactly take you anywhere this evening,” he said, gesturing feebly at the medical implements attached to him, “but I was hoping you would…”
“I’ll wait.”
There was a very long silence, both of them looking dazedly at one another, disbelieving.
Robin finally spoke again: “I’ve gotten good at waiting. Guess you have too.”
Strike chuckled. “Oh, what’s a few years of desperate pining between friends?”
Robin only just restrained an enormous sob from bursting out of her, and then something occurred to her and the urge to sob disappeared. “Cormoran… I’m not going to stop wanting you to do something about your habits just because we… I mean, I think I might want you to take care of yourself even more because I already can’t live without you…” She trailed off, and she was the one who was flushed now.
He looked pleased at her lack of composure and he reassured her: “No problem. I get it. I’ll do better. I won’t be offended when you don’t offer me the biscuit tin quite so often, promise.”
Robin laughed. “Okay then.” She stood up. “I have a date to call off and some other things to attend to, but I’ll be back tomorrow bright and early.”
“Okay,” he said, smiling. “Thanks, Robin.”
“What are you thanking me for?”
“I don’t know. Being a part of everything that’s worthwhile in my life? Speaking of, I’m sorry I never introduced you to Joan, I have to introduce you to Ted. He’s more like my father than my uncle, really.”
She had thought she wouldn’t kiss him, but she instinctively leaned down and pressed her mouth on his, her hands gently gripping his shoulders, and lightning shot down her spine, joy and heat radiating through her as he returned her kiss with gentle fervency.
She pulled away, and one tear ran down her cheek as she looked into his eyes. “You’re an attractive prospect to me, Strike.”
Strike actually looked like he might cry himself as his lip trembled and then his mouth folded in on itself, but he reined it in. “That night at the Ritz, why did you…”
“I was scared, then, Cormoran. We were pissed. If we’d… if we’d spent that night together… I could just hear you telling me it was a mistake and that we… you’re not going to be upset about this when the painkillers wear off? Not going to tell me we have to stay just friends for the sake of the agency or any of that rubbish, are you?”
She could see that he’d heard the fear in her voice. “No, Robin. I won’t.”
She closed her eyes and savoured the decisiveness and finality of his tone.
She opened her eyes and looked at him and surprised herself again. “I love you, Strike.”
A tear suddenly sparkled at the edge of each of his eyelids and then both tears ran down into his beard. “I love you too, Robin.”
She smiled and kissed him again, but briefly. She grabbed her purse, saying “You know Ilsa’s never going to let us hear the end of it.”
Strike chuckled again. “I’m pretty sure it’ll be worth it.”
Robin smiled and waved and walked out of Strike’s room, for several minutes simply floating in a cotton cloud of happiness. Then she started rehearsing the way she was going to let CID Ryan Murphy down gently.