Chapter Text
“I’m not sure a journey from Harrogate to London has ever taken so long,” Robin sighed. It had been bliss to sit next to Strike on the train, her hand tucked into his and her head resting on his shoulder, idly chatting and dozing the journey away, but now she was impatient to get back to her flat or his, to have some time with him away from prying eyes and interruptions. The time for talking would come - would evolve naturally out of the coming days, she was sure. Right now she just wanted to explore, to taste and to touch, to breathe him—
“Agreed,” Strike grunted, his deep baritone sending shivers down Robin’s spine. He was a good kisser; this much she now knew. But there was so much more she wanted to know. She wanted to know all of it, all the things she had determinedly not allowed herself to wonder about for so long.
“It’ll be good to be home,” she said. “Back on our own turf.” She hesitated. “Do you mind that I didn’t tell my family yet? I wanted to keep it to ourselves for a while.”
Strike grinned down at her to show he was joking and said:
“And here was me thinking you were ashamed.”
“I am,” Robin said. “Of them.”
“How so?”
“Because Mum would probably make a fuss.”
“She doesn’t like me.”
“She doesn’t know you, and she won’t open her mind to get to know you properly because of her own prejudice,” Robin said, frowning. “She’s always blamed you for me wanting to do this job, when if she had just listened, she’d have known my love of detecting long pre-dated meeting you.”
“Mm.”
“But,” Robin went on, “this is one of the things I worked on in therapy. Why I don’t put myself forward. Before uni, my brothers just laughed at me when I said I wanted to solve crimes, so I stopped saying it. And after… Well. Everyone just said it was because of what happened to me that I wanted to join the police. So I let them all talk me out of it.”
Strike smiled and squeezed her hand. “You were pretty damn determined to work for me,” he said warmly. “I seem to remember you wouldn’t leave.”
Robin laughed. “It felt like fate had given me a chance to be me again, when Temporary Solutions sent me to your office,” she said. “I wasn’t going to let it go. And you believed in me.”
Strike shrugged. “Well, it was bloody obvious from the start you had a natural aptitude for the job. You were brilliant, any fool could see that.”
Robin grinned at him. “Thank you,” she said. “I think what I’m saying is, I see now where Mum was coming from. It was only when I met you that I had the chance to get my dream back, and I grabbed it and held on. So I guess from the outside it looked like you changed me. But all I did was find myself again, and stop being a doormat.”
It was Strike’s turn to laugh. “Robin Ellacott, doormat. I can’t see it.”
Robin sighed a little. “I was, with Matt and with Ryan,” she said. “I need to learn to say what I want and need, too.”
“Oh, so you’re going to be wearing the trousers in this relationship?”
Robin chuckled. “You’d better believe it.”
Strike grinned, then said:
“In all seriousness, though. Just tell me if I’m doing something wrong or you want things to be different. I’m a big boy, I can take it.”
“I know you can,” she replied. “And don’t worry, I will. But you’re one of the few people I know who doesn’t try to tell me what I think or feel, or try to change me. I think we’ll be fine.”
She laid her head down against his shoulder again, and they watched the countryside rolling by. The scenery was becoming busier, more urban, as they neared London, and the sun was sinking slowly in the sky. At this time of year, it was almost dark at four o’clock. Cars already had their headlights on, turning roads into glowing ribbons of white and red.
“So,” Strike said presently. “Your place or mine?”
“You promised to cook me dinner.”
“And I will. But if you want me to do that tonight, then I need to go to a supermarket.”
Robin pulled a face. “Maybe I’ll let you buy me a takeaway tonight, then.”
“Right you are.”
There was another companionable pause.
“Can we go to yours?” Robin asked suddenly.
“Sure,” Strike said. “Any particular reason?”
She shrugged. “Feels like it would be nice to come full circle, back to where we started, in Denmark Street."
“On those damn stairs,” Strike said with a chuckle.
“Exactly. It feels right,” Robin mused. “If that’s okay with you, me coming to yours?” She raised her head to peep up at him.
“It’s absolutely okay,” Strike replied, and was surprised to find that he meant it. He didn’t normally bring women to his attic flat.
But Robin wasn’t women. She was Robin, and she’d been there before, and it had felt normal, and natural. He didn’t want to keep Robin half at arms’ length like he had with all the other women he had dated in recent years. He had her in his life in all the ways he wanted now, and he was all in.
“In fact,” he went on, “we’ll have not just the flat to ourselves, but probably the entire building.”
Robin giggled. “Then you can be as noisy as you like.”
Strike squeezed her hand again, a promise for later. “Oh, I’m planning on it, Ellacott,” he said. “I’m planning on it.”
Warmth fizzing in her veins, Robin rested her head on his shoulder again, and the train whisked them ever closer to London, and home.