Lewis Fic: Protective Instincts. Part Three
Story: Protective Instincts
Rating: Teen
Part: Three (of Three).
Protective Instincts - Part III
James propels himself upwards so fast off the bed that Robbie is quite thankful that his unfortunate head wasn’t in his path. He lands up standing very upright, gazing straight down at Innocent. She isn’t looking at James, though.
“A word, Robbie,” she says very pleasantly. When nothing happens, she turns the full force of her gaze on James and elevates her eyebrows. But James stays put and casts a slightly desperate glance at Robbie. He doesn’t quite grasp what Innocent’s main concern is here, Robbie sees. He’s thinking that he should be staying to take his part of the almighty furore he fears is coming. Robbie, with his own glance, sends him on his way. James goes very reluctantly, meeting Innocent’s look with a slight tinge of defiance as he skirts around her-bloody hell, that’s not going to help-but he does go and he clicks the door shut behind him.
“Well-” Innocent starts.
“Ma’am-” But she holds up a hand to stop him.
“First things first, inspector. Concussion, I believe, is the worst of it?”
Robbie makes a noise of assent. Frankly, with everything that seems to be happening within the past while, he feels that his concussion is assuming the proportions of a pretty minor detail. Innocent might agree because she certainly spares little time on that. “Good. Well, that was the original purpose of my visit but events seem to have rather overtaken us, don’t they? So if you’re up to a full and frank discussion?”
Regretfully, Robbie sees no room to protest that he isn’t, delicate state of his head notwithstanding, given the compromising position that she’s just discovered him in.
“Then perhaps you could kindly enlighten me as to just how long you and Sergeant Hathaway have been-” And she pauses, letting her eyebrows do the work for her once more.
“We haven’t,” Robbie informs her quite truthfully. Although he can hardly blame her for the highly sceptical look she sends right back at him. He sees no help for it now. “I mean-we just started, now, very recently, so to speak,” he admits. And marvellous ruddy timing you have too, ma’am, he feels like adding.
He’s a bit distracted by James, who is appearing, disappearing and reappearing through that small window in the door. His height means it’s perfectly possible to see his face, and his expression seems quite set. He must be pacing back and forth outside Robbie’s room, like some sort of guard. Which would be a lot more touching if it wasn’t for the fact that the only threat Robbie needs protecting from is currently right here inside the room with him. Is James anxious, though? Not just about Innocent and what she and Robbie are saying; is he getting anxious about what’s just happened with Robbie?
Robbie shifts his head rather sharply on the pillow, to try and see around Innocent at the foot of his bed and read James’s demeanour better, as he reappears. A stab of pain lets him know what a very bad idea moving his head like that was. He feels his features contort as he suppresses a curse.
“Robbie. Could you please-Oh, God,” mutters Innocent, breaking off. Robbie can see her dilemma. She’s torn between her ire at his wandering attention and her realisation that she actually is restricted in letting her opinions loose here because of his condition-as his grimaces are now apparently reminding her.
“Sorry, ma’am. Concussion,” offers Robbie hopefully.
She gives him a look. It’s quite a look. She may feel restricted in what she can say, but her facial expressions continue to convey her thoughts about Robbie, at this particular moment, quite effectively. It seems best to get things over with in one awkward go. Robbie has, not through choice, sat through her seminar with senior officers covering all the exhaustive details of her internal policies about fraternisation. It had just never crossed his mind that he’d personally be in a position to activate them.
“Nothing untoward happened with Hathaway until just now, ma’am. I haven’t been keeping anything quiet. I understand he can’t be my sergeant anymore. An’ I know you’ll have to ask him about a senior officer-making advances.” And good luck to you having that conversation with James, he reflects, because he can quite clearly see exactly how well the implications of that will go down with James, once he grasps what Innocent will be asking him. Best drill it into James that it’s just procedure, not what Innocent personally thinks about Robbie.
Because her expression has actually softened slightly, looking at him now. “Well, the actual details can probably be ironed out when you’re walking wounded, at least,” she concedes. “All right, Robbie, I’ll just-” And she’s leaving, he realises in relief.
“If you could just send Hathaway back in, ma’am,” he can’t help asking. Because James has disappeared from view altogether now, and since Robbie is apparently stuck here in this room for the foreseeable, he can’t have James going off, anxiety-stricken over what’s just happened, and Robbie not being able to reach him. Come to think of it, Robbie hasn’t even got his phone.
Innocent, muttering something that sounds remarkably like oh, as if I could stop him, heads for the door and, to Robbie’s relief, it certainly isn’t long before James returns. In fact, Robbie barely has time to start wondering why Innocent had appeared more annoyed than shocked to catch them together before James slips back in.
“Thought I’d linger round the corner till I saw her leave so she didn’t delay me coming back in,” he explains succinctly. Robbie grins at him, appreciating the foresight, but his appreciation doesn’t last long.
“Well, there you are, Hathaway,” comes a voice from behind James. “We seemed to miss each other there? I had a distinct feeling this might be where you were.” Bloody hell, she’s back.
“Ma’am.” James retreats further into the room to allow her in, his expression conceding the entrapment.
“There are various loose ends in this case, sergeant, that you’ll appreciate are in need of your input.” James looks dismayed. But Innocent is continuing: “First thing, tomorrow morning, I’ll expect to see you at the station. So kindly don’t get any ideas into your head about attempting to stay here all night. Inspector Lewis does not appear in need of an overnight vigil, and some sleep would perhaps benefit his recovery?” She elicits a reluctant nod from James. “You, from what I’ve seen so far, appear most likely to be a distinctively disruptive influence-”
“Ma’am-” James is quite horrified at this reference to his activities when she discovered them. Robbie strives to keep his facial muscles composed in a neutral and attentive expression.
“And I want you at work, tomorrow, adequately rested and more suitably clothed than this, as further evidence that you went home.” Robbie wonders suddenly, hearing the tone she uses to finish, at her real motivation. Perhaps she can still see the after-effects of James’s shock and distress, so vivid on his face when Robbie first awoke.
Sometimes, after all these years, she still wrong-foots him when her underlying concern for him or James suddenly emerges right when he’s expecting her ire.
“I’ll see he gets off shortly, ma’am,” he promises, ignoring James’s sideways glance of betrayal.
“You’ll be off for a least a week, Robbie,” she informs him. “No, I don’t know what your doctor will say, but that’s the minimum time you’ll be taking before you get anywhere near my active-duty roster. Sergeant, once your part in this case is put to bed tomorrow, I believe you happen to have leave due?” Her tone lets Robbie know that James will be taking that leave. She probably wants some time to sort out the mess they’ve handed her tonight. James seems to grasp that too. Or perhaps he just knows that he’s not in the best position to disagree with anything much that she’s saying right now.
“Yes, ma’am,” he murmurs.
“At least there’s a vacancy or two for a sergeant to be reassigned,” she says half to herself. “Gentlemen.” She nods at them both as she turns to go.
James, having somehow grasped Robbie’s unfortunate propensity to move his head without thinking, immediately puts a hand up to cup Robbie’s face to stop him from nodding at her retreating back in automatic response. Then he sinks back down on the side of the bed again, lowering his hand to take Robbie’s. He’s not ruddy anxious at all, Robbie realises, with relief.
“Fuck,” he says to Robbie.
“Yeah,” Robbie agrees.
“And where were we?” James enquires hopefully. “Before we were so rudely interrupted?”
Robbie chuckles. “You were about to head off home.” James looks distinctly put out. But he does look shattered, Robbie sees, assessing him up close again now. And a bit shellshocked still. It’s no wonder Innocent was so adamant. “She’s going to put you with Grainger, I reckon,” he informs James ruefully. “That’s the sergeant vacancy.”
But James frowns. “Grainger’s not so bad. Earlier, in the car park-he held me back-” He’s pulling his arm back against his body, a reflexive gesture, as if it almost pains him and Robbie, his shoulders tightening in indignation already, wonders how hard Grainger had gripped James’s arm to hold him back. He doesn’t have to wonder long.
“The driver of that car,” James informs him in very controlled tones. “The uniforms breathalysed him. The paramedics were there by then, putting you on the stretcher, but you were still unconscious-” and there’s a slight waver on that word still that tells Robbie that James had been right there throughout the wait for the paramedics, waiting in vain for Robbie to wake up “-and I could see that the driver had failed. Grainger was just decent about it. He kept holding me back and saying did I want to risk the conviction, risk letting him get away with it, by doing something satisfactory but stupid, that was the way he put it. Then he sent me off in the ambulance with you.”
There’s a cold anger in his eyes, recalling it, that tells Robbie exactly why Grainger might have been forced into almost hurting James.
But Grainger had known what to say, to stop James landing himself in trouble. Robbie wonders if there’s anything else left he could have got wrong this past week. And when it eventually emerges why Innocent has separated Robbie and James-well, that’ll shed further light on all of this for Grainger, Robbie thinks ruefully. But he doesn’t have long to think about Grainger. Innocent had left the door open when she took her leave and Robbie has been vaguely aware over the past few minutes of the cadence of a familiar tone amongst the indecipherable rise and fall of lowered voices at what must be the nurse’s station, out of his line of sight.
If he wasn’t so preoccupied with James he’d have worked it out sooner because someone else is appearing now.
“Robbie.” It’s Laura this time. And that familiar rhythm of speech was Laura in professional mode. And nice as it usually is to see her-what are these nurses actually at? Do visiting hours mean nothing in this place? But Laura’s badge makes visiting hours a mere detail to her when it comes to gaining access to the wards here, Innocent is a law onto herself and James, who is getting up off the bed again now to let Laura over to Robbie-well, God only knows what James told the medical staff.
But even though it’s only Laura, Robbie somehow can’t seem to take much more of this tonight. Laura seems to spot that. She comes over and stands beside the bed, looking hard at him. “You okay?” she asks.
She doesn’t look particularly convinced at his confirmation that he is.
“You’re in good hands,” she tells him, “and they’re happy enough with you so far, you should be fine. You need to rest, though. It’s not an insignificant trauma, Robbie. They thought it might be worse. That’s how you managed to land yourself back at the Radcliffe.”
Robbie hadn’t even thought to wonder why he wasn’t in some hospital more local to that club. And rest does sound like a good idea. Not that he’s about to admit it.
“Honestly… ”And she bends to drop a quick kiss on his cheek, giving him one more very direct look. Then she turns her attention to James. But she doesn’t seem to much like what she sees looking at him, either. “Come on, I’ll take you home. There were distinct mutterings at the nurse’s station about ejecting you firmly at Robbie’s next check. Regardless of the-oh, what was it, now? Urgent police business that you needed to question him about the moment he woke?”
James eyes the ceiling, not looking particularly repentant at having his tactics exposed. “Miscommunication,” he informs that overhead florescent light that really does just seems too bright and glaring to Robbie now.
“I’d save that for someone who’d believe you,” Laura advises him. Robbie attempts a grin at her, but she’s still eyeing James, waiting for his focus to return to her.
“Don’t you want to stay a bit longer?” James demurs, giving in and grimacing at her.
“No,” she informs him. “I came to see for myself that he’s still in one piece and so he is. But good try.”
But James, Robbie can see, just doesn’t want to go. He’s had a hell of a night. Probably hasn’t managed to balance himself again yet despite things really being all right now. That’s why he’s proving immune to Innocent, and even Laura, saying that Robbie needs rest. Robbie doesn’t really want to imagine what it would have been like to come out of that noisy pulsing cavern of the club, high from the adrenaline of the evening and the relief and success of making the arrest, into the outside world, and then come across an accident scene and realise who was involved.
“Give us a minute, would you?” Robbie says, half-apologetically, to Laura.
“One,” she agrees. But she not only leaves, she closes the door with a firm click.
Robbie wants nothing more now than to be in a bigger bed and slide his arm under James, pull him in close right against him for the night. James can be an oddly undemanding presence when you’re het up. Dead soothing, really. Robbie certainly doesn’t him to leave. But he can also see what Innocent was getting at. James needs some sort of distraction from all tonight’s trauma and he needs to be sent home. Robbie reckons he knows exactly how to entice him.
“Innocent’s right, you know, you’d be one hell of a distraction. Raising me pulse and everything so you are. And that’s one of the things they watch for after a head injury-high blood pressure." Robbie is not, after all, inexperienced with this. His cricketing undercover stint had involved a concussion too, come to think of it. “You’ll land up having me stuck in here all the longer if you stick around. And it’d be nice for us to get me home to me own bed, wouldn’t it now? Be that bit more-private.”
James stares at him.
“Yeah?” he manages after a moment. He seems to be aiming for a casual tone but his voice is a little husky.
Robbie remembers not to nod.
“I’ll come back and get you tomorrow when they let you go home then-”
“You’re not to worry about that, you’ll have your hands full in work, from the sounds of it. Just get shot of this case and finish up, yeah? And then I’ll see you in the evening.” Robbie sincerely hopes that he’ll be out of here well before then. “Cause it sounds like we have both have a week off, you know, after that, one way or another?”
James’s face slowly breaks into a delighted grin. He mustn’t be thinking straight if he hadn’t grasped that. And this is surely not what Innocent intended, giving them a week off together as some sort of reward for creating an administrative headache for her and forcing her hand, making her break up a partnership with a fairly bloody good case-closure rate. But Robbie has never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Hathaway.” Laura has levered the door back open and her expression speaks volumes.
James wavers, it’s almost imperceptible, but Robbie reckons he can read what’s running across his mind all the same-the thought of kissing Robbie goodnight in front of Laura is somehow a step further than being found by his chief super thoroughly embarked on much the same enterprise. James won’t say a word to Laura, of course. He’ll defer to Robbie’s relationship with her and let Robbie tell her. But he’s looking at Robbie rather ruefully. Robbie delivers his best flirtatious wink at him. That seems to do the trick.
James, rather startled, heads over to Laura’s impatient presence, casting one more quizzical look back over his shoulder at Robbie as he goes. Robbie grins to himself, knowing full well the source of James’s confusion. The lad obviously hadn’t expected this talk of Robbie’s bed yet, hadn’t thought Robbie’s interest in this part of their relationship would more than match his own. He’ll see. Robbie plans to thoroughly disperse this bloody frustrating talk that’s been floating around all week about older blokes and their need for chemical assistance. Thoroughly.
“Nice shirt, sergeant,” he hears Laura observe as she and James depart. The door closes on James’s murmured protest of a response.
===
“Hi.” James is looking shyly pleased with himself.
“What’re you doing here?”
“Got it all done a bit early, after all. Told you I’d pick you up.”
“An’ I told you not to worry. Laura said she’d drop me home.” But Robbie can’t hide his pleasure, all the same. James just shrugs, still grinning. He looks a fair bit better.
Robbie’s phone has mysteriously appeared, dropped off at the nurses’ station early this morning. He rather suspects Grainger may have retrieved it and sent it over, someone presumably having had the foresight to relieve Robbie of his car keys before he was dispatched here last night. His car is presumably at the nick.
The phone had initially seemed very promising for sending a series of surreptitious texts to Laura, in an attempt to get her to wield her influence and get him sprung from here some time today. Robbie hadn’t planned to spend a moment longer than necessary in this bed even if he is strangely exhausted. But Laura had proved frustratingly immune to his pleas, informing him progressively throughout the morning that she wasn’t his personal doctor, that if he’d had a scan then obviously he’d have to wait for the consultant to come on duty to read it, and that she had no intention of treading on any toes or engaging in any battles against a perfectly reasonable system on his behalf.
Robbie doesn’t think he’s a bad patient, as such. Val had always said he was fine when he was ill-well, as long as he was really ill. Although, come to think of it, she’d also said that it was when he started to recover that he became a nightmare. And Robbie is beginning to grasp the unwelcome prospect that this will involve an actual recovery. This is nothing like having a concussion in the good old days when you could be knocked out one night and back in work the next morning. He’d decided, on reflection, though, not to express that view to the nurses since he was fairly sure that Laura’s texted exhortation to tell them that then and see how far it gets you was actually an attempt to have the nurses give him short shrift on her own behalf. But she’d offered to take him home once his one-man campaign for release finally bore fruit, as she’d put it.
Except now, just as release finally beckons, here’s James. He’s considerately bearing the change of clothes that Robbie keeps at the office too.
And James seems far more at ease with himself than he has all week and quite keen to stay when a nurse appears to run through the final formalities. The nurse also seems happier to have someone in a rather better state of health than Robbie to discharge all this exhaustive information to. There does seem quite a lot to have to focus on. As she processes through the written instructions about recommendations and warning signs with an attentive James, Robbie, with a slightly ominous feeling about how seriously James is going to take all this, is about to tell her not to encourage him when she gets to yet another question for Robbie: “And do you live alone or is there someone who can-”
“He won’t be alone,” James informs her. But he sounds shyly pleased, saying that. Ah. And just like that, Robbie knows to bite his tongue and make an effort to take any unnecessary fuss that may be headed his way on the chin, this time. Seems a small price to pay in the circumstances.
After the nurse departs, Robbie is mainly preoccupied with the welcome prospect of getting dressed and out of this bed now, but once that’s accomplished, he finds it’s an effort to ignore the slight dizziness that’s assailing him now that he’s standing upright for a reasonable amount of time. Sitting on the edge of the bed for a moment seems like a good move. Then he feels James drop down beside him and turns to find that even more welcome developments are taking precedence, as James is eyeing him in a way that says he won’t be waiting much longer before he claims his kiss.
It’s not quite as careful as last night. Christ, at least there’s one area where James isn’t being over-cautious. The lad’s not helping with this dizziness at all, as Robbie mildly informs his unrepentant sergeant when he finally desists.
“They never said not to do that,” James says. “I’ve got your list of risk factors and warning signs here now, and thoroughly kissing you is most definitely not on it. In fact, there’s a whole lot of leeway they’ve left, really-”
Robbie is slightly disappointed that Laura chooses that moment to finally arrive, but regardless of what she suspects, or thinks she knows, he won’t be finding out what exactly James means by that now until he gets home. James is standing to greet her.
Laura just shakes her head. “All that pestering and turns out you have a chauffeur ready and waiting here all along. I might’ve known you only wanted me for my medical expertise.”
“He only just got here,” Robbie protests.
Laura addresses herself to James. “You have my sincere sympathies. Bad enough being pulled into work on a Saturday, isn’t it, without being unmercifully pestered by text? Though at least you don’t have to keep changing your gloves every bloody time…”
“And I’ve got the week off now,” James informs her.
Laura glances from him to Robbie. “Just as well,” she says after a moment, thoughtfully. “Has he actually grasped what recovery from this involves?”
“Oi,” protests Robbie. “Right here, I am.”
Laura ignores him. “He’ll tell you that he’s been bashed over the head before with no ill-effects, but he was unconscious for a significant enough period this time-what’s wrong ?” she asks, her expression suddenly changing.
Robbie looks at James. He’s gone a bit pale again. “All right,” he says gruffly to Laura, “no need to go over all that again.” Laura seems to grasp what’s going on.
“He’ll be fine, James,” she says gently. “I’m just trying to get it through to him that he won’t instantly bounce back. But he’s fine.” James just nods at her. Robbie feels a bit stricken again at the thought of the struggle James must have gone through last night. Robbie had really had the easier ordeal, himself, being unaware of it all. No wonder James is drawing straight back into Robbie’s space every chance he gets. Even now, with Laura here, he’s standing very close to the edge of the bed. Very close to Robbie.
Laura seems to be leaving them to it already. “Well, seeing as I’m now surplus to requirements-”
“No,” James informs her. “Never that.” They both look at him. That’s one of those statements which would probably be a joking remark from someone else but is perfectly serious coming from James.
The smile Laura suddenly gives him is very warm. “All right,” she concedes after a moment. “Put it this way. You take him home then and I’ll check in on you both tomorrow. Make sure he’s still recovering okay and put your mind at rest-and check he’s not actually driving you up the wall in the process.” It sounds about right to Robbie but he’s not about to admit that she may have the measure of him.
James nods at her again. She casts one more look at Robbie before she goes. It’s the type of look that you give someone when there’s not much need for words. James’s straightforward remark has rather struck her, Robbie can see. And he’d bet anything that it really won’t be a surprise to Laura when he tells her about him and James. He can picture her rolling her eyes at him if he tries to work up to it, actually.
“Home?” James suggests, raising his eyebrows at him. Robbie suddenly remembers that yearning from last night to have James right beside him in his bed.
“Aye. We can stop off though on the way-”
“You’re not having takeaway. It says good nutrition here. I’ll cook-actually we will need to stop off, won’t we, you won’t exactly have many fresh ingredients. But they said no alcohol too, incidentally. Just in case you were thinking of beer-” Christ, it’s a taste of things to things to come.
“No,” says Robbie patiently. “Get your stuff, yeah? Stay over? Just told them I wouldn’t be by meself now, didn’t you?”
“Oh.” That’s stopped him in his tracks. “Yes,” James says with certainty. And Robbie suddenly finds himself the recipient of that irresistible smile of pure delight.
Epilogue
They’re sitting on a tree-shaded bench where the Botanic Gardens border onto the Cherwell. Getting here has involved a pleasant wander through the gardens. It’s a good place to be on an afternoon like this, when the warmth of the day is now making itself properly felt. It may not be the Trout yet-and it won’t be for some time-but it runs a pretty close second at this particular moment.
Although Robbie is now beginning to wonder if James hasn’t chosen this spot purely for the opportunity to critique other folk’s punting technique. Its proximity to where the punts are moored means that none of the tourists have quite got the hang of it by the time they make their slightly nervous, haphazard way past.
James seems rather displeased that apparently most of them show evidence of having failed to take in the basic advice they would have been given.
He’s managed to do again what he’s been doing all week, unobtrusively giving Robbie just what he could do with-in this case, somewhere quiet enough where they can still watch the goings on-just as the frustration of this whole sick leave period starts to get on top of him again. Because Robbie has been forced by now into an awareness of what Laura has been going on about with her talk of recovery time-he’s been stupidly tired and rather lacking in concentration this week. And he’s been told now that it’ll be another few weeks before he’s reviewed and hopefully cleared for active duty.
It’s not the best timing when you're starting up something proper with someone much younger, someone who looks lithe and firm and full of quietly suppressed energy, even when lounging back on this bench beside you. Because even though Laura has made it perfectly clear why this particular injury has hit Robbie harder than before, and that his normal energy levels will return, and even though age didn’t come into her brief lecture-well, feeling like this does sort of make you feel older. Which should be a worry.
Except that James doesn’t seem to mind in the slightest.
The tree-shadowed sunlight plays across James’s features and he drops his head back and closes his eyes. Robbie takes the opportunity to watch him for a moment, unobserved. It’s quiet here and sort of private, what with the leafy canopy overhead and with the punters so occupied with attempting to navigate the challenge of this slightly deceptive bend. And James’s posture is that relaxed. This week off is certainly doing him no harm.
There’s a hand finding Robbie’s on the bench now and long, supple fingers twining themselves gently through his own.
It’s privately taken Robbie by surprise, the lack of effort it’s taken to form this week’s gentle domestic routine. For someone so complicated, the simplest little things seem to bring no small amount of pleasure to James. He’s been reluctant to leave Robbie much to his own devices in the evenings. He’s just been there, making himself at home in Robbie’s kitchen as naturally as if he’d been contemplating for ages just what he’d do if he had the go-ahead to cook for Robbie. And it turns out, as Robbie should have suspected, that the lad can properly cook. He can cook so well, in fact, that Robbie has to freely admit that he can make healthier ingredients than Robbie would ever choose taste very good. And then-well, then James just stays.
Robbie wasn’t quite sure at first if James was feeling the need to stay in order to make sure that Robbie really was all right at night. But he now increasingly thinks that James simply wants to stay. Robbie’s surely not objecting. Not when they’ve embarked on this slowly developing, thoroughly enjoyable, mutual quest to discover just how much of a pleasure sharing a bed with each other can be. And James will sometimes disappear off for the day, after making and sharing breakfast-and then sometimes there have been days like this instead.
Waking up with him there in the mornings has been its own pure pleasure, too.
So much so that Robbie finds he doesn’t actually want to keep missing out on that. And things will be pretty different when they both return to work, with two unpredictable schedules that won’t run concurrently. James will be top of the call-out rota when Robbie isn’t, and vice versa. Never mind this whole idea of a new sergeant-it’s enough to make moving towards retirement seem like something Robbie should keep in mind. Except that this enforced time off has brought home to him that he’s sincerely not ready to face up to full-time retirement yet. Or the prospect of a desk job. But he could think of taking more of a regular hours, training role, as Innocent had originally tried to steer him so very firmly towards years ago. Training up a new set of recruits. Staying on as a copper but having more time to call his own.
Innocent will be none too pleased if he requests that now. And it mightn’t be the best time exactly to ask her for a favour. But there are other factors here too that make looking for something not quite so much in the line of fire seem well worth considering.
Robbie thinks of James’s wretchedness when he came to, last week in the Radcliffe, and he knows he doesn’t much want to be the cause of that look again if he can help it. And then there’s the thought of it not being Robbie who’s the injured one-
“This working with other folk-“ Robbie starts. “Well, we can anticipate what the other one’s at, can’t we? Made it easier to be one step ahead of anyone who’s going to try something. Going to take some getting used to, getting to know someone else well enough. You’ll have to be more on alert with a new partner.”
“Yeah,” says James, non-committal.
Robbie can hardly blame him if he’s reluctant to discuss this precise topic. But he needs to make this all a bit clearer to James now. He sort of owes it to him. “I didn’t much fancy that last week-” he admits. “The idea of you heading into a risky situation with someone else as backup. Anyone else, really.”
“Mmm,” James agrees, opening his eyes just long enough now to send a sidelong glance at Robbie.
“I could’ve handled it all a bit better, mind.”
“Mmm,” James agrees, with his eyes shut again now, but with much more feeling. Robbie elbows him. It’s amazing how much the lad can get into one monosyllabic sound. James opens his eyes to gaze at him reproachfully.
“Wasn’t just you,” he says, relenting after a moment and closing his eyes again.
“Didn’t do great at this communicating lark, did we?” Laura, Robbie suspects, would be sorely tempted to knock both their heads together if she knew exactly what had gone on between them. Well, if it wasn’t for Robbie’s concussion.
James turns to look at him properly now, with a grin at the understatement. “I don’t know-we got there. In the end.”
“Aye, well. I’d prefer not to have to go through all that another time.” But that’s not really what Robbie means. Somehow the worst part of it for him, the part that bothers him almost the most still, is that James had felt unable to tell him what was going with Bradshaw. And Robbie may not have a handle yet on all the complicated reasons why that might have been, but at the end of the day-“If something like that is happening again-tell me, next time, yeah?”
James doesn’t look as convinced as Robbie would like. “But you won’t even be my boss any more. Really can’t have you fighting my battles for me round the nick. Wouldn’t be right, anyway, if I took advantage of having a relationship with a senior officer.”
It is going to be dead strange, all the same, to have James around the nick and not have him as his sergeant. But Robbie needs to get across to him that this isn’t about work, as such. “I don’t mean that. I mean-tell me.”
James actually looks a little dubious, grimacing at him, as if he maybe doubts his own capacity to do that. He really isn’t quite used to this, is he? Relying on someone else to help a bit. Instead of using all these ideologies and morality systems in his own head to figure out what to do and just adhering to his own unforgiving standards for himself. All right. Small steps. Let him see over time now that he can let Robbie in like that.
Because this isn’t only about having to trust your partner’s safety to someone else. It’s the thought of James and the way that cases get to him, in ways that you have to know him well enough to be able to spot. But the more Robbie thinks about it, the more he realises that he doesn’t quite know which way James will even go-whether he’d be willing to rejoice Innocent’s heart and go for promotion now that being Robbie’s sergeant is somehow no longer holding him back. Or whether-
“Don’t much fancy the idea of working with someone else long-term anyway,” James confesses.
Ah. Because this job has always had a tentative hold on James and down the line it’s still hard to imagine him staying. Robbie might not be the only one contemplating that other options within the force with a less gruelling schedule might be no bad thing here. Or even options outside the force, when it comes to James. Either way, it’d be nice to be able to call their time their own. He’s beginning to get the feeling that they might have wasted enough of it already.
But-well, it seems a bit presumptuous to be making decisions based on their relationship at this early stage. Despite this week, he can’t be sure that James, so hard to read in some respects still, will be ready to just move ahead-
The breeze lifts the branches overhead again and the calls of another group on a slightly rocking punt come across the water. James starts to stroke his thumb rather absently against the side of Robbie’s hand now.
Robbie idly watches that punt and the rather unnecessary amount of ripples it seems to be creating on the water. The passengers dispense conflicting and unappreciated advice about how far to reach with the pole. That rouses James again. He tuts away beside Robbie. “Stance is all wrong,” he mutters. “They all forget that that matters…”
“And you can do that, then, can you?”
“A bit-One summer at Cambridge, I had a job-taking the tourists out-”
This is delightful new information. "D’you wear one of those hats?”
“We had better hats in Cambridge,” James says loftily.
And that’s how he does it, Robbie realises-this is how James will let him in. He offers up little bits of his past for consideration under the guise of jokes or asides. Small, seemingly insignificant bits from someone else, but not from James. Robbie’s under no illusions that James’s slowly lifting reticence, his slow reveals, are as casual as they seem here. This is James, after his own fashion, entering gradually into this relationship with Robbie. And Robbie should’ve known-it’s the same way that James has let him in over the years, after all, seemingly giving just small pieces of himself and his past, but somehow in the process offering the whole of his warm loyal heart.
It hasn’t been a week at all, has it? It hasn’t taken a week to form what’s between them, what Robbie is only realising fully now that they’ve already got. It’s been years.
“We’ve got time to work it out now, though,” James offers. “What we both want to do about all this in work.” And he quietly lifts Robbie’s hand to press a quick kiss to it.
He’s right too.
Time. That’s exactly what they’ve got now. They’ve got each other and they’ve got time.
There’s the Cherwell making its way on down to join the Isis. There’s that breeze ruffling the leaves above them, and the branches lifting to let that leaf-patterned light play over both of them now. Most of all there’s that hand still holding Robbie’s and there’s James’s relaxed warmth so close beside him. There’s that sudden quick grin that he seems to level at Robbie for no particular reason these days and all that that summons up now. They’ve got time, they’ve got each other and they’ve got what’s turning out to be a really rather perfect summer’s day.
===
Notes: James quotes from The Old Vicarage, Grantchester by Rupert Brooke when he’s contemplating Robbie’s stint as an undercover cricketer.
There’s an excellent set of pictures by isagel (and no case spoilers) from the Morse episode Deceived by Flight, of young Sergeant Robbie Lewis thoroughly enjoying himself as a cricket player here.
Rating: Teen
Part: Three (of Three).
Protective Instincts - Part III
James propels himself upwards so fast off the bed that Robbie is quite thankful that his unfortunate head wasn’t in his path. He lands up standing very upright, gazing straight down at Innocent. She isn’t looking at James, though.
“A word, Robbie,” she says very pleasantly. When nothing happens, she turns the full force of her gaze on James and elevates her eyebrows. But James stays put and casts a slightly desperate glance at Robbie. He doesn’t quite grasp what Innocent’s main concern is here, Robbie sees. He’s thinking that he should be staying to take his part of the almighty furore he fears is coming. Robbie, with his own glance, sends him on his way. James goes very reluctantly, meeting Innocent’s look with a slight tinge of defiance as he skirts around her-bloody hell, that’s not going to help-but he does go and he clicks the door shut behind him.
“Well-” Innocent starts.
“Ma’am-” But she holds up a hand to stop him.
“First things first, inspector. Concussion, I believe, is the worst of it?”
Robbie makes a noise of assent. Frankly, with everything that seems to be happening within the past while, he feels that his concussion is assuming the proportions of a pretty minor detail. Innocent might agree because she certainly spares little time on that. “Good. Well, that was the original purpose of my visit but events seem to have rather overtaken us, don’t they? So if you’re up to a full and frank discussion?”
Regretfully, Robbie sees no room to protest that he isn’t, delicate state of his head notwithstanding, given the compromising position that she’s just discovered him in.
“Then perhaps you could kindly enlighten me as to just how long you and Sergeant Hathaway have been-” And she pauses, letting her eyebrows do the work for her once more.
“We haven’t,” Robbie informs her quite truthfully. Although he can hardly blame her for the highly sceptical look she sends right back at him. He sees no help for it now. “I mean-we just started, now, very recently, so to speak,” he admits. And marvellous ruddy timing you have too, ma’am, he feels like adding.
He’s a bit distracted by James, who is appearing, disappearing and reappearing through that small window in the door. His height means it’s perfectly possible to see his face, and his expression seems quite set. He must be pacing back and forth outside Robbie’s room, like some sort of guard. Which would be a lot more touching if it wasn’t for the fact that the only threat Robbie needs protecting from is currently right here inside the room with him. Is James anxious, though? Not just about Innocent and what she and Robbie are saying; is he getting anxious about what’s just happened with Robbie?
Robbie shifts his head rather sharply on the pillow, to try and see around Innocent at the foot of his bed and read James’s demeanour better, as he reappears. A stab of pain lets him know what a very bad idea moving his head like that was. He feels his features contort as he suppresses a curse.
“Robbie. Could you please-Oh, God,” mutters Innocent, breaking off. Robbie can see her dilemma. She’s torn between her ire at his wandering attention and her realisation that she actually is restricted in letting her opinions loose here because of his condition-as his grimaces are now apparently reminding her.
“Sorry, ma’am. Concussion,” offers Robbie hopefully.
She gives him a look. It’s quite a look. She may feel restricted in what she can say, but her facial expressions continue to convey her thoughts about Robbie, at this particular moment, quite effectively. It seems best to get things over with in one awkward go. Robbie has, not through choice, sat through her seminar with senior officers covering all the exhaustive details of her internal policies about fraternisation. It had just never crossed his mind that he’d personally be in a position to activate them.
“Nothing untoward happened with Hathaway until just now, ma’am. I haven’t been keeping anything quiet. I understand he can’t be my sergeant anymore. An’ I know you’ll have to ask him about a senior officer-making advances.” And good luck to you having that conversation with James, he reflects, because he can quite clearly see exactly how well the implications of that will go down with James, once he grasps what Innocent will be asking him. Best drill it into James that it’s just procedure, not what Innocent personally thinks about Robbie.
Because her expression has actually softened slightly, looking at him now. “Well, the actual details can probably be ironed out when you’re walking wounded, at least,” she concedes. “All right, Robbie, I’ll just-” And she’s leaving, he realises in relief.
“If you could just send Hathaway back in, ma’am,” he can’t help asking. Because James has disappeared from view altogether now, and since Robbie is apparently stuck here in this room for the foreseeable, he can’t have James going off, anxiety-stricken over what’s just happened, and Robbie not being able to reach him. Come to think of it, Robbie hasn’t even got his phone.
Innocent, muttering something that sounds remarkably like oh, as if I could stop him, heads for the door and, to Robbie’s relief, it certainly isn’t long before James returns. In fact, Robbie barely has time to start wondering why Innocent had appeared more annoyed than shocked to catch them together before James slips back in.
“Thought I’d linger round the corner till I saw her leave so she didn’t delay me coming back in,” he explains succinctly. Robbie grins at him, appreciating the foresight, but his appreciation doesn’t last long.
“Well, there you are, Hathaway,” comes a voice from behind James. “We seemed to miss each other there? I had a distinct feeling this might be where you were.” Bloody hell, she’s back.
“Ma’am.” James retreats further into the room to allow her in, his expression conceding the entrapment.
“There are various loose ends in this case, sergeant, that you’ll appreciate are in need of your input.” James looks dismayed. But Innocent is continuing: “First thing, tomorrow morning, I’ll expect to see you at the station. So kindly don’t get any ideas into your head about attempting to stay here all night. Inspector Lewis does not appear in need of an overnight vigil, and some sleep would perhaps benefit his recovery?” She elicits a reluctant nod from James. “You, from what I’ve seen so far, appear most likely to be a distinctively disruptive influence-”
“Ma’am-” James is quite horrified at this reference to his activities when she discovered them. Robbie strives to keep his facial muscles composed in a neutral and attentive expression.
“And I want you at work, tomorrow, adequately rested and more suitably clothed than this, as further evidence that you went home.” Robbie wonders suddenly, hearing the tone she uses to finish, at her real motivation. Perhaps she can still see the after-effects of James’s shock and distress, so vivid on his face when Robbie first awoke.
Sometimes, after all these years, she still wrong-foots him when her underlying concern for him or James suddenly emerges right when he’s expecting her ire.
“I’ll see he gets off shortly, ma’am,” he promises, ignoring James’s sideways glance of betrayal.
“You’ll be off for a least a week, Robbie,” she informs him. “No, I don’t know what your doctor will say, but that’s the minimum time you’ll be taking before you get anywhere near my active-duty roster. Sergeant, once your part in this case is put to bed tomorrow, I believe you happen to have leave due?” Her tone lets Robbie know that James will be taking that leave. She probably wants some time to sort out the mess they’ve handed her tonight. James seems to grasp that too. Or perhaps he just knows that he’s not in the best position to disagree with anything much that she’s saying right now.
“Yes, ma’am,” he murmurs.
“At least there’s a vacancy or two for a sergeant to be reassigned,” she says half to herself. “Gentlemen.” She nods at them both as she turns to go.
James, having somehow grasped Robbie’s unfortunate propensity to move his head without thinking, immediately puts a hand up to cup Robbie’s face to stop him from nodding at her retreating back in automatic response. Then he sinks back down on the side of the bed again, lowering his hand to take Robbie’s. He’s not ruddy anxious at all, Robbie realises, with relief.
“Fuck,” he says to Robbie.
“Yeah,” Robbie agrees.
“And where were we?” James enquires hopefully. “Before we were so rudely interrupted?”
Robbie chuckles. “You were about to head off home.” James looks distinctly put out. But he does look shattered, Robbie sees, assessing him up close again now. And a bit shellshocked still. It’s no wonder Innocent was so adamant. “She’s going to put you with Grainger, I reckon,” he informs James ruefully. “That’s the sergeant vacancy.”
But James frowns. “Grainger’s not so bad. Earlier, in the car park-he held me back-” He’s pulling his arm back against his body, a reflexive gesture, as if it almost pains him and Robbie, his shoulders tightening in indignation already, wonders how hard Grainger had gripped James’s arm to hold him back. He doesn’t have to wonder long.
“The driver of that car,” James informs him in very controlled tones. “The uniforms breathalysed him. The paramedics were there by then, putting you on the stretcher, but you were still unconscious-” and there’s a slight waver on that word still that tells Robbie that James had been right there throughout the wait for the paramedics, waiting in vain for Robbie to wake up “-and I could see that the driver had failed. Grainger was just decent about it. He kept holding me back and saying did I want to risk the conviction, risk letting him get away with it, by doing something satisfactory but stupid, that was the way he put it. Then he sent me off in the ambulance with you.”
There’s a cold anger in his eyes, recalling it, that tells Robbie exactly why Grainger might have been forced into almost hurting James.
But Grainger had known what to say, to stop James landing himself in trouble. Robbie wonders if there’s anything else left he could have got wrong this past week. And when it eventually emerges why Innocent has separated Robbie and James-well, that’ll shed further light on all of this for Grainger, Robbie thinks ruefully. But he doesn’t have long to think about Grainger. Innocent had left the door open when she took her leave and Robbie has been vaguely aware over the past few minutes of the cadence of a familiar tone amongst the indecipherable rise and fall of lowered voices at what must be the nurse’s station, out of his line of sight.
If he wasn’t so preoccupied with James he’d have worked it out sooner because someone else is appearing now.
“Robbie.” It’s Laura this time. And that familiar rhythm of speech was Laura in professional mode. And nice as it usually is to see her-what are these nurses actually at? Do visiting hours mean nothing in this place? But Laura’s badge makes visiting hours a mere detail to her when it comes to gaining access to the wards here, Innocent is a law onto herself and James, who is getting up off the bed again now to let Laura over to Robbie-well, God only knows what James told the medical staff.
But even though it’s only Laura, Robbie somehow can’t seem to take much more of this tonight. Laura seems to spot that. She comes over and stands beside the bed, looking hard at him. “You okay?” she asks.
She doesn’t look particularly convinced at his confirmation that he is.
“You’re in good hands,” she tells him, “and they’re happy enough with you so far, you should be fine. You need to rest, though. It’s not an insignificant trauma, Robbie. They thought it might be worse. That’s how you managed to land yourself back at the Radcliffe.”
Robbie hadn’t even thought to wonder why he wasn’t in some hospital more local to that club. And rest does sound like a good idea. Not that he’s about to admit it.
“Honestly… ”And she bends to drop a quick kiss on his cheek, giving him one more very direct look. Then she turns her attention to James. But she doesn’t seem to much like what she sees looking at him, either. “Come on, I’ll take you home. There were distinct mutterings at the nurse’s station about ejecting you firmly at Robbie’s next check. Regardless of the-oh, what was it, now? Urgent police business that you needed to question him about the moment he woke?”
James eyes the ceiling, not looking particularly repentant at having his tactics exposed. “Miscommunication,” he informs that overhead florescent light that really does just seems too bright and glaring to Robbie now.
“I’d save that for someone who’d believe you,” Laura advises him. Robbie attempts a grin at her, but she’s still eyeing James, waiting for his focus to return to her.
“Don’t you want to stay a bit longer?” James demurs, giving in and grimacing at her.
“No,” she informs him. “I came to see for myself that he’s still in one piece and so he is. But good try.”
But James, Robbie can see, just doesn’t want to go. He’s had a hell of a night. Probably hasn’t managed to balance himself again yet despite things really being all right now. That’s why he’s proving immune to Innocent, and even Laura, saying that Robbie needs rest. Robbie doesn’t really want to imagine what it would have been like to come out of that noisy pulsing cavern of the club, high from the adrenaline of the evening and the relief and success of making the arrest, into the outside world, and then come across an accident scene and realise who was involved.
“Give us a minute, would you?” Robbie says, half-apologetically, to Laura.
“One,” she agrees. But she not only leaves, she closes the door with a firm click.
Robbie wants nothing more now than to be in a bigger bed and slide his arm under James, pull him in close right against him for the night. James can be an oddly undemanding presence when you’re het up. Dead soothing, really. Robbie certainly doesn’t him to leave. But he can also see what Innocent was getting at. James needs some sort of distraction from all tonight’s trauma and he needs to be sent home. Robbie reckons he knows exactly how to entice him.
“Innocent’s right, you know, you’d be one hell of a distraction. Raising me pulse and everything so you are. And that’s one of the things they watch for after a head injury-high blood pressure." Robbie is not, after all, inexperienced with this. His cricketing undercover stint had involved a concussion too, come to think of it. “You’ll land up having me stuck in here all the longer if you stick around. And it’d be nice for us to get me home to me own bed, wouldn’t it now? Be that bit more-private.”
James stares at him.
“Yeah?” he manages after a moment. He seems to be aiming for a casual tone but his voice is a little husky.
Robbie remembers not to nod.
“I’ll come back and get you tomorrow when they let you go home then-”
“You’re not to worry about that, you’ll have your hands full in work, from the sounds of it. Just get shot of this case and finish up, yeah? And then I’ll see you in the evening.” Robbie sincerely hopes that he’ll be out of here well before then. “Cause it sounds like we have both have a week off, you know, after that, one way or another?”
James’s face slowly breaks into a delighted grin. He mustn’t be thinking straight if he hadn’t grasped that. And this is surely not what Innocent intended, giving them a week off together as some sort of reward for creating an administrative headache for her and forcing her hand, making her break up a partnership with a fairly bloody good case-closure rate. But Robbie has never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Hathaway.” Laura has levered the door back open and her expression speaks volumes.
James wavers, it’s almost imperceptible, but Robbie reckons he can read what’s running across his mind all the same-the thought of kissing Robbie goodnight in front of Laura is somehow a step further than being found by his chief super thoroughly embarked on much the same enterprise. James won’t say a word to Laura, of course. He’ll defer to Robbie’s relationship with her and let Robbie tell her. But he’s looking at Robbie rather ruefully. Robbie delivers his best flirtatious wink at him. That seems to do the trick.
James, rather startled, heads over to Laura’s impatient presence, casting one more quizzical look back over his shoulder at Robbie as he goes. Robbie grins to himself, knowing full well the source of James’s confusion. The lad obviously hadn’t expected this talk of Robbie’s bed yet, hadn’t thought Robbie’s interest in this part of their relationship would more than match his own. He’ll see. Robbie plans to thoroughly disperse this bloody frustrating talk that’s been floating around all week about older blokes and their need for chemical assistance. Thoroughly.
“Nice shirt, sergeant,” he hears Laura observe as she and James depart. The door closes on James’s murmured protest of a response.
===
“Hi.” James is looking shyly pleased with himself.
“What’re you doing here?”
“Got it all done a bit early, after all. Told you I’d pick you up.”
“An’ I told you not to worry. Laura said she’d drop me home.” But Robbie can’t hide his pleasure, all the same. James just shrugs, still grinning. He looks a fair bit better.
Robbie’s phone has mysteriously appeared, dropped off at the nurses’ station early this morning. He rather suspects Grainger may have retrieved it and sent it over, someone presumably having had the foresight to relieve Robbie of his car keys before he was dispatched here last night. His car is presumably at the nick.
The phone had initially seemed very promising for sending a series of surreptitious texts to Laura, in an attempt to get her to wield her influence and get him sprung from here some time today. Robbie hadn’t planned to spend a moment longer than necessary in this bed even if he is strangely exhausted. But Laura had proved frustratingly immune to his pleas, informing him progressively throughout the morning that she wasn’t his personal doctor, that if he’d had a scan then obviously he’d have to wait for the consultant to come on duty to read it, and that she had no intention of treading on any toes or engaging in any battles against a perfectly reasonable system on his behalf.
Robbie doesn’t think he’s a bad patient, as such. Val had always said he was fine when he was ill-well, as long as he was really ill. Although, come to think of it, she’d also said that it was when he started to recover that he became a nightmare. And Robbie is beginning to grasp the unwelcome prospect that this will involve an actual recovery. This is nothing like having a concussion in the good old days when you could be knocked out one night and back in work the next morning. He’d decided, on reflection, though, not to express that view to the nurses since he was fairly sure that Laura’s texted exhortation to tell them that then and see how far it gets you was actually an attempt to have the nurses give him short shrift on her own behalf. But she’d offered to take him home once his one-man campaign for release finally bore fruit, as she’d put it.
Except now, just as release finally beckons, here’s James. He’s considerately bearing the change of clothes that Robbie keeps at the office too.
And James seems far more at ease with himself than he has all week and quite keen to stay when a nurse appears to run through the final formalities. The nurse also seems happier to have someone in a rather better state of health than Robbie to discharge all this exhaustive information to. There does seem quite a lot to have to focus on. As she processes through the written instructions about recommendations and warning signs with an attentive James, Robbie, with a slightly ominous feeling about how seriously James is going to take all this, is about to tell her not to encourage him when she gets to yet another question for Robbie: “And do you live alone or is there someone who can-”
“He won’t be alone,” James informs her. But he sounds shyly pleased, saying that. Ah. And just like that, Robbie knows to bite his tongue and make an effort to take any unnecessary fuss that may be headed his way on the chin, this time. Seems a small price to pay in the circumstances.
After the nurse departs, Robbie is mainly preoccupied with the welcome prospect of getting dressed and out of this bed now, but once that’s accomplished, he finds it’s an effort to ignore the slight dizziness that’s assailing him now that he’s standing upright for a reasonable amount of time. Sitting on the edge of the bed for a moment seems like a good move. Then he feels James drop down beside him and turns to find that even more welcome developments are taking precedence, as James is eyeing him in a way that says he won’t be waiting much longer before he claims his kiss.
It’s not quite as careful as last night. Christ, at least there’s one area where James isn’t being over-cautious. The lad’s not helping with this dizziness at all, as Robbie mildly informs his unrepentant sergeant when he finally desists.
“They never said not to do that,” James says. “I’ve got your list of risk factors and warning signs here now, and thoroughly kissing you is most definitely not on it. In fact, there’s a whole lot of leeway they’ve left, really-”
Robbie is slightly disappointed that Laura chooses that moment to finally arrive, but regardless of what she suspects, or thinks she knows, he won’t be finding out what exactly James means by that now until he gets home. James is standing to greet her.
Laura just shakes her head. “All that pestering and turns out you have a chauffeur ready and waiting here all along. I might’ve known you only wanted me for my medical expertise.”
“He only just got here,” Robbie protests.
Laura addresses herself to James. “You have my sincere sympathies. Bad enough being pulled into work on a Saturday, isn’t it, without being unmercifully pestered by text? Though at least you don’t have to keep changing your gloves every bloody time…”
“And I’ve got the week off now,” James informs her.
Laura glances from him to Robbie. “Just as well,” she says after a moment, thoughtfully. “Has he actually grasped what recovery from this involves?”
“Oi,” protests Robbie. “Right here, I am.”
Laura ignores him. “He’ll tell you that he’s been bashed over the head before with no ill-effects, but he was unconscious for a significant enough period this time-what’s wrong ?” she asks, her expression suddenly changing.
Robbie looks at James. He’s gone a bit pale again. “All right,” he says gruffly to Laura, “no need to go over all that again.” Laura seems to grasp what’s going on.
“He’ll be fine, James,” she says gently. “I’m just trying to get it through to him that he won’t instantly bounce back. But he’s fine.” James just nods at her. Robbie feels a bit stricken again at the thought of the struggle James must have gone through last night. Robbie had really had the easier ordeal, himself, being unaware of it all. No wonder James is drawing straight back into Robbie’s space every chance he gets. Even now, with Laura here, he’s standing very close to the edge of the bed. Very close to Robbie.
Laura seems to be leaving them to it already. “Well, seeing as I’m now surplus to requirements-”
“No,” James informs her. “Never that.” They both look at him. That’s one of those statements which would probably be a joking remark from someone else but is perfectly serious coming from James.
The smile Laura suddenly gives him is very warm. “All right,” she concedes after a moment. “Put it this way. You take him home then and I’ll check in on you both tomorrow. Make sure he’s still recovering okay and put your mind at rest-and check he’s not actually driving you up the wall in the process.” It sounds about right to Robbie but he’s not about to admit that she may have the measure of him.
James nods at her again. She casts one more look at Robbie before she goes. It’s the type of look that you give someone when there’s not much need for words. James’s straightforward remark has rather struck her, Robbie can see. And he’d bet anything that it really won’t be a surprise to Laura when he tells her about him and James. He can picture her rolling her eyes at him if he tries to work up to it, actually.
“Home?” James suggests, raising his eyebrows at him. Robbie suddenly remembers that yearning from last night to have James right beside him in his bed.
“Aye. We can stop off though on the way-”
“You’re not having takeaway. It says good nutrition here. I’ll cook-actually we will need to stop off, won’t we, you won’t exactly have many fresh ingredients. But they said no alcohol too, incidentally. Just in case you were thinking of beer-” Christ, it’s a taste of things to things to come.
“No,” says Robbie patiently. “Get your stuff, yeah? Stay over? Just told them I wouldn’t be by meself now, didn’t you?”
“Oh.” That’s stopped him in his tracks. “Yes,” James says with certainty. And Robbie suddenly finds himself the recipient of that irresistible smile of pure delight.
Epilogue
They’re sitting on a tree-shaded bench where the Botanic Gardens border onto the Cherwell. Getting here has involved a pleasant wander through the gardens. It’s a good place to be on an afternoon like this, when the warmth of the day is now making itself properly felt. It may not be the Trout yet-and it won’t be for some time-but it runs a pretty close second at this particular moment.
Although Robbie is now beginning to wonder if James hasn’t chosen this spot purely for the opportunity to critique other folk’s punting technique. Its proximity to where the punts are moored means that none of the tourists have quite got the hang of it by the time they make their slightly nervous, haphazard way past.
James seems rather displeased that apparently most of them show evidence of having failed to take in the basic advice they would have been given.
He’s managed to do again what he’s been doing all week, unobtrusively giving Robbie just what he could do with-in this case, somewhere quiet enough where they can still watch the goings on-just as the frustration of this whole sick leave period starts to get on top of him again. Because Robbie has been forced by now into an awareness of what Laura has been going on about with her talk of recovery time-he’s been stupidly tired and rather lacking in concentration this week. And he’s been told now that it’ll be another few weeks before he’s reviewed and hopefully cleared for active duty.
It’s not the best timing when you're starting up something proper with someone much younger, someone who looks lithe and firm and full of quietly suppressed energy, even when lounging back on this bench beside you. Because even though Laura has made it perfectly clear why this particular injury has hit Robbie harder than before, and that his normal energy levels will return, and even though age didn’t come into her brief lecture-well, feeling like this does sort of make you feel older. Which should be a worry.
Except that James doesn’t seem to mind in the slightest.
The tree-shadowed sunlight plays across James’s features and he drops his head back and closes his eyes. Robbie takes the opportunity to watch him for a moment, unobserved. It’s quiet here and sort of private, what with the leafy canopy overhead and with the punters so occupied with attempting to navigate the challenge of this slightly deceptive bend. And James’s posture is that relaxed. This week off is certainly doing him no harm.
There’s a hand finding Robbie’s on the bench now and long, supple fingers twining themselves gently through his own.
It’s privately taken Robbie by surprise, the lack of effort it’s taken to form this week’s gentle domestic routine. For someone so complicated, the simplest little things seem to bring no small amount of pleasure to James. He’s been reluctant to leave Robbie much to his own devices in the evenings. He’s just been there, making himself at home in Robbie’s kitchen as naturally as if he’d been contemplating for ages just what he’d do if he had the go-ahead to cook for Robbie. And it turns out, as Robbie should have suspected, that the lad can properly cook. He can cook so well, in fact, that Robbie has to freely admit that he can make healthier ingredients than Robbie would ever choose taste very good. And then-well, then James just stays.
Robbie wasn’t quite sure at first if James was feeling the need to stay in order to make sure that Robbie really was all right at night. But he now increasingly thinks that James simply wants to stay. Robbie’s surely not objecting. Not when they’ve embarked on this slowly developing, thoroughly enjoyable, mutual quest to discover just how much of a pleasure sharing a bed with each other can be. And James will sometimes disappear off for the day, after making and sharing breakfast-and then sometimes there have been days like this instead.
Waking up with him there in the mornings has been its own pure pleasure, too.
So much so that Robbie finds he doesn’t actually want to keep missing out on that. And things will be pretty different when they both return to work, with two unpredictable schedules that won’t run concurrently. James will be top of the call-out rota when Robbie isn’t, and vice versa. Never mind this whole idea of a new sergeant-it’s enough to make moving towards retirement seem like something Robbie should keep in mind. Except that this enforced time off has brought home to him that he’s sincerely not ready to face up to full-time retirement yet. Or the prospect of a desk job. But he could think of taking more of a regular hours, training role, as Innocent had originally tried to steer him so very firmly towards years ago. Training up a new set of recruits. Staying on as a copper but having more time to call his own.
Innocent will be none too pleased if he requests that now. And it mightn’t be the best time exactly to ask her for a favour. But there are other factors here too that make looking for something not quite so much in the line of fire seem well worth considering.
Robbie thinks of James’s wretchedness when he came to, last week in the Radcliffe, and he knows he doesn’t much want to be the cause of that look again if he can help it. And then there’s the thought of it not being Robbie who’s the injured one-
“This working with other folk-“ Robbie starts. “Well, we can anticipate what the other one’s at, can’t we? Made it easier to be one step ahead of anyone who’s going to try something. Going to take some getting used to, getting to know someone else well enough. You’ll have to be more on alert with a new partner.”
“Yeah,” says James, non-committal.
Robbie can hardly blame him if he’s reluctant to discuss this precise topic. But he needs to make this all a bit clearer to James now. He sort of owes it to him. “I didn’t much fancy that last week-” he admits. “The idea of you heading into a risky situation with someone else as backup. Anyone else, really.”
“Mmm,” James agrees, opening his eyes just long enough now to send a sidelong glance at Robbie.
“I could’ve handled it all a bit better, mind.”
“Mmm,” James agrees, with his eyes shut again now, but with much more feeling. Robbie elbows him. It’s amazing how much the lad can get into one monosyllabic sound. James opens his eyes to gaze at him reproachfully.
“Wasn’t just you,” he says, relenting after a moment and closing his eyes again.
“Didn’t do great at this communicating lark, did we?” Laura, Robbie suspects, would be sorely tempted to knock both their heads together if she knew exactly what had gone on between them. Well, if it wasn’t for Robbie’s concussion.
James turns to look at him properly now, with a grin at the understatement. “I don’t know-we got there. In the end.”
“Aye, well. I’d prefer not to have to go through all that another time.” But that’s not really what Robbie means. Somehow the worst part of it for him, the part that bothers him almost the most still, is that James had felt unable to tell him what was going with Bradshaw. And Robbie may not have a handle yet on all the complicated reasons why that might have been, but at the end of the day-“If something like that is happening again-tell me, next time, yeah?”
James doesn’t look as convinced as Robbie would like. “But you won’t even be my boss any more. Really can’t have you fighting my battles for me round the nick. Wouldn’t be right, anyway, if I took advantage of having a relationship with a senior officer.”
It is going to be dead strange, all the same, to have James around the nick and not have him as his sergeant. But Robbie needs to get across to him that this isn’t about work, as such. “I don’t mean that. I mean-tell me.”
James actually looks a little dubious, grimacing at him, as if he maybe doubts his own capacity to do that. He really isn’t quite used to this, is he? Relying on someone else to help a bit. Instead of using all these ideologies and morality systems in his own head to figure out what to do and just adhering to his own unforgiving standards for himself. All right. Small steps. Let him see over time now that he can let Robbie in like that.
Because this isn’t only about having to trust your partner’s safety to someone else. It’s the thought of James and the way that cases get to him, in ways that you have to know him well enough to be able to spot. But the more Robbie thinks about it, the more he realises that he doesn’t quite know which way James will even go-whether he’d be willing to rejoice Innocent’s heart and go for promotion now that being Robbie’s sergeant is somehow no longer holding him back. Or whether-
“Don’t much fancy the idea of working with someone else long-term anyway,” James confesses.
Ah. Because this job has always had a tentative hold on James and down the line it’s still hard to imagine him staying. Robbie might not be the only one contemplating that other options within the force with a less gruelling schedule might be no bad thing here. Or even options outside the force, when it comes to James. Either way, it’d be nice to be able to call their time their own. He’s beginning to get the feeling that they might have wasted enough of it already.
But-well, it seems a bit presumptuous to be making decisions based on their relationship at this early stage. Despite this week, he can’t be sure that James, so hard to read in some respects still, will be ready to just move ahead-
The breeze lifts the branches overhead again and the calls of another group on a slightly rocking punt come across the water. James starts to stroke his thumb rather absently against the side of Robbie’s hand now.
Robbie idly watches that punt and the rather unnecessary amount of ripples it seems to be creating on the water. The passengers dispense conflicting and unappreciated advice about how far to reach with the pole. That rouses James again. He tuts away beside Robbie. “Stance is all wrong,” he mutters. “They all forget that that matters…”
“And you can do that, then, can you?”
“A bit-One summer at Cambridge, I had a job-taking the tourists out-”
This is delightful new information. "D’you wear one of those hats?”
“We had better hats in Cambridge,” James says loftily.
And that’s how he does it, Robbie realises-this is how James will let him in. He offers up little bits of his past for consideration under the guise of jokes or asides. Small, seemingly insignificant bits from someone else, but not from James. Robbie’s under no illusions that James’s slowly lifting reticence, his slow reveals, are as casual as they seem here. This is James, after his own fashion, entering gradually into this relationship with Robbie. And Robbie should’ve known-it’s the same way that James has let him in over the years, after all, seemingly giving just small pieces of himself and his past, but somehow in the process offering the whole of his warm loyal heart.
It hasn’t been a week at all, has it? It hasn’t taken a week to form what’s between them, what Robbie is only realising fully now that they’ve already got. It’s been years.
“We’ve got time to work it out now, though,” James offers. “What we both want to do about all this in work.” And he quietly lifts Robbie’s hand to press a quick kiss to it.
He’s right too.
Time. That’s exactly what they’ve got now. They’ve got each other and they’ve got time.
There’s the Cherwell making its way on down to join the Isis. There’s that breeze ruffling the leaves above them, and the branches lifting to let that leaf-patterned light play over both of them now. Most of all there’s that hand still holding Robbie’s and there’s James’s relaxed warmth so close beside him. There’s that sudden quick grin that he seems to level at Robbie for no particular reason these days and all that that summons up now. They’ve got time, they’ve got each other and they’ve got what’s turning out to be a really rather perfect summer’s day.
===
Notes: James quotes from The Old Vicarage, Grantchester by Rupert Brooke when he’s contemplating Robbie’s stint as an undercover cricketer.
There’s an excellent set of pictures by isagel (and no case spoilers) from the Morse episode Deceived by Flight, of young Sergeant Robbie Lewis thoroughly enjoying himself as a cricket player here.