Chapter Text
The rain fell steadily, running down his window in bloody trails, colored by the red neon outside the window. He’d smoked steadily since she’d left the office that evening, heading home to Max and Wolfgang. And away from him.
He’d been trying for months now to make an overture that she wouldn’t misunderstand. Struggling to find a way to let her know that his interest in her extended beyond her accomplishments in the field and agency. He valued those things, absolutely, but her steadfast kindness, her friendliness, fuck, just her presence near him, those were the things he valued more than he’d thought possible.
And he was tired of being lonely.
He was tired of being with her during the days and not being able to have some of her nights without work necessitating it. But she’d either not realized that his attempts at flirting were that, or she’d realized it and chosen to be willfully obtuse. He couldn’t figure out which and there was no one he could go to for advice that wouldn’t cackle with glee when he told them what he was feeling.
No one except Robin.
He stubbed out his most recent cigarette, watching the red haze of smoke floating in the air of his office undulate on the tide of his sigh. Glanced at his phone for what seemed like the fiftieth time since she’d left for the day. He ached to call her. To text her. But he had no reason to, that wouldn’t be a blatant admission that he was lonely and craved her company, and if she was being willfully obtuse, he didn’t want to force her to explain that she wasn’t interested. He cared about her and her friendship too much to force that.
He leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms above his head and arching his back, feeling and hearing the satisfying crack of air being pushed out of his vertebrae. He rolled his head on his neck, then rolled his shoulders, trying to work the tension out of them, and then pushed to his feet, grabbing his phone from the desk, resolutely refusing to look at the screen one more time.
Cracking a window and emptying the ashtray into the bin bag he’d promised Pat he’d take out, he turned and walked out of the office, locking the door behind him.
Maybe he’d go down to the Tottenham. Have a pint and a whiskey and maybe a bite to eat.
Maybe he was just hungry and confusing it with loneliness.
He didn’t hear or feel the phone he’d been monitoring all evening ring in his pocket as he walked down the stairs. Nor did he feel it as he deposited the bin bag in the bin and patted his coat pockets for his pack of cigarettes. “Like you need another one, you fat fuck,” he groused at himself. But he struck the match and inhaled as he turned toward Tottenham Court Road and the warmth of his local.
▪▪▪
“Damn it Strike! Where are you? I need you. Please call me back. Please,” Robin nearly sobbed into her phone after Strike hadn’t answered the third call.
The ambulance continued it’s race to Craigmaddie Hospital and she didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know who to call. Ilsa and Nick were out of town, in Cornwall and she didn’t know any of his other friends here in London. Didn’t know anything really. They’d only just become friends.
She turned her phone over and over in her hands. She didn’t know who else to call but Strike. He was the person she’d realized, in this moment, that she leaned on most. There was no one else she trusted the way she trusted him. He’d know what to do, who to call, how to help.
Max lay so still on the stretcher. His eyes moved under his lids making them twitch, reminding her of the way his body had twitched as he’d landed on the floor of their sitting room, popcorn and beer spilling all over the floor as he fell, seizing.
She’d never seen anything like it before. One minute he’d been grinning and laughing at her joke about the movie he was forcing her to watch and the next he’d been on the floor, his laugh still echoing in the room as his body had jerked and his eyes had rolled and she’d scrambled to him, placing herself between him and the furniture he was close enough to hit his head on, as she dialed 999 and threw her phone on the table on speakerphone, ready to do whatever was asked of her to help her friend.
He’d finally settled as the operator had confirmed their address and told her help was on the way. But he hadn’t regained consciousness and she’d felt the stirrings of a panic attack beginning in her chest. Through sheer dint of will she forced it back, taking deep breaths and refusing to let it gain hold when Max needed her.
But now, sitting in this ambulance, watching as the medic probed Max for a good vein to start an IV and trying to answer the questions she was being asked, she could feel it starting back up. The pressure in her chest, that she knew would ease if only she could talk to Cormoran. Hear his voice, calm and deep and reassuring.
“You alright, luv?” the medic asked as she carefully inserted a needle into the bend of Max’s elbow, pulling it out and leaving behind a tube running to a bag of clear liquid that hung from the roof of the box they were riding in. “You’re breathing is a little erratic,” the medic met her eyes.
“Anxiety,” Robin gasped out.
“Panic attack?”
Robin just nodded.
“Bound to happen. Hang on a sec.” The medic rustled around in a drawer, coming up with an oxygen mask similar to the one strapped across Max’s face. She plugged it into a tube hanging from the side of the ambulance and twisted a nob, then handed it to Robin. “You do CBT exercises?”
Robin nodded again, clutching the mask to her face and counting her inhale.
“Okay. I’m going to talk to my partner for a few minutes. Your friend is stable. Hold on to that, okay?”
Without waiting for the nod this time, the medic started rattling off numbers and medical jargon to her partner who rattled it off into what Robin assumed was a radio to the hospital, letting them know what was going on with Max so they’d be prepared when they got there.
“She’s fine. Just needed some oxygen,” she heard the medic saying. “Anxiety attack. She’ll be fine by the time we get there, won’t you luv?” she looked back at Robin, her eyes assessing her.
Another nod.
“Gonna ask you some yes or no’s, that alright?”
Nod.
“He do any drugs that you’re aware of?”
Robin shook her head.
“Other than his pacemaker, any other medical conditions you’ve thought of since I asked you at your flat?”
Shake.
“Any allergies that you know of?”
Shake.
“Anything out of the ordinary at all?”
Shake.
This time, her eyes welled up, and the medic reached across, laying hand on hers and squeezing gently.
“Hey,” she waited until Robin’s eyes met hers. “He’s stable. That’s a good thing. The staff at Craigmaddie’ll get him sorted.” The box went over a bump that rattled the fixtures and drawers, and the medic driving turned his head slightly, “Prep him, Val.”
The box came to a stop and she heard the front door open, as her medic, Val, bent and unlatched the brakes holding the stretcher Max lay on in place, just as the doors to the back of the box swung open. Val hopped down and together she and her partner pulled Max out of the box, dropping the wheels of the stretcher to the ground.
Robin dropped the oxygen mask she’d still been clutching and scrambled to follow, glancing once more at her phone screen, before shoving it into her back pocket and running to keep up with Val and her partner as they wheeled Max into the A&E bay.