Chapter Text
The conversation ends in tears, which Robert probably could have predicted if he'd been able to think beyond the pure exhaustion of simply existing when he feels like he's running on empty.
As it is, the conversation starts with him standing almost stock still in Vic's box room, looking exactly the same as he left it the last time he was here less than two weeks ago and somehow completely unrecognisable to him.
He can feel Vic hovering hesitantly in the doorway behind him.
"I've got to go pick up Harry from Sarah's," she says tentatively. Everything about her has been tentative ever since she picked him up from HMP Hotten an hour ago. She'd hugged him, then, and he'd hugged her back because she's his little sister and he missed her, but he'd felt just as numb in her arms as he does now standing in the room that has been his for the past three months and yet in this moment feels impossibly unfamiliar to him. "She and Jacob agreed to watch him while I went to get you, said it'd be good practice. He's, um. He's been wondering about you. Harry has. He'll probably…"
Robert shakes his head, eyes landing on a duffel bag in the corner of the room. He breaks out of his stupor to go and pick it up.
"Don't worry," he says tonelessly. "I can be out of here before he gets back."
"What?" Vic sounds confused, but Robert doesn't turn around to look at her to check, focuses on shoveling some clothes into the bag instead. "Robert, you don't have to go."
"But I should." He does look at her then, and almost immediately wishes he hadn't, the upset look on her face almost too much to bear. He pushes on, though, wants to make it easier on her so that she doesn't have to live with the guilt of kicking him out if they act like it was his decision. "Don't worry, Vic, you don't have to say it. I know I've run out of chances."
"Robert — no," she says, sounding lost. She moves towards him, maybe makes to hold his arm, but he bends down to pick up a spare pair of shoes before she reaches him. "You don't — you don't have to go. Is this — is this because of what I said over the phone? When I said —"
"I know what you said."
He thinks she might flinch, but he can't be sure because he's still stubbornly packing his things haphazardly in his bag, keeping his eyes on the task.
"Robert," she says pleadingly. "Robert, can you just — can you just stop. Please, can we talk about this —"
"What is there to talk about, Vic?"
He hears her breath hitch, sees her move closer to him out of the corner of his eye. He shoves a pair of trainers into his bag.
"Robert —"
"It's fine, Vic." He moves past her, towards his — her — dresser, opens the drawers and starts pulling out clothes. "Really, it's okay."
"I don't want you to go." The words come out shaken and warbly and he barely registers them; there's an unopened book on the bedside table that he might as well take with him when he goes. "Robert, can you just look at me?"
She reaches for him almost desperately, hands falling on the bag he's still holding rigidly and trying to pull it out of his grip. She doesn't quite manage it, only gets him to stop his frenzied pacing and to finally stay in one spot for longer than a second. He still can't quite meet her eyes; sways in place instead.
Vic's hands land on his wrist, squeezing desperately.
"Robert, I didn't know," she says helplessly. "I'm sorry —"
"I know you're sorry." And he believes her when she says she is. He might even forgive her. But it doesn't change the fact that she believed he was capable of what John said he did, and no matter what she says, she can't be comfortable having someone like that hanging around Harry.
He manages to drag his eyes up to meet hers. She looks back at him, earnest and distressed and so guilty. It takes everything in him not to look away.
"Where are you going to go?"
"B&B's just down the road."
Her face goes a little slack at that, and he can see the moment when it hits her, when she wholly realises he's being serious. Her eyes fill with tears.
"Look, I know — I know I messed up," she says, choked up. Robert wants to tell her that that's not it, that he knows it was all John and that he got into her head and that Robert didn't make it easy on her to believe him. He wants to, he does, but the words get stuck in his throat and all he can do is stay silent as she tucks a strand of hair that's fallen in her face behind her ear with a shaky hand. "And I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. But please — we can fix this."
He shakes his head. There's nothing to fix. Not really.
"Robert," she says, and — she's crying. She's crying now, looking at him pleadingly through her tears, and Robert thinks his heart might split in two. "Robert, please don't go. I can't — I don't want to lose you, too."
And the thing is — he knows this isn't her lumping him in with John. He knows that. He knows she's only coming from a place where she's tired of losing people she loves — Mum, and Dad, and Diane and Adam and Finn and Amy and Andy and maybe even him, too — but that's how it feels in this moment, like the idea of losing him is only unbearable after having to lose John, the better, more reliable brother that she'd had to trust in Robert's absence, like losing Robert only hurts now because he's all she has left.
He pulls his hand out of her hold.
"What's another brother, eh?"
Her face falls, and he immediately wants to take the words back, or at least wrap them around something less cruel. He closes his eyes, takes a breath.
"I'm sorry," he says, opening them again and taking in his sister's devastated expression. "I love you. You're my little sister, and I'll always, always love you. But I… I need some space. At least for a little while."
He sees the war waging inside her, sees her battling her every instinct as she keeps quiet and stops herself from asking him to stay. Instead, she lets out a shuddering breath, moving forward to throw her arms around him in a desperate hug.
"I love you too," she chokes out. "And I'm so sorry." She draws back, keeping her hands on his arms. He can't tell if they're shaking or if he is. "If this is what you need, I won't stop you," she adds, and he can hear how much it costs her to say it, "but… but you can always come home. Alright? When you're ready, you can come home."
He doesn't tell her that Keepers is her home, not his. It never was. Instead he presses a kiss to the side of her head, pulls away from her, and silently goes back to packing his things.
He lasts two days at the B&B, most of it spent staring at the ceiling in a dull, despondent silence and ignoring Bob's attempts at hospitality before he becomes aware of his rumbling stomach and manages to drag himself to a shower to make himself halfway presentable to traipse over to the shops.
"Bob mentioned you were staying at the B&B," Eric says at the counter as he checks him out a sandwich and a packet of crisps.
"Yeah," is all Robert manages in response.
Eric isn't deterred. "Is that meant to be a long term stay, or do you intend on moving on elsewhere?"
The truth is, Robert has barely thought about what his next steps are. He can barely think past the next moment.
"Where am I going to go?" he says, voice sounding thin to his own ears.
"Back to your sister's?" Eric offers.
Robert barely holds in his flinch. "No," he says. "No, not — yet."
Eric regards him for a moment, and Robert is too tired to feel the pricklings of discomfort under his gaze; instead, he just grabs his sandwich, stuffs the crisps in his pocket, and turns to leave.
"You know," Eric's voice pipes up, and Robert almost ignores it. But he's got nowhere to be, really, so he holds back a sigh, turns back around to face him. "I own one of those new cottages, the ones that were built on the edge of the village while you were inside."
Robert shrugs. "Alright."
"It's empty," Eric says patiently. "I'd be happy to rent it out, if that's something that would be of interest to you."
It takes a second for his words to reach him, but when they do he goes still, the closest thing he's felt to intrigue peeking through his numbed state since he got out of prison. "Really?" he asks. This could be good, this could be exactly what he needs right now, but he can't help but think there must be a catch. "Why would you do that?"
"Why not? It sounds like you need a place to stay, and I've got one."
It hits him suddenly, just how long he's known Eric. That could be said for most of the village, he supposes, but Eric has known him his entire life, has seen him in a variety of states over the years. He looks at him then, and in the space of a moment he sees all the times he wound up staying at the B&B over the years when he was the one running it, all the times he and Val put him up with a room and a terrible breakfast and even worse bedside manners. Eric did help him out once, when he had nowhere else to go, even if only incidentally.
Maybe that's what makes him agree.
The cottage is small, just on the outskirts of the village, fully furnished with two bedrooms and an open floor plan for the kitchen and living room. Robert takes it on the spot, accepting the keys and trying not to think of how he'll find the money to pay Eric rent in a couple of weeks. Instead he waits for Eric to leave, drops the keys on his new coffee table, and collapses on his new couch without bothering to lock the door behind him.
He stays that way for an unknowable amount of time, sometimes sleeping and sometimes not. He knows he should do something — should get up and eat and go out in the village and maybe see if he still has a job since rent will be due sooner than he knows it — but it all seems like too much effort right now.
He doesn't know how long it lasts, just knows that what interrupts it is a sharp knock on the door that pulls him out of his thoughts.
He blinks, registers the light coming through his window and grasps that the day must have turned into afternoon at some point. There's another knock, and he stumbles to his feet, shuffling over to the door.
He opens it to find Tracy, of all people, standing there with her fist raised as if readying herself to knock a third time.
"… Hi?"
"Hi," she answers brightly.
Robert wonders, briefly, if he's somehow forgotten about plans he had today. But that doesn't make sense; he hasn't spoken to anyone in days to make these plans, and if he had he doubts they would have been with Tracy Robinson.
"What are you doing here?" His voice is rough from disuse.
"I got your address off Eric," she answers, which isn't really at all what he asked.
She makes her way inside, through the entrance and into the living room, where her eyes linger on the heap of blankets on the couch, and into the kitchen, which is so barren and visibly untouched Robert would probably be embarrassed if he was capable of feeling anything but exhaustion and a vague confusion as to whatever is going on right now. Tracy turns on her heels then, and gives him an appraising look.
"Are you doing alright?"
Robert shrugs. "Sure."
"Right."
It's clear she doesn't believe him. She's probably right not to. People who are alright probably don't spend days on end buried under covers on the sofa not speaking to anyone. Robert just doesn't have the energy to care.
"When was the last time you ate anything?"
"… Not sure."
"Right," she repeats. She puts a hand on her hip. "How about this: you go take a shower, and I'll make us some tea."
"I'm not hungry."
"Tough," she says brightly. "Shower, yeah?"
He looks at her, at her beaming face and the stubborn glint in her eye, and knows there's no point in arguing. He goes, scrounging up a mock salute on his way out, and she grins, puttering about his sorry excuse for a kitchen.
The most annoying part is that the shower does help. He emerges from the bathroom feeling just that little bit more human, less muddled and more aware of his surroundings. It's why he can bring himself to ask the question that's been plaguing him since even before he first laid down on the couch, when he reaches Tracy again and slumps himself against the kitchen counter.
"How's, erm… how's Aaron, do you know?"
Her face softens. "He's on the mend, I hear. Cain said he should be back home within the week."
"Good," Robert hears himself say, almost in a whisper. "That's good."
Tracy peers at him. "Have you gone to see him?"
He shakes his head. "I don't have it in me to fight my way through an army of Dingles to get to him right now."
"I don't think they would put up a fight now that they know you didn't hurt Aaron."
Robert shrugs, doesn't meet her eyes. "Aaron probably doesn't want to see me."
She frowns. "How'd you figure that?"
He swallows thickly, his barely-used throat closing up around everything he can't say. She doesn't know about what happened at the gorge. She doesn't know that everything that happened is down to him. "He's recovering, the last thing he needs is his…" The words come to him, an echo of a conversation he hasn't been able to shake. "… tragic ex showing up."
"You're not tragic," Tracy says, her voice sharper than he expected. It's almost enough to make him look up from the marble countertop he's been staring at. "You were right, and you got locked up for it. You're the reason Mack is alive."
He scoffs. "Hardly."
"You knew he was alive, you knew he needed looking for."
"Fat load of good that did, considering no one would listen to me."
"I did." That does make him look up, and he finds her looking at him with more sympathy than he expected. She presses her lips together, suddenly looking a lot more vulnerable than she has since she first walked into his home. "I felt like I was losing my mind, and you listened to me."
He shakes his head. It's not a thanks, not exactly, but he still feels the need to brush it off. Because he didn't accomplish anything, not the way she's saying, and what little he did do he did out of his own interest, not hers.
He's too tired to find the words.
"Anyone would have done the same," he says, wonders if his voice is coming out as bone-tired as he thinks it is.
"Hasn't been my experience." She puts a plate in front of him. "Eat."
He looks down. She must have ducked out and over to the shops in the time he was in the shower, picked up the ingredients to make up a quick pasta salad that stares back at him as his stomach churns.
"Why are you here, Tracy?" he asks, because he still can't figure that out.
She straightens her shoulders, something like determination flashing over her face. "I came here today because I wanted to thank you for taking me seriously about Mack." He opens his mouth, prepared to tell her he doesn't need her to thank him for that — because it wasn't about her, was it, so much as it was about him needing someone to hear him about John — but she keeps going. "And because you were right about John. And now… knowing what really happened to Nate… I think it might have helped me get the closure I needed to start getting past this."
"You…" His voice comes out rougher than he means it to. "You don't have to thank me for that."
She shakes her head. "I came here today because of that," she states again. "I'm going to keep coming here because I'm worried about you."
"Tracy, you don't need to look after me."
"It doesn't look like anyone else is."
And, well. That maybe cuts him deeper than it should. "And you have a vested interest in this being you, because?"
"I don't," she says. "I just think we could both use a friend." The corner of her mouth twitches. "You more than me, it looks like."
He huffs out a breath, something almost like a laugh. "Yeah, cheers."
Still. It makes the food taste a little sweeter.
Despite what she said, Robert doesn't expect Tracy to keep showing up.
He doesn't expect it, but she does, appearing in his living room bright and early the next day after letting herself in when he didn't bother getting himself off the sofa after she knocked. She makes him get up and join her at the dining table he's never used before and they share the truffle pie she's brought, her telling him about the latest village news as they eat. He doesn't manage more than a few bites, but it's the most he's eaten in days, the pasta salad the previous day notwithstanding.
And then she just… keeps coming. Day after day, always with some kind of grub for him to eat and a steely determination to get him off the couch that he's no match for.
"You should really lock your door if you don't want people to keep barging in," she points out after he quips something about her being here more often than at her own place.
"I didn't say that," he says, and she smiles, the expression soft and touched as if he's the one doing her a favor, and not the other way around.
Because even though he doesn't entirely understand what keeps bringing Tracy 'round his, even in his muddled state he's able to grasp that he owes a lot to the fact that she does. That she shows up, that she makes him eat and drink some water and the occasional warm brew, that she talks to him and generally makes him remember how to be a human being.
It becomes a routine, though, so much so that after the third day he knows better than to be slumped on the sofa but actually manages to migrate to the kitchen and turn the kettle on in time to have a cuppa ready for her by the time she lets herself in. The bright, relieved smile on her face when she finds him there makes it all worth it, even if the salad she brings that day is horrendous.
By day five of this, he's come back to himself enough to have scraped together the idea that he's been nothing short of an abysmal host, and maybe he should be the one to feed her for once. He's actually a pretty decent cook, when he puts his mind to it — he just hasn't had the mind to do that, or, well, anything lately. But he woke up at a decent hour today — in his bed, too, and not on the sofa — and he realises he actually has both the time and the energy to whip up a decent meal before Tracy is bound to come through the door in a couple of hours. He probably owes her at least one meal to thank her for putting up with him all week.
The issue with that, of course, is that he has absolutely no food stocked in his home, so this means a trip to the shops.
The idea feels vaguely terrifying, but he pushes through, forcing himself to put on a decent pair of joggers and a clean shirt and rifling for his wallet and a grocery bag. It feels oddly alien to step out his door, the cold air hitting him like a slap as he ventures down the street towards David's. It's the first time he's been outside in over a week.
So, naturally, he bumps into Vic.
She's across the street, wearing her work uniform and clearly on her way to the Hide. He sees her a split-second before she does, giving him just enough time to panic about how to proceed but not enough to actually do anything about it before her eyes meet his and her expression clears from the tightness it's drawn into.
"Robert!"
She rushes across the street to him, looking like she wants to fling her arms around him but stopping just short of doing so, hands faintly reaching for him then pulling back. Robert can't help but feel a guilty stab of relief at that.
"You're still here," she says, sounding relieved. "I thought — I thought you'd gone."
He frowns. "No, I told you, I went to the B&B."
"Bob said you'd checked out, when I went. And I haven't seen you anywhere." Her lip wobbles. "I tried calling you."
His head spins at the realisation that she tried to come by, that she sought him out. It had been so easy for him to convince himself that she'd written him off long before he left her place — somewhere between the doubts on her face at the hospital and the hardness in her voice the last time they spoke over the phone — that he realises now it never even occurred to him that she might wonder about where he ended up after he washed her hands of the responsibility of him. Maybe that had been a mistake; based on the look on her face now, it seems like it was. "My phone died a few days ago."
She raises her eyebrows at that. "And you didn't turn it back on?"
He shrugs. He thinks telling her he didn't see a point to it might only cause her to feel some concern he doesn't want to deal with, so he settles for not saying anything. She presses her lips together, searching his face, something in her expression drooping at whatever she finds.
"So where are you stopping now?" she asks instead of pressing the issue.
"One of them new cottages on the edge of the village. Eric put me up."
"Eric did," she repeats, clearly as confused by the man's motivations as he first had been.
"He used to run the B&B, didn't he," Robert says. "Maybe he misses the hospitality of it all."
Her lips twitch. "You used to say he didn't have any hospitality whenever you'd stay there."
"Not sure he's found any more in the past few years, either," he admits with a small smile. "He all but chucked the keys at me and left me to my own devices."
She huffs out a breath, like a half-laugh she isn't quite sure is allowed to bloom into the real thing just yet.
"And it's working out for you?"
He thinks of the fact that he's hardly seen the inside of half the rooms yet and shrugs. "It's only been a week."
She nods. "Well, you know you still have a room with me if you ever change your mind," she says. Not pushing. Just offering. Robert appreciates that more than he expected.
"I may have to take you up on that when rent's due next month if I still haven't scrounged up a job by then," he says lightly, half-joking.
She smiles tentatively, not quite laughing, before her expression clouds. "Have you spoken to Moira?"
"Haven't really spoken to anyone," he replies, and he catches the moment he realises that was too honest, that he gave too much away, when her forehead creases in concern. She opens her mouth, evidently to follow up on that, and Robert doesn't have it in him to get into it right now, in the middle of Main Street in front of David's, so he hastily tacks on, "Look, you ought to be getting to work, right?"
He watches her reluctantly realise he's right, her mouth twisting unhappily in agreement, and he offers her a nod and a tight smile.
"Good seeing you, Vic," he says, patting her arm as he brushes past her.
He makes it two steps towards David's, hating the way her face fell, hating knowing he's responsible for it, hating the way he feels unable to do anything to change it.
"Robert?" she calls — implores, really, and despite everything he doesn't think he will ever have it in him to ignore his little sister.
He turns, meets her gaze. "Yeah?"
She hesitates, worrying at her lip and wringing her hands. "I know you're angry —"
"I'm not angry," he interrupts, shaking his head. It's the truth.
"You moved out."
"I'm —" Hurt. Betrayed. In need of some space. The words won't make it past his lips, too vulnerable, too raw, too wrapped up in an honesty he fears his latest stint in prison may have robbed him of. "I'm not angry," he settles on.
She nods, looking unsure of whether she believes him or not. Either way, she lets it go.
"Do you think we could get coffee or summat this week? I won't push if you want space, but I just — I miss you."
He exhales. "I miss you, too," he admits, lets himself feel the honesty of it. Her expression crumbles a little, and he feels his heart squeeze painfully. Despite it all, despite everything, he still hates seeing her in pain more than just about anything. "I'll turn my phone back on."
She smiles, a cautious, delicate thing. Things aren't fixed, but — it's a start.
"So, exactly why have I been bringing you food this whole time when you can cook like this?" Tracy asks around a mouthful of his homemade spinach chicken lasagna, two hours later.
He shrugs, unable to tamp down the smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "It's just lasagna."
"'It's just lasagna'," she repeats incredulously, a bright gleam to her eyes. She shakes her head. "You are a man of many secrets, Robert Sugden."
He finds himself smiling back at her.
"You don't know the half of it."
He starts venturing back into the village more after that.
It's still not pleasant, still makes his hackles raise and his skin prickle uncomfortably under the lingering stares and hushed whispers he's convinced follow him around, but it gets easier with every time, once he trains himself to quiet the panicked voice in his head blaring that he's too exposed, too vulnerable, and relearns how to exist in the village without feeling the need to be on high alert all the time.
He runs into Paddy a few days in, on his way to Tracy's — she called, telling him to come over to sample a new bottle of wine, and he'd answered by asking how she got his number ("Vanessa, duh," she'd said, and he'd had to pretend he didn't feel touched over the realisation that she'd kept it all this time) — and the other man startles when he sees him, halting his steps in the middle of the street. Robert winces, bracing himself.
"Alright, Paddy?" he says, because he may as well get this over with.
"Alright," Paddy answers, a tinge of hesitation to his tone. Robert sighs internally. "I've not seen you around, lately."
"Yeah," Robert says. "I was inside."
"Right, yes, right," Paddy stammers, and Robert resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. "You, uh. You're out."
"Obviously."
"I would have thought you'd come by to see Aaron."
Robert raises an eyebrow. "Didn't think I was welcome."
Paddy shifts uncomfortably, averting his eyes. Robert swallows, wondering if he's right to have his guard up the way he does; Paddy was at the hospital, that day Robert ended up carted away to the police station, and he didn't do anything to stop it; but he also didn't do anything to make it worse.
He shoves his hands in his pockets. "How is he?"
"He's alright," Paddy answers, his voice turning more earnest. Robert hears in it the same relief he feels flooding his veins at the news. "He was discharged yesterday."
Robert's breath hitches in his throat. He hasn't seen Aaron since he was lying in a hospital bed with his life in the balance, Robert pacing the corridors like a ghost with no way of knowing if he was ever going to wake up. That's the last image he's held of him, the image that's been at the front of his mind every time he thinks of him.
"He's okay?" he says, his voice catching.
"He's okay," Paddy confirms, his stance softening at whatever he reads on Robert's face. "I'm sure you could come by and see him, if you'd like."
Robert stiffens, barefly refraining from flinching. The last time he tried to see Aaron, the last time he believed he still had rights to, ended with him being cast out by Aaron's family and thrown back into prison. And even though they know the truth now, he can't shake the feeling that going back would only result in another uproar, maybe this time sans the police, and he's sure that is not the energy Aaron needs around him to recover.
"I need to get going," he says, clearing his throat. "I'm meeting Tracy, and I'm already late."
A pinch appears in Paddy's brow, but he doesn't stop Robert from shuffling past him, head ducked and shoulders drawn. He does speak up, though, after Robert has made it all of two steps.
"It is good to see you, Robert."
Robert freezes, spinning around to look at him in disbelief before he can stop himself. He immediately wishes he hadn't, frustrated to think of how much this reaction might have given away, but there is nothing in Paddy's expression to suggest he plans on wielding this against him. There is nothing, in fact, other than that lingering knit in his forehead and a tentative, concerned bid for sincerity.
"Now I've heard everything," Robert says, allowing the ghost of a smile to creep at his mouth, before turning away and making his way over to Tug Ghyll.
Aaron calls him that night.
It's late, and the only reason Robert sees the call is because he's been staring at the ceiling for what feels like hours, chasing and dreading sleep in equal measures as he watches the bedroom walls darken in time with the night sky peeking through the window. He's got his ringer off, but the vibration of the call still makes him jolt, and he almost drops his phone altogether when he sees Aaron's name staring back at him.
He answers it on the last ring with shaking hands, and it isn't until Aaron speaks that he remembers it's the first time he's heard his voice since before he watched him be pulled over that gorge.
"Hey."
Robert's breath catches. "Hey."
Absurdly, he feels tears spring to his eyes, and he has to close his eyes against the weight of everything he is feeling. His throat suddenly feels very tight.
"How… how are you? Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Aaron breathes. He doesn't sound like he's faring any better than Robert is. "I'm okay. Are you?"
"Yeah, 'course," Robert answers hoarsely. He closes his eyes, has to forcibly stop himself from blurting out something like It's so good to hear your voice. "I heard you're out of hospital."
"Yeah. Was discharged yesterday." There's a beat, then: "Paddy said he ran into you earlier."
Robert rolls his eyes. "Should have known he wouldn't be able to keep his trap shut."
"Is it a secret that you're back in the village?" Aaron asks, and Robert can just picture his frown, half-amused, half-confused.
He shrugs even though Aaron can't see it. "S'pose not."
It's quiet again, and Robert plays with the edge of his sheets, wondering what Aaron is hearing in the silence. If he's able to make out all the ways Robert has felt aimless and unmoored and wrong since he's been back in the village, since he's left Vic's, since he was released from custody, since he watched Aaron go over that gorge. Since he got out of prison in the first place, really.
"Can we — " Aaron starts. He breaks off, and Robert pictures him licking his lips, trying again. "I'd like to see you."
"Oh." Robert's fist closes around the fringe of his sheets, almost startled. He hasn't seen Aaron since he was lying unconscious in the hospital. He doesn't know that he's ready to see him again. Doesn't know that he can handle going another minute without it. "Of course. I can — I can be at the Mill in a few minutes, just let me get my shoes on."
"I'm not at the Mill," Aaron says, and Robert freezes.
"I thought you were discharged."
"I'm staying at the Woolie. Until I fully recover, at least."
"Right," Robert hears himself say. "That makes sense. You should have your family 'round you right now." He spares a smile. "I bet Chas must have hardly let you out of her sight since you got out."
"Robert, she's doing my head in," Aaron groans, and Robert almost laughs. Would, if he didn't still feel like his breath was stuck halfway out his throat. "I didn't put up a fight when she asked, though. Didn't really want to face the Mill, if I'm honest."
"No?" Robert says. "You don't fancy going home?"
"Where's home?" Aaron answers dejectedly. "Because it can't be the Mill. Not anymore. Not when that's where I…" He trails off, and Robert aches for him. Aaron clears his throat, voice stronger. "Can't go back there, can I? Not now."
Robert hums sympathetically, wishing he could think of the right words to say.
"You're planning on staying at the pub for the time being, then?"
"Not forever, I'll go spare," Aaron answers immediately. "But for now…"
Robert closes his eyes, anger and sadness warring in his chest as his heart aches. Aaron has suffered so much, in the fallout of the John of it all — in the fallout of the Robert of it all, too. He has suffered so much, and has lost so much, and he's so strong and so resilient, but it's unfair that he had to lose his home, too.
"What about you?" Aaron asks after a moment. "You still at Vic's?"
Robert shakes his head, breath catching in his throat. "No," he answers. "I moved out."
Aaron doesn't ask why. Robert wonders if he's already pieced it together.
"So where are you now?" is what he asks instead.
"One of the new cottages. Eric is renting it to me."
Aaron hums. "You want some company?"
Robert blinks, straightening up. "Right now?"
There's a small, short pause, then Aaron says, quieter: "No, it's late — I could come by in the morning instead."
"No," Robert says, the word tumbling from his lips urgently, "no, we can meet now. I'm not doing anything right now."
He wants to wince at the desperation in his voice, imagines Aaron rolling his eyes and snarking something about the late hour. But this is Aaron, who's always known how to understand him better than just about anyone. Who seems to be needing this as much as he does.
"Yeah?" There's something hesitant, almost hopeful in his voice, but he shakes it off in the next moment. "I'll come over, then."
Robert frowns. Aaron is fresh out of the hospital after waking up from a coma. He probably shouldn't be made to walk more than the absolute necessary. "I'll come to you," he says.
He hears Aaron scoff over the line. "And have you deal with my lot? No chance. So come on, then, where's the new place?"
He's at Robert's door less than ten minutes later. Robert is already outside, wrapped up in a coat to protect himself from the rapidly cooling air of the late September night and holding two steaming mugs of tea. He hands one to Aaron before either of them has the chance to say a word.
Aaron takes it carefully, blows over it while keeping his eyes on Robert.
"Hiya," he says.
"Hi," Robert echoes, the word getting caught in his throat.
It's a quiet night, the village completely asleep in the late hour, and Robert is almost scared to disrupt it, looking at Aaron with a nearly frantic hunger, inspecting him for injuries and trying to catalogue all the ways he might look different than the last time he saw him. His cheeks are fuller, for one, that horrible sickly tint to his face gone, and he's got a scar on the side of his head that Robert can just about make out in the darkness. Mostly, he looks tired.
It's Aaron that ends up breaking the silence. "Shall we sit?" he asks, gesturing to the two wooden, rickety chairs that are sitting in the small front garden of the cottage. They came with the place, and Robert hasn't used them even once since moving in, but he nods, grateful for them now. He'd expected them to head in, but staying outside feels — safer, for now. A simpler way for them to ease into seeing each other again after everything that has happened since the last time.
They take their seats, half-angled towards each other but with their eyes on the quiet road in front of them for a few seconds. Aaron takes a sip of his tea, then turns to look at the side of Robert's head.
"You didn't come see me in the hospital."
It's a question, not an accusation. Robert sits with it for a long moment.
"I couldn't," he says finally.
"Why not?"
"Well, I went back inside, for one," he says sharply.
Aaron sees right through it. "And after?"
Robert releases a breath. "I couldn't," he repeats. Feels the weight of the truth of it. "I couldn't see you, look at you in that place, and know it was all my fault."
Aaron arches a brow. "How'd you figure that?"
"I made everything worse."
Story of his life, he thinks bitterly. But it's the truth, isn't it — he's had loads of time to think about that day by the gorge, to turn it over and over in his head, and he knows that Aaron had a handle on things before Robert showed up, or at least a better handle than Robert did. It was Robert that sent John over the edge. Figuratively, at least.
"You did, yeah," Aaron says. He glances over at him and shrugs. "But I don't have it in me to hold it against ya. Not when you're one of the reasons Mack is alive. Not when you raced over there the second you knew I was in danger."
"I watched you go over that gorge," Robert blurts out. His voice comes out choked off and distressed, but he's not sure he can help it. "I held you and you wouldn't wake up. I was charged with your attempted murder."
"Been there," he hears Aaron mutter under his breath, something grimly amused in the way he shakes his head.
"Everyone thought I'd done it," he chokes out, and Aaron's expression darkens. "Everyone thought I tried to kill you, and no one would tell me anything. No one would tell me how you were. The only way I had of knowing you were still alive was that my charges hadn't been changed to actual murder."
His hands are shaking, he realises distantly. He tightens his hold around his cup in an attempt to get them under control. Across from him, he hears Aaron suck in a sharp breath, his expression pained when he meets his gaze.
"I heard," he says softly. "I was — I wanted to see you. I was worried about you."
Robert just barely manages to hold in a hysterical laugh. "You just got out of a coma, and you're worried about me?"
"They sent you back in," Aaron says. "I know — I know you'd never hurt me. I know."
Robert does laugh then, sharp and bitter and devoid of amusement. "History might disagree with you there."
"You wouldn't throw me off a gorge," Aaron snaps, sounding angry. "And they sent you back inside for it. I know that can't have been easy."
If Robert was angrier, or more bitter, he might remind him that Aaron sent him back inside himself not that long ago. And that that was hardly easy on him, either. But he's not angry, is the thing, not at Aaron. He's tired.
Tired, and so, so damaged.
"I didn't know if you were going to pull through," he says. "I didn't know anything. You could have been dying, and I wouldn't have known. And it would have been my fault."
"It wouldn't have been your fault."
"Sure felt like it." He lets out a shuddering breath. "The only reason I didn't do something stupid was because I was holding onto the fact that no one had come to tell me my charges had been changed."
Aaron doesn't respond right away. When he does, his voice is raw.
"You can't… you can't put that on me, Robert."
Robert shrugs, his eyes on the dark road in front of them. "I don't know how to have a life worth living if you're not in it."
An even longer pause, then: "How'd you think I felt when you cut off contact with me, then?"
Robert turns to look at him, reading all the grief and devastation over him. He swallows. "We doing this now, then?"
Aaron looks at him, eyes sharp even in the darkness, and works at his throat. For a moment Robert is sure he is about to do it, to get into it and tear into him the way he only started to that day Robert crashed his wedding — but then he turns away, leans back into his chair. He takes a sip of his tea.
"No. Later."
"Later," Robert echoes, half-amused at the idea of them all but scheduling what's bound to be an explosive conversation, half-aware that it is a conversation they need to have if they want any chance of a future together. And god, does he want it. He doesn't know if he deserves it, but he wants a future with Aaron more than anything.
They sit in silence for a few minutes, drinking their teas and looking out at the night sky. It's quiet, but it's comfortable. Peaceful. So much more peaceful than Robert ever could have anticipated when he thought about what it would be like to see Aaron again. But maybe he should have. No one has ever known how to quiet his mind like Aaron has. No one's ever known how to set it on fire like Aaron has, either, but tonight seems to be one for the former.
Aaron's the one to break the silence after a few minutes, gaze lost in the distance.
"You know, I… I asked about you."
Robert looks at him, not sure why he feels so surprised. "You did?"
"Yeah, I did. When I was still in the hospital. No one had seen you since you'd been released." He wets his lips, turns to look at him. "I started thinking… I don't know. Thought maybe you'd left."
Robert feels himself shake his head. "No. No, I promised you."
Aaron's face cracks open at that, eyes widening minutely as he stares at him in something almost like wonder. "You did, didn't you?" he says quietly, and Robert nods, because he did. Across a prison table from him, tears in both their eyes, he promised he would stay with him, and he'd meant it like he's rarely meant anything in his life.
"I meant it," he says. "I'll prove it to you. No matter how long it takes."
"You don't have anything to prove to me, Robert."
"Yes I do." He swallows. "I hurt you."
"Yeah, ya did," Aaron says, his voice hushed. "More than anyone."
Robert's breath hitches, even though it shouldn't. Because he knew this already. A dull, familiar ache settles in his chest.
"I promise you, I will never leave your side again. Not unless I know you want me to."
Aaron tilts his head, eyes glistening even in the darkness as he looks at him. "I never want you to leave. You know that."
And despite everything, Robert feels the ghost of a smile tug at his lips. "I know."
Aaron smiles back, heartbreakingly fragile, before leaning back, head tipping backwards as he looks up at the starless night.
"I wish things had gone differently."
Robert barely holds back a snort. "Yeah? Which part would you change? The part where you end up in a coma?"
"I'd change all of it," Aaron answers, which is more raw and more honest than the quip deserved. Robert feels his throat go dry.
"It's not all bad," he manages after a moment. Aaron looks over at him. "I'm still here, you're still here. We're okay. That's what matters."
Aaron's mouth tugs up, almost unhappily. "Are you okay?"
"Now that I know you are? Yeah."
That's what it all comes down to, in the end. Aaron must know that.
Aaron sighs. "I've made a real mess of things, haven't I?"
Robert snorts mirthlessly. "I think we can share the blame on that one."
"You reckon, do ya?" Aaron says, and it could almost sound amused if it were about anything else. He lets out a breath, looks up at the sky again. "Can't believe I fell for it. I really thought…"
He trails off, but Robert can fill in the gaps. He cradles his cup closer to his chest, trying not to let his mind get stuck on Aaron's words. He knows John did a number on him, on the whole village while he was at it as well. Knows Aaron has every right to feel played and betrayed and guilty for not seeing it, too, because Aaron has always known how to take on more blame than he needs to even when things aren't on him. And he also knows Aaron is talking about falling for it, not for him. And yet, Robert swallows, feeling suddenly sick as he opens his mouth to ask, to know for sure —
"Do you still love John?"
Aaron exhales sharply, the breath of it getting caught in his teeth. "I wish I'd never taken up with him in the first place."
Robert's hand tightens around his cup. "But do you still love him?"
Aaron shakes his head slowly, looking lost. "I don't know that I ever did," he admits, his voice ragged. "I think… I loved what he could have been. What he represented. To me." He runs a hand over the bottom of his face. "He made me think I could be… more than I am. Better."
Robert swallows, sadness and anger coursing through him in equal measures. He's so furious, about everything that happened, about all the time they lost, about not being here and about his absence allowing for this to happen. He's so furious that this man came in, took a look at Aaron, and failed to see the extraordinary person he was and tried to remold him to his image instead. "I think you're alright just as you are, ta."
Aaron snorts. "A twice divorced grump who married the village nutjob and didn't even realise that's what he was doing?"
"Yes," Robert says resolutely.
Aaron falters, his face falling a little. "There are things you don't know. Things I've… done. Things John helped me with."
That stings, a little, the reminder that life went on for Aaron while Robert was inside, that he no longer is privy to every single detail about his life. That there are some things about Aaron that John did know better than Robert.
But Robert refuses to linger on that feeling, because when it comes down to it, John never knew Aaron better than Robert does. Robert thinks back to that day of back to back prison visits, thinks of John calling Aaron perfect with condescension and satisfaction dripping from his tongue, and physically has to stop his lip from curling with distaste.
"He talked about you like you were a project. Something to fix."
"Yeah," Aaron says bitterly. "That makes sense, in retrospect."
The fury grows tenfold. "He was wrong," he says, the words painfully extricated from his mouth for how hard he is trying to keep his voice controlled. "You're messed up, but you're good. And I'd take messed up with you over anything else."
"I know," Aaron says quietly.
Of course he does. Robert has been nothing short of relentless when it comes to drilling how much he wants Aaron through his head, and he knows Aaron didn't believe him, or tried not to, but it sounds like he's listening now.
It hovers between them, now, that understanding. Robert drums his fingers against his cup, waiting. He's said his share already, and then some.
"That day," Aaron starts, "at Vic's…"
Robert looks down at the mug in his hands. Aaron has been saying, a thousand times over, probably, that that day was a mistake, and that it shouldn't have happened. And he might be right, at least in part, to say it should have happened differently. But Robert still can't bring himself to call it a mistake.
"I don't regret it," he whispers.
Maybe he should. Maybe he would, if he were a better person. But he's never pretended to be.
"I don't either," Aaron says, and that's the bigger admission after all the times he called it a mistake, after all he suffered in the fallout of it happening. "But —"
"Don't," Robert interrupts softly. He looks up in time to see Aaron shoot him a surprised glance, and he shakes his head, offers him a small, empty smile as he tries to think of how to convey all the ways in which he isn't ready to hear Aaron argue that them being together may not be for the best. "Just — not today."
Aaron looks at him for a long moment, then relents. "Alright. What do you want to talk about instead?"
It's a daunting question. There is so much left unsaid currently hovering in the space between them right now, so much Robert is scared to uncover. Talking about their time before prison is still too raw. Talking about anything that has happened to either of them since prison is an emotional minefield. Talking about prison is a surefire way for one or both of them to kick off and already off the table.
Robert lets the corner of his lips quirk up.
"Did you catch the Arsenal match yesterday?"
Aaron barks out a laugh, startled. "You didn't watch the match."
"No, but I want to hear what you thought."
Aaron's smile fades into something softer, fond. "Well yes, obviously I watched it," he says, casual as anything. "What else do I have to do with myself while I'm stuck at the pub recovering?"
"And what a hardship that was, I'm sure."
"It might have been, the way the match started off. Good job they pulled themselves together in the second half and all."
Robert watches him, a small smile curving at the corner of his mouth. Aaron, his Aaron, so scarred by the ordeal he has just gone through and yet still able to sit here next to him, to talk to him and find enjoyment out of the smaller things in life. He's the strongest person he's ever known, and Robert feels as though his heart is expanding in his chest the longer he looks at him.
"What?" Aaron asks after a moment, raising his eyebrows with not a lick of self-consciousness. Robert loves him so much he feels the ache of it down to his bones. "You asked."
"I know. Go on, tell me about whatever daft call the ref made. I know you want to."
"It was ridiculous —"
It goes on for a while, talk about football turning into talk about the village's latest sad attempt to scrounge up a team turning into speculation on what the next social gathering might be; until their cups have long gone empty and gone cold enough to start stiffening their fingers and Aaron is struggling to keep his eyes open.
"I should get going," he finally says after the third time he interrupts himself with a yawn. Robert doesn't want him to, a faint sense of dread curling at the bottom of his stomach at the idea of Aaron leaving his side again, but he knows he's right. "Gonna be knackered in the morning as it is. Eve doesn't care how many hours of sleep I've gotten when she's banging on me door to play with her at six in the morning."
Robert chuckles, accepting the mug Aaron hands back to him with a smile. "Give Chas my best."
Aaron rolls his eyes. "Don't go kicking off now."
"Me? I'm just being neighborly."
"Sure you are," he snorts. He stands up, then lingers. "Thanks, though. For the brew."
Robert manages a smile. "Thanks for the company."
Aaron nods, almost to himself, then goes to leave.
"Aaron?" Robert calls before he can stop himself.
He turns around. "Yeah?"
Robert looks at him, his silhouette framed in the moonlight, feels his heart beat in his chest.
"We're alright, aren't we?"
Aaron smiles at him, barely visible in the night light. "Yeah, Robert. We're alright."