Work Text:
“Listen,” Louisa said. There was a reluctance, a trepidation, in the way she said that single word which made River instantly tense.
They were in the back of a Service vehicle, heading toward The Park for debriefing. He’d hoped Lamb would appear and save them from that particular unpleasantness, but River rarely got the things he hoped for and today was no exception. And since the events of the last day had Emma Flyte at the end of her rope if the very dangerous look in her eyes was anything to go by, River didn’t even try to stonewall her and instead had grumbled but gotten into the vehicle. He felt wrung out—the adrenaline crash had hit him as they left the station—and battered to the bone. It was an interesting change of pace that today’s battering was more emotional than physical, and for a moment he counted himself lucky. Upon further reflection, though, maybe he would have preferred another beatdown from the Dogs to the emotional evisceration of the last 24 hours.
When Louisa didn’t continue, he raised his eyebrows.
“Okay, I should tell you, when we thought you were…dead. I, um, I called your mum.”
River flinched involuntarily and gaped at her. “Why would you do that?”
“Well because we thought you were dead, River, and if I didn’t do it, Lamb might have, and given that he let Ho break the news to us that you were dead, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
Still gaping, he asked, “How did you even get her phone number?”
“Moira gave it to me. She has the file with everyone's emergency contacts.”
“Yeah, but my mother isn’t my emergency contact; my grandfather is.”
“Well, he was missing, wasn’t he?” she pointed out defensively. “I don’t know how she got it, maybe she called HR or something.”
He still had half of the handcuffs secured around his wrist. He should've asked one of the Dogs to remove it. He’d pulled so hard trying to detach it from the car that the skin around his wrist had broken and bled, soaking into his sleeve. The chain ‘chinked’ softly as he fiddled with it before a memory floated through his mind and he stilled his hands, dropping them into his lap.
“So, what did she say?” He despised himself for asking but he couldn't stop himself, could he? Deep down he would always be that sad little boy, desperate for his mother's love.
Louisa hesitated.
River let out a humorless huff. “Never mind. I can probably figure it out.”
Louisa sagged a little. “No, she, she just wasn’t really concerned about your granddad, is all. I was surprised.”
River shook his head. “No surprise there; they haven't spoken since before I was born. Their war was the thing of legends." Messing with the handcuff again, he added, "And I was the collateral damage." Louisa's silence made him ask, “What?”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “She said to remind you she exists.”
River snorted and Louisa raised her brows. He waved her off. “Just, you know, par for the course.” The words carried an edge; his irritation was building. It always did when the topic of his mother came up.
“No, I don’t know, do I? I mean, you never talk about her.”
“Are you serious right now?” he scoffed. “I don’t know,” he scrunched up his face, “a single thing about your family. You have literally never said one word about them.”
There was a silent beat in the car. “Okay, that’s a fair point,” Louisa conceded. “And I’m sorry but I was only trying to help.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t, did you?” he shot back.
Her eyes went wide and hurt flashed across her face at River’s sharp tone. The car fell silent.
River brooded, tapping his fingers on his leg and feeling guilty. He didn’t want to have this conversation now—or ever—but he somehow felt like he had to justify himself. “She likes to believe she’s the wounded party,” he told her, avoiding her gaze by staring at the passing lights. “She couldn’t be bothered with me as a child but now that I’m an adult she’s decided that I’m, I’m, I honestly don’t even know—interesting enough or something. She gets tetchy if I don’t answer when she calls. Which she rarely does, by the way.”
“I’m sure she—”
“Can we not talk about this, Louisa?” he bit out angrily. They’d been keeping their voices low, but his got away from him and came out louder than he intended. She looked like she’d been slapped. Lowering his voice, he said, “Look, I, I know that you were trying to do the right thing, and I appreciate that, I do. But after the last 24 hours, I just really, really don’t want to talk about my mother. Can we do that—or not do that? Please?”
“Sorry,” Louisa mumbled, turning her gaze away.
She had poked at a topic that, given the choice, he’d prefer never be part of the conversational lexicon, and yet somehow he was feeling like he was the asshole here. Christ.
River glanced up and caught the driver’s eyes watching him in the rearview mirror before they skittered away. Great. His wretched childhood would be more fodder for Park gossip by morning.
Sighing deeply, he slumped sideways and leaned his head against the car window, watching the lights pass by but seeing nothing at all.
“I should just give you to him,” his mum muttered, “since he wanted you so bad.”
“Who?” River asked quietly. He saw her shift her glance toward him in the rearview mirror, but she didn’t answer his question. Her mouth was drawn in a flat line and River had plenty of experience to know what that meant.
The car was speeding along a wide road, and he was restless. They’d been driving for ages, and it was hard to sit still for so long. River grabbed the knob next to him and began to turn it. Wind roared into the car.
“Don’t!” she snapped. “Roll it back up and sit still!”
River did as told and put his hands in his lap, squeezing them together to stop them from fidgeting and doing something else he shouldn’t.
“You ruin everything,” she’d said to him when her latest boyfriend had left.
“I’m sorry,” he’d said. And he was. He didn’t want to make her unhappy. He hadn’t tried to make Donald leave, wasn’t sure exactly what he’d done that caused him to.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she’d said. “It’s too much. You’re too much.”
“Too much what?”
But she hadn’t said. He was tall for his age—everyone always said it. Was that what she meant? That he was too tall?
Outside the car, the scenery changed. They’d left the city behind. There were a lot more trees. A lot of green.
“Where’re we going?”
Another quick glance in the mirror. Again, she didn’t answer him. River sighed and leaned his head against the window, watching the scenery speed by.
She’d made him pack his things, told him to bring everything he wanted because he wasn’t coming back. It wasn’t the first time she’d told him that. They’d moved a lot, from one town to another, sometimes from one flat to another in the same town. He was good at packing his things and making sure he had the important stuff.
Most of their moves related to whatever boyfriend his mum happened to be with at the moment. Either moving in with one or moving out. But every other time she’d told him to pack, she’d packed as well.
“River,” his mum said, startling him from sleep.
He sat up from where he’d slumped against the door, rubbed his eyes and blinked, looking around. They were stopped near a house and there was a garden and a long lane behind them. Nothing was familiar.
“Where are we?” he asked.
His mum had turned and was facing him from the front seat, and something in her face shuttered at his question.
“This is your grandparents’ house,” she said. It was her angry voice. “You’re going to stay here now.”
He blinked at her. “My grandparents?” He wasn’t aware he had grandparents.
“Yes,” she said, impatience in her voice.
“But where are you going to stay?” His voice wobbled a little.
His mother turned around, facing away from him, not looking in the mirror. “Not here.”
“But Mum—”
“Stay here,” she said, and got out, slamming the door behind her.
An old man was standing in the garden. He had a spade in one hand and was staring as she marched toward him. An old woman came out the side door of the house and put a hand to her mouth.
The man said something, but River couldn’t hear what.
His mum ignored him and marched up to the woman, already talking. River couldn’t make out the words but at one point, the man and woman turned at the same time and looked in the direction of the car. River wanted to sink down in his seat, hide in the footwell.
The voices raised but they were still indistinct. He could only make out small scraps of it. He started to fidget and then stopped himself.
“…wanted him…”
“…where…”
“River.”
“River?”
Somehow that was very clear. People always frowned at his name, looked at him oddly when he told them what it was. He’d never tell his mum, but sometimes he wished she had named him something else.
The woman reached out and put a hand on his mum’s arm, urged her toward the door. She resisted for a second but then went. The man started to follow but the older woman turned her head and gave a small shake, and he stopped, staring after them, looking unhappy as they disappeared into the house.
Slowly, River unbuckled the seatbelt and slipped from the car. Keeping an eye on the house in case his mum came out, he creeped into the yard to stand behind the man. “Are you my grandfather?” River asked.
The man turned sharply. “Christ,” he said, staring at River. A few seconds later, he shook himself and went down on one knee. He studied River’s face for a long moment, then said, “Yes. Yes, I’m your granddad.”
River nodded and stuck out his hand. “I’m River.”
The man smiled and gripped River’s hand in his own. “I’m very glad to meet you, River. I’m David.”
Behind them, a door slammed, and his grandfather stood up. River turned to see his mum stomping out of the front door of the house. She marched to the car, opened the boot and tossed River’s duffle onto the ground.
He stared at where it lay in the dirt. His mum had let him pick it out in the store and he’d chosen it because the blue of it was the same color of her eyes.
At the driver’s door, she paused and her eyes met River’s.
For a brief moment River’s heart beat wildly with hope. ‘She’s changed her mind,’ he thought.
But before he even finished the thought, she had wrenched the car door open and slammed it as she settled in the seat.
She drove away without him.
River watched the car recede down the lane. When it disappeared from view, his chest felt impossibly tight and he couldn’t breathe. Fat tears welled in his eyes, spilled down his cheeks.
Behind him, his granddad said, “River—" It seemed like he was interrupted, like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t.
River couldn’t take his eyes off the empty lane. “Am I going to live here now?” he asked, voice wobbly again.
His grandfather put his hands gently on River’s shoulders and turned him around. “Well, I can’t think of what else to do with you.” He smiled again. It was a kind smile.
Tears were still spilling down River’s face and his granddad pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away the ones that were there, then gave River the kerchief for the ones that hadn’t made their way out of him yet.
The old woman—his grandmother—appeared again at the side-yard door. She smiled at him, too; her eyes were warm.
"Why don’t you come inside, and your grandmother will make us some tea. How does that sound?”
River wiped his eyes and face with his sleeve, then remembered the kerchief and used that to finish the job. He had the thought that he needed to be brave, so he sniffed deeply to clear his nose and fought back the tears. After one last glance down the lane behind him—still empty—he nodded.
The hands on his shoulders squeezed once and released, then his granddad took River’s hand in his own. Together they walked toward the house.
“What’re you doing here?” River asked from the doorway of Louisa’s office, Saturdays not being a workday.
She gave him a subtle once-over and then returned her attention to her computer. “I could ask the same thing.” There was a distinct coolness in her words.
"Lamb." It required no further explanation.
He’d spent the night with Emma Flyte. Not, of course, in the way one might hope, but rather in an interrogation cell at The Park. His ‘dad’ was there somewhere, too, River knew, but he didn’t care. He hoped they threw him in a hole to rot. But he'd felt bad about Louisa. She’d only been brought in because she’d been with River, caught in the net intended for Frank and him. She'd looked...strained, when she'd sat down beside him at the rail station the night before, and he'd been about to ask if she was okay when more Dogs had interrupted and escorted them both off.
They’d argued in the car and then been separated immediately after arriving at The Park. River had spent the next several hours repetitively answering the same questions but at least this time the questions weren’t accompanied by fists. Eventually Lady Di herself had come in, apparently wanting to satisfy herself that he was being forthright. He had been. He had no reason to lie: Frank was in custody, the baby-assassins were all dead, and River’s grandfather was safe. They’d let him go shortly after Taverner’s visit with the vague implication that he had Lamb to thank for it.
For now, his grandfather was safely back at home with Catherine and some minders, and River was desperate to see for himself that he was okay. But before he could head to Tonbridge, he knew he needed to pay the piper. Lamb had backed his play and covered for River to buy time, had protected his grandfather despite his obvious antipathy toward the man, and then gotten Lady Di to release him. He’d take his lashing from Lamb without complaint.
It didn’t escape him that he had a bigger debt to pay. Marcus was dead, Shirley no doubt a mess, and the only possible way to look at it was that it was because of River and his fucked-up family: Patrice was after his grandfather when he’d killed Marcus, and it was his father who’d set Patrice on Slough House. How to clear the wreckage caused by his family was beyond him for the moment but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try.
Possibly, though, he could start smaller and fix the dent he’d put in his nascent friendship with Louisa.
“When did they let you go?” he asked, grasping for anything to say that might coax her into conversation and ease the tension between them.
She shrugged. “After a couple hours. What about you?” Her eyes hesitantly met his.
“About…” He looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes ago?”
“Why’d you come here? You should go get some rest.” She leaned back in her chair, work put aside. The freeze in the room began to thaw.
River smiled faintly. “I’d say that’s very much a case of the pot calling the kettle black.” It was obvious she had come directly here from The Park. She was in different clothes, but they all kept spares in the office. No, it was the deep circles under her eyes telling River she hadn’t slept at all, and the large takeaway cup of coffee on her desk rather than the thermal travel carafe that she always brought from home.
He leaned against the door jamb and fidgeted. He had his own takeaway coffee, and he picked at the lid. “Look, about last night in the car.” He raised his eyes to hers. “I'm sorry I snapped at you like that.”
Louisa’s shoulders dropped a notch and most of the tension left the room. “No, it’s alright. It's none of my business.”
"No," he shook his head. "It's fine. It..." He felt he owed her an explanation after lashing out at her, yes. But it was also that if they were really friends—and he thought they were now—then telling her these things about himself was part and parcel of moving past 'just colleagues', wasn't it? Of course, the last time he’d shared his family history with a supposed-friend—Spider Webb—it was circulated around The Park within days. Widely, given how Louisa spouted it back at him a few months ago when he’d tried to talk to her about Min.
But Louisa wasn’t Spider. He'd trusted her before; he believed he could trust her again.
He took a deep breath. “I was seven years old, and she dropped me in the garden with two people I’d never seen or even heard of before,” River said. “And then she just drove away, without explanation.” He went back to studying his takeaway cup. “I got a card from her on my birthday for a few years, then…” He shrugged, not sure he was capable of putting into words how he felt the first year she didn’t send one. Or the next. By the third year, he’d stopped hoping for anything.
“For a while, I thought she took me to my grandparents as a kindness; that she gave me to them because she knew I’d be better off, because, God, I really was.” At first, she’d called him, on rare and random occasions, but as time passed the conversations grew stilted because he’d come to realize that he was happier with his grandparents and the guilt of that cut deep. “By the time I was thirteen, I understood she did it because she was better off. That the things she wanted in life would be decidedly easier to get without a kid around to complicate the situation.”
He took a long drink of the now-tepid coffee. His mind had spun with it the night before, his mouth on autopilot as he answered Flyte’s questions while his brain tended to the old wound that Louisa had inadvertently reopened. “‘Course now I wonder if she left me because I reminded her too much of her father and my father, and she couldn’t stand the sight of me.” He forced a self-deprecating smile, but it felt flat, even to him.
“River—” Her voice was gentle.
He shook his head, stopping her. He had to finish it. “I was seven.” His face twisted briefly with emotion he couldn't control. “And she left me with strangers and drove away. That, that was terrifying and, and heartbreaking and all I could think was that I must have done something really terrible to make her not love me but I couldn’t figure out what it was in order to fix it so she’d come back for me…” he trailed off, his throat tight and burning. He looked away and blinked several times. All these years later and thinking about it still gutted him.
Louisa slid her chair back—the feet made an awful scraping sound on the floor—and came to stand in front of him.
“What’re you doing?” he asked with suspicion, not sure if she was going to punch him or—
She leaned in and embraced him, pinning his arms to his sides.
“Okay, yeah, I know what you’re doing.”
“Oh, good,” she said into his chest. “I was afraid I’d have to explain basic human comfort techniques to you.”
“Very funny. I hugged you first, remember?” River said, but huffed despite himself. “Yeah, okay, this is awkward.”
“Yeah, it is,” she said. “Because you’re doing it wrong.”
"Oh, I'm doing it wrong?"
She released him and gestured at his coffee. “Come on, put that down.”
He fidgeted. “Louisa...” He intended to express that this wasn’t necessary, but his lack of conviction was obvious. Ultimately, he did what she said, because this was Louisa and he trusted her, and basic human comfort was maybe something he hadn’t had in far too long and was possibly something he desperately longed for. He set his coffee on the nearest flat surface—a precariously tall stack of files that he knew for a fact Louisa had been ignoring for weeks. Hands free, he stood uncomfortably.
“When was the last time someone gave you a proper hug?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. He honestly couldn’t remember. He’d hugged his grandfather in the bathroom, but he hadn’t exactly returned it. His granddad loved him, of that River had no doubt, but the O.B. wasn’t the most tactilely affectionate person.
She waited patiently but her eyes seemed to bore into him.
He ducked his away. “Um. Probably before my grandmother died?”
“Jesus, that was years ago,” she said softly, tugging his arms up to her shoulders so she could slide hers around his back.
River held her loosely. “So, uh, just checking…is this a thing we do now?” Last time, when he'd hugged her after Min died, she'd said no more hugging.
“Shut up,” she said, squeezing him tightly.
He smiled at the irksome way she had of somehow making him feel better even while rebuking him. Slowly, River tightened his hold on her.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured into his shoulder.
He grimaced. “For what?” He didn't want anyone's pity.
“For defending her.”
They stood quietly for a moment while River swallowed thickly and tried to summon the right words. In the end, he gave the top of her head a quick, light kiss, and said, simply, “Thank you.”
“For what?” she echoed his question.
For so many things, he thought. For following after him the night before and stopping the Dogs from shooting him; for idiotically digging the grenade out of his hood instead of running like she should have; for being considerate enough to think someone should let his mother know he was (not) dead; but also for accepting as true his assertion that his mother wasn’t worth defending (though maybe she was, because there had been extenuating circumstances, hadn’t there? He’d be processing through that later because today he was still feeling raw and bruised, and he couldn’t even begin to untangle that mess). And for this, which might be the only thing that could make him feel even a shade better about anything right now.
River squeezed a fraction tighter and said, “For having my back.”
It was a nice moment until River was pretty sure he could actually hear Louisa roll her eyes. “God, such a cliché,” she said, releasing him.
River grunted out a small laugh and gave her one last hard squeeze before letting go.
She went back to her desk and waved him off without another glance. “You better get upstairs. Lamb said if you weren't in his office by 10:00 he was going to cut off your bollocks and give them to Shirley.” Her mouth twitched.
River looked at his watch. “Oi, thanks for the advanced warning!” he said and raced for the stairs.
From behind, he heard her call, “And when Lamb’s done with you, it’s my turn!”