"He's dead."

Strike's voice reverberated through Robin's brain, echoing off the walls of her mind like a pinball in an empty room. She felt numb, closed-off, as if her brain had shut down, unable to handle the crashing cascade of emotions that had come down on her like a sack of bricks, unable to process the scene before her. She heard Strike's voice as though from far away, saw the dead man in front of her as though from a height. But was he-was he really-

"I know he is."

Strike didn't have to touch the body, to feel for a pulse or read the truth in the man's staring eyes, to know. His voice was gruff as he looked at her, thick with shock, with a terrible fear, and with something else more powerful than either which he couldn't begin to verbalize. Robin was staring blankly down at the man, her eyes glazed, frozen in place. The gun was still in her outstretched hand.

"Robin?"

Something in his tone when he spoke her name shook Robin out of her frozen silence. Her eyes slowly moved up to his. His expression was unreadable. It was as though there was so much in his look that each individual feeling had become lost, leaving his face bereft. She let her hand fall limply to her side, her fingers still vice-like upon the gun. She could feel the sweat on her forehead trickling down the side of her face, warm against her clammy skin.

"I had to." She whispered, her voice hoarse. "He was going to kill you."

"I know."

They stood, watching each other in silence. Strike's heart was still beating furiously against his sternum, just as it had a few moments before, when he had seen the man before him raise the gun-seen the shadow in the doorway, and heard the shot, echoing through the noiseless room like a clap of thunder. Now that the immediate shock was over, time seemed to jar back into motion. His thoughts were slowly becoming coherent, regaining control over the emotions that had overwhelmed him.

The look of intense focus, of deadly purpose, that had clouded Robin's face as she had come into the room were slowly fading as the reality of it hit her. She was as white as paper. She had begun to shake.

"Hey."

His tone softened as he stepped towards her, drawing her into his arms. Robin found inordinate comfort and relief in his voice, in the large, warm bulk of him. The gun fell out of her limp, sweating fingers as she hugged him, stabilizing her shaking body against his chest. Tears burned at the corners of her eyes, but she did not cry. She stabilized her forehead against his shoulder and began to breathe deeply.

Strike gently inclined his head, the side of his face skimming along her strawberry blonde hair. The smell of it-the proximity to her-had sent a powerful thrill down the length of his spine. It wasn't just her physical closeness-although he was consciously, breathlessly aware of the feel of her against him. It was the inexpressible jumble of emotions- of incredible gratitude, of terrible fear, of fervent longing-that had all melded together to form a sense of intimacy that was almost metaphysical in its intensity. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so fundamentally close to another human being.

They stood together in silence.

A single tear ran down the length of her cheek, and without thinking twice, without considering, still wrapped up in the wordless warmth that had bound them together, he reached out and gently wiped it away. Her skin was warm and soft. He traced his thumb down the smooth length of her jawline. He wanted nothing more than to take her face in his hands, to lift it towards his.

Robin looked up at him, and something in her face recalled him to himself. Strike forced himself to lift his hand away.

"What are we going to do?" She asked, her voice clearer now, no longer trembling.

"Well…" Strike cleared his throat, and quickly disengaged from her. He was suddenly tense. The panic and subsequent burst of relief had led him to loosen his resolve, slip into the weakness that he constantly suppressed. Had he crossed an invisible line-had he made an unrectifiable mistake? "We'll need to call the police." He continued, in a slightly harsher voice than he intended. "Let them know what's happened."

A sense of cold emptiness descended upon Robin with the sudden absence of Strike's warmth. Or was it the sudden return to his businesslike tone, to the stark reality before them? For those moments she had pressed herself against him, she had felt a profound nearness to him that she couldn't explain, a togetherness that was more than the fellowship she had often felt when they had faced danger by each other's side. Had only she felt it? She could still feel the path that his finger had traced along her cheek.

"They know that Finch was after me." Strike continued, looking away from Robin at the man on the floor. "I called Wardle an hour ago. He had enough for the warrant. They were going to arrest him."

"But he got here first." Robin tried valiantly to match the coolness of his tone, not to let her voice shake. The panic was starting to catch up with her now, seeing the dead man on the floor, a trickle of blood pooling onto the floor beside him. But she couldn't show her fear-she had to be the impassive, capable partner Strike needed. She had to keep a cool head. She couldn't let him see.

"He must have got the wind up." Strike said, massaging his forehead with one large hand. "He must have known I'd got him. He must have known from when I saw him yesterday. He was trying to head me off, silence me before I informed the police, before we could make any steps."

Strike paused, and looked Robin full in the face.

"He would have done it, too, if you hadn't come." He said, his voice low.

Robin couldn't maintain the intensity of his gaze. Her stomach clenched involuntarily. She felt the trace of his finger as though it had been burned into her face.

"How the hell did you know he was coming?" Strike asked, his eyes still scanning her face.

"I didn't."

Robin looked down at the gun lying inches from her feet. She had finished her surveillance work at six, and had gone home to Matthew. He had been waiting there for her, his impatience poorly disguised. It hadn't taken long for it to break through his composure.

"Why were you home late?" he said with an air of forced calm as she had been clearing up the dishes from the table.

"I told you, I had to work on a case." Robin replied stiffly. His bad mood had permeated through their dinner. The stilted silences had left her with a sour taste in her mouth.

"You said you'd be home at 5."

"I told you, I had to stay longer than I expected." Robin was finding it harder and harder to maintain her cool. Perhaps it was the frequency of the fights-somehow, more numerous now than they ever had been before their marriage-but she felt as though she were constantly on edge. A mere hint of a challenge was enough to overset her. She hated feeling like that, as though she were always out of control. She hated that Matt made her feel that way.

"Three guesses why."

There it was.

"Stop being so bloody paranoid." She said angrily, slamming the dishes on the counter. "I wasn't even with him, I was on surveillance, and I came straight home."

"You're always on surveillance, always working late. A new excuse every single time, Robin!" He said furiously. "I thought this was going to change! You said-"

"I never made any promises, Matt." She snapped. "I told you ages ago, when he made me his partner, I told you I'd have to work late, I told you I'd have more weekend work. I don't know why you've been expecting anything else, just because we're-"

"Oh, just because we're married?" Matt anticipated her, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "As if that doesn't matter. But obviously, of course, nothing matters other than your work and bloody Strike and-"

The argument hadn't continued much longer before Robin had had enough. She slammed the door behind her as she left her flat, her face smarting against the cool October wind. How many times did she have to have to have the same argument thrown at her, again and again? How many times did she have to have her love of her work torn apart, vilified, and spat back in her face? How many nights did she need to spend fuming on the sofa, tears spilling remorselessly down her clenched face?

But I'm not crying now. She told herself furiously. I won't let you do this to me.

She walked on, so caught up in her anger that she hardly knew where her feet were carrying her, until she suddenly found herself at the station. It was late, she knew-but she couldn't face going home, now. And there was only one other place for her to go.

Robin had slipped into Denmark Street half an hour later. She was planning on going through their most recent file-a murder of a teenage girl that the police had been quick to dismiss as a suicide. Strike had been commissioned to take a second look by the girl's father, who, made dangerously resolute with rage and grief, was convinced that his daughter's boyfriend was to blame. But it was only yesterday that she had stumbled across the truth, inadvertently, as she had been on surveillance for another case.

Shouting above her made Robin stop dead on the staircase. She thought she could hear Strike's voice-and-who was the other? She closed her eyes, listening carefully-and heard a deep man's voice join Strike's.

Dread pierced her then, and she tore up the stairs. She didn't know how she had been so sure, but at that moment she only knew Strike needed her. She had to get there in time.

The door was ajar. She had seen Finch's shadow in Strike's office, his right arm aloft, heard Strike's shout. She hadn't had time to think, only to run. She had felt her heartbeat throbbing in her throat as she ran, felt a terrible, all-consuming fear as she had scrambled to open the drawer where the gun was hidden-and her thoughts, laid bare by her panic, had, in that moment, betrayed to her exactly what the constantly repressing influence of her conscious mind had never allowed her to see-showed her exactly what it would have meant to her had that large, gruff man in the room beside her no longer been with her. And she had known exactly what she must do.

Robin's phone buzzed inside her pocket. She jumped at the sudden noise, all her senses on edge. Strike was still looking at her. She couldn't stand to look back.

Quickly she averted her eyes again, took her phone out of her pocket, and looked down at it, praying with her entire being that he would look away from her.

Where the hell are you?

"Matthew." She and Strike had said together.

Without meaning to, she looked up at him again. His face had changed-no longer coloured with that same unreadable, intangible level of emotion that had so discomposed her. It was grim, straight. It was easier to hold his gaze now that it had gone-and yet-

"You should call him." Strike said, his voice more curt now. "We'll likely be here all night once the police arrive. He'll worry."

"Right." Robin said. She hesitated before moving her phone back in her pocket. She was strangely panicked again, feeling inexplicably that a moment, an understanding, was passing away from her as the seconds ticked on, moving inexorably out of her grasp. And yet-what was there to say? How could she express the moment of blinding fear that had preceded that terrible, final shot? How could she put into words the cold draft that had seemed to spread down her chest and arms after he had moved away from her, the strange sense of desperately needing to say something, and not knowing what?

"I'll just...be a minute." She mumbled. She turned quickly and walked out the door, looking down at her phone with unseeing eyes.

Strike was still standing in the same position, looking wordlessly at the place she had just stood, long after she had closed the door.