Robin knows how to work with what is. She can predict what is to come, and rearrange what might be, and twist the rhythm of any flow to match her own beat.

She's less familiar with the feeling of not there. A bare desk; dissipated odors; an empty palm; friendly words not spoken, even when there had once been a time she would have begged for a minute of quiet rather than suffocate in the silence. Pages feel blank no matter how many times she reads them, for her mind is occupied with other thoughts and anxieties, cluttered by the space of what's missing.

Endless responsibility keeps her body busy. Time still exists for her to fill up with whatever she can get her hands on. A task list checks off while days count down. Days until those hands can seek out what she truly wishes to hold.

In her pacing, she sees Inigo returning down the camp pathway, safe and sound. Perhaps, finally, she appreciates how to have not ...for tomes and weapons fall from her carry on the spot, clanging and fluttering to the ground. Her heart leaps! Like the skip in her step to run and greet him! The menial and the meaningless are left behind with no remorse, for right now, no project or person is more important than he.

Gaining report of the mission could wait.

Gathering him up into her arms cannot.

Pulling him close, crashing them together at the shoulders with fingers threading through blond strands to hold him to the crook of her neck - every contact communicates how happy she is, even before a smile and the smallest of giggles voices it, "Welcome home, Inigo."

Affection releases only briefly to bring her hood up. Touch resumes with a grasp at each side of his jaw - leverage to bring his lips in to meet hers for a little peck within fabricated shadows followed by a whisper, "I missed you."

He doesn't even have to chase for another kiss, and another; one for every empty hour without him. How torturous she'd learned it to be: to end every embrace knowing there would be more, yet having to wait for them. Oh, but Inigo would always find Robin patiently waiting, for they are together, and that is the promise - once and one more will never be enough. She will wait, come the occasions when it is his turn to leave; she will bear the lonely and the nothing until Inigo's tastes and scents and words and kisses come back.

He is worth every moment, and she would settle for nothing less.