Chapter eleven- Don't Kill The Messenger
As Robin entered the apartment he knew he would be home before Faith would. She wasn't due home until at least an hour. Since she had told him the truth she could now take a slightly longer shift which would benefit them both in the future.
As he set his keys down on the hallway table he saw Faith's phone and noticed she had forgotten to have taken it to work that morning. As he walked past it he noticed a symbol on the phone screen flashing, one new message. Robin thought about and decided he shouldn't check it and headed into the living area. He pulled out a beer from the fridge and sat down on the couch and took a few sips until he quickly jumped up off the couch and into the hallway. With his free hand he pick up the phone and jabbed at a few buttons to unlock the key pad and access the message. It was a voice message.
Robin listened carefully to the message and set the mobile back down on the hallway table and walked back into the living area to sit back down on the couch with his beer. He skulled the rest and threw the beer bottle into the bin and walked at a rather brisk pace into the bedroom. He yanked off his tie and threw it onto the bed and collapsed looking up towards the ceiling. He lay there for a movement before he got up and moved again. He took of his shoes and chucked them into the corner of the room and walked back out to the hallway. He studied the phone with great care as he kept a close eye on the time.
He didn't need to playback the message again, it already did in his mind.
He knew Faith hadn't heard the message yet, but he knew she had spoken to Xander about it at some other point. He wasn't sure to wait for Faith's 'approval' before having ago at Xander. Faith had already not told him about the other times he had called her when she had said earlier she would tell Robin if Xander said anything.
He frowned at the phone and placed it back down on the table.
Twenty minutes had already past since Robin had arrived home.
Robin stared at the door, he didn't know what to do.
He then started to search around the room for anything that might help this big mess. He didn't know what he was exactly looking for but he just kept looking.
He found one of Faith's work related piles of mess and searched through it and found a small sized black sling bag. He found a laptop inside and pulled it out and opened it. The screen lit up and it was part of a website. He scanned the page using the mouse and found out it was the Mayors website for Sunnydale. Wood wasn't even a bit worried at this stage, only because of what had happened with Faith at lunch not too long ago with the thing about Mayor Wilkins. He realised it must be a secret part of the website only Faith and Richard knew about because it looked personal, looked like a personal file. Robin had found pictures of the two. Robin thought even in a time like that in Faith's life she looked full of complete happiness even if she would have never admitted to it at the time but of course deep down she was hurting. After slowly and quietly taking in the pictures that appeared in front of him, he decided it was best to stop looking for things and packed away the laptop to the spot where had found it and went to sit back down on the couch.
Faith had had a long day at work and for most of the time gotten many lectures from Dale about responsibility at work, coming on time, paying attention, being focused on work, yadda, yadda. Which Faith usually was at times until recently, very recently.
The day was coming to the end for work for Faith and she had started packing up a little early. She wanted to get home on time for Robin. She knew he'd already but she wanted to be as quick as she could, sometimes the traffic could get really bad.
Faith had finished filling the reports and the clock struck the time to leave and she turned off the lamp on her desk and tidied up the papers and put them in a draw. She picked up her bag from the side of the desk, said goodbye to Carole and Charlie and the left for the car park.
Faith and Robin had agreed on a car that they both liked when they went to buy one and it wasn't a sporty one. It was practical, small, but not too small, just right for them both and it was a deepish blue colour. When Faith had been going to work before Robin had found out most days she would just catch public transport and that was why she left a slightly bit earlier and Robin would take the car but now Robin was going to let Faith take the car because she had to travel further each day. The high school was really only a few block away and Robin could either walk or catch a bus.
Faith pulled into the car park of the apartment block, straightened the car up and then got out and locked the car. She made her way up the stairs to the apartment.
Robin had been sitting on the couch in silence the whole time, just thinking. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to say to Faith.
Faith pulled out her set of keys slowly to unlock the door, she was so tried from work. The door unlocked and Robin heard the noise and jumped up off the couch, ran to the bedroom on instinct and had left the beer on the the coffee table.
Faith closed the door behind her and shouted out to Robin.
"I'm in here!" yelled back Robin.
Faith placed her bag on the kitchen bench and walked around the open room. She lounged on the couch and saw the beer, she picked it up and it was still pretty cold, Faith was already wondering what was going on. She took a sip and put it back and went to stand up. Faith made her way to the bedroom.
As soon as Faith entered the bedroom she said, "I'm so glad to see you," and stood up opposite to Robin, held onto his shirt collar and kissed him on the lips. Faith then sat on the bed and started taking her shoes off while saying, "Today Dale was so annoying. He kept harassing me all day. I'm just so glad to be home. He wouldn't stop bugging me about all these unimportant things," she looked at Robin, " and they were unimportant. He could have spoken to someone else and then he just went on and on about how I was late, I wasn't even, usually I'm early and that's because of Carole's fault, she was the one who brought it up."
"Sounds like a typical day at work."
"No, not for me. Usually much better."
Wood smiled and went to sit next to Faith. He put his right up around her and rubbed her back saying, "Everything will be fine. Tomorrow will be much better."
Faith smiled back and rested her head on his shoulder. She then quickly sat up and turned her body to look and face towards Wood.
"Is everything alright?" she asked.
Wood looked concerned.
"Yeah."
"You just seem."
"Seem?"
"I don't know. Maybe my reading people skills aren't up to what they used to be."
Robin turned his head and looked away.
"No I am right. Something is up. Robin," said Faith as she put her hand on his shoulder, "Please tell me what's wrong."
Robin turned around to face her and she got up off the bed, paced around and then stood still and looked towards his direction ready to listen.
"Did anything happen at work today that I should know about?"
Faith's face went puzzled, "No I told you what I thought you should know."
"So nothing else?"asked Robin quickly turning his head towards Faith to ask the question and then turn away not to face her.
"Ah no," said Faith concerned about Robin was thinking about.
Robin went back to face her again.
"Today when I got home from work, I-I noticed that you left behind your phone today on the hallway table," Robin stood up and walked closer to Faith, Faith was wondering where this was going to, "And I noticed you had a new message on your phone and at first I didn't, I didn't touch it and then I went back and listened to the message."
"Robin? I'm not mad about that. It could have been a really important message about someone."
Faith stopped talking then realised something about what she had said, "Oh!Your hurt aren't you, by what you heard. Before you asked me about work and if I had told you everything," Faith turned her head and started to walk around the room.
Faith turned around and directly asked the question to Robin's face,"It's about Xander, isn't it?"
Robin gave the answer through a simple nod of the head.
