David walked back into his room wrapped in one of the big fluffy towels which had been left in his room by either Regina or Robin. He collapsed onto the bed, it was only morning time but he already felt exhausted.
His first outpatient physiotherapy session seemed easy from the outside, he had massages on his shoulder and leg, then they did what seemed like basic and easy stretches. But they felt like he had just done the Iron Man challenge. He led on his back, slowly breathing in, and out.
He grabbed his phone from the side table, checked the time, no new messages but that was unsurprising. Quarter to twelve, hours left in the day, hours since Robin and Regina had told him about the funeral, hours since the police had knocked on the door with a box of items found in the car wreck.
He balled up his hands and rubbed his eyes with his fists. He needed to get dressed before he fell asleep in just a towel.
He needed to get up.
Get up, get up, get up.
He finally pushed himself back up, groaning out loud as he did, it was easier to push himself to his feet now he had gotten going. He grabbed a pair of grey sweatpants from the wardrobe, underwear, socks, and a burgundy sweatshirt which was made to look like an aged college shirt, UCLA.
He pulled the clothes on, then dumped the towel into the laundry basket, as he had been told to do. He pulled on the leg brace, the physio said he would only need a couple more weeks of wearing it, maybe even less, David hoped he was right.
He tried to leave the room, he wanted to, but the box was on his desk. His feet took him to the desk. He fell into the desk chair, it rolled back ever so slightly, he rolled it back in, and opened the box up.
All the things were in evidence bags. That's what his whole life had been, an investigation, a case closed, 'accidental death', the police had talked to him, he hadn't really listened. Robin had been there, David just had to hope, trust, that he had listened, would tell him if he needed to know.
The first couple of evidence bags contained shreds of paper, an entire sketchbook worth, blown to pieces, some scorched from the fire. A couple of sketchbooks were intact, he placed them on the desk, the sketchbooks had been part of a gift from James on his last birthday, David wasn't sure how James had afforded them, or even if he had bought them, but it had still been one of the best gifts he had gotten. He let his fingers trail over the leather cover before looking back into the box.
James' wallet was there, the only David had given to him on James' thirteenth birthday with the engraved batman on it. James had always claimed to not be sentimental and David would have believed him had it not been for him keeping it. He felt his stomach turn before he could open the wallet- James had never let him even glance inside of it, he had once punched him when a younger David had gotten hold of it once.
If James hadn't wanted him to look inside he should have stayed alive, David thought bitterly.
There was the tearing sound of the velcro then David came face to face with something he hadn't expected.
There were cards in there, a lot of cards, so many David was surprised the wallet had even stayed open. At first he had thought they were credit cards, stolen when left unattended or pickpocketed. But as he tipped the wallet upside down he saw that they weren't. They were business cards, motel business cards, and high school school ID cards. David sat frowning at them for a solid minute before he flicked through them. The older ones were discoloured, worn where a young James had run his little fingers over the names and places. All the places they had stayed in for years. The IDs were harder to look at, James' smirking face ageing in the photographs, the way he smiled to look cool. He stared at the last one, the newest one from Leonard Harvey High school in Pittsburg, just a few weeks previous. It felt so close David could almost hear him calling his name.
But then he remembered the fact that his brother nearly always called him Davey, not David. And that he was one hundred percent dead and not calling him down for lunch. David sighed and began to pack away the cards back into the wallet. He was holding them in his left hand when he felt his shoulder twinge, he dropped the cards and rubbed his shoulder.
It was only when he dropped them that he saw the intruder in the pack. He tried to pick it up but it slipped from his fingertips. "Shit, fuck." He mumbled. The third time trying he managed to pick it up. It took him a minute to realise what it was, a small wallet size photograph, popular years before his own birth.
He nearly didn't recognise his mother. She looked so young, her hair long and curled, makeup on her face in order to look nice rather than to cover up signs of abuse, she was smiling widely, she was clearly pregnant, barely showing but clear from the way her hands rested on her stomach.
A man stood at her side, his arm around her in a loving hold.
Robert, the man who David had been led to believe was his father, he looked young, strong, tanned, he was holding a baby in his arms which must have been James. He looked so proud, a level of pride that he hadn't seen on anyone other than Robin when David caught him watching any of David's siblings.
He searched the man's broad face for any sign of himself, any hint whether Robert had ever believed David was his son. There was no trace. He could see James' in Robert's face, though, he remembered his mom being so mad when James had once cropped his hair as short as he could, like Robert's in the photograph, it made sense now, why Ruth had reacted how she had, why James had done it.
His eyes kept going back to his mom. She was pregnant. There had been blood tests to prove he was Robin's son, there had been DNA tests against his mother's corpse, but he still hoped against all hope that there was a possibility Ruth was his mom. At least then there would be one last thing ruining his life. At least she had wanted him. He turned it over and saw his mother's neat writing. "Robert, Ruth, and James Robert Nolan, 2003. Baby William Robert, February 14th - June 29th 2003, born too soon."
David did some quick mental maths, and when that failed he brought out his phone, flicking through the calendar app on his phone, counting forward nine months from February. Sure enough nearly exactly nine months before his birth, on the 8th of November, 2003. He dropped the photograph on the table face up, he frowned down at it, he didn't know what to think, how to think. What did it mean? Had he been born on the exact day that the baby his mom had never had? Had she lied about it? Then there was the middle name; he had always seen his written purely as an initial, his mom refused to admit it but he knew it stood for Robert, just like James', same as the baby he had replaced.
A bang on the door made him jump. He suddenly remembered being very young, hiding in with James in his bed, a bang, James holding him tightly.
"David, lunch is ready. Sunshine? Are you okay?"
David didn't have time to answer before Robin entered the room. He watched his frown soften as his eyes flickered from David to the box and back to him again. "Hey kid, are you okay?"
The soft voice spurred David into action. "I'm," he dumped the wallet, cards, and photograph into the box with several thuds, "fine." He stood up and walked towards the door pausing to let Robin out first.
After lunch David found himself sequestered in the downstairs office which Robin shared with Regina. There was a massive bookcase with so many books David wondered if they were all about law, he wanted to look through them, see if there was anything he would enjoy reading, instead he was forced to sit at Regina's desk, across the room from Robin at his, and take a test for each subject he would be taking at his new school to see where he's at in all of them.
He had tried the english test first, but as soon as they started talking about homonyms and auxiliary verses he realised that being good at reading and doing good in written tests and papers wasn't going to get him anywhere in the test. He knew plenty of terms… just clearly not enough.
The science wasn't much better, this time he hadn't got as far when
David reached into his pocket to pull out his cellphone. If he wasn't going to be able to even do these tests he wasn't going to bother keeping up a pretense.
"David, you're doing a test, put your mobile phone away."
Robin's voice made him jump, he turned and looked at Robin who was staring at the papers on his desk, with no sign of having looked up at him at all. Apparently professors, like teachers, had eyes in the back of their heads. But he couldn't really think of that, instead he rolled his eyes, slammed the test paper on the desk, and crossed his arms over the test. "Why not? It's not like I'm going to pass them anyway."
Robin still didn't look up, instead he circled a word on the paper in front of him, he made a quick note besides the circle. "It doesn't matter if you pass them or not, they'll let your teachers know where you're up to and what classes to put you in."
"Then they can just fail me on them and put me in the stupid classes. I'm not doing them."
Robin finally looked up and over to David. "I know that they're boring but they're important, it'll take an hour or so of your time, I'm sure you can cope without your phone and do the work for that long." He was used to students and Henry being teenagers for long enough to know how they would find any excuse not to do them. "You're a smart kid, you're not going to be put in lower classes; you can do it, just concentrate."
"I can't do it!" the chair scraped against the wooden floor as David stood up, he could feel his heart pounding in his veins, and pain in his head as it throbbed. He knew he was seeing red but he was powerless to stop it, he couldn't stop as he continued to shout at Robin. "I've barely even gone to school schools, I know none of this!"
Robin didn't react to David's outburst, he wasn't used to seeing such things at the university he taught at but he had worked in a high school for a year, he was used to them. "Stop shouting at me and calm down. Just sit down and focus and I'm sure you'll be fine. No one is going to judge you if you get a couple of the questions wrong."
The non-reaction only worked to anger David more. Instead of lowering his voice he shouted louder, yelling again that he couldn't answer the questions and wouldn't be doing it.
Robin placed his hands on his hips as he gave David what Regina termed his dad look, it wasn't on purpose just a muscle memory. "Yes, you will. You could have been done with half of one by now! I have work I need to be getting on with doing too, I can't sit by your side babysitting you so you don't go on your phone for an hour or so."
Robin was met with yet more shouting: David repeating his statement that he wouldn't be doing the tests, and him calling himself stupid, as well as other things which just didn't make sense to Robin. This just didn't seem like the David he had been getting to know. And it was now getting under his skin.
"DAVID!" He finally shouted, silencing his son. "That is enough! You aren't stupid, these are standard tests for your age I'm sure you'll do fine in them. You don't get to take whatever has made you angry out on me. I'm trying to help you. So, sit down, shut up, and do the bloody tests!"
A beat of silence.
David threw his cellphone onto the desk, it skidded across the top from the force of the throw, there was a smash as it hit the floor. "
STOP TRYING TO FUCKING TELL ME WHAT TO DO! YOU DON'T GET TO COME IN AND PRETEND TO BE MY DAD WHEN MY WHOLE LIFE YOU COULDN'T GIVE A SHIT!"
Robin's anger flooded from him, his crossed arms dropped from his chest to his sides, his mouth fell open and the anger on his face softened. "That's not fair." His voice was quiet and subdued. "If I had known… I'm trying here, David."
"Maybe if you had tried before now," David threw open the door, "you could have kept track of all the women you got pregnant, and I could have been in one place long enough to know how to spell my fucking name, instead of being stupid and fucked up!" By the end of his heated response he had made it into the hall, out of Robin's reach, even if he had tried.
Robin hadn't been able to move, David words had shocked him, frozen him into place. He wanted to protest, he wanted to chase after David, to have not let him leave the room in the first place, to have been able to calm him down, to be able to deny David's words irrefutably.
Even now when he could finally move a little he couldn't find the ability to follow David. Instead he ran his hands over his face and through his hair.
"Fuck." He finally said, with force, his eyes fell on David's smashed cell on the ground. Luckily, it was a dated model so instead of being completely ruined it had come apart, it was fixable. Much easier to fix than whatever just happened had been.
While staring at the phone on the ground he found his own phone in his hand, he had gone to press on Regina's number, as he did whenever there was an issue with the other kids he didn't know how to solve, but neither of them would know how to help David, they barely knew him. He let out a soft sigh, it was unfair to put this on her, especially while she was working, she'd kill him for it later, but it was the right choice for now.
He scrolled down his contacts list until he reached the newest contact in his phone 'DR Archie Hopper - shrink'. His thumb hovered over the phone icon. Something had been wrong with David, he had been angry, but he just didn't seem like the David he had been getting to know. Or perhaps this was the David he really was, how would Robin know the difference? How could the shrink help when this was possibly more of a problem with his parenting?
After all, David had been right. He had been good friends with Mal for years before their drunken hook up, he knew her, he knew it hadn't been like her to just stop talking to him completely for nearly a year. She had disappeared without a trace nearly three months after their encounter, she was gone for nearly eight months, she was changed when she had come back, not necessarily physically but internally. He should have asked. He should have known. He had been too busy with his own life; his new job in the DA's office, flirting with Regina, trying to make a move on her now she was no longer with Daniel- he had been more than happy when Mal got him a date with Regina, in part because it was a sign that his and Mal's relationship was on the way back to normal.
If he had asked then and there, if he had put together all the bits and pieces Mal would have told him, he knew she would have, he could have found David, he could have met Ruth and discovered if she was the best choice or not for himself. He could have fought for custody and won.
He finally slipped the phone back into his pocket, undialed, and went upstairs fairly certain he couldn't mess it up any worse than he already had.
Robin had expected to find David's bedroom in a state of disarray, but it was just as empty as usual, instead of everything being smashed up it was still perfectly tidy the only hint was a small bloody mark on the wall which took Robin a few seconds to realise came from David punching the wall.
David himself was curled up on his bed, his head at the foot of his bed, his arms wrapped tightly around his head as though shielding himself from a bomb blast. Or from him, Robin winced as he thought that.
He rolled the desk chair from the desk towards the bed, making sure to make some noise to warn David what Robin was doing. When it was next to where David's head was still hidden Robin took a seat on it.
He stared down at David's blonde waves waiting to see if he would respond, when he didn't Robin ran his hand through his own hair, then spoke. "If I had known you had existed I would have found you, Sunshine, no matter where in the country. I would have found you, I would have gone to the ends of the world to find you." He could see David's tense form slowly relax. "You're right though, I should have been more observant with Mal, there were signs but I was too happy having her back in my life to question where she had been. I wish I had talked to her, insisted on answers, if I had I would have been able to know you."
"You had a life." David mumbled into his mattress. He moved his hands from in his hair to folded around his head so that his face was still hidden from Robin. He couldn't stand to look at him, not when Robin was being so nice to him after he had lost it on him, he bit the inside of his cheek instead.
"I would have made it work." Robin insisted, still using his quiet, soothing voice, there was no hesitance in his voice. He took a slow and deep breath. "I know you might not believe it yet, but you're… you're my son, and I would do anything for you, just as I would Henry, or Roland, or Margot. I know you don't believe it, don't know it, not yet… but I love you." He tentatively reached out and ran his hand through David's blonde hair, watching the strands curl around his fingers as they moved. He heard David mumble what Robin thought was an apology, but his head was still hidden away from him. "And you're not stupid, not at all, not even a little." He let out a small laugh trying to lighten the conversation. "You have a smart mouth, you wouldn't be able to come out with your quick remarks at me if you weren't as clever as you are, Sunshine."
Robin watched as David stayed still and silent, he moved his hand away from his hair, when he did David seemed to tense up again, Robin moved his hand back into his hair and slowly stroked his head, waiting until he relaxed again to begin talking once more. "I can teach you what I can, it's been a while since I was in high school but I'm sure I remember some of it. Anything else I'll find a tutor, five tutors, whatever you need. We'll get you back up to speed."
Robin watched as his son slowly moved his knees from his chest, his arms from his head, as though caught in slow motion he sat up, not looking at Robin until he was fully upright. His eyes were rimmed with red from tears and slightly bloodshot, he had clearly been crying, and when his nervous eyes finally flicked to Robin he could see the shame in him.
Robin smiled softly even though his heart was breaking for his son. "There's that pretty boy face." He teased lightly, his tone marinated in fondness." He watched the corners of David's mouth flicker upwards but it seemed to take a lot of effort. He looked like he could do with a several hour nap.
He restrained himself from frowning when he thought of the empty look which had been in David's eyes when he had been shouting downstairs, even compared to now where there was hurt and guilt, but also life. Robin was now certain that it was like David hadn't been in his own body.
"I'm sorry, I didn't… I don't know what happened, I didn't mean to, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry, I… shit."
"Hey, hey," Robin shushed David's stuttering and bumbling apologies, he reached out and took David's hands out of his hair which he had started to pull, seemingly without realising. "It's okay, Sunshine, it's okay."
"It is't, I shouldn't have said all those things, I shouldn't have gotten so mad, I tried to… I tried to stop, I, fuck." He dug his fists into his eyes but Robin took them again, this time he kept hold of them to stop David from hurting himself. He quietened down when he felt Robin's thumb gently brush over his injured knuckles.
"David…. I don't think that you were fully conscious when you were saying all of that. I don't think that you could have stopped yourself even if you wanted to."
"... What's wrong with me?"
David's voice was barely above a whisper, and sounded so broken that Robin moved from his place on the desk chair onto the bed beside him and had pulled him into his arms, cradling the back of his head, in seconds. He felt David's hands on his back, then clutching at his shirt, then burying his head against his shoulder. Robin held him tighter, rocking him as he had on the night Mal had visited. It was the only thing he could do. "We'll find out." Robin whispered. "We'll get you help."
Robin waited until everyone had gone to bed that night before he put his shoes and jacket on and slipped out of the house into the night.
Mallory de Vane had been going over both the final choice for funeral flowers and her opening statement for the divorce settlement she would be suing for in court the next day when the bell of her door had sounded. Still stuck in her thoughts she forgot to check the peephole, something she regretted as soon as she opened the door.
"Are you going to invite me in?"
Her own words from the last time she had seen Robin echoed out of his mouth and she found herself stepping aside.
She watched as he walked into the penthouse, his hands in the pockets of his slim leg jeans, his jacket was the sort that someone would wear on a hike yet the crisp white shirt underneath looked expensive and professional, and despite his relaxed body language there was a baked in anger on his face: He was made of contradictions.
"Drink?" She finally offered.
She received a jerky nod and watched him turn and head to the kitchen area. The last time he had been in her loft had been celebrating her promotion, him and Regina, their friends all around them, laughing and joking as easily as any friends who had known each other for as long as they had. She would give anything to turn back the clock to that night, to any night before Robin had found out, before Regina had found out, before they hated her.
She moved to her large drinks cabinet and picked out the dry gin she knew he favoured, she poured herself one too, she slid his over to him, downed her own, poured another for herself before putting the bottle away, though she was tempted to just sip from it every time she needed to. "So?"
Robin clenched his jaw, he had lost it at her last time he had to fight the same this time, he wasn't here for that, not today. "I need to know about Ruth. Everything, anything."
"Why?" She watched him tilt his head to the side in confusion in that puppy dog sort of way he always had, the thing which took him from unattainably hot to attainable and hot to her high school self. "She's dead, you don't need to try and fight her for custody of the kid, she is dead."
Robin looked down at the marble countertop, he bit his lip, he had been ready to fire back but the way she spat the last bit out was too much like David's earlier shouts that he couldn't "I know." He said softly instead. He looked back up at her, his lack of resistance seemed to have worked on her. "But Ruth had a massive impact on David, both before and after she passed, and I need to understand her if I'm ever going to help him."
Mal sighed. "Ask him then, the kid, get him to tell you. I haven't seen her in years."
Robin let out a scoffing laugh and shook his head in disbelief. "Really? Fucking hell Mal; 'the kid' can barely get through the day without having at least three panic attacks, I feel like I spend all my time waiting for him to have a complete breakdown, I have to fight to get him to tell me anything about himself, David's made it clear that Ruth is off topic. You may not want him but you claim to have wanted to give him his best chance when you gave him to her, so you must have some even minimal amount of love for him, give him his best chance now. You're not smearing her memory, you're helping her son, our son, I never met her but I have a feeling that Ruth would do anything to help David, especially if she saw how he is now."
Mal turned her gin glass on the counter. She shook her head at herself. "Ruth helped raise me. My parents were brilliant when they were around and when they were on the wagon. But Dad loved coke a bit too much, mom was a winey, or anything if it was around. But Ruthie was always there. She was only five years older than me but she was always so maternal, it was all she wanted to do, she didn't care about going to college which annoyed our parents but they hoped she'd change her mind. But when she became a teenager she was blowing off school, hanging out with these assholes, with Robert, going to parties, doing drugs and alcohol, sleeping around. My parents switched her schools thinking it would solve it all. She… had a breakdown. I found her in the bath tub one night... " She took a long sip of her gin.
"She was suicidal." He watched her nod. "She suffered from depression?"
"Manic depression, actually, that's what they called bipolar in those days. She went into a facility as an inpatient, my parents got treatment for their addictions, they got clean and she got better." She smiled at the memory. "It was probably the best our family had been- when they figured out the right dose."
Robin nodded slowly. He thought through all the things David had let slip, it made sense, in combination with the situations she was in.
"Then she and Robert began dating again. She was still stable, but she had a thing for bad boys, she mixed her meds with alcohol, and other things, some just to stay awake and keep up with the others Robert flirted with. She graduated and moved out, she got pregnant with her first son, James, and got married."
Robin took a sip of his own gin. "And then?"
Mal sighed. "I don't know. Robert was a mean drunk? Robert got involved in some things, with people, he shouldn't have? Ruthie stopped taking her meds? Our parents died, the abuse got words, she got pregnant, she had a miscarriage. She took the baby from me, I was fairly sure it would fix her, she perhaps wasn't the most stable but she loved him. She clearly looked after him or he'd be dead."
Robin had been feeling sorry for her, he had been feeling sorry for Ruth, he still did feel sorry for Ruth, but his anger flared up again. "Are you…?" He scoffed and shook his head again. "Fucking hell! I mean Jesus Mal! Do you have any idea what shit he had to go through? How fucking damaged he is from the life he's gone through? Of course you don't because you want nothing to do with him, and even if you did he wouldn't tell you because he is terrified about opening up. He didn't deserve to go through all of that! James didn't either. Ruth was struggling, she deserved to get help, she shouldn't have been given a baby. He might not be dead but he's so damaged from his life that he doesn't seem to be able to accept that he's loved. Do you get how fucked up that is?"
Silence.
"And here I was thinking you were here to talk."
"I was. I am! But stop trying to make out it was the right choice to leave David with her because we both know that's bullshit." She opened her mouth while looking at the countertop and he just shook his head. "Don't try to lie to me, I've known you for too long."
"I've told you all I know."
"David's birth." Robin's words were out of his mouth before he had even thought about them. "I want to know about our son's birth."
"What's to tell? It was like any birth, go watch a fucking youtube video or something, it's the same thing. Why would you want to know about the time I was half naked with my legs open in front of strangers?" She tried to joke, despite all appearances she wanted to avoid yet more shouting.
"I barely know anything about our son other than the fact he's sixteen, was born november, and has a sweet tooth. I didn't get to go to his birth. I just want to know, I don't know…" he ran his hand through his hair, then rubbed his neck as he shook his head, he really didn't know. It was probably what he had really come for, to find out something about his child, it was a pointless task, Mal was completely checked out of this. He should just go. He took a step away from the island to leave.
"April."
"What?"
"David was born in April. He was meant to be born in June, nine months after we took our LSATS, he was born three weeks early."
Robin frowned in confusion."But the social worker said…" He trailed off. He had never put much thought into it, he had taken the blood test and been told he matched with David, he hadn't needed to do the mental maths to determine if David could be his. "She gave him a fake birthday?"
"I suppose." She watched him cradling his glass, he had barely touched it, he must have driven to her place; the more kids he had the more he seemed to drive carefully, with four in his house she was surprised he took the drink at all. "Did you not look in that envelope I gave you?"
"I've been a little busy." He told her dryly.
Mal rolled her eyes. "His birth certificate's in there, not his real one, he might not even have a real one, Ruth might have had someone forge one, fuck knows. Anyway," she shook her head getting back to her train of thought, "it's this souvenir one some hospitals give, all the information there is about his birth is on it. I gave it to Ruthie and told her that she should give it to the baby one day. You should look at it, your name's on it. There's some photographs in there too, maybe some letters?" She shook her head and waved her hand in a vague and dismissive gesture. "I only glimpsed inside, it wasn't anything to do with me, I'm surprised I ever kept it."
"Yeah, god forbid you even gave the false impression that you might possibly give a single shit about our kid."
Silence.
"I'm guessing you're not going to let us get back to being the friends we had been before all this."
"You destroyed that the day you decided not to tell me about our baby, and you set it into stone each and every day which went by where you didn't tell me and didn't care that he was out there somewhere in danger. That was all you Mallory. I just wish I had known sooner, I wish you had never come back into my life after that night." He downed the last of his gin, slammed the glass down onto the counter and started to walk towards the door. "I'll see you at the funeral."
He found himself driving around, he needed to clear his head and a house was too small to be able to do that. He only stopped driving when he was nearly three towns over, he stopped at a gas station to fill up the tank. He knew Regina wouldn't be happy that he had gone to see Mal, she wouldn't have liked that he had gotten mad and upset, that he hadn't talked to her first. He picked up a bouquet of flowers outside the store, she'd still be upset but it was worth a shot. He went inside and paid for the flowers and the gas before setting off home.
It was nearly an hour from leaving Mal's apartment to getting home, thanks to his long drive and having to stop for gas. He kicked off his boots, grimacing when one of them fell on the floor from the stand, he righted it, hung up his jacket, put his keys on the holder and carried the flowers into the kitchen.
After he set them in a vase of water he walked back and was about to head up to bed when he heard his voice being said. He looked towards it, the living room doors were open as usual, so from his place in the hall he could see the top of David's head from his blue eyes up poking over the top of the couch.
Despite the long day he turned from the stairs and walked into the living room towards his son. "Hey David, whatcha doing up?"
"Wasn't tired." David restrained a yawn. Robin sent him an amused look which just said 'bullshit'. It was too late for David to keep up with the pretense of rolling his eyes. "Couldn't sleep."
"Couldn't sleep?"
"Nightmares." David admitted quietly.
Robin bit the inside of his lip in an attempt not to let out a pitying noise. "Scoot over." Robin nodded his head in the direction which would make David sit up more.
"You don't have to stay with me." David told him sitting up, Robin sat in the space close enough that David was leaning on him, David didn't move away, instead he allowed himself to lean against him.
"None of that." Robin shushed him. "What're we watching?"
"Erm, it's a superhero show, you can change the channel."
"I'm good with this." Robin led his arm across the top of the couch above David.
"Where were you?"
"Huh?"
"You weren't in bed, you came from outside."
"I needed some gas." Robin told him easily. He immediately felt wrong. "I went to see Mallory first."
David hesitated. "Why?"
"I wanted to talk about your mom, Ruth, to find out about her, I know it's hard for you to talk about, so I went to her."
David hesitated again. "Were you askin' somethin' bad?" He asked quietly. "I mean about things she did which weren't good. I didn't mean to let it slip-."
"Telling me doesn't put you at fault and it's not a bad thing. I want to know things like this, anything, everything. It wasn't anything bad, I just know you had hinted at some of her behaviour and actions, I wanted to see if Mallory had any answers."
"... Did she know why she was how she was?"
Robin looked down at David whose eyes were on the tv but it was clear he wasn't watching his show. "She wasn't well. She had bipolar and found it hard to manage, it's why she did some of the things you've said, she wasn't in control of her illness, I'm sure what she went through with Robert made it worse." He bit his lip for a second, thinking of all he and Mal had talked about. "I know that she loved you, though, more than you'll know until you become a parent yourself."
David swallowed deeply and bit his lip, unable to find his words, if there were any words, he just nodded, hoping Robin would see.
"Do you want to talk about her? Your mom, Ruth, I mean."
David shook his head. "I'm too tired. I just want to watch some tv."
"Okay." Robin said softly, he was surprised he had even talked that much to Robin about Ruth, or asked the questions. He moved his hands ready to push himself to his feet, to go to bed and give David his space to process.
"No!" David's words spilled out of his mouth too quickly. "I mean you can stay if you like…." He shook his head knowing that it was so thinly veiled that he may as well ask it. "Can you stay with me, just for an episode?"
All the arguing that day and night felt worth it for that question. He knew David could change his mind in ten minutes time, or become a sealed vault again tomorrow, but at that moment David was letting him in and asking for intimacy. "Sure, Sunshine, then you need to get some sleep."
"That's never gonna go away." David sighed but it didn't sound even a little annoyed anymore.