Chapter Text
River didn’t much like ties. He wasn’t the type of a man who wears this disputable piece of clothing. Tacky prints were just silly and ridiculous and black ties are utterly useless.
In his idiosyncratic spy world ties were made for only three reasons: if you were born under the name of Jackson Lamb and wearing ties with frogs was a part or your state of mind; if you were trying your best to escape from Jackson Lamb, finding another job or if you ended up at someone’s funerals. With all his heavy heart River would’ve rather experienced the first two dreary reasons every day of his dumb existence until the rest of it and never in a million years the last one. The last one that happened to everyone, that happened to him before and the other day had happened again. The one he had been fearing to face with.
He would’ve preferred anything - two grenades in his hood, ten tin cans falling on his useless head or to be tossed in a river by Louisa and never to be rescued. Anything. Anything was appropriate but standing here at the cemetery eight years after his grandmother Rose death, waiting to say the final goodbye to David Cartwright. To his grandfather, who last week had gone forever to find a peace next to his darling wife. He used to recall her and ask for her to talk to him during the last few months of his shattered life by his own, once powerful, mind.
He knew this day was inevitably coming, he was prepared. He thought he was prepared, but he didn’t have the faintest idea how far this was from any truth.
The bereavement that he, in fact, wasn’t ready to accept and let into his now empty life. It is never possible to be prepared to say “goodbye” to your family. To the most sacred remnants of it. There wasn’t any normal family anymore apart from his frivolous mother and the dysfunctional family of coworkers who came in its entirety to the funerals that day.
A crowd of unknown old MI5 mourners was huddling at the spacious cemetery, cowering under winter soggy weather. Many of these people River either couldn’t remember due to long time no see or haven’t ever seen them at all.
A few of them alongside with River and pallbearers were carrying a coffin at the burial ground but River couldn’t make out these faces behind him. The polished coffin wasn’t as nearly heavy as his right shoulder will remember the weight of this wooden box, keeping inside the one man’s story.
Now he was there at the foot of his future grandfather’s grave with coffin lowered inside the deep hole. His mother, hippie in black, stood beside River. Technically she was here with him, but her constantly absent and indifferent mind, her soul, if she had one, were far away. There was a wall between her and River ten times higher and more solid than the Berlin Wall. There weren’t any graffiti on the both sides of this wall between them - none of them ever came that close to the relationship border.
Speaking of friends - he hadn’t got any friends since graduating from the university. There’re no friends in spy’s life. You’re on your own until the rest of the days.
He’s still got coworkers. Colleagues. Or whatever shit they are. Some of them are dead, some had left and some desperately crave him dead. They had to learn how to put up with one another.
Some of them was Louisa, whom he hadn’t seen in a long time, but last few weeks she started to call back more often after a lingering pause in their weird friendships. She needed some time to abstract from the life she used to have back in Slough House days and start her life from the beginning . She called River the day his grandfather had passed away. She cried with him and was on the line in a shared silence.
She wanted to hug him so bad and come to the funerals to be with him, but he insisted to stay with her own grandmother, who lived in Ghana and now was in her 90s. Louisa would likely not see her again as well once she’s back to London from Ghana. Being far from Louisa he created something that had a dubious resemblance of a friendship with Coe and Shirley, the last one stood to his right.
“You okay?” She whispered carefully and quietly looked at his sorrowful face from below - the height difference between them was a pure caricature. She was holding tight his cold gloveless hand. He had noticed before that her new haircut - mullet - made her vulnerable and… Shirley. That’s what he’s always perceived her but he said nothing, it wasn’t a territory he was allowed to trespass. Ever.
“Uh-huh. Thanks,” he nodded feebly without giving her a look and mildly squeezed her little hand, in fact, not realizing that; his body language lived its own automatic life that River as the owner couldn’t control.
They have never hold hands before, never came to each other closer than a few meters, never thought to be something more than adopted siblings, playing at all-the-time-fighting role model. Not even friends. But now he was grateful for that gentle gesture she initiated to support him and let him feel secure. Paradoxically, he has always been more secure with her - little angry woman - than she with him - big but having not that intimidating appearance man.
He was on the edge of bursting into tears. She saw it. She knew what strength it took him to be pretending that everything was just fine. Nothing was fine, nothing was even close to that. Losing Marcus for her wasn’t the same as losing grandfather for River, she was aware of that. But she also knew that the pain of losing a someone close will never disappear, it just transforms and penetrates into life to stay there forever to become a part of you, to make a little hole in your soul.
River may never recover from losing his grandfather, but he’ll get used to this loss over time. Step by step, day by day, moment by moment. They all have to be prepared to these changes and almost physical shifting in Slough House atmosphere, which has already been at its farthest point from being acceptable. But with that, from this day River may be able to finally breathe out and start his life from scratch. Scratch.
River himself was sure that he is fine. Grandpa had died long before his body became completely soulless. In fact, it was a huge relief. The burden of relative with dementia was unbearable during the last year of OB’s life.
River was with him when it all happened. Sunny Times Homes called him urgently on Thursday to come; usually River visited him on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. On Tuesday grandpa was fine, River didn’t notice any foreshadowing moments of his coming death.
He was witnessing the last moment, the last breath, the last time David Cartwright had peacefully closed his eyes to leave his life behind. River had seen everything. And he had a chance to say goodbye.
Grandpa had left him. His grandpa. His granddad. His imperishable grandfather. The only grandfather. His best storyteller. His only family. His home and his everything. He won’t be able to call him anymore, he won’t see him anymore, he won’t anything anymore. He was left alone and life will never be the same again. But he is okay. He is fine. He is doing good, great, absolutely fucking alright. Time will heal this wound, he hoped. After so many grueling months the final point had finally come.
Suddenly he caught Catherine’s sight; she was standing opposite with Lamb, Taverner and Flyte. She pursed her lips in sympathy and smiled to make him sure she’s with him. He accepted it lightheartedly and smiled back.
“Let me hug you, darling,” said Isobel Cartwright, interrupting his non-verbal conversation with Catherine. Did she do it to remind him who’s his mother?
Practically, she wasn’t a good mother, but as a result of her carelessness he had a long happy life with his beloved grandparents.
“Okay,” sad River, letting her do whatever she wanted to and put his chin on her head when she hugged his downcast figure.
“I love you, River.“
“Love you too,” he thought he lied, but actually, that was true.
Notwithstanding that this woman called his mum was almost a stranger, in the deep of his soul he genuinely loved her. She was a restless, nonchalant young girl when she left him. She connected her life with a wrong man, but this wrong man was still a participant of River’s miserable existence.
“I am so sorry that you’d pulled through this all alone.”
“I wasn’t alone,” he made a mild effort to kiss her on the top of the head and hug in return, kept holding Shirley’s hand, while the vicar was reading the eulogy.
“… though David Cartwright’s no longer with us, memories of his long life lives on in our hearts,” were the last vicar’s line before inviting family, so-called friends and colleagues to place flowers or earth into the grave.
Almost everyone did this after he put the flowers the first and soon after people started to leave the burial place. Less and less people stayed here while River stood steadily by the opened grave, not yet filled with the soil to separate these two worlds forever.
Shirley put her flowers onto the coffin, wordlessly squeezed River’s shoulder and left him with his mother. He didn’t react but kept standing and staring at the grave, not knowing what to do next. The day when his life had stopped. Or paused, at the very least.
“Christ...” he said hoarsely into the void, his voice was trembling and he himself was slightly shaking from the cold. Or stress? He smirked nervously and rubbed his frozen hands.
“You’re shaking. The coat is too thin. Come here,” she hugged him again and rubbed his back to warm him. He said nothing but gave into her impulse of love.
“That’s just so meaningless. Grandpa used to be so smart and had a brilliant mind full of exceptional knowledges but ended up like that, asking for grandma and thinking that I’m still 9 years old.”
“He was old, River.”
“Not that old. He asked me to bring his grandson River! God…”
Neither of them uttered a word after. Two figures were standing by the grave, having the earnest moment in their unhealthy relationships.
“Do you want me to give you a moment?” Asked Isobel, looking attentively at his sullen face.
“If you don’t mind,” he said and vaguely looked at her, avoiding the direct look into her eyes. “Thanks.”
“I’ll be in the church.”
He blankly gazed around the tranquil graveyard - only the cemetery staff stayed here but they couldn’t care less about his last meeting with beloved grandpa.