Chapter Text
‘You’re mine, Robert Sugden. No one else wants you. So you’re mine.’
****
When things got too much for him (when 'divorce' had passed his wife's lips, when inklings of a recurring nightmare started to gather like grating sand in a storm, when the new guy at work started to remind him too much of—) Robert decided it was time to return home. Emmerdale wasn't an extremely happy place for him, but he knew that he'd be welcomed by his sister if nothing else, and a bit of welcome and comfort was what he needed right now.
So he called her to hear her squeal of happiness when he told her of his return, and he asked her to ask around about jobs or businesses. 'Something to keep me busy' he'd said.
It was how he came to step out of a taxi feeling satisfied with the life he had built, at the life he had left behind (all three instalments of the life he had left behind), and looking ahead at the new life he needed to build for himself.
'I'm sending you away because I don't know what else to do, son.'
'So you're giving up on me?! Mum died last year, Dad! I'm sorry if exams aren't the only thing on my mind right now!'
'It's not just that; it's your entire attitude! Even now, answering back at me! I've made the decision and the decision is final!'
'Missed me?' he asked a shocked Victoria before he was squeezed almost to within an inch of his life by his sister. He laughed. 'Hey, come on, you knew I was coming!'
'Yeah, but I didn't think it would be this soon!' Her voice was muffled by his jacket which her mouth was pressed against. It reminded him of when they were young, and Robert held her tighter as well for a moment.
No one else looked pleased to see him, but Robert had expected that: he hadn't been popular when he was a teenager, and during his summer and Christmas holidays when he'd come back from boarding school, he managed to get himself into a lot of trouble, as well as break a few local hearts as well.
But it didn't deter him. He knew what he was coming back to, and never had the phrase 'Better the devil you know' been more applicable than to Emmerdale village.
****
‘Why didn’t you come back after you finished at boarding school?’ Victoria asked.
‘Because I wanted to start fresh.’
They were sitting in her house (his little sister owned a house) which she shared with her husband (his little sister was married). Vic had made them both a cup of tea, and they smiled sadly at each other when she had to ask how he took it these days. ‘Milk and one sugar,’ he had said. He preferred coffee, but he wasn’t about to get fussy when Victoria had that sad look on her face.
She looked down into the dregs of her tea now (probably long since gone cold; his own empty mug was cold in Robert’s hands) and furrowed her brow. ‘You could’ve started fresh here,’ she said.
Robert put his mug on the table and sighed. He wondered when this would be brought up. In all the times that they had talked to each other (whether briefly or not), Vic had never asked him to come home, and he respected and loved her for that. But now that he was here, it seemed that she wanted to have those answers. ‘I just—’ he carded his fingers through his short hair. ‘I just couldn’t come back here; after everything. I needed to find something on my own; I needed something new.’
(It was only partly true. The rest of it was that he was harbouring a secret that he at once couldn’t divulge but also didn’t have the strength to hang on to if he was around people that he loved; people from his old life. So he took the option out of his own hands and stayed away.)
‘And now you’re back because…?’
‘Because the divorce is going through, and because I lost my job at the firm.’ He caught her look, the look that said she was ready for a confrontation, that maybe—just maybe—he was just using them until he was back on his feet and would disappear again. ‘That, and I wanted… familiar surroundings I guess. I wanted my family.’
‘We’ve always been here.’
‘I know.’
But never in the capacity in which he needed them. Always, he remembered Jack Sugden forcing him to boarding school—that he was 16 and technically his own man didn’t factor with Jack—forcing him to leave the memory of his mother; forcing him to confront the ugly truth that even after Andy had been the one to set fire to the barn, Robert was the one being sent away. The irony of it all (or maybe it wasn’t irony, but it had felt like that some days) was that the money that they got from the insurance (the reason why Andy had set fire to the barn and burnt their mother alive at the same tragic time) was used to pay for the boarding school fees.
‘But I needed something… new. Something different.’
She nodded. Robert could see that the answer wasn’t enough for her, but she let it go regardless. ‘So what happened with your marriage? You never actually said.’
His back stiffened. Nights lost to nightmares, snapping at Chrissie, snapping at her son, recurring thoughts of control and not good enough and not loved enough until it was all too much; it was too much for them all.
‘We just… fell out of love. I stopped missing her when she went away; she stopped making up excuses as to why she couldn’t work late so that we could spend time together.’ It was partly true: all of that natural affection and gravity they felt towards each other had gone.
Victoria frowned at him. ‘You weren’t… cheating on her? Were you?’
And it hurt, because Vic was too young to understand the whole concept of it when he had been here; when he had lived here. So she was picking up on what others had told her about him, on what their Dad and Andy had told her about him. He ground his teeth together, but forced them to loosen when he shook his head and said, ‘No, I wasn’t. We just weren’t compatible anymore.’ That, too, she dropped, until they were sitting in a stale and freezing silence. He cleared his throat. ‘So, did you find any work for me?’
She bit her lip. ‘You’re not gonna like it…’
****
He didn’t like it. But the garage was the only place that he could work at right now. Debbie Dingle had left, had taken the kids with her, and her half of the garage was on the business market. It had been for the past half a year, in fact, which was why Vic could say with confidence the night that she told Robert about it ‘Cain won’t say no. He can’t afford to.’
He slept in her spare room that night. He didn’t sleep easily. In the morning, she teased him about it. ‘Bet you’re used to those four-poster beds, and goose-feather pillows, eh?’
He smiled at her and nudged her. The room, though cramped, was fine. But it had reminded him too much of his room at the boarding school. It reminded him of loneliness and the shouting of other boys and the calm whispered words of…
‘Robert?’
When he blinked and looked at her, Vic was frowning. ‘You alright?’ she asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Your hands’re shakin’.’
They were. So much so that ripples were forming on the surface of his tea. He gripped the mug in both hands and tried to steady them. He didn’t give an explanation, and although she didn’t ask for one, he felt Victoria’s steady gaze on him.
‘I’m goin’ to see Cain today,’ he told her.
She raised both eyebrows. ‘Really? Wow, you’re not wasting any time are you?’
‘Best to get things moving, isn’t it. I need to see about getting my own place as well.’
‘I don’t think there’re any places around.’
‘I’ll have to find something.’
‘What’s wrong with staying here?’ she asked, offended as if he had insulted her house, or the space she had offered him.
‘Nothing,’ he rushed to say. ‘But I can’t live here with my baby sister and her husband.’ Who he still hadn’t met, as Adam was away on a delivery for his Mum at the farm.
‘Why not? I don’t mind. Adam won’t either.’
‘Vic, he doesn’t even know me. How do you know if he’ll mind or not?’
She shrugged and smiled. ‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t,’ she said, and he decided to pretend it was cryptic rather than that he’d need to invest in a pair of earbuds very soon.
‘I’ll think about it,’ he said. He gulped back the last of his tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Right. I’m off to see a man about a garage.’
She smiled at his lame joke. ‘Good luck! Oh, Robert, maybe when you’re done we can go and see Diane for lunch?’
The suggestion brought Robert up short. He hadn’t seen Diane yesterday (probably because he had arrived quite late in the day), and to be honest when he saw his stepmum, he’d prefer it to be on his terms. But he nodded and agreed anyway. To keep the peace.
****
Cain was at the garage when Robert arrived, as was another man: tall, black hair and beard and—when he turned to see the source of the footsteps up the gravelled path—a vacant expression, though a face not without some merit, Robert supposed.
‘Can I help?’ the man asked.
Robert pointed to Cain, who had his back to them, leaning on the bench. ‘I’m here to see Cain,’ he said. The guy looked him up and down, but before he could say anything, Cain Dingle had turned and caught sight of him.
‘Victoria said you were comin’ back. And that you were lookin’. I didn’t believe her.’
Robert opened his arms in a way which he had been assured in the past was showy and aggravating. ‘Well, here I am.’
‘Here you are.’ Cain’s grin was like a dagger. ‘Ross, take a break, yeah?’
‘I just started!’
The older man glared at him. ‘Go and take yourself for a walk,’ he said.
The guy—Ross, apparently—shook his head but left all the same. Robert didn’t watch him go, but he kept a keen ear on when his footfalls were out of earshot.
‘Will I be expected to talk to the staff like that as well?’ he asked.
Cain leaned back on the car that needed fixing. ‘Bit presumptuous, that,’ he said. ‘What makes you think that you can buy into the garage?’
‘Because according to Vic, Debbie’s part of the business has been on the market for half a year now. Seems that you may be desperate enough.’
‘To have you co-own it?’
‘To make an easy sale to someone who has ready cash.’
Had it been anyone else, Robert would have been a lot more charming, a lot more business-like. But this was Cain, and it was the local garage. If he didn’t get it, he didn’t get it; and he was hardly going to use his skill, charm and knowledge on the likes of Cain Dingle.
‘After what you did to our Debs—’
‘That was years ago,’ Robert said, rolling his eyes. ‘I’m sure she’s forgiven plenty of people for less than what I did to her.’
Cain studied him, and for the first time Robert felt intimidated, though he wasn’t about to let the local thug onto that. ‘You’re nothing like your old man, you know.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I didn’t mean it as a compliment.’
‘Tough.’ He shifted his stance. The pissing competition was getting tiring. ‘Look, I know a lot about cars: I worked here during the summer, remember? And I know a lot about business as well. All the stuff with Debbie… it’s in the past. If it makes it better, I’ll stay out of your way: we’ll arrange things so that we aren’t on the same shift or something.’
He watched the thoughtful expression waltz on Cain Dingle’s face, saw the cogs turning in his mind, and the manifest of his thoughts in the biting of his lip and the screwing up of his mouth. ‘You have the money to buy now?’
‘Yeah. I can call my bank, get it sorted by the end of the week.’
‘If things weren’t so desperate, Sugden, you know that you wouldn’t stand a chance.’
‘If things weren’t so desperate, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’ He didn’t know how much back-chat he could get away with, but from the way that Cain smirked, Robert figured that that one was okay. Just about.
‘Get it sorted then. I’ll have the contract ready for you.’
He almost snorted because one of the Dingles writing let alone a contract was kind of laughable. He kept it in though and pulled his phone out of his pocket as he walked away.
****
During the walk to Diane’s where Vic had said she’d meet him, Robert shed his outer layers of confidence and smug satisfaction like a snake shedding its skin. It wasn’t purposeful, but it was thinking of returning to the scrutiny of the woman that had taken on the duties of mother since he was 15 years old. It was the thought of greeting Diane again and sitting with her; the woman who had wanted nothing but for Jack and his kids to be happy and healthy and whole after Jack’s death. Robert didn’t see her as a mother, though he knew she tried her hardest. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her as such, nor was he purposefully making himself emotionally unavailable to her.
(Though maybe that was part of it: if no one else, his mother figure should have noticed how quietly morose he was when he was on holiday from school; she should have seen that there wasn’t something right, she should have known from the way he talked that he had no friends to speak of. But maybe that was laying too much responsibility of having to know him at Diane’s feet, and Robert knew that he wasn’t easy to get to know, and once anyone did know the first mask he showed them, they didn’t often like what they saw.)
Diane made him vulnerable in a way that not many others did, not even Vic. Maybe it was because of his expectation of ‘Mother’, but she had let him down in one way or another. But every time, the expectations were there. And so he shed his layers and he stood with a hammer and chisel to his walls, ready and waiting to knock them down if need be. They weren’t usually required, but Robert and Diane hadn’t seen each other in years, so maybe things were set to change.
She worked at the B&B now, having sold her half of the pub to Charity Dingle (of all people!), and that was where Vic instructed him to meet them. He took a deep breath and strode into the Grange. Eric was on the desk, and Robert smirked.
‘Uncle Eric,’ he said just to be annoying.
The man startled and had to look twice at him before he recognised his step-nephew, but when he did he smiled—the first smile apart from Victoria’s that he’d seen since he returned. ‘Ahhh, the prodigal son returns I see. For how long this time?’
Robert shrugged nonchalantly. ‘We’ll have to see,’ he said. As if he were twenty instead of thirty and wasn't teetering just on the edge of a breakdown, the only thing keeping him back a rope tied messily around his waist. ‘But probably for a while.’ He shuffled around before saying, ‘I’m sorry about Auntie Val.’
Eric seemed to curl in on himself a little, though from what Vic had told Robert about the way he hadn’t coped months after his wife’s unexpected death, this was an improvement. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘As were we all.’
The younger man nodded. He didn’t do well with comforting people, so he moved swiftly on. ‘ Is Diane in?’
‘Yes, go through.’
He did, and a glance back at Eric saw him looking a little pensively at the wall, before smiling sadly and going back to his paperwork. A definite improvement then.
‘Oh, Robert, look at you! I hardly recognised you!’
Before he could say anything, he was enveloped in the arms of his stepmother. He hugged her back unsurely, but when he smelled her scent which somehow remained familiar even after ten years away, he fell into her embrace properly. ‘Hi, Diane,’ he said when she finally let him go.
‘Hello, pet.’ Her smile was huge, and Robert felt something warm settle in his stomach. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.