Author's Note: Basically, I noticed that Laura wears a ring on her right hand ring finger; and, seeing as we're never told much about her past (except in The Falling Darkness), I decided to create a story behind it. Enjoy! R&R would be lovely. :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Lewis, or any of its characters.
Robbie and Laura were cuddled on her sofa one evening watching the telly, after enjoying a takeaway, when he finally found the courage to bring up something that had been on his mind for... well, years really. Ever since he'd notice the diamond ring she wore on the fourth finger of her right hand. "Laura pet, can I ask you something?" "Of course you can." He took hold of her right hand and looked down at it, trying to find the best way to ask what he wanted to ask. However, she heard his question, before he'd voiced it. He watched as she stood up and kissed him, before leaving the room. She came back a couple of minutes later, holding a framed photograph from the bookshelf, and handed it to him.
She sat back down next to him, and he lay his arm across her shoulders. Robbie was looking down at a photograph of Laura and a man, not unlike the one of him and Val, and of him and Laura, on the bookshelf in his office and at his flat. It was a photograph he'd seen before in her office, next to the one of the two of them. He'd never known who it was, and had always assumed it was a member of her family, but then again he'd never asked. Sensing the tension in her, Robbie pulled Laura close to him and encouraged her to talk.
"I met Steve at a gig in the summer after college. That year that I got the mumps..." Robbie nodded, knowing exactly which year she was talking about. "I managed to break my ankle during the encore. My friends and I had all gone to celebrate being back together for the summer, and they were all completely plastered. Steve and his friends were standing nearby, and I stumbled into him when I fell. Luckily he was their designated driver, so was completely sober. He drove me to the hospital because my friends were completely hopeless." She laughed at the memory of the two of them on the floor in the middle of the crowd of drunk people dancing around them. "He drove me to the hospital, and waited with me for 8 hours in A&E, then took me home. We spent every day together that summer. He made me realise that I was never really in love with Alec like I thought I was. He stuck by me as I worked my way through my training... I wasn't the easiest person to live with while I was studying." "I can't possibly imagine how the poor bloke felt..." She pushed him playfully and laughed. "Oh shut up!" Robbie put the photo down on the coffee table, and wrapped his arms around her. She took a deep breath and leaned into his embrace, before continuing. "We were planning on getting married, about a year before I moved here, but..." A tear dropped onto Robbie's chest. "Hey, love. It's alright." He kissed the top of her head, and rocked her gently, until she calmed down enough to speak again. "He was killed on 12th November 1993. That date seems to be engrained on my memory. I moved my ring to my right hand, but I've never quite been able to take it off." "Of course not love. I understand." "I got the job offer here in Oxford, and took it. I couldn't face the memories of Steve back at home anymore, and my time at college was the happiest I could remember being before I met him. So Oxford seemed like the perfect place to go."
He held her close for a while. All this time, she had been there for him, supported him through his grief. But he was completely oblivious of the same heartache she had been through nine years earlier. Supporting him can't have been easy for her. Having him as constant reminder of what she'd been through herself. "Do you mind if I ask how it happened?" She smiled sadly and kissed him. "Car crash." "I'm sorry pet." "It's not your fault, Robbie." "No, I mean, I'm sorry that I've put all of my grief on you over the years, when you were battling with your own." Laura wrapped her arms around his waist. "You weren't to know sweetheart. I've only ever spoken to people back home about it. The people that already knew. I've never been comfortable with the sympathy I receive from people, so I figure that if less people know, the less sympathy I'll have to deal with. It just gets me more down about it all." "You could've said something though? After... after Val?" "I nearly did. But then I remembered that, when I lost Steve, the least helpful thing anyone ever said to me was 'I know how you feel.'. Because, at the end of the day, they didn't. Everyone's grief is different, and that was the last thing you needed from me. You just needed a friend." He bundled her into his arms and rested his chin on the top of her head. "You needed one too." They sat silently together for a while, both comforted by each other's presence.
Eventually, Laura spoke. She didn't lift her head, but merely spoke into Robbie's chest. "You're the only man I've ever felt able to love in the same way that I loved Steve. I thought that, when I moved to Oxford, it would be an opportunity for me to start over. Men back home always felt uncomfortable dating me, because of my past, and I suppose I never felt comfortable either. And I've tried, I've really tried to move on over the years. But It wasn't until after Simon Monkford's trial. You seemed to change. We grew a lot closer. And I think that was when I realised that, it wasn't the fact that I wasn't ready to move on, it was that I'd never found someone I wanted to move on with. And there you were. Someone who knows me, and understands my grief. Even though you weren't aware of it until now." He hooked his finger under her chin, and encourage her to look up. He kissed her softly, before pulling her close again. "You've been so patient with me, Laura. And it's because of your patience that I've grown to love you so much." He couldn't help but chuckle slightly as he felt her grin against his chest. "I've never understood how you were able to be so patient with me, but now I do. I'd always assumed that you were single because you'd never been lucky enough to find the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. But you had. You'd just had them taken from you, like I had." She didn't say anything else, and He didn't force her to. He just tightened his arms around her as he felt her tears seep through his shirt. Laura sat up and dried her eyes with her jumper sleeve. "Sorry." "It's alright pet. Let it all out." And she did. She curled up close to Robbie's side, and sobbed into his stomach, until his shirt was saturated.
Laura wasn't sure why she'd never told Robbie about her past. He was her future after all, and she thought he had a right to know; but she just didn't know how to approach it. But now she was glad that she didn't have to. He had opened the door to that particular conversation, and she knew that, now Robbie knew about Steve, he would be there for her, just like she had been there for him for all those years.