Three months after Laura Hobson had left for New Zealand alone, her wake continued to rock the lives of the officers of Oxfordshire CID. Her relationship with Robbie Lewis had provided a certain structure for both James Hathaway and Lizzie Maddox, and after her departure they all found themselves missing the plucky pathologist.

Hathaway had made peace with his father more or less, but he would never be able to completely forgive his father for not being a better husband to his mum. Hathaway knew that Lewis and Hobson's split was none of his concern, yet he transferred his anger for his father onto Lewis. After all, there was no sense in being mad at his senile and debilitated dad whereas Lewis had made the conscious decision to let Laura Hobson go.

Lizzie Maddox, for her part, was still reeling from her husband Tony's decision to sign up for another year of work in Canada. They were young(ish) and needed the money; but she was all too aware that Lewis' choosing the job over Hobson was not for reasons of financial stability. It irked her that Lewis chose not to enjoy his retirement with Hobson. Thus, Hathaway and Maddox formed a sort of alliance- against Lewis.

As for Lewis himself, he'd chosen the job over the second love of his life, and he was determined to make a go of it. No regrets, he told himself stoically whenever he found himself getting nostalgic for Laura's warmth or a pint with Hathaway. His desk had been moved out of Hathaway and Maddox' office and into the common area; he found himself paired up more often than not with Detective Constable Alex Grey. Grey hung on Lewis' every word and in truth, they made a good pair gophering around for Moody. Secretly, Inspector Hathaway was jealous every time he saw the affable DC coming into the building with two coffees. Lewis loved the attention from Gray and was just as eager to show off to Hathaway that someone found him useful in his old age.

One evening, however, Lewis came into Hathaway's office and cleared his throat nervously. "Don't suppose you could get away for a pint, James?"

"It wouldn't be fair of me to leave Lizzie with all this paperwork."

"We're swamped, sir." She confirmed.

"It's about a case, actually. I need to pick your brain." Lewis tried again.

"Don't you have DC Grey for that?"

"If I wanted Grey, I wouldn't be standing here, now would I?"

"All right." Hathaway relented. "What are we looking at?"

Lewis took a deep breath. "Missing person. An Oxford woman went to do humanitarian work for a few months at a camp for internally displaced persons in Burma—"

"Myanmar," Hathaway cut him off.

"The camp she works at is on the Thai-Burmese border," Lewis continued with a wary glare at Hathaway, as if to say 'let's see you make an adjective out of Myanmar, cleverclogs.' He pursued his line of thought. "Communications are rubbish over there, but she promised to check in once a week. She'd been consistent for several weeks but now there's been no word from her. The husband here in Oxford is worried."

"Could just be spotty communications, as you say. I'm not sure that this is our jurisdiction anyway."

"I know, but I've got to do something. I tried getting in touch with the camp, but I didn't have much success. Any chance you have any expert professors of Asian languages in your rolodex?" Lewis knew that Hathaway was better at cajoling professors to help out as experts on their cases. Lewis never was good at flattering their egos in the same way that Hathaway was.

"Mmm, perhaps, if I had a rolodex. There's this thing called a computer..."

"Is anything useful going to come out of your gob?" Lewis asked.

Hathaway gave a smug grin. "What else can you tell me about our missing person?"

Lewis opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. With a pained expression, took a letter out of the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to Maddox rather than Hathaway.

My dearest Robbie,

Alice is getting settled nicely with the baby, and my sister and brother-in-law have made the trip down as well. Alice is grateful that they've come, and they've left their moral objections back in Oxfordshire. With everyone getting along right nicely, it's time for me to move along to the trip around southeast Asia that we'd planned. Only I've found that the idea of lying on beaches and exploring the temples of Thailand doesn't seem to interest me without you. I met someone- a young woman, don't worry- who was in Alice's antenatal group. She's a doctor, so we hit it off right away. When she fell pregnant, she was working abroad in a refugee camp in Thailand, mostly serving displaced people of Burmese ethnic groups. She's given up that life now, but she's put ideas in my head. So I'm taking a page from your book, Robbie, and I'm going back to work. I want to re-connect with why I loved with medicine to begin with. There are people in need of a doctor, and I've spent far too long with corpses. I've signed on for a three month stint, so I'll still be home for Christmas as planned. I'll be in touch as often as I can, but I can't promise how often that will be. Lastly, I decided to write this letter because I didn't want you to argue with me over the phone. I know you, Robbie, but you know me as well. Once I've made up my mind, there's no turning back.

All my love,

Laura

Maddox unfolded the letter, immersed herself in its words, and then looked back up at Lewis. He nodded. Maddox turned to Hathaway.

"It's Dr. Hobson," she peeped.

"Her husband is worried?" Hathaway enquired warily, for he knew that however Lewis viewed things he and Hobson were not legally married.

"Or whatever it is I am." Lewis admitted.

"The louse who let her go to the other side of the Earth alone?" Hathaway registered his contempt.

"Not helpful, sir." Maddox said, spying Lewis' crestfallen look.

Hathaway made a look of concession to Maddox, though not to Lewis. "I'll make some calls." Hathaway said, waving Lewis away.

Author Notes: I had wanted to write a story of this title for a long time about Robbie and James somehow investigating a crime in the American northwest, but that story never came to fruition. The New Zealand adventure led to a reprise of the theme of exploration. Clark will make sense in the next chapter, I promise. I had also scribbled a tongue-in-cheek spoof after reading the series 8 press pack in which Laura was so mad at Robbie for going back to work that she signed up as a volunteer pathologist with Médecins Sans Frontières tackling Ebola in West Africa. So this present story is the fusion of a few things I had cooking in other pots, plus a lot of melodramatic mush, because… it's fanfic. I don't really do 'head cannon,' but this story will also refer to Laura's niece Alice and Laura's sister and brother-in-law Maggie and Fletcher Thompkins, who appeared in my embellishment of series 9, A Series of Moments. This AU was going to be another chapter at the end of Moments, but as it took shape I realised that it was several chapters long itself and deserved its own publication. There will be daily updates!