[A/N] This is set about a year after Falling Darkness (the one where Laura nearly gets buried alive) and presumes no prior relationship. Even though I've written another fic which unpicks The Ramblin' Boy, I still feel that the episode just conveniently slid Hobson and Lewis together and that that was lazy and not especially realistic. This is entirely AU for Series 7 and 8, but the characters are entirely in canon. Hope you like it - buckle up, this won't all be hearts and roses!
The envelope was satisfyingly thick, its contents clearly more than a single page. She propped it against the radio while she made a pot of coffee. It was an unnecessary preliminary, nothing more than a delaying tactic, but the routine settled her. It was a Saturday in July, and Laura Hobson was off duty until Monday morning. A full weekend was rare these days, what with staffing cuts and services being stretched more than ever, and she planned to make the most of her time away from the office.
She poured the water into the cafetiere, spreading it evenly across the fine powder, and carefully fixed the lid with its heavy plunger. She already knew what the envelope meant. The college crest had been emblazoned across the right hand corner by the franking machine, and however expensive the paper, no rejection letter was ever this thick. Cambridge. She moved the pot to the kitchen table, splashed some milk in a mug, and picked up the letter, tapping it against her lips as she sat down.
An hour later she was still sat there, reading and re-reading the fine print of the contract. It was good. Better than the conversations during the interview process had suggested. They wouldn't require her to lecture, it would almost exclusively be a research fellowship, with the possibility of some post-doctoral supervision, entirely at her discretion. The departmental letter, folded neatly behind the college contract, was even more straightforward. Lab facilities and a small group of PhD students already working on the trial that would potentially confirm her hypotheses, and, most important of all, there was the opportunity to establish some new surgical protocols based on her findings. The group had even secured a seed funding grant and were confident they could take on two new PhDs by October.
She sighed loudly and sat back heavily in the chair. It was everything she wanted. What had started as a joke with Ellen about 'moving to the dark side', and a punt on a research application, had ended with a proposal beyond her expectations. She would take it, there was no question of that. It was absolutely the right thing to do. Even though the application had been purely speculative, the impulse to complete it had been a long time coming. She was fifty two, single, at the top of her game professionally, but floundering in her personal life. She was a woman who thrived off an intellectual challenge, the complexity of a problem…but recently even she had to admit that her attachment to a certain DI had become less of an interesting distraction and more of a sad and ultimately futile obsession of hers. For several years she had waited, respectful of his grief, his need for space, her hopes lifted by the occasional smile, the casual touch of a had been fooling herself, that much was now crystal clear. She smiled wryly, not for the first time regretting how much time she had wasted on wanting something that wasn't real.
Occasionally, she'd shared her thoughts with Ellen, and then listened with resignation as her friend gently but insistently told her what she already knew. Robbie Lewis was in love with ghosts. With Val, maybe even with the memory of his time with Morse… certainly with a life that he might have had. He cared about her, enjoyed her company, would always be happy to shout her a chip supper and a beer, but it was never going to be the romance of the century. For it to be real, he would have to act upon whatever feelings he had for her. And whether out of guilt, grief or that unfortunate genetic flaw that seemed to make all men backward in coming forward, he never would.
She drained her cup and placing it carefully down, stretched to grab a pen from the shelf behind her. A few strokes later, it was signed and dated. Done. As she looked out into her garden, she was struck by how much she would miss it. She wouldn't see the leeks she'd just planted come up. For a moment she wondered whether she could do this, just pick up her life and drop it down somewhere else? It seemed so simple on paper. But there would be letting agents to contact, moving firms to arrange, notice to give, and there would be people to tell. She took a deep breath, folded the single page of the signed contract into the thoughtfully enclosed pre-paid envelope and sealed it. She would speak to Human Resources on Monday.
By Sunday evening Laura was sitting in the centre of her living room, surrounded by piles of paperwork. She had just over two months before the move to Cambridge, but mentally she was already packing her bags. Tackling the piles of paperwork in her kitchen drawers was the first step. As much as she was meticulous in her work, Laura never really gave the same consideration to home finances, and there were nearly ten years' worth of utility bills and bank statements to sort through. As she piled up water bills and pay slips, it struck her that she would have to tell Robbie. It was so hard these days to define the lines of their relationship but she felt he should hear it from her. With Hathaway she would just mention it next time she saw him, he'd probably make a comment about it not being the same without her, they'd make a joke about Rawbone and he'd wish her the best. James would understand what the opportunity represented, how much it would mean to have her work finally translated into tangible surgical procedure. But with Robbie it would be different.
She reached for the hole punch and began to file things away. Yes, talking to Robbie would be entirely different. And the prospect of the conversation left her a bit nauseous. He might not have romantic feelings for her, but he certainly relied upon her friendship, and he didn't cope well with change. It would be awkward and she frankly didn't have the patience anymore for his sulking. She took a sip from her wine glass and closing her eyes, carefully tried to calm down. Even now, even when it was so clear that there was no possibility of a future with him, the realisation still hurt, still had the capacity to rile her. And of course he would behave like a child about this, he would kick against the change, he would make her feel guilty. But of one thing she was absolutely sure, he wouldn't ask her to stay. He never did.