Disclaimer: This is a fanfiction, not for profit, story. I do not own these characters, just borrowing them from Lewis.
The past few weeks had been labor intensive for Dr. Laura Hobson and today was more of the same. She was working on a badly decomposed body found in a wooded area. Assigned to the case were Inspector Lewis and Sergeant Hathaway. They were waiting for her post-mortem report, hoping it would provide clues as to the victim's identity and cause of death. Robbie called Laura officially to check on the status of her report but really he wanted to make sure she was all right, knowing how hard she had been working lately. Laura once told him the most difficult cases for her were those where the victim had been in the water, had severe burns, or was badly decomposed. He knew she had been tasked with all of those recently.
Laura saw that it was Robbie calling, answered the phone and apologized for not getting back to him. She told him this was a challenging case and several samples had been sent off to the lab so her report would not be final until the results of those tests were reviewed. Robbie told her not to worry, he could wait. Then he asked her how she was doing after such a difficult day.
"I'm exhausted", she said, "Too tired to drive home, I'm going to sleep in my office". "Don't do that", he answered, "let me drive you home. We're on a break and then we're going back to the crime scene. I'm an insomniac and can function without sleep but there's no reason you shouldn't get some." Laura accepted his offer, looking forward to sleeping in her own bed instead of on the couch in her office. In Robbie's car on the way home, she closed her eyes and started to drift off to sleep, mumbling about having a bath, how she'd love to take one before she went to bed but was so tired, afraid she'd fall asleep in there. Robbie, thinking she was asleep whispered, "I could sit and talk to you while you did that, keep you awake". Laura, still drowsy, asked Robbie if he really would. He stammered, "I could sit outside the bathroom and talk to you through the door, then when you are done, I'll go back to work." She said there was no need to sit outside the door, she trusted him, and a bath before bed would be lovely.
Once home Laura asked Robbie if he would pour her a glass of wine while she went upstairs and got in the bathtub, then he should come up. "It's the first door on the right at the top of the stairs" she informed him. Robbie nodded and headed into her kitchen, a room he had been in before. He waited a few minutes before going up the stairs and entered the first door on the right, Laura's bedroom. He could see the open door to the bathroom at the far end of the room. Laura heard him and told him to come on in; she had moved a chair there for him. Robbie went in the bathroom and saw that Laura was under a mound of bubbles in the tub. He set the wineglass on a shelf by the tub where she could reach it, then sat down.
For the next several minutes they discussed the case as if they were in the morgue or his office. Then Robbie's phone rang and he told her sorry, it was Hathaway, he'd have to take the call. Laura heard his side of the conversation. "I'm meeting with Dr. Hobson, going over her initial findings. No, you don't need to join us; she won't have the final report until tomorrow and she's ready to call it a night. See you back at the crime scene in about an hour."
After Robbie hung up, Laura asked him if he would fetch her some pajamas from the second shelf of her wardrobe in the bedroom. He walked to the wardrobe, looked where she said, and saw three pairs of pajamas. He felt the nearest pair, soft purple plaid pajama bottoms with a solid purple top. He saw two more pair, red and blue versions of the purple ones. He chuckled to himself that there were no green ones, the color of her work scrubs. Then from out of nowhere came the thought that Laura always looked nice, but especially nice in blue, so he chose that pair. He carried them back into the bathroom, held them up for Laura to see and raised his eyebrows. She nodded, then Robbie blushed and asked, "Do you want anything to wear erm under these"? "Top shelf, right side, thanks", she answered, seemingly unaware that this exchange was in any way unusual.
Robbie went back to the wardrobe and the top shelf this time, accidently looking left instead of right. He saw several sets of matching lacy bras and knickers of various colours, inhaled deeply, and then forced himself to look right. There he saw matching tank top undershirts and cotton underpants. The top two sets were yellow and pink. He touched the yellow ones then wondered if there was a blue set. He reached down under the next level, the purple and white sets, and found a pale blue set. He thought these would nicely match the pajamas. Then he worried that Laura would think he was pawing through her things because he was sure that anyone who organized their wardrobe like this would surely know where each item was placed. Somehow it seemed important to him that she have the blue ones so he decided to risk her noticing that he must have searched for them. He returned to the bathroom, held them up, and again she nodded. Then he said he would go out into the hall and wait for her to get ready for bed.
A few minutes later Laura came out in the hall dressed in the blue pajamas. He could see evidence of the pale blue tank top underneath. She handed him a set of keys and asked would he lock up when he left, then said as her car was still at work, she would make him breakfast if he could come back in the morning and pick her up. This time it was Robbie who nodded. Laura kissed him on the check and said, "This is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me, thank-you".
Driving away from Laura's house Robbie felt content, something he hadn't experienced since Val died. He had been kind to someone he cared about, did what she needed, and it was appreciated by her. And it felt good, really good.