Rob Laird

[Follows THIS | Backdated to Mother's Day]

Rob tossed his car keys onto the bed and then up-ended the paper bag from the pharmacy he had just arrived back at the Austin home with, tipping out no less than six different pregnancy tests. No two boxes looked alike and he turned to Leila sheepishly. "I didn't know which one to get!" he said, already on the defense of his clearly dorky behaviour. One test they needed, but he ended up coming home with six... and a bag of black jelly beans just because he felt like them. He had stood in the pharmacy for close to an half an hour trying to figure out what one he needed, reading over all the boxes until his head started to spin with potential pregnancy facts. The reading didn't even help in his decision, so he just bought the six most expensive ones, figuring they must be the better options. If he brought them all home, then Leila could figure out which one was the one to go for, but he had to admit, the one with the little screen and not blue lines was kind of cool.

( Getting to the checkouts had been a whole other story, too... )


Word Count | 3,674

After leaving Mike's room, Leila had ducked to the bathroom and Rob had stepped out onto the back porch of the Austin home. The air was cool and crisp, but not exactly cold. Fine enough for Rob to be standing out there in a short-sleeved button up shirt. He was standing on the back steps, looking up at the stars in the clear Texas sky, a pensive and strangely calm expression on his face considering the tension he had managed to build in the car ride back from Houston. He was such a rollercoaster of emotions these days that he sometimes wondered why the fuck Leila still wanted to put up with him. He could go from fine to a crying mess in the blink of an eye. He could also go from quiet to yelling at her just as quick. It wasn't like it was all the time. He didn't come across as completely screwed in the head... not quite. Just now and again, he had these bursts of emotion he couldn't really control. She just took it all in her stride, though. He just didn't know if he would ever fully understood why she wanted to deal with that in her life. He was just glad she did. Now, he wasn't sure he could live without her. In fact, he was certain he couldn't. He wouldn't have lived through the tragedy in Afghanistan and survived out there as long as he did without drawing on her for strength, even if it was just memories of her.

( His thumbs were hooked into the pockets of his jeans as he just continued to take in the view of the starry sky... )


Word Count | 5,354

5.1. "Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo."
H. G. Wells

Co-written with doesntwaltz & notskywalker

It was a weeknight, so The Bondi wasn't very busy except for a steady trickle of musicians coming into jam with others, and a few people having some casual drinks after work. Luke was up in New York for a few days to get the paperwork done, so while he wasn't technically working, he was there behind the bar because he couldn't help himself. Leila technically was on shift, but she didn't actually need to be there because there was plenty of staff to cover the patrons. She had come, though, and brought Rob along with her, mostly so she could catch up with Luke for a little while. After chatting on and off about their Part Three's issues with not getting any newlywed sex, Luke paused in his polishing of a tray of glasses and pointed with one to Rob who had struck up a conversation with a small bunch of sailors at one of the booths across the bar.

"Should I be worried about the quality of my booze? I've offered him freebies all night and he keeps sticking to orange juice. Saving his mojo to pound you into the mattress later?" he asked in amusement, shaking his small towel out and putting the clean glass into the tray. "You know what they say, a guy's cock stops working properly when he's pissed."

"Is that what say?" Leila asked as she smirked at him. "I could have sworn it was more like a guy's cock doesn't get a chance to start working once he's passed out. You experienced some issues with the wife?" She leaned on the bar, and watched Rob. Her expression shifted as her eyebrows drew together. "He went out on the piss with Mike. Needed to get hammered after his appointment with some blokes on the base. The ones that decide if he's fit enough to go back to duty, or not."

( Luke watched the military posse for a few moments and then shot Leila a wry look... )


Word Count | 3,530

[Backdated to 7th November 2009]

The hospital discharged Rob home on three conditions. One, the home nurse visit every three days to assess his progress. Two, he rest as much as possible and only be ambulant on the crutches if it was absolutely vital. Three, he not be left alone. It all sounded pretty straightforward, but logistically, it could get awkward. Rob was glad to be allowed out of hospital, but he suddenly became painfully aware of how much obligation this was all laying on his new wife's shoulders and he started to get cold feet. Cold feet about going home, cold feet about coming back to America, cold feet about marrying her. It was just a post-traumatic anxiety and, of course, he didn't voice his opinions. He just tried to subtlely ask if he had to get discharged at that point, only to be told Leila had requested discharge as soon as he was able.

She wanted to take care of him.

( Rob didn't know how he felt about that. The biggest portion of him was relieved, and happy. Happy they could be together, happy they could maybe start finding some sort of normalcy. But the other part of him felt guilty about being a burden... )


Word Count | 3,899

3.1. "The greater your capacity to love, the greater your capacity to feel the pain."
Jennifer Aniston

Co-written with doesntwaltz
[Follows THIS and THIS]

Rob felt like a piece of shit, but he didn't care. The medic had said he could get out of bed to make a phone call if he was up to it. It wasn't a question of whether he was up to it. It wasn't a question of any-fucking-thing except he was being offered a phone call and he was damn well taking it. He had help from one of the female medics to actually get to the phone, and he was now standing there in the infirmary gown with his camo shirt draped around his shoulders like a pseudo-bathrobe just to try and keep some modesty. He was hunched over, one hand on his sore stomach and his shoulder resting against the wall as he held the phone between his ear and shoulder to slowly dial the number in. In the crook of his arm, the IV pole was tucked and he knew he must look like a right pathetic sight, but again, he didn't care. He owed his friend, Pete, bucketloads of gratitude for emailing Leila. The thing was, he hadn't had any way of really knowing if she received it because she couldn't actually reply to the email address Pete used. It was frustrating. Rob just had to have some faith that she got it and wasn't sitting back there worrying that he'd been killed.

( He rested his hot forehead against the cool steel barrier that was there to give anyone using the phone some privacy and listened as the line started ringing... )

All muses referenced with permission and are from the princeton2nyc universe


Word Count | 2,818

24.1.4. "Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated." - Lamartine

Co-written with doesntwaltz
[Follows THIS]

It had been a very early morning for both of them, and despite planning on getting a good night's sleep, it just hadn't been able to come. Instead, they spent just about the whole night making love and trying to hope the clock would slow down to just give them that little bit longer together. It hadn't worked, and the alarm was going off before they knew it. The afternoon before, Rob met with the lawyer that her cousin knew, and after calling him and explaining the situation, the guy had happily come to Rob's place to tie up the loose legal ends that had been playing on Rob's mind. He assured him things would be fine, with 30% of his assets going to his family, and the rest to Leila. Also with strict orders that if his ex-wife tried to dispute anything in the event of his death, she was to get nothing. It sucked he had to waste time dealing with it, but it did lift some of the weight from his shoulders knowing Leila would be recognised as his wife legally. He also faxed his amdended details away to the Army so he would be be listed as married and Leila as his wife. That, solely, was the biggest issue for him.

( Despite telling her the previous day that he didn't want her to come to the brig for the goodbye, he had renegged somewhere during the night... )

All muses referenced with permission and are from the princeton2nyc universe


Word Count | 1,452

2.3. "I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to."
Jimi Hendrix

Co-written with doesntwaltz | Tuesday 08/09/2009
[Follows THIS]

It was five in the morning, and Rob was going to hell. Directly to hell. The sun was barely just starting to rise, and he was about to ring the buzzer of an apartment housing more than one person, and probably wake them all up. Maybe even with a baby still visiting, which he really hoped wasn't the case because he would go to even deeper hell if he woke a baby up on top of everything else. But time was the whole crux of the matter, because there wasn't very much of it. By now, he didn't even know if he was doing the right thing or not, he was just operating on sheer adrenaline and very little sleep. The strange headache beginning between his eyes told him this. What was he doing? He didn't particularly know, but he knew he just had to try. It wasn't like he could do any of it alone, and if she didn't want it, he wouldn't push her. At the very least, at least she would know he would. That was better than nothing, right?

"You're a goddamn jerk, Laird," he muttered to himself as he hovered in front of the apartment block. Couldn't he have at least waited until the sun was up? He could, but the flight was for just after 9am. He hoped even if she wavered on what he was about to ask her, she might still take the trip to Vegas with him and they could have the night and day together there before he had to leave on Thursday. He was just so nervous that his stomach felt like it was lodged up in his chest and he let out a rush of breath as he pushed the heel of his palm against the apartment buzzer just long enough to alert his presence, but not long enough to be obnoxious.

( Leila was pulled roughly out of her sleep by the sound of the buzzer closely followed by Luke and Tab cursing... )

All muses referenced with permission and are from the princeton2nyc universe


Word Count | 3,575

37.3. Match

Co-written with doesntwaltz

Despite technically still being on leave, Rob had to report for duty for the last two days for some intense training sessions, again to prepare him for possible deployment again. Of course his heart was in his service when he had to do it, but he found himself hoping desperately that getting shipped out real soon wasn't on the cards. He just wanted some more time. More time with Leila. He was only just starting to feel comfortable with the dating thing. It didn't feel like he was doing something wrong dating without being divorced and he wanted to spend more and more time with her. Bottom line was, he couldn't get her out of his head.

( Which is why he got into his car late that afternoon from training to drive into the city to see her at the bar... )


Word Count | 2,869

1.30. And though my love is rare
And though my love is true
Hey I'm just scared
That we may fall through
'I'm Like A Bird' - Nelly Furtado

Co-written with doesntwaltz
[Follows THIS and THIS]

The truth was Leila had agonised over the choice of bar for a long time. Ever since Rob had left it up to her. She knew the City, or at least some of it, but that didn't mean she would pick a place he liked. Add in the dancing, and Leila felt under pressure. She was tempted just to take the easy route and make it at The Bondi. At least she knew for sure it had good food, beer, and dancing. Only she figured the point of a first date was to take Rob somewhere special.

Leila remembered a bar from the last time she'd been in New York, a place she'd hit one night after a gig to blow off some steam and grab some food. It was a few blocks from The Bondi in Soho, but it catered to a different crowd, and had never presented Luke with any competition. That was the thing about New York, it seemed to be able to support a never-ending number of nightspots. She remembered that the food had been amazing, and the cocktails had definitely aided in her dancing ability. She was never one for cocktails, but sometimes they just hit the right spot. Especially the chocolate ones. Now, here with Rob, the food was just as good as she remembered, but it was the company more than anything else. They'd managed to work in a bit of dancing already, and Leila had managed to ignore the cocktails in favour of beer like Rob.

( After another round of dancing to work off the main meal, Leila sat close to her date, her hand in his as they kept their heads together and their voices low... )


Word Count | 3,159

1.15. "The thing people forget is how good it can feel when you finally set secrets free. Whether good or bad, at least they're out in the open. And once your secrets are out in the open, you don't have to hide behind them anymore. The problem with secrets is even when you think you're in control, you're not."
Grey's Anatomy

Co-written with doesntwaltz
[Follows THIS and THIS]

It might have been the last month of the summer, but it was still pleasantly warm in New York. The sun was hot and people were packed in the park trying to make the most of the nice day. They were lucky to find a free bench to sit on, let alone one that was right beside the lake. Rob watched a couple of little kids feeding the ducks a few paces away and smiled. The Park had been his choice, and although New York didn't exactly boast the freshest air in the world, the atmosphere in Central Park was still a very far cry from the deserts in Iraq. He liked being out and not cooped up. It was a date to make a date... and talk. They were meeting after lunch so he didn't have to feel like he should eat. His stomach was still pissed off at him for the Cosmo Onslaught the night before. He was feeling better, but didn't exactly want to attempt to put anything in his mouth beyond water for the moment.

( He cleared his throat, wetting his lips as he turned to look at her with a small laugh. She looked nervous... )

All muses referenced with permission and are from the princeton2nyc universe


Word Count | 3,049