Work Text:
It was late June. The Winkleton summer festival was in full swing, and Laura was looking for her children. Rosemary and she had been clattering about the north of England for a month or two, far from Laura's children, and neither party had time for a long get together, so when Helena had suggested they all meet at a festival mid way between them all, everyone had readily assented.
Upon arriving at the festival, however, they'd found their agreed upon meeting place vacant, so Laura and Rosemary had split up to cover more ground in the hunt for the missing children cum adults.
After about ten minutes of searching, Laura had been about to give up and go find Rosemary again, when, in amongst the throng of people, she spotted two familiar figures walking away from her and set off after them.
Matt was talking as she drew near.
"Let's just say, he was so bloody fit, I briefly considered going to bed with him."
Laura coughed significantly to announced her presence. Matt nearly jumped out of his skin before whipping himself into some semblance of nonchalance.
"Mum! Didn't see you there! That was just- I wasn't being serious, I was only…" he looked at Helena for help. Helena shook her head. There would be no help forthcoming on that side.
Laura watched Matt struggle with a contemplative frown. He had been joking , yes, but did her children really think she'd mind? She'd always thought she'd raised them to be accepting and loving to everyone, and as near as she could tell, they were. But in doing so, had she forgotten to make it clear that she would love her children just the same if they themselves played for both teams?
"It would have been alright if you had, you know," she tried, gently.
Matt ran a hand over his eyes. "Yes, yes I know Mum, I wasn't serious." He bit his lip and glared at Helena.
Laura didn't know what Helena had done but she did know that she herself hadn't done enough. She'd been silly. Just saying something wasn't always enough to make your kids believe something. You had to show them you understood.
Laura wracked her brain for an anecdote that was even remotely similar.
It took some rifling, but near the back of her mental files of her police days, she found something.
Without further examination, she interrupted the ocular sparring match that was going on beside her.
"I nearly gave everything up for a woman once."
There was a general spluttering to her right, and a several variations of "Mum!" And prayers to a deity neither of her children believed in. Laura suppressed a grin. She had them on the hook.
"I did. It was back when I was in the police. I had to arrest a protester at some environmental thing." Laura laughed breathlessly as the memory came flooding back. "She'd thrown her shoe at a bulldozer but had hit one of the uniforms instead. I was drafted to make the arrest and take her back to the station, and she spent the entire drive lecturing me on the benefits of recycling, god knows why. Of course back then, we barely knew the word recycling, and I listened in complete fascination the entire way there. It was suddenly the most interesting subject alive."
"Is that why we always had about three recycling bins growing up?" Helena cut in.
Laura snorted. "I suppose it is, yes. Do you know, I'd never thought about that. Anyway, once we got back to the station and she was being finger printed, the finger printing officer said something that sounded vaguely suggestive, can't remember now, but the girl caught my eye and suddenly I couldn't remember how to speak, and I remember thinking afterwords that it was a good thing I was already engaged to your father, because if I hadn't been, I probably would have gone straight over to her and proposed."
There was silence from her right. Then a Helena said tentatively, "she must have been pretty, then."
"She was stunning," Laura agreed, and was surprised when it came out rather wistfully. She wasn't aware there was anything to feel wistful about. But if she thought about it…
"Do you remember her name? We could look her up. You are single now…" Helena said seriously, but her eyes were laughing.
"Don't be ridiculous," Laura said quickly. "That was a very long time ago. That part of my life is over now. I don't need a romance." Laura was having sudden visions of her children running wild, combing through folders and files until they found poor woman and presented her with the officer who'd arrested her all those years ago. That would certainly be an experience. And there was next to no chance of her even remembering Laura anyway.
Matt was being awfully quiet. Laura looked over. He was staring at her wide eyes and an open mouth, looking remarkably similar to the way he'd looked as a child when Laura had first taken him to the planetarium and he'd seen the galaxy exhibit for the first time. Like he was seeing the world in a completely different light, and it wasn't necessarily a good one.
Then he blinked. "We could- look her up…" Matt said slowly. "It might be fun to see what she's doing nowadays. What was her name?"
"I- what??" Laura suddenly felt tremendously flustered. She hadn't told that story with the intention of kicking off a love story. She just wanted to let her children know that they were loved, under any circumstances. This wasn't supposed to be about her. And that woman… before today, Laura hadn't thought about her in years, decades possibly.
Did she remember her name? She hadn't been told it, she'd remember that clear as day, but she did remember catching a glimpse of the list of arrests for that night.
"It was something with an R, I think. Something floral. And now drop it. It's not going to happen."
"Mum!" Matt cried in mock disappointment. "Where's your sense of romance? Aren't you the one who told us to follow our dreams? You're free and single! Live a little!"
Laura stared blankly at her children.
Helena joined in. "Mum, we just want you to be happy. And it sounds like this woman could have done that for you. She liked the environment, you're a gardener. And anyway, she's been present in our lives every time we've gone to throw something away, so clearly she's affected you for longer than you realize. I think it's at least worth seeing what she's up to."
Laura shook her head. "But you see, I don't want to know what she's up to. I'm perfectly happy with my life. I have you two, I have Rosem-"
Laura stopped short. Her mind went blank. Blood roared in her head. No thoughts passed through her brain, no exclamations, no expletives. Just the single image of an arrest roster with the alluring name "Rosemary Boxer" scribbled on it in messy pen.
"Mum?" Matt was watching her with a baffled look stamped across his face.
Helena's mouth was open in shock, like she too had had a revelation. Oh dear.
Laura coughed. "Erm, yes. I…" but she couldn't remember what they'd been talking about. Rosemary. That woman had been Rosemary. That woman who Laura had thought of nearly every day leading up to her wedding, a symbol of everything she thought she might want, and couldn't have. That woman, who Laura had been so sure couldn't like Laura as much as Laura had liked her… she lived with her. They shared a house, and a job, and a life. She's already given Laura everything she'd ever fantasized about with her. Well, nearly everything.
"Actually," she heard herself say. "I don't think looking her up now would tell us anything new about her. Nothing we don't know already."
"What do you mean?" Matt frowned.
Helena elbowed him. "She means, that when she said her name was floral, it was actually herbal, and she already knows the woman."
"What?"
Laura caught Helena's eye behind Matt's head and there was only time for them to exchange a single agonizing glance of understanding before a voice was saying,
"Hello you lot!" And the woman herself was strolling up with two paper cups full of punch.
They stopped walking, and everyone circled round to greet Rosemary, Helena with a particular twinkle in her eye.
Laura accepted the punch from Rosemary, because the second one was, of course, for her, she didn't even have to ask, and tried to get her thoughts in order while the others chatted about nothing. She failed miserably, and clocked back in when Rosemary, beautiful, enchanting Rosemary, said "And what were you all talking about so seriously when showed up?"
"Lesbianism," said Helena, at the same time as Matt said,
"Arrests."
They smiled cheerfully like twin lunatics. Honestly, who raised them?
"Have you ever been arrested, Rosemary?" Asked Helena, smiling winningly.
Laura thought she might be having a heart attack, but Rosemary took the question in her stride.
"Oh, a number of times," said she. "Once as a teenager, apparently there are places where drunk driving a bicycle is, in fact, illegal," she took a sip of her punch, "and then I got arrested for assaulting an officer once at a protest." She paused, dramatically, as if waiting that information to sink in.
It was then that it must have clicked for Matthew, because his jaw dropped and his eyes went comically wide.
"Assaulting a police officer? Really Rosemary!" Laura exclaimed, before anyone could say anything silly.
"It wasn't intentional!" Rosemary laughed. "Actually, I was aiming for this demo equipment beside him, but I got a bit distracted by this lady police officer and missed."
Laura couldn't move. There was no bloody way… no way in hell Rosemary was talking about her.
"Lady police officer?" Helena ventured. Blessed, brilliant, merciful girl.
"Well, speaking of lesbianism," Rosemary began. She glanced at Laura as if checking her reaction. Laura had absolutely no idea what her face was doing. "We were out there protesting the demolition of a certain meadow, where thousands of species made their homes. Some of the recent protests, not my group, had turned bad, so there was a police presence, and- I remember halfway through the night, I looked up and saw one of the female police officers with a flower in her hair. She didn't seem to be aware of it, it was like it had just fallen there, and she was so memorizing in the moonlight and the lights from the torches that I don't think I took my eyes off of her and that flower for a solid four hours. And then she looked at me and I felt I had to at least look like I was doing something, so I threw my shoe."
She glanced around at her audience. Helena was nodding sympathetically, Matt's eyebrows were climbing higher and higher into his hairline, and Laura… the Laura of two minutes ago who'd said she didn't want romance might as well have been a different person entirely, because at that moment, Laura wanted to kiss Rosemary so badly she was afraid she might combust.
"Well, anyway," Rosemary continued. "I missed and hit a police officer. Naturally, I got arrested, and wouldn't you know it, that same lady police officer drove me to the police station. And god, I made such a fool of myself."
No one said anything. They were waiting with bated breath. Rosemary looked marginally confused, but obliged anyway. "The flower had fallen out, some time while she was putting me in the car, and I kept staring, trying to find it. Well, eventually she asks me what I was looking at, and I can't tell her the truth, so I do the first think I can think of. I start telling her off and lecturing her about the first thing that springs to mind. Recycling, would you believe." She took another sip of her punch.
"Dear god, Rosemary." Laura couldn't keep her cursed mouth shut anymore.
Rosemary shrugged. "Lucky for me, I never saw her again after that night. She probably thought I was absolutely bonkers." And then she sighed, like she was mourning a lost lover, and said the immortal words, "I did think about her quite a lot after that though."
Laura clamped her teeth around a whimper. It came out as high pitched squeak.
"Alright," said Matt, grabbing Helena by the arm. "We're going to ride the Ferris wheel. Bye Rosemary! See you Mum!" And off he went, dragging Helena behind him amidst his sister's avid protests.
Rosemary stared after them. "Oh dear. Was it something I said?" She turned back to Laura, her face adorably pinched in concern, and Laura… Laura couldn't help herself.
"I… I thought your lecture about recycling was lovely. And I thought you were lovely too."
Rosemary blinked. Then her face slackened all at once. "Hang on-. I… Laura…" she choked.
Laura laughed. "For the record, I still think you're lovely." Rosemary was still wide-eyed in shock, but her lips twitched upwards into the beginnings of a smile, and Laura took that as a good sign. "Come on," she said. "You can show me where you got that punch."
She took Rosemary's arm and led them away, and as Rosemary reached down to lace their fingers together instead, Laura was struck with the overwhelming sensation that everything was right with the world, and that romance was just around the corner.