A/N: The last installment of my Lewis story. Hope you enjoyed it all! Thanks so much for reading this far!

Karen knew it was a possibility. That what should have been a beginning became the beginning of the end.

It didn't take Laura long to guess that something was wrong. The Monday after the police function she asked Karen how things had gone, and the woman had seemed vaguely hopeful... and happy. But a week on from that, her assistant's mood had turned black.

It was too easy to guess that Lewis had gotten cold feet about the relationship.

After two more weeks of this behavior from both Karen and Robbie, Laura decided to interrogate the pair, separately.

She had no doubt it was Lewis who was responsible for the bad turn things had taken between them. And he was the one of the pair that was her long time friend.

He looked agitated to see her at his door.

"I didn't call. I know. But I figured you might not let me in if I did," Laura explained.

"As bad as all that?" he asked bitterly.

"You tell me. Karen won't talk about it..."

"Why should she, Laura? Have you thought this out for just a moment and realized that maybe my life and hers have absolutely nothing to do with you?" he accused, sounding hurt.

That stung the pathologist, he could see. And there were some tense moments while the muscles jumped in her clenched jaw. She plainly weighed whether she would press on or just turn and go.

"I'm not terribly good at giving up on people, if that is what you are asking me to do," she finally told him.

He walked away from her for his kitchen, and she followed him into his apartment. His back was to her now and he leaned heavily on his arms at the counter.

"It didn't work out. That's all," he told her.

"You took her to bed? Or you just wanted to?" Laura guessed. "And somehow you think this makes you a horrible person. Disloyal. Being happy felt like something you didn't deserve?"

"Find something else to dissect. And stop pretending to understand my life!"

"I couldn't understand this quagmire you call a life if I had all the time in the world," Dr. Hobson shot back.

Lewis let out a heavy sigh, but refused to be drawn out.

Laura walked cautiously up beside him and spoke more gently now, "DS Frank from Regional was in the other day, and he wanted to know if Karen was really seeing you or if she might go out with him."

"Are you trying to bait me?" he wanted to know.

"She accepted. So, she's made a date with someone else," Laura said, shaking her head sadly. "Although, I don't know why, because it is clear she's not over you. And what do you feel when I tell you this, Robbie? Does this make you angry? Are you happy for her? Do you feel anything? Or are you still that numb?"

"You want to know how far gone I am?" he demanded as he turned to face her.

"Yes."

He fumed quietly and then started to pace.

"I don't like it," he spat suddenly. "I don't know that I'll do anything about it. But ..."

"I think worse would be that this didn't even hurt you at all. That you didn't even care. God, figure this out, Robbie," she told him with a pitying look. "Please. Soon."

And she walked out.

/

It was two days later, and he was feeling impulsive. It was a sign, he knew, that he was most certainly undone. But he couldn't think what to do about it, but to give in.

Hathaway drove them to the hospital parking garage on Lewis' order, the older man unable to give a reason. There were no results they were waiting. The inspector had merely looked at his watch, and seeing that they had a full hour before they were expected at the court building, he had ordered the detour. Lewis traversed the car park's aisles on foot then till he found her car, wanting to confirm she was in the building. He called her from his cell phone.

"Robbie," she whispered when she heard his voice.

"I feel like a damn fool, Karen, but I'm out here in the car park, and I'm wondering if I can come in and talk to you."

She met him in the same conference room they had spoken in months earlier. The poignancy there not lost on either of them. They had come full circle back to this place.

"How have you been?" he ventured.

"Fine," she answered sounding anything but. "Just adjusting, learning that time does not stand still. Especially not with the kids."

"How are the kids?"

She paused then, and he knew there must be something, not just the unease that had developed between them.

"Tim has decided to go to university in Edinburgh. I hadn't thought he'd go that far away, I guess." She sighed. "That boy needed me 24 hours a day when I brought him home from the hospital, and he needs me less than 24 minutes a day now. And with him moving out, well... a sort of light has gone on for me, I suppose."

"Tell me what it is," he said quietly.

"I've decided I will not sit still and watch my life leave me," she told him. "As much as it pains me to admit, Laura was right. I do need something else in my life. Tim needs me to have something else, so I do not drive up there with Lizzie and move in next to him."

Confused, he reached for her, but she backed away.

"What do you want out of life, Robert? This bit you have left. I'm not Laura. I won't tell you that any choice is wrong. But make it a choice. Not something you fall into. Not what remains after you've run away from the rest. Because not making a choice, is a very poor choice."

"Like with Hamlet," he said weakly.

"What?"

"Morse." He pulled in air with effort and looked up to the ceiling for strength. "He told me, Hamlet couldn't make a decision and that in itself was the choice. The choice that damns you."

"God, I've heard so much about Morse... and his choices. If working and then collapsing at home each night into some sort of bitter worship of the past is what you want, then do it. Choose it. But is that really what you want?"

He tried to think, but he couldn't. He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes then and ducked his head. He seemed too like the slow, single-minded cyclops as he stood there, weaving and wounded.

"I'm scared, too, Robbie," she offered him.

He shook his head, plainly lost as to what to think or what to do. "Karen," he tried weakly.

"I've been scared to tell you. I made my choice. I made it ages ago..."

"I don't understand."

She insinuated herself into her arms, and his stiff posture slackened some. Karen kissed him hard, a hand tightening in his shirt. And then just as quickly, she let go.

"I love you," she said as she faded back. "Do you understand?"

And she then became the second woman to walk out on him in less than a week.

In a daze, he navigated his way outside. The world seemed to spin around him. It was a sea of buildings, cars, and noise that he suddenly had no prayer of deciphering. Across the way, he saw Hathaway. He saw the status quo waiting for him to open the car door and slide in.

His sergeant looked at him expectantly...

... and Lewis turned and walked back into the hospital.

/