Author: Regency

Title: An Unfinished Life

Summary: Laura thought she and Luke were through Evidently, Fate had other ideas.

Disclaimer: Don’t own ‘em, never will.

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She held the tiny infant in her arms as she stood at the window overlooking the front yard. The nursery was cool and she held the swaddled girl closer to warm them both.

Libby had been a surprise, a bright one in a long line of dark twists since her reawakening. All of her losses were swept aside by the look on Dr. Lee’s face and Robin excited exclamation. She had shivered, terrified, when she had found out. She was in no position to be someone else’s mother. The love of her life, wasn’t, and her children were existing on entirely different levels of dysfunction than she’d been told. Her world was in shambles and there was no place for her. But she had a child on the way and she’d determined that the child should be her priority.

The first thing she’d done was learn the odds, the risks. Then, she’d shut herself in her room and cried for a good long time. If she was going to dedicate herself to this baby, she couldn’t be weighed down by the bitterness she didn’t want to admit she harbored towards every person who’d lied to her after her first recovery. She wasn’t prepared to have this much hate in her soul as she held her child. So, she grieved for an old life and welcomed a new one. Bitterness went gentle into the night.

The next morning, she left her room a more peaceful woman. The first thing she did was tell her mother the news. Lesley’s eyes lit up and Laura came as close to being lifted into her mother’s arms as she ever would. There was a note of fear of course. Laura was high risk, this pregnancy could fail, they both knew. She accepted the risk, and the joy that might come. As mothers did, they began to discuss names. She was four months pregnant by the time she knew.

She kept the happy tidings to herself as long as she could hide it, which wasn’t long. Soon her clothes, which were already somewhat snug, refused to fit at all. Her unborn daughter was prepared to make herself known, long before Laura was ready to introduce her. Suddenly, she had two real issues to face. She had to face the fact that she was carrying Luke Spencer’s child again, something he would eventually have to know. And, she had nothing to wear. Somehow, she should have known the Fates would converge on those two points.

Divinity showed its mighty hand as she stood in the maternity department of Wyndam’s with a particularly unflattering blouse in hand. The small hairs had risen on the back of her neck and she’d swept her eyes across the department floor quickly before turning and seeing one of the only two people alive who could make her feel this way. Luke was leaning against a dress rack, arms crossed, coolly watching her. Without a word flowing between them, they had an entire conversation; he knew she wasn’t shopping for a friend and she knew that nothing would change. She rehung the homely tunic and left the store. She’d come back another day, when the weather was different.

In the subsequent months she didn’t make a point of being around her former husband. She’d done her damnedest to lay their demons to rest on her own and didn’t seen any good that could come from their trying to become friends again. Evidently, he had no desire to be a father to a newborn and she had no desire to wrangle him as an overgrown child for another lifetime. In her mind, in her heart, they were over.

At last, she announced her pregnancy for those who didn’t know or hadn’t figured it out through clear deduction. She didn’t expound on Luke or bring him up. As far as she was concerned, this child was her child alone. He didn’t protest. She told herself it didn’t sting, but there was a burning twinge within her and, at six months, she cried again for the first time.

On August 19, 2007, she gave birth to a daughter. Libby Robin Webber was born blond and pink to Laura in a sterile General Hospital delivery room. Robert Scorpio, who thought his old friend more fool than ingenue, was at her side and took the first picture of the last member of the Webber-Spencer legacy. There began the rest of her life.

And next, came her problem. The night Robert drove her home, after the welcome party had ended, her elder children had departed and her mother had called it an evening, she’d stood in this very spot. Looking down upon the world with her newest child in hand, she was momentarily chilled to see a lone figure standing in the darkness cast by the trees. She’d pulled Libby protectively to her breast and was intent upon ducking out of sight to find the nearest phone. Before she could do so, the lone figure stepped out of the shadows and revealed his equally dark countenance to the wan twilight. She was no more encouraged by the sight of his face than she initially was. Although her instinct was to run away, she stayed her ground. And he simply watched.

Soon Libby began to fuss and she left the window to attend to her daughter. When she returned to look again, Luke was gone. She thought that would be the end. For one night he’d been drawn to peer up at them, at the family he could no longer claim. She hoped he had found peace in it. That was a month ago.

Tonight, he was there once more; the starlight reflecting like snow off his silver-white hair and his eyes piercing her like lances over the distance. She didn’t participate in another staring match with him, but somehow she was sure he was there as she and Libby slept.

The next morning, she opened the front door to retrieve the morning paper. On the porch was a wicker baby basket with a plush bear wrapped in a blanket inside. She picked it up and cautiously inspected it for any hint of danger. She held the stuffed animal to her nose and allowed herself a little smile. It smelt of Luke. Rugged and beguiling. She cradled it close and took the basket inside to show her mother.

Later, the bear, teasingly known by Laura as L Spencer, would sit vigilantly near Libby’s crib; out of reach but not out of sight. Someday he would take his rightful place as the little one’s constant companion and guardian. For now, he stood only for one thing.

Libby’s first gift from Daddy.