Robron Fanfiction - Christmas Edition
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
He couldn’t say what woke him up, but he became acutely aware someone was watching him.
Robert opened his eyes, stared into the dark, saw nothing.
Annoyed that the universe had the audacity to disturb the warm, toasty nest he’d made in his bed, he sat up.
“I thought the ghosts were supposed to be strangers,” Robert said, rubbing his face. “Except for Jacob Marley.”
“It’s not like you can really say you know me,” the boy replied.
“That’s true. Still feels a bit wrong that it’s you.”
“If it makes you feel better, I’m not really Heath. I just came in his image to relax you.” The ghost grinned. “Is it working?”
“Not particularly. Seeing a dead kid doesn’t really relax anyone. Can you change your image?”
“Nope. I look fit. Look at this hair.” He fluffed it proudly. “The personality didn’t have time to grow in. It was scheduled to show up around his first heartbreak. He was gonna be dead funny. Now he’s just dead.”
Robert stared at him. He wasn’t sure what to make of this version of Heath. In life the kid was…fine. Bland. Rode in a stolen car once. Mostly notable for dying.
“Okay,” Robert said slowly. “So, you’re the Ghost of Christmas Past?”
“Hell yeah.” Heath’s eyes swept down Robert’s body. “You might wanna put on some trousers. It’s gonna get a little chilly. Also,” he clapped twice, “sing with me. Wah, ah, at Smokey Joe’s Café.”
He got out of bed, slid on his trousers, and pulled on a grey peacoat.
“Oh my god, you are so extra,” Heath said. Then he nodded appreciatively. “But honestly? It’s a vibe. Don’t touch my dick,” Heath suddenly said.
Robert glared. Fucking kids.
“Wanna hold hands?” Heath held up his right hand to Robert.
“All right. We do this the hard way.” Heath rubbed his palms together gleefully. Then he reached out and grabbed Robert’s ear…hard.
The world shifted sideways.
They appeared inside the old Emmerdale Farmhouse.
“Let go, you knobhead!” Robert shoved him off, massaging his ear.
“Ohhh, come at me then, lad!” Heath bounced on his toes like he was Rocky Balboa.
The door opened. His biological mum, Pat, walked in, smiling, arms full of presents. Jackie followed behind her.
“You shouldn’t be carrying those, Mum,” Jackie said.
“I’m pregnant, not infirm,” Pat reminded him, tapping his cheek.
“He kind of looks like you,” Heath said beside Robert.
“He should. He’s the only full sibling I have…had. Died when I was four. We were in Italy. Came back after that.”
“How old were you when your mother died?” Heath asked.
“Four months. Car accident.”
“Those are a bitch,” Heath said brightly.
Robert gave him a long, slow look. “Are you or are you not Heath?”
“I’m what Heath could have been.” Heath shrugged.
The door opened again and Annie Sugden walked in.
“She looks nice,” Heath said.
“Just think,” Annie said, setting something on the counter, “this time next year we’ll have a wee baby to love.”
“I can’t wait,” Pat said, rubbing her barely-there bump.
“What do you think it’ll be?” Jackie asked. “A boy or a girl?”
“I don’t care, just healthy and happy.”
“Time for us to go,” Heath announced.
“No,” Robert said quickly. “We haven’t seen my sister Sandie or my dad.”
“Look,” Heath said, patting Robert’s arm, “we’ve got so many stops tonight, and so little time.” He grabbed Robert’s ear again and the world once again shifted on its axis. This time Robert landed on hard ground.
“Watch it,” Heath snapped.
Robert clambered up, ready to see if he could hit a kid ghost. But then he saw where he was and who was around. His uncle Joe. Joe’s wife Kate. Rachel and Mark, Kate’s kids. His grandmother Annie again, moving about.
“Well, someone looks like a gloomy Gus,” Heath said, nodding toward Joe sulking at the table.
“That’s my Uncle Joe,” Robert said.
After the small family finished dinner, they went to open Christmas presents. Joe was gifted a desktop computer. Then his dad walked in holding a tiny version of Robert by the hand.
“I see where you get your height,” Heath said. “Your dad was very tall.”
“Yeah,” Robert murmured. “He always seemed larger than life.”
“I only got bad dad jokes from mine.” Jack joined Joe to talk. Little Robert was nudged aside, ignored, “That tracks,” Heath said. “Being emotionally sidelined early explains so much about you.”
Mark and Rachel brought down a box for their mum. Heath immediately leaned in.
“What are you doing?” Robert hissed.
“I wanna see,” Heath whispered. “Maybe it’s a sugar glider.”
The box was opened and it was a puppy. “You were close,” Robert told him.
“It’s not a sugar glider,” Heath said, sounding disappointed.
“Can we get back on with my life here?” Robert demanded.
“I guess. Or we could explore Cher’s past Christmases, they have to be more exciting than yours.” Robert just glared at him. “Fine. But you’re not Cher.”
“Are you gay?” Robert asked.
“Mate, you shouldn’t be stereotyping. Like look at you, you’re bisexual and wear a lot of purple and floral patterns. Aaron is gay as fuck and wouldn’t be caught dead in anything but solid blue, black or white…and white is a stretch. You older generation and your ideas.” Heath just shook his head.
“I’m not that much older than you.”
“You’re literally, old enough to be Heath’s father.”
Heath and Cathy were born after Robert was so ungraciously kicked out of the village, so he was right. Robert hated that he was right.
“Next place,” Robert told him.
“Lick my lips and smack my ass.”
Robert looked at him horrified. “What the hell did you just say?”
“Oh, Smokey Joe’s Café you were fine with but as soon as I start singing other songs you get your knickers in a twist.”
His ear being grabbed didn’t even phase him this time. But when the world righted itself, Robert knew exactly where and when they were. It was the hospital after Andy’s biological father left him alone in a caravan.
“You look worried about him,” Heath said.
Robert watched as his parents, Victoria, and he surrounded Andy in the hospital bed. Andy’s social worker had come and gone, asking his parents to take Andy back as a foster child.
“I was. Before he was my brother he was my friend.”
“When did it go wrong between you two?”
“Little pieces over the years but I think I could never get over him killing Mum.”
“Wasn’t it an accident? Much like how Katie died.”
Robert looked at Heath. “How do you know about that?”
“I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past…the past, it’s kind of my thing.”
Robert watched his family while they were whole. Before everything went wrong. Before his father hated him.
“Can we leave?” Robert asked.
“You don’t want to stay and watch?”
“I was there the first time. This is just a facsimile.”
“What no strangely inappropriate song this time?”
“I can if you want, thought you looked a little too down for it but if you want. 3-6-9, damn she fine-
“Not even a Lil Jon fan. Okay.”
Heath clapped his hands together and the world once again shifted. This time when everything righted, Robert wished he stayed to look at his mum more at the last memory.
“You didn’t tell me that would be the last time I would see my mum,” Robert told Heath.
“You didn’t know the first time, why should now be any different.”
They had just left 1997 Christmas and skipped right to 2000, only a few months after his mum died. In front of him was Andy, Vic, Kathy and him playing monopoly. He remembered trying so hard to make it good for Victoria, but Andy kicked off.
“I don’t need to see this again,” Robert told Heath. Then something occurred to him. “Hey, you didn’t grab my ear to get us here.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s not really part of it, I was just having fun.” Heath suddenly smiled. “So, strictly speaking, I shouldn’t be doing this but I’m whimsical.”
Robert didn’t like the look on Heath’s face. “What does that mean?”
“Playful, quaint, or fanciful. Acting or behaving in a capricious manner.”
“I KNOW WHAT WHIMSICAL MEANS!” Robert yelled.
“I meant, what are you doing that you shouldn’t be doing?”
“Oh, well, I don’t want to spoil the surprise.” Heath clapped his hands and when the world shifted again and Robert saw where he was, he was livid.
“This isn’t Christmas, not even close.”
“I know, I said I shouldn’t be doing this, but I couldn’t help it.”
Robert was standing in the middle of the reception of Andy and Katie’s first marriage. He looked and found himself, already drunk.
“Why are we here? What can I possibly glean from this travesty?”
“I don’t know, let’s watch,” Heath said, pointing.
Robert looked at where he was pointing, Robert was walking to where Chas was bartending.
“Same again,” Past Robert said, putting his empty glass on the bar.
“I only just gave you that one,” Chas said. But Robert had already sussed out why Heath did this.
“Think you’re funny?” Robert asked Heath.
Robert pointed at young Aaron, and he did mean young Aaron. Aaron was playing on a Gameboy behind Chas.
“I just think it’s funny. You don’t really think of your age differences until it’s in your face. Here you are eighteen, drunk and angry at your brother’s wedding to the girl you’ve been sleeping with behind his back. And here the love of your life is…twelve years old playing a Gameboy ignoring everyone. It’s magic.”
“It’s sick. We didn’t get together until he was twenty-two almost twenty-three. I didn’t even see him again after this until then too. I don’t even remember him being there.”
“Yeah we should go before my dad and mum show up,” Heath said.
“But you’re not really Heath, right?”
“Seveny-five precent Ghost of Christmas Past, twenty-five Heath Hope. But like, we should really go, I just know he’s going to do something cringy.”
And they were off again as the world shifted. Then they were standing in middle of the Woolpack. Robert saw Andy dressed as Ginger Spice. He didn’t know why they skipped so many years but he wasn’t about to argue. He knew exactly what year they were in. 2014. He saw Past Robert try and make nice with Andy, even buying him a round. But Robert looked around, knowing Aaron was there with Adam Barton.
“I think this is the brightest and silliest I’ve ever seen Aaron,” Heath said, taking a step beside Robert.
“He’s dead funny when he wants to be. Not a lot of people see it, the thing is he has to be with someone he trusts and someone who will get him out of his shell,” Robert said.
Aaron and Adam were joking around while Past Robert was watching Vic and Andy.
“What about Aaron drew you to him?” Heath asked.
“What didn’t would be the simpler question. He’s fit, I noticed that right off, even while I was threatening to call the police on him and Ross. But I think it was while Ross was trying to placate me, Aaron kept insulting me.”
“Then you must fancy most of the village because you’re not short on people who hate you.”
“I didn’t say hate; he doesn’t hate me…at least he didn’t until I gave him a reason.”
Finn started reading a letter that Andy wrote Katie during school. Robert remembered a time when Katie had been the sun that he aspired to, but she was just a mirage. The real sun was Aaron; it was always Aaron.
“It’s time for us to leave,” Heath said.
Robert shook his head. “No, we just got here.”
“And we saw what we came to see, the start of you and Aaron.”
“He was so happy here. If I could bottle his laugh I would.”
“Oh god, I think I vomited a little in my mouth.”
Robert rolled his eyes. “You died at sixteen, what do you know about love?”
“I know if I love someone, my goal in life shouldn’t be making their life miserable just because they didn’t pick me.”
“Shows what you know, he did pick me and I still made his life miserable.”
Robert cleared his throat, looked away from Aaron and back to Heath.” Let’s go.”
“Aye, Aye, Matey,” Heath said, clapping his hands.
The world shifted and they were still in the Woolpack. From the decorations it looked like Chas did the decorating instead of Diane. His stepmum was elegant, Chas Dingle’s decorating style was manky.
“This is 2015, are we going to do every year now?” Robert asked.
“Who knows, I’m whimsical. But let’s see where our problems lie,” Heath said.
Past Robert was at a table with Chrissie, Lachlan and Lawrence. He remembered how close Aaron came to outing the affair just months earlier. He thought for sure Aaron would after Robert sort of held him at gunpoint at a lodge and accidently shot him. Robert rushed him to A&E.
The police were called and Aaron told them he was playing with a gun, and it went off, shooting himself. Aaron had still been on caution, and he got in real trouble for the gun thing. Robert made sure he had the best solicitor. Robert thought Paddy and Chas suspected but Aaron never sold him out.
“Look, there I am,” Heath said, pointing to a table with Bob, Brenda, Cathy and Heath. Bob was wearing an atrocious looking reindeer antler.
“Does it hurt to see you and your family?” Robert asked.
“Like I said, only like twenty-five percent of me is Heath and he’s just glad to be out and about right now.”
“You said before his real personality wouldn’t come out until his first heartbreak. But isn’t the whole point of this being our lives are on a linear line, so he was always going to die?”
“Ah. Ah. Ah. That’s all above my paygrade and none ya business.”
Robert’s attention was diverted to the door when he heard shouting. Just walking in were Aaron and Adam, because where there was Adam there was Aaron at one point and vice versa.
“I told you to keep your nose out of my business,” Aaron snapped at Adam.
“I would if it didn’t interfere with our business. I don’t care who your mystery bloke is, but when you’re supposed to pick up scrap in Blackburn, you pick up the scrap in Blackburn. I had to make double time to get it not to mess up that contract.” Adam really looked livid.
Robert had forgotten about this. Aaron and he had just gotten back on, and Aaron met him in a hotel in Burnley, they got carried away and the contract almost went south.
Robert saw the moment Aaron saw Past Robert. Aaron quickly looked away, keeping their secret, one of their many by that time. The only people who knew about them were Chas and Paddy. Robert was always surprised that Chas was able to keep her big gob shut.
“So, you two are together but can only look longingly at each other over your pints. Tell me again what I’m missing dying at sixteen?”
“Where did the little chaos ferret go?” Robert asked.
Heath shrugged. “I don’t know, I get like this at this time of year.”
“You are the Ghost of Christmas Past; it’s always this time of year for you.”
“Oh, I know what always makes me feel better,” Heath said, then he snapped his fingers.
Last Christmas started playing over the speakers. Robert saw everyone looking around including Chas at the bar.
Robert looked at Heath. “I remember this. That did happen, Last Christmas just started playing out of nowhere. Chas had a bloke come in and look for shorts in the system. Are you telling me that was always you? How?”
Heath tapped his index finger to his nose. “I cannot reveal all my powers, can I?”
“You can do things in the timeline?”
“I can. You cannot. But we must be going, we’ve got a few more places to hit on the way for you to be back in bed for Christmas Present to get you.”
“Are they going to be someone I know too?”
“I cannot tell you something that I don’t know. They are present, I’m solely in the past.”
When the world shifted, he thought they would be in 2016, but they weren’t it was 2017.
Aaron was holding Seb, rocking him. Robert was looking out the window. They were at Home Farm.
“This, you had to bring me to this?” Robert asked.
“It’s one of the biggest moments in your life. The moment you chose money over Aaron.”
“Lawrence was cruel in his Will and knew it.”
“Tell me what happened,” Heath said, his voice much deeper than it had been a moment ago.
“You know what happened.”
“But I want to know, how you see what happened.”
“Chrissie walked in on me and Aaron; there was no way to cover up that. Seb was just a few days old. She was talking about taking him away, never letting me see him again. About how I broke our family.”
“Your wife just gave birth to your son, and you were in bed with someone else.”
“I slept with her sister before I met Aaron. After I met him, it was just him and her. I think that was pretty loyal.”
Robert turned away from the quiet scene of Past Robert staring out the window and looked at Heath.
“Are you really trying to pull the I’m loyal to my side piece and my wife?”
“What are we going to do?” Aaron asked, looking at Past Robert’s back.
“The Will was pretty straight forward,” Past Robert said.
“You don’t need his money or this house. If we put together what we have, we can buy a place of our own. I’ve even been thinking, Liv wants a home, a real one. You were right telling me to use Gordon’s life insurance money. Liv’s money, my money and yours, we could get something really nice. Be a real family.”
“My wife just died Aaron. How can you talk about being a family after that.”
Robert watched Aaron recoil and close in on himself. The baby felt Aaron’s change and started to whimper. Soon, Aaron was back rocking him.
“Seb will grow up without his mum, his aunt, cousin and grandfather. Don’t surround him in misery too.”
“It isn’t up for discussion. Lawrence was clear, I don’t get anything if I get remarried.”
“That was when he thought you and Chrissie were getting divorced. It didn’t make it to that point.”
Robert knew what was coming next and he hated it.
“Doesn’t matter, my solicitor said the Will is ironclad. I have to not remarry for ten years or live with someone.”
“Rob?” Aaron said hesitantly. “You didn’t have anything to do with the accident, did you?”
Past Robert turned around and there was complete hate in his eyes. Robert only remembered bits and pieces of what followed. He was probably in some kind of shock from the accident.
“You can’t be serious,” Past Robert said.
“Just, people are saying how it’s strange Seb wasn’t in the car with his mum with him being so little.”
“So, you think I not only killed Lachlan, Lawrence and Rebecca but killed my wife. The woman I slept beside every night. The woman I planned to live the rest of my life with.”
“I’m sorry,” Aaron said, gently standing up with the baby.
“Give me my son and get out. NOW!”
The baby woke and started to cry.
“He’s nothing to you. If anyone is at fault for his mother’s death it’s you. You were the one that threw yourself at me the night she found out. If you hadn’t, Seb would still have his mother. But you were pathetic and needy. She gave me something you never could, and you just had to shoehorn yourself in. This wasn’t about you and you couldn’t stand it. I bet you planned for her to find us.”
“I don’t want to see anymore,” Robert told Heath.
“Frankly, neither do I,” Heath said, clapping his hands.
Robert felt the world shift again, but he just didn’t have the energy to stand straight and he fell over.
They were in Keepers Cottage, Victoria’s home. Victoria was sitting on the couch, from her stomach, Robert could tell it was Christmas 2019, she was going to give birth to her son Harry on January 1st, 2020.
Past Robert was pacing behind her.
“I did this for you and the baby,” Past Robert said.
“I never asked you to do anything. Actually, I asked you to stay out of it.”
“He was stalking you; he was never going to leave you alone. He’s in prison now, Harry will be an adult by the time he gets out.”
“You paid off the police. The evidence that got him in prison is fake.”
“That baby you’re carrying is the evidence.”
“DO NOT SAY THAT ABOUT MY BABY!” She stood up, after a few tries. “You have no idea what you’ve done. What if one of the cops get found out for being dirty.”
Past Robert shrugged. “I’ll have Lee murdered then.”
“What happened to you Rob? Where is the man that loved so much that he gave his son up so he could have a happy life?”
“Aaron’s a better father than I’d ever be.”
“You’re still Seb’s father.”
“Not legally, not anymore. Everything I’ve ever done was to protect my family. You, Aaron, Seb and this baby. And what do I get for my trouble. You still think I killed Chrissie.”
“I do not. You’ve just got it in your head me and Aaron think that. All we did was ask the question…once.”
Robert watched the exchange and remembered being so…trapped.
“Aaron was right,” Robert said to Heath without looking.
“Lawrence’s Will, it wouldn’t have stood up in court. I was Chrissie’s husband. The money was mine without the Will.”
“When did you know this?”
“From the very beginning.”
“So, you were the master of your own misery.”
“I couldn’t be with Aaron. I couldn’t be with Seb.”
“Because I may not have killed them, but Chrissie dying was on me. They wouldn’t have been on that road that day if I hadn’t of taken Seb. I am the reason he doesn’t have his mother. I lost two mothers before I was fifteen. One day he’ll know that it was my fault. It’s best now that he hates me. I couldn’t bear for him to love me and lose that love. If I would have known Aaron to be the traitor he was then, I wouldn’t have felt so bad.”
Robert heard Heath’s hands clap but didn’t move as the world shifted yet again.
Robert recognized the Woolpack; there was a banner over the bar.
“Congrats Aaron and Ben.”
“I wasn’t in the village Christmas of ’23,” Robert said.
“Lucky you. I’ve got a timer on my forehead. I’ll be fully cooked in,” Heath checked an imaginary watch Robert supposed, “seven days.”
“How can you make jokes about your own death?” Robert asked.
“What am I going to do cry? Look mate, would I have been lead guitarist in the most famous band in the country, of course. Would I have been knocking back the birds left right and centre, again, no doubt. God had to take me out, I was competition.”
“And people say I’m full of myself.”
“I do regret the dying a virgin though.”
“You could have wound up with someone like Nicola being your first at sixteen like me.”
“I wonder if I could have been bisexual like you.”
“Why do you wonder that?” Robert was confused.
“Well, look at me, I’m just too fucking fit for one sex.”
“First, you’re a child, so that’s really all I see. And that’s not how it works.”
Robert went back to watching the goings on in the Woolpack. He was on holiday in Spain when this went down, it would be fun to watch firsthand.
“I needed something funny to watch, ta,” Robert said to Heath.
“Watching your ex get humiliated and broke up with at his engagement party is your idea of fun?”
The door opened and Aaron came in, looking happy and very fit. The happy part wouldn’t last. He was glad that Seb wasn’t with him, it would have lost a little of its shine.
“Just in time,” Chas said from behind the bar.
“What’s this?” Aaron asked looking up at the banner.
Villagers jumped out from behind the bar, tables and from the back.
“SURPRISE!” They shouted.
Ben stepped out from the back, huge smile on his face. Robert had to give it to him; he didn’t think the boring SOB had it in him to do something so vicious as he was about to do.
Aaron smiled but still looked confused. “What’s going on?”
“My love, I planned this night for weeks, I wanted everything just right,” Ben said, walking to Aaron and taking his hand. “I wanted to ask you to be my husband.”
Aaron started to tear up and Robert smirked. Was it cruel to get this much enjoyment out of this? Probably but fuck if he wasn’t loving it. Aaron put him through two years of hell. He deserved everything he got here.
“Ben,” Aaron said, choked up.
“Don’t say anything yet. I made a video, I think it says everything I need to about our love.”
Ben grabbed a remote and pointed it to a projector. There was a white tarp covering a far wall.
“You hear about something, but you never know you’re actually going to get to see it,” Robert said, turning to smile at Heath.
Robert shrugged and looked back.
The video started, Ben in front of the Hide.
“If you would have said I would have fallen in love with my bully, I would have said get help. But I did. I fell so fast and so hard for you. I can’t explain it, you were my tormentor for years and now I can’t picture my life without you,” video Ben said.
There was a chorus of “Awws” from some of the ladies in the room.
Video Ben opened his arms. “And now I want everyone to see how much you love me.”
The screen cut to Robert’s bedroom and Robert and Aaron having very loud, very innovative sex. What also wasn’t to be missed was the tattoo on Aaron’s bicep, the one everyone knew he only got two months ago, dating the video, letting people know he was cheating on Ben.
It was a beautiful mess after that. Screaming from Chas. Cain throwing the projector on the floor and breaking it to bits. Robert even heard Debbie say she understood why there was an eighteen and up only on the invitations.
“See, I always wondered who topped,” Heath said.
Robert laughed. “It was better than I ever imagined. Can I get this on replay?”
“You had sex with him two months before this, but you hate him so much you want him hurt?” Heath asked.
“I never want Aaron hurt, but I was being used, not the other way around. He wanted to be with Ben but sleep with me.”
“You see no irony?” Heath asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s exactly what you did to him when you married Chrissie.”
“It’s completely different.”
“Well, if you understood this early there wouldn’t be need for four of us.”
“Aaron deserved everything he got. He ruined my life.”
“It’s been a pleasure,” Heath said.
Robert woke up hearing someone clap but no one was there. “A dream. A vivid dream but a dream none the less.”
