'Right, who's gettin the next lot in then?' Chop crashed his pint glass down on the table and looked around the table expectantly.

'I'll get it,' Rae said in near unison with Finn causing the pair of them to look up from the table to each other in amusement. They'd been spending too much time with each other. 'I'll get this one,' Finn repeated, stretching to put his glass in the middle of the table with the rest then putting his hand into his jeans pocket to get a tenner and some change. Before Rae could ask Chloe to shift her chair a bit Finn was already out of his seat with his hand out to help her out from hers, 'give me a hand with changing this crap first,' he pointed towards the jukebox which had begun to churn out the latest manufactured boy band ballads to grace the top forty. Rae grimaced in distaste and got out to join him.

He slid the twenty pence piece towards her over the top of the machine when they reached it but then reconsidered, taking it back and slotting it into the machine himself. 'I'd put The Roses on but I hear you're more into Backstreet whatever these days,' Finns finger danced over one of their tracks and he turned to face her with a teasing smirk.

'Oh shit,' she put a hand to her face to cover her eyes in embarrassment. 'Don't even start.'

'When were the brain transplant?' Finn continued with an incredulous shake of his head.

'Shut up,' Rae mumbled, mortified.

A wide gleeful grin spread across his features, his eyes scrunching to a small laugh. 'They've got all the dance bits and everything,' he nudged her with his shoulder, 'you an' Chloe were right in there,' he mocked her lightly. 'You sure you don't want me to put them on?' He searched her eyes, 'no? Ok.' He moved his finger over and scrolled down till he found something he liked or at least didn't hate.

'You're never going to let me live that down are you?'

Finn looked past her as though he was giving it some serious thought and took a breath before answering. 'Nah,' he scrunched his face and gave a small shake of his head. Rae covered her face with both hands and a bubble of laughter rose up and his gaze stayed on her, full of warmth. 'Right,' he said, turning back to the jukebox, 'which one? Twenty two,' he pointed down the list, 'or sixteen?'

Rae peered over his shoulder, the choice was an obvious, 'twenty two.'

Finn pressed the button and the track started up. His fingers moved towards her face and he brushed her hair over her shoulder and lingered around the base of her neck. When his hand dropped she laced her hand in his and pulled him with her towards the bar. She looked back towards the table where Chloe, Archie and Izzy simultaneously darted their heads as she turned so they were now all looking directly down at the table. Chop was the clueless odd one out who continued to stare over at them with a lopsided grin before realising that he'd been caught and scrambled to look to his left. Subtle, she smirked. It was nice that they were all still keeping an eye on things between them. It had been about four or five months since Leeds, since Ian and Saul...since everything had fallen apart. It had taken a while but things were going really well she thought. She felt happy and accepted and had zero plans to ever mess that up again.

A few minutes later she caught Chop rifling through Finn's jacket pockets for a smoke around about the same time Finn did. 'Oh shit,' he mumbled under his breath, 'I've only got the one left.' He'd cut back since she'd met him so he didn't carry as much with him. His foot made to move and stop him but he brought it back with a silent apology.

'It's fine. I'll get this.' Soon as he knew she meant it she watched him stride back to the table just in time as Chop found the right pocket by the looks of it. She watched with a smile as the two wrestled with each other half-heartedly for the jacket and Chop's playful look of betrayal once Finn had wrangled it back. She had managed to be distracted long enough that she didn't see who moved in behind her at the bar as she waited to get to the front.

'Oh god,' Chloe followed the two girls from the doors of the pub right up to where Rae was stood and felt a pang of dread hit her.

'What?' Archie followed Chloe's gaze over his shoulder and turned back with a frown. 'What is it?'

'Ashley Thompson.' Chloe gestured with her head towards the girl beside Rae. Archie and Izzy could just see the back of the two girls who had now moved closer to Rae again as they pushed their way through people. Finn and Chop followed suit not long after, wondering what they were all getting so worked up about. Chloe could just see Ashley's smaller friend Lisa or Lizzie or something barely managing to keep her balance in her white platforms, from here she could see her blonde streaks needed fixed at the roots as she fought to stay beside her. 'She was a bit of a cow in school,' Chloe kept her gaze on Ashley as her pale brown hair swept off her shoulders and onto her red mini backpack. She recognised the blue checked shirt from the shop in town, the fancy designer one her mum said was tacky. She looked a way for a moment to face Izzy, 'everybody got it off of her, you know' she shrugged it off and then winced, feeling bad. 'It's just Rae got it off her the most.' That was probably an understatement. They had drifted apart a bit at that point when she'd picked biology and French and they ended up with different timetables and all that. They saw less and less of each other, she got new mates in class and as far as she knew Rae was fine, probably doing the same. That was a bad excuse she knew but she hadn't known it was as bad as it got, she didn't know it had gotten to France. She kept watch, waiting for Rae to make a face or let her know she needed her but she didn't turn around and she just sat and worried as she waited for Ashley to recognise Rae.

'Rachel Earl?' Rae recognised the voice behind her and flinched. The name left Ashley's mouth like an embarrassment. Here we go. Rae could feel that unwelcome lurch in her stomach as she turned to look at her, remembering in little flashbacks the way she'd made her feel. The humiliation of stolen towels and soaked clothes left in the showers in P.E, having her lunch tray tossed in her face in the canteen and all the nasty little comments;

Can your fat arm even fit in that locker?

Fat Bitch

Who even let you exist?

She suddenly felt sick, her stomach twisted and stung. She just wanted to go home and curl up in her room and not exist at all. She could feel the buzzing and scratching in her head start up, but she surprised herself this time. Instead she took a breath and greeted her, 'alright Ashley?' Her smile was forced, still wanting to just get her order in and scarper before she could totally ruin the rest of the night for her.

'Haven't seen you in ages,' Rae waited for the sting, for her to get to the point but she stayed where she was, not giving her a reaction, treating her questions like she would an old friend. 'You haven't been about, what've you been up to?' She saw she had that sharp look in her eyes like the way she used to get when she had something over you. She was right back in the P.E changing rooms, feeling at once small and massive under her stare.

'Not much,' she shrugged, persevering. 'Just hanging about with my mates. I've been goin' to college an' all that.' Rae cast a look back towards her friends who were looking over at their conversation with a mixture of worry and interest. Her eyes locked with Finn, he nodded his head at her, a silent question that she was alright. She nodded her head with her eyes narrowed, telling him to stay where he was. 'What about you-'

'Heard you went proper mental,' Ashley made sure to stretch the words out and make them as loud as she could, 'heard you tried to off yourself and got carted off,' and there it was. It came as fast as a snakes fangs and bit into the tight feeling in her chest. Rae could see the look of malice spread across Ashley's face. She was sure they'd all heard it, she was sure the whole western hemisphere had and for a moment felt exactly the way she had back when she had to sit through hour long classes with her pulling her hair, hiding her things or whispering about her, not even waiting when the oblivious teacher's back was turned.

Rae thought for a minute of all the nasty things she could have said back if she'd been one of them, how she still looked like she stuffed her bras with toilet paper or how the best friend standing beside her had been the one spreading rumours back in English, she could tell her that she was still shit at art and couldn't act but she didn't say any of it as something inside her clicked. It took her a few moments to realise she had to tilt her head down to look at her as she continued to shower her with barbed comments. Had she always been that small? She looked a bit stupid with the front of her shoes up on the footrests like she was standing on her toes. She could see her smirk and her friend titter beside her but she wasn't listening. She was actually a bit rubbish, they were all just painfully uninventive. That's all they were and all they had been and they had gotten toothless really quickly the more she stood there. They had nothing, they couldn't touch her.

Rae took a deep breath and let it go in a sigh as she answered. 'Yeah,' she nodded without so much of a flicker of fear. 'I am mental. Totally mental,' she pulled her mouth down to a grimace, like it was just another unfortunate fact; Something daft like how Freddo bars had gone up to ten pence or they'd released another crap Now album. 'Anything else? Because I'd like to get a round in for my mates before the millennium yeah?' Rae pointed with her thumb back at the table and moved to get the barman's attention and gave her order. She saw Ashley sneer into her drink as she searched for something else to get at her with and come up empty.

'Alright Rae?' she heard Izzy spring to her side with a wide smile and wrapped her tiny arms around her so she was gripped tight between them with her head against the top of her arm. She saw Chloe just behind her so the two of them stood as close to Rae as possible. The pair of them gave Ashley and Co. a hostile look between them. Chloe moved closer to Ashley,

'she means you can piss off,' she gestured in a shoo with her hand and looked back at Rae with a reassuring smile as the glasses collected beside her ready to take back to their table. 'You want me to take one?' She moved to take three of the pint glasses from between Rae's hands as Izzy took her own leaving Rae with her and Finn's.

As soon as they started moving back to the table Rae couldn't help but ask, 'has she always been that short?' Chloe thought about it and laughed as they sat back down. Rae settled herself back beside Finn and passed him over his pint of Fosters. She didn't think much time had passed but it felt like it had been an age. It didn't take long for any awkwardness to fade and they got back to chatting. She took a drink of her snakebite when she remembered something and her mind snapped back to their conversation at the jukebox before. 'Hang on, what were you even doin' in the common room anyway?'

Finn sipped at his beer and shrugged, avoiding eye contact and she knew she had him. 'I was jus' killing time before third.'

'Right. So it wasn't because you missed me or anything like that then,' she looked over at him with a small coy smile, feeling brave.

'Might've been.' Finn kept his gaze towards the wall opposite them, pretending to look at the posters. 'I might've wandered in because you were there, yeah.' After a moment he leaned towards her ear, 'what was all that about anyway?'

'"Staying under the radar"' she murmured back the words Archie had told her all that time ago.

Finn gave her a nonplussed look. 'You what?''

She couldn't be bothered explaining, 'I dunno….I was just,' she didn't know how to finish.

'So, brain transplant, like I said.'

'Whatever you say,' the sides of her mouth quirked up into a snicker, 'little bug,'

She heard him splutter the beer from his mouth and laughed. Not so smartarsed now then.

The drinks poured in over the night and passed around between them as they took turns to order in. As time wore on Finn settled down closer beside her and shifted towards her with his thigh meeting hers. She felt the familiar pressure as he traced patterns on her skin like a promise. Y-O-U W-I-N…T-H-A-T-O-N-E.