Hello again! Spurred on by the fact I actually completed my last story to a degree that I was semi-satisfied with (which was the first time that's ever happened ... with anything) I thought I'd have a go at a new one.

It is not AU, but it is set a few years after season 4. I wanted to write it because I think that 408 (and the majority of season 4) introduced some pretty huge themes without actually dealing with them. And also I wanted to have one more go at a Naomily fic before season 5 kick starts. Maybe have a read and tell me what you think?

Side note: the opinions expressed by the characters in these chapters are not necessarily mine.

Thanks for reading :)

Have a nice day


'I don't belong to anyone.

My heart is heavy as an oil drum.

And I don't want to be alone.

My heart is yellow as an ear of corn,

and I have torn my soul apart, from

pulling artlessly with fool commands.' – Joanna Newsom

Chapter one

The morning was cold, but it was clear. Heavy bolts were heaved grudgingly from their metal casings and huge barred doors were slid open on their rusted runners, making the whole world flicker for a moment as the bars rushed past, like the beginning of an old film reel.

Naomi stepped beyond them, clutching the polythene bag of personal belongings in one hand and her stamped and approved papers in the other.

She handed the letter over to the stern, matronly officer who waited at the smaller wooden fire-door at the end of the corridor. She scanned the letter and forced a smile at Naomi, scribbling a signature on the paper before tugging at the keys attached to her belt.

'Finally letting you out then are they?' the woman sneered. Toning with her uniform, the warden's voice was like cracked ice.

Naomi rolled her eyes. They always have to say something, she thought. 'Yes miss,' was all she answered, wishing to make any interaction with the warden as brief as possible.

'You could've been out a month ago,' the woman felt the need to elaborate. 'If you hadn't caused such a scene,' she added.

'Well, I quite like here,' Naomi answered, feeling her anger begin to heat her face in the cold reception room, 'the food's great, the service is exquisite and as for the ladies ...' she paused to look appreciatively up and down the length of the warden's body, 'Mmm –mm.'

The warden's smug demeanour immediately switched to something distinctly more hostile, as she roughly jammed the keys into the lock and wrenched the door open.

'Get out Campbell,' she said, holding the door open.

'I'll never forget our time together Miss,' Naomi said with mock sadness, one final triumphant jibe at the warden before she stepped out of the door and into the visitor's car park of the prison. The door was yanked shut behind her, and Naomi was left completely exposed to the world, suddenly small and fragile in the cold light that she was now bathed in. Inside, she had felt squeezed and shuttered into rooms far too small, but now the emptiness of the car park pressed and stretched at the edges of her reality. Her breath steamed into the air and swirled away, lost against the sharp blue sky that just carried on and on.

She scanned the car park for any person or automobile she might recognise. In the small security booth that stayed vigilant over the car park entrance, a bald man sat engrossed in a newspaper.

'Excuse me,' Naomi said, peering up at the window.

'Yes love?' the man said cheerfully, placing the paper on the desk in front of him and looking down at the blonde girl on the tarmac below.

'Has anyone come through here with the name Campbell?' she asked hopefully.

The man scratched at the stubble on his chin. The rough grating sound echoed across the deserted asphalt. 'Don't think so love,' he answered.

Naomi sighed, nodding at the man and walking away. She twirled the polythene bag round unenthusiastically as she wandered toward the bicycle parking area. It was close to the walls, as far away from the emptiness as she could manage. She sat down on the cold metal railings and speculated on the reasons for her mother's lateness. Either she had simply forgotten that today was Naomi's revised release date, or she knew perfectly well what today was but was using last-year's calendar (again), or, possibly more likely, half of Kieran's engine had fallen out onto the motorway on the way and the two of them were currently sat on the hard shoulder, working out a way to forge car-insurance documentation.

Naomi sighed and scuffed at the white grid line painted on the tarmac beneath her feet. Even though her Mum had told her countless times on the phone and during the few visits she managed to make that she didn't think any less of her, it didn't stop the niggling suspicion at the back of her mind.

That insuppressible, cold, creeping sensation of shame.

Naomi tried to shake the feeling. In a way, it was kind of her mother's fault she had ended up here in the first place. Waiting in the unbearable silence of the car park, Naomi felt compelled to retrace that path that had led her here. A lot had happened in the last few years. Naomi could track it back effortlessly, as she always could with anything that had gone wrong in her life, to Freddie's death.

She had seen her second dead body of the year the day that he died.

It was a loud noise: a clunk against the window, as if made by a lump of thrown clay not hard enough to shatter the glass. Cautiously inspecting beneath the window outside, Naomi saw the bird on the ground, one wing tucked up against its back, the other splayed outwards. A female blackbird, or a fledgling perhaps. It lay on its front, with its right leg stretched outwards beneath it. Its eyes were wide and black, its mouth gaping. Naomi crouched down to pick it up. It was warm and firm, covering the whole palm of her hand. Its chest rose and fell frantically, its throat swelling and deflating, its beak still gaping. Naomi had laid the bird in the soft underbelly of the hedge outside her house so it had somewhere sheltered to recover. But when she returned no more than ten minutes later to check on it, the bird's eyes and mouth were closed, and it lay quietly where Naomi had placed it, in the soft green tendrils of the hedge.

Naomi tentatively shook the branches of the plant, hoping to wake the bird from sleep. The bird's head shook upon its shoulders with the movement of the plant beneath it. Its eyes remained closed, it stayed where it lay.

She had often wondered if Freddie had looked like that, the second before he died. Mouth and eyes opened in terror, chest heaving as he struggled to stay alive for just one more second.

Death seemed to follow her around, hounding her, banging at her windows. She was destructive. Freddie's death was the last clue that finally made her realise. She had started an inexorable chain of death and grief. And she was unable to protect anyone she loved from it. Emily, her first and only girlfriend, had tried to pull her together. Her words of comfort had dropped as heavy as stones. Naomi couldn't believe her, even if she wanted to. It wasn't the first time she had broken Emily's heart.

Her mother's (previously ridiculed) feminist campaign group had provided a welcome outlet for her frustration. Her youthful radicalism and angry energy had brought a refreshing lift to the group of earth-loving, aging hippies. But Naomi had taken it too far. She didn't believe in peaceful protests. Not anymore.

The rumbling chug of a dying engine permeated Naomi's thoughts, and she turned her head to see Kieran's car coughing and spluttering just beyond the barrier of the car park. Kieran was leant over a wound-down window, trying to shout something to the man in the booth over the noise of the engine.

Naomi stood up from the rail, slowly moving into the view line of the woman in the passenger seat, who sprung up immediately from out of the car and rushed towards her daughter, arms outstretched.

'Where the hell have you been?' Naomi demanded, shrugging off the chest-constricting hug her mother had enveloped her in.

'Sorry love, car trouble,' she answered, motioning to the beat up ford fiesta that sat rustily the other side of the barrier. Kieran waved at them from behind the steering wheel.

Naomi tried to roll her eyes, but instead felt them welling up with tears. She gripped her mum's hand as she walked them towards the car.

'Hello Naomi,' Kieran said in his warm, low voice as she packed herself into the back of the car. 'Fuck, is that all you've brought?' he asked.

'That's all I have,' she answered, looking at the bag, which looked sad and crumpled on the seat next to her.

'Okay then,' he said, turning his attention to the steering wheel, 'Off we go.'

The car jerked forwards violently before it agreed to reverse away from the barrier in front of it. Kieran swung the car round in a clumsy three-point turn and it trundled off in the direction of the main road.

Naomi turned to watch the tall walls of the prison get smaller and smaller as the car moved away. From here, it almost looked like you could climb them. The arrogance she had expected to feel was replaced with a sense of humble emotion, like kneeling for the dead.

Kieran stopped at a red light, and took the opportunity to look at Naomi in the rear view mirror. 'So, is it as bad as they say?' he asked.

'It's a bad as you make it,' Naomi answered simply, turning away from the back window to face the front again.

'I hear you made it pretty bad,' Kieran said, a cheeky grin peeking through his unkempt beard.

'Well I'm a trouble-maker,' Naomi allowed herself a small mischievous smile.

The light flashed amber then switched to green. Kieran's car lurched forward unpleasantly and the rumbling engine stopped abruptly. Kieran twisted the keys in the ignition, achieving nothing more than a throaty grumble from the car.

Kieran once again caught Naomi's eye in the rear-view mirror. 'Naomi,' he said as if propositioning a business deal, 'You've spent a good few months cooped up in a small space, how d'you fancy stretching your legs and helping your Mam give me a push?'


The kitchen smelled like home more than anywhere else in the house. Naomi breathed in lung-fulls of the familiar smell as she stood placidly at the table, leaning slightly on her knuckles.

'Good to be home is it?' Kieran asked, sitting down at the table and opening the paper.

Naomi looked at him, 'It marginally beats being in prison.' God, she thought, never thought I'd say that. She took another deep breath in through her nostrils. It smelt like soup and washing powder, toast, mildew and varnish.

'Sit down sweetie,' her mum instructed, 'I'll make you some tea.'

Naomi did as she was told. She slid her hand along the smooth oak of the kitchen table. It made her think about her hands, all the kinetic joints and stretching tendons that flexed and bowed to allow her to reach out and touch things. She heard the sound of the kettle clicking off the boil, and then the sound water splashing into a cup. She heard the hiss of steam rising.

'Mum,' she said suddenly, 'I was wondering if I could have my old job back?'

Gina paused mid-pour. She opened her mouth and closed it again.

Naomi waited expectantly for her response.

Gina opened her mouth again. She reminded Naomi briefly of her blackbird. And of Freddie. And of Sophia. 'Naomi, love,' Gina spoke eventually, sitting down next to her daughter. 'Me and Kieran were thinking-'

'Hey, leave me outta this,' came the gruff interjection.

'Okay I was thinking,' Gina corrected herself as the coward hid behind his newspaper, 'that maybe you should look for a job in a different ... erm ... field.'

Naomi blinked. Her previous job had been organising publicity and financing for her Mum's feminist campaign group. Actually, her initial job had been turning her Mum's weekly 'earth-power women' tea and gossiping session into a registered and active organisation. Naomi had suggested rebranding the group as 'The Nut-twister Sisters', but this was deemed too aggressive when put to the floor to vote. They had settled on the slightly more mundane but arguably more descriptive 'Women for Justice', and focused on closing the gender equality gap in areas such as employment, benefits, opportunities and sometimes reaching out into media and advertising if Naomi discovered something that particularly enraged her. She was good at her job. She was focused, decisive and passionate. And, more importantly, Naomi felt like she was doing something worthwhile. A feeling which, as she understood, was not very often experienced in an average cross-section of Britain's workforce.

'Seriously?' Naomi asked, 'Mum, come on, I'm really good! You need me.'

'Naomi, I'm afraid I can't ... after what happened-' Gina attempted to breach the tender subject of Naomi's reason for incarceration.

'Mum it was a protest. Sometimes ... that kind of thing just happens.'

'It was a demonstration. And a peaceful one at that, Naomi. Peaceful. Not some 1980's picket fence.'

Naomi rolled her eyes. 'You don't get anywhere being peaceful, mother.'

'Well, what about Ghandi? Nelson Mandela? Gok Wan?'

'Mum you're being ridiculous. And anyway, I've learned my lesson. Look at me, I've reflected and grown. Please?' Naomi pulled the face she knew her Mum had great difficulty denying.

'I'm sorry Naomi,' Gina said, 'As an employer I'm under strict instruction from the home-office not to let you have anything more to do with Women for Justice.'

Naomi's jaw dropped open. 'You're kidding!' Naomi's stood up abruptly, her chair legs screeching against the kitchen floor. 'I made that group what it is! If I'd left it up to you you'd be outside in a wigwam smoking pot and selling beads!'

Gina sighed, her expression longing and her eyes glazed.

'Kieran, back me up,' Naomi demanded of the Irish man.

Kieran looked awkwardly between the two women. 'I like beads,' he said, before becoming immediately engrossed in the fashion supplement that had slipped out of the paper. 'And they are in this season.'

'Fuck's sake,' Naomi said dramatically before storming out of the room. 'I don't believe this.'

'Well that went well I think,' Kieran said, peeking round the edge of the paper.

'Oh yes,' she agreed, 'Far better than I thought it would.'

...

Side note: I have no idea about cars and whether Kieran's was a ford fiesta. I just like the double-f sound :)