Hi! So I never write one-shots and I also never write fanfic's that aren't about South Park. My Fanfiction is usually for SP and my YouTube: TheCorrieClub is for Coronation Street. However, I have really wanted to write a one-shot for Narla for ages now. Might turn this into an actual fanfic, so let me know what you think!
My fear of candles was slowly dissipating. I had not dared put the fire on since it happened. Or burnt photos of Peter into the bin at the factory. Or swiped a match against the side of its box. But now as I sit here, his arm around me, I find the flickering candle rather therapeutic. I feel safe. I feel warm. I feel happy. Finally.
It was a month since I had stood on the edge of the cliff, staring down into the quarry. The quarry where I would go with Rob when we were no older than thirteen. Where we would play truth or dare, spin the bottle, which Paul would have brought with him after downing the contents of vodka. Throwing his arm around me despite the four year age gap. Holding my waist as I teetered closer to the edge. Whilst I was wishing it was Liam's arms instead of his.
Liam would look on, forever worried about me, forever biting his lip to conceal his jealousy of the fact that his brother got there first. His brother with the paper round, who actually earned twenty quid a week, which was more than could be said for most people on the estate. His brother who was in college, doing a course in business studies. Whilst he lazed his way through his last year of secondary school. Ink-stained school shirts, mud on his face, doodles of me in the back of his maths book.
Problem was, I didn't know this until it was too late.
Just like I didn't know it wasn't me who started the fire. It wasn't me who murdered two innocent victims. Luckily though, I learnt this before it was too late. Well, only just.
I am snapped back to reality once I feel Nick's lips pressed to my forehead. We were so close I felt as if he could probably read my mind. It wouldn't surprise me. We must have something pretty special for him to wait for me whilst I spiralled out of control, so close to pressing the self-destruct button. I knew that now, but when the words 'I love you' first escaped his lips, I hated him. Now, I needed them more than ever, they were what I depended on, they were what made me strong.
I had only ever said those three words to three people and meant it; Liam, Peter, Nick.
The others were just there to pass the time, to make people jealous and I'm not going to lie, if it wasn't for Paul's money I knew I wouldn't be sat here today. In fact if it wasn't for Paul I would have toppled off that quarry back when I was thirteen. Maybe that would have been a good thing. All the lives that wouldn't have been lost if I hadn't lived twenty seven years longer. But then again, Nick always told me that regrets are pointless.
"Do you want me to blow it out?" I hear his voice, soft and peaceful in my ear. It was clear I had been staring at the candle for far too long, not only because he has noticed my wistful look, but also because my eyes were putting on this colourful fireworks display whenever I shut my lids; an impact of looking at a bright light for far too long.
"No." I shake my head at him. "Sorry, I was just..."
"Thinking." He finished my sentence, placing another kiss on my forehead and then entwining my chestnut colour hair around his fingers. I nod slowly, sighing contently as his fingers tickle my scalp. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"It was just the past." I gulp at the thought and he nods in recognition. I had scarred him with enough stories of my life already, yet he had still stuck by me. Something I had never experienced before. Like I told him once, he had never given up on me and no one had ever done that. Not even Peter. Not even Liam.
"You're forever living in the past." He sighs and I knew what that meant. It was the exhale he did when he knew he couldn't help me, couldn't change what has already happened. "Do you ever think about the future."
"I've done that enough." I laugh, taking the hand that was resting in his lap and locking it with mine. "One day Carla you'll be away from the estate. You'll be married to a rich man, who can give you everything you've ever wanted. But more importantly, who you'll love more than life itself."
"And did you?" Nick asks, knowing I was talking about Paul, although he never knew him.
"No." I shake my head. "One day Carla you'll run away with his brother. Small house in the countryside... So unlike me. But it wouldn't matter, because we'd be together." I knew this was killing him as I spoke, his fingers pausing in my hair when I mentioned the word 'brother'. "But that didn't happen either... So then I decided to forget about the future. I never thought 'one day Carla you'll be raped by your fiancé' or 'one day Carla you'll almost be burnt alive in a factory by your husband' or 'one day Carla you'll be pregnant with an alcoholics baby'."
"But all those things did happen." He whispers, tilting his head to rest on mine.
"I know." I shiver slightly at the thought. "But do you know the only thing I ever dreamed of that did come true?"
"What?" He asks, I feel his hand stiffen slightly, anxious at what was coming next.
"One day Carla you'll be happy." I finally move my head upwards to meet his eyes. "That's the one thing that did come true."
He hesitates before moving in to gently kiss my lips, I see the confusion in his eyes as he works out what I was trying to say. Because I was happy. I was finally happy.
Once he had moved away again, I lean forward and begin to search in my bag for my purse. I pull it out, open it and find the image that I have kept in there since spring last year.
"What's that?" Nick frowns, as I slowly open the folded piece of photographic paper. I can hear his breath stop short in his throat once he sees what lies before him.
"She changed my life." I stroke my thumb carefully over the sonogram picture. The picture I had smiled and cried over so many times. "She made me who I am today. She made me realise what true love was. That I wasn't this hard hearted bitch, home-wrecker, alcoholic. I was changed when I was pregnant with her... And when I lost her. She made me realise everything I wanted. She made me know that when something fits, it fits. Like us."
His arm moves from my hair to pull me into a tighter cuddle, my head resting on his chest so that I can feel his heart beating slow and steady.
"You know how that feels." I whisper and he doesn't need to say anything in response. He had lost his baby earlier this year too and it had broken us both. "...But maybe it's fate."
"I think we've had enough of fate." He warns me, referring back to my gambling phase.
"Well then... Maybe I just wasn't cut out to be a mother." I sigh. "...I really loved her you know? If you'd had told me before hand that I was going to have a baby girl, I would have laughed in your face. But when I felt her growing inside of me... I wanted her more than anything."
"I know." He mumbles into my hair, kissing it softly.
"I really wanted to be a mother Nick." Tears begin to brim in my eyes now. Which was something I wasn't afraid of when I was with him.
"...You still could." He sighs and as he breathes softly into me, I smile ever so slightly at the thought. I still could.