This is sort of loosely set around the time of Series 9/Episode 16 - although elements may not make sense exactly at this timeframe; let's call it artistic license! Title song is "Magical Mystery Tour" by The Beatles - Beatles albums will feature a lot in this! Enjoy & review :) Aoife x

"And so, from this, what can we deduce about the relationship between Beatrice and Benedict?"

There was silence from Year 10 at this question - Nicki very much doubted that at least a third of the class had actually read the play, let alone made the notes she'd told them to - but, of course, being Nicki, she wasn't about to give up, was she?

It was a Friday in mid-April now, and spring's sunshine had finally broken through the grey clouds that had given the town of Greenock nothing but showers over the past few weeks. Eve was coming to stay with her for the weekend at her flat, and Nicki had been distracted all day - she never thought that she'd understand that "bond" between mother and daughter, but perhaps they were finally beginning to get there. In an odd way, it was almost like having a sister who she could talk to - when she'd broken up with Vix, she'd spent nearly three hours on the phone to her daughter, who'd informed her that she was "a bit mad, sometimes... well, actually, quite often," but that she loved her nonetheless.

"Liam, any ideas?" Nicki asked in sheer desperation, sighing as the boy almost jumped out of his skin when asked to provide any kind of answer, "Right, seeing as none of you have actually bothered to make notes, I suggest that you make them now, or in detention with me next week until you finish." she said, to groans from all her students, as she sat at her desk and took out the 18th birthday card she'd bought for Eve, along with her old navy fountain pen, and began to write, the nib of the pen scratching the card and leaving inky word trails;

"Eve,
Happy 18th Birthday, darling - have a fantastic day. Don't do anything I wouldn't do (that should leave you a fair bit of leeway) on your first "legal" night out." she wrote in her scrawly, looped handwriting, stopping dead as her class began to shout, standing up and pointing out the window; looks of horror etched on their faces.

"Oh my God, did you see that?"

"Miss! Miss! Someone's just been run over!" screamed a Year 10 who Nicki knew to be incredibly melodramatic - "run over", to her, was probably more like walking into a parked car - and so it was that Nicki sauntered lazily over to the window, one hand in the pocket of her dark jeans as her classroom descended into total chaos. Nothing could possibly have prepared her for the sight she was about to take in.

Squinting out of the scratched, battered window of her classroom, through the corridor and into the sunlight, she saw a body lying on the shadowy road outside the school, crumpled like a rag doll that Nicki remembered owning as a child. The body was that of a slender woman, with long, brunette hair which was blowing in the early summer breeze as she lay apparently face down on the road... and that was when the full horror of the situation occurred to her.

It was a long, drawn out Friday afternoon, and Simon was enjoying his free periods sat at his desk with a cup of tea and a large packet of biscuits which he'd pilfered from the staff room, when he heard shouts erupting behind him in Nicki's next door classroom. He got up, when the shouts didn't subside after a couple of seconds, and walked to the door of his classroom, poking his head out and almost being killed by Nicki running past the him full-pelt, her hair flying everywhere as she turned and leapt down the stairs three-at-a-time, jumping down the bottom five or so and sprinting off, the heels on her boots making it sound as if a herd of horses had been let loose in the corridors. Seconds later, he saw her sprinting across the playground at a frankly incredible speed, her long legs working to power her towards the road where, he suddenly realised, a woman lay like a rag doll on the tarmac.

He slammed his mug down on his rickety wooden desk and, biscuit-in-mouth, legged it along the corridor after Nicki, struggling to breathe through a mixture of half-eaten Chocolate Hobnob and his state of fitness. He ran through the doors and out to the playground in a fashion he imagined elephants might do, seeing Nicki now kneeling on the cold tarmac, her dark hair covering her face from view as she bent over the woman's body in the road. He realised that he now wasn't the only one running towards her - Hector had abandoned his PE lesson, and even Sue had left her class to see what was going on.

"It's her daughter," Hector, who had reached the two women a couple of seconds before the others, rubbing a hand over his face, "She's been hit by a car."

She's almost forgotten how beautiful her daughter's eyes are since the last time she saw her. They're a beautiful kaleidoscope, just like Stuart's, of emerald green and amber, with a dark rim to the iris where it meets the white. Eve's eyes flicker open as Nicki kneels to her, crying her daughter's name in anguish as she takes her cold, shaking hand. It's bony, like hers, with long, spindly fingers, but where Nicki's nails are cut short and given a quick coat of clear polish, Eve's are long and elegant; pointed, finished with a shiny scarlet varnish which contrasts against her pale skin.

"Mum."

It is a simple word - one which she hasn't had much of an opportunity to hear said to her by her own daughter - and one which carries the whole world with it. It tells her that Eve is desperate. That she needs someone to hold her. And it tells her that the someone she wants is her mother. Perhaps, then, it finally hits her that this beautiful, vulnerable girl lain before her is her own flesh and blood.

"It's okay, darling, I'm here." she whispers, vaguely aware of voices behind her, but more so of the pool of blood that is starting to collect beneath Eve's head on the tarmac of the cold, shadowed street; her dark hair, which she left down and natural in its waves for once, stained yet darker on the crown of her head by the scarlet.

She feels Eve squeeze her hand - she's felt that before, from soldiers who needed a distraction from their agony, but she can't bear to think of that now - amidst the sounds of someone telling her that an ambulance is on its way, and the tense, hushed murmurs of the few students who've managed to escape from their lessons to watch the occurrences. She wants to scream at them all that this isn't a freak show or a circus, but she is drained by the tears silently flowing down her face and onto the tarmac, mingling with the blood coming from Eve, who by this point is totally out of it as sirens begin to wail around them, and paramedics and police officers fill the road around them.