A/N: This is something I've been working on for a long time. It's a different kind of project for me, and it pushed me a bit because I wrote characters I haven't before. It was a fun challenge, and I hope you'll all like it. It's all done so the chapters will go up quick. I suppose if you want me to describe this, it's basically how I'd have written series 4 if I was in charge.

This chapter goes out to HyperFitched who's story 99 Problems is rocking my world (and you should all read if you haven't yet). I hope you'll like where this is headed, babe. :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Skins, but if I did, things might've gone a little like this...

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Katie

The stars twirl above her. Maybe it's just the alcohol and the drugs in her system, but she doesn't care. The patterns the sky is painting make it all worth it.

She likes staring at the stars, not that anybody besides Emily really knows that. Ever since they watched that meteor shower when they were five and she saw her first shooting star.

For now, lying here on her back, the twirling stars, the never-ending night sky stretching out before her, it's enough, it puts her restless mind temporarily at ease. For right now, it doesn't matter that everything's gone tits up, that her entire fucking world's changed...is still changing for that matter, and as far as she can tell it's fucking not for the better.

A star darts across the sky, a small blazing trail of white light millions of trillions of light-years away, no doubt, but she lets it carry away her burden, sends it packing off into the cosmos, and she lies back to watch the stars dance.

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Reality is like a bomb exploding around her. Or maybe more like a building being demolished, collapsing around her, foundation crumbling to dust. Her foundation's fucking crumbling to dust.

She'd like to say it started with a rock, but it started before that if she's honest with herself. Before college ever started and Effy Stonem entered her life. Before Naomi Campbell became a name she couldn't stand. Before Emily kissed a girl at a party.

If she's being honest, it started with her. It started with that first nagging doubt that she might not actually be in control of her own destiny, despite what her dad always told her. It started the first time she did something, not for her or for Ems, but for popularity, for style, for the sake of being cool.

It's a shite reason to do anything. She knows that now. Now it's too late. Now that 'being cool' isn't even a fucking option for her any more.

Now that there's a scar on her temple. Now that her own fucking sister, her twin for fuck's sake, has abandoned her for the sake of love (and she can't even begrudge her it because she's fucking happy and Katie'd give anything to be happy). Now that her dad's lost his gym (and their house in the process) and her mum's working two jobs just so they have a place to fucking put the caravan her dad managed to dredge up from somewhere, and they're still barely making ends meet.

Now that she's fucking barren, never to know the joy of having a child of her own, never to experience the miracle of creating life inside her.

Now that all of the dreams she had for the future have collapsed around her, demolished in the span of a day. Blasted by the bomb that is reality.

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She glares out at the sea, feeling the bitterly cold spray hit her cheeks as a wave slaps against the rock she's sitting on. Stupid fucking class trip. Who has class trips at this age? Fucking Doug and fucking Roundview, apparently. Class trips are for when you're ten, not eighteen. They're not for when you have so much fucking revision to do for subjects you probably won't even fucking pass anyway that you feel like you're drowning in it. That's what she thinks, anyway. God only knows how Doug thinks a trip to the beach is supposed to relax them at a time like this.

Emily and Naomi seem to be having a blast, regardless of the fact that the sky is grey and overcast and the water's fucking frigid. They're daring each other to run in and out of the surf or some shit. Love apparently makes you ridiculously stupid, not that she'd know from personal experience.

She feels her before she hears her, and she doesn't have to turn to know that Effy Stonem's settled beside her. She's the only one who seems to enjoy sneaking up on people like that.

She doesn't turn. She doesn't speak. She just continues to glare at the waves, gazing out to where the bleak water is swallowed by the grey fog on the horizon.

It's the hand on hers, where it sits pressing into the cold, hard rock, feeling the grit beneath it, that finally makes her react, because Effy Stonem does not have the fucking right to touch her, not after everything that's happened.

She snaps her hand away and clutches it protectively in her lap. "What the fuck?"

When Effy doesn't immediately respond she turns her glare on her, but of course she's met with that fucking intense, stunningly blue, seeing-right-through-her stare that only Effy can give, and it shakes her like it always does.

"Haven't you like got a boyfriend to go be happy and in love with? One you stole, perhaps? Or are you looking for someone else's to steal now you've had him for a bit?" Katie spits at her, but Effy doesn't move.

"I've heard it gets better," Effy finally volunteers, and it's so just fucking cryptic and off topic that Katie has to respond with a baffled and slightly annoyed, "What?"

Effy looks away and gestures generally out at the universe. "Everything, in theory."

"You don't actually believe that," Katie scoffs, because nobody is that naive, least of all Effy.

Effy shrugs.

"Has love fucking messed with your mind or something?"

Effy's eyes flash back to hers for a second, then out across the water once more. "Who said anything about love, Katie?"

"Isn't that like why you stole my fucking boyfriend?" Katie points out.

Effy's face is so hard to read, but Katie would swear that she detects the tiniest flinch in her features. Good, she thinks.

"What, isn't love good enough or something?" Katie prods, because against her better judgement she's fucking curious (and rather annoyed) now.

There's another infuriating shrug from Effy, and then, perhaps, the first honest words Effy's said to her in ages. "Nothing's ever perfect, you know?"

It cuts through her, much deeper than she thinks it reasonably should, until it's tearing into her heart. Maybe that's why she replies with, "I thought it could be."

Judging by the piercing gaze that's once again directed at her (or through her), she doesn't need to elaborate, and, God knows, she probably shouldn't, but her mouth keeps moving and her vocal chords keep vibrating so that words continue to escape her lips.

"I wanted the perfect boyfriend, the perfect marriage, perfect everything."

To her surprise, there's no smug smirk, no belittling look, no blow off from Effy at all. There's just a question asked in a genuine tone. "What's changed?"

The answer to that is far too simple, and far too painful. "Me."

Effy holds her gaze for a moment longer, then reaches in her top and produces a tin of cigarettes. She opens it and extracts one, producing a lighter from somewhere. She sparks up, cupping her hand around it to protect the flame from the wind. Wordlessly she inhales, then offers the cigarette to Katie.

She doesn't smoke, but, fuck it. What's the point in not, these days? She takes it and inhales, coughing embarrassingly.

Effy finally does smirk, then, shaking her head slightly before reaching up and touching Katie's chest. "You've got to breathe here."

"Fuck off," Katie mumbles, more because she feels she should than for any particular desire for it to happen (which is strange to think). She does as instructed, though, and the smoke goes in smoother this time. Just a single cough, which almost sounds like she's clearing her throat, instead.

"Better?" Effy asks, and again Katie can't help but be struck by the apparent sincerity of the question.

She can't for the life of her understand why Effy would suddenly give a fuck. She bites back a retort to that effect because, whether she understands it or not, Effy Stonem's being nice to her in a way she never used to be, and it's really not half bad sitting here with her, so she nods instead.

"Funny how you'll do lines of Uncle Keith's special concoction, but you don't smoke," Effy muses after a minute in which they just sit and smoke in a silence that Katie might almost call comfortable if it were with anyone else.

"Yeah, well, smoking only fucks you up in the long, slow, painful death kind of way, not in the making things not shite and having the room spin way. Hardly seems worth it," Katie replies.

"Until now," Effy says, and it almost sounds like a suggestion or a question, so Katie shrugs.

"I guess."

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They don't talk anymore, but Effy stays there, on the rock, beside her, even after the cigarette's done, the butt flicked out into a crashing wave that makes Katie think of the reprimand Naomi'd have given them if she'd seen. Fuck her, she thinks.

When Doug calls out that they're to head back to the bus, Effy stands first and offers Katie a hand. Katie only hesitates for a second before taking it. They climb off the rock side by side before Effy slips away silently and disappears amongst the other students.

Off to find Freddie, Katie thinks, surprised to find that there's no bitterness to her thoughts.

"Have fun sulking, Katiekins?" Naomi asks from her right, and she sighs.

"Naomi!" Emily scolds half-heartedly, but Katie sees through the act.

"Whatever. At least my sodding feet won't be frozen the whole ride back," Katie replies before walking purposefully away, ignoring the way that they turn to each other with those loved-up smiles and looks that say 'that may be so, but it was so fucking worth it'.

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She sits next to Panda on the bus because now that she's not with Thomas anymore and doesn't talk quite as much, she's actually half decent company. Even when she is prattling on about something or other like she is now, it serves to distract Katie from her thoughts enough that she can almost just settle back and enjoy the ride.

It's not until she glances idly up the aisle that she catches a familiar pair of stunningly blue eyes staring back at her from a few seats up and across the aisle. Effy offers her a small smile when their eyes meet, and Katie can't not notice that she's not sitting next to Freddie (or Cook, for that matter). It's not quite a genuine smile, but it's not really a smirk either, so maybe, Katie thinks, she'll just take it, and she offers a small, half-smile back of her own.

When Pandora catches her attention again, Katie can't ignore the thought in the back of her brain that suggests that even though this whole trip was fucking stupid, she feels, for whatever reason, marginally more relaxed and at ease.