Fiona
Summary: Before Martha he had half the female population of London in his bed. But before that? Clive Reader wasn't always a player.
Disclaimer: We're working on it!
A.N
So Alice sent Anna a (quite lengthy) snippet of a random idea and Anna ran with it (putting it mildly). Then Alice wrote some more and Anna took liberties with it again. And suddenly it was 16,000 words and counting and had a life of its own. Our canons have got so diverse and complex these days and this one is a little bit different but we hope you enjoy!
We know it's a bit teasing to just post the prologue but Anna really wanted to post something on her birthday! And we promise there is lots more to come.
(Also, before we get messages about it - we've imaged they have a different office when they are younger!)
Sometimes Martha wondered if it was always going to come back to the woman Clive had loved before he loved her.
Clive said it wasn't like that. Clive said he'd fallen in love with her at twenty-three when they were drunk and pupils, it had just taken him more than a decade to figure it out.
But sometimes, on those nights when she had to extract him from what could easily escalate into something inappropriate with another girl half his age, when she dragged him home from the pub when she wasn't even sure either of them wanted her to, she didn't quite believe it.
It was a plea for attention, she knew that. The stupid man-child needed reassurance, needed her to hold him tighter and not go anywhere even as he pushed her away. It didn't make it any easier though.
She'd never expected to be the mature one in a relationship, the secure one, the one not spinning out of orbit in a crisis of confidence every couple of months. But somehow Clive's moments of panic had the opposite effect on her. Much as each ill-thought drinks invitation and overheard flirtation frustrated her, hurt her more often that not, it didn't change anything. It didn't make her question their relationship, if anything it made her more confident, more in control. If Clive wanted out he knew how to get that. It wasn't about that. It wasn't about her or them. It was about Fiona.