"We alrigh'?" asked Finn.

"Yeah, we're alrigh'," Rae said, relieved they'd finally established that. The drama with Danny and Finn that night had been fucking exhausting; she was glad to be settling down for the night, free from anxiety. Well, nearly free.

Turning slightly, Rae glanced over to the empty expanse on her wall, where she'd ripped down the postcards in fury that afternoon. Though she'd spent the night attempting to distract her thoughts with the party and her friends (sitting here with Finn "Sex God" Nelson IN HER BED was certainly doing the trick), the truth about her dad's (no, mum's) letters had still been gnawing away quietly in the back of her mind. In some ways, she never wanted to see her mum's face again. In some ways, she couldn't wait for her to get back so she could destroy it. This secret was one thing that Rae refused to keep stored in her backpack full of bullshit; just carrying the fucking thing around was becoming overwhelming and she'd found herself needing to count to ten more than once that night. She needed to tell someone—the pressure felt like it was gonna suffocate her.

"What're ya thinkin' 'bout?" Finn asked, sensing the inner conflict from the pained expression on her face. Finn could always tell when something was bugging Rae; she'd get this strained, confused gaze in her eyes, like she couldn't decide where to look. His senses always seemed on edge when he was near her. From that day when she'd walked in the pub with Chloe, Finn had felt a buzz (unrelated to the snakebite he'd just downed), almost electric like, whenever he was in the same room as her. Even when he couldn't see her, he could just feel her there. It was like they shared some kind of weird radio signal no one else knew about; the closer he got to her, the stronger and clearer it was. He was almost positive she could feel it too. And, when they touched...fuckin' 'ell, it was like the electricity between them just exploded into a million tiny pieces—it tingled his entire body and made his skin all goosepimply. Jesus, he was turning into a soft sod. Sure, he'd been with other girls and he'd felt his body react to them—it's just that it usually was focused all in one anatomical area...

He can remember the first time they'd touched, the first time he'd really felt it. They were in Chloe's sauna during the party, talking about fuck knows what (his mind was elsewhere, as per usual). He felt himself spending way too much time glancing at Rae's thighs. He couldn't stop himself—it was like they begged to be looked at. Finn didn't know what it was that drew him to them—they didn't scare him or make him nervous. There was just this overwhelming urge in his fingers to touch them, to...caress them? Bollocks, he was starting to weird himself out now. But he felt like, if he could just touch them, he could...heal them, could get rid of that painful memory he'd seen plastered on Rae's face as she'd sat, frozen, on the slide that day. Luckily, before he'd even moved a finger, everyone had jumped up quickly, headed for the pool. He'd been awoken from his thoughts when, as she made to stand, Rae's leg had brushed his. It was only a graze, but enough to send an unexpected shock through his body—it was...unsettling. This powerful (but pleasant) jolt of energy, was something he'd only ever experienced after hearing a really stirring lyric. What was this girl doing to him?

"I'm thinkin' 'bout me mum," she responded quietly, unsure about whether or not she wanted to go on, to begin unloading the backpack of bullshit—it might feel…too good and she might not be able to stop once she started. Just then, though, she felt his soft, curious gaze on her face, and there was no helping it. When he'd protected her from those twats outside the chippy, he'd made her feel...safer, somehow, like she could trust him with nearly anything she was thinking (well, other than the ever-increasing horn-filled fantasies in which he starred), which was a right lot more than she could say for her mum, Chloe, or even Kester, at that point.

"I found out today she's been lying to me about me dad. For years."

"What'd she do?" Finn asked, concerned.

"Since I was a kid, after my annoyin' sod of a mum ran 'im outta the 'ouse, I'd get postcards in the mail from 'im—just two or three a year." Rae relaxed a bit. This was going alright. "At firs', it were just the Outer Hebrides, but then I'd get some from places like Glasgow, or Aberdeen...I use ta imagine 'e was a traveler."

She paused, remembering when she got the first few. Rae had felt like, in a way, no matter how few words were scribbled on the small card, that she was holding a piece of him. Like knowing he'd written them only a few days before and that he'd touched the same surface she was holding brought him closer to her. Sometimes, when her mom wasn't looking, she'd even sniff the card, searching, reaching for any possible scent of him—did he wear cologne? were his hands sweating while he wrote because he was excited or nervous? It was bollocks, she knew—but once, she swore she smelled hints of peppermint pipe tobacco. Maybe that's what the shop smelled like, the one where he'd bought the card. She liked to imagine him taking his time finding one with the most beautiful landscape and the most room on the back, to write as much as he could. Really, though—there wasn't a lot of room—he'd have had to choose only the best words for her. It was all a bit mad, she knew, but how else was she supposed to get to know him?

Maybe she wanted to feel special, she realized now, like she was worth his time and energy, that, even though he must be busy traversing the North, he was always thinking about her. At the beginning, after she'd gotten a card from him, she'd even written him back. Once, she'd spent working hours (in secret, of course—her mum would only ruin it) making a birthday card for him (when her dad was born—one of the only things her sodding excuse for a mother had told her about him), giving more effort than she'd ever given for any writing assignment at school. Being unaware of how mail actually worked, though, Rae dropped it off in a post box on her walk to school—she'd simply addressed it to "Dad," without even thinking where it was going or how it would get there. Bollocks, she really was a daft child.

After a while, she'd given up, upset that he didn't respond or thank her for the birthday card. Finally, she'd given in and asked her mum why he wasn't getting them (she just knew he'd have written back if he had). She'd said "well, we don't have his address, now do we, Rachel?" tensely. This had pissed her off to no end—her mum never wanted to talk about him, and now she wouldn't even proper answer a simple bloody question. Her dad was too scared to "step on her mum's toes," so she had clearly done something horrible. "Well, maybe if you didn't make 'im leave, I wouldn't have to write to 'im!" and stormed upstairs to her room.

"Was he?"

"Wha'?" Rae asked. Well, shit. she'd been sitting there like a twat, reminiscing away, whilst he laid there waiting for her to get to the point.

"Was he a traveler?"

"Oh—no, that's wha' I found out. Me mum was the one writing to me all that time. I found the spare cards in a box under 'er bed after I recognized her handwritin'." Okay, it wasn't that exactly that had made her begin the search, but she didn't want to embarrass herself all over again by telling him it was because she was a bloody idiot who didn't understand the most basic details of letter sending.

"Oh." Finn paused. "What 'id ya do?"

" 'ad this party to piss her off. It was the one rule she had when she left me 'ere alone—'No parties'," she mocked her mum, rolling her eyes.

Finn laughed lightly. He loved this side of Rae—one he'd been missing ever since he hugged her that day in the park, which , for some reason, made her treat him like a knobhead until now. She could be so caring, like earlier with his Nan, but knew just how to cheer him up by being her cheeky self. It seemed like Rae was always the one making everyone laugh; she could sense when someone was upset, and made an effort to cheer them up. It was so much of what held them together that he wondered how they'd gotten along before she became part of the gang. After the initial spark, this was one thing that really attracted him to her. 'Course, she could also be a complete knobhead, stubborn as hell. He supposed it must be some kind of defense mechanism. She wasn't too pleased about her situation at home, and it seemed to him to be difficult.

"Well, that was brave of ya." Finn paused before realizing Rae was staring at him with confusion. "I think...I mean, I dunno…what I woulda done if me mum or dad had...ya know..." Bollocks, why did he always sound like such a twat? He was supposed to be giving her a compliment, and here he was, stammering away like a bloody idiot. But, it was true—would he even have been able to make it through the past couple of months without them, whilst his Nan was in the hospital? Much as he hated to admit it, his parents, especially his dad, were a huge support to him during that time, and even though Chop—the poor fucker—had tried to be a good mate, he just wasn't all too graceful about it.

"Yeah, well..." Rae blushed, not knowing quite what to say, "I'm still proper pissed abou' it."

And she was…wasn't she? Rae would never admit it to anyone, but finding those postcards underneath her mum's bed had fucking hurt. It meant that she had to face the fact that she had actually trusted her mother all that time. If she couldn't trust her—the woman who was supposed to care most about her, underneath it all—could she really tell anyone anything?

Waves of panic had hit her all at once as she'd walked downstairs that afternoon. She couldn't process this—it was all just too… heavy. She just needed to focus, to keep her head above water, before she had another meltdown. Relax, she told herself, pausing on the last step. Just count to ten. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Slowly, the tightness in her chest lessened. The panic subsided, for then, but she felt the anger inside of her build stronger as she hurried to the kitchen. Adults will tell you to be honest, not to lie to anyone, but they're the biggest bullshitters of them all. Rae could forgive her mum for lying to everyone about "France." Bollocks, she could even forgive her for bringing a strange Tunisian into their house while she was gone. But this was her DAD.

The words—the ones on the back of each card that Rae had memorized—had instantly lost their meaning as she dropped them into the bin. She recognized each one as she let them go; the words were still there, but all the happiness attached to them shattered into pieces, until the anger blurred her memory of them. She loathed her mum at that moment, finding out that she had lied to her all that time, that she'd let her to act like a fool for TEN YEARS, that she'd given her false hope—what if she never meets her dad? did he even WANT to contact her?—but also because what, did her mum think she needed coddling and couldn't see past the bullshit? She wasn't five years old anymore, and it wasn't enough anymore—Rae wanted the truth.

"I mean, why does she 'ave to treat me like a child? I'm sixteen years old, for fuck's sake!"

Finn could understand Rae's anger—he'd felt it himself the past couple of months. With his Nan being ill, his parents had been stepping on eggshells around him, treating him like he was a child, like he couldn't handle the reality of it all. Finn had seen her in the hospital bed toward the end, after she'd had one of her "episodes"—a bad one, when she didn't recognize even him. But, he'd seen what the dementia had done to her; she hadn't been herself for a long time, so he knew it wasn't an attack on him, not really. He could handle her sickness, or understand it at least, but his mum and dad sure as hell didn't think so. They'd both tried to convince him not to visit her alone (like that was gonna fucking happen) and, when they insisted on going with him, his mum would pull him out of her room if they sensed anything was wrong.

He'd really been angry up until tonight. After getting the news, though, he supposed that they just didn't want him to remember her like that. His dad had said "I'm sorry, son, she's gone," but Finn had known for a while now that she had been gone; in a way, it had given him a chance to grieve her loss slowly over the past couple of months. The tears he'd cried earlier were partly out of sadness, but mostly out of relief that she wasn't suffering any more; the sobs that had taken over his body and reverberated into the hug with Rae were mostly waves of tension, anxiety, and pain being released, he realized now. He could finally let it all go—the fear of the unknown, the anxiety of constant chaos, and even the anger towards his parents. They weren't really ready for him to be grown up, to be okay with his Nan's sickness. They'd needed to feel like parents, to have something stable, to know they were doing something right in it all.

Returning to the present, Finn realized that Rae was still banging on about it.

"…She thinks I shouldn't be going out, even though she does every bloody night. If I can tolerate her having sex at top volume at four in the morning with some wanker she met like two days ago, I think I can handle pretty much anything," Rae said, anger and disgust flushing through her.

"Maybe she's just worried about ya," Finn suggested, trying to calm her down.

"She's ALWAYS saying she's worried about me. All she does is tell me what I can't do and what I shouldn't do, ever since I got back from the ho—" Shit. "—from France." Finn stared at her in confusion. Fuck. She had to tell him something. May as well keep the story the same, in case Chloe blabbed to him (she totally would). The last thing she needed to deal with right now was having the gang talk about her lies behind her back. "I was in an accident while I was there visiting my uncle, and she was all scared because she wasn't there to take me to the hospital and boss me around after." That was. Fucking. Close. Rae had started losing her grip. The bullshit was just crawling out of her backpack now, and she needed to reign some of it back in before it drowned her. She felt her chest tighten anxiously.

"An accident?" he asked, worried.

"Yeah, but I'm alrigh'. My uncle got the wors' of it."

The silence hung there for a few seconds, Finn obviously searching for what to say to this revelation.

Oh shit. Please don't ask me anything else. PLEASE. Rae didn't know if she could handle shoveling more bullshit into the backpack of lies.

"Rae?" he asked timidly, voice cracking.

"Yeah?" she answered, nervously.

"Is that where the…scars. The ones on your legs…?" The question hung in the air, unfinished, but Rae knew what he must be thinking.

"Yeah. It is." She paused, wondering if she should continue, before sensing that Finn wanted to continue the inquisition. "They really look worse than they feel, though. I'm alright…They're healing now." She answered, hugely relieved when she realized that he wasn't pressing further with the questions, but also feeling a sharp twinge of guilt deep in her stomach. She wasn't exactly sure why yet, but she was discovering that lying to Finn wasn't as easy as lying to Chloe or her mum.

He wasn't entirely sure he believed Rae's story—what kind of accident would leave those kinds of scars? He'd only seen them once, at Chloe's pool party, but the image was painted raw in his memory. They looked straight and deep, almost like they were made…deliberately. But, he'd sensed her discomfort as soon as he'd mentioned it—Rae's body had tensed up and he heard her breath stagger, like a painful memory had taken her by surprise. He had flashbacks to the scene in Chloe's pool, and the strong ache he had to comfort her, discouraging him from prodding any more.

"Good. I'm glad ya okay."

"Thanks, Finn."

They laid there, sides touching, mere centimeters of fabric separating skin from skin, but Finn felt Rae slipping away from him. He'd just broken down the huge wall that had been holding back the tension between them, but she was grabbing for more bricks. He couldn't let that happen; they'd come so far that night, from her plainly declaring that she didn't want to be his friend in the closet, to holding each other tightly, his tears and—bullocks, had he really cried that hard?—his snot all over the shoulder of her shirt. He suddenly felt warm, embarrassed about sharing not only his bodily fluids, but his anxiety and pain with her.

He'd never been so vulnerable, not even with his parents or his Nan, and didn't know if he could ever share that side of himself with anyone else. And she'd comforted him, hugged him. Now she'd opened up to him (even if it was considerably...drier, he thought, cringing again because he'd sobbed so hard that she'd had to change her shirt afterwards), and he needed to return it. No, he wanted to return it. Carefully pulling his left hand up out of the duvet cover, he put it slowly and gently on Rae's, hoping, despite the initial twitch of surprise he felt from her, that his touch gave her even one-tenth the comfort he'd felt from her earlier that night.

"Good. I'm glad ya okay."

"Thanks, Finn."

It seemed, for now at least, she could relax-Finn took her answer as sufficient. Bollocks, maybe she had given him twattish answers and he was afraid to ask more? Did he think she was a freak? Were her scars too much for him? The room felt as if it was shrinking...the air was starting to thicken. She couldn't keep lying to Finn; he could read it in her body language and expressions. And, besides, he'd been so open with her that night—she felt guilty not reciprocating by being honest with him.

Fuck, she needed to get out of there, to escape, before she had to make up more bullshit lies. She was about to get up—she needed to go to the bathroom to organize her thoughts, before the truth slipped out—when she felt a spark in her arm, skin touching hers. It was a hand. FINN'S hand. JESUSMARYANDJOSEPH. He. Was. Touching—nay, HOLDING—her hand. Rae laid there stiffly for a minute, using her other hand to pinch herself in the leg, doubting very much that this was really happening. "Ow!" she muttered.

"Y'alright?" Finn asked, clearly worried he'd hurt her somehow.

She nodded, too afraid to say anything just yet. But he'd pulled his hand away quickly when he heard her exclamation. She had to say (or do) something.

"Yeah. Perfect," she said, turning away, embarrassed, but smiling bashfully, relaxing her body once again and letting her fingers smoothly entwine with his when he returned his hand between the covers and found them.