So now for something a little different... Kate has been stalking my head all week and I think this is the story she wanted to tell.

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Girls Like You

Jed bounded up the stairs two at a time, enjoying the energy bounce a session at the gym had given him and knowing that he had the rest of the day to himself to explore some of the more secluded areas of the old asylum. He crossed the hall and headed down the corridor to the flat he shared with Kate and the others, wondering momentarily if his cousin would be in. He had last seen her about thirty minutes before when she had been chatting to a woman who lived in one of the newly sold apartments. It had bemused him at the time how overfriendly Kate had been with this Maria, patting her on the arm and joking with her in a very false sort of way that had sat uncomfortably with him. He recalled thinking that she had been trying far too hard to be nice and where Kate was concerned he was certain that was never a good thing, as it was always accompanied by an ulterior motive, a skill she had no doubt learned from her father.

Jed heard the commotion before he saw it, the sound of women shouting drawing his attention and causing him to run towards the noise. He rounded the corner to spy his cousin standing in the doorway to her flat, looking unapologetically bored as her gym companion shouted and gesticulated wildly, as if her life depended on it.

"What did I ever do to you?" Maria screamed, stepping forward into Kate's personal space and Jed noticed a flash of something cross his cousin's eyes. "You make friends with me knowing that you're already screwing my husband. Was it not bad enough that he was cheating on me without you setting out to humiliate me as well?" she shouted into her rival's face, a face which had remained deadpanned throughout.

"Well if you can't keep him on a short enough leash," Kate responded tersely, a small smirk dancing across her lips as she spoke. "Then don't go complaining to me when he decides to look elsewhere. I mean, he obviously wasn't getting what he needed in your bed or he wouldn't have been in mine," she added. "Not that we ever made it to the bed of course."

The resounding crack of the slap that snapped Kate's head sideways as Maria's hand connected loudly with her cheek forced Jed into action, as he ran to separate the women before Kate could do her utmost to claw out some of her assailants hair. He pulled the Maria off his cousin, shooting Kate a warning shot with his eyes as she stepped forward to continue the battle before forcing the woman, who moments before had been attempting to rip his cousin into two, down the corridor away from the flat.

"Go home," he ordered simply, his voice low and emotionless. "You may think your fight is with her, but you need to speak to Sean," he continued quietly.

"You knew?" the woman answered incredulously, freeing herself from Jed's grasp and staring at him aghast. "You knew she was sleeping with my husband and you said nothing? What is wrong with you people? You're all twisted," she shouted as she strode off purposefully in the direction of her own flat.

Jed watched her leave momentarily, enjoying the brief respite of silence that had encompassed the space. He turned slowly back towards the flat door and observed Kate straightening her hair and pulling down the top which had been disturbed in the brief moment of physicality that had occurred. Her face was expressionless, except for a raised eyebrow reflecting some sort of disbelief at what had just taken place he assumed and as she caught him staring, she smiled back sweetly as if she had not just been caught out having had an affair with a married neighbour mere seconds before.

Jed stalked past her, knocking her slightly as she refused to budge to allow him easy entry through the door. On reaching the living room he threw his gym bag onto the sofa before halting, facing away from his cousin and considering the events he had just witnessed.

"I told you this would happen," he started, "But did you listen?"

"It's not my fault he isn't getting what he wants at home," Kate answered from behind him without hesitation.

"Do you not care that she was upset?" Jed asked angrily, turning to face the woman who had moved to stand just a few feet away from him. On seeing her lack of reaction, he shook his head in despair. "Don't you care how awkward things are going to be now? You live in the same building Kate, you're going to have to see them every day."

"I know," she replied, staring him out and obviously not at all perturbed by the potential weirdness of that situation. "They can leave if she doesn't like it," she added coldly before heading over to the kitchen and busying herself putting away the morning's washing up.

"This has happened before hasn't it?" Jed questioned, it suddenly dawning on him why Kate did not seem the least bit bothered by how difficult this situation could become. She glanced up and met his gaze before returning to the task at hand, with her lack of rejection of the suggestion he had made the only answer he required. "What sort of business are you running here?" he enquired disdainfully. "A property business selling apartments or a knocking shop for married men to hook up with single girls?" he added, recognising the vicious cut of his tone. "Or should I say one single girl. I mean, does your dad know the reason you aren't selling the flats has nothing to do with the building and everything to do with you being a whore?"

"How dare you," Kate shouted, her face flushed with anger as she stormed across the room towards him. "You have no idea."

"What?" Jed butted in, knowing that he was baiting her with his questions. "You're going to try and convince me you're not just selling apartments to attractive married guys you can tempt into bed?"

He reacted faster than she was able to, so as Kate attempted to raise her hand towards him he grabbed her wrists and held them tightly in his grasp. She attempted to wriggle free but that just triggered Jed to pull her closer towards him until eventually she stopped struggling.

"Don't pretend you're a saint Jed," she hissed. "We both know that a ring on someone's finger wouldn't stop you from going there."

"No, it wouldn't," he responded honestly, keeping his voice flat. "But there would be one significant difference."

"Go on then, surprise me," she retorted, her tone sarcastic.

"If I went there, it would be because I fell for someone," Jed replied, staring straight into his adopted cousin's eyes and sensing the raw emotion that was etched across her face. "I'd never do it just for kicks and I would never, ever, rub it in their other half's face like I was proud of it," he continued, biting back his desperate need to hold Kate in closer to him.

"We both know you're only so bloody angry because you're jealous," Kate shouted, her warm breath dancing across his face as the volume of her words increased. "It wouldn't matter if it was Sean, or any other man, because they got to touch what you can never have. And what you hate the most is that I enjoyed every single minute of it."

"I'm not jealous Kate, I'm disgusted," Jed retorted, as a strong wave of anger overtook him. "There are words for girls like you," he snapped, letting go of her wrists and stepping past in her in one movement, heading into his room before closing the door and leaving her standing there alone.

He sat on the bed and removed his T-Shirt, realising that he needed to change and head over to the bar if he wanted to meet Ryan and Molly as agreed. He was concerned that he could hear no sound from the remainder of the flat and considered that Kate had perhaps gone out until he heard the door handle creek as she entered his room.

"I'm not the person you think I am," she stated sharply.

"No, you're exactly what I think you are," Jed snapped. "You're just like your dad, you just take, take, take. What is it with you Bettany's? Why don't you ever consider anyone else?"

"You're a Bettany too," Kate answered quietly, her voice almost inaudible. "And you barely know me anymore. You think you do, but you have no idea," she concluded, as she moved to sit beside him on the bed.

"I know I've not been around much," Jed answered, staring straight ahead. "Your dad saw to that," he added harshly. "But what happened to my little Katie? The girl who used to make me laugh, the girl who used to be my shadow. It's like she has completely disappeared."

"She grew up," Kate responded, in a tone which he had to admit sounded resigned to her situation. "You were gone and she grew up."

"Into what though Kate?" Jed asked intently, turning himself round to study her. "When was the last time that it was more than no strings sex? When was the last time you woke up beside someone the next morning?"

He watched with interest as she fidgeted beside him, apparently uncomfortable with the question. He reached his fingers out to tip her chin up towards him and could have sworn that there were the briefest hints of moisture beginning to form underneath her eyes. Her reaction intrigued him, because he was certain that in his absence Kate had never been short of male company and yet her expression appeared to give away that perhaps the last man she had woken up beside had been him, all those years before when they had crossed the line from family into lovers and he had been her first.

"Kate, you could have almost any man you wanted, you're beautiful," he explained softly, trying to bring their conversation down a few notches. "I don't understand why you would run after men like Sean who won't ever be yours," he continued simply. "Why keep putting yourself through the same thing over and over? It's almost as if you want to get hurt," he concluded, looking at her questioningly, as he tried to establish quite what it was that had damaged the girl he had long since accepted he loved in a way a cousin, adopted or otherwise, should not.

"You went away," Kate responded shyly, brushing his fingertips from her face and glancing away, as if she could no longer bear to look at him and as if those three words should explain everything he needed to know. In that instant Jed found himself seeing that despite all the people that surrounded her, Kate could quite easily be the loneliest girl in his world.

He reached out his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer in spite of her attempt to put up what seemed to be just the hint of a struggle as she ended up buried into him. Jed felt her hair tickle the skin on his chest as it splayed out, and manoeuvred himself so that her head was tucked comfortably under his chin. For a number of minutes they sat intertwined in silence, seeking solace in each other's touch, before Kate shifted underneath him and Jed moved to hold her slightly away from his body so that he could study her face.

There was something so haunted about her eyes that it took his breath away, as he reached out to stroke her cheek gently. Kate bowed into his touch, her eyes closing in peace for the first time he could recall since he had returned and he watched the slight flicker of a smile cross her lips momentarily. As she opened her eyes, Jed found himself drowning in her gaze and instinctively leant forwards, capturing her lips ever so softly with his own and kissing her with an intensity that he was certain he had not experienced since he had lain her down beside her on her sixteenth birthday, taking away her innocence as they connected in an unbreakable bond. He felt Kate's hand on his chest as she steadied herself against the kiss, knowing that this moment had been what was missing from his own life for all the years he was isolated in institutions on the insistence of the man who had been adamant his relationship with Kate would corrupt her. Jed tried to push his mind from reflecting on the irony of that, given it would appear that it had been his absence that had sent Kate down such a provocative path, so instead focused on the slightly cherry taste of her lipstick and how her hair felt as he scrunched his fingers roughly into it.

Jed felt something shift between them as the passion heightened and he succumbed from resisting escalating the situation further, as he felt both of their breaths quicken and her heart pound against his bare skin. However as he started to move to allow himself to pull her down on the bed next to him, he felt Kate stiffen in his embrace and her eyes shoot open in fear. Without warning or word she rapidly pulled herself from his arms, standing up and backing away from the bed as if her life depended on it. He observed as she glanced down at her watch, fiddling with it as if she wasn't sure what next to do.

"I've got to go," Kate stated matter-of-factly, as if there was nothing extraordinary about what had just taken place. "I've a client to see in five minutes, he wants to buy an apartment," she added emotionlessly. "He's young, married, good looking," she continued, her tone managing to be simultaneously cold and blunt. "The perfect client, I'll get a very good deal," she ended, before turning on heel to exit the room.

"Kate," Jed called after her, causing her to turn and him to witness the slightly pained look upon her face. "You don't have to do this you know," he explained simply. "You don't have to be this girl."

"It's too late, you're too late," Kate answered simply.

Jed watched her leave, despairing at how close he had come to getting all he wanted and yet how somehow he had ended up worsening the situation to the point where he was sure she would no longer open up to him. He knew that Kate hated to admit her vulnerability, a symptom of having a mother who left her when she was small he had assumed, and it had been to save her from feeling alone that he had smothered her with kisses and shown her what love meant to him on the night of her sixteenth. The fact that Warren had walked in on them not long after they woke up wrapped around each other the next morning had been a deciding factor in Jed's own subsequent incarceration but whilst he knew that it was he who had been locked away, he couldn't help but feel it was Kate who had been lost in the darkness.

She was always the one who came across as super confident, sassy and sexy, unafraid to speak her own mind and feisty as hell, but as Jed heard the door click closed, he knew that the Kate the world saw was an elaborate front for the little girl he just witnessed admit she had missed him when he was gone. Jed considered that the girl he loved was about to flirt her way into yet another apartment sale, and whilst she was at it, someone else's bed and yet he couldn't help but acknowledge that as much as Kate was good at putting on a show, he had spent the last years of his life living in a hospital full of girls like her, damaged, vulnerable and lost. Jed reflected that the trouble with Kate was that she was as unwilling to be saved as he was incapable of saving her, and he felt himself physically wince that he was going to continue to bear witness to the girl he adored destroying herself over and over again.

If you enjoyed, please review. Many thanks x