Heartlines

Fandom: Emmerdale

Pairing: Charity & Vanessa

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing games with them.

Summary: Vanessa has had a hell of a day at work so texts Charity to cancel their plans, so she can go to bed early. Charity has other ideas.

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Chapter 1

Vanessa slumped back into the driver's seat of her Volkswagen Beetle, feeling utterly boneless despite the fact it was only 16.52pm. She officially finished work in eight minutes, but she was sat, parked in the muddy drive of a cattle farm a whole forty-minute drive away from home, willing herself to find the energy to turn the engine on and get moving.

It had been a hell of a day. She had been on her way to a routine equine vaccination appointment at Veronica's stud farm in the morning when an emergency call out had come through. She'd spent over an hour trying to deliver a lamb which was being born out of season. It had been a minor miracle that it had survived but any sense of achievement had been quashed when she'd arrived at the stud farm an hour and a half late.

Even though Paddy had notified Veronica of the delay it had done nothing to soften the woman's mood especially as the miserable cow was still furious at her because of the way Charity took her to pieces before Christmas. That meant that throughout the entire process of vaccinating twelve mares and giving a further four pre-breeding health checks, Vanessa had taken an earful of bitching and moaning. Then Veronica had sprung two lame horses on her to check even though they hadn't been pre-booked in (one of whom was a VERY feisty three-year-old stallion). Vanessa really wanted to tell her to piss off, but she knew Paddy wanted her to make nice, so she bit her tongue and ploughed on.

The two young grooms had looked at her sympathetically, but no one had offered her a drink or any other curtesy. So, by the time she had left it was gone one in the afternoon and she hadn't had a hot drink since breakfast. She had drove about two minutes down the road from the stud, parked up and scoffed her sandwich and bottle of water in the car. That should have been the worse part of the day over. The only thing she had booked in other than some paperwork she had to catch up with was a canine surgery she was meant to assist Rhona with later in the afternoon. Unfortunately, that was not to be the case.

In fact, she had never made Rhona's surgery. Instead she had been called out to the cattle farm she was now parked at. It was in completely the other direction from the stud farm, so she had driven for just over an hour to get there to find they had a major medical emergency. Several of the herd had Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis; a highly infectious virus that had to be treated immediately. Vanessa had helped them isolate the obviously infected animals and then treated them with long lasting antibiotics and anti-inflammatory's. It had taken all afternoon and had been physically taxing and dirty work.

Vanessa closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh. She had text the sitter before she got in the car to let them know she wouldn't be picking Johnny up until six. Hopefully, by the time she'd fed and bathed him it would be his bed time. She felt bad for wanting to rush their evening together, but she really wanted an early night. The only problem was that Charity was meant to be coming around after her shift finished at eight and Vanessa doubted she would have the energy to even great her at the door never mind whatever else the other woman had planned. It pained her to do so, especially after they had only officially been girlfriends for a few days, but she was going to have to cancel. She picked her phone up off the dash and started to compose a text to Charity.

'So sorry babe but I am going to have to cancel tonight. Had the worst shift ever and don't think I will even be home till after 6. Come around tomorrow?'

Vanessa pressed send before putting the phone back down and turning the key in the ignition. If Charity was working, she wasn't likely to see the message straight away.

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Charity had just finished pulling a pint for Jimmy when her phone buzzed at the end of the bar. Chas, who was cleaning the bar, glanced over to the mobile and raised her eyebrows.

"Vanessa isn't at a gay bar again is she?" the brunette quipped.

Charity rolled her eyes at her cousin in response before casually strolling to the end of the bar. She picked up the phone and smiled when she was Ness' name on the screen. Her smile fell when she read the text though. She had been looking forward to tonight for three days; the last time they had spent time together. Charity had been on closing shifts since then and this was the first day she finished early enough to go around to the vets. It had been all planned in her head…they would have both already ate before 8.15pm but she was going to take a bottle of wine and desert with her and spend some quality time before taking the smaller woman to bed.

Charity had swapped the late shift for the early with Chas today and she doubted her cousin would do the same tomorrow as she had plans with Paddy. They were going for a meal and given all the unwanted pregnancy crap they were going through she couldn't ask them to postpone. That meant she wouldn't see Vanessa (other than a few brief moments over the bar) until Saturday unless she went around after 11.30pm tomorrow. If that was the case, then she was basically just turning up for sex and although that was all good and fun she had planned on them doing...girlfriend things.

"She hasn't dumped you already has she?" Chas asked from over her shoulder, making Charity jump slightly.

"What no?!" she exclaimed. Why did all her family members always presume she was going to mess up or fail at everything?

Chas took the phone out of her hand and read the message. A look of amusement and understanding fluttered across the brunette's face. Charity hated the fact her feelings for Vanessa had become so transparent because it made her so vulnerable. On the other hand, Chas had made several comments about how her relationship was improving her…perhaps she could use it to her advantage.

"Babe…?" she began to ask but Chas cut her off.

"Charity" the other woman whined, "It really would be nice if you actually finished a shift for once!"

She could tell that Chas was going to cave in from her half-hearted tone. Anyway, she'd done the lions share of her shift and it wasn't busy in the pub. There only needed to be two of them on now if it was full…it was mid-week, so all Chas would be doing was pulling a few pints.

"Please" Charity pleaded. "If I go around at six I can still spend some time with her…"

"Oh my god she's actually broken you" Chas cut in, raising her hand to stop Charity in her tracks.

Charity ignore the comment and kept eye contact with her cousin, waiting for her to break. Finally, Chas threw both hands up in the air in defeat. Charity's phone nearly flew out of her hand but luckily she just about held onto it before thrusting it back into Charity's own clutches.

"Go! Go on! Before I change my mind" Chas said with a chuckle.

Charity didn't need telling twice.

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Vanessa pulled up outside her house and parked up. It had just before six when she had picked Johnny up and it was now ten minutes past six. He wasn't in the best of moods, probably because he'd have normally been fed by now. The fact she stank of cattle despite the fact she had changed out of her overalls might be a factor too. She got out of the car and got him out of the car seat on the back-passenger's side. It wasn't until she closed the door that she noticed that the downstairs lights in her house seemed to be on even though she could have sworn she'd turned everything off this morning.

Obviously she hadn't, and she pushed it to the back of her mind whilst she struggled to the front door with toddler and his day bag in hand. It took three attempts to get the key in the lock and open the door. As soon as the door was open she realised that something strange was going on. Someone was in the house because there was music faintly playing and the scents of cooking food wafting from the kitchen. It didn't feel very threatening though…what thief made dinner for you? So, she headed through into the kitchen to find a familiar mane of blonde hair in the process of putting Johnny's dinner into a bowl. She put Johnny's bag down on the floor, the dull thud catching Charity's attention.

"Hey babe" Charity greeted cheerfully.

"How did you…?" Vanessa stuttered.

She had been pretty drunk the other night, but she was certain she hadn't given Charity a key to her place.

"I may have picked the lock" Charity admitted sheepishly.

Vanessa looked at the other woman, mouth slightly agape. She probably shouldn't be shocked that Charity possessed that skill, she was a Dingle after all.

"I erm…Marlon gave me some lasagne to heat for us which will take another twenty minutes. I thought I could feed Johnny whilst you get a shower…we'll eat, put him to bed…I could give you a back massage…get an early night."

The words spilled out of Charity's mouth at rapid speed, indicating the taller woman was nervous despite the confident front she tried to put on. It would have been easy for Charity to just shrug her message off and leave it another day or two to spend time together. Instead she had gone out of her way to try and make Vanessa's evening easier and improve what had been a terrible day. The vet was really touched by her actions…and only Charity could pass what was technically a criminal act off as sweet. Then it dawned on her that her girlfriend was still meant to be behind the bar working.

"Oh my god you didn't skip out on Chas again did you? She's going to start hating me!" she exclaimed.

Vanessa had wanted Charity to be jealous on the night she had gone with Robert and co to the gay bar. She had even hoped Charity would be able to join them at some point in the night. She hadn't expected the other woman to run out of work without her cousin's agreement. It had made her giddy at the time, but she didn't really fancy being the focus of Chas' wrath.

"I got permission this time I swear" Charity assured her.

"Anyway, hand him over" the taller blonde instructed, gesturing towards the toddler Vanessa still held in her arms.

The vet carried Johnny across the kitchen and placed him into Charity's open arms. Her son and her new girlfriend hadn't spent much time with her other than the odd few minutes in the morning if Charity was still around when he woke up. He seemed quite taken with the other woman though on those occasions.

As she handed him over she stretched up and pressed an affectionate peck to the taller woman's lips. Charity initially tilted her hear head and eagerly met the kiss but then pulled back with a poorly disguised look of disgust.

"I smell of cow I know" Vanessa apologised, "I'll go shower."

The Woolpack's landlady let out a low laugh and nodded her head in agreement.

"I wasn't going to say anything but yeah babe…go shower" Charity instructed.

Vanessa rolled her eyes before turning away to head off up the stairs. She was still tired, but she didn't feel anywhere near as drained as she had before entering the house. After a nice warm shower and a meal hopefully, she'd have enough energy to curl up with her girlfriend for a bit.

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