Year One
The sound of his key turning in the lock causes her to place the letter she had been mulling over for the last couple of hours down onto the coffee table and sit up. She reaches for the bottle of wine she had gotten out earlier and pours herself a glass. She cradles it with both hands as she leans back into the sofa, her knees pulled up to her chest and head tilting backwards so that she can smile at Nick as he closes the door behind him, the rush of cold air he had brought in with him gone within an instant as he does so.
"I know, I know," she says before he has even so much as stepped into the room. "I look sexy, don't I?"
They have decided to ring in the new year alone, having rejected the offer of doing so with both of their respective families. Christmas with them had been quite enough, what with them having to deal with the overexcitable Platt children in the morning and the still unfamiliar Connors in the evening. Carla had rather forcefully rejected Michelle's invitation to the New Year's Eve party at the pub, knowing who would be in attendance. Carla would be lying if she was to say that she was used to having Johnny and Kate back in her life. Aidan is one thing, but their insistance on being involved in Underworld is quite another. It's been years since they were last in contact and the way they make assumptions about her and about her life and about her business as if they are in possession of all facts is really beginning to grate on Carla's nerves; she's sick of being treated the same as she was fifteen years previously, as if they don't believe she's grown as a person at all during their years of seperation.
So, she has instead opted to stay at home with Nick so that their evening can be as quiet and uneventful as they had originally planned for their Christmas to be.
Nick is thrown by her words because she has no idea how good she looks to him. (Or perhaps she does. Perhaps that's why she's smirking.) She is wearing what she has often dubbed as her comfy clothes. Her hair is scraped back into a bun neater than she'd probably intended it to be, makeup minimal and his clothes that she now deems as her own upon her body. As he steps closer to her, he notices that she is also wearing the Christmas socks he had bought her on a whim because he had known the giggle she'd emit when he presented them to her would be worth the pound they had cost him in money – and they so had been. He chuckles softly in remembrance of that moment, his heart swelling slightly at the fact that she has actually kept them.
"Very," he says in a low voice, leaning down to give her an upside down kiss.
She smiles as he pulls away from her and goes to remove his coat. It is thrown onto the couch opposite the one which Carla is sat upon and he is soon lounging next to her, pulling at his thick, woollen scarf.
"I've actually got something sexy on underneath this," she says to him. "So, Mr. Tilsley, if you play your cards right..."
References to gambling no longer sting her like they used to. Such words can even escape her own lips these days, as thoughtlessly as any other. She nudges his shoulder with her shoulder and he laughs.
"How long's left?" he asks, the scarf joining his coat on the other sofa.
A generic New Year celebration programme is playing quietly on the television they are sat in front of. It is obvious to Nick that Carla has only put it on because she feels it is what normal people do and she had not been joking in the slightest when she had vowed that that was what she could, and would, become.
"Just over three hours," she says.
He sighs heavily and he looks as tired as she feels after the hectic Christmas period they have both endured.
"What's up?" Her hands run up and down his arms as he roughly removes his tie, if only to allow himself to breathe. His jacket follows suit. The room feels rather hot compared to the cold street he had minutes ago been walking along.
"Oh, nothing. I've just had them going on at me all night for leaving early."
"Them?" She finds herself laughing at his annoyance because it's almost always exaggerated.
"Steph and Andy," he explains.
Carla tuts.
"Oh, they'll live. They'll still be each other's New Year snog. What's the problem?"
He laughs and she kisses him. She hums against his cold lips before she pulls away and lays her legs across his, snuggling into his side as she reaches for her wine glass.
"Here," she says. "Take a sip of this. You look like you need it."
He smiles at her and does as he is told.
"We'll have to share the glass unless you want to get up and get one out of the kitchen for yourself," she says, knowing that he won't. "But, of course, I don't mind drinking from the bottle if you don't want to share."
He mumbles into her hair something that sounds suspiciously like I love you. She closes her eyes and lays her head against his shoulder as he places the wine glass down onto the table. His fingers then find hers and they latch onto each other.
"I can't believe how quickly this year has passed," Nick thinks aloud.
"Me neither." Carla looks up at him. She can tell he's lost in thought.
"God. What a year it's been." She squeezes his hand, aware of where his thoughts have most probably taken him. "For both of us," he adds quietly, almost as an afterthought.
Carla sighs softly, leaning up to kiss his cheek. There has been so much lost in such a short space of time. She often feels she forgets this because of how far they have come since the future was destroyed and replaced with a new one that is, they realise now, no less happy. Just different.
They sit together in a reflective silence for a long moment before Carla speaks again.
"I've got something to tell you, actually."
Nick lifts his head up from where it had been resting against her own to meet her eyes.
"Oh. Really?"
She reluctantly pulls herself from his embrace and reaches for the letter that is on the side. Nick immediately recognises the emblem on the front of the envelope. He doesn't have to open it to know who the recipient is.
"Rob's written to you?"
Carla shakes her head.
"It's a visiting order," she explains. "One of many." Upon realising her mistake, she sighs. She has been receiving a letter from him once a week, like clockwork, for a while now. So far, she has done a good job of not letting them get to her, but she and Nick have been both so busy that she hasn't actually had the chance to talk to him about them. Despite him having moved in only a couple of weeks previously, this feels like the first time in a long time that they have had the chance to sit down together, alone, and just relax, instead of making the odd hour last as long as humanly possible in the company of one another. "Sorry. I did mean to tell you. It's just I don't feel like I've properly seen you in ages."
"I know." He exhales deeply. "We've been ridiculously busy recently."
Nick smiles down encouragingly at her, believing every word. Many wouldn't, but he knows she'd never purposefully keep something from him, as he wouldn't from her. They're far too bad at lying to one another to ever keep secrets.
"I don't know what to do," Carla admits, her voice quiet and not quite her own. "It's been over a year since his sentencing. He's served one year of twenty five. He's not gonna wanna see me for a nice little catch up, is he? He's in that place because of me."
"No. He's in that place because of what he did."
Nick is firm about that.
"Yeah. Well, you know what I mean." She shrugs him off. "It won't be a social visit, will it? He wants something from me. That much is obvious. I just don't what."
Nick can see how tormented she is about this. She worries a finger over her bottom lip and keeps her eyes directed at the telly, but she isn't paying attention to it. Her thoughts are elsewhere; as is she, so it seems.
"Are you gonna see him, do you think?" comes Nick's quiet question. He is stroking her hair in a bid to make her feel better. She leans further into him, her chin on his shoulder.
"I don't know, Nick," she replies. "But I know Rob. And he won't give up until I do."
"You're strong enough," he reminds her. Carla looks at him closely as he says this, her frown slight. "You're strong enough to do this on your own if you had to, but you don't have to because you've got me and I'm not letting you do this on your own. I couldn't."
Her whole body seems to sigh with what can only be described as complete and utter relief.
"I'm so glad I've got you. As awful as this past year has been, it's given me you. This. Us. I don't know what I'd be doing right now if it weren't for you. I'd probably be in some bar or casino somewhere, throwing my life away when I could just..." She goes quiet and it's like her breath is caught in her throat and she cannot find the words to say how she feels. The expression on her face becomes somewhat bashful as she shrugs, swallowing audibly. "Oh, I don't know."
Nick seems to hold her tighter at that.
"You are happy, aren't you?" She has to strain to hear him; his face is buried into her hair. "With me, I mean."
His self doubt makes her heart ache.
"Of course I am, you idiot." She nudges him with her foot and when they laugh, they exhale almost nothing but air. "I love you, don't I?"
His smile is brilliant and it only widens her own.
"Yes, you do." He laughs for a little while longer and then he becomes as serious as he always seems to be when he tells her how he feels. Because it matters. This matters more than most things and he never lets her forget that, not that she ever could. "As I love you."
She leans up and he leans down and they meet halfway for a lingering kiss they part from with an air of reluctance about them. Nick continues to run his fingers through her hair, which he has since removed from its bobble, as Carla reaches for the television remote.
"Hey," says Nick. "I thought you said we were having chocolate."
Carla raises an eyebrow. It had been a passing comment a number of days ago she had forgotten about until now.
"Chocolate? Really, Nicholas? That's what's made you come back here instead of staying at work?"
"The chocolate." She can feel his hands itching to touch her skin beneath her (or, rather, his) jumper. "And the promise of what's underneath this."
She giggles.
"Oi!" And then an odd thought occurs to her now that she is thinking of work, and the year before pops into her head, and she is saying, "Don't think I've forgotten exactly what you were doing this time last year, Tilsley."
He is speechless for a moment, his mouth opening and closing twice without any words coming out of it. She doesn't half catch him off guard sometimes. With a soft chuckle, he shakes his head at her pettiness. Carla simply smiles to herself and leans further into him.
"I've told you before and I'll tell you again. She isn't you. She was a bit of fun and you are—"
"Nick, if you're about to say what I think you're going to say, you can go back to the bistro now and leave me in peace."
He finishes his sentence off regardless.
"—a lot of fun," he says, which earns him a slap from Carla with the remote. A hard slap. He winces.
"Nick!" she groans.
"What?" He is laughing, rubbing at the 'injury' she has inflicted upon his chest.
"That is not the compliment you think it is!" she exclaims.
"Oh, isn't it?" he retorts, but his face soon softens and he is looking at her, really looking at her, in a way that forces her to be quiet and listen. "I mean it, Carla," he says softly. "You're more than just a bit of fun. You're..." He struggles to find the right word. "You're everything."
Such sentiment no longer has the ability to shock her. She is used to it now, but that does not make it any less lovely or valuable to her. Her lips graze his cheek.
"Everything?" she whispers.
The look on his face says it all.
"Yeah. Everything."