Disclaimer. I don't own Skins. Shocking, I know.

A/N I'm not going to be able to update anywhere near this quickly going forward, but wanted to move into the story proper sooner rather than later. I hope you enjoy.

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"God, you're beautiful."

The phrase escapes from Naomi's lips without volition, compelled by the sight before her and the way it – she – makes Naomi's heart pound and glow with warmth and just fucking ache with love.

This is Emily at her most pure; no adornments, no make-up or clothing to hide her perfection. She stands there, naked, with beads of water dripping down her face and chest, skin red from the heat of the water as she steps out of the shower. Naomi wishes that she could stay in this moment forever, but more pedestrian needs prevail. She hands a towel to the stunning redhead, having noticed the first rush of goose bumps flaring from the shock of the cold air against her silken skin.

Emily flashes her most brilliant smile. Naomi knows that it never gets old for Emily, hearing her girlfriend say things like that. But she also knows, because Emily has told her, that it is more the tone of the blonde's voice asnd the obvious attraction and desire it holds that causes such happiness for the sweet redhead. These reminders that Naomi really is past it - past holding back, past keeping Emily at bay, past hiding her feelings and the important events in her life as some sort of misguided defense mechanism - Emily lives for each one, Naomi knows, grasping hold of them and relishing them, always aware of just how much it means that Naomi trusts her like this. It is a gift, Emily thinks; the greatest gift ever. Ever since the shed – just a few short months ago - Emily promised them both never to forget just how much Naomi risks each day to give that gift to her, how much courage it still takes.

"You're biased."

Naomi takes in Emily's words, spoken in the voice she loves so much. Surprise, laughter and want all flicker across her face at the sound, followed closely by determination and raw desire, before she growls her response.

"Fucking right, I am. But you're still beautiful."

With that Naomi closes the scant distance between them, tugging the towel out and away from Emily before pulling her into a close embrace. Their lips touch, just lightly, a tease, before Naomi slips forward to whisper softly in Emily's ear, "I love you."

Emily's breath hitches at the words. She is overjoyed at hearing them fall so easily from Naomi's mouth. Naomi just grins at the reaction she has caused. And then she places her hands slowly, carefully, on her lover's hips, pulling them closer before her fingers trail languidly but oh-so-deliberately upwards along the skin she craves.

"I want you."

The words are almost lost as the blonde nuzzles her cheek into Emily's neck, reveling in the sheer joy of being able to do so. Emily pulls back slightly, reaching up to place a hand on Naomi's cheek, bringing them face to face, their eyes connecting once again. She scans between the gorgeous blues, as she often does now, looking for any hint of doubt, of insecurity, and when she finds none, she nods once, almost imperceptibly, before leaning in to capture Naomi's lips in a searing kiss, full of the desire for more.

"So take me."

A soft moan escapes Naomi's throat at the wanton invitation. She can feel Emily's warm skin under her hands, and dips her head to savour the sweet taste on her tongue, her teeth grazing not so softly across Emily's collar bone. Emily tenses at the contact and a small cry of pleasure escapes her lips. It is perfection, this moment, and full of promise.

Naomi moves them gently to the bed – their bed, in their home, finally and thank fuck – her need for more contact driving her forward. She hovers over Emily for just a moment, taking in every inch of the smaller girl, luxuriating in the sight of her. Naomi begins in earnest then, mapping Emily's body with her fingers and tongue, hitting all the spots she knows so well, bringing her lover ever higher as she does. Emily sighs and moans and shifts and falls apart under her touch over and over and Naomi cannot imagine anything she could ever want more than this. Just this. More and more and more of this.

As Emily finally collapses back against the bed, thoroughly sated and content, Naomi crawls up to lie beside her, curling herself around the woman she loves more than life, embracing her with both arms. She places a soft kiss just under Emily's left ear, and basks in the feeling of comfort and peace this always brings. It is perfect. Just fucking perfect.

The serenity of the moment is shattered by the blaring of an alarm. Naomi startles upwards, her arm lashing out blindly to stop the sound. Her head reels as she struggles to consciousness, all the while fighting to hold onto the peace that she had found.

She reaches out desparately, grasping for Emily, seeking her soft warmth and trying to pull her close. Her eyes search through a foggy haze. But her hands find only the cool, crisp sheets, and her eyes see only the emptiness on what will always be Emily's side of the bed.

"Fucking hell. Fucking, fucking, fucking hell. Not again."

The words drop off to a faint, broken whisper as she falls back into the bleak comfort of the bed, the sense of loss hitting her like a freight train all over again. They still take her by surprise, these mornings. After all this time she should be used to it. But 1287 mornings later and it still manages to sneak up on her, to knock her flat.

It was just a dream.

Just like all the other nights and all the other dreams. The remnants are so vivid that she can still feel Emily in her arms, can still hear the soft moans of her desire. She can smell and taste the tart flavour of her arousal, she would swear to it. The images come back to her in rush as she relives touching Emily, making her cum again and again, with her tongue and teeth and hands, even as she realizes that it isn't real. Emily isn't there, and hasn't been for more than 3 years.

She can't understand why her mind clings to the old memories so tenaciously, forcing her to live through waking up morning after morning still believing that she's snuggled warm in Emily's arms, only to face the shock - the heart-rending, stomach dropping shock - that she will never wake in Emily's arms again. Because Emily left. Again. And this time no amount of heart-felt words could fix it.

It's cruel, the way her mind plays these games in her sleep. It's just cruel. She should let it go. Somehow, she should find a way to move on. And yet… she doesn't. She hasn't. She can't.

But the world keeps turning regardless. Naomi's had her fair share of letting it pass her by, but these days she at least tries to make an effort. And so, as she lies there wrapped up in the warm blankets of her bed, she struggles to convince herself that it's worth getting up. It's not like her bed is a safe place for her these days anyway, and so, eventually, she does. The alternative is another lost day feeling sorry for herself and even she has lost patience with that after one (or 100 or 1000) too many of those days.

Her boss lost patience a lot sooner still. The only reason she still has a job at all is because she's so bloody good at it. But one more "sick" day and she's likely to be out on her ass instead of claiming the partnership prize that's currently dangling just out of reach.

So, instead of burrowing further under the blankets the way she wants to, Naomi dashes the nascent tears from her eyes, as pain and frustration war with determination and resolve for dominance over her actions. She slips her warm feet onto the cold floor and she shivers slightly in the chilly air, the only drawback she has ever found to sleeping naked. The shock of the cold is raw and uncomfortable, but still so much better than the shock of remembering. She shakes her head to try to make the memories fade (they never completely leave) as if they are simply fleeting ghosts that she can make disappear by sheer force of will. If only that were so.

Naomi walks slowly, gingerly, to the bathroom. She consciously avoids looking at her reflection in the mirror over the sink, preferring not to know just how tired and lost she looks this morning, and instead climbs slowly, deliberately into the shower, and gets on with getting ready for the day, pausing only to adjust the water before sliding under its rejuvenating force. This part of her day, at least, is easy, uncomplicated. Lather, rinse, repeat. Simple. Impossible to fuck up. Unlike almost everything else in her life

The bracing spray of the shower breaks her train of thought, thankfully, and Naomi can feel herself starting to wake up. Once she's clean and alert, the cobwebs banished from her mind, she starts thinking through her day as she dries off in the tiny space. It's mostly meetings; back to back check-ins and witness prep sessions for the various cases that will come to trial in the coming days and weeks. It's all old hat to her now, the thrill of her first days as a barrister long gone. But it pays the bills, and keeps her mind occupied, so she doesn't complain. At least not too much.

She's running late this morning so she dresses quickly. It's almost a stereotype, the "uniform" that she wears: Today it's black pinstripe trousers and a matching tailored jacket, crisply starched white button down shirt and black pumps. A person passing her on the street would probably be able to guess that she's a solicitor just from the outfit. Rather than taking the time to properly dry and style her hair into something more sophisticated, she opts for a messy ponytail, clipping her fringe back to keep it out of her eyes. Her hair is brown now, the platinum blonde look she used to love sacrificed to the god of a more "professional" image.

With no time to make breakfast at home, she grabs a muffin and black coffee to go from her favourite bakery. It's a quaint little hole in the wall just down the street from the apartment, all mismatched tables and chairs, and oddly coloured walls (lime green and fuchsia stand out the most). But it's bright and airy and comfortable. It's run by two women in their 60s, Casey and Sue, who've been together for more than three decades. Noami goes there for the great food and strong coffee, mostly. But she knows deep down that she also goes to be reminded that love can actually win; maybe not often, but sometimes. She needs that.

Hot black coffee clutched in her too cold hands, she walks the four blocks to her office while mentally running through her schedule for the rest of her day. Her meetings should wrap up by 5 p.m., and then… Well, then she has an appointment with a counselor at 6. Fuck.

Her doctor suggested months ago that she try talking to someone to deal with her increasing anxiety instead of immediately prescribing medication for it. Naomi's not one for taking pills - at least not the prescribed, legal kind - so she agreed, reluctantly. But then, as has somehow become normal for her, she procrastinated for weeks before actually doing something about it. She's never been one for therapy, thinking it wishy-washy and somehow a sign of weakness despite how open her mother has always been to the concept. But if she's honest with herself (and she is actually trying to be that more often these days), Naomi knows that she's perilously close to being chronically and clinically depressed, as well as overwhelmed by anxiety and stress, and is getting closer every day.

Even litigation, that forum for intellectual debate that she is so exceptionally good at, and used to love so much, now causes her more stress and apprehension than she can tolerate. Her life of long work days striving for partnership, fueled only by take away food and insufficient sleep is not really helpful in that regard. So, despite the many uncomfortable connotations that counseling holds for her, she's decided to just get over herself and to give it a try. It can't hurt, really, she thinks, and perhaps it might help. Something has to.

Still, the thought of the session – and god, she's going to have to find another name for it than that because "session" just makes her want to vomit – the very thought of it causes her stomach to clench and her brow to furrow. She hates the idea; flat out hates that she can't seem to handle what her life has become on her own, that she will have to talk about "feelings" and "emotions" and… Fuck. She just hates the whole thing. But she is resigned to it. Because something has to change and it seems like this is the only option she has left.

By the time she's completed her musings, she's arrived at the Clarkson building where she works. She waves hello to Jim, the quiet, unassuming security guard keeping watch over the front door, and flashes her name-tag credentials without really paying any attention to doing either. This has become so routine that she hardly notices any of it any more. She uses the tag again on the elevator control box to gain access to the 29th floor and the law offices of Jenkins Rawlins, the firm she has been with for her entire career so far.

She started there a few months after the break up, and she knows that's why she agreed to work there, at a firm whose philosophy is so different from her own. She was not quite herself at the time, and if she had been, she wouldn't have given the offer a second thought. But, it was the only offer she had then and it seemed like an easy solution to the crisis she was in. She thinks, once again, how she should probably start considering looking for a new job. But just the idea of the effort that would require exhausts her, and she files it away for another day.

The elevator doors open to the usual hustle and bustle and murmur of voices as she steps out of the car into the lush, well-appointed lobby. It is imposing, intentionally so, the firm wanting to make a good impression on clients and potential clients from the moment they arrive. The opulence is clear from the gleaming hardwood of the reception desk, to the silken marble tile underfoot, and the leather upholstery that encases the over-size chairs and sofas placed around the area with precision. She wonders sometimes if the clients realize that it is they who pay the bill for this luxury. The firm's billing rates could be so much lower, so much more manageable, if they offered comfortable but modest surroundings instead of enveloping themselves with richness at their clients' expense.

She shakes her head, realizing that her mother would be proud at the path her thoughts have taken this morning, but that they do nothing to help her reconcile herself to another day spent in service to this place and the partners who run it. For now, she needs to just buckle down and work. Philosophical debates about fair service for fair fees and access to justice for all will have to wait.

Hours later her assistant, Samantha, quietly places a sandwich under her nose, muttering a gentle, "You should eat something, Naomi," and she consumes it mindlessly as she continues to work, raising her eyes just long enough to say "thank you." She's lucky to have Sam, and she knows it. Sam is kind and efficient, a combination that is rare at Jenkins Rawlins. But, their interaction is fleeting. There's an endless pile of legal briefs and expert reports on her desk to plough through, as well as time to enter and invoices to check. The paperwork is never-ending, and always makes her shudder when she thinks of the number of trees that must have been killed to make the pages she goes through in the run of a day. She forces her thoughts back to the documents that she's reviewing, and tries to digest the key principles that they contain.

It's just another day in a long line of other days. Nothing to break the monotony or to give her hope that anything about her work will ever change. She feels like a cog, a nameless, faceless cog, churning out endless opinions and commentaries about subjects and issues about which she cares not one whit. This is not what she imagined when she studied law. She wanted to help people, real people with real problems, not companies that just want to save another pound or two or reduce their tax load or avoid liability for their actions. This is not what she imagined at all.

Nothing in her life is how she imagined it, really. Nothing is what she wants it to be. And if she's honest, really stripped-bare-honest, she knows that the only one who can change that is her. Intellectually, she knows. She really does. She knows that she needs to make changes, to stop punishing herself for losing Emily by letting her life drift this way. She knows that she did not actually do anything to deserve punishment at all, not this time. But knowing and doing and feeling are each such very different things.

At long last, Sam tucks her head in before heading home to tell her that it's 5 o'clock, which is a good thing as Naomi would have forgotten her evening appointment and missed it completely otherwise. They wish each other good night, and Sam leaves, closing the door once again behind her.

After a pause to gather herself, the young lawyer starts organizing her desk so that she won't have to arrive to a disaster area tomorrow. She can at least save herself from that. The piles don't seem any smaller despite the fact that she spent all afternoon trying to work through them. But it's been a relatively good day, all in all. Her clients are happy – at least no one yelled at her today - and she knows that she's making progress despite the lack of obvious visual confirmation. So, she grabs her coat and purse and heads towards the elevators once again.

As she walks, she briefly considers calling Cook, her best mate, her only mate really, to see if he'd join her for supper after her… appointment. But she knows that any time spent with him is likely to end up with drinks and probably drugs and dancing until closing time, followed by a ferocious hang-over. She absolutely has to work tomorrow so she elects to wait to call Cook until the weekend. Time enough to get trashed then, she reasons.

So, take away for one and bad reality t.v. until she's exhausted enough to have some chance of falling asleep despite the mocking of her cold, empty bed.

Just like last night. And many, many nights before.

But first, there is an hour of excruciating self-assessment and painful spewing of feelings about Emily - always and forever Emily - to get through. It's funny, now, to think that there was a time when an hour to talk about Emily was a welcome thing. God, how she wishes that time could come again.

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So, I did mention that there would be angst, right? Yeah, I thought so. But it will get cheerier… eventually.

Leave a review to let me know what you think, if you have a moment. And thanks for reading.