Disclaimer: Skins doesn't belong to me, anyone fancy kidnapping JB and Bryan Elsley so that I can? ;-)

Author Note: Thank you everyone all over again for the fantastic and beautiful reviews, you lot really do make writing worth it. If anyone is wondering about my sort of abandoned fics, they will get written, I just need to finish this job and hopefully I'll get back on track. In the meantime, enjoy this chapter and I hope you'll review! :-D They really make me grin like a Cheshire cat!

It Ends Tonight; Three

'Lies will lock you up with truth the only key.'

The song played out loud across the room and Emily couldn't move until it was over. She'd lied to a lot of people, told them things they wanted to know to make them feel better, yet never contributing to her own need for happiness. Who were they to know any different? They trusted her word, her kind and sensitive nature a reason that nobody ever questioned her. She was the truthful one. Which made it so much harder to face her crimes. Gina didn't deserve it, in fact she deserved it the least of all.

'That was Missy Higgins with The Special Two and before that,' the radio host began, cut short when Emily flicked the power switch. She didn't like music anymore, it got under her skin, sought out the truth when all she wanted to do was hide under a rock and pretend that this, life, wasn't happening.

I'm not deserving of your trust for me right now.

The song replayed in her mind. Lies. She was full of lies that consumed her. She didn't want them anymore, wished there was a way to remove them from her life without fucking things up further. Her parents, her friends, her fucking twin sister. Nobody knew and she didn't know how to tell them.

'Mother's Day dinner is at the Harlow Hotel at 8' Katie's message announced when Emily read it. She'd received it hours ago, when she was still having tea with Gina.

Guilty. She felt guilty. She didn't lie, she never used to lie. She kept her sexuality under wraps, but not to hurt anyone, not to pretend to be something she wasn't. She just needed to find out who she was before she could start telling the world. It was different then, so much easier.

'Can't come, sorry,' was her response, two hours later than it should have been. She couldn't go. As much as she missed her sister and her judgemental mother. They still mattered to her.

'What the fuck Ems, it's Mother's Day.'

She didn't reply.

Her bed was warm, the blankets wrapped around her in a cocoon, protecting her from the outside world. Her room, her tiny little room barely bigger than a shoebox was all she had. The evening drew in, darkness outside her small window until her phone began ringing. Messages, calls, all from the same two phones. She stared at her sister's name, at her mother's, wishing that things could be different. Simple. But simple had gone away, vanished with age and life's circumstances.

'Fucking hell,' Emily called out, her dozed state disrupted by a low but very loud beat coming from the room next door. She lay there for a while, covering her head with her pillow, attempting to block out the deafening sounds. Impossible. In the end she climbed out of her cocoon, wrapped a jacket around her shoulders and braved the cold night air.

She tried to feel lucky, that she'd found somewhere to go. Even if it was college accommodation and she had to pay to do a stupid computer course just to get it. But as she wandered down the streets of Bristol she knew there were people worse off. The man who stood on the corner of her street every night begging passers by for money. She used to hate people like that, her mother always told her they used the money for drugs. He didn't look like a drug addict. So when she passed him she handed over a five pound note. When she reached McDonalds she ordered a Big Mac, a large meal to fill her up for the next day at least.

'Four pounds sixty,' the teenager at the counter asked. She recognised him from college, he'd been in the year below and always spat on the street. He repulsed her. She dug a hand into her pocket, fishing around for all of her loose change which seemed to add up to just two pounds twelve pence. Her heart sank.

'I think I'll have a Happy Meal instead,' she muttered, shame covering her face in a coating of red.

'What kind?' the lad, who she remembered as being called Chris, asked with little feeling.

She completed her order, carried the little cardboard box down the street until she was back in the safety of her room. The music hadn't stemmed, in fact it had grown louder. She ate quickly, ended up leaving half of the straggly chips, before curling back up in bed with the hope of sleeping.

*

Thankfully she managed to sleep through the night, a task that only rarely seemed possible. She'd spoken to Gina about her insomnia, only because she suffered from it too. Once in a while she felt herself too wired to ever fall asleep, she'd text Gina and she'd sit in the Campbell kitchen all night playing dominoes and being taught how to play Poker and Gin Rummy. It filled the void, stopped her growing bored when she ran out of library books. She considered going to the doctor but as she'd discussed multiple times with Gina, they looked at all the other options before handing out drugs. Those options, she imagined, wouldn't include ways to stop the inconsiderate hallmates who liked to stay up all night with music blaring or their voices at a volume children were told off for when they where indoors. It was rare that Emily slept when the music was playing, but after almost two weeks with only a few hours sleep, she knew it had warn her down.

'Gina, are you at home?' Emily asked the mobile phone in her hand, awaiting the answer she didn't really want.

Monday morning usually brought loneliness. Gina worked all day and her computer course didn't start until the early evening. So she went to the college library, filed through the books until she found a couple actually worth reading. She exchanged books faster than some people changed their underwear and on a really bad week, faster than she could clean her own clothes. She was never late with books, she couldn't afford to be.

When she got out of the library the sun was shining. It was colder than she expected in the shade but under the sun's rays and the bright blue sky, it could almost be summer. She hung around the college and cracked open her first book. It was a novel about a woman who had an affair because her life became tiresome. Only the affair had reached the same point. It seemed mildly interesting and though she got through the first few pages, her green fingers were itching. March was a month she usually dedicated her free time to her parent's garden and the nice weather only spurred her on further. But they no longer had a nice garden, or a garden at all. After her dad lost his gym, they also lost the house. They now lived in a pokey flat that she didn't even visit, at least not often. She walked away from the college when a group of new students took up residence not far from her. They played music on their mobile phones and talked so loud that she couldn't focus on reading the words on the page even if she tried.

It was only by accident that she found herself on the other side of town, her feet a little tired and her fingers still fighting her for attention. She looked up from the pavement at the small, yellow house whose only current inhabitant was out all day. A couple of months ago, when she'd 'arrived home', Gina had given her a key. She knew it was for Gina's benefit as much as her own, so she let herself in. The radio was blaring in the kitchen, which made Emily laugh.

'All about global warming, but can't turn off a bloody radio,' she muttered, filling herself a glass with water and carrying it out into the garden. She placed her glass on a small table that somehow maintained its balance despite looking ready to collapse at any minute. She walked around, breathing in the scent of the grass and new flowers as they emerged from their winter beds. She then took out a small trowel from the shed and set about removing weeds that had taken over. As she worked she whistled a tune, couldn't remember the words or if the tune was correct, but continued anyway until she was noting down in her mind the flowers they would plant in the coming weeks in the hope they'd flower by the summer.

'What the fuck are you doing?'

A voice broke her continuous thoughts, a voice so familiar that a shiver ran down Emily's spine and she instantly regretted turning up unannounced. She twisted around, needing to see her face to truly believe she was there. There was no denying it; wet but most definitely blonde hair, perfectly blue eyes and a towel wrapped around her body.

'Emily?'

It wasn't a surprise that Naomi didn't know it was her until she'd turned to face her. Her usually bright red hair had turned drab and dark when she'd run out of money to dye it. She'd told Gina, when questioned, that she'd wanted a change. The two girls shared eye contact, breathing in the same air for the first time in nearly a year.

'Fuck off I'm busy,' Emily responded, turning back to the garden without much more thought.

She heard the back door close, turned to find the spot, where Naomi was stood, empty. It occurred to her that maybe she'd won. Not that it was a game. But she knew the score. If you saw your ex-partner, you can't be the one to walk away first. A smile crept onto her face whilst the garden became a little tidier.

*

'Fucking explain what you're doing here,' Naomi's voice again from the doorway. Emily ignored her, just pulled the hosepipe up and started watering the garden. The lack of rain over the weekend told her the flowers needed some attention and no matter how nice it was to hear Naomi's voice, she didn't fancy transferring her attention, or anger, to her ex-girlfriend. 'Emily, don't fucking ignore me. This is my fucking house, what the fuck are you doing letting yourself in and turning off my radio?'

Turning off her radio? The lack of irony in her arrival left her with a bitter taste. 'I'm tidying up ready for planting summer flowers,' she told her, with a hint of knowing more than Naomi in her voice.

'I could have guessed that, but what are you doing here? This is my house.'

Emily rolled her eyes, not stopping what she was doing. 'I know, I didn't realise you were going to be here since you haven't been home in months.'

'How the fuck do you know that?'

'I,' Emily stopped, lowered onto a small brick wall she'd spent a weekend working on with Gina. The cement had dried out too quickly on the first day so they'd ended up with not enough. It took twice as much as the man at the shop said they needed and even then it came out a little odd shaped. But it was individual, unique and there was nothing Gina liked more. 'I'm just helping out, alright?'

'No, it's not alright. You shouldn't be here.'

'And what makes you have any more right than me?'

'It's my fucking house.'

'That I've been in more times in the last year than you have.'

'What the fuck, Emily, just fuck off.'

'Fine,' Emily raised an eyebrow, showing Naomi that she was only leaving under protest and no matter what she thought, she may have won the game, but she hadn't won the battle. 'Tell Gina I stopped by.'

'Probably won't, but whatever,' Naomi called after her as she wiped her feet on the mat by the door and closed the garden gate behind her.

By the time she'd walked back across town it was almost time for her computer class. She dug around in her bag for any loose change she'd not taken with her the day before and bought herself a packet of crisps and a bar of Dairy Milk. It wasn't a meal, but she couldn't afford anything more. A traitor to her father's constant health food lessons, she made the rest of the journey across town with her barely filled stomach and an ex-girlfriend on her mind.

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