Chapter 4

I have decided that this is going to be a pretty long fic. At least until people get bored.

All throughout the day I have felt a little nervous, I did not know how tonight with Joseph was going to go but I could already tell that somewhere along the line I was sure to lose it. This day has felt so long and finally at ten minutes to eight Michael told me I could go, not without thanking me again for coming in early. I was in the locker room finishing getting changed out of my scrubs, as Joseph walked in at the exact moment I was buttoning up my shirt and looking a little flustered.

"Oh I'm sorry I should have knocked." I could see the faint blush on his cheeks.

"No it's fine I'm finished, just my shoes and then I can go. Do you just want to follow me?" He looked like he was getting an idea.

"How about you go home and I will stop and get food, what do you feel like?" His amazing lasagne came straight into my head and all of a sudden nothing else sounded nice enough. During my pondering I didn't realise the huge Cheshire like grin on my face, his expression said it all.

"What on earth is going on in that head of yours?" He had a huge grin that was enough to make me go weak at the knees.

"Are you in the mood to cook? All I keep thinking of is the lasagne you made me when we were going out." He just burst out into laughter and I seriously thought I was hallucinating, I don't think I had heard him genuinely laugh in quite a while.

"Why are you laughing at me?" OK now at this point I'm getting paranoid.

"I'm sorry it's just I nearly burned down your flat when I made that." I almost forgot about that.

"Yeah, right I still want lasagne. Please? I have all the ingredients at home." Deciding to lay it on thick I showed him the puppy dog eyes hoping that it would still work the way it used to.

"OK fine...just keep the fire extinguisher handy." He laughed and suddenly I knew, I'm going to tell him what happened and about my childhood. I could trust him.

"Joseph there's something I want you to know first." I exhaled and was about to begin until he cut me off.

"OK well we can talk about it when we get back to your place ok?" I couldn't wait he needed to know.

"No!" He looked taken aback..."I'm sorry I just need to get this out...I want you to know that I never meant to hurt, at all. When I did what I did with your father..."

"Jac you don't have to explain..."

"Yes I do! I push people away when they get too close, and that's who I am. It's who I always have been, no matter how much I try let people in, it's hard and I don't even realise that I'm being a bitch and by the time I want to take it back it's too late. So I want to apologise for what I did to you. I'm sorry and I hope we can be friends lord knows I don't deserve it but I hope we can be friends." I feel like an idiot. He is looking at me with his mouth slightly open and looks like he was about to say something but he looked stumped.

"Jac ...I...I don't....you didn't need to tell me all that. I know who you are and I know that lots of shit has happened to you in your life.." he was just trying to tip me over the edge wasn't he "and no matter what we have done in the past I want you to know that I don't care about your past anymore...you know how I feel about you and everything that I said in theatre that day I meant every word." I was on the verge of crying and he knew it. "We should go; you're still hungry aren't you." He always knew that the key to my heart was through food.

"Yeah we should go."

I'm shaking, literally shaking; I know that I am going to have a long night ahead of me. Glancing in the rear view mirror, I saw Joseph concentrating intensively on driving and the slight movement of his head indicated that he must be listening to music of some sort maybe perhaps on the radio. How do I start to tell him about what happened? Will he ask for specifics questions? I do not know how I got home considering my inner musings; it felt like the quickest journey I had ever had. Taking a deep breath whilst getting out of the car, just as Joseph was pulling in beside me, whilst he parked I found myself going back to that day in the theatre when he told me did I really need to ask him if he loved me...it was an unsure answer, we thought we were dying a declaration of love doesn't count under them circumstances. I mused at how our relationship had changed in the past few weeks, and now were acting like nothing had happened. How can he just move on from what happened? I betrayed him and he was acting as if I wasn't a big deal.

"What's going on in your head Jac? You do realise that you have been staring at my car for the past 5 minutes, the only reason I let you was because you had on a facial expression that was quite amusing...an internal battle in Jac Naylor's head, what I wouldn't give to know what your thinking...are you okay?" I have to get this out. I don't know why I was in such a hurry to tell him what was wrong...maybe it's my conscious. Now or never...looking down at my shoes I began in the only way I know how...straight to the point.

"I wasn't pregnant...Back after we slept together, and you thought I was maybe trying to trick or trap you into something. It was easier for me to let you believe it because in your ayes and everyone else's I was already the villain in the story, the one everyone hated. That was on my part, I was the one who decided to sleep with your father, so that part was on me." Still looking at my shoes, not daring to glance up at him, afraid of what I might see.

"Why didn't you say anything to me sooner? I... at the time...in my head I couldn't put it all together." I could feel him staring at me. "What about the ultrasound photo that Linden found?" Of course he was going to bring up the photo, the ironic coincidence that made it all that more believable. I could feel the cold spread throughout my body that was when I realised that we were still outside having a very intimate conversation.

"Growing up in the system Joseph you meet a lot of different people, but you don't allow yourself to get to close in case you had to move on, then friends make it that bit more harder. A friend that I had met in the last home I was in was Lucy. She was that same age as me so we got out close together and kept in touch through the years, we both don't have any family so we have acted as each others support system. A few weeks before we slept together she found out that she was pregnant and since she has no asked me to be Godmother..I'm sorry I didn't tell you..." he cut me off before I could even finish that thought.

"You did tell me, you told the truth and I just didn't listen. I'm the one who should be apologising to you Jac. I automatically jumped to conclusions and didn't even think...I'm sorry." The genuine sadness in his eyes was enough to make me go weak at the knees again.

"Joseph...its fine I promise just hold that thought until we get inside, its bloody freezing out here." Without giving him a chance to reply I walked away towards the comfort of my home, knowing he was going to have questions, I was trying to mentally prepare myself.

All reviews welcome...sorry it took soooo long my computer was acting up a bit. Hope you liked it if you didnt feel free to give me your honest review. Hopefully will have another chapter up by Sunday.