In which people get unnecessarily worked up about little things. And there is Joetina. Enjoy.

Joey

'Martina,' Joey says as the hour hand on the clock rolls towards five. No response. He props himself up on his elbow and looks over at her sleeping form.

Joey remembers the days when Martina would wrap herself around him in her sleep, getting a good stranglehold on him so it was all he could do to keep her from unconsciously crushing his windpipe. Now she sleeps facing away from him, curled in on herself as though trying to protectively cocoon her baby. Her arm is crossed over her stomach, a worried little frown on her face as she dreams. There's almost something childlike about her expression, the frets and fears of her past coming out when she's unaware they're doing so, and unable to stop them, and yet at the same time there's an already fierce motherly instinct causing her to want to shield her unborn daughter from her nightmares. It's hard to reconcile this vulnerable picture of a woman, frightened when no-one can see, with the stern, impenetrable, unbreakable statue who sits behind the counter of the DSS during the day. True she sometimes breaks down, sometimes allows glimpses of the tortured psyche behind her mask, but for the most part when she's at that desk, she's invincible, ruthless.

It's only now she's let Joey into her life that he sees the other sides of her- the lost, lonely little girl, still holding out for the return of her brother, the determined fighter, struggling back into a standing position after every paralysing setback, the caring wife, giving him everything she's got, supergluing his heart back together every time it breaks. So many different people- different, and yet somehow the same- all melded together inside one solemn-faced package, who's now sleeping beside him, wearing his ring, carrying his child.

And looking at her now, Joey just wants to grab hold of her and never let go, to soothe that subconscious frown off her face, whisper that he loves her and to stay like that always. He'd wanted to talk, had been wracked with guilt for keeping secrets from her, had had a good mind to wake her up right here and now and tell her he was trying to correspond with Oscar, but one look at her now and he can't bear to burden her with that. Martina has enough problems of her own, without having to shoulder his as well. And though she does, is willing to- has before, in fact, when Roxy was pestering him and his heart was shattering over Oscar all over again- to put her through all that again, when she's two months away from delivering their own baby, when her rationality is skewed by hormones and she's even more insecure than usual, would not, Joey realises, be wise.

Instead, he moves in closer to her, pulling his arm out from the blankets and placing it over her, his hand wrapping around hers and lightly resting on her stomach. Annabelle seems to be fairly still at the moment, perhaps calmed by her mother's rested state. Joey smiles as an image of a tiny, sleeping girl flashes through his head, and then leans over to kiss Martina's temple.

'Hrmph,' Martina mutters, her head jerking as she's partially roused from her dreams. Joey swallows sheepishly and stays still, hoping she's still sufficiently undisturbed that she can slip fully back into sleep. A few seconds pass, during which he can hear nothing but a faint breeze whistling outside and the gentle rustle of the bedclothes as Martina stirs. Joey shuts his eyes and tries to will himself into sleep, but the second his lashes meet an image of Oscar projects itself onto the back of his eyelids. A few little pins prick into his heart as he remembers Roxy answering the door to him, Oscar balanced on her hip, remembers the three of them stepping through the threshold of their first home together, Oscar running into the living room and immediately knocking over Roxy's favourite vase, and the pins become great knives as he remembers hugging the boy goodbye for the last time, the nausea building in his stomach and travelling up his throat as he realised Oscar was being borne away to London. He begins to shiver, teeth chattering, and before he knows it he's changed his mind again, and is half-sitting up, nudging Martina's shoulder.

'Hrmph,' she says again, trying to retreat under the covers.

'Martina?'

'Hmm?'

'Martina.'

'What?!' If she wasn't fully alert before, she certainly is now. Martina pulls herself up slowly- it takes her a long time now, now that she's got to drag the baby up with her- and turns to hit him with the full force of her annoyance.

Joey clocks her glare and immediately feels sheepish again. What are you doin', son? You weren't gonna say anythin'…just leave her be!

'Joey,' Martina growls, her teeth audibly grinding, 'what?'

Joey thinks quickly.

'Er,' he gives an edgy laugh, 'I just wanted to ask you somethin'.'

'Go on.'

'Did you fix my new pen so it wouldn't play music anymore?'

Martina makes the most frustrated, disbelieving noise Joey thinks he's ever heard- and that's saying something when frustrated disbelieving notises make up a large percentage of Martina's conversation these days.

'You woke me up in the dead o' night to ask that?'

There's a heavy thump as Martina's pillow comes down on him.

'Ow,' says Joey, even though it didn't hurt, 'steady on, sweetheart!'

'Of all the pathetic-' another thwack, 'ridiculous, downright daft reasons to…'

'Okay, sweetheart, okay!' Joey shields himself with his hands. 'I was just wonderin'.'

'Couldn't you 'ave waited 'til a reasonable hour to express your 'wonderings' to me?' She hisses through her teeth, ceasing her assault on him to reach across her bedside table and slide her clock closer. She leans right in, squinting, Joey guesses, at the clock face, and then lets out another groan of aggravation.

'Oh, and I've only been asleep two hours an' all!'

Joey is subjected to another beating with the pillow.

'Okay, sweetheart, okay- settle down, won't you?'

'When you're pregnant, and permanently exhausted, I'll wake you up at unholy hours for trivial little reasons and see how you like it!' She gives him one more whack for good measure. Joey tugs the pillow away from her and grabs her wrists, shushing her and kissing her forehead, pulling her close.

'Don't stress, Martina, please…' he holds her tighter, kisses her forehead again, then once more. 'I'm sorry, sweetheart- that was insensitive of me.'

'Yes,' huffs Martina, her voice muffled against his neck, 'it was.'

'I'm sorry, sweetheart,' Joey repeats, not sure what else he can say, given the circumstances. If he tried to defend himself that would mean admitting that he'd woken her up because of Oscar, and if she can't even take being disturbed for a joke, there isn't a hope in hell she'd understand that. Better to take the rap for being petty and inconsiderate and let the whole thing drop.

Joey presses his face into the top of her head and rocks her gently back and forth, comforting himself as much as her. It's hard, sometimes, it really is. Joey has no-one to go to for support- he's always needed to take care of everyone around him: his mother, his siblings, now his wife- and now Martina's out of sorts, turning into a wreck at the slightest thing, there's no-one to take care of him. He'd wanted her strength. He'd wanted to be able to unburden himself to at least one person, and to have them- well, not necessarily make it better, not even to console him or offer advice, but just to listen. Just to have heard. Just to have known, so he could have stopped hiding away his pain, so he could at least have had one person who understood if he suddenly went quiet, suddenly felt tears coming to his eyes. But he can't speak now without upsetting her, and that would merely constitute an additional problem, rather than alleviating his current ones. He's got to carry on suffering silently on his own, and letting everyone else lean on him without worrying he's going to fall over. He's got to keep suppressing his own pain as best he can, to make sure that he can be on hand for the people who need him. And until Martina's in a more stable condition, he's going to have to mope over his troubles by himself, and not try to foist them off on her when she can't take it.

'Go back to sleep,' he murmurs, easing them both back down, keeping his arms around Martina and letting her use him as a substitute for the pillow which is now somewhere on the floor. He lies there as the minutes and the hours crawl by, as the darkness slowly fades into light and Martina eventually drops back off, with his thoughts for companions and his guilt chewing away at his innards.

Of course, with the holiday season upon them and all the preparations and whatnot, Joey gets very little spare time after that to actually dwell on the matter. He's still got all his presents for everyone to sort out, and arrangements to make concerning Christmas Day- they're going to Kelsall Street, he knows that much, though whether they're staying Chrismas Eve and going home the next afternoon or staying Christmas night he hasn't quite ascertained- and, of course, he's got some quite brilliant fiddles to be pulling off before then.

'I got a phone call from one o' me old colleagues today,' Martina says when he comes into the kitchen a couple of afternoons later, her hands folded against the table top as if it were a DSS counter, wearing a half-mocking, half-grim expression that matches her posture and interrogating tone.

'Did you?' Joey plays along with the scenario, pulling out a chair and taking a seat opposite her, conjuring up a partition around them with his mind. He's missed their Social Security arguments these past few weeks- since Martina left work, going down there hasn't been the same. It's not half as much fun conversing with the other clerks- those dull, boring, unfriendly (and did he mention dull?) women who don't appreciate his cleverness at all, who can't even be bothered to try opposing him in any creative sort of way at all, but merely give in straight away and hand over the required form, or simply say no and call for the next customer without putting up a fight. He can almost feel his mouth watering now, in anticipation of a good, proper debate. Joey slings his coat over the back of his chair, ignoring it as it misses its target and slithers onto the floor, and prepares himself.

'She said you'd been hankerin' her for money to pay for…' Martina inhales before she begins, then spits out the word, 'postage.'

Joey's mouth is already shaping into a response, but Martina keeps going.

'An extra twenty pounds a week for each member of your family, she said, for you and each member of your family, in order to send out some important business correspondence,' she makes little inverted commas with her fingers, and then leans forward across the table (as far as she can do without her baby bump getting in the way), her forehead creased and eyebrows raised.

'You do miss your job, don't you?' Joey says, blithely ignoring her. 'And after all the fuss you made about not being sorry to leave behind all the whinin' and the scroungin' and the cheatin'...but really, you don't know what to do with yourself without-'

'At first,' Martina says over the top of him, her eyes getting continually narrower until his gob closes, 'I wasn't sure what you were up to, Mister Boswell. I couldn't think of any reason why you'd want to claim extra money fer postage, nor what it was you could possibly be postin' that'd require fundin' for that many extra stamps…'

She rises, crossing over to the kitchen counter.

'And then the mail came, and it all became clear to me.' She smiles malevolently as she sits back down, tossing a great big stack of envelopes onto the table.

Joey lunges for them, but Martina slams her hand down on top of the pile, pursing her lips in warning. With a very slow, deliberate sweep, she slides the envelopes back toward herself and plucks one off the top.

'Addressed to Joey Boswell…' she flips it over, 'sender Billy Boswell.' Martina tosses it aside and picks up the next one. 'Addressed to Joey Boswell, sender Jack Boswell…Joey Boswell, sender Billy Boswell again, this one's addressed to Martina Boswell, sender… 'the most handsome husband of them all…''

'Lovely gesture, that one, wasn't it?'

'Is this the extent o' your brilliant plan, then? The lot o' you sendin' an 'undred million Christmas cards to each other so you can claim extra money fer postage?'

'It's one of them…' Joey murmurs, before flashing her his nicest smile. 'You see, if we claim the money each and pool it, then send the cards as proof we've been posting, and hence the money is justified, it means we can gain a profit of…'

'I don't think I want ter hear this, Mister Boswell,' Martina reaches her arm across the table and puts a finger on his lips. 'Wonderful as it would be to achieve me lifelong dream and expose you as a benefit fraud, it's not really in keeping with the spirit o' the season to send one's husband ter gaol now, is it?'

'Aw, bless.' Joey kisses the finger that's pressed against his mouth.

'I suppose this explains why there are no stamps left in the desk drawer, does it?'

'It might do…' he says, reaching around her to retrieve one of the envelopes. He turns it over, noting that the flap has been torn away.

'Been openin' my post, sweetheart? That's illegal, you know!'

'So is defraudin' the Social Security, but you don't 'ave any moral objection ter that, do you?'

'Defrauding the Social Security? Would I do such a thing?'

'I'm not gonna bother to answer that,' Martina says, leaning back in her chair and clasping her hands together again. 'But there will be no more Christmas cards from your family comin' through our letterbox, will there?'

Joey says nothing, just stares at his hands, picking a stray bit of skin off his thumb.

'Will-there?'

'No, Martina,' Joey says with pretend meekness. He rises and comes round the other side of the table, resting his hands on her shoulders.

'So,' he begins, as Martina sighs and leans back against him, 'Christmas Day- are we stayin' the extra night?'

She groans. 'What for?'

'Because, sweetheart,' Joey grins into her hair, 'you know you just love spendin' days and days with my fam-i-ly, don't you?'

'Oh, God,' Martina mutters. 'Days an' days.'

Joey snickers. 'Ah, but don't you just adore bein' around all me brothers- and listenin' to Billy's woes and Adrian's neuroses and Jack's complaints about the world…isn't it just your favourite pastime?'

Another groan from his wife, and Joey laughs more audibly. Martina does nothing but complain about his family- but he's never minded. When Martina grumbles about the rest of the Boswells, she does it in jest, in a sort of but-deep-down-I-love-them-really sort of way. When it comes down to it, she'd never hold him back from seeing them, would never really resent a trip to Kelsall Street. Unlike Roxy, who'd made it plain she hated them, who…no, he won't think about that now. It just reminds him that he hasn't gotten around to taking that card for Oscar down to his solicitor, that it's still tucked in his coat pocket. He swallows down the butterflies that are starting to flutter up his throat, tries to push the thought to the back of his mind.

No sadness in front of Martina. Not happening. Not at Christmas.

'Come on, sweetheart,' he forces himself to exude sweetness and obnoxious cheer. 'It's win-win! You get to spend even more time with all the Boswells, whom you love so dearly, and I don't have to drive home that afternoon so I can 'ave a drink or two!'

'Oh, I knew there was an ulterior motive somewhere in all that butterin' up.' She turns around, craning her neck to gaze up at him and shoot him a twisted smile.

'Ulterior motive? Since when 'ave I ever had an ulterior motive, eh?' Joey releases her and walks around the table, leaning heavily against it and posing. 'Do you honestly look at me and see the sort of man who'd go around makin' plans with ulterior motives involved?'

He gets her to snicker, though she does everything in her power to cover it up. She's never liked to admit she's got a sense of humour.

Joey picks up on the cue, though, and he puts more of his weight against the table, exaggerating the pose. His elbow nudges the stack of envelopes, and they go skittering across the wood and fluttering to the floor.

Martina shakes her head, and he can almost see a channel of sarcastic and amused comments running through her mind, tumbling over each other and competing to get out of her mouth first.

He leans over and kisses her before they can, trapping them inside her head, before stooping down to retrieve the evidence of his Christmas scam.

Martina's chair squeals as it scrapes the floor, and in a moment too quick for Joey's liking she's on her hands and knees beside him, gathering up the cards.

'Eh- you shouldn't be doin' that! I'll take them…' he reaches toward the pile she's collected, and she pulls them away.

'Oh, no you don't. You honestly think I'm gonna 'and 'em back over ter you so you can carry on with yer scheme? There could be some sort o' code 'idden inside 'em for all I know! They're confiscated until further notice.' She moves a bit further under the table, making for a stray envelope that's lying a few feet away from the others and sweeping it towards herself.

'And pick yer coat up,' she adds, jerking the card she's just retrieved in the direction of his crumpled leather jacket, before leaning her arm against the seat of her chair and slowly hoisting herself to her feet. Joey smirks at her, waiting before she's left the room with the evidence of his Social Security fiddle before delving under the kitchen table for his coat.

There are a few streaks of dust on it, and as Joey brushes them off, his hand moves instinctively for the inside pocket and the card concealed within.

He feels nothing.

His fingers desperately fumble in search of a flat surface, of pointy corners sticking into the fabric, but nothing comes to light. He searches and searches again, his movements becoming quicker and more agitated, even though he's grasped by this time that it isn't there. Joey keeps on looking regardless, slaps his hands around on the kitchen floor even though there's evidently nothing there, because to stop looking now would be to confirm the panicked thought that has begun to settle in his mind. He blinks and is overcome by the horrifying image of that one lone envelope, lying separate from the others he'd knocked to the floor not, he realises, because it had merely fallen that way, but because it had fallen from a different place. And then, as the grave implications of this are setting in enough to tear his nerves to ribbons, the image of Martina picking it up parades into his brain to rub salt into the wound.

Joey sits there for a moment, on the floor, under the table, paralysed, trampled on by his thoughts.

Oh, no. No.

She's going to see it. She's going to read it. She's going to be upset, and she's never going to trust him again, his brain tells him, jumping immediately to the most unpleasant conclusion, to the worst case scenarios. He's normally the calm one, the together one, the one who always thinks rationally when others around him are not, but now what-ifs are dancing a ghoulish dance in his mind, hopping from one fear to another until possibility of Martina leaving him as a result of this seems, to him, quite real.

Joey sits a moment more, letting this idea stab him in the chest, and then he gets up off the floor with lightning speed, ignoring the fact that he bumps his head against the underside of the table, the words I've got to get the card back hurling themselves against his eardrums as he sprints out to find her.