Thank you all! Sorry it's been a few weeks – My Mad Fat Diary is very distracting...but your comments keep coming and they really do motivate me to keep writing this story :)

Chapter Seven

"The woman investigating thinks Brendan's mentally unstable."

Cheryl's breath hitched in her throat. "How do ye know that?"

Looking at his hands, which were now sitting in his lap, Ste decided to just come out with it.

"Because DI Lacey is my stepmum."


Ste watched Cheryl's face carefully, waiting for her to react.

"She's your stepmum?"

He nodded. The shock in her voice was loud enough to bring Nancy back in from the kitchen, although she still didn't comment.

"Ye never said she was in the police! When ye told me about your dad and his wife, and all those sisters..." she trailed off. "Nate was talking about inviting ye all to stay with us ye know, before he..." Again, she stopped herself. Her husband's death was obviously still very raw for her. But Ste knew where else her thoughts had ventured.

If he had taken Sam and the rest of the family up to Ireland, everything would have imploded the minute the small talk started:

"So what do ye do, Sam?"

"I'm a Detective Inspector."

Even with the secret as safe as it was, Cheryl would have become a nervous, emotional wreck knowing one of her house-guests was a highly-ranked police officer. By the look on his friend's face now, though, Ste could see that she was dismissing the thought away. It hardly mattered anymore.

"Why didn't ye tell me?" Cheryl was looking at Nancy now, but her voice was weak. It wasn't an accusation. The woman now knew everything and was still allowing her to stay in her home. It wasn't as though she could afford to be angry.

Nancy looked sheepish – unnecessarily so, Ste thought. "I didn't know it mattered until you'd told me everything."

Cheryl sat in silence for a few minutes, and it became clear to the other two that she wasn't going to pursue it any further.

"So this DI..."

"Sam," Ste supplied. "Her name's Sam."

And she thinks Bren's a head-case?" she asked, bringing them back to the matter at hand. "Does that mean..."

"That he might end up in the psyche ward like me? It's a strong possibility," Nancy interjected. Her voice was matter-of-fact, but then of course, Brendan's fate made no difference to her.

Cheryl's face was white. Ste knew what she was thinking before she even uttered the words.

"Then my confession wouldn't do either of ye any good."

He gave her a grim nod. "It'll kill him, knowing you've gone and got yourself locked up for manslaughter. You do know that?" Ste winced internally, hearing how cold he sounded. But it was still the truth.

"Don't say that!" Cheryl looked as though she was about to be sick. "There has to be something we can do. I know I'm going to prison, and there's nothing I can do to change that. But Brendan has to have his life back!"

Staring at his hysterical old friend, Ste took a deep breath. "I don't know what you were expecting to happen when you walked into the station and told Sam everything, Cheryl. But if you honestly thought me and your brother could pick up from where we left off, you were kidding yourself."

"But...then why did ye come here? Why are we even having this conversation, Ste, if ye've just stopped caring?"

Her face was no longer white; nor did it look as though she was about to be violently ill. Instead, she had the nerve to look angry.

Angry! At him!

"I never said I'd stopped caring!" he spat out, suddenly furious himself. "I'm still going to be around, you know! I'll be in court and everything, because I know that even if I tried to stay away, I couldn't do it. But if by some miracle, Brendan actually walks free...he can take a running jump if he thinks he's walking straight back into my arms."

Ste was surprised at himself, at the amount of resentment he'd allowed to come spilling out. It was as though, until this moment, he hadn't truly come to terms with the pain he'd felt when Brendan had shut him out of his life that day in the hospital.

The thing was, while in his confused haze over the last few days, he'd been clear about one thing: whatever happened next concerning Brendan, it mattered to him. He still needed to be involved, however damaging that was going to be for him.

But it had taken this situation for him to decide that he was going to do exactly what Brendan wanted. He was going to cut his losses with him. Only, unlike before, Ste was calling the shots. Brendan had stopped him from being there at the first trial. This time he would be there; even if it was just for closure.

Cheryl's face was now wearing what seemed like her hundredth emotion in the space five minutes: she looked stunned, and he couldn't understand how his anger hadn't been obvious to her.

"I just thought..." she trailed off, unable to form the right words. "Oh, Ste, I know the decision he made hurt like hell. I know ye want to hate him forever because of it. But I know ye still love him. Ye wouldn't be here talking to me if ye didn't."

He wished he could deny it; especially after the decision he had just made. But the fact that he still loved Brendan had been the only thing holding him back in life, until the news had broken. Cheryl's words still left him bitter, though.

"That doesn't mean everything he gave up should fall back into place for him."

She seemed about to argue back, but Nancy stepped in again. Ste had never had much to do with Nancy, so she was the last person he expected to have on his side. But apparently she had more understanding for what he was going through than he could have imagined.

"Cheryl, listen to me. You have to let it drop. Take it from me: I still love Darren, but at the same time I can't forgive him for what he did. First with Sienna; then having so little trust in me that he actually thought I was capable of...of terrible, unspeakable things. The only reason I can function when I'm around him is because we're not together anymore. If we were, I would permanently want to smack him."

Nancy had attempted a light-hearted smile towards the end, but Ste could tell she was only half-joking about wanting to lash out at her ex.

He didn't blame her. He had wanted to do the same thing to Brendan. There was a childish part of him that still did.

Cheryl did nothing but nod, and mumbled something incoherent that appeared to mean she was going to the toilet. Ste watched as Nancy flopped onto the sofa.

"Nice speech," he said. "Didn't know you cared that much."

She shrugged. "I don't, really. I just know what it feels like."

"What, to be broken in two by the person you thought was your happy ever after? I thought as much. Unless you're just doing all this to get a story about Cheryl and Brendan."

It was an afterthought, and he didn't really believe it. The words were a gentle tease, a way to break the tension in the room, he thought.

Only, Nancy didn't agree.

"I wouldn't do that to Cheryl!" she huffed, pulling her best 'how dare you' face.

"Alright!" Ste held up his hands in surrender. "I didn't mean it, okay? I know you wouldn't."

"Wouldn't what?" Cheryl reappeared with a bit more colour in her cheeks, but her voice was still flat and lifeless.

Nancy scowled at Ste, but chose not to out him of his accusation.

"I'm just going to head off," he announced.

"Why? I mean, will I see ye again?" the blonde looked panicked.

Probably in court, Ste thought, but that seemed too cruel, too detached a musing to share. "Yeah, I just...need some time. I need to get my head straight."

"I'll call ye then?" Cheryl's voice floated after him as he turned to leave, but he didn't stop to reply. He was out of the flat in seconds, although what he was going to do with himself now, he had no idea.


It was with some agitation that Brendan sat waiting for his sister's arrival during visiting hours. He was desperate to see her, to check that she was okay. But at the same time he wanted to shout at her.

This wasn't supposed to happen. At no point was this part of the plan. But then, Nate wasn't supposed to have gone and died, either.

Brendan wondered again whether Cheryl had been thinking clearly when she had made that confession. Losing Nate must have tipped her over the edge. Had he been the only thing keeping her sane up until his death?

The woman herself appeared then, sitting down in the chair opposite him and looking like a shadow of her former self. Her hair was scraped back from her face, and her bright clothes had been replaced with a grey oversized jumper and tracksuit trousers.

"Bren," her voice quivered with emotion, and he almost had to look away. He hadn't let her visit him since his arrest, and seeing her now, in the state she was in, was enough to break him.

She was supposed to be living, not falling apart.

"I'm sorry about Nathan," Brendan said after a minute. He nearly reached out a hand to her, but stopped himself. He wanted to comfort her, but that wasn't what this visit was about. As it was, Cheryl shook her head at him.

"Don't. I can't..." she could barely string a sentence together. This was enough to confirm his earlier suspicion. She wasn't in her right mind.

"Chez," he said, looking her straight in the eye. "Chez, ye have to retract your statement. Please, ye can't throw your life away like this!"

The look she gave him in return held a chilling kind of certainty. It was so different to her behaviour just now that it scared him.

"It's too late, Bren. Ye know it is. It all adds up, everything I've said. That DI Lacey, she must have told ye?"

He really couldn't look at her now. He did know. He remembered how she had worn him down, Samantha, during her questioning. But still he clutched at straws. He wasn't ready to give up on his baby sister's freedom. Not yet. Not ever. He didn't deserve his; but she deserved to have hers and so much more.

"But ye aren't thinking straight, she knows ye just lost your husband..."

"Brendan. This is happening. Ye have to stop trying to look after me now. It's done, and I'm ready to face up to what I did."

"No!"

Cheryl blinked back tears and stared him down.

"I saw Ste today."

Brendan could no longer speak. He couldn't have that name in his head, and he couldn't have the man it belonged to being dragged into this mess. He would have said as much to his sister, if he were capable of speech. And, because he wasn't responding, she continued.

"He's going to be there, at the retrial," she told him. "I know he still loves-"

"Stop," he finally managed. "Just stop. I can't...he can't come, he can't be around this. I don't want him there."

Smiling sadly at him, and obviously seeing straight through his words, Cheryl leaned forward in her seat. He knew a lecture was well on it's way.

"It's not your choice anymore," she replied, her voice gentle but still fragile. "Ye have to stop controlling everyone ye love, even if it's all for the right reasons. It's time, Brendan."