A/N: Here we go again, well over eight weeks into term for our girls. I'd love to say sorry for the wait, but its not even been a week since I last updated. :P

If you're interested, head on over to my tumblr (patience-elizabeth-mount) as I've begun posting some pics of the ladies to go with every new chapter. Anyway, as usual I hope you enjoy!


Trixie

It was days like this that made Trixie want to dance in the street, but she knew all too well that everything could come crashing down at any moment. It was a strange way to think, that even the smallest of happiness's shouldn't be taken for granted. Unpredictability had been a part of her life, and a part of her for that matter, for as long as she knew, and she couldn't forget it. In that sense nothing was really ever truly enjoyed, never reveled in, never basked in. Of course, some things brought her enjoyment, held her interest – her subject, she had control over that, and fashion, it was frivolous. But she had an underlying distrust of anything that tried to take a hold of her, tried to rouse her passion. She could fake it well enough – so well, that she could convince herself most of the time – though nothing ever really took her heart between two hands and made it sing.

But anyway, back to her day.

She'd grabbed breakfast from The Stop, the café she always dragged Patsy and Babs too because their mixed vegetable juices were to die for. Then she'd head to her department - Patsy would make fun of her for having one lecture a week but hat wasn't true. She actually had five. And today's had gone absolutely swimmingly, she'd even answered a few questions and got them all right. Tom wasn't being weird about the other night like she'd expected him to be at all, which was something of a massive fucking relief. The last thing she wanted when given the responsibility of deflowering a twenty-one year old man was to having him thinking he should call her and grovel to her and pine away. Now that would be absolutely pitiful. She was heading home to a fridge full of banging ingredients – if Delia hadn't found them yet – for what had the potential to be the best Thai green curry ever, and later she was going out after like four days of absolutely no fun.

However, in the twenty minutes it took her to cycle back from her faculty library, where her essay had flowed beautiful and been emailed well on time, she'd received three texts.

[Mum] 17:21 Sweetie ! Can you please call your daddy he hasn't heard from you in a while. tell him your getting on really well for me I know you are. Xxxx

[Tom] 17:28 we really need to talk Trixie

[Cynthia] 17:34 Trixie, let's not fall out about the other day. Xx

Mum was easy. That was something to ignore for two or three days – a conversation with her father was going to take more than a few hours, and she had to cook, get ready and head out. She knew exactly how it would go though – they would both pretend to be utterly fine, that life was going swimmingly and without hiccup, regardless of the truth. Not that she wasn't having an absolutely amazing time at uni, of course. She didn't know about her dad though, and she was kind of glad she wasn't living at home anymore, that she could almost let herself believe the stories that were spun to her over the phone. As for Tom, that was simple too – she would probably reply to him tomorrow and try not to think about the cold arse text he'd just dropped in her lap. It would be impossible not to, and she didn't know what he was playing at. She was genuinely hoping it was about anything but the other night, no matter how bad. She really didn't need him being an absolute baby about it. And as far as Cynthia was concerned, of course she forgave her for her ridiculous 'intervention'. She was one of her oldest friends, and as different as they had grown over the years they'd always remained as loyal to each other as they were when they met on the first day of prep school. She just didn't need her judging her way of having fun – there was nothing wrong with it, there were plenty of people who enjoyed a good party like her and they were all fine. She was just unfortunate enough to have friends that took life a little too seriously, but she loved them anyway.

The first thing she did when she got back was to check that her prawns had defrosted – she had just been that on point with her organisation today – and then chuck them in the fridge for later, and the next was to have a shower. Student living though, meant that wasn't going to be possible straight away, as it was occupied. Sighing, she returned to her room to unpack her day's work and file it away, having a quick tidy while she was at it, and wondering where the hell everyone was. It was a Friday night for god's sake. That said, Patsy was adamant she wasn't coming out, Barbara and Cynthia had gone to a Christian Union thing – she was pretty sure Tom was going to be there as well, but she was hardly going to ask him now – and as for Delia, she had no clue what that girl was ever really up to apart from the fact that she was spending an awful lot of time with Patsy recently.

It wasn't as if she was that jealous or anything. It made sense, of course. They did the same subject and were in the same group for most of their weird lab things, and therefore were set mostly the same work by the same professors. She supposed it was no different to when Patsy had to lock herself away to work before she had become friends with Delia, except now they did it together. She would admit to feeling a little put out sometimes, because it wasn't as if she could barge in when they were trying to get through mountains of assignments, but they were getting awfully close in the process and she couldn't help but feel like she was missing out – just a little bit. She supposed it couldn't be helped, and she couldn't be too bitter that the both of them had someone to share their frustration about their ridiculous amount of contact hours and work, since Patsy always banging on about it got on her nerves sometimes.

After she'd finally grabbed a shower, she set to work on her dinner; pleasantly surprised that Delia was in the kitchen. She was good company, always up for a chat, though uncharacteristically for her seemed rather engrossed in her phone. She was the kind of person that shoved her phone in her pocket for the duration of a conversation with anyone, no matter how well she knew them, and gave them her full attention. She had a way of making everyone feel like she was interested in what they were talking about, which was something Trixie hadn't quite mastered – she didn't have the patience or the inclination. But then, she didn't care if everyone liked her.

"Oh, sorry! You alright, Trix?" She looked apologetic, and quickly put the device to one side.

"Not too bad, if I'm honest. I've had a pretty good day actually." Trixie smiled at Delia, who was blowing on her tea, grabbing pots and pans all the while.

"Decent." Delia nodded. "Hey…that note in the kitchen the other day about my music – it wasn't you was it? I'm really sorry anyway, I definitely do need to keep it down."

Trixie raised her eyebrows in surprise, though she shouldn't do – it had become Winifred's chief medium of expressing her displeasure. "No, it wasn't actually. In fact, I've been rather enjoying your music of late. If I'm not mistaken, you were playing Wham last night." It was much better than that ridiculous, reverberating music she usually played.

The other girl laughed, "I was actually. You've got a good ear. Patsy let me borrow some of her mum's old records, a load of really great eighties stuff."

She looked shocked then, frowning to herself. In fact, she was a little hurt. Patsy absolutely went off on one at her for going near that box of hers, when all she'd been doing was going through the other girl's checked shirt collection for something to wear to a fancy dress party and had just happened across it, thinking there were more clothes in there. Like, she couldn't underline quite how much Patsy had lost her shit that evening, and now she was just opening up to Delia like it was absolutely nothing. "Really?"

"Yeah, like Chaka Khan, Cyndi Lauper, y'know?"

"No, I meant she actually let you borrow them?" Trixie elaborated.

Delia paused then for a moment, "Yeah."

"Did you have to beg her or something?" Trixie could just imagine, Delia with her blind and unwavering enthusiasm for music having to get down on her knees, and Patsy reluctantly agreeing to let her listen to the LPs mostly out of awkwardness.

Delia looked a little confused, "No, we just listened to a few of them together and then she said I could keep hold of the rest."

"But they're her mum's."

"I know."

"Delia, Patsy's mum died." Trixie remembered that whole evening well. How they'd fallen out and she'd thought that she'd lost the first friend she'd made at uni, how Patsy had slammed her door shut and made her intention to not come to the fancy dress party entirely clear, and then how she'd come home from it, having felt a mixture of guilty and hurt and found Patsy in the kitchen. She had apologised for having a go at her, and told her that her mother had died when she was young but hadn't said anything else about it. Trixie hadn't pushed her to say more, though she wished she had, just so she could have understood, could have maybe tried to say the right thing – though she never did. But Patsy said how she felt as and when she wanted to, and no more than what she was ready to reveal.

The small brunette was quiet, her eye's flickered down and she thought to herself that she'd never seen her look so pensive, so unsure of what to say. She seemed to be piecing together things, or at least trying to. It was so hard with Patsy though, she gave one so little to work with. Trixie was surprised, to say the least, that Delia hadn't been aware, especially as Patsy had given her those records and everything. The redhead was confusing a lot of the time though, and although an air of mystery and aloofness upped one's attractiveness tenfold, it wasn't always practical when it came to forging relationships. She knew that all too well.

"She didn't say." Delia spoke softly. "What happened?"

Trixie shrugged, sighing, "I don't know, really. She said it was when she was eleven though. Must have been when she lived in Singapore."

"She lived in Singapore? I thought she was from…what's it called?...Berkshire."

Patsy made herself so bloody hard to get to know sometimes, and she couldn't for the life of her work out why she seemed to know far more – small things as they were – about the redhead than Delia did, yet it was the Welsh girl she silently shared symbolic acts of great trust with. "Well, yeah, but she lived abroad for absolutely ages. Like, until she was like thirteen. Her dad's a businessman or something, I don't know what he does though – I think it's to do with exports and shipping." Trixie explained to an interested Delia.

"Oh." She appeared thoughtful, taking a sip of her tea. "Shit, I have to run to Tesco's, Trix." She said, glancing at her watch. "I'll see you later, yeah?"

She waved her off, halfway through her mountain of chopping and reflecting on the gaps in Delia's knowledge. She wouldn't pretend to understand Patsy, but then she supposed she was rather the same with her friend. They both got by, whatever was going on, they both coped no matter how much they were on the verge of breaking – they could always pull themselves back, just about. So they never needed to explain themselves, it always went unsaid, hanging in the air while they pretended to be having the best time ever and partied until they couldn't remember anymore, or while they piled under a duvet with the others watching a film on a quiet night knowing that this was what they needed more than anything in that moment. They were respectful of each other in that sense too, perhaps because they understood what it was like to be hounded, to be utterly overwhelmed, by people asking what was wrong. She never bothered Patsy when she locked herself away because she knew that it was because she didn't want anyone to see her, and Patsy never tried to interfere in her drowning of her sorrows. Maybe they should encourage each other to express themselves in healthier ways, but this way was far easier, and it wasn't like they weren't both completely fine most of the time.

Knocking on Patsy's door later that night, she felt just a little bit guilty. She knew how private she was and maybe it wasn't right of her to have told Delia those things. She always spoke first and thought about repercussions later. In fact most of the time she didn't think or really care about what she said, but she cared for Patsy enough to at least question, though far too late, whether or not she should have opened her mouth. Still though, matters of fashion were of the utmost importance, and she had to get her opinion of what she was wearing out tonight.

"Come to treat my room as your own personal catwalk again?" Patsy looked up from her desk.

"Naturally."

"I don't know why. You know I couldn't possibly offer you any advice – you always look great." She said.

"It's nice to be told though." Trixie smirked.

"What do you think of this, by the way?" Patsy spun around in her chair.

"Um, what happened to not going out. And, I don't meant to be harsh Pats, but I'm not walking into Gino's with you looking like that." If she was planning on leaving their block in a plaid shirt and a pair of boyfriend jeans she'd best be headed to Bunker and nowhere near where Trixie was going.

Patsy sighed, "No, I'm not coming with you to drink cocktails with Patricia and Lavinia. I just meant objectively. Like…does it look okay?"

Trixie rolled her eyes, the other girl never seemed to want to go out with the group of mates she'd started uni with anymore. At first she thought she'd just gone off going out full stop, but it had turned out it was just those girls. She didn't see anything wrong with them – they were an absolute riot. She also didn't know what Patsy was playing at. She was usually so confident in everything she wore, and she could rock a dustbin bag if she was perfectly honest and she wished she had Patsy's eye for making menswear work the way she did. "Objectively? Casual, but on point. Very trendy, would go well with your white trainers. Are you going somewhere or something?"

"No, Delia's just cooking me dinner and then we might pop to the pub." Patsy shrugged her shoulders, getting up to grab the white trainers in question and holding them up. "You're right about these. Thanks."

"Delia's cooking?" Trixie almost burst out laughing on the spot. She'd never seen the other girl even go so much as near the hob – she worshiped at the altar of the microwave.

Patsy chuckled gently, "Yeah, supposedly. I think Plan B is toast though.

"Are you sure that's not Plan A?"

"Speaking of plans, are you going out after cocktails?" Patsy asked.

"Not sure – probably though. Maybe Paradise or Rev's with the boys. I suppose it depends on whether they win their match or not."

"Will Hugo be there?" She inquired gently.

"No, I'm not going to fuck him again, Patsy. Once was plenty enough."

Patsy laughed, "I'm sure it was. Though will you be going back to Tom for seconds?"

"No idea, I hope so though. He just sent me a really weird text, but I'm just gonna go out and not think about that for like, as long as humanly possible."

The other girl frowned, "What did he say?"

"It really doesn't matter, Patsy. It's probably nothing, just silly boys not knowing how to word things in a way that doesn't leave the door open for negative interpretation and the like." She didn't really want to talk about it to be honest, and Patsy usually got pretty bored when she went on about Tom for any extended period of time. She really couldn't tell if she liked him or not, but Babs and Cynthia approved well enough. "Sometimes I just wish I was like Delia. She must have it so much easier."

"I don't think its easier, Trix."

"Oh, you know what I mean! Girls know how other girls feel and all that. Besides, I bet she's a great texter. You know, I heard from Denny she had so many ladies on the go by the end of fresher's week she hardly knew what to do with herself, or which one to do for that matter."

"Really?" Yet again, Trixie was surprised they hadn't talked about this. She was slightly less jealous now, since they clearly didn't spend all their time gossiping and talking about their love lives like normal girls their age – not that Patsy had one, but she was determined to fix that for her. They must be proper boring and actually only talk about medicine, so she really wasn't missing out after all.

"Yeah, apparently she was quite overwhelmed. Must have calmed down after the first few weeks though, its not like I see anyone leaving her room doing the walk of shame like I did in fresher's week. Or maybe she just got through them all." Trixie joked, and Patsy laughed weakly. Really, she couldn't tell if she was a complete prude or not. One mention of sex and she closed off like it was nobody's business. "Anyway, babes, I'm gonna dash now. But enjoy your dinner with Delia, and I hope you survive it." She ducked down to give her a kiss on the cheek, and then head off out, really hoping that she meant what she said when she had vowed not to go near Hugo.