vii.

.

We are searchlights; we can see in the dark.

We are rockets, pointing up at the stars.

(…)

We are problems that want to be solved.

We are children that want to be loved.

What About Us? – P!nk

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.

The next time she opens her eyes, it's to the sound of the shower running. The bed is cold and empty next to her; it takes her a moment to remember where she is. It's already light outside, not sunny but light, the clouds almost white hiding the sun in the sky.

She yawns, sits up a bit to inspect the room as the shower stops. There is a pair of dirty trainers at the entrance by the door, a fitted rain jacket draped over the armchair, the alarm clock reads 9:37 –

Clive comes out of the bathroom just then, his hair still wet and a towel wrapped around his waist. Her gaze trails down his frame (she doesn't think she would be this obvious about it were her brain functioning normally, but then again, she's never really been subtle in the morning) and not bad, she catches herself thinking.

"Done looking?" he teases with a smile; she blushes a bit.

"You went running," she says, then, trying to ignore him, her voice groggy and sleepy. She rolls over to her side, her back to the window, curling her knees up a bit under the covers, closing her eyes again.

"Yep," he says like that's a normal thing to do before 9 on a Saturday morning, and crawls back in bed next to her. She groans at the droplets of water that hit her skin as a result and at the fact that she's pretty sure she's been paying a good fifty quid a month for the last five years for a gym she's barely ever set foot in, likes to think of it as the price of her punishment for not going.

"Didn't you have a boring conference to get to?" she mumbles as she feels his hand on her arm – it's oddly warm and cosy.

"And yet, I've made the ultimate sacrifice and decided to stay here with you instead," he says and kisses her, then, a long peck on her lips. Opening her eyes, she realises he's staring right back at her. "Come on, sleepyhead," he whispers, getting back up, pointing to the nightstand behind him. "I got you coffee."

.

They walk around Manchester all day. He's driving home that night so they leave his bags at the hotel and try to make the most of their time in the city. There's nowhere in particular to be, really, but for some reason, he holds her hand on the way. It's odd, at first, kissing him in a place where no one knows them, kissing him when she wants to, rather than to make a statement. It feels strange, somewhat couple-y.

Early afternoon, they stumble upon some sort of fair and he beats her twice at a game that entails throwing darts at balloons and popping as many of them as possible in a limited amount of time and she's not sure what irritates her most: the fact that he won twice, or the fact that her irritation seems to set off uncontrollable fits of laughter in him. She's thankful when her phone goes off just as he offers her to re-game ("you're such a sore loser, Marth," he tells her) and she steps away to take the call, leaning against a tree nearby as he stays at the game stand.

She only rolls her eyes about two seconds into the call, when she realises it's a) her mum, and b) she's not happy. "You didn't come home last night," she observes, passively-aggressively letting the awkward pause that follows her words sink in.

"No," she says, shaking her head. She didn't say she would, though. She said the exact opposite, actually, when her mum caught her wrist in the stairs after Clive got to Bolton and she went back in to pick up an overnight bag, feeling her mother's inquiring look boring down onto them from her bedroom window all the while they were talking in the street.

'Who's that?' her mother had said, in the staircase.

'Clive.'

'Clive?'

'I'm going out' she'd said and twenty years later, felt the utmost satisfaction at finally being able to get away with it. 'Don't wait up.'

"Well, where are you?" Her mother asks, now, and God, there's a reason why she left home at eighteen, she remembers.

"Manchester."

"And, do you intend to come home?"

She rolls her eyes, sighs. "Yes. Tonight. Mum, I'm thirty-ni–"

"I worry, alright?" Her mum snaps, interrupting. "You're my daughter and frankly, you showed up on my doorstep, so I get toworry. You don't have children, you wouldn't understand," she says and okay, that's not a very fair argument, Martha thinks. "I mean, no offense but you haven't been doing all that great, lately, so forgive me for asking questions when you go off with some man I don't know and don't come home in the morning and also to be honest with you, you haven't really evidenced the best taste in men in the past so –"

She doesn't get to hear the rest of her mother's wonderful demonstration because she takes the phone away from her ear and lets it rant into the air for a few more seconds before she finally hears silence on the other end of the line. She smiles, though, when she speaks, thinks she does understand, actually, thinks –

"I'm fine, Mum," she says, her glance leaving her feet to settle on Clive as she sees him typing on his phone a few yards away. He stops, though, when he hears her speak again, doesn't look at her. She hopes that's a good thing. "I'm happy," she says, closing her eyes.

Moments later, she's kissing his lips before he takes her hand back in his and asks: "What did she want?"

"She thought you'd kidnapped me," she jokes, hears him laugh next to her.

.

They're in Costa ordering coffee when it happens. It is the thought that crosses her mind uninvited, the pointed question her mother asked last week, the thing that smells like a rose and that she doesn't want to name.

They stand at the till, she hands out her debit card to pay for her Americano as Clive tells her something she doesn't really pay attention to and looks to the end of the bar to her right. There is a young woman standing there, leaning against the counter as she holds her kid's hand – early-thirties, long golden hair that cascades down her back; she's objectively beautiful, the kind of beautiful that only exists in books, like she doesn't even know she is. She knows it's a bit rude but for some reason Martha can't keep herself from staring a bit, even as she puts her debit back into her wallet and they move to the side to let the guy behind them order; to the point that she realises she's made Clive stare, too.

His look follows hers and he smiles, lightly squeezing her forearm. The mum doesn't notice them staring but the kid does, of course, - kids notice that kind of thing, she muses – and because it's weird and unusual and because he's about four, pulls his tongue at them. She looks away, slightly awkward, but Clive laughs next to her and, to her surprise, pulls a face at the kid, too.

The kid laughs. Naturally, wholeheartedly, like children do. Pulls his tongue again.

Alerted by the laughter, this time, his mother sees him do it, looks at him, looks at them. "Oh, no, don't do that!" she says, looking at her son, then: "Sorry," to the both of them, apologetic.

Martha opens her mouth but Clive is quicker, smiles back at her. "Oh, no, that's all right," he says, shaking his head, too. He takes a step forward and squats down to face the kid, grinning. The kid looks at him with wide-open eyes, a mixture of fear at having done something his mum didn't want him to do and interest at Clive. "Hey, what's your name?"

"Leo," he says, his voice high-pitched, pouting a bit.

"Well, hi, Leo," Clive says, slightly moving closer as some guy tries to get through to a table behind them. "I'm Clive," he adds and takes the kid's hand in his, shakes it slightly before letting go. Leo stays silent for a bit, his eyes fixed on Clive. "So, you like pulling faces, huh?" Clive asks, after a bit, smiles. "Can you do that one?" he says and pulls another face, twisting his mouth and framing his eyes with his fingers like glasses.

Leo laughs again and this time, so does his mum, smiling at Clive and at her; Martha finds herself smiling back, the corners of her mouth curving up. The boy attempts the face in return, and it's funny, really, the way his little hands attempt to mimic Clive's. It's not a full success, yet, so Clive starts giving him instructions to make it better, showing him how to make perfect circles with his thumbs and forefingers.

Leo's mum throws an amused look at Martha over the boys' heads and she thinks that's what, in the end, makes the boy finally notice her. He stares over Clive's shoulder for a long while, not really paying attention to what he's saying, anymore. Confused, Clive turns around and sees what – who – the kid is looking at, smiles.

"Leo, this is Martha," he says and the kid smiles, shyly, then looks to the floor.

"Hi," he says, his eyes still averted on his shoes, sheepish.

"Hi Leo," she says, cocking her head to the side to see him better, smiling but staying put, standing a step behind Clive, just waving her hand at him. She has her coffee in her hand, steals a sip of hot liquid.

Leo finally dares to glance up and his eyes fall on Clive again; his mum smiles behind him. He looks at Clive, the corner of his mouth twisting with something he's not sure is okay to say and sighs. "She very pretty," he tells Clive like he's the only one who can hear and all three adults suddenly burst out laughing, the boy going red in the cheeks. His mum opens her mouth to reprimand but sees Clive shake his head, grinning.

"Yeah, she is," Clive agrees, nodding and smiling at the kid, his voice reassuring. "She's very smart, too," he adds and the kid's glance travels from him to Martha, who smiles and shakes her head, then back to Clive.

The boy frowns, pouts. "Smarter than you?" he asks, looking up with question marks in his eyes, genuinely interested.

Clive turns slightly and throws her a glance before he speaks again, nodding at Leo. "Lots," he says, Leo's mother smiling up at her.

The boy looks very impressed at that, looks from Clive to Martha back and forth a few times before finally, a thought seems to occur to him. "Can she pull faces too?" he asks and makes everyone laugh, again.

When their laughter quiets down, Martha hears his mum say: "Okay, I think that's it, Leo," smiling, amicable, but firm, pulling at the little boy's hand. Leo nods, and "say goodbye, Leo," she adds, so he does, because that's what mum told him to do. He looks like he wishes they could play pulling faces longer but shrugs as his mother thanks the both of them and walks to the front door. Clive stands back up next to Martha, leans against the counter to finally reach for his coffee.

He looks at her and the grin on his face turns into something else, subtle; she sees it in his eyes when his glance falls onto hers; she clears her throat a bit. "I didn't know you could pull so many faces," she says, lightly, because it's the first thought that she actually can voice that occurs to her, the others buried deep in an area of her brain she absolutely does not want to venture in.

"One of my many hidden talents," he jokes, taking a sip of his coffee and moving closer to her, slowly inching them towards the exit. They step out onto the street and as she walks next to him, nursing her coffee in her hands, she realises she can't stop looking at him, throwing sideway glances and wondering what the hell is going on in her head right now. Clive notices, after a while, throws her an amused look and asks: "What?" between two gulps of hot liquid.

"It's back," she says, fidgeting a bit.

"What?"

She steals a glance in his direction, smiles. "Your charm," she answers, because it's true, because it's scary, because when she thinks of them, sometimes, she thinks of them sitting on her couch that night and it –

Clive chuckles, takes her hand in his as they walk. "Well, I'm glad," he says, oblivious – or very good at pretending to be – and she bites her lip, shakes her head, shakes the thoughts that must not be named out of there.

.

They eat dinner together a couple of streets away from his hotel, the kind of place that sells fifteen quid burgers that come with salad as a side unless you specify otherwise. He offers to drive her back; she says she's fine taking the train (it's already 10pm and he's got to drive back to London, after all) so they argue back and forth a good five minutes until she caves, figures that if he really wants to, he might as well, after all. That and she sort of wants him to, in the back of her mind, doesn't really want him to leave.

When they get to Bolton, the house is dark, her parents' street only shaded by a couple lampposts. Out the window, she sees Jamie, standing at the corner typing away on his phone. She notices Mrs Flannigan, too, angrily dragging her dog away from the neighbour's petunias and the flickering lights behind a few people's curtains. She wonders what all of this must look like to him.

"There you are," he says, with his hand on her knee to nudge her out of her thoughts.

She looks into his eyes because she'll probably never be able to look through them and smiles. "Do you want to come in?"

.

After a bit of negotiation, they end up sitting on the roof outside so as not to wake her mum. Clive acts very dramatic when she makes him step over the gap between the two buildings, she laughs and calls him a wuss. They drink tea and okay-just-one-glass wine that turns into a bottle emptied between the both of them and Clive's certainly not going anywhere, now. When he asks her to stay over, he does so by tiptoeing around the topic, claiming that he can't drive, claiming that she'll have to stay awake with him until he sobers up. She offers him shelter, promising her mum will be long gone to work by the time they wake up tomorrow and kisses him in the dead of the night.

There are no stars on cloudy evenings but she's always been a city girl anyway so her eyes follow the curve of roads, their street lamps and tiny windows, the headlights of cars heading home. They sit with a blanket thrown over the both of them as a shield from the wind; she warms herself up off the heat of his body. They're quiet, talk and fight the urge to sleep with stories and soft chuckles whispered in each other's ears. From their vantage point, she shows him the street on which her mum works, the corner shop where she had her first job, the house of her best friend when she was six and the school across the road. She tells him about the skirt of her school uniform and getting sent home more than once on the grounds that it rode three quarters up her thigh.

He laughs, shakes his head, drinking a sip of her wine. "Bit of teenage rebellion?" he says, smiling next to her.

She laughs, too, grins back at him behind the rim of her glass. "Something like that, yeah," she says, as he turns his head to look at her.

"I wish I'd known you back then."

She laughs, looking at him and the kind of teenager that he probably was, the kind of people he was probably friends with. Yes, she may be a bit prejudiced and judgmental, here, but after all, he did go to Harrow. She hums, sipping on her wine. "Um, no, you don't," she declares, a playful twinkle in her eyes.

"Yeah?" he laughs, watching her. "Why not?"

"Irreconcilable differences, Clive."

He rolls his eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know, I was just," she pauses, trying to explain, looking for the right word. "Insufferable, really," she finishes, smirking as she shakes her head. "Dyed my hair black, boys, drinking, skipping school, coming home in the middle of the night: the whole thing," she adds as she sees him smile, after stealing a sip of his wine. "Rowing with my parents, teachers as well, to be honest, terrible grades – frankly, I don't really know why they never expelled me, I barely even showed up," she says as an afterthought.

When she glances at him, she finds his half-amused, half-disbelieving look set on her, a large mocking grin and an eyebrow raised.

"You dyed your hair black? I wish there were photographic evidence of this."

She laughs, drinking, shakes her head. "There is. Which you're never, ever going to see," she smirks, setting her glass on the floor, listening to him laugh, too.

"I'll make it my life's mission to," he jokes, clinging his glass against hers.

She remembers one late night in Chambers when she admitted to having gotten arrested once before, for smashing a beer bottle onto a police car protesting a wrongful arrest. He had laughed so hard tea had come out of his nostrils and that explains so much, he had said as she rolled her eyes. Well, now, she guesses, telling him tales of her younger self, he knows the full-extent of her teenager rebel career.

"Once," she adds, grinning at him. "I even told my dad I wasn't going to partake in tests at school anymore, because they weren't fair to people who weren't good at taking tests," she laughs.

A loud chuckle escapes his mouth; it covers the hoot of a car down the street. "Flawless logic, Marth."

"Oh, shut up," she smiles, taking another swig of her wine.

"What happened, then?" Clive asks, frowning, after a while. "I mean, you went to university, you must have –"

"Gotten my shit together?" she asks, teasing, as he nods.

"Pretty much, yeah."

She sighs, leaning into him and smiles, the corners of her mouth twisting uncomfortably. "Dad got sick," she says, matter-of-factly, and yeah, she thinks, that's pretty much what happened. In a nutshell.

"Sorry."

"No, don't be, it's just –" she breathes, tries to find the words. This part is harder to tell, somehow, she has to force the words out of her mouth to keep telling him the truth. "He wanted me to go to university," she shrugs, finishing the last of her wine. "I don't know if he ever really understood I did, but –"

She feels Clive's arm circle around her, touches the side of her head to his, shortly, closes her eyes against the night breeze. She doesn't know what to add, really. There aren't many things that she can actually say to him about her Dad without lying, to tell the truth, about the promises she's made to herself, about never, ever allowing it to happen to her. There's a reason she defended Sarah Stevens, she remembers, a reason Clive does not need to know about.

Mechanically, she fishes for her pack of cigarettes, reaching behind her for her lighter and ashtray out of their hiding place under a brick. He arcs a curious eyebrow at her, looks at the brick, the hiding place, the mint gums next to it, then back to her.

She smiles, shrugs, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "I only smoke here," she explains, glancing back at the house. "She doesn't know."

"Your mum?" he asks throwing her a curious and disbelieving smile.

"What, you never hide anything from your parents?"

He laughs, shrugs, is about to crack a joke when -

"Sean was there, you know?" she whispers, honest, out of the blue, opens her eyes to look into his. Her fingers fidget with the pack: open, closed, open; she sets it down on the floor. "He was – no matter how shit things were at home, there was always a space for me at his place, and laughter and beers to get numb on," she breathes, shaking her head softly. "I was the one who failed him, not the other way around."

"What happened?" Clive asks. She doesn't know if it's the resigned tone in her voice, or the honesty with which she's finally, finally, ready to talk to him about this, but he doesn't sound angry like he usually does when she mentions Sean, doesn't roll his eyes or sigh or even urge her on, just waits until she speaks, his hand softly massaging her shoulder. She smiles, sighs.

"I –" she starts, stops, explains. "When Dad got sick and I finally grew up, and made it out of that phase, I tried to take him with me, you know? I tried to push him to go back to school, tried to make plans for us in Manchester, tried everything I could so that he'd make it out of the shithole he grew up in, too. I just," she says, pauses. "Couldn't, I guess."

"Is that why you defended him? Do you feel responsible for –"

"Yes."

It's like breathing again, telling him that, admitting to feelings she can't control. She's not in love with Sean, hasn't been for decades on end, but guilt is another insidious drive for making terrible judgment calls. It's her fault, she thinks, and it's always been her fault, and now he's in prison because of her and not one day goes by where she doesn't think she might not be able to pull herself out of bed the next morning because of it.

Clive doesn't say it's not her fault. She knows he doesn't think it is, from the way he looks at her, breathes next to her; but he knows her. Knows her enough to know that whatever he says won't make a difference. Instead, he smiles, sadly, asks: "What made you break it up? In the end?"

She sighs, shakes her head. "Alyssa Manfield," she says the name like an insult and Clive cocks an eyebrow at her. She sighs again. "It was a few months before I went off to uni, she went around the place telling everybody they were sleeping together."

"Ah, that's -"

"To be honest, I don't think they were," she counters before he can go on and get back into his favourite hobby of pointing out to her how much of a jerk Sean is. "He denied it," she adds and sees Clive roll his eyes; she gently shoves his shoulder. "It wasn't the point, anyway," she admits, looks down at her hands, hugging her knees close to her chest. "It just felt like one more thing I didn't want to deal with," she admits. She wasn't brave, didn't do the right thing, didn't hang on as much as she could have, should have. She was tired, she remembers, wanted to run away.

"I'm sorry," he says and she feels his lips against her temple, rough with five o'clock turned midnight shadow. She nods, closes her eyes.

They stay silent for a while and again, she finds that she doesn't really know what to say. She thinks of the day they've spent and of her cheeks that hurt from laughing too much, thinks of dart games and pulling faces, and teenage angst, and reaches out for his hand in the dark. His thumb caresses her skin, softly; she closes her eyes, feels him move, hears him dragging his leather jacket closer.

"Marth?" he says, quietly and she opens her eyes, smiles.

"Yeah?"

He moves a bit to be able to face her, shifts away from under the blanket she pulled around her knees. He places something on the floor in front of them. It's a box, a small, square, black jewellery box, like the ones in the movies. She takes a wild guess at what is in there and even if she's got to admit she's never finished a book mentioning that someone's heart stopped beating and then going on without mentioning their death, she thinks right this minute, that's exactly what happens to hers. It stops her words, her movements, the air coming in and out of her lungs.

"I've been trying to give this to you all weekend," he says but it barely registers in her brain. "I just –" he starts again, stops. "Open it."

She doesn't think she's capable of rational thought, right at this minute, which is why, she thinks, she does, almost automatically, like Leo, saying goodbye because his mum said so. There's a part of her that hopes she's got it wrong, that it's not what she thinks it is. She looks but then, it's exactly what she thinks it is. It's a black box with a ring in it, with a diamond mounted on it, with –

She opens her mouth to say – well, she doesn't know what to say, actually.

She thinks it shows on her face because: "Before you say anything," he interrupts, his hand shortly touching her knee. "It's – It was my grandmother's," he adds. It doesn't explain anything, as far as she's concerned, other than the look of it, she guesses, how old and lovingly ornate it seems. "I'm not –" he starts, looks at her, smiles. "I'm not asking, or proposing, anything, Marth. And if we never make it anywhere, well, I can't say I'll be fine, but -" he shrugs.

Above them, she can see the clouds moving with the wind, reflecting the city lights. The moon moves in and out of shade, the glow softly stirring around them; it's only ever pitch darkness in her dreams.

"You can wear it, or keep it locked in a drawer forever if you want, I don't care. It's yours," Clive adds, when she doesn't speak. "Whatever we are, I think it was yours from the day I met you."

Her mouth opens, closes; it's a very long time until she feels like words might even leave it again, one day. It occurs to her that he may still be speaking, or not, may be waiting for her to say something. She feels dizzy. Dizzy like that day when she dragged him into an empty courtroom and held onto his hand for fear that the ground may collapse under her.

As if reading her mind – or maybe how white her face gets, she guesses - "Are you going to swoon again?" Clive asks, joking, and it may not be that clever or that funny but at least she does hear his words, then, it gives her brain something to focus on.

"Fuck off," she says, smiling, shaking her head. A soft chuckle escapes his lips.

She doesn't really mean to but slowly, she finds herself picking the box up and bringing it closer to her eyes, watching the moonlight as it dances upon it. Things get less blurry as she focuses, but still, she's careful, takes the ring out of the box, feels the weight of it in her hand.

The part of her brain that is somehow still alive and responsive silently acknowledges that yes: it's beautiful, magnificent in fact, discreet and elegant, definitely the kind of thing she would wear if –

It's instinctive, she thinks, but she kisses him then and he responds to the touch of her lips, his mouth opening under hers. She feels them, those chemicals in her brain that say this is it, this is right, this where she's supposed to be. When she breaks the kiss, slowly, carefully, she takes the ring in her left hand, slides it down on the ring finger of her right. It sits well, there, she thinks, looking at it and biting her lip as she glances up at him. It's an engagement ring, not an engagement, and it's opposites, she likes it; it's a good thing. Her hand rests between them and he gently takes it in his, steady and oddly certain of something she can't quite identify. She feels his fingers brush against her skin, feels the cold of the metal as it slides down to base. It fits. She feels like Cinderella with shoes on.

"Happy birthday, Marth," he adds, softly and she laughs, then, loud and contagious because he does, too. He hadn't said it before, not yesterday when he showed up under the pretence of a conference or later when he mildly acknowledged it in the night. She hadn't thought anything of it, really, was just happy that he was there, has never really been one for gestures and celebrations, other than Billy's flowers and drinks with him at the Crown. Yet, when he says it, when she thinks about him being there, staying there and she kisses him again, the ring tangling in his hair, keeping him close. Whatever we are, she thinks and it rings true, in her ear, like Billy's words used to when he called them 'the kids' and invented them as an item, as an us bubbling under their skin.

When she breaks away again, her face mere inches from his and his fingers caressing her cheek, something occurs to her. She doesn't know if it's because of Billy, or because of Clive and the way he hung onto the ring like a secret. She stays silent, though, for a bit, until the thoughts get too loud in her head.

"It's genetic, you know?" she speaks, looking down to the floor, to her fingers, anywhere but him. "Alzheimer's, I mean."

She remembers her dad, the way he knew, before everyone else did. He'd summoned her to his practice one afternoon, after he'd had a call from school about some argument she'd gotten herself into. It was winter, she recalls, flu season, she'd looked around at the people in the waiting room, thought to herself she was going to get sick.

'Things are going to change, Martha, you need to understand,' he'd said but she hadn't, not back then, had made a nonsensical comment about her mum and how she was trying to control her life, had stormed out of his office like she always did. Looking back, now, she wonders how he felt, wonders if he wished to be like her, head deep in the sand for as long as she possibly could.

"I looked it up," she goes on, hesitating. "Early onset, close family member – it's a fifty/fifty chance," she adds, smiling, nervously, her glance drifting to the city lights. Drifting anywhere but him. "I'm not really good at fifty/fifty chances."

"Marth –"

"There's a test," she whispers, after a bit. "They run your DNA and tell you if you have it."

"Do you?"

She bites her lip, make herself look at him. "I don't know. I didn't want to know," she breathes. He opens his mouth, almost nods before - "Then, I got pregnant," she goes on, glancing down, unable to maintain eye contact. "And I thought – Well, I don't know what I thought exactly. I only got the results in my pigeonhole two weeks after the baby was gone, so I didn't look," she breathes. "Threw the envelope in my handbag and that was that, really."

"Do you still have it?"

She looks at her handbag thrown on the floor a few feet away, starts: "I –" stops.

"Marth," Clive sighs, shaking his head. "Don't tell me you've been dragging it around for three years?"

She sighs, too, glancing away. It didn't happen like that, wasn't planned, she didn't mean for it to happen, it just –

"Marth, that's insane," he presses. "You either open it or you don't, you don't torture yourself with it for –"

"It's not that fucking simple, it's –" she snaps, stops, breathes, explains. "Sometimes, I take it out and I want to open it, but then I think what's the point? Because I've always told myself I wouldn't be like him. And, I know the symptoms, Clive, I know what it's like, and the day I know I have it…"

"Marth -"

"Oh, don't go all Sarah Stevens on me," she says, rolling her eyes. "You don't know what it's like, you haven't seen –" she wants to talk about her father and what it was like, and what – No, she decides, she doesn't really want to talk about it. It's her problem, not his. "I'm sorry," she apologises, quick, decisive. She didn't mean to snap at him, didn't mean to - "I shouldn't –"

He stops her with a finger raised on his mouth and "sh," he whispers until she finally looks up at him. He smiles, with a hand against her shoulder and: "Can I ask you something?" he whispers, after a while, his voice soft and soothing. She nods, weakly, bites her lip. "Can I look?" he asks and frankly, it hadn't even occurred to her that he would want to, ever, that he would –

She doesn't know if she wants him to know, doesn't know if he should –

"I won't tell you if you don't want to know," he whispers, staring into her eyes. "But I do."

As she looks back at him, she remembers him when he found out about Billy, and the days that followed. She hated knowing. Hated keeping that secret, hated knowing what was coming and being unable to prevent it. It felt like watching her father forget her, forget her mum, watching water slip past her fingers. She looks at him and realises that Clive, though, would have wanted to know. He's like that, she knows, he likes facts and preparing for things when she doesn't, when she prefers to watch the water flow rather to try and catch it. Maybe he should know, too, because she –

She stops there, mid-thought, wouldn't know how to say it, anyway, wouldn't know, so she nods, finally, reaching to fish the letter out for him. It's battered, has been sleeping in her handbag under piles of files and things for three years, her name on the front almost faded out. Clive turns it around, goes to open it but before he can, the thought come back to her like something she needs to say, something that keeps her heart from slowing down, something –

She grabs his hand, stops him. "Whatever's in there," she starts, trails off.

She used to think that she didn't want to end up like her father, forgetting everything that had ever made him him, way too long before he forgot how to breathe. She used to think that when the time came, when she'd forget to pick up the milk up one too many times, she'd make that decision for herself, with a glass of red and sleeping pills, because she deserves better than that. Tonight, though, she looks at him and thinks something else, for the first since her dad got diagnosed: she thinks she doesn't want him to through what her mum and she went through. It doesn't change the end game, doesn't change her decision, but it means something, she realises, admits to herself. She breathes.

Her voice is quiet, arms hugging her frame tight wrapped in the blanket, looking at the little city lights dancing ahead of them. She can feel the heat of his body next to hers, can't really see his face in the dark. If he asks, she thinks, she'll say. If he doesn't, well - "Don't let me forget this okay?" she asks, softly. "Don't let me forget tonight?"

She feels like she's standing outside a building, after dinner and a movie, drinks, with a boy that's about to kiss her and her heart pounding in her chest.

Clive sighs, but not a heavy sigh, more of a smiling sigh, the kind of sigh that makes her turn and look at him.

"Why?" he asks.

She smiles, nervous, and why, really? It's funny, she doesn't know why. Maybe it's the way he looks at her when she's happy, or when she's angry, or maybe it's the ring he gave her and the expectations he didn't have, the quiet, honest words that he uttered or of the fact that he showed up at all, just because it was her birthday, and yet never said so. Perhaps, it's just because she met him, at Shoe Lane, one September morning, a long time ago. Why is something she's been wondering about for far too long, every time she looks at him, every time she feels like she's falling and he throws out a hand, catches her and tells her to breathe.

"I love you," she says.

He stops mid-movement, mid-breath, his whole body still, sitting next to her. "Say that again," he says, automatically, it seems, and she laughs, bites her lip.

"I love –"

It's not the same as last time, though, because he cuts her off before she has time to repeat her words. His mouth is on hers before she knows it, strong and confident, stubble grazing her lips. His hand finds her lower back, his body pushing her down onto the blanket until he's on top of her and his fingers are everywhere, on her skin under her shirt and in her hair, her hands curving behind his neck. The roof is hard against her back but she can't bring herself to care; it reminds her of last time, when they were drenched in rain, reminds her of them, really.

She briefly wonders how far this is going to get when his mouth leaves hers to find her neck -though, in fairness, this roof has probably seen worse in the past and it's not like anyone can see them, so –

He stops, though a few seconds later, remains close, above her, staring into her eyes. "I really love Bono," he says and she bursts out laughing at the same time he does, shoves him off half-heartedly and tries to get back up, her stomach hurting with fits of laughter in her ears.

"I mean, with all my heart," he insists as he sits back up and tucks at her hand to bring her with him; she finds herself chuckling again, shaking her head at him.

"Oh, shut up," she tells him rolling her eyes and bringing him back to her anyway, leaving him breathless against her mouth. She pulls away, eventually, looking at him and –

"I love you too, Martha Costello," he whispers, in her ear.

.

The envelope makes its way back between his fingers, eventually, after more fits of laughter and pointless jokes about U2, after their last glass of wine is drunk, too. He swallows, his forefinger slipping and slowly ripping the paper open. She bites her lip, doesn't want to look at him, but can't bring herself to look away.

She sees him go through the words in front of him but he doesn't show anything really, just reads for an agonising thirty seconds or so, his face blank when he finally glances up at her.

"You sure you don't want to know?" he asks, staring back at her poker face on – if the envelope didn't say 'personal and confidential' on it, she thinks he could have been reading her grocery list, for all she knew.

Somehow, it's comforting, knowing that he knows without having to know herself.

"Yeah," she says, briefly shutting her eyes before nodding, certain. "I don't."

So, he nods, too, smiles, and doesn't tell her. Will never tell her unless she asks, she knows, because Clive's like that, too, wants to know for him. She trusts him, she thinks, she really does.

With the letter in hand, he reaches out for her lighter thrown to the side earlier when she almost lit up a cigarette and brings it close to the paper. "So you don't have to carry it around, anymore, all right?" he asks and she nods, gives him her blessing and watches as paper turn into ash, slowly, script burnt and unreadable, falling into her ashtray.

The flame dies, eventually, and she lookup at him; he takes her hand in his.

"Come on," he speaks in the dark, starting to move to sit up. She's a bit cold, now, they're sitting on top of the blanket rather than under it and – "Let's go to bed."

"Wait."

It is a tricky, manipulative thing, really. It is a fleeting thought caressing the back of her mind at regular intervals, when her mum mentions it, or when he pulls faces at someone inside a café, the kind of thing that is never truly there, never truly real but never leaves, like a non-committal shrug as a response to an important question. She'd never thought about it again, really, or about it again with him, at least, just kind of an abstract what if in her head. It's wrong, it's stupid, was never even here in the first place, was never meant to –

"Marth?" Clive utters, low and distant, looks at her.

She only realises her hand is resting on her stomach when he tries to take it in his, smiling, trying to get her to talk to him and tell him what's going inside her head and -

"I –" she says, stops. His hand rests on top of hers for a split second before she relents and takes it, leaving her body, shakes her head.

She sees something in his look, something that tells her he knows, tells her that -

"Never mind," she says, her glance catching his for the shortest of times; she shakes her head to herself and smiles. "Come on," she adds. "Let's go to bed."

Clive gets up and pulls her with him. "All right," he says. "Let's step over that gap again and try not to die –" he whines, looking at the ledge of the building and the window of her bedroom on the other side. She rolls her eyes.

"Wuss," she says, again, shaking her head at him.

.

Her bed isn't a twin but it's definitely smaller than her bed at home so they have to squeeze in together, she spoons into him and smiles, his hand trailing in her hair, then down her arm to her hip. "I love you," he whispers behind her. She lets out a short laugh, bites her lip. The thing is, he says that and no matter how lightly she pretends to take it, her heart still skips a beat every time he does.

He's playing piano against her hip again, his fingers toying with the lace of the side of her pants: it's frankly distracting.

"My mother's downstairs, Clive," she says, another chuckle escaping her lips. "Say that all you want, but I'm not having sex with you."

"Oh, now, you know," he whispers in her ear with a smile in his voice. "What you're supposed to say is: 'I love you, too, Clive. I love you so much, Clive –'"

She puffs out a laugh, rolls her eyes. "Shut up. Now, I'm sleeping," she says and hears him laugh, behind her.

The thing is: she isn't. And the other thing is: she doesn't think he is, either.

When his hand falls down from her hip and follows the curves of her skin, at first, she wants to believe that he is. Listens to his breaths in her ear and almost convinces herself of their regularity, almost convinces herself that he doesn't know what she's thinking, what she was thinking just minutes before, outside on the roof, or that he won't say, if he does. Yet, she feels one of his fingers tap once, twice on her stomach; she becomes acutely aware of the rhythm of her own breaths, of the way his hand follows the movement of her body against his.

It's a really long time before he speaks, though, remains still to the point where eventually, she does wonder if he has indeed fallen asleep in the interim, until she hears his voice, a murmur in her ear.

"Marth?"

"Yeah?"

Her own voice is detached but she's pretty sure he knows she's holding her breath against his hand; she makes a conscious effort to let go, a long sigh escaping her mouth. In, out, she thinks. In, out.

"What you were going to say –"

"Forget it," she says, quick, too quick, really. She feels his hand stop drawing circles against her stomach and just resting there, for a while, just –

She doesn't want to talk about it, doesn't want him to know, or talk. Frankly, he's learnt enough things about her and what's going on in her head tonight for a lifetime, really, except: "Marth?" he says, again, and as he goes on, she closes her eyes, holds her breath and this time, doesn't think she cares if he knows. "I would want to, you know?" he adds, quiet, like he, also, barely dares. "If you wanted to."

The last time his hand rested on her stomach without being on the way to anywhere else was years ago, she remembers. It was dark outside and he was a bit drunk in her apartment and they were young, felt so, so young when she looks at them now and how naïve and unaware they were, couldn't think that anything could ever go wrong.

She had held his gaze as he stood at the bottom of the stairs down to her flat, remnants of the drizzling rain falling onto the floor of her hallway when he stepped past the threshold. She'd slid him a beer, settling next to him on the couch, nursing tea in her hands, her thigh bumping against his:

"This is going to sound stupid but can I -" he had finally asked after skirting around the topic for a good half hour, - feigning interest in chambers gossip and rambling about cases, - his gaze hovering over her skin. It made her laugh, back then, scoot closer to him as she lifted her shirt, the touch of his fingers slightly cold and wet from his drink, not that different from the gel the doctors had put there last week. He laid his palm flat against her and discretely; she observed his reaction: with clothes on, she wasn't showing yet, barely looked like she'd put on any weight, but lying down like this, her skin bare, it was another story. There was a bump, a very real bump, something that even she had been unable to ignore, lately. Quietly, his eyes had set on hers, she remembers, his thumb tracing patterns on her skin. He asked if it moved, yet, and wasn't it strange, to feel like you have another person growing inside you.

She stays silent in the dark, now, turning thoughts around in her head. She wants this to be real, doesn't want this to be real, wants –

Quickly, suddenly, she turns around to face him, finds his eyes wide-open in front of her, bites her lip. "Clive," she says, a breath. "I'm not even sure –"

He smiles, interrupts. They're lying so close to each other she feels his breaths on her skin. "Would be pretty weird if either of us was, don't you think?"

"It's not –" she starts, sighs. "Even if we try again –"

"We weren't really trying the first time."

It annoys her that he makes her smile and yet she does, shakes her head and ignores him. "I'm thirty-nine years old."

That is one tangible objection she feels is very relevant and yet, he just shrugs, barely blinks. "So?" he says. "We try. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's not for us. I'm personally in favour of lots of trying –"

She smiles and rolls her eyes, bites her lip. "It's not funny, Clive –"

"Of course, it is," he says, and suddenly he sounds serious, his gaze narrowing on her. She doesn't dare move. "It's us, Marth," he adds, again, like last night, like it means something.

She opens her mouth but –

"You and me, Marth," he continues, instead. "Me making you laugh and you making me laugh, and us screaming at each other, sometimes, and making up most of the time," he smiles. "And you being bloody insufferable, sometimes, and me being insufferable most of the time, and it's –"

When he trails off, she's forgotten her words, forgotten to roll her eyes or shake her head, just –

"I want you," he breathes and for the first time in a while, she breathes, too. "And, I want that," he says. "If you still do," he adds, pauses, his thumb against her cheek. "Marth, there's no one I'd like to argue with endlessly about schools and judo classes, and Christmas presents but you," he trails off again, looks into her eyes. "I love you," he shrugs, non-committal, like it's nothing more than water being wet. "I want a baby with you."

Three years ago, when he laid his hand on her stomach, the bloody thing mostly made her feel nauseous, frankly, so that's what she told him, admitted that much with a laugh and told him the story of how she had almost thrown up on the police misconduct panel a few days before. She honestly thought she'd stopped breathing when he leaned down, his breath caressing her skin and said: 'Hey baby,' spoken softly. 'Be nice to mummy.' And mummy, she heard, looked up at him and daddy, she thought, right before he kissed her, a quick peck, across her lips, like something free and secret, something that didn't bind them to anything. 'We're going to be okay,' he added, breaking away, his forehead resting against hers. She remembers catching herself thinking they were going to be parents, one day.

.


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[1] If you follow me on Tumblr, you'll probably recognise the little flashback at the end of this chapter. I honestly wrote this months ago and posted it up as Bumps because I didn't think it was ever going to make it in the fic, but then I was writing this and thought it was perfect and had to put it in. Obviously, I added a bit of punctuation, haha, as it's not a three-sentence fic anymore.