A/N: Wow, two chapters in one day! I'm too good to you all ^__^ Anyway, please review and enjoy this chapter, I'm hoping to have the next one up by the end of the week.
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Ebony hated working the switch shift; it ran from 4 until 9 in the afternoon, and though it was the shortest shift, on the weekends it was always the busiest. She'd stuffed the boys on the tube after leaving her parents house going back towards the Abbey, while she'd taken a risky shortcut which skirted around Millwall football stadium, but she liked to play with fire sometimes.
"Ebony, can you sign these prescriptions off?" Ebony jumped a little as Nicola touched her elbow and attracted her attention. "Jumpy sod!"
"Shut yer mouth," Ebony teased back, signing her name on the forms against the wall beside her. "How's the eye and the lip?"
"Shitty! How's the jaw and ribs and – heck, how are you?" They exchanged a look then laughed as Ebony completed the forms and Nicola turned to walk away, receiving a swift slap to the rump as Ebony over took her. "Now you just have to convince Pete to do that to me."
"He couldn't know what he'd catch!" Ebony laughed and dodged Nicola's slap by ducking into a treatment room where there was a teenager who's fallen through a glass window. She started the arduous task of plucking fragments of glass out of his forearms and was just finishing bandaging up his arms over the stitches when her phone rang. "I'll be right back, okay? Just hold still and take some painkillers," she told the boy, hurrying out of the treatment room and into the cold air outside the main entrance. "Steve?" she asked, and felt her throat tighten at the name.
"Ebony, Matt's a fucking journalist!" Steve shouted back at her, and she hesitated just a second.
"Steve, I-"
"You knew?" he asked, and she winced hard at the accusation, even if it was true. "Ebony!"
"I knew, okay? I've known for a few days now, but-"
"For fucks sake!" he shouted again, and she physically jumped on the spot in surprise.
"Stop fucking shouting at me!" she yelled back, and considered hanging the phone up there and then in protest. She sighed. "What do you need me to do?"
"Get to the Abbey, meet me there and make sure you beat Pete and the lads, okay?" Steve told her, and she knew him well enough to hear the anger in his voice.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly, and hated how her voice shook.
"I know; I'll see you there," he replied just as quietly, and the phone went dead. She sank to the step beneath her, put her head in her hands and fought the tears that threatened to flow down her face. She took a few minutes to control herself before standing up and hurrying into the doctors lounge, leaving a garbled note for Nicola as she quickly changed out of her scrubs into jeans, a vest and her West Ham shirt, throwing a jacket over the top and charging out of the department.
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Pete fumed as he found clothes, Bovver, Ike and Keith waiting for him in the living room. Could Matt really be working for The Times? Was there another explanation? The journal made him hesitate; Matt had been writing about them all for weeks, even had the address of the Abbey on there. It made Pete feel physically sick that Matt could betray them all. But could he really do it?
He paused and sat on the bed, placing his face against his palms and taking a deep breath. He needed to be careful, not let on that he knew Matt's dad was a journalist, or else he'd be in the deep shit, too. He picked his phone up and rang Ebony, cursing under his breath when she failed to answer the phone, and left a stressed voicemail for her.
"Lets go," he said, the stress evident in his voice as he walked back into the living room, pulling his coat over his jumper and picking his wallet and keys up off the table. The others nodded and headed for Keith's car, Pete locking the door behind him. He was dreading this conversation.
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The Abbey was packed but incredibly quiet when Ebony flew in the door and nearly ran straight into Steve, who was looking stony at the round of applause that he received. Shi-it, she thought to herself, slipping past him and scouting Matt out, not returning the smile he aimed at her as she sat down in the booth.
"You alright?" he asked, and she shook her head and pulled her jacket off, laying it over the back of the booth and leaning back against it. Steve came and sat beside her and took a large gulp of the beer Terry had poured for him, giving Ebony a small glance as Terry sat down on her opposite side, placing a pint of cider in front of her.
"Cheers, Tel," she muttered and made sure to have a large mouthful of cider when the questions started to roll.
"You were the Major?" Matt asked as Steve settled back into the booth and took the hat off his head, considering his answer and looking into his beer for inspiration.
"Yeah, and Terry here was my right-hand man," Steve nodded, sipping his pint and pointedly avoiding eye contact with the little Yank. "But that was a long time ago now." Ebony chortled and went under the table to get something out of her bag, hearing the punch, seeing Matt's legs disappear and his body appear on the floor opposite her. She jumped, shooting upwards, catching her head on the edge of the table.
"FUCK!" she shouted, heading to her feet with a hand on the side of her head and, after glancing from Steve to Terry, she leapt the table deftly and stood in front of Pete.
"Don't say anything to him! He's a fucking journo!" Pete shouted, looking down at Ebony who was checking whether or not he was still conscious. He was, just bloodied and dizzy and not making a whole lot of sense as he tried to bleakly explain himself. Pete went for him again and caught Ebony by mistake with a flailing elbow as he went to grab Matt by the front over the top of her, sending her sprawling. Steve launched himself at his brother in defense of Ebony, who was flat on her back coughing weakly as she tried to reorientate herself, and it was only Terry who prevented them from killing each other there and then.
"Are you sure?" Ebony asked, catching her breath and standing up before retrieving a tissue to catch the blood running down her cheek from a cut just below her eye onto her shirt.
"What? Of course I'm fucking sure!" Pete replied, and she saw the doubt on his face.
"How? What proof do you have?" Steve asked, trying to copy Ebony's calm tone and failing miserably, stepping towards her and pulling the tissue off her face to look at the cut. The punch had set off the pain in her jaw again, and she was struggling not to cry at the pain she was in.
"Ike saw him going into The Times with all the other fucking journos!" Bovver piped up, standing to flank Pete like a bodyguard from a bad gangster film. Ebony half laughed then regretted it, pushing past Steve and picking up her cider to take a large gulp of the cold liquid, which helped settle the throbbing pain in her head.
"I was humouring my dad! He's the journalist, you knew that!" Matt told them, indicating Pete as he spoke and scrambling to his feet so he wasn't on the floor and looking up at them all. Bovver turned to look at Pete with a glare that looked like he'd just sprouted another head, and Pete braced himself for the onslaught of abuse.
"You knew?" Bovver accused, and Ebony struggled to contain her own shock at the revelation.
"Yeah, but bruv, only about his dad-" Pete started but was interupted by Bovver shouting loud enough to make them all jump where they stood.
"You shoulda fucking told us!" Bovver shouted thenstepped away, unsure whether to leave or to have a go at Pete. He made the smart, albeit surprising, choice, and turned to the older Dunham brother. "Steve, you was the Major, wont you lead us? Just for the match against Millwall."
"No, the GSE is Pete's firm, nothin' to do with me," Steve said firmly, his voice more confident now he was pretending to be calm.
"Yeah, it is," Ike agreed sheepishly, giving Pete an apologetic smile and shrinking into himself at the lack of response from Pete. He makes quite a nice floor-lamp, Ebony thought, then added How hard did Pete hit me? To that idea, surprised by the random train of thought she seemed to be engaged in.
"Fuck this," Bovver said incredulously, throwing his hands up and spitting directly in Matt's face. The American kept his cool, not wiping his face until Bovver was gone, and Ebony relaxed her shoulders as the tension dropped.
"Go and clean yourself up," Pete said, poking Matt in the chest with his forefinger and indicating the Gents. Ebony hurried him along, just pausing for enough time to give Pete a warning glare before she disappeared into the toilets behind Matt.
"I'm in deep shit, right?" Matt said stupidly as Ebony stepped closer to the mirror and examined the welt on her cheekbone carefully.
"No shit Sherlock," she replied smartly, running the warm water and fetching some toilet-roll. "Next time, get your damn face in the way when Pete wants to land you one." she told him half-jokingly, dabbing at the cut on her face with a piece of tissue and muttering that she wished she had some gauze.
"Right," Matt laughed, inspecting his nose in the grimey mirror, gingerly prodding at a nasty bulge on one side of it. "You think it's broken?" Ebony looked at it, her fingers on either side of his face, tweaked it and he squealed and his eyes watered, cowering backwards from her and bent double holding his nose in both hands.
"It'll heal straight now," she told him, tutting as she saw how much blood she had got on her West Ham shirt and peeling it off to rinse under the tap and fight with the blood. She watched Matt, doubled over and holding his nose gingerly, with a small smile on her face and tried not to laugh at his pain. Resetting broken noses were her particular favourite past-time, and she had got very quick at it over the years. She heard the door open and close, and glanced in the mirror to see Pete enter the room. "I'd stand up, if I were you."
"Why didn't you tell me you was doing journalism? Fucking History," Pete shouted, moving up close to Matt who barely reached his collarbone, but didn't move back or flinch at all. Maybe the GSE are having a good effect on the whimpy Yank, she thought to herself before moving to stand between them.
"Hey, hey, tone it down a bit, or I'mma beat the shit out of both of you," Ebony piped up, pushing them apart. There were very few people who would have been safe breaking up a GSE fight, but Ebony was one of the select few who could. This was all the GSE needed; a civil war over something this ridiculous.
"I quit, Pete! I told Eb-" Matt started, and Ebony winced as she heard the beginning of her name. Pete grabbed her arm as she moved away from them both and she twisted away, pushing herself up against the sink. She was shaking a little; she'd never ever physically fought with Pete outside of play-fighting, and the grabbing of her arm had scared her.
"You knew?" he asked quietly, aware of how scared Ebony was, and went to step forwards but thought better of it, instead asking her, "You okay?"
" I'm alright, just a little twitched," she lied quickly, then twisted the conversation back to the topic at hand. "Yeah, I knew, but not for long. And as he said, he fuckin' quit," she said, looking at Matt for a little confirmation that she was right, and he gave her a small nod. "The journal is just that; a diary. It's a little gay, but nonetheless., it's nothing but a journal." Pete's face contorted and he turned and punched the nearest cubicle door. Matt flinched and Ebony jumped, but neither of them moved.
"You had better be fucking right," he concluded, before turning and storming out of the room without a backwards glance.
