Disclaimer - I don't own Skins.

-Naomi-

'WHAT. THE. FUCK.'

Everyone in the room turned to look at a shell shocked Emily, who was taking in the scene in front of her with her mouth hanging open. Myself, Effy and Katie were sat at her dining table drinking coffee and Cook and Freddie were sprawled on the sofa, their legs up on the coffee table, watching football highlights on the TV. No-one said anything, just looked at her silently with mildly panicked faces, so Emily slammed the door behind her, making everyone jump.

'What the fuck is going on here?' she exclaimed again, looking at Katie with a furious expression, her voice cracking on the last word, making it sound like she was going to lose her voice.

'Erm, well' Katie started, looking round at everyone else in the room causing us all to look away and avoid her eyes. 'Cheers guys' she added sarcastically before standing and walking gingerly towards Emily. 'They, well we all, kinda got thrown out of the hotel.' She said hurriedly, her face guilty.

Emily's eyebrows hit the ceiling. 'How the fuck did you manage that?'

'We took the party back there Emilio, it was wild' Cook piped in, his face split into a massive grin which slowly dissipated when he caught the look on Emily's face. I rolled my eyes discretely at his idiocy.

'Shit got broken, guests got annoyed, the bar got ransacked' Freddie said bluntly, shrugging and looking at Emily calmly, which seemed to annoy her. Katie seemed to notice this and jumped in.

'It was proper late, so I thought we could come back here, because obviously they couldn't go back to mum's, and no-where else would take us at that time. Or when we were that drunk' Katie continued, moving towards her one step at a time, looking nervous. 'I did try and call y-'

'My phone died' Emily snapped.

I stayed quiet during the entire exchange, occasionally sharing a glance with Effy at the awkwardness of the situation we'd found ourselves in. The room had fallen back into a silence so I chanced a look up, mentally kicking myself for doing so when I caught her brown eyes with mine. I flicked my glance back down to my coffee immediately.

'Katie, get me water and some kind of headache tablet please' Emily said, the earlier anger having left her voice, replaced with a resigned tone. I carried on looking into my mug when I felt the table jolt a bit, causing me to look up to see her sitting opposite me at her dining table.

'Last night got pretty…messy…' Emily started, looking at her hands as she let the sentence trail off, flicking her eyes back up to us when we didn't respond.

'Definitely' I said quickly, looking over towards Effy who was nodding.

'Where's your stuff?' Emily queried suddenly and randomly, looking around the room quickly before stopping abruptly and taking her head in hands, 'Ouch. Need to stop doing that'

I smiled at how cute she was.

'They've moved it all into JJ's room at the hotel. He's still there.' Effy said, glancing over to Cook and Freddie as they started yelling at the television screen over some footballing injustice or other.

'Ah. Fair enough' she said, taking the glass of water and the tablets Katie brought over and swallowing them.

'What happened to you last night anyway' Katie said, taking a seat at the table and smirking as she took a sip from her own glass of water. I flicked my eyes back down to my coffee mug, finding its contents inexplicably interesting yet again.

'Erm, well, I was…at, erm…' Emily spluttered, prompting all three of us to look at her questioningly. 'Yeah. Well, just at a friend's.' she concluded finally. Effy and Katie shared an amused look across the table and turned back to her while my gaze returned to my mug, although I wanted to know more about what had happened after she'd ditched the club.

'A friend's?' Katie said, chuckling.

'Yeah, a friend's' Emily repeated back to her sharply, shooting her a filthy look before pushing her chair back and standing up. 'Naomi, can I have a quick word?'

I snapped my head up and looked at her, 'Me?' I questioned stupidly.

A flash of amusement passed through her eyes, but was quickly replaced with the serious face she'd had when she asked the initial question.

'Yeah. Through here' she said bluntly, wandering towards a door at the back of the open plan room. I took a deep breath and placed my coffee mug onto the table, standing up without looking at Effy and Katie and following her towards the back of the room, striding through the door that she was holding open and wincing as I heard it click shut behind us. Fuckfuckfuckfuck.

I spun round to see Emily staring in the direction of her bed behind me, her eyes narrowed, encouraging me to glance over my shoulder to look at the unmade bed, turning back round with a confused look on my face.

'Who slept in here?' Emily questioned, looking at me as though there was a potentially wrong answer, and my heart sunk as I realised I was going to have to deliver this answer to her.

'Um, Katie and Freddie…' I answered truthfully, figuring that I'd rather deal with an annoyed Katie Fitch than an annoyed Emily Fitch.

'Urgh, for fucks sake. This day literally couldn't get any worse.' She thundered loudly, seemingly to herself, before striding past me and over to her walk-in wardrobe and yanking the door open forcefully, disappearing into it before continuing, 'I've asked you in here to find out what exactly it was that we spoke about that made me want to leave the club last night' she said, her tone unreadable.

I squeezed my eyes shut and inwardly swore, although figured this would probably be easier with her hiding in the closet. I opened my eyes again and sighed faintly.

'It was just a' I stopped, thinking of the right word, 'misunderstanding' I added, pausing and just standing in her bedroom listening to her banging around in the wardrobe. I wasn't sure if she had heard.

'Go on' She prompted, letting me know she had, and her tone suggested she was impatient at my reluctance to give up information or details willingly.

'It was stupid, I just felt that you should know that now that you are involved in, and you know, may do well in, this competition, you know' I stopped talking and shook my head at my ridiculous loss of coherent speech before continuing 'well, I just told you that there are cameras around, and photographers, so you should be careful about who and what you decide to do in clubs' I grimaced a bit at my wording which wasn't dissimilar from what I'd said last night, although I had definitely been more bitchy about it in the club.

Emily came back out of the wardrobe with her brow furrowed and her face serious, dressed in Nike sweatpants and a vest top, her red hair hanging loose around her shoulders. She looked at me intently, a look that made me nervous.

'I may not have said it in those words. I may have been a bit more…harsh…' I admitted sheepishly, looking down at the floor, unable to cope with the eye contact she wasn't wavering on.

'Right' she said, coughing quietly when her voice came out more husky than usual, a consequence of her hangover and her overexertion on her voice last night, 'Well, I suppose that's fair. I was really drunk, and to be honest, it was Cook's fault' she commented, looking down and laughing slightly.

I laughed and looked back up, my face turning solemn again when I caught the downtrodden look on hers, the previous laughter not having reached her eyes.

'I am sorry for how i spoke to you; I wouldn't have been as brutal if I hadn't been pretty mashed myself.' I said, staring into her eyes, which still didn't leave mine, and this time I held the eye contact to show her the sincerity of my apology. The sensation of apologising was odd, I wasn't used to it.

'S'ok, not like I remember. I got filled in on most of the night by…' Emily started, her face becoming puzzled momentarily, 'I cannot remember that girls name' she said, shaking her head and holding her hands out whilst laughing incredulously and looking at me. 'Seriously, I'm usually so good with names! Anyway, the girl from the 12th floor filled me in…' she trailed off.

'She's the one you went home with last night?' I questioned, trying to act nonchalant.

'Yeah, I've…met...her before' Emily stated, raising her eyebrow suggestively to let me know she was pretty well acquainted with the girl from the 12th floor. I laughed politely but my eyes remained steely. 'But I just slept there last night it would seem, nothing more' She continued lazily, wandering over to a bedside table and pulling open a drawer, unaware that I felt my heart soar a bit at this seemingly insignificant snippet of information. She rummaged through it for a second before yanking out a phone charger. She turned back around and looked at me. 'Thanks for the…advice anyway. I appreciate it.' She went to walk past me towards the door before spinning round. 'Oh, wait…you said you were going to come find me last night…any reason?' She queried, cocking her head to the side.

'Oh, yeah, I was going to forewarn you about cameras and, erm, just about how to act when they are around, before anything had the chance to happen…ironic huh?' I laughed nervously. She joined in, nodding.

'Okay, well. Now I know' she smiled, leaving the room.

I shook my head and exhaled, grateful at the quick lie that saved my pride from the real, and kind of lame, reason that I kind of wanted to just spend some time with her last night. I gathered myself before following her out and back into the living area, reclaiming my seat at the dining table and looking at Effy, letting her know through my eyes that it hadn't been disastrous without actually having to say the words out loud. Working together so long had definitely had its benefits.

'We should probably go' Effy stated, standing up to show us that it wasn't a suggestion. I followed suit and furrowed my brow when I realised Emily didn't seem to be in the room and considering it was an open plan set up, this seemed odd. I spun round in the direction of her impressive shiny kitchen, spotting her sitting on the counter in the corner of her kitchen, staring intently down at her iPhone which was plugged into a wall socket behind her. I looked at her for a second, taking in her svelte figure before realising I was staring.

'Yeah' I agreed, the sound of my voice pulling her attention away from her phone, her eyes meeting mine immediately. I smiled at her warmly, 'we're going to go'

'Okay' she said, smiling back at me, this time letting it reach her eyes. 'See you guys soon, thanks for last night…in the main' she chuckled, prompting me to laugh along with her, pleased that we could joke about it already.

'S'later Emilio' Cook yelled, smiling widely at her while he stood up and stretched. If he had taken a shine to her initially, he was possibly her biggest fan after the show he got to witness last night in the VIP area of Tonic. The three of us made our way to the front door and said our goodbyes to Katie and Freddie, who were sitting on far ends of the sofa from each other as if we hadn't had to listen to them shagging all of last night, exchanging polite pleasantries as we made for the door. Clicking it shut behind us, we headed for the lift, falling into step with one another easily. As we walked away we heard the sound of Emily start talking, the sound loud enough to carry down the hallway, prompting us all to stop suddenly at the same time and lean back slightly to hear better what was being said.

'...for starters, I cannot believe you let yourself into MY house and then fucked in MY bed! The fucking cheek, you can buy me a whole new set of bed linen. No, I want a whole new BED. Secondly, I cannot believe you got kicked out of the hotel. The hotel where I WORK. How do you think that'll make me look, Katie? What if I get sacked? What if they blame me because you lot thought it would be funny to play knock and run in a five star hotel at four o'clock in the fucking morning…'

We all looked at each other, amusement dancing in our eyes before running towards the lift and pushing the button repeatedly, jumping in when it arrived and letting out the laughter we'd been holding in.

'Shit, she is not happy' Effy stated through her laughter.

'She's a firecracker, that's for sure' Cook mused, his face sporting a filthy smile.

'It's kind of funny that we didn't tell her we were knocking on peoples doors, she just knew that's what we'd have done' I snorted, pressing the button for the Ground Floor. 'Poor Katie'

'Did she have a go at you like that?' Effy smirked at me.

'Did she fuck' I said, pushing Effy lightly. 'She can't actually remember last night, but I told her what I'd been trying to let her know, about cameras and that'

Effy raised her eyebrow and nodded, her eyes sparkling, infuriating me.

'I was telling her for her own good. If she goes further in Idol, then she doesn't want photos of her doing stuff like that in clubs with random girls' I snapped defensively.

'I want photos of her in clubs doing stuff like that in clubs with random girls' Cook chimed in, waggling his eyebrows, chuckling as Effy hit his shoulder quite hard with her fist.

'You guys know what I mean, it's damaging. That shit follows you' I argued, ignoring Cook.

Effy just nodded again 'For her own good' she mused as the lift slid to a stop, her smirk still in place. I rolled my eyes and scowled, letting it go as we all hopped out and made our way towards the front doors to get a cab back to The Bristol and face the music.

An hour later, thousands of pounds poorer and with JJ in tow, we were all on our way back to London.

'What a nightmare' JJ commented bleakly, staring out of the window of the people carrier solemnly. He had taken the brunt of the anger of the manager of the hotel because he was the only one there for him to blame, and he had been really quiet since we'd picked him up, apart from the occasional sigh. I glanced at Effy worriedly, wondering if he'd ever recover from the massive bollocking he'd taken on our behalves.

'Jay, we're sorry' I said, reaching over and patting his shoulder. He didn't turn around, just carried on staring out the window.

'Mate, it ain't the end of the world y'know. They ain't pressin' charges. We paid for the damage…'

'We…?' I cut Cook off, looking at him through narrowed eyes.

'Well, yeah. The damage was paid for…' Cook added, laughing. I shook my head in disbelief at his cheek, considering HE had brought the party back, HE stole from the bar, HE smashed the window…well, he was to blame for most of it. Cook cut through my thoughts 'Maybe we should all lighten up a bit, yeah? That was a big splash about, that's a given, but as of next week we ain't gunna have opportunities to do that. Next week is Boot Camp, after then, the work starts, yeah? So one last legendary night was in order, for sure, so calm down. Everyone had a good night, right?'

JJ looked at Cook and nodded, obviously accepting his logic. I smiled at Effy and then at Cook, who was beaming back at me smugly. I rolled my eyes and turned to look out of my own window. Only the London auditions to go, then it's Boot Camp. Cook was right, that's when the work did start, but I had a feeling this was going to be the best series yet as I leant my head back against my headrest and shut my eyes, red lights dancing behind my lids as I fell asleep.

A/N - Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and so on :) It's Boot Camp next, and i've already started it...not drinking has made me more productive!