AN - Hello! Once again I am apologising for how long this has taken me to write/post, sorry! Honestly, this story wasn't meant to go further than the previous chapter, but there are some more moments I found I wanted to add. I think it will carry on like this for a little longer, but then it will become little snapshots of life as it goes on. I definitely haven't abandoned anything I've started writing, I've just slowed down a little! Anyway...I hope you enjoy! Ax

She would have looked at him twice, even if she hadn't known him; leaning against the wall in the fading winter sunlight, sunglasses still on and coat collar turned up, Clive cut a good-looking figure and Martha couldn't help but smile as she walked towards him. He caught sight of her crossing the square and stood up properly to meet her with a kiss; she nudged against his cheek, catching his lips again and turning it into rather more than just a 'hello'.
When they pulled apart the air felt immediately colder and Martha tucked an arm through his, pressing against his side. "You alright? How did it go?"
Clive squeezed her arm and ignored the question, smiling and saying lightly, "Not that I'm complaining, but I thought we were being a little less obvious about this than that was".
She coloured and laughed a little, "I don't think Billy's spies extend this far out of Middle Temple".
"God, I hope not," he chuckled and they started walking, "Come on, let's check in and get some dinner. And I need a drink after that afternoon".

Standing in the corridor, Martha twirled her key card between her fingers, "So..."
Clive shot her a look, "You didn't believe we were only going to get one room, did you?"
An inelegant snort escaped her and she said scathingly, "Of course not. Harriet booked it". The distain was evident in her tone as she carried on, "I'm sure she wouldn't pass up the chance to be able to call you in your room after work. You know what she's like, won't stop until she gets what she wants".
He sighed, knowing she was right about the other woman and hating how he had never been particularly discouraging of her attentions until recently. It had been automatic when she first arrived, he flirted with any woman who was attractive, clerks, solicitors, other peoples cons, and she was no different; but then the flirting had morphed into far more on her side, while he had pulled back, realised what he was doing was stupid and, as he was nearing 40, he should find the guts to tell the woman he actually loved how he felt. Clive would admit to having been a playboy around women for most of his life, and being fairly terrible in relationships for the rest of it, and he was starting to see the effect it might have on the future he wanted. He had never intended to lead Harriet on, but she had taken his careless flirting to mean more than it really did and he hated that Martha had to see the other woman still trying to catch his eye, especially when he knew it was his own fault, and it was something he could have probably avoided if he had just told her the truth earlier.
Martha could see the frown forming on his face, could understand what he was thinking, and reached out to gently swat him on the arm, "Stop thinking so loudly. It's perfectly obvious what she's like and we all know it, she'd be like it if you'd said hello once, let alone anything else; she's what CW calls a fizgig," her lips twitched at memory of her friend's perfectly accurate description of the younger woman. She traced her hand down his arm and twisted her fingers through his, "You and I, that's what's real," Martha repeated his own words from the weekend back to him, "I'm not going to lie and say it doesn't bother me, but it's her, not you or the past. I know you love me, like I do you, and that's what really matters".
He nodded, the frown lifting slightly, "I know," he sighed, "I'm sorry for-"
She shook her head and released his hand, reaching instead for his briefcase, "Don't be". Turning to the left, Martha slid the key card in the door and opened it, holding it ajar with her foot while she dropped both their briefcases on the floor, letting it shut without actually going in. "The office," she nodded to the now closed door, took the key card Clive held and opened the door on the other side of the corridor, "Bedroom," she stepped through the doorway with her case and looked back at him, "Alright?"
Clive smiled and followed her, pushing the door shut behind him and saying, "Since this is supposed to be my room, are you going think it's funny to keep answering the phone?"
Sitting on the edge of the bed to take her shoes off, Martha shrugged, "Hadn't thought about it. Maybe". She wiggled her toes, pleased to be out of the shoes she had forgotten were uncomfortable, "Do you want to go straight back out?"
"I don't mind," Clive stood with his back to her, undoing his tie in the mirror, suit jacket already abandoned over the back of a chair, "We did miss lunch, although it is early. Drink first?"
"Ok," she located a pair of flat ankle boots in her case and eased her aching feet into them with a sigh, "Remind me not to wear those shoes again, CW's towering skyscrapers are probably more comfortable".
He laughed, pausing in his search for a jumper to watch her lean towards the mirror to redo her lipstick; something always pulled his eyes towards her when she was putting it on, just watching her movements and seeing how the familiar bright colour changed her face. When Martha pulled back from the mirror he was next to her, fingers on her cheek tilting her face towards his to kiss her; the colour was smeared across his lips when they parted and she wiped it away with her thumb, smiling fondly.
Sliding the tube from her hand, he uncapped it, studied the colour briefly before raising it to her lips with a questioning look in his face. She nodded and fought down the urge to laugh when the makeup lightly touched her lips, tickling her in a way it didn't when she did it herself. Finished, he put the tube down and bent towards her again; catching him with a hand on either cheek, Martha pressed her lips firmly to his without moving, leaving a perfect imprint of the shape of her own mouth on his and pulled away with a grin. "Ready to go?"

"Bit different to the Crown, isn't it?" Martha looked around the bar as they found a table and sat down.
It was just after six o'clock, which they both considered the normal time to leave work, but more often it counted as early in their profession, and the bar they had chosen was far busier than anything near Middle Temple would be at the same time.
Clive laughed, "Can't imagine any of the benchers in here". He sipped at his glass of wine and glanced at the other people in the glass and chrome room, "Not quite the same crowd as at home, although I'm sure some of the pupils would rather come somewhere like this".
"I don't think anywhere would have the same people as we do". Martha followed his gaze towards a group of twenty-somethings who were laughing raucously in a corner, "We were never like that, were we?"
"We didn't look like that. Anyway, with what we have to wear, I'm not sure we are in a place to judge" Clive confirmed, eyeing the suits that screamed fashion rather than anything serious, "But we did have some good times like they seem to be having".
Running a finger around the edge of her glass, Martha mused, "It was good wasn't it, being a pupil? I mean, so's the rest of it, especially now, but it was all new and exciting and a bit of a novelty at first".
"Getting tenancy wasn't bad," Clive winked, making her blush and then kick him under the table. "What?" he held a hand up in mock defence, "It was! After all that worrying about actually getting a job and having to find somewhere new, and never being sure if it would be one of us, or both, or neither".
"That's not you meant, and we both know it," she grinned from behind her wine glass, "But yeah, all of that was good. And so was that".
He laughed and reached for the bottle of red to top up their glasses.

Warm steam filtered through the door as Clive left the bathroom, wrapped in a towel and vaguely drying his hair with another one. Crossing the room to stand beside her at the desk, he plucked Martha's pen from her hand, recapped it and set it down before catching her fingers and pulling her from the chair to stand facing him. "You're the one who said the office was in the other room, leave the work Marth".
She let him run fingers through her hair, drop kisses along her jaw but stilled his hands when they started to slide under the hem of her top and inch it off. "I, sorry, don't-"
Keeping hold of one hand in his, he cupped her cheek with the other, tipping her face towards him as her eyes tried to avoid his. "Hey, what's wrong? Marth?" When she didn't answer he slid his arms around her and she automatically copied, tucking her face into the crook of his neck and taking a shuddering breath against his skin.
A few minutes later Martha raised her head and pulled back from him, eyes shining and teeth digging an indent in her bottom lip, "Sorry".
Clive shook his head, "Don't be," he steered them towards the bed and sat on the edge, clasping both her hands in his lap. "We can talk about anything, always have done. Please, talk to me Marth. What's wrong?"
Her mouth worked for a moment before she offered an explanation in a voice that was quiet and full of emotion and tears that she didn't want to fall. "Nottingham". She took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh, "I know this, here, is so completely different but it's also somehow so similar and it just reminds me so much of what happened and everything that came afterwards. Until now, us, that was the last time, you and I," her words were jumbled, interspersed with pauses and sniffs, "And I know I'll never forget it, but I don't know what I'm supposed to feel and you..."
The rest of her words disappeared in a gasp and she couldn't force herself to look at him, so he curled his arms around her and murmured soft words against her hair. After a few minutes Clive shifted them both further onto the bed and they lay face to face, his arm draped over her waist, thumb stroking the sliver of skin above the waist of her trousers. Slowly, hesitantly, every feeling and fear and pushed down emotion crept into the open as they finally stopped avoiding the subject, and three years afterwards, they were honest with each other about the miscarriage.

Uncomfortable and warm, Martha woke up with the realisation that she was still fully dressed but in bed. She untangled herself from Clive's arms and slipped off the bed and fumbled her way to the bathroom, waiting until the door was shut to turn the light on. They had fallen asleep at some point after the unbearably honest and emotional conversation about the baby they had never got to meet; they had both cried and clung together as though it had only just happened and finally drifted to sleep, wrapped around each other and both feeling empty but more at ease. Martha turned the shower on, wriggled out of her clothes and stepped under the water, erasing the traces of tears and relaxing as the heat hit her shoulders. The occasional times that she did cry, tears were usually reserved for the shower, somewhere no one would hear and the teardrops would disappear as quickly as they fell; she didn't cry now, had shed enough tears earlier in the evening and wanted to wipe the remainder of it all away. Although it had been a sort of relief to talk about it, she had never been good with sharing emotions like that and spilling her feelings and thoughts had been tempered with embarrassment. In fifteen years, it was the only thing they had never talked about before, something that neither of them had ever wanted to resurrect, and so they had pushed it out of sight and pushed away from each other, albeit unwillingly, because they didn't know how to address it. Reaching for the shower gel, Martha let the scent of lemon fill the room and the methodical routine of washing occupy her mind until she felt halfway back to herself. Clive had always slipped easily between emotions, swallowing back fear or nerves or upset without an issue, and she envied him for it, especially at work. For her, it took longer to hide anything away, which was partly why she was always able to empathise or sympathise so well with people, her own emotions were always there to be tapped into, but rarely did they surface in their true colours. For people who could read others like headlines in a newspaper, Martha couldn't help but wonder how her and Clive had been blind to each other for so long, or at least, blind to the reality that they both felt the same. Perhaps, she thought as she turned the shower off and reached for a towel, they had both always known it; something had brought them together time and time again, and while she had always had a weakness for slightly arrogant, slightly older men with blue eyes, that probably wasn't what it was. More likely it was simply that it had never entered either of their heads; the thought that he felt the same as she did (when she realised it) had been dismissed within milliseconds of it occurring. She had reasoned with herself that while he was her closest friend, he was also Clive, who barely did relationships, let alone love, and if he did, well she probably wasn't going to be the recipient. They had both been wrong, and for once neither of them minded.

A sliver of light made its way between the curtains and allowed Martha to make out Clive's sleeping form, still on his side as she had left him. She tugged the towel he had been wrapped in out from under his hips and threw it into the bathroom with her own before easing into the bed, relishing the cool sheets after the hot shower. He shifted as he subconsciously realised she was there, and moved his hand over the sheets until it encountered one of hers and he could link their fingers together. From the first night they had spent together, they had always slept together the same way; Martha on her back, one hand tucked between the scrunched up pillows beneath her head, the other hand held loosely in Clive's, who slept on his side facing her, long legs sprawled out, one usually hanging off the bed. She turned towards him to press a gentle kiss to his temple and say quietly, "I love you," before settling into the pillows and closing her eyes.