I know I know, the last chapter didn't have a happy ending. But hey it can't all run smoothly can it?

Thank you again for all the wonderful comments. You guys are seriously the best. 3

Anyway here we go again, another mammoth of a chapter so make sure you're comfy.

Chelsey x

P.S. I am a naughty girl and may use the word sex in this chapter. More than once. But this fic is a T (/M in some parts but I do warn you about that) so you can't sue me. ;)

Chapter Ten

Nikki

I let the water run over me for far longer than I needed to, half because I wasn't ready to go back out and face her and half because it blocked the feel of the tears that I knew were escaping from my eyes. I wasn't even completely sure why I was crying. In truth it was partly because I was hurt. I'd been trying so hard to look after her and not push any of her boundaries and then for no reason whatsoever she'd suddenly freaked out on me and basically thrown me out of her house. And of course I was a bit pissed off that being ill and moving so quickly she'd managed to throw up right over me; something that if I'm honest she hadn't even looked particularly worried about. Don't get me wrong when she'd done it accidentally the other day I hadn't minded at all, it was the fact that she caused it herself and then didn't even give a fuck.

And I guess there was also an element of it that was frustration. Because while I didn't mind having to take this as slowly as she needed, I at least would have liked to know where I stood. A minute ago we'd taken things physically further than we ever had before, and then suddenly she wouldn't even let me see her, even though I'd already seen her without a top on and in just bottoms... Oh shit.

I suddenly realised what it was that I'd done. Put my hand on her hip. On the edge of her pants; the see through pants that this morning she'd been so upset about the thought of me seeing her in. I ran my hand through my short hair. God this was hard.

I turned the shower off and pulled a towel round me. It was time for a bit of tough love and some honesty.

Marching back into the bedroom I saw her roll over so she didn't have to face me. I didn't care. I went and sat down on the edge of the bed and then taking hold of her head turned it towards me while she tried to protest, until she was forced to look at me. She was crying. I hated her being upset and I knew that the tears were part of the reason that she didn't want to look at me, but I had to do this.

"I'm sorry" she whispered. She was shaking now and I realised that I'd scared her. This was so so hard. I couldn't even take hold of her head like that without making her think I might hurt her. Did she really think that little of me? I knew it wasn't about me, but... it still felt pretty personal sometimes. I let go of her. She didn't turn away from me.

"I know, I know you are Lorri" I leant down and kissed her on the forehead. "And I am too, I shouldn't have lost my temper. But I didn't know what I'd done and... look, I have to be honest with you. I'm struggling, I am finding this whole hot and cold thing impossibly hard and I really don't know what to do."

"Like I said you can leave..." she said it so softly that I had to strain my ears to even hear her. I knew that unlike before she hadn't meant it horribly, she genuinely thought that I wanted to go and so she was just telling me what she thought I wanted to hear.

"And like I said last night, I'm not going anywhere."

She looked at me clearly confused. "But you just said..."

"I said that I was finding this hard."

"Impossibly hard."

"Yeah, which means that we need some ground rules, not that I'm about to make a run for it."

"Ground rules?"

"Yeah, ground rules. Firstly you have to start talking to me. I don't care how stupid you think you're being, if something's upset you, something I've done or said or that's happened, I need you to actually tell me. Because I'm not going to judge you Lorri, but I need you to be honest with me so that I understand what's going on."

"Okay" she said softly.

"Secondly, you have to stop pushing me away okay. If you genuinely want me to go then by all means tell me to piss off. But I don't want any of this silly bullshit where every time something goes wrong you tell me to leave or run off. You HAVE to learn to face things. All you've done since you were a teenager is run away the moment anything got a little bit more complicated than you could deal with. Well I've got some news for you darling, life's complicated. And if you don't start accepting that and rolling with it you're never going to properly experience life. You're never going to actually fall in love, not with me, not with anyone. Because love is about taking risks and sometimes, in fact all the time, it's bloody complicated."

"I know" she was still whispering, tears flowing even more freely down her face now.

I could feel myself getting more and more frustrated with her. I didn't want to, but now that I'd started suddenly everything that I had ever wanted, needed even, to say to her was coming out. And the truth was it wasn't about ground rules, it wasn't about making this work. It was just about making her understand. Making her see how crazy this all was for me. And it wasn't that I didn't sympathise or that I didn't understand; I did. But I needed her to understand too. I needed her to understand what this, what SHE was doing to me.

"No, no you don't know. Because you've never been in love Lorraine. You have never properly let yourself fall for anyone. When you were nineteen you were close to being in love, but then she hurt you, in the worst way imaginable. And I get that sweetheart; I get how hard that makes opening up and that because of it you've never let yourself feel anything for anyone ever. But please don't tell me you know a fucking thing about falling in love because you don't. Because when have you ever actually let yourself fall properly in love Lorraine? Tell me please, who exactly have you ever been really truly in love with?"

"You"

A deadly silence filled the room; and it wasn't because I hadn't heard. That time it didn't matter that it was the quietest she'd spoken so far, it didn't matter that my heart was beating so fast I could barely hear her speak over the sound of it; it didn't even matter that her speech was a little blurry because she was crying so heavily. Suddenly I could hear her as though she'd been shouting at me through a microphone. That one word was crystal clear.

And that was it. I swung my legs round behind me, climbing onto the bed properly, kissing her with everything I had, feeling her do the same. It no longer mattered we were in the middle of a fight, or that she'd told me to leave, or that she'd freaked out about me seeing her and had thrown up on me. I didn't care that she still tasted of sick. In that moment all that mattered was that I showed her that I felt the same, that despite the shortness and chaos that had been our relationship up until this point, she meant everything to me.

I slid under the covers to be closer to her, wanting to feel her skin against mine, not even thinking about how she might react as I climbed on top of her. I ran my hands along her side and was surprised to see she hadn't got dressed while I'd been gone; she was still in nothing but the pants. Our lips crashed together again and her arms grabbed hold of my side. I felt the towel falling off me and flinched but was quickly distracted by the feeling her hands running down the sides of my newly bare hips. Then suddenly she was rolling me over and I was grabbing hold of her hips, trying to keep her beneath me, desperately wanting to maintain control. As she used her remaining strength to roll me over, with power that I can only assume came from the pure adrenaline rush her confession had caused, I heard the sound of fabric tearing. For a few seconds we continued on as we had been before, making out passionately with everything we had. But then we both realised what we'd heard. Realised that in the struggle of her rolling me onto my back, my fingers, still on her hips, had managed to get tangled and unintentionally tear through the flimsy fabric of her pants.

It was my turn to nearly be sick. If earlier had caused her to freak out then this definitely would. If there was any way to remind her of her last and only sexual experience with someone it this. I looked up, meeting her panicked little eyes. She looked just as she had that day before term ended, like a cat caught in headlights. Then I felt movement and realised she was moving my hands that were still on her hips. I nearly cried not sure what to expect next but knowing it wasn't going to be good.

But she was still holding my hands, balanced over me. The only difference now was that as my hands had moved, the fabric I'd been holding onto had fallen from her. Now there was nothing between us as we both lay staring at one another in shock, Lorraine still straddling me with her hands holding onto mine, tighter and tighter until it felt like she was going to break them.

I knew I needed to speak. I felt her head drop next to mine, the strength starting to leave her body.

Lorraine

My head fell onto the bed next to her. I was getting weaker again, having used up the small amount of energy the rush of adrenaline had given me. Pulling my head up only enough to be able to look at her, my head tilted to the side and I whispered "It's okay, I love you". Half reassuring her it was okay, that she hadn't done anything wrong. Half reassuring myself that this was okay, I could trust her; she wasn't going to try to take advantage of me, she wasn't going to hurt me.

"I love you too." Her voice was barely louder than mine but it was enough. As I heard it I relaxed enough to allow the last of my strength leave me, and my body that I'd been so careful to not let fall against hers did. And that was where we lay for the next few minutes, with me collapsed on top of her, skin against skin, my head buried into the side of her neck. And there were hundreds of things that I knew I needed to think about and absorb, and even more that I needed to say to her, but for those few minutes none of them mattered. My brain went blank. All I knew was that I felt safe with Nikki, and that for once was enough.

After a few minutes I felt her lips against my neck and her hands running slowly up my side. I almost held my breath as I felt her fingers continue to explore the now bare skin of my right hip. "You okay?" she whispered to me, still a little unsure about whether I was genuinely okay or whether I was about to freak out again.

"Yeah I'm alright" I said softly. I wanted to get another burst of energy, find the strength to really kiss her again. So I could show her that I meant what I said before. Because what I had realised when I saw her sitting looking at me manically earlier, was that this was fucking hard for her too. Until a few days ago she didn't even realise she liked women. And since then she'd not even had a proper chance to deal with how she felt because she was too busy dealing with all my crazy shit. All I'd done was mess her around and play with her emotions. So as hard as it was for me to believe her, believe that this was all for real, I knew it must be just as hard for her to believe me.

She was still running her hands up and down my bare hip. "Mmmm that's nice" I purred softly. She looked at me and our eyes met once more.

And then suddenly we were kissing again. Emotion exploding from us as our tongues battled it out in her mouth. I pulled back slightly from the kiss and heard her moan, half in pain, half in pleasure, as I bit down on her lip. I was running my hands along her side, and before I'd really realised what was going on I was straddling her again and running my right hand slowly up the outside of her left thigh. I moved so that I had one leg either side of her left one, then I let my body drop onto her again so I didn't have to worry about having the strength to hold myself up. I could feel our bodies brush together now as we kissed even more fiercely than before. Her hands had been around my back but now she moved them down, squeezing my bum as I moved the kiss down to her neck again. Hands still on my bum I felt her lift her thigh up slightly and try to brush against me, moving my hips towards her...

"Oh shit" I rolled off her, starting to throw up again in the bowl by the side of the bed.

"Sorry I'm not..." I was sick again "freaking out babe, I just..." and then again "moved too much."

I looked up hoping she wasn't going to be mad at me and was relieved but a little offended to see her lying there half laughing.

"Sorry Lorri I know you don't feel well and I feel horrible but..."

"Yeah I know it's hilarious. I keep ruining the moment by puking my guts up."

She giggled. "No it's not ruined it's just... making things a little bit trickier."

I groaned and rolled onto my back next to her. She put her arm around me and I snuggled into her side.

"You okay?"

I thought about it. "Yeah I think I'm done being sick again for now."

"I wasn't talking about that."

"I know." I did. I knew exactly what she'd meant, I just wasn't sure I was ready to talk yet. But I had to, I'd made a promise to her and it was one I fully intended to honour.

"Yeah I'm okay. I just... I feel a bit overwhelmed right now. I mean we... we got pretty close to actually starting to... you know?"

"Have sex?"

"Yeah" I blushed but refused to drop eye contact. "Yeah and I want to, please don't think I don't. I mean... you're gorgeous. And I do, you know, love you." I had to look down; it still felt a little bit weird to be so open with her like that. "But it just feels pretty quick."

She nodded, and I was relieved to see genuine understanding in her eyes. "If it makes you feel any better I feel a bit freaked out too. I can't believe I just did that I mean... is that even what we're supposed to do?"

I giggled for a second but then thought about it and stopped. "I have no idea. I um..." I found her hand and held onto it. "She... didn't. Just went inside me and then um..." I could feel myself starting to get a bit shaky and felt fingers on my lips.

"Shhh you're okay, you don't have to talk about it."

"Oh sorry" I suddenly felt a bit guilty. That was probably the last thing she wanted to hear about, especially right now.

"Hey don't be sorry" she squeezed my hand "I want you to be able to talk about it with me. I want to know everything that happened to you that night so that I can really honestly understand what you went through and be able to try and help best I can. But I don't want you to feel like you have to or that there's any rush. If you want to tell me then I promise you Lorri that's okay, but if you want to do it little bit at a time then that's okay too. I just don't want you to push yourself too hard and force it out when you're not ready; yeah?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Yeah thank you... thank you for being so understanding. It means a lot."

"You're more than welcome treacle."

We lay in silence again for a few minutes, both needing some time to take in everything that had just happened. In the end it was me that spoke first this time.

"Ugh I feel so gross, all I can smell is sick. I need a shower and I seriously need to do my teeth."

"You want to shower together?" She looked at me a little shyly and I couldn't help but smile.

"Oh bless, look at confident Miss Boston now. First sign she's going to have to let me see her with all her clothes off and she's like a teenager; all shy and insecure."

"Alright alright" she blushed even more. "I'm not shy I just... Oh I don't know."

I squeezed HER hand this time. "Look I'd love to but... only if you're sure you're ready. Cos the same thing goes for you, you know that right? I'm not going to be upset or offended if you say we're moving too fast. I've had a lot more time to get used to this liking girls thing than you. I know you might not be ready to let me see all of you yet, or to see all of me for that matter. So just... don't feel like you have to say stuff like that because you don't."

"I know I don't. I do want to; I want to be close to you. But you're right I haven't really had much time to get my head round this. And I just... well once we've done that it's kinda official isn't it? I mean up to this point we could just be really good friends. That happened to have made out a few times..."

We both laughed.

"But seriously, showering together that's like... really coupley. And that means we're really together, that I'm really..."

I leant up and kissed her softly before finishing her sentence. "...In a relationship with another woman."

"Well, yeah."

I could see the insecurity in her eyes now. I could see that like me she too had her insecurities. She also had things that were obviously bothering her about this relationship. "Look Nik if you want to slow down then that's okay. I'm a big girl I'm sure I'll manage to shower all by myself."

"Really?"

I pulled a face at her. "Babe I'm serious, I've been looking after myself when I've been ill for a hell of a long time. If you aren't ready to shower together yet then we can take it in turns."

She looked at me and I could see her mulling it all over. "No, no I want to do this. I love you. And woman or not I want to be with you. And it's a bit too late to worry about that now anyway, I mean like you said we just nearly..." she trailed off and I wasn't sure whether it was for my benefit or hers that she didn't say the word sex again.

"Right, if you're sure... Um... how do you want to do this?"

She looked at me blankly. "What do you mean?"

"Well are we both moving at the same time or..."

"...Are we doing a Monica and Chandler?" she added on.

Now it was my turn to look confused. "Huh?"

"Well I'm guessing when you said how do you want to do this you were talking about the fact that we're going to see each other for the first time. So I was just suggesting that we do a little F.R.I.E.N.D.S. recreation." She was giggling but I was still not getting it.

"What are you talking about Nik?"

"The program, American sitcom... don't tell me you've never heard of it?"

"Of course I've heard of it." I said a little grumpily. "I get busy with work but I don't live under a rock you cheeky cow. But that still doesn't explain what you're talking about."

"The scene where they ended up in bed together and realise they're going to see each other for the first time. So they both stick their heads under the duvet at the same time."

I stared at her and she burst out laughing. "Lorraine babe it was a joke, one that was a lot funnier before I had to explain it. I was just teasing you because you were being so awkward about it. Come on, you're scared, I'm totally bricking it; this is a big thing for both of us. But let's just try be grown ups about it and not behave like we've never seen a naked body before."

"Sorry" I felt a little bit stupid now for making such a fuss.

I felt her lips on mine again. "Shhhh you have nothing to apologise for Lorri. I know you were just trying to make this easier for both of us, but I just want this to be natural okay. I don't want it to be like a scene from a TV program or a film."

"Okay" I kissed her back. Her arms wrapped around me and she was pulling me into a sitting position, standing position. Not breaking the kiss the whole time. Just as my feet hit the floor I felt my legs go to jelly beneath me and prepared myself for hitting the ground. But the fall never came. As my legs had gone Nik had realised that I just didn't have the strength to walk and had tightened her hold on me and then physically lifted me off the floor.

"Wrap your legs around me" she instructed, all thoughts of the awkwardness we'd been scared of before completely gone from our minds.

I did as she'd told me and wrapped my legs around her waist, my arms around her neck balancing myself, but without the strength to actually hold on properly.

Luckily I didn't need to. Her army training meant that she was more than strong enough to support my weight even if I couldn't. Once I was securely in her arms I felt her lips crash back into mine again, as we moved, still kissing, into the bathroom. I broke the kiss only long enough to say "so much for not wanting this to be like a scene from a film" before going back to kissing the beautiful woman that, right at that moment, was supporting me in every way she possibly could.