Chapter ten

Lauren waited in Joey's office where Emily had just sent her, waiting for him to come in. She had seen him outside the door hanging about and wondered what he was up to. Joey had seen her watching at him and he quickly looked down at the papers in his hand, which made her giggle.

He finally came in after she had been sat in there by herself for twenty five minutes. He shut the door quietly lingering at it. He turned around and strode to his desk not making any eye contact with his client.

"Hi Lauren, how you feeling?" He asked her, looking down at the paper work he had in front of him on his desk.

"Alright" she mumbled, looking down at her hands.

Joey suddenly became more interested, he entwined his hands together and leant his chin on them, his elbows also on the desk.

"Are you sure? Anything new at home?" He questioned, more for personal interest than professional.

"Yep" she sighed, in no mood to talk.

"What's happened?" He asked her.

"Uh! Why are you so interested anyway?!" She snapped.

Joey didn't say anything back to her, knowing pushing her would only make her more frustrated. Instead he got the opposite. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that" she sighed.

"It's okay Lauren"

Joey watched as her head fell downwards and he could see her eyes start to water. It took all of his strength not to go over and hold her in his arms and tell her it was all going to be okay, because he wasn't sure that everything would be okay.

Lauren but her lip, pulling a face that helped her to keep her tears at bay, and joey couldn't handle it no more, his emotions got the better if him. He walked around to the other side of the desk, a box of tissues in hand. He bent down to her level and handed her a couple of the tissues. Lauren was surprised to see him knelt in front of her.

"Thanks" she weakly smiled.

"You know, I'm a really good listener... You can tell me anything you want, and I promise I won't judge" he smiled.

Lauren smiled back. "How can you do this job? I mean like listen to depressing people all day, what do you do when you get home after all the sad talk?" She smiled.

"I go home and I feel sorry for myself" he smirked, he didn't mean for that to come out, but it made Lauren laugh and that was something he hadn't seen in a while, even before he left walford.

Joey got up and he left the box of tissues on Lauren's lap, he made his way back around the desk and he sat down ready to talk.

"You know this memory loss is a real pain in the ass" she smirked, making joey laugh.

"I can only imagine"

Lauren laughed. "Yeah me too" she said, the both if them laughing at the irony of those few words.

Their eyes met and joey couldn't pull away, it was like everything stopped and he couldn't do nothing about it. Luckily for him, Lauren didn't have that strong connection, not anymore anyway.

"Bad joke, sorry" she smiled.

Joey smiled warmly at her. "So... What's new then?" He asked.

"I had a flashback, or I think it was a flashback anyway" she admitted.

Joey swallowed a lump in his throat as she explained in detail one of the nights they were all in the Vic together, after they had split up. "Yeah so there was this guy in the corner of my eye who I couldn't see properly, I don't know what that's about, maybe he's the key to this whole thing" she said.

"What do you mean?" He asked, knowing full well it was him.

"I think maybe he could have been my boyfriend, I know we split up because of my drinking and maybe that's the reason he and everyone else were being off with me, I figured I did some terrible things" she told him.

"So your figuring some new things out... That's really good Lauren" he said, knowing full well he didn't mean it.

She smiled at him. "I reset my phone and found a load of messages too, there were some good and bad ones in there" she frowned. Joey got more anxious as she told him about her new information. "There were a few cold messages off my best friend lucy, which is weird because were really close" she frowned again.

"What kind of messages" he asked.

"Well messages saying I don't deserve 'him' whoever he is, she told me a few times I didn't deserve anything good in my life and I should be ashamed of how I acted" Lauren furrowed her eyebrows together, still confused by the whole thing. "And I can't even ask her about it because she was... Er... She was murdered last night" Lauren said, not being able to meet joeys eyes.

"Oh, I'm sorry Lauren" he said, honestly he had been wondering when she was going to bring that up.

Lauren smiled weakly at him.

"There were also some other messages from a guy, some of them were a bit embarrassing to read" she said going read. Joey furrowed his eyebrows together. "I think this guy is the one I was chasing after when I got hit by the car because his contact name was 'boyfriend'" she smiled to herself.

"We must have gone through a rough patch, or split because some of the messages I sent him seemed a bit desperate, he must have been pretty special because I do not do desperate" she laughed, joey laughed too.

"Other messages from him were nice though, really nice" she smiled.

Joey smiled directly at Lauren, liking hearing her side of the story about him, although as jive as it was, he hoped her memory wouldn't go any further than it already had done. "Also, I think there's something going off with my parents"

"What makes you think there's something going off?" He asked curiously, wondering if she knew they had split up. Tanya had only came back from Devon when Lauren had been taken into the hospital. When they realised how serious her injuries were, Tanya wanted to stay until she was better.

"They just act really off with each other, I mean they've never been loves young dream but this is different, they can't stand to be near each other... Mums never in the house and she's always on the phone or distracting herself whenever dads around" she said.

"And how would you feel if they were to... Part?" Joey asked.

Lauren chuckled. "Honestly, I'd be relieved" she admitted, surprising joey and making him laugh at the same time.

"Yeah?" He asked.

"Yeah, I mean they're not right for each other, they're bad and it's not a good atmosphere for any of us, they have a better relationship when they're apart" Lauren told him.

"Well I'm glad you have a positive outlook on things Lauren, your really making progress" he smiled.

"Thank you, let's hope I make some more"

Joey forced a smile into his face, hoping she didn't make any more progress.

"I better get going then" she smiled. "Yep, times up and I've gotta get home" joey smiled.

Lauren smiled at him awkwardly as she noticed he kept staring at her. "Okay well I'll see you next time" she smiled, and getting up from her chair.

Joey got up and walked to the door, opening it and letting Lauren step through. She giggled and then stopped straight away, realising it was a little inappropriate. Joey stared into her eyes again. "Bye joey" Lauren smiled.

Emily looked up and scowled at Lauren, and even more so when she called joey by his name and not 'doctor Williams' which she wasn't allowed to do but somehow Lauren was. Lauren strutted by and couldn't help but smirk at Emily on her way out.

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