Author's Note

Previously on Boy Meets Girl Meets Skins: 'Emily' is caught in the ladies with one of the girls at the football party which causes Katie to lose her rag with her twin. 'Cook' get totally pissed with Freddie and JJ in the shed and embarrasses 'himself'. Naomi decides to discuss her concerns about Cook/Emily with Freddie over at his house.

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When Naomi arrived at Freddie's and let herself in to the infamous shed as arranged, she could immediately see that Freddie hadn't been exaggerating about the state that 'Cook' was in. 'He' was, to put it mildly, all over the place. Face down on some disgusting cushion that Freddie had dragged out from somewhere, Emily was stretched out on a moth-eaten old sofa clearly suffering from the after effects of a lethal cocktail of far too much home made booze and a seriously fucked up mind.

'Jesus Christ!' said Naomi out loud upon seeing the still groaning Cook lying flat out in obvious distress. 'How long has he been like that?' This was definitely a sight for sore eyes and a very rare one at that.

'Since the last time he threw up.' Freddie shook his head in bewilderment as he continued his mopping up operations from Emily's last spectacular technicolour yawn. 'You wouldn't have thought so much vomit could come out of one person. I can't even remember the last time I saw Cook throw up from drinking too much. He's always had the stomach of an elephant. Maybe he's gone down with something.'

'What, you mean like swine flu? I suppose it's possible given that he's a complete fucking pig most of the time.' Naomi snorted at her own joke as she sat down next to 'Cook' and looked at him closely.

'Cook! It's Naomi. How are you feeling?' Naomi put a comforting hand on his shoulder to show that, despite the harshness of her words, she did feel a measure of sympathy for the poor bastard even though it had been largely self-inflicted.

'Like shit. But I 'm so glad you're here. I'm feeling better already now.' Without looking up Emily stretched out a hand blindly, searching for Naomi's and grabbed it tightly when Naomi reluctantly allowed her to find it. Freddie was amused at Cook's surprising reaction and, with the hint of a smirk just about visible across his lips, he looked across at the tall blonde and asked, 'Would you like me to leave you two alone for a while?'

'Fuck off!' replied Naomi, pulling a face at him but any further insults she may have had planned were put to one side as Emily raised her head with considerable effort to plead with the blonde.

'Don't leave me, Naomi, please! Sit with me for a bit. I know I won't feel nearly so crap if you're here.'

Naomi stared at 'Cook' in silence for a while, taking in the scene which confronted her and recalling the bizarre thoughts that had been running through her mind earlier on that evening. She really needed to quiz Freddie on what he thought was going on with his best mate but 'Cook' was holding on to her hand surprisingly tightly and showed no signs of wanting to let go too easily. Naomi was beginning to feel more than a bit uncomfortable and very self-conscious sitting on the sofa holding hands with someone who only a few weeks ago she would barely have given the time of day to.

'Look, I'm going to empty this bucket,' said Freddie, breaking the awkward silence. 'I'll be back soon, okay?'

'I suppose I'd better be going home,' said JJ quietly whom Naomi had barely even noticed since her arrival. He had been sitting some distance away, not uttering a word and feeling extremely queasy himself. Seeing someone be violently sick had always made JJ feel like puking as well. It had forever been so; he just couldn't help gagging involuntarily at the sight of anyone throwing up. This reflex reaction was a frequent source of irritation and embarrassment to him but there appeared to be no cure for it.

JJ said goodbye to them all and quietly slipped out of the shed door, promising to ring Cook the next morning to see how he was. Freddie made a move towards the door and Naomi decided she would have to go with him and have a few private words about Cook's recent strange behaviour. Letting go of 'Cook's' hand proved tricky as Emily instinctively tightened her hold on Naomi's hand as soon as she tried to break free but Naomi was determined not to be manacled to Cook for the whole evening. Eventually she was free and reassured the ailing pisshead that she would be back soon.

'I'm only going to help Freddie clean this place up, Cook. I'll be back in a couple of minutes!'

'Do you promise?' cried a whimpering Cook and, with raised eyebrows and a look to the heavens, Naomi swore she would return, casting daggers at Freddie who was pissing himself laughing at Cook's increasingly pathetic and childlike entreaties. 'God, men are like fucking children when they're ill. You wouldn't catch a woman making such a bloody fuss over a little thing like this,' thought Naomi scathingly and a flicker of doubt popped into her mind about the credibility of Cook's extraordinary claim. .

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Within minutes of Danny pulling the two sisters apart, or rather dragging a raging Katie away from a defenceless 'Emily', the three of them were heading for home. Katie had decreed that the evening's entertainment was over and neither of the others gave a thought to arguing the toss with her. Katie was clearly in no mood to be trifled with. She couldn't face the whistles, whispers and prying eyes of the rest of the football crowd if they went back to the party so she had told Danny in no uncertain terms to drive them home.

The silence in the car during the ride back home was so intense and painful that you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. Not a word was said by any of them and Katie sat in the front next to Danny quietly seething, with a face like she was chewing a wasp. Sensibly for once, Danny kept his head down – metaphorically speaking - and just concentrated on the road and getting the three of them back to the Fitches' house as soon as possible in one piece.

Cook was in the back seat, licking his wounds, almost literally, and checking how many pieces of his battered and bruised body were still intact. Katie had a surprisingly impressive punch in her fighting repertoire, he had to admit with a certain amount of respect. He'd known some guys who would have been proud to have given as good an account of themselves in a fight as Katie had just done. She had gone up in his estimation after that evening even though he still considered her to be a right old whingeing pain in the arse.

When the car pulled up outside the familiar Fitch home Katie got out, followed by Cook who stood calmly by and watched as Katie whispered something to Danny who seemed to protest briefly before being firmly put in his place and then nod his head in agreement. Seconds later the car pulled away and Katie turned towards 'Emily', eyes still blazing with anger and mouth grimly shut to hide the gnashing of teeth that was going on within.

'I'm going inside to bed. You can fuck off somewhere else. I don't care where you go but one thing's certain. You are not sharing a bedroom with me tonight, you revolting lezza. I don't want you anywhere near me tonight, do you understand.'

Cook looked at her blankly and shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. 'Fine by me. But I think you're making a lot of fuss over nothing. Why does it matter to you who I'm with? It's got nothing to do with you.'

'It's got everything to do with me, Emily! People were laughing at me tonight. I could see what was in their eyes. I could hear what they were saying. Katie's sister's a lesbian. Not Emily's a lesbian, but Katie's sister. I'm the most popular girl in that crowd and everything you do reflects on me. Now you've made me a laughing stock. I'm never going to live it down.'

Cook shook his head as he listened in silence to Katie's tearful, emotional rant. All of a sudden he felt terribly sorry for the poor misguided girl. He had never appreciated until that moment just how shallow and lacking in real self-confidence she was. He had always looked upon Emily as the shy, timid, insecure sister who was dwarfed and put in the shade by her brash, confident older sister. Tonight he had seen a different side to Katie, perhaps he had caught a glimpse of the real Katie for the first time and from where he was standing it didn't make for a pretty sight. Katie was actually the insecure sister, the one totally lacking in self-confidence who constantly needed the superficial approval of her peers to bolster her self-image. It was all a bit sad, really, he thought.

'You should listen to yourself, you know,' said Cook as he started to make his way down the road. 'You're the one who's fucked up, not your sister. You need to chill out a bit more, not be so tight-arsed. You'd find life a lot easier if you did.'

'At least I've got a lot more style than to make out with some cheap little scrubber in the fucking toilets. I mean, how classy is that? It's the sort of thing I'd expect from Cook, not you!' Katie spat out these last insults, blissfully unaware of the irony of them, as she walked up to the door, turned the key in the lock and disappeared inside.

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Naomi returned to the shed alone, having left Freddie inside the house. Their conversation had not proved to be as helpful and illuminating as she had hoped but then again perhaps she had been unrealistically optimistic. Boys just didn't notice things like girls did. Boys never discussed with their best mate in minute detail the underlying reasons behind what someone did or didn't do, said or didn't say. Guys didn't spend hours of their valuable, precious time analysing someone to within an inch of their life. Guys just thought about things for a brief second, if at all, and then if they couldn't figure it out they would move swiftly on to something they could get their head around. Maybe the reason why men seemed to have it so much easier in life than women was because they made it easier for themselves. Naomi decided this was not the right time to follow this particular idea through but made a mental note to pursue that line of personal enquiry on another occasion.

Freddie had failed to come up with any bright ideas to explain Cook's weird behaviour recently. Yes, he had noticed Cook had been acting a bit strangely lately. (Well done, gosh! You are observant – for a bloke!) No, he hadn't a clue what might lie behind it. He hadn't really given it much thought (and Freddie seemed one of the more thoughtful and cerebral of the guys she knew – mind you, the competition was not exactly what you'd call fierce).He had wondered if Cook was just getting a bit hung up on Effy but apart from that nothing obvious sprung to mind. He was sure the old Cook would be back soon enough. Why not enjoy the quieter, less reckless and destructive Cook while it lasted?

So, no joy there, thought Naomi with a sense of frustration and disappointment. She said she would go back to see if Cook was feeling any better. Freddie thought that it was probably best to let him crash out in the shed for the night as it didn't look like he was capable of going very far in his current state. He told Naomi where she could find a blanket in the shed to wrap round him to keep him warm. He promised that he would look in on him later before he went to bed but reckoned that Cook would be dead to the world by then. Just let him sleep it off, Freddie advised. He'd crashed there on numerous occasions when he couldn't be bothered to drag himself across town to his own bed.

'How are you?' asked Naomi as she entered the shed and came over to Emily who didn't appear to have moved while she had been talking to Freddie.

'Like death warmed up,' moaned Emily. 'Where have you been? You've been gone ages.'

'No, I haven't. I was only gone ten minutes. Hang on a second, there's a blanket here somewhere.' Naomi rummaged around at the back of the shed in amongst all the junk that was piled up on top of each other and after a short inspection triumphantly pulled out the aforementioned blanket and brought it over to 'Cook'.

'Here, this should make you feel a bit warmer,' she smiled, unfolding it and putting it across 'Cook', covering him up as much as she could. She resumed her position on the sofa next to 'him' and as she did so, Emily turned over on to her back and looked up at the blonde with a face like death and a miserable expression to match.

'Look, Naomi, I know you didn't believe a word of what I told you the other day and I don't blame you. Like I said, I wouldn't believe me either. But can you honestly see the real Cook allowing himself to get in a state like this in front of his mates. He'd never live it down, would he?'

Naomi didn't reply, at least not straight away. She was looking deep into Cook's eyes as he was talking to her and she was suddenly struck by something that she had never noticed before. Sure, everything about Cook, his face, his voice, his clothes, all looked depressingly familiar, unmistakeably the same James Cook she recognised all too well. On the outside, this was Cook without a shadow of a doubt. But Naomi saw something in his eyes which made her gasp and shook her to her very soul. For in these eyes that were fixed firmly on her as he was speaking, Naomi could see a softness, a vulnerability, even a warmth that had never been seen there before.

Even though she could sense the pain and despair in the words of the young man who was sitting next to her, his eyes were smiling at her and that was something she had noticed with the Cook she had got to know. Cook could be smiling and grinning at her like a Cheshire Cat but his eyes never seemed to smile at her. The only person she knew whose eyes had ever smiled sweetly and adoringly at her like that ………had been Emily Fitch.

In fact she remembered how freaked out she had felt the first time she had caught Emily secretly looking at one day when she thought she wouldn't notice. She recalled turning bright red with embarrassment and looking away quickly when their eyes had met. And now here in the most unlikely of surroundings, she felt almost certain that she was looking at those same smiling eyes right now. She could feel her cheeks blush and she instinctively looked away just like she remembered doing a year or so ago.

'Maybe,' she said, forcing herself back to what Cook (or Emily?!) had been saying.

'I don't know, Cook. You're ……confusing me. I don't know what to believe any more. Look, I really ought to be going, you know.'

'Please, Naomi, don't go yet. Stay with me a bit longer. Talk to me, it makes me feel so much better just to listen to you.'

Naomi looked at her watch. Eleven o'clock. It was getting late and she was feeling really tired. She knew she ought to go home but there was something in Cook's voice, a sort of desperate, tearful pleading which made her want to stay. She nodded and smiled at him.

'Will you lie down next to me and warm me up a bit more? It's freezing in here.'

Emily moved along the sofa a bit to create some space for Naomi to lie down alongside her. Naomi stared at 'Cook' closely to see if there were any signs that this was Cook trying one of his moves on a girl he fancied getting it on with. But all she saw, all she sensed was a genuine desire for company, comfort and closeness from someone who was suffering. She took a deep breath and lay down on the grotty old sofa alongside Emily and she felt a shiver run up her spine as their bodies made contact. Where did that frisson of excitement come from? Naomi wondered. She would never have felt the same with Cook!

As they lay next to each other, she could feel the contours of Cook's body up against her and she could hear his gentle breathing which seemed to have become much calmer and controlled since she had lain down beside him. Naomi felt a strange, relaxing, peaceful stillness wash over her as the stresses of the day seemed to slowly evaporate into the cold, heavy atmosphere of the shed. Within a couple of minutes both girls were fast asleep.

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The sound of the doorbell ringing gave Effy a start. She looked at watch and wondered who the fuck could be calling at this time of night. She dragged herself out into the hall and went to the font door and opened it.

'Hi, babe!' said Cook, grinning hugely. 'Have you got room for a small one for the night?'

'Emily. What's up?' If Effy was surprised to see the diminutive redhead standing on her doorstep looking like she'd been dragged through a hedge backwards, she didn't show it.

'I need a place to stay for tonight,' Cook explained matter of factly. 'Can I come in?'

Effy contemplated the young girl for a second or two, gave the hint of a smile in her eyes more than on her lips and stood aside to let her in.

'What's happened?' Effy asked as the two girls stood looking at each other in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs.

'I've upset Katie tonight. She refuses to let me into our bedroom.'

'Really? How did you do that?' Effy raised an eyebrow but other than that tiny gesture showed no great surprise at this announcement of a sisterly falling out.

'I guess she wasn't too amused by finding me shagging some girl in the toilets at a party.'

'No shit! And why were you shagging this girl in such a romantic setting?' Effy was staring at 'Emily' with a huge grin on her face, not appearing to be the least bit blown away by Cook's confession.

'I guess… because you weren't there,' replied Cook with his customary blunt and brutally frank honesty.

'So, how long have you wanted to shag me, Emily?'

'Ever since the first time we screwed on that first day at college, in the nurse's room. I think it's time we fucked again, Effy. Mind you, you won't be able to grab my balls this time. We'll have to think of something else.' Cook laughed and pulled Effy firmly towards him and planted a long, sloppy smacker full on her lips which Effy made no attempt to avoid. Indeed she reciprocated with the same passion and intensity that Cook remembered her showing on that memorable first day at college.

'Come on then, Cook' said Effy after they pulled slowly away from the kiss. 'Let's go and see if the nurse is in this time, shall we?' and the tall brunette started to climb up the stairs, closely followed by a grinning, laughing and very relieved Cook.