"Effy!" Katie called out, barging in the front door, knowing that Gina wouldn't mind. "Effy!" she called again as she raced up the stairs.

"Katie?" Naomi popped her head out of her bedroom, surprised to see Katie there.

"Sorry, can't talk. I really need to talk to Effy," Katie brushed past her.

"Katie, she's not here," Naomi stopped her in her tracks.

"What?"

"I thought you knew. She came home from college today and said she had to go home. Said Tony had called and there was something wrong with their mum or something. She packed her bag and left," Naomi explained.

"What?" Katie repeated, her heart pounding hard in her chest. She remembered what going home did to Effy. There was a reason the visits to check on her mum had grown more and more infrequent. "Fuck! Naomi how could you let her go?"

Naomi's brows furrowed. "She's a big girl, Katie. I wasn't really going to stop her."

"Don't you remember what she was like when she first got here? Being in that fucking place did that to her! Her mum's hardly a mum, and her dad's fucking verbally abusive! He better not fucking be around," Katie growled, her guilt momentarily forgotten in her sudden panic for Effy's well-being.

"Katie, calm down. I'm sure she'll be okay," Naomi attempted to sooth her.

"No. She won't," Katie replied with a certainty that she wished she didn't have. "Naomi, I've got to get her back."

Katie turned on her heels and raced away from Naomi, who was still standing there dumbfounded. Somehow this had turned into the worst day of her life, and it was all her fucking fault. If she hadn't gone off with Cook, she'd have been there for Effy when she needed her. How the hell could she have been so fucking stupid?

Effy felt a wave of anxious nausea hit her as she stepped through the door of her house. It felt so foreign to do so. The air reeked of old (and rotting) food and cigarettes, and the house was a mess. Clearly her mum hadn't been up for laundry...or cooking, or doing dishes, for that matter (if the take away containers strewn around were any indication). As Effy stepped over a bag of rubbish to get into the living room she realised that taking out the trash had become above her mother's capabilities.

Her eyes surveyed the room. No sign of her mother.

She made her way back to the stairs and headed up to her old bedroom. Tony's old bedroom really. She pushed the door open and breathed in the stale, but relatively breathable air. This room, at least, was the exact same as when she left it. A pang of guilt hit her. She should never have abandoned her mum. She dropped her bag on the bed and sighed deeply before exiting the room to go find her mum.

It turned out she didn't have to go far.

Anthea appeared in the doorway to the bathroom and turned her dead eyes on her daughter, cigarette dangling precariously from her lips. "So the fucking prodigal daughter returns," she muttered sarcastically before turning and walking to her bedroom.

Effy shrank back at the words, but chased after her mother nonetheless. "Mum, Tony says you haven't answered the phone in days."

"That fucker never calls to talk. He only wants to check on me," Anthea replied grumpily as she lay back in bed.

"He said Dad called him saying your work had called and you hadn't shown up in two weeks. He also said that you didn't answer the door for Dad anymore," Effy persisted.

"Good for nothing sod!"

Effy wasn't sure which of the two people she'd just mentioned her mother was referring to, but it didn't really matter. "Mum, you have to go to work."

"Oh, now you give a shit, do you?" Anthea glared at her.

Effy felt a stab of pain. She'd always given a shit. It just hadn't seemed like she'd been helping there, and Katie had convinced her that she actually needed to look after herself.

"Effy!" a desperate shriek carried up the stairs, and Effy closed her eyes at the familiar voice calling her name. She'd wanted so desperately to get Katie's advice when the call had come in from her brother. She'd just wanted someone she could lean on, but Katie had been nowhere to be found.

"Who the fuck is that?" her mother frowned as Katie called out her name again.

"My friend, Katie."

"The one who told your dad off?" Anthea inquired, and Effy saw a bit of a spark in her eyes.

Effy nodded.

Anthea grinned for the first time in what felt like ages. "Your dad proper hates her. Ranted on for hours after you two left. I like her."

Effy managed a small smile of her own. That, at least, was something that she and her mother could agree on.

"Effy!" Katie screeched again, sounding closer this time.

"Well, aren't you going to tell her where you are? She'll wake all the neighbours!"

"It's four in the afternoon, Mum," Effy replied.

"Oh, well, she'll go hoarse," Anthea came up with the next best excuse that her brain could manage. Anything to make the noise stop.

"Effy!"

Effy could hear the panic in Katie's voice clearly now. She stepped out of her mum's bedroom into the hall where a wild-eyed Katie practically flung herself at her.

"What're you doing back here?" Katie demanded.

"My mum needed me," Effy replied, not meeting Katie's eyes.

"Why didn't you call me?"

"When you fucked off, I figured you needed space, and I looked for you, but I couldn't find you."

Though Effy's words weren't accusing, Katie felt the guilt that had been kept at bay by panic sink back in and consume her. "Effy, I-"

"So do I get to meet her?" Anthea's gruff voice called.

Katie's eyes went wide. She was not prepared to meet her girlfriend's mum. Katie froze in her tracks and forgot to breathe for a moment. Had she just really thought of Effy as her girlfriend? She'd been so careful not to label it until now, but today, on the day that she stupidly tried to fuck Cook, that was when her brain decided to give in and call Effy her girlfriend? She swallowed hard and took a shaky deep breath.

Effy turned questioning eyes on Katie.

Katie closed her eyes. She'd been a coward earlier. Now she needed to be brave. She nodded and stepped forward.

"Katie, right?" Anthea swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up, extending her hand as the two girls entered the room.

Katie nodded nervously. "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Stonem." She'd been in the house with the woman before, but they'd never been formally introduced due mostly to the fact that she'd been unconscious the majority of her times there.

"Pffft. Anthea. Call me Anthea."

"Nice to meet you, Anthea," Katie corrected, feeling rather self-conscious as Effy's mum looked her up and down.

"You yelled at my husband."

"Sorry, about that, it was just-"

"Don't be silly, dear. I loved it. More people should yell at him," Anthea cut her off.

Katie glanced at Effy who was standing rigidly just inside the room and staring at the floor. Katie turned back to Anthea and did her best to offer her a small smile.

"Mum, Katie and I are going to go downstairs for a bit. Do a bit of tidying, okay?" Effy finally interjected into the awkward silence that settled upon them.

"I get it, you don't want to hang out with the old lady," Anthea waved them off. "Just let me know if you decide to run away again."

"I didn't run away. You knew I was at Naomi's."

Anthea grumbled a response that the girls couldn't hear, as she laid back down. "Oh, pass me my pills, love," she added, indicating a bottle on the far side of the bed.

Effy walked around and picked up the bottle, examining it for a second. Diazepam. "When did you get prescribed this?" she demanded.

"Doctor gave it to me to help with the alcohol withdrawal or something. All I know is it helps me sleep."

Effy surveyed the room and noted the half drunk glass of scotch on the bedside table and the empty bottle of vodka on the floor. "Right," she replied. She handed her mother the pills before walking swiftly out of the room, Katie on her heels.

"She's not going through alcohol with-"

"I know," Effy cut Katie off.

Katie took a deep breath. Now that they weren't in Anthea's company anymore, she really needed to tell Effy what had happened. She could feel it eating away at her. As they headed down the hallway towards the stairs, Katie grabbed Effy's wrist and pulled her into her bedroom, closing the door behind them.

"Effy, we have to talk. I have to tell you something-"

"Can it wait? This hasn't been the best day," Effy interrupted, attempting to step around

"No," Katie replied. If she didn't do it now, she'd chicken out.

Effy finally looked straight at Katie, the seriousness in her voice breaking through the thoughts already racing through her own mind and filling her with dread.

"First, let me say that it meant nothing, okay?"

"You fucked him," Effy said in a monotone voice, slinking down against her bed, fighting the bile rising in her throat.

"No! No! I didn't fuck anybody! I mean you the other day, but no one else! It was a kiss. Well, a few kisses. A snog. With Cook," Katie explained.

"Yeah, well when he disappeared at the same time as you, I connected the dots," Effy replied, staring blankly straight ahead at her stark white wall.

Katie sunk to her knees in front of Effy. "It wasn't- I was just- There was this fight with a girl, and she called me a dyke and she told me my tits were small and it was so, so stupid, but she just got under my skin and then I ran into Cook and I just wanted-"

"To be normal," Effy finished for her, bringing cold eyes up to meet Katie's.

Katie reeled back at the pain she saw in Effy's eyes. She was the cause of it, she knew. How could she have been so fucking stupid? At that moment she hated herself for what she'd done to Effy. "Effy, I'm so sorry," she apologised, the words seeming to fall short. Why wasn't there some better way to convey that? Sorry just didn't feel like enough.

"Who stopped it?" Effy demanded, her voice hard.

"What?" Katie asked, panic rising in her voice once more.

"Did you pull away or did he?" Effy rephrased. Effy didn't need to wait for the response. Katie's face said it all. "I think you should leave. I have to get the house cleaned."

"I'm not leaving you, Effy," Katie replied.

Effy let out a hollow laugh. "I think you already have."

"No! I haven't! Ef, when he stopped, I knew he was right. I didn't want him. I only want you. Even as he was kissing me it just didn't feel right. Because he wasn't you. It wasn't your hands on my back or your lips on mine. It didn't send shivers down my spine or tingles through my body or make me wet, or any of the other things that you can do to me with just a look."

Effy didn't reply. She had no reply to give. Her heart was aching in a way she hadn't even realised it could. Nobody had ever made her feel this acutely before.

"Effy, I'm so, so sorry," Katie reached out towards Effy, but stopped when she shrank back. "Effy," Katie murmured desperately.

Effy closed her eyes, trying to get control of the nausea that threatened to overtake her any second, trying to get control of her emotions so she could stand firm and kick Katie out, even though half of her just wanted to fall into her arms and hold her close so that she'd never have a chance to kiss anyone else ever again. Effy desperately needed a shoulder to lean on, but how could she lean on someone pulling away from her? She opened her eyes, forcing a mask into place, and got to her feet. "I think you should go."

"I'm not leaving here without you," Katie replied, standing as well and meeting Effy's steely gaze. For once she didn't let it intimidate her. She'd been around Effy enough, knew her well enough, to know she needed at the very least a friend. Katie had to be that person that Effy could rely on. She had to prove that she could be that person. "It's not healthy for you here."

"I can't leave my mum again," Effy countered.

"If you're staying, then I'm staying with you," Katie said definitively.

"Why? I'm giving you the out you want, Katie. Take it."

Katie stepped forward. "I don't want an out."

"You almost fucked Cook today to get an out," Effy replied, emotion seeping into her voice as bile rose in her throat once again at the thought.

"Right before I realised exactly how badly I'd fucked up, and how much I almost stupidly threw away," Katie said. "Before I explained to Cook that I was with you."

Effy's eyes widened at that. Katie had actually told someone she was with her. Someone who wasn't safe. Someone not inside the little bubble of her, Naomi and Emily. "Bet he took it well."

"He took it better than you might think," Katie informed her. "He drove me to Naomi's and when she said you'd come here, he drove me here. Didn't really say much, but-"

"Yeah. I get it."

"Effy," Katie murmured softly after a moment, taking another step towards Effy and putting a tentative hand on her arm. "I know I fucked up. I'm good at that sometimes. But I'm sorry. Please let me be here for you right now, like you've been there for me since we went back to school."

"We're all good at fucking up sometimes," Effy commented after a minute.

"Effy, I'm not going anywhere. You can be mad at me and hate me, but I'm not leaving you alone here," Katie informed her.

"Why?"

Katie felt her heart pounding in her chest. She couldn't say it yet. Not to Effy. She couldn't put herself out there like that. But what if she didn't and Effy pulled away? What if Effy kept trying to push her away? She tried to swallow but her mouth was too dry. "Ef- I-"

Effy saw the welling of emotion in Katie's eyes, and suddenly she felt too much. "Okay," she relented. "I could use the help cleaning downstairs."

Katie breathed out a sigh of relief. "Okay," she agreed.

Effy started to walk past her, but Katie grabbed her wrist and pulled her back into a tight embrace. Being on the verge of losing Effy had only made her never want to even more. "Cook was right about you," Katie whispered in Effy's ear. "He said you were great, and you are."

Effy closed her eyes tight and breathed Katie in. If Katie held her too much longer, she'd go weak in the knees from the contact. Since when had being with someone affected her this much? When she'd offered Katie the out, it'd felt as if all of the air had been pushed from her lungs, and the second that she'd realised Katie wasn't going to take it, she'd felt like she could breathe again. When had she started depending on Katie for air? The thought scared her, but she couldn't force herself to pull away. She felt Katie's lips press against her cheek, and she just let Katie hold her, standing there in the middle of her old bedroom.

"We'll get through this together, okay? However long you need to stay here, I'll stay, too," Katie promised Effy and herself at the same time. She couldn't just tell Effy these things, she had to prove them. She knew Effy well enough to know that she was someone who believed actions, so Katie would be there. She had to if she wanted to make things right. And Effy needed her, just like she'd needed her before. If she could be there for Effy when she was still trying to hate her, then surely now that she...well, now that she loved her (the very thought sent a nervous chill down her spine), she could surely be there for her again.