A/N- Hi all, had to endure ten days without internet while we moved house! Arrgh! And now I am all, painting, stripping, sanding, papering, flat-packing! Thank you for all the feedback!
Another time perhaps 25
"And Steph says that we shouldn't feel limited by other peoples expectations of us, that people are creating new ways of living and being all the time. She knows this group of women who met at Greenham Common and now they live in this women's only commune. She has all kinds of stories about them...it's fascinating." Kate shared.
"Hmmmmm." Caroline responded, just barely. She knew she was unreasonably irritated by Kate's talk of her new friend but she couldn't stop herself., more an more of their phone calls these days seemed to turn toward what Steph said and it was pissing Caroline off.
"Steph was at this huge protest against section 28 in Manchester, she said there were thousands of people, she has a few pictures, you should have seen it...she said that some lesbians had to be taken down from Picadilly Plazza by firefighters!"
"Uh, I hate that word..." Caroline frowned.
"What word? Firefighters?" Kate grinned then realised what Caroline had meant. "Lesbian? Seriously?" Kate asked, losing much of her own enthusiasm.
"I don't see the need for it." Caroline explained with a light half shrug.
"What do you prefer? Gay? Queer? Homosexual?" Kate listed the possibilities, still searching for more.
"No!" None of them. They're all..." She scrunched up her nose distastefully.
"You're right. Steph says we shouldn't feel the need to pigeon whole ourselves so that others feel more comfortable..." Kate justified.
"So, is she one then?" Caroline cut in.
"One what? Oh, a lesbian? No, she isn't she said she has had experiences with women, some more rewarding than others and she wouldn't rule it out in the future but she is slightly more attracted to men in general, she thinks that it depends on the individual though, she says she is open to falling in love with any person." Kate informed with obvious approval.
"Oh, well, nice to have the choice I suppose." Caroline scoffed. "She sounds like she hasn't got a clue what she wants."
Xxxx
"So what are you after John? Hmmmm? We had one drunken snog at the end of last year and for some reason I can't seem to get rid of you. Did you think you might be in for a quick shag? Is that it?" She didn't feel angry, more bemused at his unusual persistence.
"No, God no Caroline! nothing like that." He said raising his hands, palms out. "I like you, that's all, I thought a lot about you. About that night. Not the snog...although that was great!" He added at her raised brow. "But, you listened to me, you made me feel like what I had to say was interesting. You impressed me, you're like... One of the grown ups, you know? You make me feel like a proper... grown up." John explained, looking genuine and a little forlorn.
Caroline softened slightly. "I can't even remember what we talked about to be honest with you." She admitted.
"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world." John quoted, a faraway look in his eye.
Caroline frowned. "Walt Whitman?" She checked.
"Yes!" John replied excitedly. "And the Brontes, Proust, John Steinbeck..."
Caroline put up a hand to stop him. "So we talked about books?" She clarified.
"Yes, literature." John amended.
"And that has convinced you that you just have to know me?" Caroline asked directly.
"Yes." John nodded. "There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature."
Caroline looked puzzled. "Another quote?" She asked patiently.
John nodded, his enthusiasm dented only moderately by Caroline's complete lack of the same. "P.G Wodehouse." He informed.
"Ahh." Caroline smiled politely as she rubbed the pearl earring between her index finger and her thumb. She picked up the menu. She was starving and the food in here looked good.
XXxx
"What about you then Caroline? Do you have a clue? If we weren't together do you think you could be with a man again? Or do you think you would always be with a woman?"
"I don't know. The only person I can think about being with now is you...I mean it, I'm not just being... " A shrug. "flippant or trying to charm you... Right now I can't imagine ever wanting to be with anyone but you." Caroline said matter of factly.
"And you were with a woman before..." Kate reminded.
Caroline shrugged. "Yes. But I've been out with boys, I liked them, it was fine...I didn't feel..." Caroline gestured across the space between herself and Kate. "This..." She said. "But It doesn't mean that I couldn't...with the right man...how do I know?"
Kate seemed to toss the question back and forth in her mind before she shrugged her acceptance.
"And you?" Caroline shot back, not missing a stroke.
"Me? Same I suppose. Although..."
"What?"
"I think I've started to look at women... differently, since we..." Kate actually blushed slightly.
"So that's what you get up to when I'm not around? Maybe I should be jealous of Lizzie then after all, not Greg!" Caroline teased.
"You're jealous of Greg?" Kate checked, a little of her secret pleasure at the thought resonating in the tone.
"I'm jealous of everyone that gets to spend more time with you than I do." Caroline released honestly, sadly, heavily.
Xxx
The food was as good as she had hoped. The company? Well. It wasn't all that bad. John kept things very comfortable. Asking her questions, but not too many. Talking about him self, but not too much and waxing lyrical about his favourite books, authors, about how much he loved Yorkshire. In the most part Caroline was required to listen, which she didn't mind, but when she did contribute to the conversation John seemed to hang on her every word.
It would have been a nice evening if she could stop herself from going back to the thought, over and over again in her head, of Kate. She had promised Kate she wouldn't see this man and here she was.
"Caroline?" John repeated, expectant eyes on her.
Had he asked her a question? "Sorry?" She asked, tossing the thought aside with a shake of the head.
"Are you alright?" John asked. "I know I didn't give you much chance to get out of this dinner but you seem fine one minute and then off somewhere else, the next."
"Sorry John, I'm a bit distracted." Caroline began. She was about to use her work as an excuse, it had always been useful for the purpose in the past. Even with Kate. If Kate had sensed any stress, any guilt from Caroline over the phone, the blonde would always assure her that she was working too hard, had a lot on her plate, had deadlines.
"Actually..." Caroline carefully put her fork down on the side of her plate. "I was thinking about someone." She confessed. "About someone else."
John let his eyes close for a moment, the corners of his mouth turning upward, as if he had just solved a great puzzle and was relishing the triumph, he nodded once.
Caroline found she felt a little lighter already and decided to go on. "I have been seeing someone...I am seeing someone... And I don't think...I don't really feel right about being here tonight. I know we said it was just to discuss your book..."
"It's okay!" John stopped her. "I understand. I even suspected as much, Emma tried to tell me something..."
Caroline frowned. What had Emma told him? What did he know? But then she remembered that she had asked Emma to put him off and that must have been all it was.
"I'm sorry..." She offered, taking up her fork again, deciding to eat up and get out.
"No, no. I'm glad you're here anyway. Maybe that shows that things are not completely hopeless?" John asked hopefully.
Caroline looked down at her plate and kept her eyes fixed there.
"I suppose I just better make the most of the night then." John blustered. "He is a lucky man." John told her and Caroline felt her stomach tighten.
Xxxxx
"Steph told me about this case she was working on, where a woman had her children taken away, custody was given to the father because her new partner was a woman. Can you believe it? And it was him that had the affair that ended the marriage. She hasn't been able to see her kids for months, it's so awful! They were picketing outside the court house and everything!" Kate's voice lifted at the end of the tale, excited by the drama.
"That is awful!" Caroline agreed.
"The poor woman." Kate reflected sympathetically.
"Poor kids! I think parents should just remain alone if they divorce, at least until the children leave home. Raising a family should be enough for people." Caroline shared. She had thought about this many times before.
"But surely if you meet someone and fall in love you should be able to share that with your family? Make a new family? People do that. The issue was because she was with another woman and so deemed to be some kind of deviant, who would damage or influence her children..."
"But wouldn't it damage them? I mean really? A parent being with someone new, but on top of that being a social outcast? That would be damaging! Even more so if the case was getting the kind of attention you are talking about." Caroline reasoned.
"So she should what? Leave them with their Dad? Forget about them? Split up with her girlfriend and denounce lesbianism?" Kate asked sharply, pointing a look at Caroline.
"I didn't say that. Just that, perhaps she should have thought more about how her choice in partner would effect her whole family, not just herself. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices in life, especially if you choose to have children." Caroline explained her thinking.
Kate was quiet for a few moments and Caroline thought it was time to turn the conversation back to safe ground before they had to say goodnight, she looked at her watch. It wasn't as late as she had thought but for the first time when taking to Kate she felt that she wanted to get off the phone. She must just be tired.
"Is that what you think?" Kate asked quietly. It sounded as if she had leant further into the mouth piece but had dropped her question in low, like a whisper. "That we'll have to make sacrifices?" Kate asked.
"I suppose..." Caroline began her reply without really thinking.
"Do you think we will have to sacrifice a family?" Kate asked in the same whisper.
"We might...loose members of our family...do you mean? If we stay together? If they found out?" Caroline was concerned about Kate's voice. She wished she could be there, read her face, her eyes, hold her hand.
"I don't mean that." Kate said a little more clearly so that the words sounded hard.
Caroline waited, a little confused, had she missed something?
"Do you think we will have to sacrifice...having our own family? One day?" Kate asked.
Caroline suddenly understood. They hadn't ever spoken about children. They were too young to think about that. Even if many of the girls that Caroline went to school with were now mothers. She hadn't really thought that it would be on her agenda until she had settled on a career, a life for herself. Right now though she could imagine Kate being a Mother. Not right away, but soon, when she had finished Uni, traveled around a little more. Caroline could see her with at least two, maybe three children in tow. Caroline could picture perfectly, Kate in a home much like the one she came from, busy, full, loud and stuffed with love. She couldn't see herself in the vision.
"Caroline?" Kate checked anxiously.
"Yes. I'm here." The blonde replied.
Kate waited.
"I don't know." Caroline admitted finally. "I hadn't thought that far ahead..."
"I shouldn't have brought it up..." Kate rushed into.
"No!" Caroline protested. "No. Maybe you should."
Xxxx
How had she got here? It had been a bit of an ambush really. Caroline had forgotten all about John since the day that Kate had made her promise she would not see him. He had left a couple of messages with Emma but Caroline had said right away that she wasn't interested and that Emma should tell him so. The blonde suspected that Emma had let him down a little more easily than that, or else he was just extraordinarily persistent.
Either way, John had been waiting for her on the street when she came out of her house early one morning, looking almost as if he had been there all night.
"Caroline!" He'd blurted out in alarm.
She'd taken a moment to make sense of what he was doing here as he had wobbled nervously under her gaze. Caroline folded her arms across her chest.
"John?" She asked, the tilt of a brow.
"I...I'm glad I bumped into you..." He began.
"You are camped out on my doorstep John, I think the odds were pretty high." She shot back.
"Yes, well, good, I thought, maybe...you might be avoiding me..." John suggested, looking to her for a denial.
"What can I do for you?" Caroline asked him as she noticed a folder in his hand, a blue cardboard folder with sheets of A4 paper crammed and crumpled within.
"I wanted you...I hoped perhaps that you could read something for me?" John asked hopefully. "Just...a story I have been working on...I could do with a second opinion..."
"Why would you ask me?" Caroline cut in curtly.
The young dithering man ran a hand over his too long hair, strands of it falling back into his eyes to be shook away as he looked up at her. "You're very intellectual, you read, you like some of the same books as I do...and most importantly...you'll tell me if you think its a pile of shit." He told her honestly., nudging the curb with the toe of his shoe.
Caroline saw something in his look just then, something that reminded her of Kate, of the way that she looked at her. Trust? Admiration? Vulnerability? A mix of all those things and more. She reached out a hand to accept the folder.
"I don't know when I'll get chance." She told him as she shoved it into her heavy satchel. "Maybe in a few days."
"That's great! Whenever you can...Thank you, it means a lot..." John gushed as she pulled her bag up on her shoulder and walked away.
Xxxx
A/N: Please don't hate me for this chapter. I know John is not a welcome addition but I confess that I actually quite like him, more every-time I watch the show back, but of course, like Caroline, I much prefer Kate!