A/N:Sorry for the fic spam today! I've run out of space on my laptop so I'm trying to finish all the half written things I have.
I wrote this a while ago. It's a tribute to one of my favourite fics 'Calorine and Daisy and Me.' Hopefully if the author is still around, they enjoy this fic as much as I enjoyed theirs!
"Caroline?" Grace asked hopefully from her seat in the front of the trolley her mother was pushing.
Kate could only sigh. That name seemed to be a favourite of her daughters since she'd met the woman herself a few weeks ago. "Shall we get some bananas?"
"Caroline." Was all Grace repeated.
"Banana." Kate offered, holding the fruit up hopefully. She saw what was going to happen next only a split second before it happened.
"CAROLINE!" Grace wailed.
Mortified, Kate reached out to pull her daughter from the trolley, intending either a quick getaway or to soothe her, but someone else made it there a moment before she did.
"What's all this noise about, then, Grace?"
Grace went quiet in an instant, her watery eyes turning wide before a grin lit her face and she threw her arms up in the air. "Caroline!"
Kate, ever so slightly horrified to be found with an unruly child by someone who paid her to keep children under control, managed to stutter out an apology. "S-She didn't sleep too well last night. There was a fire at the flat beside ours so we have to stay in a hotel for a few nights, and she doesn't like new places." She knew she was babbling but couldn't stop it. "I thought going and getting her a few of her favourite things might help but they wont let us in the building, so then I decided to come shopping, but-"
"Kate. It's fine." At some point Caroline had taken Grace from her restraints and now had the girl resting on her hip. "It's my fault. I saw you come in and I've been playing a bit of peekaboo from the other side of the shop."
The wind fell from Kate's sails, then, as she thought of the strict headmistress playing peekaboo in a place she could be seen by anyone. "Oh."
"..Would you like some help? If you've got a list we could split it, and then you'd be out of here a little quicker."
Perhaps she'd breathed in some fumes last night. That must be it. She was in the middle of the supermarket hallucinating.
"Kate?" The feel of Caroline's hand gently touching her elbow brought Kate back to find the blonde watching her with concern.
"Sorry. Umm. No. Sorry. No. No list." Kate's eyes dropped, and she realised Caroline was wearing flat shoes. She couldn't tear her eyes away from them.
"..Right, well. I could look after Grace for you while you finish? There's a café just around the corner that sell babychinos?"
"I can't ask you to do that." Kate shook her head, despite the way her daughter clapped at the word babychino.
Caroline was looking at her quizzically now. "You didn't ask. I offered."
"Surely you have better things to do on a Sunday." Jeans, too. Flat shoes and jeans.
"Not really. I came here to get a bottle of wine and some biscuits and I was going to spend the day in front of the TV." Caroline shrugged.
Kate was mortified once more to let out a loud laugh at this, Caroline now looking at her as though she'd grown a new head. She had to get away. She'd sacrifice her daughter to stop being embarrassed. Well, not really sacrificing, is it, considering how much Grace loved Caroline. "Okay. Café around the corner. I won't be long."
Speeding off with her trolley, forgetting entirely about Grace's bag of things resting safely in it, Kate made her escape to the dairy section.
Grace was now blissfully asleep in Caroline's arms, the warm milk in her stomach and gentle rocking quickly making eyes close. Caroline was gazing down at her, admiring her long eyelashes and beautiful skin when a heavy bag was suddenly dropped in front of her.
"I didn't know what sort of biscuits you like so I got…a few. And then I didn't know what wine. I thought red, but didn't know what one, so-"
"You brought the whole shop? And one of every type of biscuit, it seems." Caroline smiled at the bag before glancing up at Kate, the smile faltering when she saw the mildly horrified expression had returned to Kate's face. "Thank you. I appreciate it. I got you a coffee." She motioned her free hand to the cup opposite hers.
Kate managed to mumble her thanks and sat down, sipping carefully at the warm liquid as she hoped her shaking hands weren't too obvious.
"Would you like to come to my house?"
Kate choked a little on the drink, her throat burning.
"Grace had a good sleep there the other day when I hosted Beverley's party, and you said she doesn't like new places, so..I thought she might sleep better there than at a hotel?" Caroline offered softly. "And I could probably use some company drinking now I've got a fully stocked wine rack."
Kate wondered if she was going to pass out.
Caroline insisted that Kate go and have a nap as soon as they arrived at her house, sure that the usually calm teacher's panic was due to a sleepless night and worry. Kate had given little protest and even found that as soon as her head rested on the pillow in the guest room that she could sleep.
"You've never struck me as someone who had a plastic tea set around the house." Kate offered from the doorway a couple of hours later. Caroline and Grace were sitting on the floor apparently having a tea party.
"Lawrence's old favourite. Don't tell him I told you, though. He'd be mortified." Caroline offered, gratefully accepting a cup from the girl before her who looked delighted when she took a pretend sip.
As Grace turned her attention to feeding the teddy that apparently was another old favourite, Caroline looked up to Kate. "Feeling a little better?"
"Very much better. Sorry about before."
"Oh, it's fine. I'm often surprised to see staff out and about in the real world too. I suppose I'm a bit like preschooler, thinking teachers only really exist inside the school walls." Caroline offered a smile. "And I was a little forceful. The prospect of an afternoon with my favourite little girl seemed much more delightful than one spent alone."
"…She talks about you every day. Well, when I say talks..she says your name quite often, along with sawberry, which I think is strawberry, dooce, which I think may be juice, and, bizarrely, the word poo, which she likes to shout at the top of her lungs at very inopportune moments."
"Well, I have illustrious company there!" Caroline laughed softly. "We thought William used to yell the f word quite often. It was mortifying. Took us weeks to figure out he was actually saying truck."
"About..about what happened at..at the party.." Kate began. She had to address this now. She had to get it out in the open or she'd go mad. The last fortnight of embarrassment had taught her that.
"What about it?" Caroline asked softly, turning her back on Kate to accept another cup of tea from Grace.
"It was…you see, I hadn't really had a drink since Grace was born, and I fear I had a little too much. When I went to check on her and saw you holding her and looking so…so…well, anyway, it made me feel…good. So I kissed you. And I shouldn't have, because you're my boss, but sometimes I feel so alone in this parenting thing and I worry that I do things wrong, or that there's something wrong with her that I haven't noticed, or…and, to see someone care for her like I do made me feel…" Kate sighed helplessly. She didn't have a word for how it made her feel. Love, perhaps, but she would never say it.
"…I do think she's a lovely little baby, and I care about her a great deal. You're doing a wonderful job with her, so you needn't worry." Caroline finally offered gently after a long silence.
"And..and…the other thing?"
"We can forget it ever happened, if you like." Carolnie offered neutrally.
"Yes. Yes, I-"
"But I'd rather not forget about it." Caroline offered softly, silencing Kate instantly. "I think I would probably even like it to happen again one day when neither of us have had anything to drink."
"Oh."
"If you'd like that, too."
"I think I would, yes."
"Okay."
That was the last they'd spoken about of the kiss for weeks. They'd stayed at Caroline's for two days until they were allowed back to their flat, but from then on they'd have dinner at her house at least twice a week. Lawrence was fascinated with Grace and could spend hours trying to teach her new words, while Caroline seemed to love rocking her to sleep and just gazing at her.
Kate continued to embarrass herself horribly, worried about saying or doing the wrong thing in front of the wrong person. In fact, upon being asked by a male colleague if the reason she was so nervous around Caroline was because she liked her, Kate had asked him for a date.
She'd been completely mortified but terrified of backing out now she'd asked. It had taken her three days for her to tell Caroline, who had looked rather astonished at the news. Kate had proceeded to babble about not wanting to start gossip about the two of them, how she knew how private Caroline was. Caroline had quietened her finally by pressing a finger gently to her lips. She'd offered to look after Grace while Kate went on her non-date, on the condition that she might be the one to get the goodnight kiss and not Kevin.
Kate had chosen the least romantic place she could think of for their date- a bowling alley full of children they taught which smelled a little like stale fried food and chewing gum. It had taken about half an hour of bursting with nerves for Kate to tell the poor man she wasn't interested in him. He'd laughed, then. Told her it was okay, because he had a boyfriend anyway. Her secret was safe with him.
"Shh. It's okay. Mummy will be home soon." Caroline tried to soothe the girl in her arms, rocking her gently. "Mummy will be back soon, and then we can all snuggle on the sofa together. Would you like that? I would like that an awful lot." The blonde dropped a tender kiss to a warm forehead. "Your mummy is very beautiful, you know? And she makes me so incredibly nervous that I focus all my attention on you, instead, so she doesn't realise how socially inept I actually am."
Grace smiled sleepily up at the woman who held her, mumbling, "Caroline."
"That doesn't mean I don't adore you, though. No, I think you're the sweetest little baby in the whole world." Caroline smiled. "There's a car coming up the driveway. Do you think that might be your mummy now?"
"Mummy." Grace confirmed, followed by a wide yawn.
"Shall we go and see?"
"Go see." Grace nodded. Lawrence had taught her this new phrase, though it was often punctuated with the word poo, which he thought was endlessly amusing.
Standing up, Caroline padded softly to the front door. She considered opening it, waiting in the doorway, but wondered if that would seem odd, as though she'd been waiting for her all this time. Even though she had.
Kate pushed open the door a moment later, cheeks pink from cold and eyes bright. "Caro-" She began to yell, stopping when she realised the woman herself was before her. "Kevin's gay."
"I know." Was all Caroline offered, a smile gracing her lips.
"I..well, you could have told me! I've agonised over this all week!"
"I Could have." Caroline agreed. "Only I think you're beautiful when you're nervous."
"Oh."
They stared at each other for a long time, then, but it was finally Caroline who looked away. "I think Gracie's teething again. She's been a bit fussy. I wasn't sure what you usually gave her, so I've just given her a cold cloth to suck on."
"I'd like to-" Kate began, but stopped abruptly and looked mildly horrified. Caroline wondered if that might not be her default expression these days.
"…Suck on a cold cloth, too?" She offered unhelpfully.
"You've just told me my daughter is in pain, and all I'm thinking about is whether now is an appropriate time to kiss you." Kate moaned.
"..I'd say perhaps lets sort out your daughter, and take it from there?" Caroline offered, though it was entirely unhelpful to Kate because the blonde was looking at her lips as she said it.
"Right. Yes. Good idea." She nodded, reaching forward to take her daughter. "There's something to rub on her gums in the bag I brought."
As Caroline turned away to find the bag, Kate asked, "What is this, Caroline?"
"Teething."
"No. Us. THIS."
"…It's just two women who have a lot of other things than just themselves to consider trying to..to find a place for each other in their lives in the least…disruptive way possible for everyone involved."
"You've rehearsed that."
"I have. I rehearse a lot of things before I say them to you."
"Well, I suppose at least one of us shouldn't be a stuttering mess if we want to get this thing off the ground." Kate agreed.
"It's more about the fact I'm a crier when I get nervous, and I get snotty when I cry. Not everyone can look as beautiful as you while stammering out the word poo, you know."
"I wish you'd stop telling me I'm beautiful."
"I can stop saying it, but I can't stop thinking it." Caroline held out the tube of gel.
"Are you thinking about it now?" Kate asked a moment later with her finger in her daughter's mouth, a long drool of spit mixed with gel hanging dangerously close to Caroline's favourite jumper.
"Yes."
"Are you thinking about it now?" Kate asked a while later as the three of them lay curled up on the sofa, Grace now slowly falling asleep between them, the word poo poo escaping her lips in a sigh.
"Yes."
"Are you thinking about it now?" Kate asked a week later when she found herself pressed against the door of the head's office, breathless and so turned on she may not be able to walk out of the room properly.
"Yes."
"Are you thinking about it now?" Kate asked a month later as she dropped tantalising kisses to a milky white thigh.
"Yes!"
"Are you thinking about it now?" Kate asked a year later as they stood in front of the marriage celebrant, tears on both their faces and Grace stood between them doing her best to try and hide under her Kate's wedding dress.
"Yes."
"Are you thinking about it now?" Kate asked that evening as she blotted ineffectually at the vomit on her wedding dress, courtesy to Grace eating too much cake.
"Surely I'm allowed to say it now? We're married."
"…Once a day." Kate decided. Unfortuately the mild horror of saying inapprorpriate things at the wrong moment in front of Caroline hadn't dimmed as their courtship advanced. Neither had the clearly adoring looks Caroline gave her during these moments.
"I think you're beautiful." Caroline whispered softly into her ear as she took the cloth from Kate's hand and instead started helping her take the dress off.
"Even when I'm covered in sick, when I do snotty cries during wedding vows, and when I break your favourite mug?"
"Ye…you broke my favourite mug?!"
"Oops." Kate smiled guiltily.
"..Your punishment for that is hearing how beautiful you are at least 3 times a day for the next forever."
"Even when I'm so old I wet myself and have to wear a nappy?"
"…You're mad, you are. Completely and utterly mad." Caroline laughed. "Yes, even then."
"Well...then I think It's time I told you the truth about something."
"What?" Caroline sighed, frustrated that Kate seemed more focused on talking than making love as she so desperately wanted to do.
"I may or may not have only gone to the supermarket that day because I saw your car in the carpark."
"Kate!"
"Am I still beautiful."
"You're still beautiful. A beautiful stalker."
"Your beautiful stalker."
"My beautiful stalker."
