A/N: Rated T.


xiii.

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Dreamt I was back with pirates and cats in my Somerville. The girl with the alphabet shirt, covered in dirt, lives on a hill. Well, (…) are you still racing stray dogs across the old stream? My neighbourhood queen, are you still kissing cowboys that cry, (…)?

Josephine - Teitur

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It will be late afternoon. She'll be standing on the left side of the room by of the window, the sun coming through the glass as she'll speak. It will be court and wooden benches, and tapestries, and she will be part of a decorum that she loves to hate. A ritual, immutable traditions, what the court in Johnny Foster's case would have called deference – or reverence, maybe.

Sometimes, Martha wonders how they got there. Years ago, juniors in Magistrate's Court, underground rooms that permanently reeked of their daily procession of drunks, heroin addicts and all of society's poorest, most distressed failures, to Appeals, now, where barristers have the time and the means to worry about what their speech will sound like. Martha sits at her kitchen table, surrounded by a pair of baby shoes, empty cups of tea and half a dozen open binders in front of her and it's kind of a secret but even after over fifteen years, she still writes everything down. Her speeches, the questions that she asks on cross, she scribbles them by hand, writes sentences and repeats them out loud, draws lines over the words that she doesn't like. Replaces them, reads them again. It's a bit of a joke, by now, but she does like the sound of her own voice. She knows how it works, what it can do, the higher pitch that it takes when she gets angry, the way it breaks for a breath at a comma, pauses at a full stop. She's learnt to let the right things sink in.

For instance, she won't open with a quote, hates people who open with quotes. In university, they called that an argument from authority. She's never liked authority very much.

Her speeches, they always start the same. 'My Lords,' she writes, Court of Appeal. Sometimes, it's Your Honour, sometimes, Members of the Jury. She likes juries. Clive calls them dumb and irrational but they're people. She likes people. This time, though, she couldn't convince them. So here they are, she guesses.

'Sean McBride,' she writes. The words roll off her tongue like that day when he said he used to think they'd both go to heaven and she called him a piece of work. Her pen stops. She doesn't know where to begin.

'Tell a story,' Alan said, once upon a time. She was younger; he was wiser. 'A good one, that is.'

Well, the problem is that this time, she's got too many stories to tell. There's that one time when she screamed at Sean for a good half hour after he pretended to put a spider up in her shirt. That other time when they went to the beach in Blackpool and she pushed him in the water, fully clothed, freezing, his hair drenched and cold as he hung onto her, brought her down with him. Sometimes, she laughed so hard she cried. Sometimes, she actually cried, too. She kissed him on a prison bench and the walls stood around them with moulding growing at the window frame, the guards' heavy boots hitting the ground of the corridor outside. Maybe that's why they say 'never represent a friend,' she thinks, maybe it's because you'll have too many stories to tell.

Sean McBride was arrested on the 24th of March 2014 for the murder of Jimmy Monk, she writes again, factual. She knows that's what Alan would have told her: don't make it personal, Martha. So, she writes the story of Sean's case. Talks about the first instance and the appeal, and the testimonies and the facts that don't align. His only possible verdict: not guilty.

.

Around 3 a.m., she sort of drowses for a bit, has this weird nightmare where she's waiting around with him in a hotel room and there's a knock on the door, and she thinks: they're going to kill us. She barely has time to see the end of the barrel of the gun before her eyelids flutter open because well, you can't die in your own dreams.

"Ready?" Nick asks, the next morning. They're standing outside court waiting for Sean's solicitor and all Martha can think about is how badly she wants a fag.

"Ready."

.

In Nottingham, Clive had smiled, she remembers. He'd looked at her when they left court with a loud and triumphant not guilty verdict and said: 'You never stick to the script, do you?'

She'd never really thought about it like that before, but the way she writes things and the way she says them don't necessarily match up. Sometimes, she goes off track after a page or two, sometimes even before the second sentence. She thinks writing it out the night before or during the fifteen minute break the judges award in the lower courts is just a trick for her brain to collect her thoughts, to organise things that should not only make sense to her, but to other people. She'd always guessed that's how everybody worked before his words rung in her ear that afternoon.

Martha laughed, asked: 'Are you complaining?'

They were walking down the streets of a new, unfamiliar place; she had no idea of where they were going. They'd had thirteen co-defendants, though, and only two not guilty-s. Nothing else really mattered, then.

'That's not what I said,' he grinned. 'Just a bit unpredictable.'

She puffed out a laugh, caught his gaze and bit her lip. Flirt. 'By now, you should know that I am very unpredictable, Clive.'

.

"My Lords," she says, now. "Sean McBride –"

Stops. Just like the way she stopped last night. Closes her eyes. Breathes.

"I was once told Sean McBride reached out to me because I'm the only lawyer he knows," she says, a quick smile tugging at the corner of her lips. We grew up together, she thinks, and remembers running her fingers in his jet black hair as his stare now digs holes into the back of her head. "I guess I don't know if that was a blessing or a curse," she adds, lightly, gets a few subtle grins from her audience. She needs to win them over, she knows, not bore them with things they already know.

Of course, she smiles, this is personal.

"This is the most important case of my career," she speaks, then, and hopes they really understand what that means. For the next thirty minutes, she knows that she'll go deep, detail evidence, tear CW's case apart like she's been doing for a week, talk circumstances, reasonable doubt, and mention all the things that matter, that she's got written down on her papers. But what she wants them to know, too, is why it matters. "Not because I know him," she adds, her gaze focused on the bench. "But because this is about justice."

.

Later, when the court retires to deliberate, she goes to see him. Her plan was to go for a walk, initially, like her father used to when he couldn't sleep. He'd take her hand in his, after dinner, and they'd walk down to the shop, get ice cream that melted in their hands. Martha had these yellow rain boots on her feet, never wanted to take them off.

"What do you think?" Sean asks when she sees him, barely looking up from the floor.

"I don't know."

Because, frankly, like it always is, her speech is the beginning of a new waiting game. One where the thoughts won't stop swirling in her head until the verdict comes in. Could I have made that point better? she'll think. Said that differently? It's only Friday; the decision won't come in until Monday afternoon, at the very least, so Martha has a long weekend ahead of her, doesn't she?

Nick is in the room so maybe that's what stops Sean from saying more, not until he glances up at her and smiles, lightly touches her forearm. "I do know other lawyers, you know?" he says and this time, makes her laugh.

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She took Clive on a walk, she remembers, when they came back to London after the triumph. 'What else have you got to do?' she asked, smiling, knowing full well he had about as much work on his plate as she did and about as little desire to actually go back to Chambers and do it. The sunshine was light on his face and they strolled along gravel paths in Hyde Park, the shade of Martha's sunglasses adding a slight tint to his skin, daisies everywhere in the grass.

She likes the walks best in early Spring when the sun's bright but the wind's cold against her cheeks, likes the streets and the canals, and the birds in the parks. Sometimes, she climbs up Primrose Hill and looks at the buildings far away, wonders the kind of defence she would draft for herself.

Every time Clive glanced at her, that day, it brought her back to the startled look he'd thrown her way in the morning, when he'd opened his eyes and found her still there in bed, staring right back at him. 'You're still here,' he observed, voice groggy and unfiltered, surprised. She lay flat on her stomach under the quilt, her glance falling upon his.

'It's my hotel room, Clive,' she smiled. Didn't want to point out that considering his form, she should have been the worried one. 'Where else would I go?'

He laughed next to her and when they got back to London that afternoon, they ate ice cream – his suggestion, not hers – found a bench to sit on in the park, watched kids play football. She told him about her dad and how secretly relieved she'd feel every time she got back to London after driving up to see him, in the last few years of his life, how much she loved coming here and getting her life back, as though nothing had ever happened.

'Some things are meant to stay in one place,' she said.

He smiled, a short, quiet laugh escaping his lips. 'Nice way to put it.' He gave her a side glance, raised an eyebrow. 'What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?'

He didn't sound angry. Maybe a bit hurt. She kept doing that to him, didn't she? Let a few years pass by, enough for them to almost forget about each other, before she danced with him, his hands on her hips to Norah Jones in a hotel bar and let her lips touch his, just for a moment, a moment too long. Martha smiled at Clive in the park, said: 'Nottingham's hardly Vegas.'

Clive had one of those cones, the ones where gelato's come out of a machine in a spiral, with sprinkles on top; she laughed when he got some at the tip of his nose, laughed so that he'd smile again, too.

'What?' she grinned, curious and amused, swallowing a bit of ice.

Clive shook his head and glanced away for a fraction of a second before focusing back on her. 'You have a great laugh, Martha Costello,' he said and kissed her, her mouth slightly open under his. He tasted like sugar and vanilla, like something good you can't defend.

.

"Come on," Nick says when they leave the courthouse. She's contemplating her plan to go for a walk again. "I'll buy you a non-alcoholic drink."

It's starting to rain outside, droplets gradually tainting more and more ground. Martha doesn't feel like a walk, anymore, so takes a left towards the pub.

Smiles: "Okay."

.

They spend the evening laughing at Nick's antics, pretending that the whole film of Sean's trial isn't on loop in the back of both of their minds, from the retelling of Nick's many etiquette faux-pas when he met Niamh's parents to the fact that he forgot to get her flowers for her birthday last week.

"Apologise," Martha tells him with a grin; he rolls his eyes.

Sometimes, she wishes her life were as simple as his seems to be.

"What?" she asks, later, when she catches him throwing her a strange look.

"I just hadn't seen you smile in a while," he replies.

.

For good measure, Martha drives up to Bury, that weekend. In Bolton, there's no house, anymore, and home hasn't really felt like home in a long time, anyway. She pulls up in Roy's driveway and already kind of wants to leave, maybe go check up on their old place, find out if the family that moved in have finally repainted the door, if their children have found out about the neighbour's roof. It's childish, maybe, but Martha misses the photographs on the wall and her father's clothes stored in the basement.

Her mum does seem happy to see her, though, has her settling in "Dick's old bedroom" (Roy's son, Martha gathers), gives her a tiny, baby bodysuit as a present, white with sunflowers on – "I thought it would work for a boy or a girl," she says, smiling, and Martha says her thanks, polite, trying not to think of the heavy, nervous weight that rests on her stomach whenever she thinks of the baby.

The appointment for her scan is getting closer and closer, now, and every time she thinks about it, she thinks they're going to say that it's gone. Or without a heartbeat. Or not viable for some other reason that she won't understand. She tries not to talk to it, or about it, tries not to put her hand on the bump on her belly too often, to pretend that it's not there until she actually knows it is.

Her mother, on the other hand, won't shut up about it. It's somewhat odd, frankly, because she wasn't nearly as excited last time but now, it's a constant talk of cribs and strollers, and butterflies in the air. The weather is shit (as always), but frankly it was either that or pacing in her flat in London, thinking about Sean possibly rotting in jail until the end of times so strangely, Martha's mother's misplaced excitement is somewhat preferable. Martha doesn't know if she's trying to make amends for her reaction on the phone the other night or if the interest is genuine but on a certain level, it's nice to feel like someone else cares.

Roy, however, is pretty much the antithesis of tactfulness. At lunch on Saturday, he quizzes her about Clive, before she's even had time to unpack. "Roy, honey, I think Martha's a bit tired," her mum tries, in an attempt to steer the conversation away from sensitive topics. For her to step in, Martha thinks, she must really look like shit.

"I'm just asking, here, Maureen," Roy counters, looking at Martha. A battle of wills ensues and in the end, Martha's the one who gives up first, casts her mother a look that says it's fine, that she's not going to get angry over this.

She's spent too much time being angry over Clive, lately.

So, yes, she says, answers all the questions that Roy didn't ask last time, she met him at work. No, they don't live together. No, she laughs, he's not married. Yes, he knows about the baby. Yes, they're going to share responsibilities.

"Are you two together, darling?"

Now, there's a trick question so, of course, it's her mum's only one. If she says no: she has to explain what happened. If she says yes: she lies. So: "I'm sorry," Martha says instead, making a show of yawning as she gets up from her chair before anyone can really object. "I'm exhausted, I think I'll go rest for a bit. Thanks for the meal, Mum."

The difference between now and when she was a teenager, again, is that she's learnt to avoid unnecessary headaches.

.

She dozes off for about half an hour afterwards (guesses she wasn't completely lying about the exhaustion), dreams about the baby being dead in her womb and wakes up thinking that perhaps, there's a reason why she's never been a fan of mid-afternoon naps. Nick's texted to check up on her in the interim so she replies, dutifully, asks how London is doing without her and if scrolling through his phone as he walks is still the best way for him to bump into people.

Martha teases, sure, but that's just because Nick texts her often. It's a generational thing, she supposes. He texts her about the case, about Chambers, or sometimes just to say: 'Hi,' when he's done something and is actively trying to get back into her good graces. Over the past few weeks, he's been consistently on the top of her list of messages received, although she's noticed, discretely peeking over his shoulder, Niamh is consistently on top of his. Below him, on Martha's phone, Charlotte remains, her messages always short and to the point: a hearing has been rescheduled, a late return needs tending to or, of course, the usual request: Miss, a word. Jo is third at the moment, because her five-people tribe is in London next week and she wanted family-friendly dining recommendations. Frankly, Martha didn't have much of a clue on that one.

Then, well. Sometimes, she almost texts him. It's a bit of a game with herself: she opens the thread, looks at the last messages they exchanged when he sent her that flattering article from the Guardian and then types something funny, or silly, that she'd like to tell him. Now, for instance, she smiles as her fingers hit the keyboard: I think my mum wants to see the guy who got her daughter pregnant again.

It's funny, would have made him laugh, weeks ago. She wouldn't send it for the world, now, of course, but sometimes, she lets her mind wander and guess what he'd respond, make out the sound of his speech in her ear, just like she used to phone Billy's answering machine in order to remember the way he'd say his name. Martha wonders how wrong it would feel if she admitted to herself that she misses Clive.

Now, though, as she types, suddenly, she stops, almost at the end of the last word. Three dots appear on his side of the conversation, then go blank.

Quickly, she deletes everything, hopes he didn't notice the dots on her end. Sits up, phone in hand, doesn't move.

For a few seconds, nothing happens and shit, she curses, what the hell did he want to say?

She waits a bit, wonders if he's gone, now. Should she ask? Ignore it? Write something insignificant to make him think that's what she wanted to tell him in the first place?

Oh, what the hell? the voice in her head says. What are you? Sixteen?

She starts typing again: I –

Except then, of course, his dots return. Alright, she decides, deleting her own one-letter word, she's just going to let him type, then.

But then again, his dots disappear. She waits, watches a minute go by: nothing. Maybe it was just a bug, she muses, maybe he wasn't typing anything at all.

She's about to give up, lock her screen and head downstairs to see what her mum and Roy are up to when her phone starts vibrating in her hand. Clive's name is right there, she sees, and all she'd have to do to hear his voice, now, would be to take the call. Sometimes, she wishes Billy could still call, too.

(She saw him, this morning. Or thought she did, anyway. She'd left her car in Chambers so she took the Tube to Temple station before heading to Bury, stopped at the Prêt on Fleet Street for some food. She was sitting at a table, eating a croissant when this guy walked in. Fifty-something, short, large shoulders, she thought –

Pathetic.

He turned around and when she saw his face, she thought of the way Billy had greeted her and Clive when they got back from Nottingham, trying desperately to fit around each other like nothing had happened.

"You look good, Miss," he commented as the both of them entered the clerks' room to pick up their mail. Clive had his back to Billy, she remembers, raised a discreet eyebrow at her. "The Midlands treat you well?"

She smiled, mail in hand, made her way back to the door. "Just a different lipstick, Billy," she lied.

"Oh, don't change it, Miss," he spoke as she moved back towards the door. She could see him glance at Clive from the corner of her eye, didn't quite know what to make of it. Clive smiled. Something naughty and annoyingly cocky. "You know us boys love the red.")

.

She doesn't ghost Clive intentionally. It's just that by the time she's snapped out of the memory, her phone's stopped ringing. She waits for a voicemail that never comes. She could call back, of course, but he felt close, for a minute, and evaporated again. Honestly, she doesn't know if she wants to know what he's got to say, doesn't know if she wants to catch him. She overheard him speak on the phone a few days back and his voice haunted her for days. It was dark, late, she was leaving Chambers and saw him leaning against one of the buildings on the way out.

'Okay, Mum,' she heard him say, in a way that made her think that things were anything but okay, really. 'Flowers and apologies, I'm sure that will work.'

There was a bit of silence, on his end, and Martha knew she should have left. If not secret, the conversation was private. Yet, as soon as he opened his mouth again, she found herself rooted to the ground, unable to move. In hindsight, she thinks, it's not what he said that got to her, it's the way his words cut. She knew the story but had never heard him speak about it like that before.

'Oh, don't you dare use Dad and you for relationship advice,' he argued, curt, cold. Martha barely dared to breathe. 'He fucked his way around town for twenty years and you barely even blinked.'

Later, Martha heard him sigh, apologise. She stood, immobile in the dark, could picture him shaking his head, the exhaustion in his words. He was too engrossed in his own thoughts to see her.

'I shouldn't have said that, I just –' he started, struggled to explain. 'I just miss her, is all.'

.

In Bury, later that afternoon, Martha's mum talks her into stepping out of the house for a bit, walk Roy's dog down the river path. It's a Spaniel, white with brown patches over his back and ears, long hair muddy at the belly. He looks happy, Martha thinks, wigging his tail running up and down the grass. She glances at her phone as her mother bends down to pick up his ball, thinks that she probably should text Clive, for all the things that she can't say.

10 AM, she writes, fingers hovering over the keyboard. This time, she waits for dots on his side that don't appear. For the scan, on Tuesday. St Thomas'.

When Clive answers, her mum and she are on their way home. There's a bit of a drizzle in the air and they're about to cross the street, Martha's got Padfoot (Roy's granddaughter picked the name, apparently) on a leash, pulls out her phone from the pocket of her jeans. I'll be there, she reads, smiles. :).

"I don't know if you're together," Martha's mum suddenly interrupts, grabbing the leash from her hand. Right, left, they cross to the other side. The dog still has his ball in his mouth, wet with a mix of mud and saliva. "But I can tell that you love him, you know?" she smiles, shrugs, like it's the easiest thing in the world. "It shows on your face when you think about him."

.

Martha texts Clive again, later, when the lights are out, wonders if she's turning into Nick.

I know we need to talk, she writes, quick, doesn't let herself think before she hits send. I just need time.

His response comes within a second, like he knew she was going to get back to him, eventually. Me too, he just says.

She closes her eyes and hopes to sleep.

.

The drive home on Sunday is quiet but as soon as Martha is in London again, the dreams come back. She barely sleeps, lying there staring at the ceiling, thinking of Sean and guns, and life sentences. Monday comes and goes and her phone remains in her hand the whole time, but never rings. It's five o'clock when Nick walks into her room; she's been trying to focus on her next hearing, her next case at the end of the week but all she's done is spend hours reading Wikipedia articles on stuff she's already forgot about. Vanessa's working in the office so Nick and Martha step out to talk, walk and sit on a bench by the fountain. She misses Shoe Lane for the view, the little railing they had overlooking the church.

"If it's tomorrow morning –" she starts, hesitant, doesn't know what else to say.

Tomorrow morning is the scan appointment. Tomorrow morning could be the verdict. Since Martha can't be in two places at once, she thought of cancelling the appointment this afternoon, thought about wanting to be there if they were to take Sean down again. She rang the hospital in a panic and got this idiot on the phone, Natalie, and her very patronizing tone. 'You're already at fifteen weeks, Ma'am,' she said, as if that, in and of itself, was utterly unbelievable. 'Push it back again and we'll soon be at a mid-pregnancy scan. Is that what you want?'

From the woman's tone, Martha gathered that whatever that meant, it was not something that she should want. Hung up the phone, called the lady a bitch after the line disconnected.

"If it's tomorrow morning – which it probably won't be," Nick amends, catching her gaze. Martha guesses he's trying to sound reassuring but she's not sure whether just talking about it makes her anxiety better or worse. "I'll call you as soon as I know, I promise."

Martha nods, sighs, watches the water flow in the fountain. It's been a long, hot day; it was thirty-two degrees last time she checked her phone, just wishes there was a tiny, little bit of wind to graze her face.

She sighs, nervously taps her fingers against the fabric of her skirt.

"They're going to refuse the appeal, aren't they?" she says and it's almost as if she's talking to herself, letting the thoughts run past her mouth. "They're going to refuse the appeal tomorrow morning, and then they're going to tell me the baby's not viable."

She speaks the words before she can filter them out, lets her nerves tell Nick things she would never have admitted to him otherwise. Nick knows about the baby – both babies – but they don't talk about it. She doesn't like that this is a weakness that people can see.

She sees him smile, though, when she looks at him.

"A bit dramatic, don't you think?" he says and Martha feels the corners of her mouth raise; she makes herself look away again.

"Is this your way of saying I'm hormonal?" she laughs but yeah, she guesses that she probably is, a bit.

Nick shakes his head. "Your words, not mine," he says with a smile, before looking at his watch.

"Going home?" she asks as he stands up. Martha doesn't move, thinks she might stay outside for a while. Nick smiles down at her.

"Yeah," he shrugs. "Flowers to buy, apologies to make –"

Martha smiles, nods. "Good," she says, wishing, again, that her life were that simple.

.

The next morning, she's running late. Couldn't make herself get out of bed, then couldn't leave the paperwork she'd started going through, then again couldn't decide on what to wear. It's ten past ten when she finally makes her way through the entrance of the hospital, down a series of corridors that take her through an outside patio and back inside again, to finally find Clive sitting on a chair outside the exam room. She's opted for a pair of black pregnancy leggings and a long t-shirt in the end, figured that that would be easier to deal with than a work dress. She'll go home and change before going into Chambers, she's decided.

"It's fine," Clive gets up as he sees her half-walking, half-running down the corridor. "I told the people who were after us to go in early. We're at 10:20, now," he adds and Martha hears herself breathe a sigh of relief, setting her handbag on the chair next to him. He sits back down and watches her catch her breath.

There's something intriguing in his look when he eyes her up and down, like he's never seen her in leggings and a t-shirt before.

"What?" Martha says, slightly annoyed, taking her phone in her hand to make sure the ring is on. If Nick calls, she thinks -

"Nothing."

Clive says that shaking his head, with a smile on his face; she catches his gaze, definitely thinks there's something, rolls her eyes at him."Seriously, Clive, what? Do I have lipstick on my teeth?"

He laughs, then, shakes his head again. Martha raises an eyebrow at him, there's a strange sheepish look in his eyes when he says: "No. You just look, er," he starts, seems to search for his words. "Actually pregnant, now."

Oh, she thinks. That.

She crosses his gaze, frowns, her look follows his to fall on her stomach and well, she guesses she sees herself every day in the mirror so she doesn't notice it much anymore. She has grown a bit bigger in the last couple of weeks and although she usually hides it under her clothes, the fitted t-shirt and leggings do hug her body tight this morning, so yeah, she guesses he's right –

I am pregnant, she thinks, almost says, but doesn't. Instead, Martha sits down next to him, crosses her legs at the ankles. Clive's hand is flat on the armrest between them, she has to resist an urge to take it in hers.

He steals a quick glance at her before staring back at the door in front of them; for a moment, there's this familiar feeling in her gut that tells her the boy next to her is about to kiss her.

She waits.

He doesn't.

.

First, the doctor goes over her test results. Martha had her blood drawn, last week, and they tested her for a number of things, most of which she doesn't understand, but according to the person they see, it looks like by some strange twist of fate, it all comes back looking normal. Clive doesn't even seem surprised while Martha's heartbeat, on the other hand, goes through the roof. It's funny, how little she worried about these things last time around, how she saw it as a given that unless she had an abortion, the foetus was automatically going to turn into a baby, how she didn't even wait a month to tell Billy. Sure, she didn't want everyone to know, but it was more about her career not being impacted than anything else.

Later on is the scary part, though. On a chair, Martha's instructed to lie back, somewhere between a flat and a seated position and frankly, feels particularly vulnerable, there. Clive sits next to her and if they were a thing, a couple, they'd be sweet and in love, and she'd hold his hand, but they're not. So, Martha doesn't. The monitor is turned towards the specialist which she knows is to make sure they don't see anything they're not supposed to see but just ends up making her feel more irritated at the secrecy of it all. They take her blood pressure so Martha makes herself breathe, calm down, but –

"Nervous?" the doctor asks her, smiling as she reads the numbers on her instruments.

Martha glances at Clive, bites her lip. "A bit."

.

Her leggings are pulled down to her hips, her shirt lifted. "Okay, this may be a bit cold, yeah?" the doctor says and Martha, nods, automatically, stares at the ceiling.

She hates not being in control. Hates the fact that the two most important things in her life right now – the appeal, the baby – are both her entire responsibility if they go sour and yet, are completely out of her grasp, now. The gel is cold, indeed, she feels it on her stomach, but it's so hot, roasting in here without air conditioning that it doesn't even really feel uncomfortable. Martha swallows, heavily, sees the doctor about to apply the probe to her stomach when a loud shrill echoes in the room.

At first, she thinks it comes from the monitor. But no, it's a ringtone, she realises almost immediately afterwards. Martha glances to her side, at the little table where she put her keys, wallet and –

Phone. In a millisecond, before the doctor or Clive can even react, her look sets on the screen. She hopes for Charlotte, or her mum, or the guy from Sky who's been trying to book an appointment to come fix her Internet for a week now. Anyone but –

Nick.

And, of course, it is Nick.

On the monitors, her heartbeat goes through the roof. She's specifically told Nick not to call unless he had news, she remembers, so it means that he does and suddenly, the room is too small for Martha to breathe. She grabs the phone off the table, her finger about to slide on the screen when –

"Oh, I'm sorry, you can't use that here," the doctor says next to her. "With the machines, it's not –"

The woman sounds apologetic, sure, but she also doesn't seem to realise how important this is. "Sorry, it's urgent –" Martha starts but –

"No," she shakes her head. "I really have to insist –"

The phone's rung twice, already. Three more times and Martha will lose it. She needs to decide now, she thinks, as it rings again, her brain in slow motion. The scan or the phone. She needs to leave this room, needs to –

"I'll take it."

It's Clive's voice, next to her. He grabs the phone from her hand before she can really think –

"Clive, it's –" she starts explaining, fingers brushing -

"I know," he says, holding her gaze. Her heart hammers against her ribcage. "I'll take it."

.

Martha thinks he's gone for thirty seconds. Martha thinks he's gone for thirty minutes, maybe thirty years, even. In the room, the doctor talks to her, thinks her nerves are about the baby, starts moving the probe along her stomach. It's a horrible thought but right now, whatever she's saying really isn't Martha's top priority. If Sean is taken back down into custody and she's not there, she doesn't think she'll ever be able to forgive herself.

Martha's staring at the wall in front of her when she hears the door open again, close behind Clive. Her face immediately turns to his, hold his gaze.

It's probably the longest second of her life. The one before which he nods, once, slipping her phone into the pocket of his jeans. Martha's in free-fall, waiting to pull the strap.

"You won," Clive mouths, smiles.

The parachute opens, like it always does.

.

Looking back, she doesn't think it sunk in, then. She remembers a million questions on her lips and not being able to ask them because the doctor kept talking, unaware, and she had to try and concentrate when frankly nothing made sense to her, anymore. She looked at Clive, she remembers, and saw him nod, again, when she mouthed not guilty? with a frown on her face, just to be sure, like she must have gotten it wrong, understood him wrong, the first time around.

He smiled, nodded again, was about to repeat it when –

"Look," he said, instead, pointing behind her.

And that's how she finds herself here, now, staring at the screen as the sound of their baby's heartbeat fills the room, regular and quick, and Clive has a smile up to his ears. The baby's a girl, per the test results they heard earlier, and from what they can see, and everything that they can test at this stage, there is absolutely nothing wrong with her. She's got arms and legs, and a face that Martha swears has something of her mum's.

She shakes her head in disbelief. "What do you mean she's fine?"

The doctor smiles, slightly amused.

"She's fine, Marth," Clive repeats, catching her gaze like he did when he said not guilty.

She feels his hand holding hers when tears start streaming down her face.

.

The intern in the room insists that she's very far from being the first person to just break down in tears in the middle of the scan but still, when they walk out of the room and nod at the couple waiting outside, Martha feels a bit pathetic with her red cheeks and puffy eyes, her perfectly fine baby and perfectly fine client. She wouldn't call them tears of joy, really, as much as tears of relief, the way the tension that had accumulated in her body over the last few months just lifted from her shoulders at once. Nick didn't say much on the phone, she learns from Clive, as they walk down the corridor and back into the patio she raced through earlier, just that he'd call back to let her know what time they'd release Sean and that the opinions should come in later today or tomorrow.

In the garden of the patio, Martha sees flowers she didn't see on the way in, notices the green of the tree in the middle and the stone benches around the square. Clive sits down on the one closest to them, grabs her wrist before she can walk past, catches her glance.

A part of her wants to pull away but for some reason, she doesn't, just eyes the way out. His thumb is drawing circles at her pulse point; it's oddly soothing. "I've got to –" She starts but he shakes his head, smiles up at her.

"Stay," he asks, his grasp loosening on her wrist. "Ten minutes. Just you and me."

.

It's warm, outside – sunny - Martha feels the sun between the shade of the leaves of the tree. Her thigh touches the side of Clive's, eyes closed; she breathes. She tries to do it the way he does, calm and regular next to her, listens to the rustle of the leaves, strangely covering the sound of the sirens outside. It's beautiful, here, peaceful; Martha smiles to herself, a hand on her stomach.

She expects Clive to talk but somehow, the minutes pass and he doesn't, just sits there in silence next to her, watching the scene barely move. In school, she remembers, they read something about the relativity of time, about perceptions and illusions, and Martha wonders how that impacts this moment that he's currently giving her. She doesn't speak, hasn't been this close to his body in what feels like decades. When she opens her eyes, he's smiling at her.

"I can't believe it's a girl. I can't believe you were right," she chuckles, watching him. Clive laughs; she feels his chest moving next to her.

"I told you."

His eyes are a bright shade of blue, here, lit by the sunlight.

Ten minutes come and go, and: "I've got to head off," Martha hears herself say, her voice calm and quiet like it rarely is. "Nick –" she starts, sees Clive shrug, nod.

"Go on," he says, his hand on the small of her back as she pushes herself up. "Go on and save the world."

.

Nick tells Martha not to come into Chambers, on the phone. Tells her to go home and sleep. She can't do that, of course, so she walks around London all afternoon, eats three scoops of ice cream in lieu of lunch. The air is hot, in the city, but there's more of a breeze at the park, it runs in her hair.

She waits for Sean in the shadow of a tree, watches the few people lucky enough not to be working on a Tuesday as they sunbathe on the grass.

(She went home to change, put on the sundress that she wore when Clive kissed her under the rain.)

Martha stands when she sees Sean, pulls him into a hug, her limbs wrapped around his. With her ear pressed to his chest, she hears his heart as it beats, regular and slow like the waves of the Irish Sea when they were sixteen, running barefoot on the sand of the beach in Blackpool. He used to smell like salt water and iodine; now, it's just cigarettes and prison cells.

She breathes in, anyway. He feels real.

.

They talk shop, for a bit. What time he was released and how, the way it felt to have the cuffs come off his wrists. Sean is ecstatic, of course, but jumpy as hell, as Clive would say, from the way his foot won't stop tapping the ground. Martha extends her bare legs on the grass, shoes off, nails red: the only part of her body not shaded by the tree. She wiggles her toes, her shoulder brushing against his; she pulls away, looks up at him.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there this morning," she says.

He smiles, shakes his head and: "Doesn't matter," he says, in a way that makes her think that maybe it does. "Where were you?"

"Hospital."

She pretends that the word slips past her lips but in truth, she chooses it. It's true, sure, but it also sounds like a necessity. She doesn't owe him anything, maybe, but it still feels like she does, like she had to have one hell of a reason not to show up to court on the day of the verdict.

Hospitals sound dramatic, imperative.

Sean turns quick, hand against her arm, worry obvious in his eyes. "Shit, are you –"

"I'm fine," Martha nods, quiet. His hair is a bit longer than it was before, she notices, a short salt and pepper beard framing his face; she catches herself remembering why he caught her gaze in the first place, all those years ago. He looked a bit gruff back then, too, a bit dangerous.

She used to think she liked that.

There's a duffle bag laying on the grass, next to him. He put it on the floor when they sat down, dark blue with a white zipper on top. Martha knows what's in there: his wallet, phone, belt – the stuff he was arrested with - a change of clothes, a toothbrush, maybe. It's a prison bag; she's seen a lot of them before.

"So," she starts. Sean's eyes are closed as she speaks; he looks tired, like someone re-discovering sounds that haven't been heard in a while. It's the one thing that Martha doesn't know about the criminal justice system. When she goes to jail, she always gets out, a few hours later. She doesn't know the grimness of the nights, the dullness of the days, the monotony of the food, the persistent lack of sunlight on your skin. Sean listens to the children's laughter next to them as they play ball with their grandfather, to the wind, the sound of her own voice when she's not angry or on the verge of crying. "Back to Manchester?" Martha asks, looking at him.

He laughs, opens his eyes, arching an eyebrow at her. "Fuck, no," he breathes. "Believe it or not, I don't actually have much of a death wish," he adds and weirdly, Martha catches herself laughing, too, shaking her head at him.

There's a girl, a few metres down, with pink hair and light eyes; she's reading a book, turning page after page like the sirens and the people around her don't exist. The cover is white with blue and gold lettering; it looks oddly poetic.

"On that note," Sean adds and fishes inside the bag, pulls out a long, white envelope, unsealed. "I've got something for you."

Their fingers brush when Martha takes the piece of paper in her hand, cracks a joke. "Is that a cheque?" she asks, turning the envelope over as she speaks. "'Cause Charlotte has me billing at five hundred quid an hour so I'm pretty sure you can't afford me."

Sean laughs, then, shakes his head and calls her out on being the rich, posh girl that she's never been. "Nah, open it," he says, finally, and watches Martha as she does.

There are three plane tickets in there. The old-fashioned ones that you get from the airport, with the scanning strip at the back and the little detachable stub on the side. The first one leaves from Heathrow to New York at 19:30 tonight. The second one from JFK to Miami tomorrow morning and lastly, from Miami to Belize. They're all in her name, seat 04A – window, she guesses - then again 03A, and 21C.

"I booked first class when I could," he says. "'Cause I thought: 'what the hell?'"

Martha holds the tickets between her fingers, is quiet for a moment. "Belize?" she observes, shaped like a question. She's not sure she could place that on a map.

"Yup," Sean nods, catching her gaze. "That's where I'm going, too, in case you're wondering. I've Googled it," he smiles. "They speak English, have beaches and sunsets and, from what I've read, very little tax."

Martha laughs, again, shakes her head in disbelief, amusement visible in her eyes. It ends with a sigh when she sees him shift, bite his lip.

"Come with me," he says, simple, like she knew he would.

He smiles at her when she looks away, lets the word roll off her tongue. She doesn't think about it, doesn't need to think about it. "No," she just says.

She doesn't say: 'I can't.' She doesn't talk about her career, her mum, her flat. She says: 'No,' not because she can't, but because that's her honest answer, the one that she wants to give him. She doesn't want to come. She thinks he knows that, deep down, understands that, from the way he looks at her, trying to hide a wince. "Now, Martha Costello," he tells her, sad. "You're breaking my grown-up heart."

She smiles, thinks that's probably true, all things considered, just like he broke hers, by going to jail and lying to her so maybe, it just makes them even. Martha looks down at her legs, her knees and calves on the grass, white and pale in the sun. She might get a tan, she hopes, or might just get burnt.

"You look different," Sean observes, after a moment, his glance on the side of her face. She's tempted to laugh, or smile again, point out that it's been a year since he's last seen her anywhere that wasn't court or a jail cell, that her hair has grown back and that she's almost forty, now (just like he is), with what seem like new lines on her face every morning. She knows it's not that, though, that she looks different, feels different, now, from who she was when she woke up this morning.

She glances up at him, catches his gaze, smiles. "I'm having a baby," she says.

It was Clive's wording, she remembers. He took her in his arms and lifted her up off the ground but even though she's said it before, it never really felt like her phrase until now, until she saw their daughter's little face and hands, and feet, on the screen this morning. Martha's not just pregnant, anymore, she's having a baby, in less than six months, actually. Sean's eyes widen, mouth dropping slightly open and – "You're pr-"

"Yeah," she confirms, looking up at him. "I was at a scan, this morning," she adds, because now she can explain what the imperative was.

"How -" Sean starts again, trails off, the syllable of his word hanging in the air on a cloud of uncertainty, a frown on his face.

Martha puffs out a laugh, mechanically pulling grass from the ground. "How are babies made? You'd think –"

He laughs, too, shakes his head at her. "No, I mean –"

"Clive."

It was what he was going to ask, eventually, she knows, so she might as well tell him. For a very long time, she used to think that it was for Clive to say, if he wanted to, that she didn't want to force that kind of responsibility upon him, didn't want to trap him into a situation that he might not want to be in. But he does seem to want it, now, and she does want to tell Sean, because he's her friend and she wants him to know that she was happy with someone, at least for a while.

Predictably, Sean bursts out laughing, then, bumps his shoulder into hers. "For fuck's sake," he says and she laughs, too, a magpie glaring at them from its spot on a nearby tree, as though awakened by the noise. Sean raises an eyebrow at Martha when their laughter dies down, a half-smile on his face. "So, you and the posh boy, eh?" he asks, a bit knowing, a bit mocking, too. "You're a thing?"

Martha smiles, shakes her head, of course. "Not –" she starts and stops, tries to choose better words. Not anymore, she wants to say, but then, she doesn't want to tell him why the thing that was isn't, anymore, doesn't want to have that conversation with him, about him, doesn't want to explain why she chose him, back then, but will not choose him now. "It's complicated," she settles, instead, and thinks of her mum, of the way complicated seems to apply to a lot of things, lately.

Sean turns to face her, then, quick, moving to sit by the side of her legs. Martha finds him staring right back at her, adamant, decisive. "Okay, do you want me to make it less complicated?" he asks, takes her hand in his. She doesn't react, just stares up at him. "Do you love him?" he speaks. "Because if you don't, come with me," he reiterates, his voice more serious, this time. It breaks her heart. "I'd be there, you know?" he adds and Martha breaks eye contact, watches one of the little boys playing football score against their grandfather. "Day in, day out. It can call me dad if it wants," Sean breathes, argues. "I'm not the kid I used to be, Mar."

On the makeshift football field to their left, the two brothers celebrate. The grandfather fakes disappointment. Martha's pretty sure he's letting them win.

For a long time, she doesn't know what to say. Thinks of Sean and she when they were kids, the beer bottles they used to steal and the curfews they used to break, the way he used to stand behind her, his arms around her shoulders, whispering dirty things in her ear. He loved her jet-black hair, said it made her look cool.

"I think I still am, though," she speaks, finally, looking up at him. "The kid I used to be, the girl in that chip shop near your flat, who wanted to read books and move to London and save the world."

"And fuck the Prince with the blond hair and the nice suit," Sean adds. Martha sends him a sharp glare; he smiles to himself, shakes his head and nods. It's exactly what she told a client one day: it wasn't her fault that she wanted more. She still wants more, she thinks. Always will.

They're silent for a bit and Martha hears Sean sigh, eventually, shoulder bumping against hers.

"I think you love him," he declares. There's something honest in his voice, sad and quiet, like he knows it's the truth. Martha looks up and finds it hard to look away. "I think you know that you love him," he smiles, watches her until she does, too. Her eyes close, for a moment; she feels a pain in her chest when he asks: "I never stood a chance, did I?"

She shakes her head and just like earlier, tells the truth: "No."

.

Later, Sean wraps his arm around her and kisses the top of her head like he used to when she lay in his bed back in Bolton, when they were young and he was the only boy who had ever mattered to her. "I love you, Martha Costello," he whispers and she barely moves, closes her eyes. She can feel him breathe, next to her, his chest rising and falling, and even though she doesn't want to kiss him, anymore, she wants to keep him close and tell him that it will be okay, that they'll both be happy, one day. "You saved me," he says, his hand softly caressing the skin of her arm.

"It's what friends do."

Sean sighs next to her, alive, Martha thinks, and free. They're both free.

When it's time for him to leave for Heathrow, she walks him down to the Tube, tells him that yes, it's a girl and no, she doesn't have a name, yet. Pulls him into a hug at the top of the stairs, tries not to notice the tears in his eyes and the tears in hers, the last piece of her childhood flying away. It's not homesickness, she thinks, it's just moving on.

"Have you thought of Shona?" he suggests and Martha bursts out laughing, playfully hits his shoulder with her palm. They'll email, maybe, and he may phone on her birthday, but it's the last thing he's probably ever going to say to her face, she knows. She likes that it is.

"Get off," she says, laughing, and watches him carry his bag down the stairs.

And just like that, Martha Costello chooses Clive Reader, this time around.

.


.