Thank you for your lovely reviews, it feels so good to be back writing again :)

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas - I spent the whole weekend at work and it was absolutely mental, so unfortunately I've struggled to find the time to write recently, I'm hoping everything will start to calm down again in the new year!

fayefteva - Any time, just drop me a tweet - chlolovescorrie !

2nd May 1988

Michelle kept her head down as she scurried quickly across the outside walkways of her secondary school, conscious of what was going on around her but not wanting to make eye contact with anybody. As she approached the door leading inside to the dinner hall corridor, she suddenly froze, sensing another person stood right in front of her.

"Off for your daily feast, Chelley-Belly?" sneered Kimberley Doyle, who blocked Michelle's way with her tall, slim figure, hands on her hips, flat chest pushed out in front of her. Her school shirt was unbuttoned to the middle of her chest and her skirt barely graced her thighs. She was flanked on either side by her two minions, Claire and Samantha, who looked carbon copies of their leader with identical hairstyles and clothing. Michelle raised her head and swallowed hard.

"Leave me alone…" she mumbled, trying to step around Kimberley and get to the safety of the inside corridor, however, she was blocked once again by the bigger girl, who laughed wickedly.

"I don't know I feel about getting in the way of the little piggy's dinner," she called back to her friends, who both laughed exactly as she had, "I feel like I'd get done for torture if I got caught." Michelle defensively covered her stomach with her arms, shielding it from view. Although she knew deep down that she wasn't 'fat' in the slightest, she was self-conscious that a lot of the girls in her year, at twelve-years-old, had shed their puppy fat whilst she was left dragging behind in that department. There was also the small fact that puberty had hit her a lot earlier that most other girls, which showed in her growing bust and curvaceous hips.

"I haven't done anything to you…" she uttered, her voice barely above a whisper. She turned her face away as tears began to fill her eyes; she didn't want the other girls to see that she was weak. Kimberley took another step closer to her, towering over her in height.

Carla, meanwhile, was just stepping into the courtyard, laughing at some vulgar comment about an attractive boy in her year that her friend Suzie had made. She glanced at the small crowd that had started to form near the entrance to the dinner hall, and froze on the spot when she noticed Michelle in the center of it. She had grown very fond of the younger girl, who she spent a lot of time with outside of school, both in the company of her brother and on their own.

"Hold that…" she mumbled to Suzie, passing her her school bag and storming over to the group, barging through the bystanders in the crowd. She slotted herself in between Michelle and Kimberley, despite the latter being significantly taller than her slim, dainty form. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Picking on a First Year, Kimberley, really?"

"Aww, Chelley-Belly's got her guard dog here. Though you're more of a Jack Russell than a Rottweiler, aren't you, Carla?" Kimberley sneered, looking down her nose at Carla's scrawny body, much smaller than the other girls in their year purely down to malnutrition and a lack of food at home.

"Don't try it…" Carla warned, taking a brave step towards Kimberley and causing her to stumble backwards, "Jack Russells can be lethal."

"And what are you going to do, exactly? Stick one of Mummy's heroin needles in my eye?" At her words, Carla reached up and grabbed a clump of Kimberley's blonde, permed hair, causing Kimberley to elicit an earsplitting scream. She used her knee to strike her in the stomach, which made Kimberley double over in pain, allowing Carla to overpower her and throw her onto the floor, pressing her face into the soil which covered the flowerbed next to them.

"If you're going to talk crap, Kimberley, you might as well eat it an' all," Carla hissed into her ear, which was mostly drowned out by Kimberley's screams, "I swear to God, if I ever see you anywhere near her again you'll be wi-"

"Carla Donovan!" roared the voice of Carla's Maths teacher, Mr O'Connell, who had began to disperse the group by pushing his way through. He grabbed hold of Carla's shoulders and had to forcefully drag her off of the girl on the floor, who revealed a face caked in mud as she rolled over, another teacher quickly coming to her aid. Mr O'Connell steered Carla through the multitude of teenagers still hovering in the area to get a look at the school bully who'd been brought down and in the direction of the staff room and upper management office.

"Where are we going?" Carla croaked, still slightly dazed by the events that had just happened.

"Headmaster's office. We'll be calling your parents." Carla's heart gave a jolt of panic. She very quickly formulated a plan in her mind.

Johnny felt sick with worry as he was led through the corridors of school that he'd only had reason to visit on a couple of previous occasions to watch his cousin's sons play in football matches. On receiving the phone call from the school receptionist, he'd dropped everything at work and hadn't even changed out of his suit before racing to the school, terrified that something had happened to Carla and that they'd somehow tracked down his number, as unlikely as that possibility seemed. As he was shown through to the waiting room for the headmaster's office, he spotted Carla through the window and breathed a sigh of relief, his heart rate slowing considerably. As he took a seat next to her, Carla continued to stare straight ahead of her, chewing around the edges of her blunt fingernails.

"Fancy telling me why I'm here?" he asked, trying to keep his voice friendly and approachable, though it still shook slightly as the adrenaline coursing through his body had yet to fully slow. He hadn't seen Carla around much in the last few months as he'd been working a lot and was spending his days off making the most of having Aidan at home before he started school in September, so he was surprised to see how much she'd grown up as she turned to face him. Her eyes were framed with smudged black eyeliner, which Johnny could only presume she'd stolen from her mother, and her face had started to lose a lot of its' childhood chubbiness, revealing sharp cheekbones.

"Had a fight with some stupid bitch in my year. Kimberley Doyle."

"Why?"

"Because she was bullying Michelle!" Carla snapped, "'Chelle's told me it's not the first time. I reckon she fancies Liam, she's always making eyes at him, and she's not exactly my biggest fan either."

"Right… Still doesn't explain why the school phoned me. Why didn't they get your mum in?" Johnny queried. Carla looked away from him again, leaning her elbows against her thighs and letting a sigh pass her lips.

"She's gone AWOL again. George is with her I think, we haven't seen either of them since Saturday."

"Carla! Why didn't you say something?!"

"And what would you have done, 'ey? You've got your own family; we ain't your problem." Her words made Johnny shudder with guilt. "Me and Robbie are fine, it's not the first time Mum's done a runner. She'll be back eventually. But I couldn't say owt to the school, could I? They'd tell Social, and I don't want us to end up in care and away from each other…" Despite her new-found maturity, Carla's voice quivered as she voiced the worries that had clearly been playing on her mind. "Anyway, they were adamant they wanted to talk to my parents and I didn't know what else to do, so I said you were my dad." Johnny flinched, panic starting to bubble in his stomach, but he forced a smile as the young girl peered at him nervously through her dark eyelashes.

"I'll sort it for you, love. But I need to know one thing, and I need to know an honest answer.

"Yeah?"

"Did you give the girl what she deserved?" Johnny joked, slinging an arm around Carla's neck and giving her a hug. He liked to see her smile, in spite of all of the difficulties that she was facing in her life, and he especially liked to be the one to put the smile there. And the idea of pretending to be her father, even just for a short while? Johnny considered this to be an opportunity that he would relish.

Louise glanced up from the film that she was watching in surprise as the front door creaked open. She'd been expecting Johnny home from work about an hour before and had started to worry that something had gone wrong.

"Johnny, where've you been? Your-…" she started to ask, but trailed off as first Robbie, then Carla sheepishly slipped into the room, both clutching large bags. They were followed swiftly by Johnny, who closed the door behind him. He shot Louise a pleading glance, wanting her to at least wait until the children were out of earshot before starting the interrogation.

"We've got guests…" he informed her. Louise hesitated for a second, before smiling brightly at the children.

"Hi, kids. Robbie, Aidan's in his room playing with his trainset. Go through; he'll be made up to see you." Robbie didn't need telling twice. He loved getting to play with Aidan, and enjoyed the chance to be the older child for a change rather than having to listen to his big sister. Johnny lightly touched Carla's arm, coaxing her to face him, and tried to put on a stern expression.

"And you, young lady, go through to the guest room and get your homework done. You heard what that teacher said today, they're going to be keeping an eye on you, I don't want to be dragged back down that school because you're not pulling your weight…" he warned her, though he couldn't help but let his frown fall away as the teenager flashed him a warm, genuinely thankful smile.

"You're the best, Uncle Johnny," she replied, pushing herself onto her tip-toes and pressing a fleeting kiss to his cheek, before spinning around and lugging her bag into the spare room. Johnny sighed, slumping down onto the sofa next to his wife, who gave him a quizzical look.

"Sharon's done a disappearing act again. The kids have been on their own all weekend, Carla's been running the household. I can't call Social Services on them because the poor thing is dead worried about them getting split up, she doesn't need all this extra stress on her, it's hard enough being thirteen as it is," he explained in a rush. Louise merely shook her head, smiling as she scooted closer to him and rested her head against his shoulder. Johnny relaxed, slipping an arm around her.

"You don't have to explain yourself to me… You're amazing with those kids."

"They're good kids. They deserve so much better than the mother they've got."

"Aidan loves it when they come over as well… It'd be nice, you know, if he had another kid to play with all the time…" Johnny could hear the suggestion in his wife's tone and he leant back to look at her properly.

"What are you saying…?" he asked, hopefully. Louise gave a small shrug.

"I'm saying… I'm saying I think we should have another baby. More than one child deserves to have you as a dad." Johnny cuddled Louise closer in agreement, pressing a loving kiss to the top of her head, an anxious feeling churning in his stomach for the second time that day. He tried to push the feeling to the back of his mind and not think about the girl who was sat in the next room, blissfully unaware of what he knew.