Hello,

This chapter is a LONG one, I'm pretty sure that it's the longest chapter yet, so you may want to stick the kettle on before you read! As always, thank you for your lovely reviews, I find them so motivating!

Side note: The last chapter kept disappearing and reappearing when I posted it last week so you may want to check to see if you have read that one before reading this. Hopefully everything posts normally this week!

(Extra side note: I know that October half terms are usually only one week but I made it two weeks for the purpose of the story, also I think poor Rachel could do with the extra weeks rest, couldn't she?)

Enjoy,

Becca x

A (not so) Welcomed Explanation

7th November 2011

It was 3am when Rachel turned over once more in bed, she had managed to get two hours of sleep that night before she awoke; wide awake and struggling to return to her slumber. In three hours, her alarm would ring, and she would have to face her first day back at work after the half term, because of this, she was desperately trying to get the sleep that she knew she would crave as soon her alarm began to irritatingly beep. Since the start of her pregnancy, she had begun to frequently wake up in the early hours of the morning, but it was more than that; every time she closed her eyes, her mind flooded with anxiety at the prospect of the day ahead of her.

Beaten, she opened her eyes once more and made her way downstairs, hoping that a chamomile tea might send her to sleep, if anything, it would be a distraction. As the kettle boiled, she could not help but check that she had her work files prepared in her bag ready for the day ahead. When she finally allowed herself to sink into the couch with her drink, her mind turned to Eddie. They had not spoken in over two weeks, the last words that she muttered to him were to get out of her school. After the choir had finished their performance, Rachel had managed to slip off to avoid engaging in any further conversations with Eddie. Since then, he had persistently left her calls, texts and even emails; however, she could not bear to talk to him, not after Melissa's revelation.

Hearing about them sleeping together was enough of a shock, and yet, she could forgive him for not telling her about the meaningless sex with Melissa; it was not as though she was in a relationship with Eddie. However, after their conversation outside the school about honesty, to hear just moments later that himself and Melissa were engaged was like a punch to the gut. Of course, he would have some sort of excuse, he alluded to as much, but she did not want to hear it. And yet, frustratingly, she needed answers; the situation baffled her after Eddie had been so adamant that they were not in a relationship. She simply could not get her head around it, despite Eddie and Melissa almost getting married years ago, it was different now. Eddie spoke about her with such hostility and on the couple of occasions that she had seen them in the same room together, she had never seen Eddie look so unhappy. None of it made sense to her; she knew that she was missing something.

Over the half term, she had begun to question whether Eddie's feelings were genuine, she had been so sure of it at the time; she felt his love so strongly when they were together and yet, he had lied to her, again. It was impossible for Rachel to fathom how Eddie could talk about them having a future together whilst simultaneously planning one with Melissa. Either he had been lying through his teeth about the details surrounding his and Melissa's setup or there was more to it.

It was just after 6am when Rachel was awoken by Adam, instantly she felt a pain in her neck and as she opened her tired eyes and realised that she had fallen asleep on the couch. "You really need to stop doing this, you're going to get a bad neck." Adam commented; it was not the first time that this had happened over the last two weeks due to her disrupted sleep pattern.

"I've already got one." She commented through a yawn as she rubbed her aching neck.

"You look exhausted." He noted. "Can you not ring in ill?"

"I'm the head teacher, and I'm not ill, I'm just tired and pregnant."

"I don't want you overdoing it, you need to think about…"

"The baby, I know." She smiled at him, somewhat sympathetically. Even though she had planned to tell him the truth about the baby that evening on the last day of term, after the eventful day that she had endured, she did not have the energy left in her to do it. Since Adam had found out about her pregnancy, he had been lovely, so lovely that it only made her more wracked with guilt. From the beginning of the half term, she had been utterly exhausted and Adam had looked after her, if she had not felt so guilty, she might have found it irritating to a point as he would barely let her put a wash on without taking over. She was well aware that she was not being fair to Adam but for the moment, she did not have the strength for another fall out.

Once she had finally dragged herself to the shower and got ready for the day ahead, she appeared in the kitchen where Adam had made her some breakfast. "You know I'm not a fan of breakfast," she reminded him for what felt like the millionth time.

"You need to keep your strength up, for the baby." Rachel subtly rolled her eyes, every sentence had to include 'for the baby'. "I think you're going to have to tell the staff that you're pregnant, well maybe not, they'll no doubt be able to guess." He noted her obvious bump. Now sixteen weeks pregnant, her pregnant stomach had suddenly taken shape over the last two weeks. Although her bump was relatively small, today she wore a fitted grey dress which emphasised the obvious shape of her stomach and made her pregnancy unmistakable.

After hearing nothing from Rachel over the half-term, Eddie was determined to put things right and provide some clarity on the situation regarding himself and Melissa; he could not bear Rachel thinking that he had been deceiving her. The only way he could ensure that he managed to fit in a conversation with her that morning was to arrive early; Rachel Mason early. Spotting Rachel's car as he drove into school, Eddie let out a sigh of relief. Before entering her office that morning, he knocked on the door, something which he did not normally do; he figured that it was out of nervousness. "Come in," she called as she was in the middle of routing through the filing cabinet.

"Hi." Eddie awkwardly greeted her. Instantly, his eyes dropped to her now noticeable pregnant stomach and he noticed how the fine grey fabric of her dress clung to and highlighted the neat shape of her small but yet defined bump. It took great effort to swallow back the emotion that he felt, he had never seen her looking as beautifully radiant; but he could not allow his own emotions to get in the way of what he needed to say to her.

Rachel immediately looked up as she heard his voice, she was caught off guard as she had not expected it to be Eddie; he usually walked straight into her office without thinking to knock. Finding herself at a loss for words, she simply resumed trying to find the English Departmental Budget in the filing cabinet.

Despite her lack of response, Eddie could not help but add. "I don't think you're going to be able to keep the baby a secret for much longer."

"Well, you know all about keeping secrets, don't you Eddie." She coolly chipped in as she finally found the file that she was looking for and sat at her desk.

"I tried to call you…"

"I thought you'd have given up after the twentieth time." Her tone was dispassionate and composed; she was not going to lose another scrap of her dignity.

"More like fortieth." He corrected. "Why do you think I'm here at this time? I need to explain things to you properly."

"Save it." She told him as she continued to pretend to read through the file. Now that she was faced with him, the feelings from that day before the half term came burning to the surface. An inner rage began to build in her, not only at Eddie but at herself, for allowing him to make an idiot out of her.

Eddie knew her, better than anyone else ever could. Despite her attempts to put on an impassive front, he saw the pain in her eyes and noticed that her grip on the folder that she held was getting tenser by the minute. "Please Rachel, just give me the chance to explain."

"What, so you can tell me more lies?" Her eyes could have burned a whole in the paper that she had glued her gaze to.

"No, I want to make this right Rachel. Please let's just sit down and I can explain everything." He pleaded with her to listen to him.

She finally looked up from the file and stared at him rather coldly now. "The only thing I want from you Eddie is your resignation. I'm not interested in anything else. Until then, please, get out of my office." The words came out her mouth in an instant as she stubbornly attempted to keep her dignity intact. For now, she could not deal with any further bombshells.

"Oh, come on Rachel, this is ridiculous. I'm not going anywhere until we talk about this!" He matched her stubbornness.

"Fine, I'll go." Rising from her desk, she grabbed her bag and walked past him, as she did so could not stop herself from adding. "Have you not got a wedding to plan?" Before she then walked off to the staff room.

From the moment that she left her office, the imperturbable front that she had forced with Eddie started to crack and her emotions began to seep through. Unable to stop the tears which now streamed, she made a swift detour to the ladies' toilets to dry her eyes. It took longer to contain her emotions than she had expected and by the time she had touched up the concealer under her eyes, she was almost the last person to arrive in the staffroom for the morning briefing.

Amid concentrating on keeping up a smile as she entered the staffroom, Rachel didn't even think of her now noticeable stomach. "Morning everyone, I hope you all had a good half-term. I've only got a few announcements…" She began as soon as she started to walk into the room.

Grantly dramatically coughed as he raised his eyebrows at her stomach. "I think we can guess one of them."

She silently tutted at her lack of awareness. Her choice of outfit that morning had been intentional, there was only so long that she could continue to wear oversized blouses for and so decided to wear a dress that made her pregnancy undeniable. That way, she hoped that she could get the news out of the way in one day without weeks of whispers and awkward questioning from the staff and the pupils. Little did Rachel know that Steph had already started a bet around the staffroom on the last day before the half-term that Rachel would soon be making a pregnancy announcement.

Rachel had previously planned out how she would make the announcement, however now was caught off guard and awkwardly added. "Yeah, I should probably mention that I'm pregnant...as you can see." All eyes were on her now, Eddie's in particular, however she tried to avoid him completely.

Tom immediately rushed over and gave her a hug. "Congratulations Rachel, tell Adam I said so too!" As the rest of the staff, began to offer Rachel their congratulations, Tom returned to his seat. Glancing to Grantly, he noticed that he had a face like thunder. "Everything okay mate?"

"Of course not, I've just lost a tenner!" Grantly huffed before going to boil the kettle.

Once Matt had congratulated Rachel, he went over to Grantly. "Where's Steph? She's going to be so smug when she finds out she was right."

"Did you not see how much she put away in the pub last night? Sherlock I am not, but I don't have to be a sleuth to guess that she's probably still in bed." He looked to Rachel who was in the middle of having a conversation with Kim. "Hopefully she manages to turn up in time for first period, otherwise her ladyship won't be smiling for much longer."

"I'll ring her!" Matt told Grantly as he sneaked off to the corner of the staffroom to try and get hold of Steph.

As the staff congratulated Rachel, Eddie stayed seated; he could not go through the façade of pretending as though the news was a surprise to him and force himself to congratulate her. What was already a difficult moment, had worsened when Tom had mentioned Adam; it did not feel right when Eddie knew that it could be his child that Rachel was carrying. Kim had noticed that Eddie had not stood up to congratulate Rachel and assumed that like herself, he must have already known about the pregnancy. As Kim glanced towards Eddie now, she noticed the withdrawn expression on his face.

Unable to deal with the attention on herself, in addition to the tension that she felt from Eddie, Rachel interrupted the talk about her news. "Thank you everyone, but I really don't want to make a fuss. I just want you to know that I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that this doesn't get in the way of the school..." Rachel suddenly noticed the missing presence of a certain staff member; she was surprised that she had not noticed earlier as Steph was usually the first one to get excited in the light of an announcement. "Where's Steph?"

"I think she's ill." Matt suddenly added in an attempt to try and get Steph out of trouble.

Janeece had been putting the mail in the staff's pigeon holes when she tactlessly piped up. "She didn't seem ill at the pub last night; I bet her head's not too good today she was leathered!"

"Janeece!" Matt muttered.

Finally, Eddie broke his silent state and grumpily shook his head. "For God's sake! She's got a hangover on the first day back? I'm going to get hold of her." He stormed out of the staffroom.

Kim knew there was more to Eddie's bad mood than a reaction to Steph's incompetence and followed him. "Eddie..."

"I can't believe that woman. No, you know what, I can believe it, it's Steph Haydock; what I can't believe is that she's still got a bloody job!" He fired off as he headed to the office.

"Is that really what all this is about?" Kim questioned whilst having to speed-walk to keep up with him.

"What are you talking about Kim?"

"I couldn't help but notice that you didn't seem too happy about Rachel's news in there."

"What do you want me to do Kim? Buy her a cake and throw her a baby shower?" He sarcastically replied as they reached the office.

Kim shook her head at him disapprovingly. "God, it's really getting to you isn't it? She's moved on with her life and you just can't deal with it. Well maybe now you know what it was like for her when you got her sister pregnant. Would it really be that much of an effort to just slap a smile on your face and be happy for her?"

"You don't know what you're talking about, in fact you don't know one half of it! Now if you've finished with your psychoanalysis, I've got a call to make." He responded with a huff before loudly stabbing Steph's number into the office phone.

Eddie had been on his fourth attempt to reach Steph when Rachel walked into the office. "Have you managed to get hold of her?" she asked, attempting to keep her tone passive; despite it still being so painful to simply be in the same room as Eddie, nethermind speak to him.

Eddie huffed frustratedly and placed the phone back in its holder with a bang. "No."

The atmosphere between them now was even more strained than it had been in the staffroom. "Well, I guess I'll go and cover her class."

Before Rachel left, Eddie's voice softened. "Rachel, please can we talk?"

"I don't think there's anything left to say." She replied calmly; attempting to uphold her dignified front.

"Settle down!" Rachel hushed the students upon entering Steph's classroom. "Miss Haydock isn't in today so I'll be covering..."

In an instant, Rachel's pregnant stomach began to create whispers amongst the class. "Miss are you having a baby?" Lauren Andrews asked.

"Yes." Rachel simply replied before quickly changing the subject as she looked through some of the papers in Steph's desk and attempted to find some work to set. "Right, you're going to have to help me out here guys, what is it that you were doing before the half-term?"

"Not much!" Amy Porter chipped in.

"This is an important year for you all, I hope you've all been busy." Rached highlighted.

"You've clearly been busy Miss!" Kyle Stack chipped in.

Rachel chose to ignore his comment and instead continued to try and find some work for the students, however when she could not find anything suitable, she sighed and grabbed the pen from the board; at a loss due to her lack of knowledge of the French language. "Okay then, get into teams, let's play some French hangman."

It was nearing the end of the lesson when Rachel noticed something brewing at the back of the classroom between Finn Sharkey and Kyle Stack, just as she was about to question them on it, Kyle shot up from his desk, kicked back his chair, fired over to Finn and swiftly punch him in the face. "Kyle!" Rachel shouted as she quickly stood from her seat. "Both of you, outside now."

"What the hell is going on?" Rachel exclaimed as the boys followed her outside into the corridor. "Kyle...Look at me when I'm speaking to you. You are well aware that violence is not tolerated, get to my office now. Finn, can you please go and see the nurse about that nose." As she spoke, the bell rang and Rachel popped her head back in the class to let the rest of the students know that they could leave, however, in that instance Finn took the chance to get his revenge and ran at Kyle and began to punch him. "For God's sake, did you not listen to a word I said...Break it up now!" Rachel rushed over to them to attempt to break up their fight.

Fortunately, Eddie was making his way down the corridor when he witnessed the scene. "Rachel..." He hurried over and pulled her out of the way before he then prised the boys apart. "Kyle, go to Miss Mason's office, Finn, get to the cooler." He ordered so that the boys would be kept apart. "Now!" Once the boys had left in opposite directions, Eddie looked to Rachel in a state of panic. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I was dealing with it!" She insisted as she caught her breath.

"What were you thinking? You can't just wade in like that!"

"I was doing my job."

"It's not just you that you have to think about though, is it?" He reminded her as he glanced to her stomach.

Instantly, she felt guilty for putting her unborn child at risk; she knew that Eddie was right, but she was not going to admit that to him. "I need to speak to Kyle."

In the middle of writing a report, Rachel was seated at her desk as she tapped away at her laptop that lunchtime. Despite the paperwork that came with being a head teacher, she was glad to be out of the classroom following her experience that morning. After their earlier altercation, she had decided to put Finn and Kyle in isolation for the week.

As soon as the lunchtime bell had chimed, Eddie headed straight to the office. "Is Rachel in there?" He asked Janeece who was attempting to glue one of her false nails back on.

"Yeah, she's there. Watch out though she's in a right mood, she got proper arsey with me because I put a few typo's in the school newsletter." Janeece dramatically raised her eyebrows. "Must be the hormones!"

"Thanks, Janeece." Eddie said before cautiously entering Rachel's office. "Rachel I…"

"Have you got your resignation?" She asked, seeming unphased by his arrival as she continued to type away, without once looking up from her laptop.

"No, of course not. We need to talk."

"Unless it's about the pupils or your work, I'm really not interested." She stubbornly responded; her taps on the keys became slightly louder now.

"Come on Rachel. I get it, you're annoyed with me, now will you just come and sit down." He pleaded as he sat on the couch; when she did not respond to this, he continued. "Look, I'll make you a deal. Let me explain things and if afterwards you still want my resignation, you can have it." He offered, hoping that he would not regret it.

"Fine." She shut the lid to her laptop, stood up from her desk and sat on the couch next to him.

"Thank you." He smiled gratefully at her.

Before he had chance to speak, Rachel had to add. "Just out of interest, you have checked that my sister isn't a bigamist this time, haven't you?"

"Melissa and I are not getting married." He corrected her before finally getting the chance to explain. "Things happened over the summer. After that night we spent together, I couldn't stop thinking about you; I'd not felt like that in so long, and then when I found out we'd be working together again. I just knew that I still loved you Rachel."

Rachel's forehead tensed in confusion, if this was his way of clarifying why he had proposed to her sister, it really wasn't making much sense so far. "I don't understand."

"It made it even harder, keeping up the façade with Melissa, I thought I was doing the best for my son, being there and protecting him, but growing up in a dysfunctional household, that's not helping him at all, is it? Basically, I told Melissa in the summer that I couldn't live with her anymore. I couldn't deal with it; her pretending to her friends that we were some sort of happy couple. I was planning to let her have the house whilst I got a flat, so that we could share the custody of Charlie. Melissa of course wasn't happy about it, she started kicking off and then the next thing I know, she took off with Charlie; I didn't know where my son was for a fortnight!"

Rachel was fully engaged now. "What? She can't just take him like that."

"Well, she did, she finally turned up two weeks later and said that they'd been on holiday to visit a mate of hers in Spain, and then she started threatening to move there. I swear she only said it because she knew how much it hurt me when Alison moved Michael to New Zealand. She told me that we either kept things as they were or she would do everything that she could to stop me seeing Charlie. I was just so relieved to see him Rachel, you don't know how worried I was. I'd already spoken to a lawyer but it's not easy for fathers to get custody, or cheap. I just needed to buy some time so I went along with it and that's when Melissa brought up the whole marriage thing, she said she wanted the commitment, so I just agreed to it but Rachel I promise you that's all it was. It's never going to happen." Eddie felt relieved to finally speak about his hell with Melissa; he just hoped that his revelation had not come too late.

Rachel remained silent for a minute as she tried to take in what he had told her. "Eddie, I don't understand why you didn't tell me about this months ago."

"Our first day back here, I was planning to tell you everything. To be honest, I really needed your advice. But you had stuff going on with Adam, things were still awkward between us and then you were so stressed. So, I thought it was just best to deal with it on my own. You've had so much on your plate Rachel, I wasn't going to add to that, especially when I found out that you were pregnant." He admitted.

She silently nodded and then reflected for a moment, after all the hurt and betrayal she had felt over the half-term it was hard to get her head around. Standing up, she returned to her desk; she needed space for her reflection. "I need to be on my own."

"Of course." Eddie complied and rose from the couch. He could not quite read her reaction as she sat at her desk; deep in thought. He opened the door to leave, but hesitated for a moment before turning back to her. "So, do you still want my resignation?"

Emerging from her thoughts now, the tension still remained in her brow as she looked to him. She shook her head. "No, I don't."