A/N - I've missed writing for Lindsay/Rachel, I wrote a story years ago called 'What If Lindsay's Father Didn't Die?' It was 44 chapters and over 40,000 words long. It was way back in 2013/14. And still, 5+ years later that storyline still sticks with me.

I don't have a plot in mind for these two, this is more just exploring the emotions of some scenes that struck me.

"Guilt is the fear of one's own wretchedness. It has nothing to do with other people." - Tara Westover

Underneath all the worms, dirt and matted grass hid a secret she swore she would never tell. She watched as her family members called for peace as he was lowered down there. 7ft deep, hell should have been a lot closer. She would've kept digging for them if it meant he would end up there, down to the fiery equator so he could turn into dust.

It was over, and still in his silence she felt pain. The flowers that had been laid out for him, carefully curated with love that he never showed her or her mother. Letters lined with praise and compliments, even her little sister left him words of love. This was a Trojan horse of the afterlife, h It was sickening, as Em kneeled down beside the mound of dirt and carefully arranged her card amongst the flowers, bile was rising in Lindsay's throat. Perhaps it was a small blessing, love truly was blind. She had saved her of ever knowing the side of him she had become much too well aquatinted with. To Em, that was just her dad.

She had arrived to school late that morning. If it hadn't been for what had just unfolded, Lindsay could let herself believe that this was the universe easing her into this new chapter, quite literally clearing a path for her by ridding the roads of bustling crowds and school backpacks. Still, Em was right next to her, asking a myriad of questions with her sights set on the future. "Do you think mum and dad are gonna get divorced?" There was no more dad. He was never a dad to begin with. What the future held for her and her mother, she wasn't certain. She wasn't sure there was one. The morning air had dissipated, everyone's days were well into motion, but Lindsay was at a standstill going over the events of that morning repeatedly. That look in her mothers eyes when Lindsay confessed to everything that had been going on. She looked tortured. Lindsay wasn't sure she had made it better.

And so her black school shoes pounded the pavement, hoping that one of her steps might just cause an earthquake that devastated Rothley. If the world could just stop for one minute then she might be able to pick up these fragmented pieces of sense and sanity and put them together. It felt so stupid, so dumb to be leaving her mother alone in that house... the house that was no doubt being pulled apart by law enforcement. They would tear through every shred of that house. For however many hours they would need, he was the victim. She suspected that he would be happy with that title. She was in fact the perpetrator, in ending his life she was most likely losing hers. Every second spent walking toward that school was a march towards the minute the truth would be out.

"She should have chucked him out ages ago." Although Lindsay's breath was shaky, there was a certainty in what she said. It just might be the truest words she would utter that day. So the truth spilled out, the words left cuts in her throat and tears in her eyes, but Em had to see. She needed her to understand.

"Don't say that!" Em defended. She loved him. Her dad. There was nobody left to defend though, and every counterstrike to Lindsay's protests was just another stabbing that had occurred that day. She couldn't take any more emotional wounding.

"Yeah but you heard her screaming, didn't you?" That earned a small silence from her little sister. So she ventured to hammer home the point. "He was beating her up. Again."

"I've never seen dad hit mum." It was a complicated yet crushing weight. Gratefulness, in that Emily never witnessed such a thing. Irritability, she needed someone on her side now more than ever. In this makeshift court, between herself and her dad, Emily was siding with the wrong person. She had the gift of ignorance, Lindsay had granted her that.

"Yeah he does it in secret." Lindsay muttered, still walking as quickly as she could, Emily in her haul and her bag slowly sliding off her shoulder. She looked a mess. That didn't matter. Nothing mattered. She felt like shit, so if she looked it, so be it. This pantomime of writing the date in school books, answering questions about a novel she didn't have time to read, the dry conversations over the new school she probably wouldn't have the luxury of staying in. It all felt so pointless, and she was feeling increasingly sick.

"You're talking rubbish!" It stung. A constant reminder of what she was up against. Who would believe her? They were late as it is, but Emily's shouting had invited questioning. It drew unwanted attention on her. An authority figure scanning her eyes up and down her, trying to figure her out. It just wasn't needed. It was the furthest from, actually. She needed a moment alone. Since what unfolded back home, Lindsay hadn't had a moment to collect herself. In her race to school she had become a nervous mixed up concoction of adrenaline, nausea and tears. The kind that collect in the back of your throat and sit in your cheeks.

"I'm Ms Mason, the headteacher here, what's caused all this?"

That question was worth more than her pay check.

"Nothing, she's a cry baby. Alright?" Her grip returned to Emily's arm, having only just let go for a second. Just get inside.

"Wait a minute! Wait" The blonde woman called, it was like commanding a dog, or telling off a child. She is a child. "Why don't you go inside, join the others for assembly?" And sit through a no doubt well rehearsed speech regarding the merger between John Fosters and Waterloo Road, endure empty greetings from old friends and acquaintances. It was all disappearing. Ms Mason had a hold of Emily's other arm, her touch much softer, but still, she was now driving this situation.

"My sisters coming with me." There was venom on her tongue, her chin was held high.

"No your sisters staying with me, thank you. Go in." She countered, she leaned ever so slightly forward so their eyes were level. This woman had made her mind up. Lindsay wasn't going to win. And she was so so tired. With a quick glance at Emily, then Ms Mason, then back to her little sister. She retreated. It was all too much for one day, she was tired of fighting.

The chirpy sound of Ros calling her name that grated at her eardrum was enough to keep her moving forward. She needed an out, now. She needed a break.

And the moment exploded. What had been churning inside her since that dreadful, horrific, nightmareish morning was spilling out of her. In vomit, in floods of tears. The barrier broke and she had no choice to feel. Here she was, surrounded by regular people leading their regular lives. Their day was only different because of new people, new classrooms. She should have been arriving to school with Ros, she and her peers would laugh at the classes - or lack their of - of Waterloo Road. Or maybe Ros would coax her into a whole new friend group, Ros seems like the type to do that. She always made the best of a bad situation. This should have been the most of her worries. But nothing could amount to that morning. What she would later recall to Ros as an argument. Where was she supposed to go when school ended, she and Emily couldn't go home. What was mum doing at this moment? Had they found him? Who was going through her bedroom? Was mum okay?

Nobody had any idea. And she somehow had to keep this pretence up, for the sake of salvaging the wreckage of her family.