"Simon!" Carla cried, exasperated as she tried to navigate around the lad, her arms burdened by a mover's box filled with just a fraction of their belongings that they'd moved down from Weatherfield.

"What?" he stared up at her, a look of faux innocence on his face.

"Move! You're in the way!"

"So-rry."

With a huff and an exaggerated folding of his arms, Simon plonked himself down onto the sofa that had for now been placed haphazardly in the middle of their brand new living room in their brand new flat, the foundation for their brand new life.

"Shouldn't you be getting a move on, love?" Peter asked, entering the room, carrying yet another box. "You don't want to be late."

"Oh, damn! Is it that time already?" Carla checked her watch, only to find out that it was indeed that time. "I hate to leave you to do all the unpacking on your own," she lamented.

"Ha!" Peter scoffed, planting a soft kiss on Carla's cheek as he offloaded his box. "As if you'd rather be lugging boxes around when you could be off making high powered business deals. I know you better than that."

"Okay, you got me," she responded to his kiss with another, on his lips this time. "You know me so well."

"Boots," Carla murmured, shifting boxes out of the way, searching for that elusive one – or two or three – that held her collection of shoes. "Where are my boots? Ah!" she cried in triumph, spotting the very one she was looking for stacked behind the others, and started creating a path to it, moving first one box and then another.

"Oww!"

"Oh my god! Simon!" Carla hastily dropped the box she had just swung out of the way – and directly into Simon – onto the floor and crouched down in front of him, reaching out to him, horrified that she might have hurt him. "Where did you come from? Are you okay?"

"Go away!" he batted her hand away and glared at her.

"Are you hurt?"

"You hit me!" he scolded her.

"You shouldn't have been standing right behind me! Let me see, is there any blood?"

Simon squirmed as Carla inspected his head, looking for any signs of a wound.

"Stop it!"

"I'm trying–" Carla grunted, gripping his arm firmly with one hand while running her fingers through his curly locks with the other. "To help you."

"I'm fine!"

With an almighty effort, Simon wrenched himself free from Carla's grip and backed away, glaring at her.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

"Okay, then," Carla said, quickly slipping on her newly found boots and grabbing her bag. "I'll see you later."

"No, you won't."

"Listen, Si," Carla crouched down in front of him, her tone as soft and 'motherly' as she could manage. "I am sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. Do you forgive me? Please?"

"Whatever."

"Peter?"

"In the kitchen."

"You should've seen this place," Carla enthused, shrugging off her coat and bag by the front door before hurrying to the kitchen. "It's the perfect setup. A bit small, maybe, but that's not a deal breaker… What?" Carla stopped and stared at Peter who was looking at her with, she wasn't sure. Disappointment? Recrimination? "What's wrong?"

"What happened with Si earlier?"

"Simon?" Carla shook her head in confusion. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"He said you hit him."

"I… hit him?" Carla stammered, recalling to her mind the incident with Simon, already completely forgotten by her. "No. Peter, I would never."

"He's got a bruise on his head."

"I, I, ahh, I bumped into him with a box. It was an accident. He said he was fine. Ask him, he'll tell you. Where is he?"

"He's in his room, I don't want to disturb him."

"Well, get him out here, because he's lying if he says I hit him on purpose."

"Are you saying my son is lying?"

"Are you saying I would hit a child? On purpose?"

Carla stared at Peter, the hurt clear in her eyes, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"No!" Peter was moved immediately by her sense of betrayal. "Oh, baby, no, of course not. I'm sorry."

"You know he hates me."

"He doesn't…"

"He does. And he would do, or say, anything to get rid of me. To turn you against me."

"That's not gonna happen. But, just to be clear, it was an accident, right? You're sure about that?"

"Yes!" Carla cried, her frustration growing by the second. "You do believe me, don't you?"

"I believe you, baby. Of course I believe you."

"What about Simon?"

"Don't worry, I'll talk to Si. I'll smooth everything over. But…"

"But what?" Carla was immediately on the defensive, something that was happening more and more often where Simon was concerned.

"Whether you like it or not, Carla, you are his mother now."

"No, Peter, no."

"You need to make an effort with him."

"Peter, you can't just expect to tear that lad away from Leanne and replace her with me. He loves Leanne."

"Leanne's gone."

"Don't push him, he'll just push back harder."

"You know what, Carla, I'm starting to think you don't want Simon around at all."

"It's not that."

"I know you're not maternal."

Peter's words felt like a weapon to Carla, a dagger straight to her heart.

"I'm not," she readily confessed. "But I do care about Simon."

"Do you?"

"Of course I do, Peter. Simon, he's a part of you. And I love you so so much. Which means I love Simon. You two, you're a package deal."

"Then give yourself a chance," Peter pleaded. "I know you could be a good mother to him."

"I will try. I will, Peter. For you."

"Thank you, baby," Peter pulled her in for a kiss. "That's all I ask."

"Knock knock!"

"Peter!" Carla cried in surprise at seeing Peter standing at the doorway to her new premises. "What are you doing here? Did Simon get off to school alright?"

"Yes, he's safely in with his teacher and hopefully his new friends. So I thought I'd come down town and check this place out."

"Aren't you sweet," Carla kissed him softly before grabbing his hand and proceeding to proudly show off her new business premises. "This, obviously, will be the showroom, set up like a boutique, you see, I've got the big windows that face the street. This is where the clients can come in and see the samples and upstairs, come with me, will be where the machinists work."

"You're not gonna fit that many machinists up here, Carla," Peter observed as he stood with Carla on the first floor of the building, an area only a fraction of the size of the Underworld sewing floor.

"I won't need to," Carla said, walking around the space as she explained her plan to Peter. "You see, I'm going to put up some glass partitions in this corner for my office, which will leave space out here for three machinists and a packing area."

"Will three machinists be enough?"

"For on the spot alterations and the more high-end stuff. But for everything else I plan on outsourcing the manufacturing."

"Looks like you've thought of everything," Peter said. "I'm impressed."

"Why thank you, Mr Barlow."

"You know what we should do, don't you?" Peter said with a cheeky grin, stepping close to Carla, their bodies almost touching, their breath on each other's faces.

"What's that?"

"We need to christen this place."

"Hmm…" Carla murmured, snaking her arms around Peter's neck and peppering his cheek with kisses. "I like the way you think. Ooh, hello, you are ready to go, aren't you."

"No, that's my phone vibrating. Hold that thought," Peter pecked Carla's cheek before disentangling himself from her to answer the phone. "Peter Barlow … right … is that right? … I understand … I'll be right there."

"What is it?" Carla asked, watching with concern as Peter stood, momentarily defeated, his head hanging limply forward over his chest. "What's happened."

"It's Simon," he revealed with a sigh, raising his head to meet her enquiring gaze.

"Is he… Has he hurt himself?"

"No, nothing like that. He's, umm, he's only gone and hurt one of his classmates. He hit another student."

"Oh, god."

"I have to go. I've been summoned to the headmasters office."

"Sure, I'll… good luck."

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" Peter asked Simon sternly as they sat, side-by-side in the front seat of Peter's car.

"Nothing."

Simon sat sullenly in his seat, his eyes fixed on the dashboard in front of him, refusing to even glance at his father.

"It's obviously not nothing, is it? Not when the headmaster calls me in because you've been fighting. On your first day and all."

"If you already know what happened, why are you asking me?" Simon challenged his father.

"Watch your tone, mister."

"Sorry."

"Why did you do it, Si? Did the lad provoke you? Did he say something mean?"

"No."

"Then why?"

"I dunno," Simon shrugged.

"You're never going to make friends if you keep behaving like this."

"I don't care."

"What? You don't want to make friends?"

"I've got friends," Simon cried. "At home. I want to go home, dad. I don't like it here."

"Give it time, Si. Come on, now."

"No!" Simon wailed, turning to Peter for the first time, pleading with him. "I wanna go home. Dad, please. Let me stay with mum. Please, dad."

"No, son. Your place is here with me. And Carla."

Carla switched off the car's ignition and leaned back in her seat. She wasn't looking forward to entering her new home, not tonight, not with the scene that she imagined was waiting for her.

She was under no illusion that Simon playing up at school would be blamed solely on her. Most things tended to be blamed on her; some of them she was perfectly ready to admit were warranted, but some of them she felt to be grossly unfair. It wasn't her fault if a stubborn eight-year-old refused to play nice. Hadn't she tried everything she could think of to befriend the child? To make him feel at ease with her? But she knew that nothing would work, that the only way he would deign to even tolerate her was if she left Peter and allowed Leanne to come back into his life.

As Carla allowed herself to wallow in self-pity, a sneaky movement caught her eye. Paying attention now, she watched as a small figure gingerly hoisted himself over the frame of his bedroom window and scramble down the creeping vine that grew over the external wall of the flats, a renovated detached house built in the Edwardian style. The lad picked up the backpack he'd obviously tossed down to the ground before he had made his escape and swept his gaze up and down the street, trying to decide in which direction he should walk.

That was when he saw her, sat in her car, staring at him, one of her perfectly groomed eyebrows raised in query.

Simon sighed, deflated; he was caught.