Hello lovelies! I've tried out a different style of writing here. It seems to come very easily to me in term of writing it- at one point I was easily managing a thousand words in a couple of hours of the rough drafts. But i'm not sure how it reads... so tell me what you think? Maybe after a few chapters though since i've still got more to post... :D

On another note- anyone else holding out the far-fetched hope of Rachel and Eddie returning? I'm very, very doubtful, especially the latter :( x

Eddie Lawson was in love. His flatmates teased him endlessly about it, jeering each time he left in the early evening, sometimes not seen again until the morning. His parents fretted quietly, dropping hints that he was too young to be so serious about a girl, worried that he was neglecting his studies for his girlfriend. He didn't listen. He had never been happier than when laying side-by-side in those cramped beds in his university accommodation, or when they found themselves lounging in the grass in the sunshine, or even when they sat in silence in the library, side by side with their noses buried in their books.

Rachel Mason had been entirely uninterested in him at first. They'd met during freshers' week- Eddie was starting his second year, Rachel her first. They'd both ended up in the student union at the same time, Rachel dragged there by her enthusiastic new roommate who'd decided they were going to be besties, and Eddie by his own friends, mostly for the cheap alcohol and easy chat ups on girls going wild with their first true taste of freedom.

Rachel wasn't one of those. One of Eddie's friends was interested in hers and the group had ended up sat together, giving Eddie a front row seat into how she'd brushed off every attempt made at her. It caught his notice, and the more he'd watched the more intrigued he'd become. Her smile had lit up the room, and there was something about her, something that didn't scream first year university student. But she'd brushed off him too, at first, until the fact that he wanted to be a teacher had come up in a wider conversation and she'd instantly brightened, revealing that was her goal as well. The shared interest softened her and they spent the rest of the night attached at the hip, remaining in conversation long after the people they'd come with had paired off.

That might have been the end of it, if not for Eddie's stubbornness. Rachel was adamantly against entering into a relationship, and strangely Eddie found he didn't mind. He enjoyed being her friend. They could spiritedly debate any number of topics, only to find themselves laughing a minute later about something else entirely. When Eddie found out that she jogged several times a week, he began to join her, and they would inevitably end up racing each other for the last leg of their route, which somehow turned into breakfast after their run, and sometimes, on a weekend, lunch as well.

Eddie's friends didn't get it, teasing him and telling him he was wasting his time. He had disagreed. He went out, met a few girls- even brought a few back to his room- but none of them held his interest for longer than one night, and inevitably he found he would rather spend time with Rachel anyway. It escaped both their notices that they'd seen each other every day for almost two weeks straight, into their friends pointed it out them.

Rachel wasn't overly fond of going out- she could be persuaded, sometimes, but generally preferred to spend her evenings studying instead of drinking. To his shock, Eddie realised he'd rather spend his own next to her instead of partying, persuading her to put her books down and watch a film or go to dinner with him.

It seemed no time at all before December came around and Eddie went home for the Christmas break, only to find himself constantly thinking of Rachel. He'd hear a joke and want to tell her, read an interesting article and immediately wonder if she'd seen it too. The real clincher, however, came when he nipped to the shops one afternoon and ran- quite literally- into the ex-girlfriend who'd broken his heart by breaking up with him via a letter during his first term at university. He wasn't completely oblivious to the way she looked up and down, eyes widening before she'd started to flirt like crazy, touching his arm and playing with her hair as she told him she'd missed him. And Eddie didn't care. All he could think of was that she wasn't half as clever as Rachel, that she was so much vainer, much less ambitious.

When he'd returned to campus, he hadn't even bothered to unpack before he'd hurried over to Rachel's halls, and when she'd opened the door to find him standing there, her whole face had lit up. "Eddie!"

And just like that, all of the fancy words and declarations had vanished from his head. "Hi."

Her arms were suddenly around him, holding him tightly and he'd barely responded before she pulled away, smiling warmly as she ushered him inside. "I was wondering if you were back yet. I wasn't sure if you were waiting until classes were back in full swing."

"I came back early. I missed you."

His words had startled her, he could see it. Her eyes had widened, her body jerking slightly as she looked at him in shock. But it was the truth, and one as honest as he could make it. Her gaze had searched his for a moment, looking for something and maybe finding it as her expression softened. "I missed you too."

He'd smiled then, stepping closer and she'd inhaled sharply, almost trembling as he reached his hand out to trace across her jaw. "What are you doing?"

"I spent the entire holidays thinking about you," he'd said softly. "Wondering what you were doing at that moment, how you would react to whatever had just happened, wanting to share things with you."

"Eddie…"

"I don't want to lose your friendship. But I don't want to lie about how I feel either." His eyes had never left hers, his expression and tone leaving no doubt around what he was talking about and Rachel had swallowed harshly, eyes wet.

"How you feel?"

He'd smiled again then, all crooked charm and sincere lines across his face. "I'm in love with you, Rachel Mason."

She'd denied it at first. Told him he was crazy, wrong, in lust not love. He'd countered every point, and when she'd finally- without meaning to- blurted out that she wasn't worth his love, wasn't worthy of him, he'd made every effort to prove her wrong.

It took time. He didn't mind. If slow was what she needed, then that's what he'd give her- it was several months of chaste dates and group hangouts before the disbelieving wariness in her eyes had waned, but the look on her face each time he'd pulled away had been worth it. They cooked dinner together and watched tv, and sometimes Rachel could even be persuaded to come dancing. There was an entirely different feeling when dancing with a girl while knowing it wasn't going to end the usual way and Eddie couldn't claim he entirely disliked it. And then, one weekend with unexpectedly warm weather, a couple of friends with cars drove a group of them to the beach, and they spent the day splashing around and being silly in the sand, eating chips out of the paper and having ice cream drip down their fingers. At some point in the afternoon, Eddie had been pushed into the sea with his clothes on, emerging spluttering and soaked through, but laughing so hard he couldn't find his way onto the sand for several minutes. And the first thing he did was seek out Rachel, still laughing with a rueful look in his eyes and she found herself joining in, even more so when he'd shaken himself like a puppy and showered her in water droplets.

She felt free. It was heady, to have no fear, no worry, not even disbelief sitting in her stomach and Eddie was grinning at her, dripping wet without even a hint of annoyance and emotion crashed through her, filling her chest and exploding in her heart and it was easy, simple, to just lean forward and capture his lips with hers.

There were no fireworks and the earth didn't shatter. Rachel didn't lose her mind, the ground beneath her feet didn't shift. They didn't kiss as if they'd been doing it forever- it was unpractised and just a little but clumsy, but she was happy and safe and they were both warm from the sun and salty from the seawater. And it was perfect. Perfectly imperfect.

Nothing changed between them, really, other than the increased physical elements of their relationship. By the time that summer holidays had rolled around, Rachel had stopped resisting his affection, cautiously accepting that Eddie's feelings were true. She was even willing to initiate it, sometimes, cautiously entwining their fingers or pressing a kiss to his cheek, on good days when doubts didn't overwhelm her. She didn't realise it, but the longer she and Eddie were together, the less frequent those days became.

It was as the university was preparing to close its doors for the year that Eddie had first had an inkling something wasn't quite right with his girlfriend's family. It was an accident that she'd mentioned needing to find somewhere to stay for the summer, and her reaction when he'd pressed for more information quickly dissuaded him from asking more questions. She claimed she was working, although Eddie had never heard her mention money problems before. But he wasn't about to press, and so they spent the summer travelling to meet up, usually somewhere in the middle of the uni and his family's home.

In Rachel's second year, they had only grown closer. Friendship groups seemed to be constantly shifting and changing, other relationships quickly breaking apart before their participants drifted off to other people. Not Rachel and Eddie though. They were synched, their friends had joked, in tune with each other to the extent that they didn't even need to speak aloud to have a conversation. They could bicker like no one else, their debates growing so heated that sometimes they both needed a timeout to cool off before continuing in a different vein. Two stubborn personalities were bound to eventually clash, but somehow their disagreements never escalated too far, and never affected how close they were. Despite this closeness, however, Rachel still pulled back from a more physical relationship. Eddie would never have dreamed of pushing her, but it did make him wonder if there was an underlying issue. Despite that single hiccup, however, they just… worked. They jogged together each morning, before separating for classes. On the days their lunches fell at the same time, they ate together. In the evenings, they would study in the library together, or cook dinner. Eddie was active in the student union- Rachel would wrinkle her nose, and leave him to it while she curled up with her assignments. Once a week, while Eddie played football, Rachel volunteered at a children's centre not far from the campus. He would walk to meet to meet her and they'd take the long route home, meandering through the park hand in hand as they talked about their days, their lectures, the killer assignments.

It was after one of those walks that Eddie had found himself sprawled over his bed, Rachel's head cushioned on his stomach as they dreamt about the future. It wasn't a conversation that came up very often- the concept of the big bad world outside seldom seemed to exist, but with the end of Eddie's undergraduate degree approaching, it was a topic that had started to rise more and more. It was during their talk that Eddie made an off-hand comment about children, a boy and girl with Rachel's eyes and she'd shot upright, looking at him in shock as she'd questioned if he wanted to have children with her.

"Well, not right now," he'd answered, perplexed. "But someday, of course."

He hadn't been entirely sure what had made her so joyful, but a few hours later their relationship had quite irrevocably moved to the next level, and he'd never been happier in his life.

Months later, Eddie had officially graduated, his parents travelling down for the ceremony, and it was a nervous Rachel that he introduced to them for the first time (they'd heard her name, of course, and many, many details about her, but had never had the opportunity to meet before). He was staying for another year, he'd revealed, to qualify as a teacher, and when he'd told them the news over dinner he'd seen Rachel smile in relief.

He spent the summer prepping for his classes; she spent it living with a family in London, working as a night-nanny for a set of new parents with newborn twins and two toddlers. He'd come to visit on her days off, laughing at the way her brain didn't function quite as quickly when sleep deprived.

She started her third year already preparing to finish it, throwing herself into academia and CV building workshops in preparation for the future. Eddie would gently drag her away when she was becoming too stressed, taking her out for dinner or a film, or even just a walk. But that Christmas, when he asked her to come home with him and she refused, they had their first true argument. Eddie's exasperation boiled over as he demanded to know why she never went home, nor mentioned her family, why she was so resistant to family life in general. It had ended up with Rachel yelling, accusing him of suffocating her and he had reacted badly, slamming his hand on the kitchen side as he told her she was too closed off, unwilling to meet him halfway. And then he'd stormed out and not said goodbye before he left to travel back home, and it would only be much later that week, when the aggravation had died and the guilt set in that he would recognise how she'd flinched backwards at his display of anger, the expression on her face revealing far more than words ever could.

He'd travelled back to campus the next day, with flowers and a new book and a promise to never physically manifest his anger again. She'd been so surprised that he'd noticed her reaction. They'd talked, and she revealed that she didn't have a home to go to, no longer had a family and he felt like an idiot for assuming, and they both apologised and swore to never have an argument that ridiculous again.

Eddie had never questioned her about her reaction, and she'd never offered up an explanation. But there were nights when she would crawl into bed with him, silent in her request for comfort and he would hold her tightly, often long into the night, until her body relaxed and she finally slept. And then there were other nights, when she would pull away from his touch, never objecting to his presence but curling up in a way that didn't invite him into her orbit. He wasn't going to pretend to understand it. He didn't. But he could give her what she needed, when she needed it and that was enough.

The halls and the campus were filled with couples breaking up. The stress of exams, of dissertations, the end of the year, it boiled over into an ever-present tension and relationships were often the first thing to combust. But not Rachel and Eddie's. They fought, and bickered, and Rachel snapped at him when he interrupted her studying and he snapped right back to tell her she couldn't study anymore, her brain would explode but somehow the argument would peter out by the next time they saw each other and it was cathartic, in a way, to release their emotions in a way that wouldn't cause damage. The real test, both had known, would be the following year. Rachel was staying where she was, training to be a teacher but Eddie was going to a school over an hour away, starting his career. And while they were technically living apart, they spent more nights together than separate and privately Rachel was terrified Eddie would meet someone else, someone better, and realise how little a relationship with her was worth.

Rachel had finished her final exams, and they spent the summer together, Rachel storing her things in the garage of Eddie's childhood home, the pair of them pretending not to be amused when his mother insisted that she sleep in Eddie's bed while he took the sofa downstairs (they also pretended not to know that her sudden need for water several times a night was to check they were both where they should have been). They spent two weeks there, Rachel meeting his family and exploring his childhood haunts before they left for two weeks in Spain, both of them travelling abroad for the first time.

It was freedom like no other. No assignments or deadlines, no housemates banging around outside the room. No teasing comments when they didn't emerge from bed until late morning. Just the two of them, and the warm sunshine. Eddie had decided that Rachel was even more beautiful under the sun, blonde and copper highlights streaking through her hair as her skin tanned and browned, so different to the pink and red mess he had turned after foolishly insisting he didn't need sun cream.

He wanted this forever. The universe seemed to agree- they went wandering around the town one evening, and in a market in an older part of town, Rachel's attention was caught by a beautiful ring, sat on a velvet cushion on an antique's stall. Eddie had seen the look in her eyes before she shook herself, turning away, but the next day it was all too easy to leave her sipping a drink by the pool while he hurried to a bank, thankful when, with the help of a Spanish-English dictionary, they agreed to do the transaction. He cleared out his bank account but when he went back to the market, found he still didn't have enough.

The owner, however, had seen the look on his face. And when he'd fumbled through an explanation in bad Spanish on what the ring was for, she given him a lower price, and tucked the ring into a box that burnt a hole in his pocket for the rest of the day.

He'd been impatient, too impatient, and that night when they went for a walk after dinner and ended up on the beach, barefoot and illuminated by moonlight, he decided that he was never going to receive a better opportunity. Rachel's face had gone from confusion to shock in milliseconds when he'd taken to one knee and pulled the box out.

She said yes, of course. Instantly, and without hesitation, even as pure joy threatened to choke her, eyes pricking as butterflies exploded in her stomach. There was something vindicating in the way she didn't pause, Eddie thought as he slid the ring onto her finger. The girl who had pulled away so thoroughly from a relationship at first didn't hesitate in agreeing to tie herself to him for life.

The rest of the two weeks passed far too quickly, but then they were in France with a friend from university, who'd invited the entire group to his parents' holiday home and so it was another week of wine and sunshine and complete freedom. Her ring had caused a stir as soon as it was spotted, but their friends teased their lack of surprise and an impromptu engagement party was set up, and Rachel wished that this could last forever.

When they returned to England, Eddie's family was cautiously enthusiastic. His father pulled him aside, questioning the choice, and his mother asked probing questions about their relationship and their feelings but she herself had been engaged younger, and so she didn't have much room to complain. They celebrated, and Eddie was still made to sleep on the sofa, and after a few days when Rachel was beginning to feel suffocated, they left again, this time to the flat of another friend in London for a week. There, Eddie was somehow unsurprised to discover Rachel's hidden passion for museums and art galleries, and she in turn took great joy in turning him into a theatre lover.

Then summer in its truest form came as the weather turned warm and schools finished, and with it less freedom. Rachel had taken a job as a live-in summer nanny for two little girls who had broken up from school- friends of the family she'd worked for the previous summer- while Eddie attended career seminars and developed lesson plans. When the time came for Rachel to return to university and for Eddie to start his new job, she was comforted by the weight of the ring on her finger, and the knowledge that it was her that Eddie had decided to spend the rest of his life with.

It was easier than perhaps it should have been. They took it in turns to travel to the other at the weekend at least twice a month, and during half term Eddie simply lived with Rachel for a week, entertaining himself while she went to class. When the tables turned, and university finished long before school did, it was her turn to stay with him. That Christmas, she spent with the Lawson family, and wasn't as uneasy as she could have been when she realised that this was what every Christmas would look like from then on.

It was Eddie who brought up the prospect of actually getting married- Rachel who pushed back. He didn't see the point in waiting, wanted to exchange vows they'd already half-promised to each other. But Rachel found excuse after excuse, reluctant, and as Eddie started his first summer term it grew into a bone of contention between them. It was, surprisingly, his mother who realised the issue, and slapped her son gently upside the head one Sunday before reminding him that Rachel would have no one to invite to the big church wedding he'd been talking of. Rachel had flushed red, squirmed, but not denied the issue. It had been ridiculously easy to fix, in the end. There was a small, village church not far from Eddie's parents, and they took the responsibility of explaining to his extended family that there simply wasn't enough room to invite more than a handful of people. But Eddie, for the first time, could no longer contain his curiosity and questioned Rachel on exactly why she had no family. Surely there had been aunts, uncles, cousins? Grandparents even? Rachel had fallen silent, and for a moment, he thought she was going to ignore him.

"My mother died when I was eight," she'd said quietly, and his stomach had dropped. "If she had siblings or living parents, I never met them. And my father… he wasn't the sort of person to take me to family reunions. I had an uncle, I think, but I couldn't even tell you his name. For all intents and purposes… there's no one."

Eddie regretted asking, regretted causing the look she had on her face. Rachel had seen, and smiled at him, stroking her fingers across his cheek. "It doesn't matter," she murmured. "I've never needed them. And now I have you."

"Always," he'd promised, and kissed her deeply to cement it.

That afternoon, Rachel cemented herself in her new mother-in-law's heart by asking for her help in shopping for a dress, and the conversation never came up again. And a few months later, on a warm summer's day in the middle of the English countryside it was a year after they'd become engaged, and with a scattering of close friends and Eddie's parents and brother in attendance, she and Eddie were married.