"Bex… is Louise OK?" Katy asked, catching the arm of the teenager as she passed her outside the Minute Mart. "It's just… I haven't seen her for a couple of days and she hasn't replied to my messages."

"Yeah, I think so…" The brunette shrugged. "I mean, she's tired and I don't think she's really getting much rest, but Peggy's absolutely gorgeous."

"Right… If you see her, can you tell her to let me know she's OK?"

"Course, no problem."

Watching her cousin wander away, reading something on her mobile, Katy bit her lip. She considered going over to the house and demanding to see Louise, before deciding against it. She knew what it was like dealing with a newborn and she wasn't remotely surprised that her cousin might be struggling with it, particularly after Keanu's disappearance.

"Hey, K, you and me home alone on Monday night, kid!"

"You what?" Laughing slightly at the over exuberant way Tina had bounded towards her, Katy dodged as her friend attempted to sling an arm around her shoulders. "What are you on about, T?"

"Kathy's got the night off – apparently her and Glenda have big plans – so we're in charge."

"Tina, babe, I'm always in charge. It's my bar, remember?"

"Yeah, but you know what I mean. We can have a few drinks, have a bit of a laugh… there's a stag in, which you know is always fun." Tina pulled her best puppy dog expression. "Come on; I think we both need to let our hair down."

"OK, OK, fine!" Katy agreed, earning herself an excited squeal. "But I won't be coming in until eight, so you'll have to contain yourself until then."

Tina laughed. "I've still got three days to get through until Monday night. I would try and drag Shirl along, but I don't think she'll be up for it."

"She OK?"

"Family stuff, you know how it is." She grinned. "Course you do; you're a Mitchell."

"Haha, shut up." Katy shoved her gently. "I'll see you later."

Her brief conversation with Tina had cheered her up and so Katy headed over to Walford Primary in a much better mood. That, combined with the fact that there had been no incidents that the teachers needed to report back to her, had her smiling as Alex struck up a conversation with her on the playground.

"Katy, can Charlie come over to play?" Matthew asked suddenly, tugging on her sleeve and grinning up at her hopefully.

Glancing quickly in Alex's direction, she shrugged. "You'll have to ask his dad."

"Can he?"

"Sure, if it's OK with Katy."

The blonde smiled and nodded. "Yeah sure, it's Friday."

As the children celebrated, running as far as the school gates and waiting for the adults to catch up, Katy glanced in the young man's direction. "You sure you don't mind your kid spending time with the likes of us? Not worried he'll come back with a criminal record?"

Alex laughed. "Not at all. Although maybe I should come along to make sure?"

"Maybe you should."

Together they walked back to the Square. Katy avoided meeting anyone's eyes as they headed towards home, unlocking the door and ushering Alex and the children inside ahead of her. She was glad that Amy, Ricky and Ruby were all staying to afterschool clubs and that Jack would be picking them up later, because it made things a little less hectic in the flat.

Once the children were settled, Katy led the way into the kitchen and put the kettle on. She watched Alex looking around curiously as she leant against the counters and waited for it to boil, turning away as soon as she heard the familiar click and not speaking until she had placed two mugs on the table and settled herself in one of the chairs.

"So… tell me about yourself."

Laughing softly at Alex's words, she arched an eyebrow at him, leaning back in her chair and wrapping her hands around her mug. "That is literally the worst line in existence."

"What? I'm genuinely curious." He defended himself with a grin. "Besides, this isn't a date, is it?"

"Of course it's not."

"Right, so…"

Katy sighed and shook her head. "There's not much to tell."

"Now I know that's a lie." Alex told her immediately. "You're far too interesting for that to be true."

"You're right… it's not that there's not much to tell, it's that there's too much to tell and most of it doesn't particularly paint me in the best light. In fact, if I told you half of it you'd probably come to the conclusion that that Shelly cow was right all along."

"I doubt that."

"Yeah, well… tell me about you instead." Katy prompted, dropping her gaze to her hands. "What do you do?"

"I'm a police officer."

The blonde almost choked on her tea at his words. "A… what?"

"I'm just kidding." Alex laughed at her reaction.

Katy glared at him, kicking him under the table before pouting petulantly. "Why would anyone pretend to be a cop?"

"Figured it would get a decent reaction from you."

"You're such a knob. What do you actually do?"

"I'm a freelance graphic designer." He said with a shrug. Seeing the bemused expression on her face Alex grinned. "I work on branding and advertising campaigns for lots of different companies."

"Wow… sounds interesting. Anything I'd have seen?"

"Couple of bars on the high street, but probably nothing that you'd really have noticed. It's mostly been sports companies and a couple of recruitment and PR firms to be honest."

"I'll have to ask your opinion on the bar's branding."

"Any time." He smiled. "Being freelance is really useful for being around for Charlie. I'm my own boss and work from home, so there's never any problem with childcare."

"I'm my own boss and I still struggle with that." Katy said wryly. "I'm not always working from home, though… I mean, it would probably be an issue if I was running this place as a bar."

"I'll have to check out this famous bar of yours at some point. R&R, isn't it?"

"Yeah… you do know it's a gay bar, right?" She asked, watching him carefully to gage his reaction.

"Is it?"

"Yeah."

"Cool… I bet that's a right laugh." He said.

"Yeah, it's great." Katy agreed with a nod, relieved that he hadn't given any indication that he was uncomfortable with the fact that R&R was a gay bar. She was growing to quite like him, but knew that if he'd had any problem with it she'd have had a problem with him. "We get a lot of hen parties, which is a bit of a chore, but on the whole it's brilliant."

"I'm looking forward to experiencing it for myself." Alex told her, grinning. "I'd have to find a babysitter for Charlie though, which is harder than it sounds."

"Could his mum not look after him?"

He didn't comment on the fact that she was clearly fishing for information. "We haven't seen her for two years, since she walked out on us. She never really was the maternal type… she didn't really want Charlie, but I persuaded her to keep him."

"That's tough… I'm sorry."

Alex shrugged. "We're OK. To be honest, we're better off without her. What about you?"

"I didn't know her, but I'm probably better off without her too." Katy told him with mock-seriousness. Seeing him rolling his eyes, she shrugged. "My ex lives in Spain with his new family. I can't really fault him as a dad… he took on the girls and Matthew as his own and they adore him. I think we just… came to the end of the road, I guess? We'd been together on and off since we were kids and it was never exactly smooth sailing. In the end we wanted different things and just… fell apart. It was probably my fault more than his." She looked at him carefully. "You knew I had… have… cancer?"

"I heard something…"

"Leukaemia." Katy nodded, taking a fortifying gulp of tea. "I had a transplant at the end of last year and so far everything's looking positive, but… for a long time I was really ill and I don't think… there was a hell of a lot of pressure on him and on us and we just crumbled. Clearly we weren't as strong as we thought we were."

Alex opened his mouth, no doubt to say something sympathetic, but the flat door opening and someone coming in caused them both to turn and look towards the living room. Katy let out a silent groan as she heard her mother talking to one of the children, before the older blonde appeared in the kitchen. Ronnie glanced between them, before smiling broadly and moving to re-boil the kettle.

"Hi?"

"Alex, this is Ronnie, my–"

"Alex?" Ronnie whirled around and fixed him with a curious stare. "As in the Alex that Lola was going on about?"

Rolling her eyes, Katy shifted awkwardly in her chair. "I dunno, maybe? His little boy is round playing with Matthew and the twins."

"Well it is very nice to meet you." The older blonde announced, holding out her hand to shake his.

"You too… so… are you Katy's sister?"

"Fuck's sake…" Katy muttered, frowning at the smug grin that had appeared on Ronnie's face at the assumption. "No, she's my mother."

"Really?" Alex looked between them, as though he thought she was having him on. "You don't look anywhere near old enough."

"Charming…"

"I was very young." Ronnie said, still beaming at him. "Oh, I like you. You can stick around." Chuckling to herself, she turned back to her daughter. "I'm over at Ruby's later and Mum is out with Kathy, but your dad said that he'd have the kids at his tonight and take them all swimming tomorrow. He wants you to give him a ring, though… something about Whit and that Leo?"

"Right…"

"If you're busy, I'll–"

Ronnie shook her head quickly. "Don't be silly. The children are having a great time. We can have a chat while Katy phones her dad, can't we?"

As Alex sent her a worried, almost scared look, Katy chuckled to herself and left the room.

A/N: I've got an incredibly busy and stressful couple of weeks coming up and - mostly due to the fact that I'll probably be practically living at work for the foreseeable - I almost definitely won't be able to update for a while. Maybe until the end of the month.

I'm really sorry and I'm going to find this as annoying as you are, but real life has got to come first this time.

See you on the other side!

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