"You have had a smile on your face all day."

Rachel raised her eyebrow at Kim, who was grinning at her. "So come on," the woman continued, wrapping her hands around her mug. "What's got you so cheerful?"

"Between you and Steph I'm going to get a complex," she said lightly, remembering the blonde's comments from the previous week.

"Seriously Rachel- I haven't seen you this happy all term. What's going on?"

Why, so you can report back to Max? she wondered silently, but was careful not to say it aloud as she picked up her tea. "I'm allowed a personal life Kim."

A sly expression flashed across her face. "Something to do with a certain former deputy head?"

Rachel choked on the mouthful she'd just taken. "What?" She looked at her with wide eyes, spluttering slightly and Kim's grin faded.

"Oh… I thought…"

"What?" she demanded.

"A few weeks ago- when we were out for Tom's birthday- we saw the two of you," she quickly explained, looking uncomfortable as she wondered if her assumption had been wrong.

"Who's we?"

"Everyone?"

A look of total shock came over her boss's face. She sat there, eyes wide as she stared at her.

"Rachel?" She still hadn't spoken, and Kim was beginning to worry just a little.

"I really don't know what to say to that," Rachel admitted. She knew exactly what Kim was talking about, and cursed herself for agreeing to go to the one bar in town the staff tended to go, however infrequently.

Kim flushed. "Sorry. We just… we were surprised, to see you with him. Especially after everything."

It wasn't exactly subtle, and Rachel hesitated over telling her what had happened. But Max Tyler or not, Kim was her friend and hadn't she been lamenting just the other day over having no one to talk to? "Just between us?" she checked finally, and Kim looked mildly offended.

"Of course!"

"I mean it, Kim," she warned. "I'm already the subject of more than enough gossip to suit me."

Kim sighed. "It won't leave this room," she promised.

"The baby isn't Eddie's," Rachel began, and was soon spilling the whole story, everything that had happened. Kim sat with wide eyes as she listened, not sure what she had been expecting but certain it hadn't been this.

"So what happened? He just drove you home Saturday and left you there?" She looked sceptical.

"He walked me to my door," Rachel shrugged.

"And?"

She struggled to hold back a satisfied grin at the memory of being pressed against the doorframe with Eddie's lips on hers for a good ten minutes. "He went home. It was his day with Michael yesterday."

But Kim had seen the smirk on her face and let out a cackle. "Rachel Mason! I'd bet my paycheck he did a lot more than just drop you off!"

"I swear he never came inside the house."

"Ooh, kinky."

"Kim!"

There was a beat, before they both burst into laughter. Kim flopped back onto the sofa, grateful she'd put her drink down when this conversation began and peered at her boss. "So you two are definitely back on?"

Rachel nodded, biting her lip as her cheeks heated. Kim smiled at her. "That's wonderful."

"You think so?"

"Don't you?"

"I… think there's a part of me waiting for the other shoe to drop," she admitted. Kim tilted her head.

"You've smiled more in the past couple of weeks than I've seen all term," she pointed out. "He makes you happy. Doesn't he?"

She nodded minutely. "Yes."

"Then just let yourself be happy. Christ knows it's needed around here," she laughed, and Rachel found herself inexplicably relaxing, laughing along with her.

At least until Max came in, and glared at them both.

W.R.

"Something smells good."

Eddie turned and beamed at Rachel as she entered the kitchen, holding up the wooden spoon in his hand. "Come tell me if you think it needs more salt?"

She crossed to him, dipping her finger into the sauce that had pooled and popping it into her mouth. He followed the movement with his eyes, swallowing thickly when she hummed in appreciation. "Tastes good to me."

He nodded, quickly turning back to the stove before he could make a fool of himself and stirring the sauce that didn't really need it, before placing a lid over it. "It just needs to simmer for a while. How was your day?"

Rachel grimaced as she unpacked her phone from her bag. "It was fine."

Eddie glanced over his shoulder at her. "And now the truth?"

She sighed, because of course he could see right through her. "I don't really have good days at work anymore, Eddie. But it wasn't as bad as it could have been. At least no one brought a gun."

His head whipped around to face her, frowning angrily. "That's not funny."

"It wasn't entirely meant to be," she muttered.

"Rachel…"

She looked up at him, caught his look of concern and quickly gave him a reassuring smile. "Don't mind me, I'm just moaning. How did your day go?"

He crossed over to her, not fooled for a moment. "Rachel, talk to me."

"I'm fine! You worry too much." She cupped his cheek in her hand, a smile taking the sting out of her words. "I'm hardly the first person to dislike their boss, and I doubt I'll be the last. Grantley started up a staffroom petition, for goodness' sake."

Eddie snorted in laughter. "Now why doesn't that surprise me?"

"Really, Eddie. I'm fine." She stretched up to brush her lips against his, intending a relatively chaste kiss but his arms wound around her, preventing her from pulling away. She laughed as he captured her mouth, backing her up against the counter and Max Tyler was all of a sudden the very last thing on her mind.

She ended up perched on top, enjoying the unusual feeling of being taller than Eddie for once as their mouths moved together. She was just about to wrap her legs around him, to draw him closer when he tore himself away, panting slightly and she gave him a confused look. "You'll be the death of me, woman," he grumbled good-naturedly, catching his breath and she grinned, tugging on his shirt to bring him closer again.

"But what a way to go."

She grinned wickedly and they kissed again, more languidly now. "We need to stop," Eddie murmured, pressing a kiss to her cheek and struggling not to laugh when she gave him an exaggerated pout.

"Why?"

"Because the sauce is burning." He kissed her again, barely applying any pressure before backing away and shooting her a look. Her eyes narrowed slightly- he knew exactly what he was doing, she realised, purposefully teasing her. She quickly hid her frustration, willing the heat in her cheeks to dissipate so that he didn't discover the full extent of it.

Eddie quickly plated up their dinner, but was casting worried glances at Rachel when she wasn't looking. He wasn't an idiot- he knew how much Max Tyler was affecting her, whether she admitted it or not, even to herself. She looked pale and tired, and he suspected she probably hadn't been eating properly.

She silently held up a bottle of wine from the fridge, and he nodded, mentally promising to limit himself to one glass. She apparently had the same thought, stoppering the bottle and putting it back after pouring it out. Within minutes they were sat across from each other at the table, happily digging in.

"Can I ask you something?"

She glanced at him curiously, twirling pasta around her fork. "Of course."

"Do you ever regret coming to Waterloo Road?"

"Regret it?" Surprise coloured her tone. "Of course not. Why?"

He shrugged. "If you hadn't, a lot would be different. Your past would still be a secret, you wouldn't have been injured. The whole debacle with Melissa wouldn't have happened."

"And I wouldn't have met you."

His gaze snapped to hers, and she flushed, lowering her eyes to her food. "A lot would be different," she admitted, "but not necessarily better. The school, the kids, they've taught me a lot. I wouldn't change that."

"What about in the future?" he asked tentatively, and she shot him a confused look.

"The future?"

"Would you leave Waterloo Road?"

She was thoroughly puzzled, obviously wondering where he was going with this. "Not anytime soon. I wouldn't want to give up teaching, not yet."

Now it was his turn to be confused. "Give it up? I just meant move to another school."

She rolled her eyes. "As if any would hire me." She took a bite of pasta, realised he still had a baffled frown. "My past, Eddie," she reminded him. "There isn't a school in the world that would willingly hire an ex-prostitute as their head."

"That's not-,"

"Yes, it is," she interrupted gently. "We both know the only reason I kept this job is because nobody wanted to publicly disparage the woman lying comatose in hospital, and by the time that was no longer the case the publicity had died down. But I'll never get another job working in a school."

"They can't refuse because of your past!" he protested, putting down his fork.

"They wouldn't. Officially, it would be because they felt someone else would be a better fit, or they wanted someone with different experience, or someone else interviewed better," she shrugged. "Why are you even asking?"

He sighed. "Max Tyler."

She raised an eyebrow. "You think I should quit?"

"I wanted to know if you'd considered it. He's making you unhappy, Rach."

When she didn't reply straight away, he knew he'd hit the nail on the head. Instead she took a mouthful of wine, choosing her words carefully. "He's just one silly little man. And I won't leave the kids with him. He'd have anyone who wasn't a perfect student suspended in a week, I won't leave them unprotected."

He looked ruefully at her, shaking his head. "Always trying to save everyone."

She shrugged a shoulder, careful to keep her tone light. "Someone has to."

W.R.

Eddie didn't bring up Max again over the next couple of weeks, instead being careful to simply listen whenever Rachel needed to vent… which was far more often than he would have liked. It didn't escape his notice that she was tired a lot, and that she seemed to spend more time than usual away from her office in the stories she told.

More than ever, he wished he were still at the school.

A touch to his jaw brought him back into the present, and he blinked down at Rachel in surprise. Her head was cushioned on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around her tightly. "You're about to suffocate me," she joked, and he realised his hold was a little too tight.

"Sorry."

"Where did you just go?" she made no move to change position, looking at him curiously.

"Nowhere important." He gave her a smile he knew hadn't quite reached his eyes, dipping his head to kiss her.

She leant into it, but as he slowly drew away she gave him a knowing look. "Nice distraction attempt, Lawson."

He grinned sheepishly.

"You don't have to tell me." There was no bite to her voice as she lay her head back on his shoulder. "But I don't like it when you go all broody. It doesn't tend to signal particularly good things."

He huffed out a laugh, not entirely sure how to respond to that.

"How did it go with your year nines?" she asked, changing the subject. "You were setting them this week, weren't you?"

He groaned at the memory. "I have never had so many complaining thirteen-year-olds in one place before. Apparently being separated from your BFF for an hour is the end of the world."

"BFF?"

"It's also possible to have more than one BFF, which seemed counterintuitive to me." Amusement coloured his tone. "Poor Ronnie was ready to tear her hair out."

"Ronnie?"

"The other maths teacher I was telling you about? Who did the set lists with me?"

She drew back, raised an eyebrow at him. "I know who she is. You spent hours last weekend around her house finalising the exam results. You just neglected to mention she was a she."

He didn't appear to notice her tone, distracted by memories of rioting year nines. "She's a good teacher. It took a lot of persuading to get sets for year nines approved, but I think it will be better for the students. It's not like Waterloo Road, and not setting them until year ten was causing issues."

Rachel couldn't deny the pang that went through her at hearing him talk to passionately about the initiative he was helping to put in place. Once upon a time they had been doing that together. They should still have been working together, but instead some other woman was spending days by his side and she was surprised at the strength of the knot that formed in her stomach at the thought.

She didn't notice she'd been silent for too long, causing him to pause mid-flow as he realised she wasn't listening to him, despite having brought the subject up in the first place. "What's wrong?"

She blinked, focusing on him, quickly plastering an insincere smile on. "Nothing."

"Well, that's not true." He studied her, tightening his arm when she attempted to squirm away to escape his gaze. She wouldn't meet his eyes, a definite sign she was hiding something but he couldn't think of what he must have said- year nine maths sets certainly wouldn't set her off, nor would the mention of teenage drama and the only thing he had mentioned was…

"Ronnie?" he said aloud, puzzled. He felt her tense, so minutely he would have missed it if he hadn't been concentrating on her. He ignored her murmured complaint as she struggled to climb off of the sofa, puzzling through it.

When he got there, he almost dismissed it as too ridiculous. "Are you jealous?"

"Of course not."

But her eyes still flickered past his, her protest a little too weak to be believed. "Silly woman," he murmured, half-amused as he reached out to caress her cheek with the back of his fingers. "As if anyone could hold a candle to you."

Something indescribable passed over her expression, her eyes darkening as she shifted without warning, grasped his chin to bring him closer and kissing him fiercely.

He wasn't entirely sure what had brought about her sudden change in attitude, but he wasn't about to complain. His hands slid around her waist, intending to draw her closer but instead, she pushed him back, inadvertently breaking their kiss as she swung her leg over his. The briefly surprised expression that flashed across his face quickly melted into a smirk, but before he could make a quip his mouth was occupied once again, one of Rachel's hands finding its' way into his hair while the other twisted in his shirt.

He would have to be an idiot not to recognise the way her body was pressed against his. "I should make you jealous more often," he commented breathlessly.

"Not jealous." She bit down gently on his lip, causing his fingers to dig in around her hips.

"What's this then?"

She didn't reply, kissing him again and again but somewhere along the way their movements softened, passion simmering under the surface but the raw edge disappearing. Her mouth left his, following the vein in his neck until she reached the curve of his shoulder. "What was it you said to me?" she murmured. "You liked knowing your mark was on me?"

She bit down, drawing a deep groan from him, his hands tightening involuntarily around her hips. "Rachel!"

She sucked, the taste of his skin exploding over her tongue. In retaliation, his hands roamed up and down her body, occasionally slipping underneath her top to graze her skin before vanishing again, teasing her with purposefully fleeting touches that had her arching into him, a small noise sounding from the back of her throat.

On one such touch, his hands wandered even closer to where she wanted them, before falling away again and she groaned in frustration, losing patience. She shifted so that she could support her weight without using her arms and reached for the buttons of her blouse- she was stopped by his hand covering hers, a serious expression coming over his face. "Rach…"

"What's wrong?"

"I don't want you to do this because you think you have something to prove." He didn't loosen his grip, serious eyes meeting hers. "I want you to want this as well."

Her breath caught, emotion swelling within her chest. She leant forward, brushed her lips against his. "You're sweet, and I adore you for it. But please shut up and take me to bed."

Their eyes met, and he was apparently satisfied by whatever he saw in hers because his hand fell away and he kissed her fiercely, more than happy to comply with her request.