Hello again!
Breaking free of my commitment-phobic ways and going to attempt a multi-chapter here...if you like!
Stand alone Reddie one shots (canon) as based around weekday evenings (hence the title). I'll even try to give you a hint at the start as to where we are in the timeline (i.e which term and which episode)
i. Risk Assessments
In which Eddie is a problem solver, and Rachel is a risk assessor...
Spring Term.
Week 5.
Rachel adores pointless paperwork.
Eye-roll inducing, mind-numbing, excessive, procedural paperwork. The more ludacris the better.
Most of it required just the perfect amount of brain power. Not enough to be stressful, but just enough to occupy the mind. It was distracting. It was therapeutic.
She is not perhaps as purposeful in her stride through the school at this late hour as she usually was. To a point it reflects her demeanour for this whole week; a far cry from the headmistress this comprehensive was used to. Irritable, unfocussed, directionless…
It wasn't that she didn't want to go. The bundle of forms were in hand, she was nearly there, she was willingly parting with some red-tape pen-pushing as an act of kindness, to someone who she felt perhaps needed it more than she.
Because it had all been heading in such a magical direction, again.
Step 1. Identify hazards, i.e. anything that may cause harm.
And then very suddenly, it hadn't. Again.
She had enjoyed Friday night.
No. More than that. She had loved it. It had gone somewhat like how she had fantasised things would have gone last summer, when he had asked her for a drink. Only something more had grown since then, higher stakes and history and matters of the heart. Even so, she felt that she could tell him anything, and did. It had been the sort of date that puts you off your food if you see it from the outside. But, for once, being inside it...The whole evening, more or less, between alcohol and laughs and stimulating conversation, had been spent with them both - with varying degrees of subtlety - lusting after one another's lips.
At the taxi rank, quite out of character too, she had been unable to wait any longer, and they had kissed as if they were inventing it. He had wrapped the sides of his jacket around her and she had been warm and happy and everything about it had just felt safe.
She had invited him in, he had made some polite but suggestive remarks about coffee, and she had, with the promise of her waiting lips, lured him halfway up her staircase...
Yes, it had been just how she had dreamed their first date that never was would have gone.
But in that unfolded scenario, there had been no teenage boy sharing her house.
Step 2. Decide who may be harmed, and how.
She reaches the windows of the mathematics classroom with an involuntary flutter in her chest. Although the space that had organically materialised between them this week had been somewhat necessary, she had missed him, as he had her.
He is setting out the classroom for the following morning's Lessons for Life group. He is stalking with jotters in hand to the back of the room as she appears through the windows, moving towards his door as he moves away from it.
He would be lying if he said he didn't ache at the way they always seemed to move in different directions.
And this week had been agony.
Even seeing her now. It increased tenfold the feelings that have been ever increasing this week. Some more carnal feelings that he had thought by now may have been sated. Perhaps it is something primal that had made him so moody and hateful, having not got what he wanted. They had been so very close.
He turns and watches her as she shyly knocks and cracks the classroom door open, with a sweet smile. He doesn't know what it is. She is like a ray of sunshine on this dull, grey day. She seems to radiate a golden glow, from the blush on her skin and the shine from her strawberry hair. His fingers are buzzing with impatience to touch her. There is a knot in his chest that sits heavy with feelings stronger than lust, stronger than love. Stronger than his own resolve...
He watches, breathlessly the sway of her hips as she saunters in, perhaps with less confidence than he is used to seeing. The thought of laying his hands on them is making his teeth hurt. She is still smiling stiffly.
"Ships passing in the night, hey?"
Good god. She needs to leave. Or he needs to leave. Would he survive the jump from one of the outer windows? Does he even care?
Because if she hasn't come here to pin him against the smart board and show him what he's been missing, then death may well be preferable. On seeing the paperwork in her arms, he moves to the back wall and cracks open a window; perhaps for air, perhaps in preparation. She swings the papers in her hand and thuds them down onto his desk.
Eddie hates pointless paperwork.
Health and safety really was going completely mad these days. Was there anything that they were allowed to do, without first going over any and every little blasted thing that might go amiss?
If, Philip hadn't unexpectedly swung his bedroom door open and caught them through the bannister, with freshly kissed, blushing faces, giggling like a couple of giddy, intoxicated youths that would have been suited to his party thirty minutes previous, perhaps he and Miss Mason might have had a very different sort of weekend...
If, his mother hadn't abandoned him and caused him to regress so, perhaps he wouldn't have taken it as badly as he did...
If their relationship was to be as ridiculously circumspect as one of those god-awful forms, perhaps he would need that open window after all.
Perhaps she would too.
She stands awkwardly, beautifully by his desk, twisting her elegant fingers around one another. It is almost comforting to see a strain in her face too, as if this week has aged her somewhat. Indeed she happens to look how he feels; tense and unrested, with just a hint of pain in her lovely face.
"Year eleven trip risk assessments." she announces. It is the last thing he had dreamed she might say. "Lovely." he lies in an attempt to comfort her.
Neither of them were great with words. Neither of them were English teachers. Perhaps for that reason, ticking boxes on forms really was their forte. Even after everything, after this whole thing between them was initiated...and before...and after...not a whole lot was said. The same is true now, as they stand apart in a classroom rapidly emptying of air.
She gazes at him desperately.
"They're risk assessments, just."
"Yes. You said as much."
"Procedure. And they're important, Eddie."
"Of course."
"There is so much to consider-"
"Well...not really…"
"There is! I need you to think about the lay of the land. Potential hazards. And there are lots. Teenagers are so unpredictable"
"As is everything-"
"Actions...potential actions...and the potential...consequences of those actions."
It is she who has made her way towards him, to the back of the classroom. She leans back against the desk opposite him and lowers her voice to an anguished whisper.
"It's not so simple, Eddie."
"It's ticking boxes. No risks if you don't go looking for them. Nobody cares!"
"I care! Get this bit wrong and...everything else falls apart."
Perhaps, he wonders, he has got this wrong. Perhaps this is less about her wayward nephew spoiling last Friday night's plans and more about her. Because she is giving him a look now that he has never seen before.
"We're not talking about the forms, are we?"
Step 3. Assess the risks and take action.
Her eyes darken as suddenly the atmosphere in the room shifts and she utters perhaps the most truthful thing she has ever said to him.
"I want you."
He is too hot. Is he too hot? Or is he too cold? Whatever it is, it is searing and white and agony and quite truly, after that look in her eyes, he cannot stand it any longer.
"Then come home with me."
Exasperated, her hands fly into the air and she stands, edging closer.
"This is what I mean. Context. I can't. It's a school night. I need to get Philip home."
"So what do you want, Rach? Mathematicians don't risk assess. We problem solve."
It is the briefest of moments. It is the briefest of glances. But so heavy is the atmosphere of that classroom, every movement is heightened, even the very subtle flick of two pairs of eyes, to the store cupboard door and then back to the other. The synchronicity almost takes her breath away, until she sees the glee rise up on his features like a mist lifting and her eyes widen, when she reads his desparate mind, aghast.
"No, Eddie."
"No. No. Course not."
"Too risky.
"And I am, of course, the risk assessment master."
As always, thank you so much for reading.
If you want me to continue writing for this (semi-regularly, I'll try!) please let me know in the shape of a little review x