On the evening after her first appointment with Oksana, Eve had made it home for bath time. But only just. She had ignored the pointed look Niko had given her as she had burst through the front door at 6.45, slung her coat and bag over a chair in the kitchen and dashed upstairs to launch immediately into helping her son get washed and ready for bed. It had resulted in one of her favourite silk shirts getting an unnecessary soaking, but there were always casualties of bath time.

Eve had dried Leo off and wrestled him into his pyjamas, then they had both relocated to his bedroom, squashed uncomfortably into his narrow single bed as she read him the same book he had requested every night for the past two weeks, according to Niko. It was a story about a missing hat and it wasn't quite as tedious as some of the others, so Eve found it was almost enjoyable.

With Leo contentedly dropping off to sleep, Eve slipped from her precarious position on his bed and tucked him in, kissed him on the forehead and turned out the light on her way out of his room. She remembered to leave his door open a little and the landing light remained on.

Downstairs Eve made her way to the kitchen where Niko was washing up. She poured herself a generous glass of wine and rolled her head from one shoulder to the other before taking a large sip and feeling the relief spread to her extremities. She rubbed her hand in soothing circles on Niko's shirt-clad back between his shoulder blades.

"I thought there was a 'no wine on a weeknight' rule in place?" Niko asked, shooting Eve a smile over his shoulder.

"Ugh," Eve groaned, "I'm having a night off."

Niko chuckled softly and returned to his dishes.

"You want?" Eve asked, holding up the bottle.

"Go on then," Niko replied after a moment's thought, "As we're having a night off."

Eve nodded and began pouring the wine before stopping.

"Actually." She said, "Stop that. If we're having a night off, then there's no washing up either."

Niko laughed again and pulled his soapy hands from the sink in front of him, holding them up in surrender and dripping washing up water onto his jeans.

"You're the boss." He said.

"Damn right." Eve mumbled jokingly and continued pouring Niko's wine.

"Now then," Eve said, holding up two glasses of wine, "Sofa."

"Sofa." Niko agreed, taking a glass from Eve.

"Have you eaten?" he asked.

"I'll have some toast or something in a bit." Eve replied offhand.

"That's not dinner, Eve." Niko pointed out sternly. "There's leftovers in the—"

"We're having a night off, Niko." Eve interrupted, matching his tone.

"Fine, fine." He said surrendered, "Sofa it is."

An hour later found the pair of them on the sofa, Eve on her second glass of wine, watching some mindless comedy panel show. Niko had his arm around the back of the sofa behind Eve and she leaned comfortably into his chest.

"How was swimming?" Eve asked quietly.

"He can do five metres apparently." Niko replied.

"That's not very far." Eve said with furrowed brows.

"He's six!" Niko laughed, "They all use floats anyway."

"Oh." Eve let out, and then took another mouthful of her wine.

God she needed wine this evening.

"And how was your day?" Eve asked, "Did you get time to paint?"

"A bit. That commission is draining the life out of me though." Niko said despondently.

"Paint something else, something you actually want to paint." Eve suggested.

"They're paying me a lot for that commission, you know?" Niko said, turning his head slightly and looking at the top of Eve's head, unable to see her face where she rested against him.

"I know," Eve said, "But it's not the be all and end all. You don't need the money." She explained. "You might has well do something that you enjoy."

There was a moment's silence, which Eve filled with another sip of wine and a sigh.

"You mean you don't need the money?" Niko said tightly.

Eve looked up at him in confusion.

"I wasn't aware that our money was separate." She said carefully.

"It's not," Niko said simply, "Our money is all your money. You make the money, don't you?"

Niko's arm was not around the back of the sofa any more and Eve sat up, feeling the tension radiating off Niko.

"That's not fair, Niko. We decided this. You decided this." Eve said forcefully.

"We did. I know!" Niko shot back, raising his voice slightly.

"So what do you want me to say?" Eve replied exasperated.

"Nothing. I don't know." Niko said quietly, deflated. "It just seems…" he trailed off.

"Seems what?" Eve demanded. She could feel the wine warming her cheeks now, or it could be the irritation.

"How was your new case?" Niko asked.

"What?" Eve gasped, "We're talking about something else. Why are you changing the subject?"

"I thought you were going to lessen your caseload, not increase it." Niko pointed out blankly.

"Is that what this is about?" Eve asked, trying to maintain her anger. She could explain to Niko that she had secured an outcome for one of her cases, had got it off her books, and that she had essentially traded two rather time-consuming cases for Oksana. Her caseload in fact had decreased by two in the last week.

"It just seems that you work… a lot." Niko ventured.

Eve exhaled loudly and let out a humourless laugh.

"I do work a lot. You said it yourself, Niko, I make the money. How can I do that if I don't work?" Eve said incredulously.

"You could make easily enough money and work less!" Niko said, losing his cool.

"I don't want to work less!" Eve shot back immediately, matching Niko's volume.

Niko's face lost all tension; it sagged, defeated, and Eve's words rang back into her in her own ears. They were true. She had said them instinctively and they were true, but they were certainly not what she should have said. Certainly not what Niko wanted to hear. Certainly not what any mother should feel.

Eve opened her mouth to say something more, but found she didn't know what that something could possibly be. There wasn't a lot she could say that would make this better right now.

"Right." Niko sighed, keeping his eyes locked on Eve's. "I think I'm going to go to bed."

He stood up from the sofa and collected his empty wine glass from the coffee table.

"Niko!" Eve said, grabbing his hand before he could walk away.

He turned to look at her expectantly, and once again no appropriate words formed on her tongue.

"Good night." Eve said eventually.

Niko pulled his hand free and Eve listened as he walked to the kitchen, deposited his glass in the sink and then made his way upstairs.

Eve downed what was left in her wine glass. Two glasses were not enough tonight. She ventured back to the kitchen in search of the bottle, and maybe that toast she had promised herself. Something needed to help soak up this midweek wine.

Back in the kitchen, Eve leant back against the kitchen counter, cradling her wine glass as she waited for the toast to be ejected from the toaster. Boots appeared from nowhere, as she had a habit of doing, and twined herself around Eve's legs until she stooped to pick the cat up. Boots purred contentedly in Eve's arms and rubbed her head against Eve's chin. Had Niko been fair earlier? Eve knows she works a lot. But she always has worked a lot. Ever since she got her first job in her chosen field. Ever since her and Niko first met. Ever since she first went back to work after Leo was born.

When they first discovered that Eve was pregnant, she had been thrown into a panic. A frantic phone call from the women's bathroom at the office had led to one of Niko's only appearances at Eve's place of work. He had strode in, all bushy moustache and paint-covered denim shirt and Carolyn had been immediately enamoured by who she later referred to as 'that gorgeous rugged husband of Eve's'. Both Eve and Niko had had a good laugh over that when Eve relayed the story later when Eve had calmed down. They both knew that Niko was far from rugged. Nevertheless, he had tracked Eve down to the women's bathroom and then had proceeded to lower himself to the ground next to her sobbing form and wrap her in his arms, holding her tightly to him.

They hadn't been trying. They had always talked around the subject of children, never quite getting down to the nitty-gritty of it. They both wanted them. Someday. Niko was always more taken with the idea than Eve, but it had been on her to-do list. It had always been some distant life goal that she had vaguely thought she would tick off someday. When that little plastic stick and its double blue line had suddenly pushed that item forward out of the distance and right to the top of the to-do list, Eve had felt wholly unprepared. Niko had been great though. He knew what Eve's work meant to her, he promised that it wouldn't have to change. He spoke in such calming and authoritative tones that Eve believed him. He had told her what she needed to hear and she had clung to those words. His work was flexible, he did it from the studio at home. They could make this work to everyone's advantage. Sure, people make babies look difficult. But honestly, they're both intelligent people, how hard could it be?

From the floor of the women's bathroom at Eve's office building, with Elena hovering anxiously outside, Eve and Niko had decided that this child-rearing thing wouldn't be so hard after all.

As it happened, they were wrong.

And now, six years on, it seemed to Eve that Niko was reneging on his assurances. Was that fair of Eve though, to think of their argument like that? Niko wasn't really saying he didn't like the way their life was, that he didn't enjoy his role as primary caregiver, that he didn't want Eve to work. He merely implied that she could work less, spend more time at home. And Eve found that idea… intolerable.

It wasn't as though she didn't love her son. It wasn't that at all. She adored him. She was baffled by him. She was amused by him. She tried and she failed and she tried again. But through it all she loved him deeply. She couldn't at this point imagine life without him in it. But at the same time she knew she wasn't cut out to be the mum who bakes cupcakes for him to take to school on his birthday, she wasn't going to be joining the PTA, or signing up to help out on field trips.

One day, she would be able to take her son out for dinner when she visits him at university and talk to him about his classes and his friends. They will be able to discuss books they'd both read. Books that don't involve woodland creatures tracking down missing hats. Herself and Niko will host Leo and his girlfriend, or boyfriend, and try their hardest to not be embarrassing. They will probably fail, and even that will just become a funny story for the future.

It's just that this stage, this part with the packed lunches and grazed knees, this wasn't Eve's strong suit. Right now, she was owning her career. And it was getting increasingly interesting.

Behind her, the toast made its appearance. Eve placed her wine glass down on the counter, and lowered Boots back to the ground. She plucked the toast out of the toaster, dropping it onto the breadboard before her fingers burned. She swiped her toast with a knife-load of butter and a cursory swish of Marmite before chewing on it dejectedly as Boots stalked a spider under the kitchen table.

There was nothing she could to do ease Niko's frustration. She couldn't change her work. She didn't want to. And she wouldn't. It meant too much. Leo was at school now anyway, it wasn't as though Niko was changing diapers all day and sterilising bottles anymore. Eve had another swig of wine. Really, Niko was being unreasonable.

Eve's mind had successfully turned back to her job. Back to her earlier appointment with Oksana Astankova. She was a little shit, no doubt. Eve felt herself smiling ruefully. It had felt good to provoke that response from the younger woman. It had felt good to prove her own theory about the importance of the father figure. Or, father figures, perhaps. The stepfather and the real father, both seemed pivotal, perhaps even linked in some way. Eve had expected one of those relationships to be of psychological importance, the other had been an intriguing surprise. And what about the mother? The woman who was certainly not a Parisian ballerina… Honestly, what a cliché. As if Eve was going to fall for that one. She was going to have to circle back to the mother.

The Dictaphone was in her bag still. Eve could replay their session in full; see if there was anything she had missed. Yes, that's what she would do. She couldn't exactly go up to bed. Niko would still be awake, and Eve didn't fancy his hurt looks or his cold shoulder. She would listen to her tape, and she would do the dishes. That might at least earn a couple of brownie points.

Eve crammed the last bite of toast into her mouth and retrieved what she needed from her bag, setting it on the counter and skipping back to the beginning of the latest audio file. She hit play.

"You speak French?"

The sound of her own voice crackled out of the tiny speakers on the Dictaphone, tinny and loud, and Eve cringed. She had recorded her sessions since she first began having them, but she never got over her intense dislike for her own voice. It sounded so different to how she heard it in her head. She distracted herself by scrubbing at a saucepan loudly enough to cover the sound of herself asking Oksana another question.

"Mon pére est Russe."

Eve scoffed. Such a silly little trick. Eve was used to her clients gaining confidence and trust in her over time, allowing their true personalities to rise to the surface. But Oksana hadn't been nervous in the least. She was just playing. And she had, admittedly only briefly, fooled Eve. She had to give the other woman credit for that. It was a dirty tactic and it had worked for a while, but Oksana would have to work harder than that to keep Eve convinced.

The sound of Oksana's iffy French accent filled the room again and Eve had an idea. Perhaps not something for their next session, but for a couple of weeks' time, something that might just help to win this prickly individual over. She would have to run it past Bill. After all, a little bit of bribery goes a long way.

"Mum?" Came a small voice.

Eve span around to see Leo standing in the doorway, his hair sticking up at odd angles and his hand clinging onto the foreleg of his toy Lion.

"Hey Leo, what are you doing up?" Eve asked gently, surprised to see her son awake so late. He was normally a good sleeper.

"Bullshit." Came Eve's voice from the speakers of her Dictaphone.

"Ahhh…" Eve said loudly trying to cover up the word far too late. Leo had thrown a confused look at the little machine on the counter, but appeared not quite awake enough to fully take in the word he had just heard his mother's voice use. Thankfully.

Eve slammed a soapy hand down on the Dictaphone hastily. She couldn't remember quite what came next, but Oksana certainly had a filthy vocabulary and she didn't want to risk exposing her son to it. Eve crouched to the floor, opening her arms for Leo. He shuffled towards her and collapsed into them. Sniffing noisily in her ear.

"I thought it was Tata washing up." He said, his voice muffled in her shoulder.

"No, sweetheart. It's me. You couldn't sleep?" Eve cooed.

Leo shook his head against her in response.

"You had a nightmare?" Eve asked.

There was a pause.

"A scary dream?" Eve tried again.

Leo nodded and Eve tightened her arms around him, rocking softly from side to side as she decided what to say next.

"Want me to come and stay with you until you go back to sleep?" Eve suggested.

"Yeah." Leo agreed.

"Alright Mr, let's go." Eve said, hoisting herself and Leo up from the floor, ignoring the cracking of her knee joint as she did so.

He was too heavy for this now really but Eve navigated her way out of the kitchen, eyeing her unfinished glass of wine on the counter as she switched out the light with her elbow.

Eve carried Leo back up to his bedroom and pulled back the Paw Patrol duvet on his bed before lowering him into it. He kept his arms around her neck as she tried to straighten up, forcing her to lie down awkwardly next to him. She pulled the duvet back over the both of them. She knew the bed was made for a child, but really, it was ridiculously small.

"OK?" Eve whispered.

Leo nodded.

"Want to tell me what the scary dream was about?" She asked.

"I got sick in the swimming pool and they made me go to jail." Leo whispered.

Eve considered that for a moment.

"Well, what do you think would actually happen if you got sick in the pool?" She asked, stroking his hair back from his eyes.

"Um… It would be gross." Leo replied thoughtfully.

"It would definitely be gross." Eve agreed. "But would you have to go to jail?"

Leo thought that through for a moment.

"No." He shook his head.

"That's right." Eve said, planting a kiss on his forehead.

"And…" Leo started, "If they did make me go to jail then you would get me out!" he decided happily.

Eve laughed. She couldn't go through that one with him again now.

"Go to sleep now, Leo. Or we'll both be tired in the morning." Eve said quietly.

"OK. Love you." Leo said, closing his eyes momentarily before opening them again, "And dad." He added.

"I love you too." Eve replied.

"And dad?" Leo asked immediately, barely letting Eve finish her sentence.

"And dad." Eve confirmed.