A/N - welcome to the chapter with the most original title ever. I couldn't help it. I have an odd sense of humour!

Chapter Twenty-Six – Clowning Around (Sorry!)

Greg had been nervous when he had been preparing for their day out. Although he knew that, technically, it wasn't a date, he felt like he should be treating it as one. He changed his shirt at least three times. His first choice had been one of his old ones that he hadn't worn since he was a lab tech. Too dorky, he had thought, pulling it off and throwing it on the floor. Next he had put on a simple black shirt, which suited him but he was worried it looked like he was making too much effort. After pondering about this choice for a while, the spaghetti stain he discovered on the bottom of it made the decision for him. It joined the dorky shirt on the floor. Finally he had put on a plain light blue t-shirt with dark blue edging on the hems of the sleeves and the bottom of the t-shirt. It was nice, smart but simple, he had thought. Then he had realised it probably wouldn't make much difference what he wore. He lived with her, she saw him everyday, had seen him first thing in the morning with bed hair and a badly placed bath towel. There wasn't really a lot of point in trying to impress her now that he had thought about it.

He thought back ironically to his indecision over his outfit as he spilt half of Jakes drink all down the front of his t-shirt as they were squeezing past people to get to their seats at the circus. Greg gave an exasperated sigh and sat down when he found their seats. To make matters worse, Harriet looked incredible. She was wearing close fitting blue jeans and a black fitted v-neck t-shirt that showed off her curves and was wearing her hair down. He wished he had made more of an effort himself when he saw her. Wearing his slightly over-sized black suit style jacket over his t-shirt with his jeans he felt like a slob.

'It's o.k. Greg, there's still a lot left,' Jake said, taking the drink from him.

'Sorry, little man, I'll get you another one later if you're still thirsty,' Greg said, remembering the real reason they were here at the circus – to give Jake a good birthday and return some kind of normality to his life.

Greg was worried about him. He had been quite withdrawn all morning, not saying a lot or wanting much to eat. Greg wondered if his ordeal had finally started to get to him.

'You o.k, little fella?' he asked.

'I'm fine,' Jake said. 'Where are the lions?'

'It hasn't started yet,' Greg said, laughing at the way the little boy was craning his neck to see into the ring.

'Can you see properly?' Harriet asked him, she had been busy taking off her jacket and getting comfortable which must have been difficult in a plastic seat.

'I think so,' Jake said right before a man who must have been at least six feet tall sat down in the seat in front of him.

Harriet looked at Greg and smiled. The poor child had no chance of seeing now. Greg held his hands out to Jake.

'Do you want to come and sit with me so you can see better?' he asked.

'Yeah!' Jake said, excitedly and jumped onto Greg's lap, causing him to utter an 'oomph' as the little boy kicked him in the stomach.

Clearly content with having a better view, Jake began to slurp noisily on his drink, which was a shade of red that Greg didn't think actually existed. Someone was going to be bouncing off the walls later, he thought. Along with the drink, Greg had bought a big bag of nachos for them to share and a drink for himself and Harriet, which she had been carrying. He ripped open the bag and offered some to Jake who took a small handful and began stuffing his face.

Greg felt a hand on his right arm as Harriet leaned in closely to him. He held his breath for a moment.

'Look over there, isn't that Sara and Nick?' she asked quietly, pointing to the seats on the opposite side of the ring.

'Where? I can't see,' Greg said, looking at the sea of faces that was gradually increasing as more people entered the big top.

Harriet put a hand on his face and turned it towards her a little.

'There,' she said.

'Oh my God,' Greg said.

There, as sure as day, were Sara and Nick, not playfully throwing popcorn and insults at each other but locked in what looked like a severely passionate embrace.

'I didn't even know they were dating, did you?' Harriet asked.

'No,' Greg said, quietly shaking his head, stunned at what he was seeing.

Harriet took her phone out of her handbag and held it up in their direction. Greg looked at her as he heard the click of the built in camera.

'What are you doing?' he hissed, as if Sara and Nick could hear them from across the big top.

'I'm just having some fun,' she smiled at him, biting her bottom lip. 'Watch this.'

She held her phone between them so he could see what she was doing. She opened up a new text message and wrote 'busted' in capital letters and sent both the photo and the message to Sara's mobile, withholding her own number. Greg laughed at her.

'Oh, you are evil,' he said, enjoying the fact that Nick and Sara were going to be fuming.

'Shh, look!' Harriet pointed at the smooching couple again.

Greg tried hard not to laugh out loud as Sara reluctantly pulled away from Nick and took her phone out of her jeans pocket and opened it up. Greg snorted with laughter as he watched her face drop.

'Oh my God, this is so funny,' Harriet said as Sara showed her phone to Nick and the couple both started looking around the big top.

'Quick, hide!' Harriet said, pushing up against Greg and lowering her head so that Jake would be obscuring Nick and Sara's view of them.

Greg felt his heart begin to beat faster as he smelt her perfume and could feel her body heat next to his. This closeness was uncomfortable because he was so attracted to her.

'What are they doing now, can you see?' Harriet whispered.

Greg peered out from the side of Jake who was still busy slurping his drink and eating up Nachos to notice the immature behaviour of his mother and her friend.

'They're looking at the phone again, looks like they're trying to work out where we are from the angle the picture is taken from,' Greg laughed.

'Once a CSI, always a CSI,' Harriet whispered.

Greg quickly hid behind Jake again. 'Shit, I think they saw me!' he whispered.

Harriet laughed. Her face was extremely close to his. He turned and looked at her. Their eyes met but she didn't move away or say anything. Greg wanted to kiss her so badly but was afraid to after seeing her with Rick the other night.

Harriet held her breath. This little prank she had played on Sara and Nick had been a great ice breaker and taken away the awkwardness she had felt except now she felt more awkward than ever. Their faces were so close and she was sure by the way he was staring at her that a kiss was on the cards. So why wasn't he doing anything? Typical, she thought, you want a man to do something; you might as well do it yourself. She decided to take action and moved closer to Greg, tilting her head a little, preparing to kiss him when…

'Mummy! Greg! It's starting. Look at the clowns!' Jake squealed.

She quickly came out from where she was hiding behind Jake and looked at the ring.

'Yeah, aren't they funny. Oh look, that's not a very good bicycle is it, it's falling apart,' Harriet said to her son.

'Shut up mummy, I'm trying to watch.' Jake said.

Harriet took his advice and looked at Greg. He looked back at her but then quickly looked at the circus ring, like he hadn't wanted her to catch him looking at her. She sighed and continued to watch the circus, feeling immense love for her son as he jumped up and down with excitement when the lions finally came on.

An hour into the show, the clowns returned to the circus ring. The ringmaster had a mock fight over his microphone with one of them and pretended to lose, surrendering in the end and handing it over. The clown let out a loud chuckling laugh before speaking properly into the microphone.

'A little birdie tells me it someone's birthday today!' he announced and chuckled again.

Jake's turned his head round like a shot and looked at Harriet. She smiled at him.

'I don't think he means you,' she said. 'Someone else must have the same birthday as you.'

'Oh,' Jake said, dejectedly.

'Where's Jake Samuels?' the clown asked, looking at the palm of his hand as if he had the name written down.

'I'm here! I'm here!' Jake squealed, jumping up and down.

Harriet looked at Greg who looked back with a smirk. He had arranged this. The clown walked over to their seats and offered Jake a flower. Jake reached for it and got a face full of water. He squealed and laughed in surprise.

'Oops, sorry about that,' the clown said. 'Do you want to come in the ring where everyone can see you?'

Jake nodded and then looked at Harriet, warily. He looked afraid.

'Mummy can you come with me?' he asked.

'Of course I can,' she said, handing her phone to Greg. 'Here can you take a picture for me?'

Greg held up his own camera. 'I came prepared,' he said with a smile.

Harriet and Jake walked into the circus ring with the clown who instructed the crowd to start singing Happy Birthday. Harriet felt immeasurable pride as she heard the entire big top singing for her son. She joined in too and encouraged Jake to face Greg for a picture with her and the clown.

'Now before you go back to your seat, I've got a little job for you,' the clown said, kneeling down and whispering in Jake's ear.

Greg clicked the shutter on the camera as many times as he could, wanting to capture the moment for both Jake and Harriet. He lowered the camera and smiled, seeing how Harriet was looking at her son. Glancing to the left of them he saw Nick and Sara looking at him with expressions that could only mean they had worked out where the picture had been taken from. It also meant that they thought it was him that had sent it. Although he had been in on it, he wasn't the one to blame but he knew that they would think it was him. He had always been a bit of a joker. He covered the side of his face with one hand in a futile attempt to hide from them.

He looked back at Harriet and Jake who seemed to have been in the ring a while to say the clowns were only supposed to be singing Happy Birthday. Before he had a chance to take in what was going on, he saw something white and yellow heading towards him and in an instant his face was covered in something cold and sloppy. The whole of the big top howled with laughter as he wiped his eyes clear to see Jake standing there with a big cheeky grin on his face.

'You little monster,' he said as Harriet sat back down and Jake climbed onto her knee.

'Ha ha, the clown said I could do that to anyone I wanted,' Jake laughed.

'So you chose me?' Greg said, looking down at his t-shirt, which now had blobs of cream on along with the red stain from the drink spillage earlier. That shirt was going in the trash when he got home, he decided.

'You should feel honoured,' Harriet said as Jake sat in fits of laughter on her lap.

'I do, but I don't want either of you to feel left out,' Greg said with a devilish smile and flicked some cream pie at the pair of them.

'Hey!' Jake protested.

'Serves you right,' Greg said. 'Anyway I think the elephants are on next.'

Jake stopped complaining and focussed his attention back on the ringmaster who was introducing the next act. Greg looked at Harriet who moved towards him and whispered in his ear.

'Thank you for doing that for him,' she said. 'It was really sweet of you.'

'Well I'm a sweet guy,' Greg said, indicating the pie all over his face 'And if I wasn't before I certainly am now.'

Harriet laughed and offered him a tissue from her bag. He took it and began wiping his face as clean as he could.

'By the way, Nick and Sara worked out where the picture came from,' Greg said.

'They did?' Harriet looked sideways over at the couple. 'Shit.'

'It's all right, they think it was me that sent it,' Greg said.

'Oh, I'm sorry,' Harriet said, biting her bottom lip again.

'No problem I'm sure they'll get over it.' Greg said.

Harriet looked over at Nick and Sara again. Greg followed her gaze to see Nick pounding the fist of his right hand into the palm of his left as if to say 'I'm gonna get you Sanders.' Harriet looked at him and cringed, guiltily.

'Maybe they're not over it,' Greg said, pretending to look scared.

A/N - as promised a bit of lighthearted banter and circus fun. I've never actually been to a circus so I don't know if they still have live animal shows and things but this is my story so i say they do! Moving on swiftly...