Ok...this chapter is dedicated to my toughest critic, (they know who they are :D ) I hope this is to your liking. This is a 2 part chapter and the next one will be up tomorrow, so you've got 24 hours to sweat over the ending! God, I missed being evil...:D enjoy!

Allie scraped the remainders of the Chinese dinner she had ordered into the bin, her stomach feeling contently full, which was a change to its usual behaviour. She was going off more foods every day now and at lunch she'd found herself buying a Bounty bar...as in the worlds most disgusting chocolate. But that little fact hadn't stopped her from scoffing down ten of the buggers whilst on the phone to Ralph Lauren. Suddenly the door slammed and she jumped almost dropping the plate before craning her neck around the corner, smiling when she saw it was Pete.

"Hey stranger," she smiled broadly. "How's the head?"

He didn't answer her, instead stared straight at her; looking down, Allie realised she was still holding the take out box and rolled her eyes.

"Ok, I know I broke the third commandment of our relationship and ordered food without you, but I called you five times to see if you'd be home in time to get in on it," she laughed. "Although I didn't finish all the duck , so-"

"You lied to me."

The words caught her off guard and she blinked, staring at him for a long moment, trying to work out what the hell he could be talking about. Quickly looking him up and down, she assessed that he wasn't drunk or joking but frankly, that just worried her even more.

"Sorry?" she narrowed her eyes.

"Yesterday when I asked you what was going on with you," Pete continued, trying to keep his voice under control. "You told me it was nothing,"

"No, I told you I was worried about you," she shook her head and took a step forward, reaching for him. "Pete, baby what's gotten into you?"

"And why were you worried?" He snapped, dodging out of her touch and setting his hard, emotionless eyes onto hers. "Was it because I was hurt or was it the match?" he shrugged. "Maybe it was just the nice cosy little chats you've been having with Tommy Hatcher's niece that got your back up?" he held up his hands. "Who knows, eh?"

Allie froze, feeling as though someone had tipped a bucket of ice water down her back. Oh, shit.

"What?" she whispered.

"She came to the Abbey tonight," Pete carried on. "Yammering on about how she'd spoken to you, about how we had to be careful," he shook his head. "But what was even weirder was that she mentioned her little chat with you was last fucking week!" He shouted the last few words at her and Allie physically flinched.

"I know I should have told you," she explained. "But it happened the night you got hurt and I don't know...I just..." she shook her head. "I panicked ok? I don't know what any of this means, or...or who she was even talking about,"

"So why the fuck didn't you come to me?" Pete spat at her. "Or did you just deem it unimportant in comparison to choosing what colour you want for the bridesmaids?"

"That is so unfair," she hissed at him, her own patience snapping. "I haven't even mentioned the wedding to you since the last week, which you know, is just a little bit strange given you're supposed to be involved in it as well." She held up her left hand and wiggled the engagement finger at him. "Or has it escaped your mind that it was your God damn idea?"

"Why would you talk to me about it?" Pete asked her, laughing bitterly. "You don't talk to me about anything any more do you? But then with your own personal live in therapist, why would you give a shit about talking to me?"

"Lara's my best mate," Allie shot back. "Come on, as if you don't talk to Bov about stuff that I don't know about."

"Sure I do," he shouted. "Except I don't think Bov ever encouraged me to fucking walk out on you,"

"What?" Allie shrieked. "Where the hell is all this coming from?"

"Next time you want to have a conversation about how unhappy you are with me, you might want to remember where you've left the spare key." he snarled, turning his back on her.

Suddenly, it hit her like a ton of bricks and Allie closed her eyes, willing to sell her soul right now if she could go back in time and stop Lara from getting her onto that stupid subject.

"Pete," she shook her head, her voice so soft he barely even heard her. "Baby, I didn't..."

"What?" he laughed, turning on his heel to stare at her once again. "You didn't know I was there? What would you have done you did? Maybe throw some bleach in my eyes? Or would it have just been a good ol' fashioned kick to the balls?"

"Why the fuck were you listening anyway?" she shouted back at him. "Since when do you start hovering in doorways of other people's houses? One conversation with Bov, the paranoia kicks in and suddenly you're turning into Lurch from the Munsters?!"

"Alright, so I listened in," he shrugged. "Good thing I did though, eh? It just makes me wonder though, you lied to me about Sophie, about wanting to marry me," he laughed. "What else have you lied about?"

Allie stared at him open mouthed for a long moment and Pete winced, wishing with every fibre in his being that he's shut his fucking mouth those few seconds earlier.

"Fuck. You." she hissed at him dangerously. "You want to talk about lies, Pete?" she took a step forward. "How many have you thrown at me over the last three and a half years, huh? How many nights have you come in and fed me some bullshit line about where you've been?"

"That's not the point," he shook his head.

"Oh," Allie threw her hands in the air and laughed. "Of course it isn't...silly me! God forbid bring up any of the four million fuck ups you've made in all the years we've been together, but I make one little mistake and its all guns on Allie, huh?"

"One little mistake?" Pete shouted. "You have no idea what you're dealing with, do you?"

"No!" she shrieked. "No, I don't Pete because all I know about the GSE is what little you tell me and that, coincidentally isn't a lot. So what in the hell gives you the right to come in here and start shouting at me about being a liar? So I didn't tell you what Sophie said to me...you know why? Because I didn't get any of it! I've got some random girl who looks like she's gone ten rounds with Ali sitting in my kitchen telling me that her Uncle wants to murder my boyfriend and what?" she shouted desperately. "What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?"

"I would say tell me," Pete shrugged. "But then that would require telling me the truth, wouldn't it?"

Allie shook her head, feeling the tears stinging her eyes but determined not to let him see them; she was so angry at him right now that she wasn't even sure she could look at him if she wanted to. Grabbing her sweater off of the sofa, she pulled it on over her tank top and snatched her car keys from the table.

"You know what?" she shook her head. "You've been right about one thing tonight and one thing only."

"What's that then?" he asked, sarcastically.

"Right now, I really don't want to marry you," relenting somewhat at the utter devastation in his eyes when she said those words, Allie shook herself out of it, reminding herself of what a bastard he had just been and stormed past him towards the door. She fought desperately with the lock, wanting, needing to get out of there as fast as she could. Swearing under her breath when it refused to give, she shook her head knowing that Pete had been bitching about this door for the past three years but would he do anything about it? Pushing it harder, she swore loudly this time when it flipped the wrong way, the metal latch slicing into her palm and drawing a fair amount of blood.

"Shit!"

Pete frowned and turned to face her; not particularly wanting her to see the tears in his eyes, but needing to make sure she was ok. Seeing the blood pooling in her hand as she stared down at it, her face contorted in pain, he pushed everything to the back of his mind and ran to her.

"Allie?" he came to a stop next to her and placed a hand on her back. "Baby, are you ok?"

"I'm fine," she snapped, not looking at him and trying to open the door again.

"You're bleeding," he told her impatiently. Fuck, why was this woman so stubborn? Remembering it was one of the many reasons he'd initially fallen in love with her, Pete rolled his eyes.

"Really?" Allie stared up at him as though he was stupid. "You think?" Jingling the lock, she sighed loudly. "What is wrong with this fucking door!?"

"Come 'ere," he tried to pull her to him, but she resisted, instead staring at the door as though hoping it would magically open in front of her. "Or stay there bleeding, it's up to you,"

Casting a glance down at her wounded hand, Allie sighed knowing that staying here was the lesser of two evils right now. Ignoring his outstretched hand, Allie walked around Pete and headed into the kitchen where he kept all the first aid stuff. Grinning slightly, Pete turned and followed her; and to think, she always gave him shit about being too proud.

Yanking the cupboard open with her good hand, Allie pulled out the first aid kit and began sifting through it, searching for something that she could quickly slap on the wound to stop it bleeding and then resume storming out of the flat. Sensing Pete behind her, she tensed slightly, waiting for him to speak but he didn't instead he grabbed her hips and effortlessly lifted her onto the kitchen counter, ignoring her surprised squeak as he snatched the bandage out of her hand. Catching the annoying smirk on his lips, Allie rolled her eyes and looked away from him, not wanting him to know that he was getting to her. That God damn smirk got her every time...

"I'm not crippled, you know," she mumbled, still not looking at him.

"Didn't say you were," Pete shrugged, wincing slightly as he examined her hand. It looked pretty nasty...much deeper than he had thought it would be anyway. Feeling her body jolt slightly as he touched it, he knew how much pain she was in and glanced up at her, seeing she was biting her lip. "Any deeper and I'd be taking you to hospital," he told her, thinking aloud.

"Lucky me," she told him sarcastically.

"I didn't know being a smart arse was a side effect of blood loss," He snapped.

"Well it is," Allie shot back promptly. "And so is impatience, so just put a damn plaster over it so I can leave you in peace to punch another hole through the wall again."

His eyes drifted over to the slight dent in his living room wall near the mantle from the night Matt had confessed to him that he had feelings for Allie and raised his eyebrows. Ok, so she had a point there.

"You have no idea how fucking annoying you can be, do you?" Pete laughed, shaking his head, picking up the bottle of disinfectant spray Allie had bought to keep his stitches clean last week and bit the cap off.

"Me?" she glared at him. "That's rich coming from you," she sat up straighter and pulled a face. "Oh, look at me, I'm Pete Dunham, I take all my problems out on the people who care about me and accuse them of shit they haven't actually done,"

"That's mature," He snorted.

"So is beating the shit out of people for the sake of a football game," she smiled brightly. "So I guess on that front, we really are perfect for each other, aren't we?"

"Yeah," Pete laughed bitterly. "Its just a shame we're not getting married any more, isn't it?"

"What?" Allie's head snapped up to look at him just as he spayed the disinfectant into her hand. "Ow! Fucking hell!" she cried, yanking her hand away from him and cradling it against her body protectively. "Shit, shit, shit..."

"It's not that bad," Pete rolled his eyes, but then felt his heart sink a little seeing the tears glittering on her eye lashes. "Hey," he moved to stand in between her legs, the hostility completely gone from his voice, replaced by the soft and familiar tone he only ever used when talking to her. "Come 'ere, let me see."

Without pause, Allie held her hand out to him and he winced slightly, seeing it was still bleeding pretty steadily. Holding it gently, he brushed his fingers over her wrist and met her eyes for the first time since they'd begun yelling at each other.

"I just need to put a bandage on it," he told her. "Otherwise shit will get in it and this," he held up the spray. "Will be the least of your worries,"

Allie nodded, trying so hard to repress the smile pulling on the corners of her mouth as she watched him pull out a strip of fabric and cut some, gently starting to wrap it around her hand. She hissed quietly and without wanting to, instinctively reached out with her other hand and held onto the material of his shirt.

"Almost done, sweetheart," he told her, the affectionate term coming out without his knowledge, but she picked up on it, her eyes softening. "There," he smiled, securing the bandage with a piece of tape but not making any move to let go of her hand. Smiling lopsidedly at the lumpy bandage, Allie shook her head.

"I know," he rolled his eyes, reading her mind. "You probably would have done a better job with just the one hand, but at least you're not bleeding all over my floor anymore."

Making sure he didn't move her hand too much, Pete slipped her engagement ring off before she could protest and turned it over in his fingers, watching as it glimmered in the dim light from above them, the drying flecks of her blood on it marring its beauty somewhat.

"Oi," she spoke softly. "Don't go too far with that thing, will you?"

"Why?" he snorted, still staring at it. "I didn't think you wanted it anymore,"

Letting her head drop back, Allie sighed; she'd known that she had dug herself a pretty impressive whole with that 'I-don't-want-to-marry-you' comment but then, they'd both been angry and he was far from being the innocent victim in all this.

"That was a lie," she told him, shaking her head. "Maybe you can add it to your little list you seem to have going."

"Fucking hell," Pete sighed. "I don't want to get into this again, Allie," looking at her for a long moment, he caught the guilt in her eyes and relented. She's been right earlier. If Pete had a penny for every time he'd ballsed up in their relationship…fuck, he dreaded to think how much money he'd be worth. And just this once, Allie had done the wrong thing, all in the name of trying to protect him and he'd jumped down her throat. "You should have told me," he told her quietly, his voice even, not even the slightest bit of anger in it.

"I know," she whispered. "But…" she shrugged, knowing there was nothing she could really say to make this any better. "Can I have it back now?"

Pete met her eyes and realised she was pointing to her ring; laughing lightly, he used the hem of his shirt to clean it off and placed it back on her finger. Even for those few seconds, she'd felt almost wrong without it on.

"I'm trying," he told her, his eyes harbouring a darkness that she wasn't sure she'd seen before. "To make you happy,"

"Pete," she shook her head. "You don't have to try, you never have," sighing, she took his other hand in hers and ran her thumb over his knuckles with still bore some of the bruises from last weeks fight with Mikey. "What Lara was saying…I didn't say any of it was true. I've never been unhappy when I've been with you, ok, ever?" She met his eyes and smiled. "I've been scared for you, I've panicked, but I've never wanted anything but you. I know that I fucked up, but I would never intentionally do anything to…" she sighed.

Pete didn't answer her for a long moment, he simply picked up her bandaged hand and placed a soft kiss against her palm, closing his eyes when she kept her hand against his face, her soft fingers brushing his skin soothingly.

"Allie, baby I-"

"Pete!"

Both of them turned towards the door, the loud crash echoing through the room as Matt practically flung himself into the flat, blood smeared over his hands.

"What the fuck happened to you?" Pete demanded, letting go of Allie and facing his mate with a worried expression on his face.

"There's fifteen of Mikey's friends," Matt gasped, trying to get his breath back. "If not more, Pete they're…"

"Where?" he interrupted, grabbing Matt's shoulders and forcing him to meet his eyes. "Matt, where are they mate?"

"Down stairs," he hissed, the pain in his ribs rippling as he spoke. "They followed you home."

The words sent a chill down Pete's spine and he didn't need to turn around to know that Allie had climbed down off of the counter and was now staring at the two men in horror. Jogging quickly over to the window, he glanced down the street and saw swore under his breath as he watched Bovver slam a bloke into a wall.

"Stay 'ere." He ordered Matt, not letting himself glance at the blonde behind him. "Don't let her out of your sight,"

"Pete?" Allie frowned. "What's going on?"

"I'll be back soon," he told her, jogging towards the door.

"No," she laughed, shaking her head. "Are you shitting me? After everything you know now you're going to just dive into a fight?"

"Lock the door," he told Matt. "You don't even think of opening it unless you know its me,"

"Pete!" Allie shouted after him as he slammed out of the flat and downstairs. Turning to look at the American, she noted that he looked as lost as she felt. What the hell were they supposed to do now? Grabbing her jacket, she took a deep, shaky breath as she moved over to the door, stopping only when Matt stepped in front of her.

"What are you doing?" he demanded. "You can't go out there? What are you crazy?"

"So we just sit here, do we?" she asked him angrily. "You're happy with that? Sitting here now knowing what's going on or whether they're…" shaking the thought out of her head, she reached for the door. "If we go down there, maybe we can help."

"Help?" Matt laughed. "How? By getting killed?"

"I can look after myself," she snarled.

"Not out there, you can't." Matt shook his head vehemently. "Allie, this isn't a game…"

"I know," she told him. "So how about we stop acting like fucking children and get out there before something happens and we can't take it back?"

Matt found himself flung against the wall a second later, listening to the sound of her trainers as she ran full pelt down the stairs before he pushed himself up right and followed her, praying to God that she didn't get out there before he did. At least then he'd have a shot at dragging her back indoors before they both got killed.