Sorry it's been so long between updates, I've recently just got a 40 hour a week job and I'm moving house this weekend so I'm still getting used to not having as much time.

As always thanks for reading and please do review.

'How did you even get this thing to the house in the first place?' Alex asked as they paused for the fifth time to rest and put down the bathtub that was digging into her hand.

'Dragged it mainly.' Olivia responded cracking her knuckles and flexing her fingers.

'It must have taken ages.'

'Yeah it was hard...worth it though right?' Olivia said winking as Alex blushed and looked away. They had woken that morning wrapped in each other's arms and it was Alex who finally suggested they should take the tub back. Though the day was windy the air felt as heavy as it had for the past week and she was sure that there was storm coming. She had finally found the courage to go to the village and wanted to make the trip while the weather held. She could tell that Olivia wanted to stay and talk about what had happened the night before but for a little time at least Alex didn't want to think too hard. She wanted to enjoy the memory as it was without digging into exactly how she felt about it. Her desire to go the village was in part because she knew she couldn't avoid it forever and partly because she knew that Olivia would put their trip before their inevitable conversation.

It took them till noon to complete the normal hour walk, dragging the heavy tub as they were, and by the time they got there Alex was sweating in the humid air. The village consisted of around twenty houses of varying size arranged in no particular order. They all had wooden frames and dirty thatched roofs with wattle and daub filling the empty spaces. Alex thought to herself that it wouldn't matter what part of England she travelled to, serfs' houses would always look the same. They dragged the tub to the well which sat sort of in the middle and Olivia walked away in search of Mrs Smith.

It wasn't long, to Alex's relief, when Olivia returned with an old woman in tow. Her head was covered in a scarf and age had bent her back but Alex saw that her eyes remained clear and hard; eyes that wouldn't miss anything. Olivia had told her on the journey that Mrs Smith was a widower of twenty years and the oldest person around for miles. Alex reckoned that it was this woman, and not perhaps Sir Walter in his manor, who really ran the village.

'So you're the one who's been hiding.'

It took Alex a moment to realise that Mrs Smith was talking to her. 'Hiding?' she said.

'Never wanted to come and see us.' Mrs Smith continued staring hard at her and not smiling. Alex looked over to Olivia for help, kicking herself for not coming up with an excuse for her absence before arriving.

'She hasn't been well Mags, I told you. Thought a bath would help with healing and look low and behold!' Olivia said taking pity on her.

'Hmmmmm, dangerous things baths, more likely to catch your death than heal anything ask me. But then what do I know, I'm only the oldest woman around for miles.' Mags replied sarcastically.

Olivia laughed while Alex could only grin nervously. 'You want us to take it back to the house?' Olivia asked.

'No no,' Mags barked, 'It's going to the Matson's next' She shook her head as if it were the most obvious thing in the world and of course they should have known it.

Alex couldn't help sigh in relief that they would be able to leave so soon. For all her bravado this morning the thought of meeting any more people, especially if they were anything like Mags, filled her with dread and she wanted nothing more than to leave.

Olivia however had other ideas. 'Anyone around?' she asked.

'In the fields, working! Like you two should be!'

'Well, if you say so Mags we'd better head right on over then.' Olivia replied with a smile, not taking anything the woman said seriously or to heart. 'Want to come and meet some people?' she asked Alex.

Looking at Olivia's hopeful face and remembering how happy she had been that she was finally joining her in the village Alex didn't have the heart to say no so soon found herself standing at the edge of a smallish field watching a group of people bent over the soil harvesting what looked like leeks. They watched them work in silence for a time and Alex saw that there were all ages from babies carried on their mother's backs to tall well-muscled adults all toiling away. By some unspoken rule they all seemed to break for lunch at the same moment and Alex was quickly surrounded by people all wanted to look at the stranger.

Olivia did most of the talking and she continued the illness excuse, which Alex reasoned wasn't entirely a lie, for why Alex hadn't been to visit before. After a short amount of time the children got bored of the new face and went off by themselves to play and not soon after Alex, so unused to socialising, gently removed herself from the now laughing and eating group. She felt Olivia's eyes on her back but didn't turn round as she sat down close to watch the children play.

They were a mix of ages and were playing a game that appeared to involve jumping from one line drawn in the dirt to another, the distance getting longer as the game went on. Their laughter filled the air and Alex couldn't help but smile to see their faces.

'Do you have any of your own?' Alex turned around surprised. A middle aged woman had followed her from the group and had appeared at her elbow while she had been distracted and was now looking at her with a slight smile that was fading as the silence grew longer.

'….No' Alex finally answered, somehow finding a smile of her own as her heart slowed down, 'do you?'

'Two. The boys with the blonde hair. Take after their father.' Alex would have assumed as much seeing as the heavily set woman had light brown hair. 'They always win this game.' the woman continued.

'Do they play together a lot,' Alex asked, 'all the children that is?'

'Oh yeah, they're all great friends, born and raised together. We're a pretty tight knit village here. Not like Wyndom mile off that way. Boy should hear some of the back stabbing that goes on over there.' The woman chuckled to herself and Alex found herself chuckling too; slightly bemused by this woman who had come over and behaved as if they had known each other for years. 'What about where you're from?' the woman asked.

'Oh my village. Well… yeah we were really close as well. There weren't as many children my age growing up but Olivia and I were really close.'

'Just like me and Martha,' the woman said nodding, not appearing to notice how awkward Alex was looking, 'people would come to visit and think we were sisters the amount of time we used to spend together. Even went and got pregnant the same time would you believe it. That's her lad there.'

The 'lad' in question was a small boy with black hair who was just about to complete his jump. The women looked away from each other and watched as he bounced on his toes throwing his arms back before springing forward and landing with his heels touching the other line. They soon lost sight of him however as the children around him started screaming in delight and bundled him to the floor.

'Remember the days' the woman said laughing and turning back to her.

Alex laughed along and hoped she could tell that she was faking it. 'We never played this game ourselves,' she said feeling the need to add to her story, 'but we did play stuck in the mud a lot with children from the village over. Olivia was great at it and always crawled through my legs to help me….which was a lot.' The woman laughed and Alex found herself smiling at the made up memory. It was true that the children she grew up with did play stuck in the mud a lot but she never played it with them. She would watch instead from behind the curtains in her room and wonder what it would feel like if she were allowed to play. She had even gone as far as to ask her father once if she could go to the meadow and join in but he had gotten so angry at the thought that she, his daughter, would need other people that she hadn't dared to ask again.

Her and the woman continued to talk, or more the woman talked and Alex listened, and instead of feeling more at ease it only made her feel more insecure. Hearing the woman reminisce and talk about community reminded her of what she had missed her whole life. She didn't smile properly until the lunch break was over and Olivia declared that they should head back before the gathering grey clouds decided to open.

'You made a friend today.'

'Huh?'

'Mary. You were talking to her over by the children.'

'Oh the big woman,' Alex was busy building the fire and didn't look up. They had arrived home late, staying in the village longer than they had expected and with the days growing shorter the sun was already beginning to set filling the house with a blood red light.

'Yeah,' Olivia said after a pause wondering at the discomfort in Alex's voice. 'You talk about anything interesting.'

'Nothing much,' Alex answered avoiding Olivia's eyes, though the fire was now lit and happily cackling away. Olivia thought about pressing the issue but knew from previous experience that pushing Alex would only get her to shut down more. She leaned around the other woman and added a pot with their evening food to the fire.

'You're really good at stuck in the mud by the way,' Alex tacked on as if the conversation had continued since she last spoke. Olivia used to Alex's unusual habit was happy to go along.

'I am really good at stuck in the mud,' she answered with such a serious expression that Alex couldn't help but laugh as they moved over and sat together on the pallet listening to the water bubbling as the cold slowly left the room.

'Did you play a lot of games when you were little?' Alex asked.

'Yeah, I mean when there was time,' Olivia answered turning her head to stare at her; wondering why the topic of their childhoods, which before had been off-limits, was suddenly the theme of conversation. 'Elliot and I would always team up against these other two boys, Jack and Henry, and play anything we could think of….We always won of course.'

'Of course.' Alex agreed with a smile.

'What about you?' Olivia hadn't known whether to ask or not, sometimes pressing Alex ended the conversation, and seeing her face fall she feared she'd made the wrong choice. However, Olivia reasoned, it was Alex who had started talking, who had sat watching the children. She must at least subconsciously want to talk about it.

The silence grew longer and Olivia watched as Alex tried to think of what to say. One of the peculiar things she had noticed about Alex was that even though she was stubborn and some would call her cold she had very little control over her expressions. Of course when she was concentrating she could keep a straight face but a life time under a helmet meant that if Alex felt something you were likely to see it in the lines around her mouth and the crinkles around her eyes.

At this moment her brow was creased and her eyes slightly narrowed as she figured out what to say. The smell of carrot and turnip filled the room signalling that their dinner was ready but Olivia didn't move, letting Alex's obviously complex thought process take its time. She hoped that she would tell her the truth.

'I had an imaginary friend.' Alex finally answered with a small not entirely happy smile. 'I would watch the other children playing from my window, then the next day we would play it together.'

'What was their name?' Olivia asked working hard to keep the sadness out of her voice.

'Peter, after the saint. We made up our own games too.' Alex said her smile gaining happiness as she remembered fond memories.

'What you'd make up?'

'Errrm,' Alex leaned her head back against the wall before leaning forward with a slightly guilty smile as if she were a child with her hand caught in the sweet jar, 'well there was this one game called spy.'

'From your face it must have been fun.' Olivia said smiling.

'We would sneak around the castle at night and try and get as close to people as we could without them seeing us. We snuck up on guards, on kitchen boys, on stable hands; anyone who still awake really. I got pretty good. Could stand right behind someone and touch their tunic without them realising.'

'You ever get caught?'

Alex threw her a disdainful look instead of vocalising her answer. 'We stopped playing it after a while though,' Alex said with a frown, trying to remember exactly why she stopped, 'I guess it got boring', she finally said.

'What happened to Peter?'

'I grew out of him. Didn't need friends anymore.' Alex was still desperately trying to remember why her twelve year old self had stopped playing spy and missed her slip of the tongue; Olivia however noticed that she had neglected to use the word imaginary. Alex, still thinking hard, remembered that she loved the game and couldn't understand why she had stopped. She ran through the last time she could remember playing, deciding she would play the next night, even though there had been a close call, and walking to the door and….. she closed her eyes before shaking her head and turning to Olivia who was watching her with an odd expression. 'I think the food's ready.' She got up and took the pot off the fire, filling two bowls as she went.

'What made you sad just then?' Olivia asked.

Again Alex thought for a long time before she answered and they had eaten their meal by the time she had figured it out in her head enough to explain.

'I struggle sometimes to know whether what he did was abuse or whether he was just being a parent.' She paused to check that Olivia was listening and after seeing that she was continued, 'I mean just now, I finally remembered that I stopped playing spy because my father beat me one evening then started locking the door at night. He said it was for my own protection; the people wouldn't trust a stranger walking around the castle at night. Was that bad or just parenting?

And I mean this sense of not knowing is now ruining everything. Every happy memory I have I'm now second guessing. He wasn't always bad. I remember one time we spent the whole night playing cards and drinking wine and he was really interested in what I had to say and it's one of my happiest memories. But now he's hurt me is it still happy?' Alex could feel herself getting choked up but knew she had to try and finish explaining, let Olivia know all of it.

'Everyone always feared me or pitied me and I always used to think that if they could just get to know me, hear me talk, they might love me like he did. Except now you're telling me he never loved me. The one person who knows me, the only person who's ever loved me never actually loved me.' She was crying now, unable to stop the tears and Olivia yearned to reach out and take her in her arms but didn't want to disrupt the speech.

'He just wanted me to himself, to own me. I was nothing more than an object, valuable for its use but not worthy of actual love.'

'I love you.' Olivia could help but talking hating how Alex was describing herself.

'I know you say that but so did he and sometimes I can't help but think,' Alex looked down unable to meet her eyes, feeling her tears fall onto her clasped hands, 'I can't help but think that if you didn't want me you wouldn't be here. That now you have what you want you'll leave.'

Olivia sat there stunned for a moment horrified that Alex would ever think such a thing; that she had ever acted in a way that would make her believe it. She reached forward and picked up Alex's chin forcing her to look at her and listen to every forceful slow word she was about to say.

'I love you! I'm not here for your body. It's amazing and I love that we shared that moment yesterday but it's not why I'm here. I love you. I know you and I promise as long as you want me I'm going to be here.'

Alex heard the words and felt their meaning sink in but still a part of her, the part that was still a child stuck inside a locked room alone, feared that no one would ever want to come and open the door. She felt her breath catch and soon turn into sobs and she all but fell into Olivia's arms.

'I just….I….I just don't want to be alone anymore.'