Thank you for the reviews.

Time jump here... I really don't know what my timings are here and whether I should have done more than like five chapters to a term but I also didn't want this story to basically become... boring and mundane... If you get what I mean... Everything is good with a bit of drama.

Another song from World War Joy (if you are surprised any more), called Who Do You Love, as the title for this chapter. And I have probably scared you all again... whoops.

Don't know whether this will brighten up your Monday or not... the first part will... it is just the rest of the chapter that might be a little questionable. I think that you would prefer chapter 35 (that I wrote yesterday)...

Chapter Twenty Two
Who Do You Love, Do You Love Now?

"I'm just going to have to do it aren't I?"

"Do what?"

Rachel sighed. "Go on a date with Adam just to get both him and Melissa off my back."

"You shouldn't have to."

"I know but you haven't had to come home to Melissa basically begging me for Adam. It has been like that every day for the last month."

"I don't want him taking advantage of you."

She smiled as she allowed her hand to make its way across his chest to his side. She would have tried to get closer to him but they were as close as they could be as they lied in his bed. His arm stroked her side and Rachel couldn't remember the last time she felt this content with a man.

"The only other thing we could do is to go public." She said.

She sat up on her elbow to look at him when he didn't reply.

"What?" She said.

"Would you be comfortable with that?"

"Going public? The staff all suspect something. Tom is basically telling everyone anyway and... I am ready. I love you and I want to be with you. I have… never felt so comfortable with a person before."

"Then we will have to see what Monday brings."

"We will."

She squealed as he switched their positions, so he was on top of her. He kissed her.

"What's up?" Rachel asked.

"Just something Melissa said. About her and me. Just think where we would be now. Was it weird that my thoughts went straight to you and wondering where we would be if the fire never happened?"

"For one, my sister wouldn't be about." She said before she kissed him. "Secondly, we would have gone on that date at the end of term." She kissed him again. "And lastly, we would have had this conversation months ago. Because we would have had her to look after."

"I know we haven't really mentioned it."

"No, we haven't."

"But we could still make the lie real this time. Minus the drunken night."

"It's not exactly like we have done what we preach to the kids."

"Isn't it do as we say and not do as we do?" He said as he kissed her.

She hummed. "Eddie, at the very least, all I need is you. You make me happy."

"But there is no harm in trying."

"No there isn't."

Rachel sat in her dressing gown, with a towel wrapped around her head, completely and utterly unmotivated to do anything else than get in her pyjamas and just to crawl into bed.

"Mum says you are going on a date," Philip said as he pushed her bedroom door open.

"I'm wondering whether I could fake an illness."

"Rach, you are just going to have to tell her."

"Rach? You've picked that up from Eddie as well."

"I can stop if you don't like it."

"What? My boys stop calling me Rach. I think it is rather sweet."

"Your boys?"

"Philip, I have all the time in the world for you and you know that you are always welcomed."

"Maybe I should be glad to be grouped with Eddie. Why can't she see that you are happy with him?"

"Because that is the way that she has always been. Melissa is used to getting what she wants."

"But do you really have to go on a date with Adam? Eddie told me that if I see you alone with him that I am allowed to interrupt you."

"So I have my boys looking out for me?"

Philip hesitated for a moment. "I care about you Rach."

"I know."

"I just want to see my favourite auntie happy."

"Philip. To my knowledge, I am your only auntie."

"Do you want me to go downstairs and tell Mum to phone Adam, telling him that you have gone down with food poisoning?"

"No. Because he will only reschedule. The sooner I get this over and done with, the sooner I can go back and focus on my boys."

"I've never seen you like this before. Over Eddie."

"It's because I haven't. He is the first person that I could see myself settling down with."

"I like him."

"Good. Now I should probably get ready for a date that isn't with my boyfriend."

"That serious with him?"

"Almost told everyone Monday."

"I'm sure everyone knows though."

"I'm sure they do," Rachel whispered after Philip closed the door. "So why can't Adam and Melissa see it?"

Having Sarah serving her again wasn't a problem. The problem was the person sitting opposite her and even the young girl could tell how uncomfortable her ex-headteacher was.

"There is a back entrance," Sarah said when she came over with their second round of drinks and Adam was in the toilet.

"He is just a friend. I just need to tell him that."

"Sure? Because I have seen many dates like this."

"Honestly Sarah, it is fine."

"What about the other guy you were with? Eddie?"

"Me and Eddie are doing fine. I've done this to please him and my sister. It's a long story."

"Just as long as you do what you told us. Be strong and if you don't want it, tell them."

Rachel laughed as Sarah walked off, remembering the situation that caused her to say that. It had been after a school disco where the boys had been rather boyish. There were a number of teachers that would just write off the boys behaviour but Rachel made sure that the girls knew that it wasn't their job to be used like that. If they didn't want to have sex, then there was no obligation for them to have it.

"Can we seriously not eat out without bumping into a pupil of yours?" Adam said as he returned.

"It is easy for them at this age to get jobs in restaurants. It fits in with school as well and it does teach them something."

"Except when they are incompetent and hold up the kitchen."

"We all have to start somewhere Adam."

"Do we?"

"I am sure your culinary skills come from years of being in the kitchen. I don't think most people just walk into a job and are instantly good at it."

"Why do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Defend them all the time. Your students are some of the most unruly kids going."

"Because don't you remember being like that once? I've gone through life, trying to pick the schools that were closest to the one that we went to so as… so I could stop someone like me making the same choices that I made."

"You can't save people from themselves."

"You can. I wish that I had a teacher that paid attention to the fact that Mum would turn up to Melissa's parents evening but not mine. Or that one of the reasons that I started to fall behind in classes was because I had to work so that we could eat. And don't go running to Melissa to ask whether this is all true. She never saw that side of things."

"Is that why you are so bitter with her?"

"Honestly Adam, the last person I want to talk about tonight is Melissa."

"But the way you constantly speak to her? Like the incident on my first day. It isn't really being the supportive older sister, is it?"

"She took her eye off the ball and it blew up in her face rather than mine for once. And I will start showing her a little more support when she shows me some. Everything comes back to me Adam. Or have you forgotten that I run the school?"

"She is right. You do have it in for her."

Rachel now wished that she took Sarah's escape route.

"I don't. I just have people relying on me. Every failure comes back to me. Doesn't help when the head of the governors doesn't like me." She paused. "Anyway, why are you so defensive of her?"

"It seems like someone has to be."

"Because it just confuses me. You want this date with me but you always seem to be in the corner whispering with her. Plus there was the fact that she didn't get in until six the morning after we all went out to dinner."

"Do you think I am going out with Melissa?" He laughed. "Oh my word. I'm not the bit interested in Melissa. Never have and never will. It's you that I want. But it is nice that someone wants to go out and spend the night with me. Unlike you, running off."

"Well at least one of us is acting their age." She muttered.

So that put to bed the theory that Adam and Melissa were together. It just meant that they were planning something. Were they really this determined to keep her and Eddie apart? Were they really this determined to be with someone who was obviously in love with someone else?

"So Eddie?"

Finally a conversation she could get behind.

"What about Eddie?" She said.

"I heard a rumour."

"About?"

"You being pregnant with his child. Some of the students were talking about it. Have you got a child with him?"

"No. I… I lost the child due to the fire."

"Was it like a weird one-night stand thing?"

"At the time it was but…"

"So is he a rival?"

"What?"

"Okay, I'll rephrase it. Do I have to be worried about Eddie come between us?"

"Adam, there is no us."

"I think that there will be."

"Adam. You are my friend. You have always been my friend."

"And you can't deny that we could be more than that."

"No. We can't. As much as you and Melissa don't like it, I am seeing someone and I can't allow you to ruin that."

"Sorry?"

"I've got a boyfriend. Someone I really care about and love and I don't want to hurt them because you and Melissa are forcing me into situations that I don't want to be in."

"But I love you, Amanda."

She swallowed as he used her old name.

"You might do. But I'm not Amanda any more and I don't love you. Not in that way. Not in the way that you want me to." Rachel stood up. "I have to go before you do something stupid."

"Who?"

"Sorry?"

"Who is he? The boyfriend?"

"Eddie Lawson."

Rachel was glad that Philip was still up when she got back. Melissa was out apparently and, as much as she wanted to be with Eddie, her nephew was just as good company to talk out her awful date.

"I'm guessing it didn't go well." He asked.

"I had to go before he did something stupid. He asked me whether he should see Eddie as a rival."

"What brought that up?"

"Because he had overheard someone say about me being pregnant."

"Was the baby Eddie's then?"

She hesitated. "This doesn't go any further than us. Okay?"

"Okay."

She pushed herself off the sofa and made her way towards her bookshelf. She grabbed the copy of Crime and Punishment that Eddie had given her before rejoining Philip. She turned to the right page and took out the sonogram.

"There she is."

"My little cousin." He said as he smiled at the photo.

"Philip. You will hear that she was Eddie's but she wasn't. Eddie gave me the lie to say that it was one drunken night that we couldn't remember and… in all honesty, it became the truth because the truth hurt too much."

"Do I want to know the truth?"

"Probably not."

"Do you want to tell me?"

"I've spoken about Stuart Hordley."

"The man that told the whole school about your past. Yeah?"

"He… He raped me in my office and she was a product of that."

"Rach! I'm guessing you haven't told Mum."

"She doesn't believe that I was pregnant. I doubt she would believe me if I said that and then she would ask around the staff and only Eddie and Tom know for sure. I don't whether anyone else has worked it out because I don't want to ask to bring it out in the open. She would then believe me less because no one will back up that story. I don't need to be reliving it." She paused. "Adam tried to kiss me on his first day. It is why Eddie said what he did about me being alone with him. He doesn't want me to go through that again."

"Why don't you show her this?"

"Does she deserve to see it?"

"Point taken." Philip paused. "Why did you come home? I thought you would have gone to be with Eddie."

"I almost did. Then I thought that I hadn't really spent that much time with you and at home in general since you moved in and… Well, I may say you are always welcome but I don't think I have shown it. This is me trying to show it."

"Thanks, Rach. For showing me this."

"No problem."

Rachel placed the sonogram back in the book and returned the book to its rightful place before she turned to her nephew and finally caught up with him.