Howard was wearing a black suit and black tie. Outside the sun palely warmed the moor. The tender flower heads and weeds and long grass brushed each other sensuously in the wind. The whole world was full of colour. For a moment Howard thought it was fitting, it made him think of Mum wearing her bright sundresses, work shirts, shoes; but then he remembered. Catching his reflection in the mirror he saw that the world was black, that today was a black day, and those angels, God, had filled his life with colour just to mock him.

"Still moping?"

Cathy had been watching him glower out of the window for a while, he supposed. Of late she seemed to have adapted a little too well to the ways of Heathcliff – she'd begun sneaking up on people, treading quietly. It was most unlike her thunderous previous self, who would've usually been found yowling and stomping about the house. He knew she learnt silence and sneaking because she had to. She had to be quiet now, because, for the first time in her life, little Catherine Earnshaw had a secret to hide.

"I don't like all this sneaking around, Cathy," he said.

"I don't like all of this meanness and nastiness, Howie."

He had to admire her, so harsh, that wit always hitting right on the top of the head, the soft spot, quick as a bloody brick. He smiled at her.

"How would I know what you like at all anymore? You're a different girl."

"You're a different boy, Howie. You used to be kind and now you're always mean to me."

He walked across the room towards her, to look into her face, so much like his, their Mother's, as well as being like nothing he had ever known before. She stood there staring at him boldly, her hands clasped behind her back. Her hair had been pulled into a ponytail, high on her head, clearly Dad's handiwork. It was too tight, the lines of the comb left thin, bright white strips of scalp showing through her dark hair. But, despite that difference, her face remained the same, that tranquil, beautiful, childlike roundness – and that strangely matured venom in her eyes. Her lower lip had a pleasantly red thickness to it, but it made her seem haughty, as though constantly pouting, and the thick, spiky little hairs on her eyebrows were all straight and pointing outwards, giving her smile an almost contemptuous attitude, no matter what form it presented itself in.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "But that's the way things are."

"If you'd just try to be nice, though, it wouldn't be," she protested. "Mum wouldn't want all of this fighting."

Howard giggled, surprising himself apparently more so than Cathy. "Oh, right! And I suppose you know exactly what she'd want, do you? Mum's been sending you postcards from her coffin, has she?"

"You know she wouldn't want this."

"You know what I do know? I know she didn't want little scouse hooker's runt running around our house!" He spat, and then grasped her hair, silken and dense as a horsetail, and tugged on it as hard as he could. She yelped.

"Howard!"

"You don't see it now, but you will soon," he told her. "The sooner you start listening to me the better. You'll be as mad as Dad is."

Cathy rubbed the back of her head as it warmed with pain. Howard's brown mousy eyes now regarded her with such little affection she was sure it was dislike. And now could she bear it? She could never quite be sure with Heathcliff for his eyes were so dark they held only a resonance of emotion – sometimes she wondered, especially when they were talking at night, if she was simply staring into the back of his skull.

"I'm sorry!" she squealed. "Howie, please! I'll stay with you today. Please."

He turned to her, smiled, then held out his big hand and she took it joyously. They sat in the car and waited for Dad and Heathcliff to arrive, still holding hands. Howard needed her, she knew. She didn't fully understand why. Mum's absence had not yet been fully absorbed by her – it felt as though she might've been just shopping in the village or baking a cake in the kitchen, only slightly out of sight. She wondered why it didn't hurt momentarily, but then the thought glided out of her head as she heard footsteps.

Heathcliff walked out of the house with his hair brushed back, slick as an otter, in Howard's suit he borrowed for his Christening, still without the blazer. He looked strange, bathed, brushed; he even smelt hygienic for a change, Cathy noticed, like soap and water and baby-wipes. He got into the front seat beside Dad, and then they drove behind the funeral car, in utter silence, towards the village. The sun blared through the windows and rolled between light and shadow sumptuously over the green of the moor. Nobody made a sound in the car. Howard's fingers gently squeezed and released reflexively around her hand, and a few times his sniffing interrupted the silence. Heathcliff did nothing but stare at her in the rear-view mirror. She knew, but she did not respond.

The wreaths of orange flowers on top of the coffin in the funeral car read Mum. That was about all Cathy clearly remembered from the drive to the church, and the funeral itself, almost in its entirety. They sat on the pews and held little pamphlets, listing the lyrics of hymns and the pre-written, pre-determined, generic, unfeeling, Clinton Card paragraphs the vicar had written and would say in perfect order. They stood to sing something a few times, but neither Cathy nor Howard sang. Dad's voice boomed out over everyone's, his means of his survival in all stressful situations; creating noise. Heathcliff lip-synched his way through everything, and did hardly anything but stand and sit to order and gaze longingly at the curve of her cheek, frowning. She could smell the gel and hair wax on him, even when stood a few feet away. The frown didn't leave his face throughout the whole service.

The wood of the coffin, that expensive, red-tinged kind, shone in the light, bright as the skin of a fresh apple. Cathy watched it as it was lowered into a cleanly cut oblong in the Earth. They were each given a flower to throw inside, and they did so methodically, one by one – Dad, Howard, herself, Heathcliff, aunts and uncles, cousins standing in a ritualistic circle about them. It didn't feel right. She knew it was all preset, like the weather, like time, something bound to happen, something inevitable, like the mixture of wind speed and temperatures or the transition from moment to moment to past to present. How, she wondered, had Heathcliff caused that? He had not made this. Heathcliff, as magical as he was (his hair dancing with coloured lights in the sun like the feathers of a crow, with his nocturnal, subaqueous eyes) could not change such things. And Howard blamed him. He was still clinging to her hand, and Heathcliff stood at Dad's side, gazing into the grave quite dazedly, exhaustedly.

What would happen when this was over, when Mum slept in the ground? Soon enough they'd spade the soil back over the neatly cut oblong and Mum would be gone forever, and while that within itself instilled fear in her, the thought of going home was the most frightening thing she could possibly imagine. Dad would be powerless to do anything in his utter regret and desperation and guilt and so Howard could do anything he pleased, anything he wanted, without being stopped. She remembered the bruises on Heathcliff, cloudy and black, and she remembered that slug of phlegm sliding down his cheek. She was scared. Howard had a look in his eye as the flower hit the lid of the coffin, as if he was staring into a bright light. His eyes squinted, the pupils dilated. For a moment he looked pleased. For a moment he looked dangerous.

And abruptly she ran. Her hand slid out of his with a nervous, sweaty squelching sound. Howard looked up at her. Heathcliff suddenly seemed to bite awake. Dad did nothing. Nobody moved but Heathcliff. "I'll go and find her," he told them, without asking permission – he was quite sure he was unwanted here, by Mrs Earnshaw and everyone else, they wouldn't mind. Cathy's Dad nodded twice and then Heathcliff set off after her. Her corrugated brown hair billowed in the wind and her hands were held straight out at her sides, the fingers split open to sense the moor wind's damp tongue caress them. She was going back into the church. Her figure disappeared behind the wall.

He ran fast. The doors were heavy to open. He braced himself and heaved, and found that the church was empty. Particles of dust were swirling within a sunbeam, tinged pink by the stained glass. The granite floor slabs had the coloured rays rippling all over them, quavering with heat, coloured blue and gold. He walked down the aisle silently, admiring the colours. It was always so very hushed in here, and he especially liked it when he was alone. It was calm, the air luscious with the smell of old tapestries, wine, dust, peace. Above him an angel stood in the glass, her wings outspread. He was struck with the image of a dead pigeon on a busy road, but then looked into those kindly, syrup-coloured eyes, filled warm and miraculous with sunlight, and all of a sudden the sickly feeling went away. He continued walking forward, running his fingers across the hard lengths of the wooden pews. His shoes clicked.

"Go away, Dad!" came Cathy's blubbering. "Go away!"

He saw her curled up next to the confession booth, sat on the floor, knees tucked up to rest her chin upon. "It's not your Dad," he replied.

When she looked up the sun made her whole face sparkle with tears and speckles of blood had risen in her cheeks, and she looked as though every contour of her face was beautiful, breakable stained glass. A pang of horror hit him, to see her this way, but still he had to ask, "Why have you ignored me?"

Cathy's bottom lip stuck out priggishly and she squeezed her eyes shut, a tear pulsating down her cheek. "I – Howie said. He said all of these things and I wanted to be there for him."

"So you thought you'd just ignore me?" he demanded.

"Well – I have to choose!"

"Fine. If you've made your choice I'd better get going."

He went to leave angrily, cracking his foot against the floor. She jumped. He liked it. She held her hand out pleadingly.

"No! Please, Heathcliff, come here. Please, I just – I'm frightened. I don't want you to go," she begged, the tears causing her whole body to judder violently. Of course he was compelled to obey her. Of course he could not resist when she so frantically needed him. He watched with intense pleasure as her hands clawed the air and her mouth puckered and clicked and snapped but said nothing, her stormy hair stuck to her wet cheek. She was so incredibly pretty when she cried, when she needed him – what could possibly feel better? His chest tightened and he walked quickly to her, allowing her small hands to tie around his neck. She sighed into his shoulder, her whole body swaying with it, and he closed his eyes and knelt beside her.

Cathy tugged him to sit and curled into him reflexively, yearningly. Her head was on his shoulder, her tepid breath whispering beneath the collar of his shirt. "I'm scared," she said.

He rubbed her forearm. "What are you scared of?"

"I think that soon you'll have to leave."

The mere idea of it nearly made him laugh. Why would he ever leave? Nothing would make him leave. He didn't want to leave; if not because he had food and a warm bed then for Cathy. She was his best friend – and he had never known what it was to have a friend. He liked her, very much. Madly so.

"We're friends. I won't leave."

"I think Howie will make you leave."

"I won't leave," he insisted. "Don't you believe me? I can't leave you."

She shook her head quickly, a few of the dark hairs growing static and sticking to his shirt. "But he can make you."

"No, he can't," he told her earnestly. She shook her head, and when her voice came out it was sudden and juttering, as though through a crackling radio speaker on a long lost frequency.

"He can force you away!"

"I'd kill him if he tried."

Cathy, stunned, turned to face him. He wore his usual indifferent expression as he stared at the other wall, and when he looked down at her, he smirked slightly and shrugged, his shoulder bumping her chin.

"I told you," he said, "I can't leave you. I won't do it."

"But I only want you here now, so everyone else –"

"I don't care," he snapped, angered now. He hated to think of it, but as always she was so stubborn she refused to be happy. "How many times, Cathy? Jesus! I'm not going anywhere. If you want me here then I'll be here."

"But everyone –"

"We're friends. I'm not going." He snatched out and grabbed her little chin between his two fingers.

She saw the honesty in his face and smiled gleefully, nudging her forehead against his chin. "You're better than everyone at school," she marvelled at him, her eyes feasting on the twisting, confounding darkness of his eyes, his thick, cruel mouth, girly eyelashes, "you're better than anything ever."

He chuckled, showing his kitten's teeth. "Can we sit down properly? My bum hurts."

"Let's go in the box," Cathy suggested, pointing to the confession booth.

"Is that what it's called, the box?"

"I don't know, it's just a tiny room to sit in I think. It's nice; it's like sitting in the middle of the circle of rocks on the moor."

"Alright, then."

Pulling open the door, she beckoned him inside with her index finger and slid down on the wooden bench. "It's not much more comfy, but it is better," she said. He sat next to her, and as always she tucked her head into him. It was dark and secret in here, and there were little holes on one side of the wall to see into another little box. It smelt like overripe plums and dust and nostalgic things, like tears and snot, but Cathy thought it smelt and tasted completely of worship.

"Do you think people come in here to hide?" he asked her. "This is like, where you can hide from God?"

"It's probably something like that – no-one can see you or hear you here. This is where you keep things you don't want other people to see. What they shouldn't know."

"Or what the Bible says they shouldn't know or do?"

"Some things, I've never heard of in the Bible," Cathy answered, "it doesn't say anything about not talking to tramps in the Bible, but people still say we're Unholy for it."

"Do you think it's Unholy?" he pushed.

"If it were God'd have struck you down, I suppose!"

There was a small stretch of silence, and Cathy breathed and breathed out lungful after lungful of summer air over his skin. The moist sensation swept his body, stroked his chest, the base of his throat. Her mouth was against the little exposed skin he had, and he noticed hungrily that it was slightly damp, that she had bitten it sharp, made it swollen with blood, hot with blood, slick and wet and soft.

Then Heathcliff made a noise, a grunt, sort of, and Cathy frowned at him in the half-dark.

"What's the matter?"

He said, "Nothing."

But then he tried to push her off him, away from him, and she wanted only to hold him at this moment in time, sure God kept them safe from harm and hate in his little dark box.

"What are you doing?"

"Get off me, for a minute!"

She complied, her hands sliding off his shoulders and slithering down across his chest, brushing against some sort of lump by his belly.

"What –"

"Don't!" he exclaimed, "you mustn't do that!"

She was completely dumbfounded. What was it, was it the lump? Did he have some sort of illness? She frowned at it, mesmerised. It was stuck in his trousers.

"You've got a lump," she explained.

"Don't – seriously. Cathy."

Enticed by the strangeness of it, rebelliously, she ran her finger over it. It felt hot under there. She wriggled her hips slightly, excited by its weirdness and Heathcliff's fear. Her knees parted as she shifted to look into his face.

"What is that?" she gasped.

Heathcliff's chest was heaving with sudden panting. "I don't know. I keep doing it."

A sudden realisation made her mouth pop open. "Is it your naughty area?" she cried.

He nodded.

"I don't think it's supposed to come up like that, Heathcliff," she said carefully.

"No, it does. It just does it!" he persisted. "Honestly, I don't know what it is, it makes me feel funny."

"Well – what's it for?"

He looked at her wildly, blinking hard, licking his lips once – twice.

"I don't know," he answered.

"Hmm," Cathy frowned, inspecting it meticulously. Her mouth remained open, saliva collecting in the void between her bottom row of teeth and tongue. "How weird!"

"It is weird."

She sighed. "Well I don't mind, if it doesn't do anything. Maybe it's like sneezing; it just comes and goes for no reason?"

"I do think it's like that," he agreed.

She nodded happily. "Well I want another hug, so, move your arm."

He moved his arm and she settled into the crook of it, her ear resting against the quick, insistent thud of his heart. He breathed crazily until it went away, his fingers curling and grasping and digging at her waistband, pulling slightly at her hair, squeezing her thighs.

She sat quietly while it happened, the recollections of hymns and the prayers ringing out through her.

A/N: WELL DONE if you have made it through this monster of a chapter! Wowza, it's biggie, and it was certainly interesting to write. I hope everyone enjoyed it!

Massive hugs and thank-yous to Autumnx, cherry-magpie-x and The Mighty Gazelle for their fantastic nuggets of love and support and enjoyment! You are all truly wonderful. Also, extra thanks to The Mighty Gazelle for doing a little proof read of this difficult chapter for me, for always encouraging and motivating me, and for having the best hair ever! WRAH, squillions of love! Another little update for the (very few) fans of this fic, he's also been working on a few illustrations for each chapter, and they're all lovely and amazing, so look out for them. I'll probably set up a deviantArt account to upload them all on for your viewing pleasure, and post a link on my profile. So please check it out and give him thanks and love!

Please let me know what you think guys, again, I hope everyone liked!