Author's Note: Thanks so much to those who have reviewed and those who continue to read this story despite my lacklustre updating skills! This was meant to be out last Friday (not as in yesterday's Friday, but the Friday BEFORE that) but exams and studying and work and life and planning vacations to Paris happened. I apologize immensely! Hopefully, this chapter makes up for it. It's longer than I usually post because I'm currently procrastinating studying for my last exam on Monday, and as such, turns out I become a very productive writer when I'm procrastinating real life things. So, good for you guys but not so great for my final marks!

Also, for those of you who also read As It Was Made To Be, you'll know that I promised an update for the end of April. I'm still hoping to get that out to you, but it might be a bit difficult considering I'm going to Paris quite soon (yay!) That should hopefully get my writing juices flowing!

This is the final part of the Peaceful Assembly part of this story. Finally.

And as usual I don't own Skins.

Chapter 8: Peaceful Assembly Part III

The next morning, I woke up laying naked next to an also naked Emily. It was a jarring experience, since we actually didn't get much sleep and I'm quite sure I'd only actually been asleep for 3 hours. The alarm on my phone that I'd set last night before Emily came over was what woke us up. Emily looked around curiously when she woke up, and I did much the same. My room was littered with clothes and shoes that Emily and I had frantically taken off last night. Emily probably wasn't so worried about the clothes, but instead probably felt a bit shocked at just how empty my room was. My mattress was the only piece of furniture in the room, and the only other things in the room were my clothes, stacks of books, my laptop, and my cell phone.

I shut the alarm on my phone off and turned to Emily, who was still taking in her surroundings.

"Pretty empty, right?" I asked as I turned to her and kissed her shoulder gently. Emily nodded.

"It is, but I like it. It's simple," She replied as she leaned away from me slightly to expose her neck to my lips. "But don't you want to buy some furniture and put down some roots? You know, make this a home instead of just a flat?"

I shrugged. Growing up the way I did, shuffled around from place to place, house to house, family to family, concepts of "home" were alien to me. I haven't felt at home since I was 10 and I wasn't sure if I could ever feel at home again.

"Maybe," I found myself saying. I don't know why I said that though. I suppose I didn't want to talk to Emily about why I didn't want to make anywhere my home. I wasn't sure if we were at a place in our relationship where confessing about the darkness of our pasts was appropriate. So instead, I focused on kissing her neck and hoping that it was distracting enough to put an end to this conversation.

"Mmm...what's for breakfast?" Emily asked.

"Uhh... Effy and I don't really do breakfast, other than tea and biscuits."

"That sounds lovely," Emily replied as she stretched, letting the sheet fall to her lap, leaving her breasts exposed. "I should probably put something on first though."

I got out of bed and grabbed two oversized shirts for Emily and I. Though I'd much rather leave Emily naked, I knew Effy probably wouldn't appreciate us walking around naked.

Emily and I put on our shirts and ventured out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen. Effy was sitting on the countertop, next to the kettle. She flicked the kettle on when she saw us.

"Hi, I'm Emily," Emily said as she held her hand out for Effy to shake. Effy smiled at her and quirked an eyebrow at me before shaking Emily's hand.

"Effy," She replied simply. "Tea?

Emily nodded shyly and looked around for somewhere to sit. Since we had no furniture, it posed a bit of a problem. But Effy noticed and scooted over slightly to make room for Emily on the counter while I fussed around getting the tea ready.

Effy reached behind her into a cupboard and pulled out garibaldis for me and digestives for herself. Emily would have to make due with whichever she preferred because that was all we had in the house really, other than milk and leftover takeaway.

Effy wordlessly handed Emily the packet of digestives.

"Thanks," Emily replied. Effy smiled.

I handed Eff and Emily their cups of tea and grabbed a few garibaldis for myself.

"What time will you be home tonight, Eff?" I asked. Effy shrugged.

"Shouldn't be too busy today. Why?"

I shrugged nonchalantly. If Emily and I didn't end up being too late at this stupid bloody protest, maybe we could all head out for drinks or something. I found myself intrigued by the possibilities of introducing Emily to my mates, even though the only "mate" she hadn't yet met was Cook, since Effy and Cook are pretty much the only people I speak to. But I didn't want to say anything just yet. I wanted it to seem organic and natural and not forced. If we just all happened to end up back here at the same time then maybe we could go for drinks. Yes, not forced at all. Just coincidental really.

That would work best. I didn't want Emily to think that we were moving towards some kind of commitment, especially if she didn't want that sort of thing. But I didn't want her to think that I was ashamed of her or something and that I didn't want her to meet my mates. So I was caught between a rock and a hard place, and apparently, having Emily accidentally meet my friends seemed like the easiest way to get out of this conundrum.

We finished up the rest of our breakfast pretty quietly. Emily was busy checking e-mails on her phone and Effy was busy staring me down. I don't know why she was staring at me though. I kept shooting her quizzical glances but would only get a sly smile in return, which inevitably would make me roll my eyes.

Despite Effy's prying eyes, Emily and I eventually finished our breakfast and managed to get ready for the day in some peace. Effy had left for work about half an hour before we left for the protest.

"Do you need to go back to your flat for anything?" I asked as Emily got ready for the day. She was using mostly my borrowed makeup and clothes, which I was perfectly fine with. It was kinda hot seeing her in my clothes. She was wearing one of my shirts, since she refused to wear a pair of my pants because they were far too long on her.

"No, I'm okay. I brought pretty much everything I need for today with me last night when I came over here. So we can just go straight to the protest as soon as I'm done," Emily replied as I watched her apply her mascara. She smiled at me. "Don't you need to get dressed?"

I looked down and noticed that I was indeed, still wearing the oversized shirt I threw on this morning just before breakfast. I'd spent so bloody long watching Emily get ready that I'd forgotten to get ready myself.

"Uh, yes. Yes, I suppose I should," I replied as I shuffled out of the bathroom and into my bedroom. I heard Emily laugh as I closed the door to my bedroom and began the frantic search of clean clothes to wear.

Since Effy and I are lazy motherfuckers, we wait to do laundry until we run out of clean underwear, which is slightly problematic. Today meant I was on my last pair of clean knickers. I grabbed my phone and texted Effy to let her know that tomorrow was going to be spent in the laundromat.

Once I was finally dressed in an unimpressive ensemble consisting of jeans, a white t-shirt, and an old pair of converse, I left the room to find Emily waiting for me in the living room. She was sat crosslegged on the floor, with her chin resting on her hands.

"Ready?" She asked. I nodded and grabbed my wallet and keys.

I helped Emily off my living room floor and we left the flat. We headed towards the nearest tube station and were granted a peaceful, quick journey, which is rare for the morning commute in London. We even had enough time to grab a coffee before heading over to the group of women who'd already gathered in Trafalgar Square. A very small number of reporters and journalists and camera crews were already there, and Emily quickly made her position at Amnesty known to them. Before I knew it, we were being interviewed, though I use "we" loosely because I, as promised, pretended not to speak English so I wouldn't fuck things up.

"And your name, miss?" The reporter asked me. Emily turned to me with a smile.

"Janice Dimerche," I lied. "Je ne parle pas anglais."

"Ohh, I see. Est-ce qu'il y a quelque chose que vous aimeriez dire pour les personnes Français à regarder ce programme?" The reporter asked me with a smile. I was taken aback. I did not expect him to speak French as well as English. Should've chosen a lesser known language, Naomi, I chastised silently.

"Uhhhhh...non."

Brilliant. Just fucking brilliant. I was now making a tit of myself on potentially international TV. Just. Fucking. Brilliant.

I could tell Emily was about to piss herself laughing so we decided to end the interview at that point.

"Oh, excuse moi, madame, mais est-ce qu'il y a quelque chose que vous aimeriez dire pour les personnes Francais a regarder ce programme? Oh, NON!" Emily laughed once we were far away enough from the reporter.

"Piss off," I replied while Emily continued laughing her ass off.

"You should've pretended to be mute, not foreign!"

After Emily was finished poking fun at me (or at least, after Emily had decided to postpone poking fun at me for the time being) we managed to actually pay attention to the protest. The chants of angry women surrounded me alongside the homemade signs and bulletins many women brought with them.

"Ahh, nothing like a good old feminist protest to start the weekend," I said with a smile. Emily looked at me quizzically.

"What?" She asked. I smiled.

"I used to go to these things all the time. When I was growing up, mum always took me to environmental protests. Then when I went to uni, I started focusing on social issues protests. I actually organized quite a few protests back then. Sometimes I used to go to protests almost every day of the week."

Emily smiled. "Yeah, you seem the type. Always ready to moan about something. You must suffer from 'I-don't-ever-want-to-shut-my-mouthism' just like my sister, Katie."

I smiled and smacked her arm. "Oi, watch it."

Emily smiled back at me but her gaze was diverted to something over my shoulder.

"Speak of the devil," She whispered as she waved at somebody behind me. "Katie!"

I turned around to see a carbon copy of Emily walking towards us.

"You're a twin?" I asked. I had to admit, I was pretty shocked. Seeing two Emilys in the same place was a bit overwhelming.

"Yeah," Emily said. "But we're not much alike."

Katie finally reached us and only then did I notice the baby strapped to her chest and the small child holding onto her hand.

"Hi, nice to meet you, I'm Katie," Katie said as she held out her hand. She spoke with a slight lisp, definitely different than Emily. Her lips were a bit fuller, nose a bit rounder, face a bit rounder as well. Katie in general was just more plump and round than Emily.

"Hi, I'm Naomi, Emily's assistant," I replied as I tried not to notice while the child attached to Katie's chest started to pull on my t-shirt. Katie chuckled and thankfully removed the baby's hand from my person.

"This is Olivia," Katie spoke as she pointed to the kid on her chest. "And this is Luke."

Luke looked up at me, but didn't say a word. He did move to hug Emily though.

"Well...uh...that's nice," I replied. Katie's brow furrowed in confusion, though she was still smiling.

"Don't you like kids?" Katie asked me. Her daughter had reached over and started playing with my watch.

"Um, not particularly," I replied as I tried to remove the baby's hand from my wrist, which was quite difficult since her hands were covered in her own drool and very slippery. Emily was, once again, trying to contain her laughter at my horrible social awkwardness. "Uh, do you think you could, uh, get her hand off me?"

Katie laughed as she took Olivia's hand off my watch.

"Sorry, she's just obsessed with touching everything right now, you should see what she's like when we go to Tesco's," Katie said as Luke started poking his finger through a hole in my jeans. She didn't notice as Olivia boldly grabbed my wrist and started sucking on my hand.

"Jesus," I nearly shrieked as Olivia slobbered all over my hand. "You should really tell her that it's unsanitary to lick people. What if she licked a homeless person on the tube?"

Katie laughed again and turned to Emily while she extracted my hand from Olivia's mouth.

"Jesus, Emily, where the hell did you find this one?" Katie asked. Emily smiled.

"Believe it or not, she's highly qualified," Emily replied. I rolled my eyes.

"Thanks for that vote of confidence, Emily," I replied.

"Oh no, I believe she's qualified. She just doesn't seem like much of a people-person. Not the type of person who'd work at Amnesty International," Katie said before turning to me. "No offense, Naomi."

"None taken. Most of the work I have to do is over the phone and computer, so I rarely have to deal with the people I advocate for. Also, they usually don't slobber on me or stick their fingers in the holes of my jeans," I replied as I looked down at Luke, who looked ashamed and went to stand by his mum again.

"Anyway, Katie, what are you doing here anyway?" Emily asked. Katie ran her fingers through Luke's unruly hair.

"Actually, I'm not here. Like not at this protest thing. I was on my way to Covent Garden. We were going to watch some street performers and have some lunch, weren't we, Lukie?"

Luke nodded, though he kept staring up at me curiously. Katie smiled at me again.

"Anyway, we better be going. I'll phone you soon, yeah, Ems? We can arrange dinner some time. I know Luke wants to play with his favourite auntie!" Katie said, looking down at Luke and obviously trying to get some kind of reaction out of her son. He didn't deliver. Emily smiled down at him and leant down to kiss him on the cheek before kissing the slobbering baby as well.

"Okay, K, that sounds good," Emily said. Katie waved as she and Luke made their way towards covent garden. Emily waved back.

"So..." Emily said, turning to me with a smile. "Not so good with kids, eh?"

"That baby had the worst manners ever."

"Naomi, she's six months old. What did you expect her to do? Apologize for slobbering on your hand?" Emily asked as she rolled her eyes at me.

"Well hopefully she won't do it again. Or I won't have to see her again. Or by the next time I see her, she'll be a teenager. Now, teenagers, I can handle."

"Maybe you can handle them because you still are one," Emily replied. I rolled my eyes at that statement and ignored how teenager-like rolling my eyes felt.

Emily and I turned our attention back to the protest, which was seeming to get a bit out of hand.

"Uh, this isn't looking too good," Emily said as we noticed cop cars pulling into the area. She was right. The protest was about to move into a full blown riot. As I reached for my cell phone, I noticed how closed in Emily and I were. We were surrounded by angry women on all sides. I grabbed onto Emily's hand tightly.

"Don't let go," I said as I began to dial Effy's number and started to push my way through the crowd.

"Hello?" Effy's bored voice answered the call.

"Eff, Emily and I are stuck in the protest and things are getting bad. Can you send a car to meet us somewhere? We're at Trafalgar Square and I'm trying to get us out but it's gotten really bad."

"I'll send Cook to meet you at St James Square. He can be there in 5 minutes. Get moving," Effy replied before hanging up.

I pulled Emily through the crowd, focused on just getting the fuck out of here, though I noticed she was lagging behind quite a bit. I tossed a glance over my shoulder to make sure she was okay when I noticed she had her hand over her face, and that her hand was covered in blood.

"What the fuck happened?" I shouted over my shoulder.

"Somebody elbowed me in the nose. I think it might be broken," Emily replied. She coughed after she was done talking and cringed. It was obviously bleeding so badly that talking made her swallow some of the blood.

I pulled her even faster as we finally began to break through the crowd. Cops were already moving in and trying to disperse the crowd that seemed to be growing at an alarming rate. This wasn't like the protests I was used to. None of my protests ever ended up being violent or broken up by police. For the first time, I felt scared at a protest. But surprisingly, I wasn't scared for myself. I was scared for the redhead trailing behind me with a potentially broken nose. It was jarring and scary in itself, feeling scared for another person. But I couldn't focus on that right now. I had to focus on getting Emily help.

Emily and I walked as quickly as we could to St James Square, which only took about 5 minutes, but those minutes were agonizing. Emily was dripping blood onto her shirt and the sidewalk and there wasn't a single thing I could do to stop the bleeding. I wasn't a medical professional. I didn't know how to handle this stuff.

We spotted Cook as soon as we got there. He must've been waiting for us.

"Shit man," He said as we got in the car. "The fuck happened to her face?"

"She got elbowed while we were trying to get out. Could you just take us to A&E? She needs to get this looked at."

"Hi, nice to meet you," Emily sputtered, coughing as she swallowed more blood. "I'm Emily."

"Polite even when she's in agony. Nice one. I'm Cook."

And that is how Cook and Emily met for the first time. Not under ideal circumstances by any means, but it sure as fuck was natural and organic just like I'd wanted.

"Emily, no offense, but I'm never going to a protest with you ever again," I said as Cook drove us to the nearest hospital.

"Me too," Emily replied.

When we finally got to the hospital, we had to wait a while before Emily was even seen by a doctor. She insisted on going in alone. That left me some time to gather my thoughts and really freak out over the realization that I cared enough about Emily's well being to worry for her.

"So, this is the boss?" Cook asked. I looked at him quizzically. "The one you told me about on our night out, remember?"

I couldn't remember, but it wasn't out of the question for me to have spilled my guts to Cook.

"Not really," I replied. Cook smiled.

"The one you fucked twice and couldn't get outta your head," He said as he looked up at the ceiling and sighed. "Suppose you still can't get her out of your head."

"Nope. I think she might be in there permanently. And we've fucked more than twice now."

"You're in it deep, Naomi," Cook replied, though he was smiling. "Breaking all the rules now, aren't ya? I mean, fucking the boss is one thing. But fucking the boss and caring about it afterwards? S'not like you."

My brow furrowed as I contemplated his words. He was right. I never cared about anything or anybody other than Cook and Effy. Now, I also care about Emily. It was the first time something that was meant to be a one night stand ended up turning into real, genuine feelings for someone. Someone that just happened to be my boss.

"Yeah. I know. It isn't like me," I replied.

"It's good though, Naomi. Not caring about things isn't real, man. Everybody cares eventually."

"Even you, Cook?"

"Yeah, mate. Even me. I fucking love you, man. And Eff as well. It sneaks up on you, don't it? Caring."

I nodded. "Yeah. It does."

Emily walked out of the emergency room and into the waiting room with a smile on her face and a splint on her nose.

"Good news," Emily said as she walked over to us. "It's broken but it isn't too bad. It wasn't crooked or anything and I don't need surgery. They just stopped the bleeding, put this thing on it, and gave me pain pills. Apparently, I shouldn't operate heavy machinery while taking these."

I smiled and surprisingly, hugged her.

"What was that for?" Emily asked with a smile.

"Just glad you're all right," I replied, blushing slightly. I caught Cook smiling and waggling his eyebrows at me. I shot him a stern look.

"Can you take us back to the flat?" I asked. Cook nodded.

"Sure, s'not like I'm meant to be at work, protecting people in harm's way. Nope. Not me," He replied. I smacked him on the arm and Emily laughed. "Emilio, think can you drink while taking them pills?"

"Probably not...why?"

"Well, I suggest we all have a drink round Naomi and Effy's tonight, including you, Emilio man! Even if you can't drink, I'm sure that rule can be bent."

Emily laughed. "Sure, we should all have drinks tonight. But only at Naomi and Effy's because there is no way I'm going out looking like this," She replied as she pointed to the splint on her nose.

"You look fine," I said. Emily rolled her eyes at me.

"Yeah right, you're just saying that because you're hoping to get lucky tonight," Emily replied, before her eyes went wide and turned towards Cook. Cook laughed.

"Naoms, you got some kinky nurse fetish or summat?" He asked between laughs. Emily looked dumbfounded.

"He knows already, Emily," I said with a laugh. She eased slightly and moved to lean into my side.

"Okay. But more importantly, do you have a kinky nurse fetish, Naomi?" Emily asked. I turned to her with a cheeky grin.

"You'll find out tonight."

Author's Note: Please don't forget to let me know what you thought in a review! :)