Author's Note: Thanks so much for the awesome reviews and for continuing to read! It's been a while since my last update, but in my defence, I was in another country and very busy exploring the beauty of Paris! It was a lovely trip but I am super happy to be back in the swing of things and continuing to update.

Also, I've recreated my tumblr page because I've got a lot more free time now, so go on and follow me at keeping-schtum dot tumblr dot com

And as usual, I don't own Skins.

Part 3: Privacy, Family, Home, and Correspondence

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

- Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Chapter 9: Privacy

Emily

Later that night, just as Cook promised, we were all to be found on Naomi and Effy's living room floor, drinking. I was in a fuckload of pain earlier, but thankfully painkillers exist, and now that I was on painkillers and was also drunk, I was quite pain free. Naomi was also helping take my mind off the likely horrendous state of my face.

Naomi was very drunk and apparently very drunk Naomi is synonymous with very horny Naomi. I'd never known Naomi to be a very handsy type of person, especially in front of people, but tonight she was all over me. Leaning into my side, holding my hand, "accidentally" grazing my boob, kissing my neck. I certainly wasn't complaining though. Maybe handsy, drunk, horny Naomi should make more frequent appearances, if you ask me.

Cook and Effy were in the middle of regaling us with some of their finest party moments so far, for many of which Naomi was present or a key player in their shenanigans. I was wildly interested in hearing about what Naomi was like when she was in uni and younger. Their stories were honestly hardly believable until I remembered that this was fucking Cook, Effy and Naomi. That combination of people was bound to get into some trouble.

"So then we ended up in some fucking field in the middle of Glastonbury," Effy explained as Cook nodded enthusiastically and Naomi buried her face in my shoulder and continued to kiss my neck. Naomi hardly had it in her to even bother to listen to the retelling of these stories. Again, not that I was complaining.

"In the middle of fucking nowhere. Literally. And then some old fucking fart pops out the woods – with a fucking axe no less! - and who does he just happen to be friends with? Our dear Naomi here!" Effy finished. She smirked at the memory.

"I wouldn't say that he and I were friends, Eff," Naomi said into my neck. Effy shrugged and took another shot.

Cook laughed at the memory. "Naoms, you always knew the weirdest people."

Naomi stopped kissing my neck and rested her head against my shoulder, so she was now looking at Effy and Cook.

"Yeah, but it turned out to be a good thing that I knew him! It was through him that we found that cabin to sleep in that night!"

"How on earth did this guy know where to find an empty cabin for you lot to sleep in?" I asked Naomi. She smiled and kissed me instead of answering my question.

"Well, he was homeless," Effy replied. "He knew a whole bunch of abandoned places all around the South West where he could sleep."

"And how did you know a homeless person?" I asked. Naomi shrugged, but Cook gave me my answer.

"Naoms was always runnin' away from home. Sometimes she'd go two, maybe three weeks on the streets before they'd bring her back home," Cook replied as he took another drink. "We both hated it in them houses."

I looked at Naomi questioningly. Questions were racing through my mind – why did Naomi and Cook live together? Were they siblings? I doubted that very much, though. Their relationship didn't seem like a brother-sister relationship. And why did they hate it so much at their home? Were they abused? And what exactly would Naomi do while she was on the streets for two or three weeks at a time? Effy caught my gaze, but for once, didn't smirk at me. Her eyes shifted to Naomi, and I shifted my own gaze down to her. Her face had changed, gotten harder, darker, more guarded. She wasn't looking at me anymore. In fact, she wasn't looking at anything or anyone. She was staring down at the floor and her brows were creased, but whether they were creased in pain or concentration, I wasn't sure.

"You might not think it to look at her now, but this one pulled some -" Cook started to say before Naomi interrupted him.

"Leave it, Cook," Naomi said with her hard face and equally hard stare. Cook shut up right away. Effy got up right away to get more vodka and beers, which were our drinks of choice for the night.

"Sorry, Naoms, I was just sayin'. Thought you'd probably told her all about it, you know," Cook said with an apologetic look. Naomi leaned closer into me and held my hand.

It was eerie to be discussed as though I wasn't even there.

"I haven't," She replied quietly.

Effy came back with the drinks just in time. I eagerly accepted another beer, not wanting to think about what I'd heard anymore. In fact, I think I'd prefer it if I forgot it entirely. But it seemed, as the night wore on, that no matter how much I drank, nothing was able to push Cook's words from my mind. I found my thoughts lingering on a teenaged Naomi, living on the streets, doing god knows what to get by, living with Cook, and being a troublemaker. But I couldn't for the life of me understand why. Don't kids usually have reasons to run away from home? What was Naomi's reason?

Effy and Cook went to bed just before Naomi and I headed into her room. I found it a bit odd that Effy and Cook went to bed together, since I didn't think they were in a relationship, and filed that away as a question I should ask Naomi if I managed to remember.

We peeled our clothes off and Naomi took care of me gently as she helped me take off my shirt so as not to bump against my injured nose. She kissed me tenderly, in a way I don't think she's ever kissed me before, as we fell into bed together. She ran her fingers over my lips, my chin, my jaw, my neck. Her lips followed gently. But these kisses weren't the start of something; I could tell Naomi didn't want to have sex tonight. I wasn't sure if the sight of my bandaged face repulsed her in some way or if she just genuinely wasn't in the mood.

But her kisses and the tenderness behind them made me feel adored. It was a strange feeling to be on the receiving end of, especially when the giver was Naomi. I didn't take her to be the emotional type. And I could tell that she was feeling emotional. She was all over the place – a moment ago, she was tender and loving, and now she was shaking and breathing heavily, as though she was fighting off a panic attack. I ran my fingers through her hair gently in an attempt to soothe her as she breathed heavily into my skin.

"Are you alright?" I asked into the complete darkness of the room. I felt her breathe heavily against my skin again.

"I'm just scared," She replied. She leaned in closer to me and I held her tighter instinctively. I didn't want Naomi to be scared of anything, especially not if I was around to help her.

"Of what?" I asked.

"You."

"There's no need. I'm not scary."

Naomi murmured into my skin. It sounded something like an "mmmm" noise as she leaned into my chest.

"You're terrifying," She replied as she kissed my breast tenderly once again. She seemed no longer anxious. It was a good sign, I suppose. I held her a while longer, letting her calm down entirely. She was holding me as tightly as I was holding her. This closeness we had between us right now, it was completely unprecedented. Even when I was going down on her, I'd never felt as close to Naomi as I did right now.

"Cook and I, we first met when we were put in foster care. We were both fostered to the same family at the same time. I don't think they normally do that, in fact, I don't think they're even supposed to do that, but it was what happened for us. I think eventually, the social workers started to think we were brother and sister. We were best mates, and we did everything together. Completely inseparable. But we were little shits. Most of the families didn't want to put up with us, and some of them were so horrible to us. They'd hit us or not give us food or anywhere to sleep. So Cook and I, we'd run away together a lot. When the cops would find us they'd take us to some different family. Some of those families treated us like charity projects. Like one day I was just supposed to give up who I really was and all I'd seen and all I'd done just to be normal like they wanted. And the ones that didn't treat us like charity projects...well, I wouldn't even treat a dog I didn't like as badly as some of them treated us. I don't know which ones were worse; the ones who treated me like I was shit, or the ones who treated me like I was golden.

"But Cook was always there for me, through thick and thin. I love him. He is like a brother to me. He's family. The only...real family I've got. And Effy, well, it took ages for me to even think of her as a friend, but now she's like my family too. I love them both and I'd do anything for them."

"What does this have to do with me?" I asked.

"I'm telling you why I'm scared of you," Naomi whispered. "How drunk are you?"

"I don't know," I replied. "Very drunk."

"Will you remember this in the morning?"

"Maybe," I said. I wasn't sure where she was going with this, but I was intrigued.

Naomi nodded against my chest.

"I...I've not felt...like this...for anyone ever before. Something about you is different."

"What do you mean?" I asked. My heart had seemingly stopped in my chest. This was beyond anything I'd ever expected from Naomi. This whole emotional confession thing didn't seem to be her style. And to be honest, I didn't quite know how to feel about it just yet.

"I care about you," She said. Her voice caught on the word care.

Her admission wasn't anything near as grand as I'd expected, but it still caught me off guard. Naomi really didn't seem to care about anything or anyone other than Cook and Effy, and I knew it took them years to earn that care and trust. So naturally, for Naomi to admit that she cared about me, it was actually starting to make sense why she was also terrified of me. I was an anomaly. This had never happened to her before. And because she cared about me so quickly, so much faster than she'd ever cared about anyone else, it also meant that I had more power to hurt her than anybody ever before.

But I wasn't like Naomi. I wasn't afraid to care about people. And that's why it felt so easy for me to tell her how I felt.

"I care about you too, Naomi," I said. Naomi nodded against me.

"I know that," She replied. "Do you think you'll remember this in the morning?"

"I don't know. I hope so."

"I don't," Naomi whispered.

"Why not?"

"I don't want you to have that kind of power over me."

And though her words were harsh and kind of hurtful, she moved closer towards me and her breath still flowed over the skin of my breasts, where she'd buried her head and was listening to my heartbeat as it lulled her to sleep. We were close in a way that we'd never been before. I was genuinely starting to care about Naomi. Fuck, I was starting to think I was beginning to fall in love with her. Things weren't just sexual anymore. I wanted to understand Naomi. I wanted to tame the beast within her; I wanted her to want to settle down with me. To build some roots with me. And most importantly, I didn't want her to be afraid of me or to see me as just another person with the potential to hurt her or use her feelings against her.

I still had questions; questions about just exactly what happened to make Naomi end up in foster care, questions about what exactly she'd done while she was on the streets, and questions about why she didn't want me to know the answers to all my questions. But right now wasn't the time to ask any of these questions, because I knew I wouldn't get an answer. And I also knew that asking those questions would scare Naomi even more than she already was.

For a moment, I put myself in Naomi's shoes. Or rather, I tried to put myself in them. And I tried my hardest to understand why she didn't want to trust me or care about eventually I did understand why she wouldn't want that. Something deep inside Naomi told her that caring about people would inevitably end up causing her pain. Naomi had learnt not to trust or care about anyone for her own good, though I didn't know what could've been horrible enough to make her feel that way. And I found myself not wanting to understand what that horrible thing might have been. And I found myself hoping that I would forget the words Naomi had just whispered to me in the peace of darkness, just so that we could both rest easy and not worry about what her words meant. So that Naomi could rest easy and eventually stop fearing me, and stop fearing what it meant to care about somebody. And so that I could be granted enough time to show Naomi that caring for someone did not always necessarily equate to pain.

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