Author's note: Really sorry it took my so long :( I just had no muse and Thomas is really hard to write…

Disclaimer: I do not own skins. I also do not own the poem I carry your heart by E.E Cummings which is distributed throughout this chapter.

Set: Where Naomi, Emily and JJ are in Bristol at the site of the reunion.

Thomas's POV:

I think in different languages, all jumbled together, as if my thoughts aren't already confusing enough. They consist of intellectual philosophical thoughts sometimes, but mostly they consist of my family and how my brothers and sisters are doing with their new education and how I never got the chance. Every once in a while, they drift off to a girl I used to know. I've moved on. Mais j'espère…But I hope, I hope I am not the only one who remembers her.

i carry your heart with me

Standing behind an oak tree planted squarely in the middle of that street, I watched them with despairing eyes. I hadn't changed much; perhaps I looked slightly older, slightly more withdrawn and slightly more English. I didn't wear five jumpers. I didn't even flinch at the cold weather; cold in comparison to Congo. Maybe my eyes looked different. Maybe they were older and more scared, because I knew I could bleed by then.

After half an hour of contemplating whether to go over and greet them, JJ waved and waited for me to hop over. When I didn't, he walked up to me, held out his hand and said quite happily,

"How have you been?"

His confidence had escalated as well as his height and he just looked like a regular, laid-back guy. No one could see his hidden horrors.

"Good. And you?" I said. I was not smiling.

My eyes, cold circles imprinted on a daunting face, can reflect who I am. I believe people are what they are because of what has happened to them, which is why I can summon this haunted face against people who I have no connection with or sympathy for. JJ did not look taken aback by this face. He merely stared back as if he was disappointed. He did not answer.

Instead I turned my attention to Emily, absorbing in her new look while starting a smile.

"You look stunning," I told her truthfully. She smiled a full, confident smile unlike the ones I had seen from her in the past.

"You don't look too bad yourself," she hugged me warmly and I found it comforting being in an old friend's pair of arms.

A few metres away hung Naomi with a pram. My smile widened. As lost as this brown haired girl (she still looked like a girl to me) was, the finger which had the hand of a child wrapped round it showed the vastness of her heart. No father stood by her side so I quickly assumed she had been left by him, but the bond between mother and child was so beautiful it did not matter. They looked like they had never left each other's side, not even once.

(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)

Two figures were slowly coming to meet us. By the look of the fashionable boots, skimpy clothing and un-kept hair I could tell one was Effy. Her partner was limping. No – it couldn't be, was that Freddie?

After a few awkward greetings and strange atmospheres, we all stood around like lemons, wondering what to say – or do. In this time I exercised my people watching skills. Naomi had been staring at Emily ever since Emily had arrived. At first I wondered if Emily was staring at JJ, but then I noticed her sneak a few glances at Naomi. It was clear something was still there. Effy held her cool stare which told me she still was as elusive as ever, while Freddy gazed at her like a lovesick puppy. He looked older than everyone else. Like he had suffered more. JJ was goggling at Effy as if it was the first time he had ever seen her, yet his close proximity to Emily suggested close friendships were more his cup of tea. My eyes lingered on the oak tree I had been leaning on earlier and the plaque beneath it. The one person who was not here to watch. "In loving memory of…" I remembered planting it years ago.

"So, shall we go and drink in memory to her then?" I raised the obvious question nobody dared ask. In return I got strange glances from everyone.

"Who?" Effy snapped, angry at the fact I made no sense and she couldn't figure it out for once.

"What?" Naomi spoke up.

I pointed at the tree.

"Pandora, of course," I was bemused. How could they have forgotten her?

"She's coming," JJ told me, raising his eyebrows slightly. I stood there in awe.

"No she's not."

JJ's eyebrows elevated further.

"What is going on?"

"You know what is going on! You know she can't make it! She obviously can't make it!"

"I sent her an email…I just assumed she was coming. Why, has something happened to her?"

"But you chose this spot." JJ shrugged at my response. "You chose this spot, you must know."

Everyone exchanged puzzled glances, angering me.

"You mean – you me…none of you heard?"

Their looks were unanimous.

"No."

"She died as soon as we all left sixth form."

I fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)I want

no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

The crash, the smell of burning rubber, the heart – the heart donated as soon as she was declared dead at hospital. Me gripping her hand so tight nothing in the world could have made me let go, but she was dead, so nobody demanded me to let go, because there was no chance she could live. We had broken up a month before. They had to perform surgery in two seconds but I wouldn't let go. I kept staring at the cold face which would haunt my nightmares for years after. I kept, I ke-

A familiar face broke into my memories, through the veil of reality. She came strutting up, her weight gain obvious, yet she still managed to look anorexic and malnourished. Her skin hung against her body as the thin, clingy piece of leopard skin material contrasted with the goose pimples against her skin. She was cold, but she knew this was England.

She was clearly ill.

"Katie, you look prettier than when I last saw you," I smiled a sweet, shy smile through the electric shock which had just rested upon Naomi, Emily, JJ, Effy and Freddie. Katie needed some comfort, it was obvious. Some compliment. The others needed a few moments to register the information I had just given them. Katie's grin was manic and terrifying. She looked like she was about to break, fakeness oozing from her face.

"Thankyou, cheeky," she winked and continued to grin. A memory stirred in the back of my mind. Hadn't Emily once said that…?

I noticed Katie's heel had snapped and looked down at my trainers. Almost laughing at the coincidence, I took off the trainers I had once leant to Emily years ago on a cold, dark evening and handed them to Katie. Suddenly her face was no longer fake. Staring at the shoes and back at me, she shoved them back into my hands.

"You don't want me wearing those," she whispered, staggering closer to my face, delirious. "I'm filthy."

It was embarrassing and sickening seeing her like this. Trying to flirt with me in the strangest of manners…but she wasn't trying to flirt.

"I'm disgusting. I'll ruin your trainers. I don't deserve them," her voice had become venomous, horrifying and harmless. She was leaning forward so far that she tripped and fell into my arms. It wasn't romantic. It was pitiful. Quickly I picked her up and carried her to a nearby bench, laying her next to me so her head was resting on my lap. She needed sleep so badly, and in my comforting arms she was soon relaxing for the first time in months. Years, perhaps. I stroked her hair, nearly crying, because the assumptions I had made about this girl years ago had all been broken. She was broken. I feared it was beyond repair. Taking off my jacket, I placed it neatly over her as she rolled over and snuggled into my stomach. What if this was the closest she had got to home in a while?

Everyone else had left to go to a bar because the night had changed to pitch black. After staring solidly at the tree for a few minutes I tilted my head back. I let out a hushed "O" sound. The stars were concealed by light pollution from the first city I came to in England, yet I felt as though I could see right through it. I could see the stars.

Pandora.

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)