Sorry it's been a while, I've had exams and stuff. And general laziness. Thank you to all who have reviewed, it really does mean a lot.

-for you!

I blinked. "Quentin? As in my dad?"

"Yeah. And it actually made sense." Carl looked at me as though expecting me to yell at him. There was a kind of sinking feeling in my stomach, but I could see the pluses in having Carl as a half-brother.

"The effect of alcohol on Thick Kevin's brain. Hey, Carl, this is great! We can be brother and sister!"

He smiled hollowly. "I just think someone should have told me. It seems… I dunno. I've always wanted a father, especially since I came here and saw the way yours treats you."

"He's yours now, too," I said cheerfully. "And he likes you. Are you going to tell him?"

He hesitated. "I dunno. I mean, how am I supposed to do it? And what if I'm wrong?" He looked on the verge of tears. I put my arm around his shoulder in a clumsy hug.

"I think you should ask your mum. She'd know better than Dad. A letter could be kind of awkward though… I don't know. Think about it later. I'll help." I grinned.

Right on cue, as though stepping in to distract him, Simon leaned forwards and vomited on his feet. I grimaced. "Come on, Carl. Get some rest. We have a wedding to attend this afternoon, and we can't have a puffy, half-conscious best man." I neglected to mention the state of the groom, now apologizing heartily to Carl and trying to wipe the vomit from his shoes. Carl looked down at him and snorted.

"Could be an interesting day."

The wedding passed without much incident. Elenore was beautiful; much more so than I could ever have imagined. As Dad said during his rather impromptu ceremony, God knew why she was marrying him. It was a beautiful ceremony, too – Simon's amazing patchwork coat made all the difference – but for some reason it made me feel ill.

I noticed once or twice that Carl was looking up at Dad with an odd kind of yearning on his face and I felt almost guilty for the secret hope I had inside myself that Kevin in all his wisdom had made a mistake. I didn't want to share my father. I loved him too much, just the way he was.

I sat inside the kitchen on the floor while Felicity was outside somewhere. Carl came in and sat down next to me. "That was nice," he said as if trying to probe something out of me. I leaned my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. It was nice. But I'd hated it. "Could be us someday," he commented casually.

I sat up and looked at him. "What?" Second bombshell of the day. If he dropped another one, I might explode from shock.

He realized what he'd said and suddenly looked terrified. "Oh God! No – I didn't mean – I meant we'll get married to other people one day. Not each other!"

I laughed. "Okay, sure." I sighed. "Well, you might." I got up and started rooting through the fridge; I found some celery and, with a tentative look around for Felicity, cut off a stick.

"You don't think you'll ever get married?" he asked. "What's with the celery?"

"It's Felicity's. She's a little bit possessive."

"Possessive? Felicity?"

"Stranger things have happened." I sat back down. "No, I don't see myself marrying." He stood up as if to get himself some celery; I snapped mine in half. "Here, have this," I told him quickly. "She notices if you take more than one." He chuckled and took it.

"You don't 'dig the dream', then?" he asked, slumping back down beside me.

"No, I 'dig the dream'," I quoted, munching loudly. "It's a good dream. But… what if that's all it is? I mean…" I trailed off and waved my celery vaguely. "How do you know they're the one?"

"Don't they say you just know?"

"But what if you're wrong?" I looked over at him, sad again. "I just don't think I could commit to something like that for the rest of my life, just going by instinct."

He was nodding. "I see where you're coming from. But… look at Simon and Elenore! They've only known each other for two weeks, and they know."

"Maybe they'll be lucky."

I was watching the door with half an eye; now Felicity entered in her usual meek manner. I hurriedly shoved the last of my celery in my cheeks like a chipmunk. Carl, after a quick glance at me, did the same. Felicity turned around to see both of us munching heartily. "What are you two eating?" she asked, slightly suspiciously.

"Bread."

She gave me a hard look. "Crunchy bread," she commented lightly, and turned away.

"Toast," Carl put in innocently, but a piece of half-chewed celery spat out of his mouth and landed on the tiled floor.

"Celery," she corrected.

"All right," Felicity started to swell alarmingly like some colourful Ratched; Carl and I cringed.

Dave walked in. Felicity seemed to calm down. "So what's happening in here?" he asked.

"These two are eating my celery," she said. Dave made a noise of disgust.

"Yeah," he said thoughtfully. "Courtenay's got a thing about taking what doesn't belong to her."

I looked up, shocked but with a sneaky feeling I knew what he was talking about. "I've got a what?"

"You know what I mean, Court. I'm missing ten pounds."

"That's a shame," I quipped, suppressing a smirk. "But it sounds as though you're insinuating I stole your ten pounds."

"You did," he accused, quite correctly, as it happened. "You stole it and gave it to Carl for that egg thing."

Good with his facts, this boy. "I paid Carl for that out of my own pocket, didn't I, Carl?"

He nodded solemnly. He couldn't deny it; he'd even seen me remove the tenner from my pocket. "You see? I didn't take your ten quid. If you have to suspect someone because of the egg thing it should be Carl – no offence," I added quickly to the boy. "I wouldn't profit at all from the removal of your money. And Carl has more reasons to want revenge from you than the eggs," I reminded. Cheap shot, maybe, but he needed to be reminded that I wasn't the only thief on the boat, or by any means the worst.

"I know it was you," he insisted, "and if you don't admit it then Doctor Dave is going to write you a prescription for a self-kicking arse!" He made threatening kung-fu gestures.

I snorted. "Only because you can't come over here and kick my arse yourself," I rebounded in an oh-no-you-didn't-eliciting tone. I heard a collective snigger and looked around to find that everyone on the boat except for Simon, Elenore and Mark were now in the room and laughing at the extremely angry expression on Dave's face. They all knew I was lying. Even Dave knew it.

"Come on, Court. It wasn't Carl. No-one else had a reason to take it. You stole it, just admit it."

I sighed defeatedly. "Dave, when I broke that egg I wasn't thinking clearly enough to plan, oh, I'll say I'll pay and then go steal a tenner out of Dave's underwear drawer."

Dave pounced. "I never said it was stolen from my underwear drawer," he said triumphantly.

I could have bluffed my way out of it, but I decided to go for comic. I grinned guiltily. "Oops." The others laughed.

"I want that ten quid back, you know," he said in a hurt voice.

I shrugged. "I stole your tenner, you stole my best friend's girlfriend, we're square."

I woke up earlier than normal the following morning; early enough to be fiddling with my guitar by the kitchen when Carl came in for a cup of tea. "Morning."

He jumped. The sofa I was sitting on was hidden from him by a low bench. "Oh my God – where are you?" I stood up. "I couldn't see you there. You're up earlier than usual."

With a guilty glance at the clock – it was nine thirty – I waved him away. "I was hoping to see Simon."

Carl's face fell. "Oh."

"What?"

"Well – I saw him earlier." He looked awkward. My heart sprinted down to my abdomen. "He said it… well, it could have gone better. I'm not saying they're not still happy, don't look like that," he said quickly to my crestfallen expression. "It just wasn't the amazing night he'd expected."

I relaxed slightly. Then Simon came in, and my heart dropped back to my thighs and took my stomach with it. He was deathly pale and looked like he was about to go into shock. "Simon?" He didn't respond. "Simon, what's happened?" I asked, putting down the guitar and scrambling around the bench to stand in front of him.

After about five minutes' struggle, he managed one word. "Elenore."

"Oh, Lord." I grabbed his hand as he swayed precariously. "Sit down, come on…" the two of us led him to my recently-vacated sofa and sat him down. "Elenore what?"

After another huge struggle, he repeated, "Elenore…" and stopped again. Then he told us.

I almost said, 'you're kidding', but then I stopped myself. Simon was too sweet for insensitive comments like that. "Oh, Simon," Carl sighed, giving the DJ a rough man-hug, "I'm so sorry."

'Sorry' didn't really do it for me. I finally understood the term 'blind rage'. I stood up unsteadily and Simon looked up at me. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to stab Gavin with a Stanley knife and pitch his body into the North Sea," I affirmed, as calmly as I could.

Carl stood up. "Me too."

"You're too young," I dismissed, and left.

I tried not to run, but it was no good; I was so angry I wanted Gavin's enormous head under my fingertips now, and without fully knowing it I was sprinting up the steps. I was fuming so hard that I actually thought I might murder him, before I slammed into his door without bothering with the handle, leaving it to fly wildly between me and the wall.

What I saw inside the room left me temporarily speechless. Elenore straddled Gavin in her turquoise negligée, her panties discarded on the floor. They stopped in shock as I came in, not even attempting to hide what they'd been doing. "Out!" I shouted at her.

She blinked huge eyes at me. "What?"

"OUT! GET OUT!" She yelped and darted out of the room. Gavin scrambled for a blanket to cover his cock; I approached him, my fists clenched so hard I was almost drawing blood, hardly noticing that I was looking at Gavin Kavanagh stark-bollock naked.

"How…" I yelled incoherently a few times. "How could you!"

"What?" He tried gingerly, now pulling his dark jeans back on.

"WHAT?" I screamed, "WHAT? That was your friend's wife! Of – what's it been – twelve hours? Thirteen? He loved you! Both of you! And… and you…" I couldn't even get it out, what he'd done. Words couldn't describe it. Simon, sweet, naïve Simon, betrayed in the only thing he'd ever thought he'd finally got lucky in, by the great Gavin. Great, my arse.

"Oh, come on," he defended. "It wasn't my fault."

I screamed, trying and failing to hold onto my last shred of outward control, and flew at him, punching and kicking every inch of him I could reach, mad with the injustice of it, until I felt Dad's hands on me, pulling me away from him, and soon I was wrapped in Dave's meaty arms, still trying to hit the man who'd destroyed my only proof that love did exist.

A/N: Once again, sorry for the delay. Exams are over now so I'd say updates will speed up but I'm working full time and I've discovered Black Books, so they might not. Bear with me. At least I have actually written the next few chapters already. We are now getting into the climax of the story, sadly, but that means it will become less plot from the actual film and from now on almost completely either mine or from the deleted scene "Radio Sunshine".

I'll keep typing now, I'm sure you'd rather I typed more story than more author's note. Can I urge you once again to review, it really does make my day.

-for you!