For my most excellent friend Cat. When I first found you, you were fighting your way back from the very jaws of death, and now here you are on the brink of hitting the outside world again. And I'll know you'll hit it running and then we'll all have to watch out. You are an inspiration.

This is probably the last chapter you'll have to read around the nurses, so I made it extra blushy (beautifully crafted and essential to the storyline notwithstanding).

The rest of you, you know the score… work/school/granny warning is in full force, yo. Hit it…

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17. Complicated Creatures

Naomi

I could have called Thomas to give me a lift, but the day was nice enough so I decided to walk. Get some fresh air to shake off the sluggishness of the morning and prepare my body and mind for some work. Of course what it really boiled down to is that I wasn't yet prepared to steep my self in cold hard facts and figures, when all I wanted to do was daydream about Emily for a little while longer. This morning had been something else. The sex had been fucking beautiful as ever, but it wasn't that which had made the morning special. It was the tenderness. That gorgeous moment when I had woken up to her looking at me. And the way she looked at me. And the beautiful things that she said. And the moments when she didn't need to say anything at all. It was like something had shifted between us and we had come to an unspoken agreement. We weren't just sleeping together any more, we weren't even just girlfriends. We were partners, looking to a future that included the other, and sharing our hopes and our ambitions.

The fact that this was the kind of understanding that people generally came to after months or years of seeing each other rather than a few short weeks didn't seem to bother me at all. When I flashed back over the morning's events the thing I most remember was the feeling I got when she told me, 'I love you. I want to be with you. I can't even think of an alternative.' That's some pretty fucking deep shit going on right there, and yet for some reason it didn't send me running for the hills. I've never really known commitment. My Dad fucked off before I was even born, and my Mum's been through a string of lovers since then, some of whom were cool and some of whom were just plain awful. So I didn't exactly have much to go on. Until now the most abiding thing in my life despite my friendship with Thomas was my unrequited crush on Stacey Matthieson, and that was hardly what you'd call a healthy relationship.

Emily, on the other hand has known nothing but… The Fitch family might be slightly bonkers, but they are a solid unit. They live together, they work together, and despite their many ups and downs, their solid foundation is love. Rob and Jenna married young, and their kids have grown up knowing that family is everything, and that commitment, loyalty and hard work are part of what makes that family strong. Even Jenna's problems with Emily's sexuality weren't enough to tear them apart. There was no doubt that Emily was loyal. I only had to look at the way she looked after Effy to see that. For Emily there was no such thing as commitment issues. If she decided to take you on, it seemed you could trust her with your life. Maybe that's why Effy had such faith in Katie, she had seen the true power of Fitchdom, and didn't want to settle for anything less.

Except maybe now she had. She was pretty full on with her total inscrutability this morning. I couldn't fucking read her at all. The circumstantial evidence was damning though. She left with Cat the night before, and Cat was there first thing in the morning. The American was kinda gorgeous, and Effy was looking pretty pleased with herself. But then again, except when she's on a Katie inspired meltdown, Effy always looks pretty damn pleased with herself. I shook my head to shake her out of my thoughts. It's not like it was my fucking problem anyway.

I looked up to get my bearings, and realised I was just opposite the Fitchwater shop. I grinned at the daft 'Swim like a Fitch' logo on the front with its cheerful font and picture of a smiling fish. My brain is no longer mistress of its own destiny, for in an instant all the correct synapses fired to leap from cosy cartoon fish to fish of a much more interesting kind. The fish that swam around Emily's spine. I stumbled over a broken paving stone, and it took all my efforts not to go flying head first onto the pavement. As it was I more or less ended up on my knees as the sound of laughter tumbled round my ears.

"Very dignified, Campbell," said Katie.

I looked up to see her leaning in the doorway of her shop, arms folded and a cheeky smirk on her face.

"Daydreaming about my sister's tits again?" she teased.

"Her tattoo, actually," I admitted freely.

"Yeah, I've heard that goes down well with the ladies," she said. "And then the ladies go on down."

I felt a sudden stab of jealousy over all the girls that had been there before me, and I cursed myself that even on the day that she told me she wanted to get serious, I still fell fucking victim to my rabid insecurities.

"Has Emily had many girlfriends?" I asked Katie.

"A few," shrugged Katie. "You know, enough."

My face must have given me away, because Katie laughed at me again.

"Relax Blondie," she said. "None of them were really serious. I still think you're winning. Now, are you just going to mess up the pavement in front of my shop or are you going to come in for a coffee?"

She was halfway through making it when the Quicksilver rep turned up. I have to admit I was quite intrigued after the effort she had made this morning to see what kind of man was Katie's definition of 'hot', but then again she had managed to fancy both Freddie and Thomas so I was prepared for that definition to stretch to 'any'. I had to admit I was shocked when the guy actually showed up. I had been expecting some kind of tall muscular surfing hunk, all confident charm and swagger, but the reality was quite different. Not that I'm any kind of expert, but he looked pretty damn average to me, nothing to mark him out from a hundred other blokes you would pass on the street without noticing. Which would have been fine if he'd had some kind of charm, or striking personality, some kind of spark that made you want to be around him. But actually I found him rather slimy, and watching Katie fussing about trying to impress him made me feel quite uneasy. He was a serious downgrade from Freddie, and about a thousand miles away from Effy. His eyes seldom left her tits, and though I know she likes to show them off, even Katie has to get tired off that. He was taking the fucking bait though, promising her that on his next visit he'd make her his last port of call so they could go for a drink together. When he gave her a kiss on the cheek before he left, I had to fight the urge to wipe it clean for her.

"Well, what do you think?" she turned to me excitedly.

I hesitated for a moment, trying to find a non-hurtful way of telling her he was a smarmy wanker, but my face must have given me away as usual.

"What?" said Katie with a hint of aggression.

"Really?" I said incredulously. "Are you that fucking desperate?"

"I'm not desperate," she pouted.

"Then what are you doing dressing up in borrowed clothes, and trying to pretend you're something you're not?" I said. "Why are you laughing at his fucking inane humour and waggling your tits at him to try and prove you're the kind of girl a guy like that would want?"

Katie looked deflated.

"Isn't that what you do?" she said. "Isn't that what everyone does?"

"No," I said. "Can you imagine me trying to pass myself off as some kind of superfit action chick to impress Emily? I'd fall flat on my fucking face."

The image tickled Katie, and made her smile again.

"No way," she said. "You're such a total fucking dork."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I said. "But she still loves me for it."

"She does," admitted Katie. "Even though you're not her 'type'."

"You deserve better, Katie," I said softly. "Really, you do."

"Well that's easy for you to say," said Katie, all her normal feistiness seeming to have deserted her. "You've already got an amazing, strong, passionate, intelligent, beautiful and sexy woman who's absolutely crazy about you just the way you are."

It seemed like a time to point out the obvious.

"So have you," I said.

Katie laughed her most genuine laugh of the day.

"You're not wrong," she smiled. "You know I think she's the only person who's ever really loved me like that. For the real me, with all my faults. Not that she wouldn't go crazy if I waggled my tits at her."

"I'm sure she would," I giggled.

"She totally thinks I'm hot," smirked Katie.

It was easy to see the pride and satisfaction she took from that. It had after all been one of the constants in her life over the past few years, despite the ups and downs of her affairs with her men. At the end of the day, whenever the latest disappointment was grasping at her soul, there was always someone there who thought she was profoundly beautiful. It was something she had come to take for granted, but something that might be even now be being ripped away from her. I remembered how quickly information travelled in this place where everybody knew each other's business, and suddenly was desperate for her not to hear about Cat in some vicious village rumour.

"So why the sudden concerned face?" asked Katie.

I looked up at her in alarm.

"What?" she laughed. "I couldn't read you any easier if you came with coloured diagrams and footnotes."

"There's something I have to tell you," I said. "And I know it's probably not my place to say, but I don't want you to hear it from anybody else."

"Spill it, Campbell," commanded Katie.

Thinking about Effy seemed to have reinvigorated her mood. I hated to be the one to spoil it for her again, but she had been so kind to me when I was upset over Emily I felt I owed her the truth.

"I think Effy might have slept with somebody else," I said.

Katie laughed nervously.

"No," she said. "She wouldn't."

"There was this girl in the pub last night, and she was definitely flirting with Effy," I said. "The pair of them left together, and when me and Ems went over this morning she was there on Effy's boat."

"Is she fit?" said Katie.

"Very," I admitted.

"Who is she?" asked Katie, suddenly very serious.

"An American. Over here on one of those find your British roots kind of deals. They went out to sea with Ems today, looking for some old wreck or something."

"I don't believe it," said Katie, shaking her head. "I mean yeah, she used to pull that kind of shit all the time the first time I rejected her. She even slept with Cook for fuck's sake. But not now. She promised me. She wouldn't break her promise."

"How much rejection can one person take?" I asked her. "You know how upset she gets when she sees you coming on to guys."

"You'll have to find out for me," said Katie decisively.

"Why can't you ask her yourself?" I protested.

"What, and look like a lame-assed saddo?" she said fiercely. "No, you have to do it."

"I don't even know Effy that well."

"Emily will find out, and you'll have to get it out of Emily," insisted Katie.

I felt myself shrivelling into acquiescence under the ferocity of her gaze, until we were interrupted by the arrival of a bunch of customers.

"I'll do my best," I muttered as I made a hasty exit.

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I was pleased upon getting back to the cottage to find Thomas Skyping with Pandora instead of getting any work done. It meant I could rib him about that instead of taking any flak for my own late appearance.

"You know we are going to have to pull ourselves together," he grinned. "These ladies are seriously beginning to distract us."

"Women, eh?" I shrugged, but he was, as usual, right.

It was actually a relief to clear my head of the wanton emotions that surrounded me, and immerse myself into some cold hard data. Science was so much cleaner than love, and a hell of a lot easier to understand. Lost in the tempest that was Emily, I had forgotten how much satisfaction and fulfilment I could get from analysing facts and drawing informed conclusions. Thomas and I worked easily alongside each other for the rest of the day, crunching numbers and comparing notes from JJ's lab reports, and smiling with satisfaction as we watched our model slowly starting to take shape. It was like watching our baby taking its first tentative steps, knowing that soon the little bastard would be running all over the house. I was a proud mother. The project was going to be good, me and Thommo were going to ace our degrees and then the world would be our oyster.

Of course all of this grand scientific ambition exploded into dust the second Emily Fitch showed up that evening. I only just had the forethought to press save before she whirled me round in my computer chair, sat straddling my lap and starting kissing the fucking life out of me. These were not the sweet gentle kisses of the morning. These were dirty hungry kisses that were demanding I give my body to her, and that I bloody well better do it now. Thomas had gone to the kitchen to make us all some tea, but by the time he got back with the steaming mugs, Emily had dragged me up the stairs and thrown me on the bed. I began to wonder if scuba diving always made her this horny, because if it did, I hoped it took them a fucking long time to find Cat's granddaddy's boat.

Emily's hands and lips were all over me as she tugged unceremoniously at our clothing. Even as I wondered what had prompted this urgency, I felt my body responding to her zealous attentions. Her eyes were full of love, but her breathing was already ragged as she paid full attention to every newly exposed piece of flesh. She pushed my t-shirt up and raked her fingers across my stomach, leaning down and sticking her tongue into my belly button. Still straddling me, she pulled me up to sitting and dragged my top over my head, following through by pushing me back down into the bed with hot and glorious kisses that trailed down my neck and collar bone, before finally settling at the curves at the top of my breasts. Waywardly tossing aside pieces of her own attire in between, she then undid the zip of my jeans. I arched my hips up towards her, watching her eyes darken as she caught the scent of my desire before pulling the trousers down my legs and off. She removed my socks and nibbled at the bone of my ankle, as her right hand stroked its way smoothly back up towards my thigh. She started kissing her way back up, stopping to pay some very distracting attention to my knees, but she didn't linger there. Emily was in no mood to tease today. She wanted to make me feel good, but it was clear she had her goal fixed firmly in her sights. She rolled away from me briefly to discard her skirt, leaving us both just in our underwear, and then virtually sprang back up to seek out my mouth with hers, one hand grabbing into my hair whilst her other closed firmly around my breast as she pushed her tongue deep into my mouth.

My whole body shuddered beneath her as my own need and urgency started to match her own. My legs spread open beneath her without any conscious involvement from my brain, and she took full advantage, thrusting her thigh down against my clit and causing me to cry out as the friction carried through my wet knickers.

"You're wet," she said huskily, her hot breath practically burning in my ear.

"Can you blame me?" I said, as she dragged her thigh across my highly sensitised clit once more.

"I fucking love it when you're wet for me," she said, and my hands shot up behind her back, grabbing desperately at the clasp of her bra.

"You want me naked baby?" she grinned wickedly.

I gave her no answer as my entire focus was on ridding her of the offending article, and closing my mouth around the tantalising flesh of her beautiful bare tits.

"Oh fuck," she hissed when I tugged at her nipple with my teeth.

She grabbed my wrists and forced my hands down to my sides and trapped them there. She pushed her tit down towards my face and I kissed and licked and bit at her anyway I could as she deliberately restricted my movement. She adjusted her position till she could grinding rhythmically against me whilst pinning me down and letting me take each breast in turn into my oh so willing mouth.

"Oh God, I want you," I cried as she pulled my feast away from me.

"Trust me, Naomi honey," she growled as she looked down at me. "You are going to get me."

I was wearing an elasticated crop top, and she relinquished her grip on my wrists to pull it roughly over my head. Before I had the chance to reach for her, she was pinning me down again, her mouth closing around my rock hard nipple as she once again adjusted her position to keep her gorgeous molten pressure against me with her thigh. Her tongue began flicking expertly across my nipple making me moan and arch my back towards her, which in turn intensified the movement between my legs. I picked my head back up from where I'd thrown it wantonly back into the pillow, and caught her watching me for my reaction to each of her moves. Emily knew exactly what she was doing, and she knew what it was doing to me. I desperately wanted her inside of me, and I'm guessing she knew that too.

"Darling, something's coming between us," she said. "And I can't allow that to happen."

Quick as a flash she knelt up on the bed and wriggled out of her pants, before gazing greedily down at mine. I lay breathlessly on top of the duvet, letting her look. I wanted her to own me with that look. And I sure as fuck wanted to know what she was going to do next.

She plunged her head down to where the flimsy fabric met my skin, and in one smooth unbroken move she licked her way up across my belly, between my tits, out to my shoulder and up my neck, then pushed her full weight down onto me as she took me into another deliberately invasive kiss. My body reacted with a massive spasm, and I clutched at her back, but soon she was on the move again. She travelled back down my torso covering me with kisses as she went, forcing me to moan and grab twisted handfuls of bedding at her every touch. I was so hot for her she had me dangling at the very edge of control. This time when she reached my knickers, she carried on down, taking them with her and exposing the last of me to her proprietary glare.

"You are the most beautiful thing I've ever fucking seen," she told me as she crawled back up my body. I couldn't help but close my eyes and fling my limbs asunder, waiting for her to take her prize.

My eyes shot open again when I felt her enter me and I heard the colourful batch of profanities coming from her lovely mouth as she pushed into me with short hard thrusts. Control became a thing of the past, and I listened to my own unbridled cries fall ringing round my ears. She felt so fucking good inside me, and my mind drifted back to my own words from this morning. I have nothing to compare this to. This was not like any other sex I had encountered. Nothing else had ever felt this dirty, yet at the same time nothing else had felt this true. It was impossible for me to withhold any part of myself from her, and I couldn't understand how this meeting of flesh had suddenly become so important to me. But I couldn't give a fuck for any reasons right then. I needed her so badly it was beyond my capabilities to question why. I tilted my pelvis and pushed myself up against her, spreading my legs as wide as I could to give her greater leverage and encourage her to up her pace. Emily read me perfectly and started driving into me faster with those same short powerful thrusts, with her other arm wrapped tight around my back, pulling my tits to where she could consume them. She was driving me fucking crazy, and soon the two of us began to move even faster. Both of us were sweating and breathing heavily between releasing groans of delight as I felt myself building up to release. Emily didn't look at me, but her eyes were focussed and I could tell she was putting every thing she had into working my body for maximum pleasure. I could feel the tension in her muscles, and the thought of all that gorgeous strength being harnessed just for me caused great raking spasms to start flowing through my abdomen. She was riding one of my legs as she fucked me, and I realised she was close to orgasm too. I yelled her name and felt a thundering release take over the whole of me. I could hear the sound of her coming with me, and the whole of my perception became nothing more than me and my lover writhing against each other as we screamed out the final throes of our abandon.

I felt like I was coming out of some kind of coma, as I slowly regained my senses what could have been several minutes afterwards. I could still feel Emily inside me, the weight of her spread across me as her head and shoulders lay collapsed across my chest. The next few minutes remained wordless as well, as we breathed through the tremors of our aftershocks. It was beautiful. It was peaceful and fresh, like the morning after a violent storm. It was perfect.

I could have just left it there. I could have not rocked the boat. But I'm a scientist. It's my job to ask questions.

"So what was all that about?" I asked her.

The same question from her had prompted my confession of my jealously and my love just a few short days ago, but it triggered no such response in Emily.

"Can we not talk about it right now?" she said. "Can we just have this moment for a bit?"

"Ok," I said quietly, and we spent another while simply lying together, idly stroking each other and remembering the astonishing pleasure we had just shared.

"So," I said, after what I judged to be an appropriate amount of time. "How was your day?"

It might have seemed a bright and innocent question, the kind of question couples across the land would ask each other when they met again after a day at work, but it was loaded. I had begun to know my Emily now, and I knew that something fundamental had changed in her world today. She didn't answer me, and started trying to kiss me again, but I pushed her away. We had shared too much beautiful communication today for me to accept the 'don't worry your pretty little head about it' approach.

"So is this going to be us then?" I said. "You trying to distract me with sex every time I ask too awkward a question?"

Emily pushed out a long breath. I had her made, and she knew it. She raised her head back up and looked me in the eye.

"I have so much that I want to tell you," she admitted. "But I still need to work some things out for myself. This is not me saying no or pushing you away. And to be honest I can't think of anything worse than losing you, so if you think you need to demand those answers then I wouldn't really have a choice, but…"

"Then it's ok," I soothed her. "I don't need to force you to make that choice. Take whatever time you need. I'll wait for you."

I felt a sudden kinship with Effy in that moment. The Fitch sisters were complicated creatures, and they were both stringing us along for different reasons, but at the end of the day what else could we do but wait? They were worth it a thousand times over.

"Are you sure?" asked Emily, a hint of moisture beginning to gather in her eyes.

"Yes," I said with absolute conviction. "I trust you."

I smiled because for the first time in my life I had dropped my defences completely and let another person in. And it felt good.