People should know I love writing the Lorraine/Sonya scenes. I was a big Sophie/Rosie (Coronation Street) fan so also being a sister myself, I love the sisterly love. *.* Anyone else love to hate or hate to love Barry Barry? He's grown on me the past episodes with protecting Dynasty. I just wish he'd do the same for Kacey/Robby. That's why I made he so witty in this.

Chapter 8 up quicker than expected. I loved writing this chapter.

Lorraine was grateful to have woken up this morning and learn it was a Friday. That meant the weekend which, normally for the benefactor, meant more work, more investing, more money spent out but, for the first time, she wanted those two days to purely relax. Have Waterloo Road be put to the back of her mind and lounge in her swimming pool. Maybe Nikki will join her.

The past week had been a strain on their relationship. They still saw and spoke to each other every day outside of school but Lorraine hadn't been coming into the PRU at lunch this week, she was too scared to leave her office because of Michael. Which she found ridiculous, letting herself have Michael winning like this. It wasn't her; she had always fought for herself. The first time she had text Nikki saying she was sorry but after that day, as they lay together on Lorraine's couch, she had explained her worries and why she wouldn't be coming to see her and Nikki accepted it with a light kiss and they fell asleep together. That was also the last time they stayed the night together.

After driving home—mostly Lorraine's place—together, they would eat, talk, maybe watch a film together or take it upstairs then Nikki would leave before ten so Lorraine could get some sleep as she stressed about Michael. Lorraine would then pick Nikki up in the morning and they got into the school before he and Christine did and went their separate ways.

Lorraine picked her bag down beside her leather chair and threw her phone on the desk after she locked it. She took deep breath in as she saw Michael and Christine heading towards her, well, their office.

"I heard about what your accountant said," Michael stated straight off the back of his hand once he had entered and said goodbye to Christine. She could tell he deliberately kissed Christine in front of her. Lorraine rolled her eyes. "He wants you to close down the school?"

"Where did you hear about that?" she crooked her eyebrow.

"It doesn't matter where I heard it from," he shrugged. "Care to explain."

"Not really."

He opened his mouth, his tongue in his cheek, he nodded. "I think you should. Is this why you're putting your own money into Waterloo Road?"

"I'm doing it 'cause I care about this school," she argued back, moving over to her desk. She sat down in her chair and picked her phone up. Not that she needed to. She unlocked it then locked it again when she saw she had no new messages or e-mails.

Lorraine started at the black screen of her phone. There was silence in the room. She looked up at her old Head teacher quickly, biting her tongue. He was leaned against his desk, his knuckles white at the grip he had on it.

"A newspaper done by pupils, really?" he said quietly.

"It's a good idea. It will help them if they want to go to university or get into business," Lorraine mumbled.

"That's not what everything is about," Michael groaned. He pushed himself off the desk quickly, it caused Lorraine to sit up and put her phone down. "Why didn't you tell me we're on thin ice? We install new cameras, make new classes and now you chose to tell me we're broke?!" he said loudly.

"I didn't tell you, you found out." Lorraine kept her voice low. She saw Sonya turnaround from her desk outside at Michael's outburst. The younger sibling shot her sister a sincere look before turning back to her job when she saw the stern look on Lorraine's face.

"Clearly not the business woman you thought you were," Michael mumbled. "You could have invested in something smarter. You're choices this term haven't been the smartest have they?"

"What exactly."

"You're sudden cuts, hiring new staff behind my back," he stated, counting them on his fingers. "And obviously coming back here at the start of term and making Nikki deputy. No meetings whatsoever—"

Lorraine shook her head. "We're back to that again."

"I could sack you, get someone better, you know."

"You can't do that, I made this school."

"I could. I'll talk to a few people. Tell them what you've done, what you're doing," he smirked. She knew full well he was taking this on a personal level. "I can get people on my side."

"And again I tell you, Christine." Lorraine pin pointed. "Saying I'm involved with a staff member means nothing because I can tell them exactly what you're doing. Regardless of gender."

"You're losing me money!"

"And you're losing me time and energy."

Lorraine kept her head down as she walked through the corridors. She could feel the eyes of the pupils on her, she groaned to herself. Lorraine didn't like all the attention on her.

She didn't know where she was walking to; she let her feet lead her. If anything, she was probably going to go sit in her Ferrari until the bell rung then she'd ring Sonya to see if she could sort something out with Michael that way Lorraine could sit in her office alone. She slowly, but surely, regretted making their offices one. Every time he walked in, she walked out and vice versa.

"Hey," she heard being said to her quietly but she chose to ignore it and continued walking.

"Are you okay?" she heard again. Clearly the voice was going to follow her to her car.

Lorraine breathed out deeply and opened her mouth to speak but instead, she continued walking.

"Hey," finally the voice spoke louder, gripping softly onto the blonde's shoulder to stop her from making another move. The two of them were at the school doors by this point. A few more steps and Lorraine would be walking down the steps and heading to her car, the place she wanted to be. "Are you okay?"

"Um, yeah, just had a few words with Michael," she looked up at Nikki and smiled at her. "I'm fine, promise."

"You want to talk about it?" Nikki followed the movements of Lorraine's worried eyes; she looked around at her surroundings quickly and brushed her hands down Lorraine's arms in an attempt to sooth her.

"Meet me in your classroom after school?" Lorraine whispered. "I have to go to the opening of the school newspaper firstly but it won't take long."

Nikki removed her hands and put them in her own trouser pockets. "You don't want me to go to the opening?"

Lorraine shook her head. "No, it doesn't involve you—well it's your pupils—but what I mean is it's my money, my new teacher. It's going to be just me, her and the pupils involved," she smiled slightly at the brunette.

"Okay then, I'll meet you around four then?"

"Yeah, the class is between four and five so I could be earlier," Lorraine breathed out. "I have to meet a lot of parents tonight."

Nikki laughed lightly. "You'll do great."

Both Nikki and Lorraine took their eyes off each other when they heard the bell rang for the first time, telling the pupils to go to their form rooms.

"That's my cue to leave," Nikki excused herself.

Lorraine nodded and watched Nikki walk away before stepping out the school doors. She had ten minutes to arrange something with Sonya.

"So it went okay then?"

"Yeah, parents were telling me how some of their kids wanted to study journalism at college but part of me thinks that they're just kissing up to me," Lorraine huffed. "No offense to you, but these are mostly the PRU kids, you had to give them a boot up the backside to motivate them."

"You never know," Nikki shrugged her shoulders. "You never know, some of them may really like it. Rhiannon seems up to it."

"Maybe."

It had gone well in fact. Michael was there but she had managed to avoid him at all costs. She had made a speech on how this would be affective to all pupils taking part in the future. She spoke about it being at the pupils' interests to begin a school newspaper and that it was from her pocket and it should not have any effect on their classroom learning. She introduced the new teacher who was qualified in the area of media, Mrs Brooks, and then Michael Byrne went to practically repeat Lorraine's words which she didn't see the point of but the Head teacher has to get in a word in.

She was just mainly focusing on the costing side of things. It was out of her pocket so if it wasn't a success it was all on her, no doubt leading to more arguments with Michael. But she also saw the up side, creating a school newspaper made by the pupils; other schools could want to buy it off her.

Lorraine had told Nikki about what Michael had said to her earlier in the day and Nikki, as always, told her not to worry. It was her money, she could do with it what she wanted, Nikki had told Lorraine. It never failed to amaze Lorraine how a few simple words from that woman could make all her troubles go away. Another reason she was grateful she had overcome her nevres about a relationship and spent her, now girlfriend, that Facebook message.

"So who's a part of the Waterloo Mail?" Nikki laughed, not really knowing the name of the project.

"Um," Lorraine tapped her chin. "Rihannon, of course, Kacey, Jack, Lula, Harley and a few others who names I don't know." She bit her bottom lip slightly. "Oh, and Barry Barry. He and a few others I have asked to be kept a close eye on."

"Better to be safe than sorry," Nikki nodded. "Or though I can't see what he could possibly do wrong?"

"He's in charge of the 'gossip column,'" Lorraine rolled her eyes. "This basically means, if he sees something he's going to write about it." She could see Nikki couldn't quite understand what the blonde was saying. "For example: if he catching two pupils flirting, he's going to call them out on it. I can't even believe he's being allowed to do it but he and the other members think it could be funny and it's what the pupil wants in this newspaper goes."

"It'll be fine, a chuckle for the teachers as well."

"Maybe."

Lorraine was stood in front of Nikki who was leaned against the edge of the desk, Nikki laughed at the floor. The thought of the 'gossip column' amused her. She knew Barry's writing styles when she had her PRU practice writing personal statements. Her hair fell in her face. Looking back up at Lorraine, she smiled and pushed the strands back behind her ears as quickly as she could.

"Why do you do that?" Lorraine questioned. She ran her index finger from Nikki's jawline up to her ear and pulled the forward so it sat on her face, slightly, again. "It looks better forward," she whispered then ran her hand back down the brunette's face, cupping her cheeks, she kissed Nikki softly.

Nikki smiled against Lorraine's lips. She wasted no time in deepening it, standing up from the desk. She placed her hands on the benefactor's hips to help her balance then she wrapped her arms around the blonde's waist, their lips moving in perfect sync.

In that moment, they forgot about the world.