A/N Sorry for the delay in updates I really don't have any excuse so I'm not going to make any and just say sorry instead. Thank you so much for all the lovely reviews and also the readers that subscribed – it's really appreciated and would also be great if you could review because I enjoy getting feedback to know what I'm doing right and also how to make it better. Like it says in the story description, I Need You Now involves characters from all series' – last chapter just saw the third generation but in this chapter there's a little bit of the first aswell and there will be more of previous series' to come – there's not a Skins story that involves all Skins generations so far and I thinks that's a shame so I wanted to make one. So please note that although it's all AU, Gen 3 characters storylines continue in this fic after episode 6x05 (Mini's ep). Although some things from episodes after that I may keep the same or make references to, most of it will be different. However any characters from Gen 1 or 2's storylines will continue after whichever generation they were in ended, and however many years it's been since then. Eg. Since Effy was in both gen 1 & 2 her storyline(s) will continue on the same timescale as the rest of the second generation – nearly two years after the end of series 4. I'm sorry this was a long explanation and most of you probably didn't really need it just yet but I thought I'd clear everything up now to save any confusion now or later. If there are any changes in timelines or anything I'll let you know. Thanks again for reading and especially if you've reviewed. I'll let you get on with the story now :L
Rich Hardbeck awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of his phone booming out heavy metal music. He turned over slowly, groaning slightly, and dismissed the alarm. He hadn't realized it was this time already – he wasn't sure he even remembered getting into bed. He must have done however because he was lying in his boxers with his duvet surrounding him. He'd probably just done it on auto-pilot. Most things he did seemed to be on auto-pilot recently, and he rarely had much recollection of doing them. He briefly glanced at his phone's home screen, displaying that the time was 2AM. Yeah, it was time.
He turned over in bed so that he was facing the window – the same place she always seemed to appear from. He blinked profusely, trying to make his vision more blurred – the drowsier he was the more he was able to create images from his imagination – to convince himself that his beautiful girlfriend, the love of his life, really was standing at the edge of his bed. This was why every night since he'd discovered the news of Grace's death, he'd set his alarm for the early hours of the morning – right when he was usually just delving into deep sleep. Whenever he woke up in this state the chances of fooling himself that she was really there were at their highest. Sometimes he could even force himself to believe she was talking to him. It wasn't hard to fabricate what sort of things she'd say – he'd known her inside out. He knew her inside out. He hated thinking about her in past tense.
Sure enough after a few seconds Grace seemed to appear by the window, only a few feet away from where he lay in bed. He was desperate to reach out and touch her but knew better than this. He'd touch thin air, his vision would disappear, and he'd return to sleep only to dream nightmares about the realization that she was really gone forever. And there was something about her tonight – something that scared him. She was looking more distant than usual – vaguer, less three dimensional. She looked like what she was – simply a figure of his imagination as supposed to a real person.
"Grace?" He called out quietly, his voice slightly husky as he'd only just woken.
"Hello Richard", Grace smiled, sitting down on the corner of his bed. Her tone was polite, as if speaking to a parent or priest rather than her boyfriend. Not that Grace had ever really spoken to priests – she'd made conversation with them in the past when her father had dragged her along to church but since meeting Rich her faith in her religion had decreased greatly as she began to understand his views on the world. "Missed me?" She asked, her voice now more laid back as she `grinned. This was the Grace Rich had gotten to know – the Grace Rich had fallen in love with. She'd always had a more fun, daring side to her but under her strict parental supervision she'd been forced to keep it under control. Dating Rich had been what it had taken to tear down her barriers.
"Of course I've fucking missed you", Rich grinned back. "Come here".
It was at this point that, if she were really there, Rich would pull her closer – kiss her, tell her how much he loved her and … well, see what it led to. Only he couldn't. Not now, not ever.
"I don't think that's a good idea Rich", Grace smiled sadly. "I think I have to go now".
"What – already?" Rich replied, panicked. Grace nodded.
"This isn't healthy Richard", she continued. "You need to let go. You need to let me go".
She got up and made her way back to the window.
"I love you Rich", she told him firmly. Rich didn't like the way she was using his name in everything she said – it meant everything she was saying she was serious about and he didn't fucking want her to be. He wanted her to change her mind and go back to sitting on his bed. Even better he wanted her to have fought harder in hospital – to have made it through. To have come back to him. He suddenly felt all his frustration at the entire situation boil up – his emotions were raring, his blood flowing fast and he felt as if he were about to explode.
"What the fuck Grace?" He exclaimed, noticing that he was yelling but not giving a damn. "Why the fuck are you leaving? Why the fuck didn't you fight harder in hospital? I was there to visit you, every single day! It didn't matter what your dick of a Dad did or said, or what it took to get past the security – I was there for you the whole time! I climbed through a fucking air vent! I was missing you so much that I listened to fucking Beyoncé to remind me of you! Fucking Beyoncé! But you don't give a shit about me do you? Because if you did you wouldn't be stood there right now – you'd be alive and lying next to me". He looked at the empty space next to him in the bed, tears welling up in his eyes and his voice trembling a little. "But you're not are you? Because you don't fucking care".
It was only then, as he turned back to face her, that he realized that she'd gone. It dawned on him the reason for tonight's hallucination – Grace had been trying her best to say her goodbyes. She'd wanted to end it on a high note – letting him know how much she cared. And what had his final words to her been? To yell at her about pointless things, to take out all of his anger at the world on her. At a time when all he needed to say was how much he cared all he'd done was throw accusations in her way. He reached for his phone and threw it at the wall angrily, the battery falling out as it hit the wall. He didn't care. Sinking back into his bed he hit the mattress loudly – so hard that his best mate Alo who was in the bedroom next door, heard and thought he was getting lucky.
Rich knew that Grace hadn't really been there – that she hadn't really been with him since Morocco, and that just now hadn't really been their parting words to each other. They'd happened long before then. However he knew exactly what Grace would say if she were here, exactly how she'd act. That was how his imagination had managed to accomplish creations so realistic. He knew that everything Grace had said just now would have been exactly what she'd say if there really were any way of her getting back to him. And that thought made it seem just as real as if he really had said it to her face.
Alo woke to the sound of a cockerel screeching outside. Usually this sound wouldn't have woken him but he'd only been sleeping lightly all night, thoughts whizzing through his mind the whole time. He'd had a lot to contemplate that night – he did almost every night recently. There was of course the unquestionable greatness of Megan Fox's body to think about, along with deeper thoughts of his dead friend, his grieving best mate who was staying at his farm in the room next door, reasons why Chuck Norris was perhaps America's answer to Jesus Christ, and why the hell Mini seemed to be blocking him out of her life. And people said Alo Creevy couldn't be deep.
There was also the question of who the fuck stayed over in Rich's room the night before – he hadn't noticed him bringing a girl home yet he'd heard a lot of banging during the night. No irony intended. He smiled to himself at his own joke before casting his mind back to the evening previous, scanning his brain for any memory of a girl. Alo liked to know everything about his friends' sexual conquests – Mini had told him it was because he had a barely-existent sex life of his own but he liked to think it was simply because he was nosy. Although having said that he had only gotten laid once since Mini McGuiness. Then again the first girl you have sex with after coming out of a relationship turning out to be only just turning fourteen does have the tendency to put you off going on the pull again for a while. Suddenly a memory flashed through Alo's mind – Rich had returned back to the farm last night in a drunken stupor, practically carried the whole way by the newest addition to the group Alex. No-one else had been there. Alo screwed up his face in confusion before the obvious, horrifying solution came to him. He decided not to approach the subject unless it was brought up by some-one else - perhaps Rich himself. He was having enough of a crisis already with missing Mini – the last thing he needed was his supposedly grieving mate coming out as gay. Alo made his way down the stairs to the kitchen where he slumped down at one of the chairs and switched the TV on to BabeStation, wondering briefly what Alex would want for breakfast. He considered making both he and Rich toast with the jam spread out to make the pattern of a rainbow to show acceptance but deciding that it may be slightly overboard and anyway was far too much effort, decided to just have a wank instead.
Sid Jenkins pulled the edges of his grey beanie hat down over his ears as he made his way through the streets of New York. All around him everything was chaotic – people shouting, selling, stealing, swearing, singing, spilling coffee – it was like Round-View meets Glee but on a much larger scale. All these people, all these different lives, all these things to watch – it had fascinated Cassie. It had been one of the main reasons she'd loved it here so much. One of the main reasons that Sid was determined that this must be the place she'd returned to. New York was his last hope of finding her again – if he couldn't find her this time that was it – he was done. It was just an annoyance that New York had to be so fucking huge.
The last time he'd travelled half-way across the world to find her here had been both successful and eventful. Successful in that after three months of googling her and trawling the streets with a photograph of her and unknowingly passing the place in which she worked on several occasions, he'd finally found he when she'd served him coffee at a completely unreasonable price. Eventful in that when his best mate Tony Stonem had surprised him with the plane ticket at last minute, Sid hadn't really thought through the financial side of it and once there had realized he was completely out of money and had had to get a job working as a Christmas elf in a department store. Luckily for him the guy who dressed as Santa also happened to be a brilliant drugs supplier so he'd at least had a little something to keep him going during the long hours of wearing green tights and singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And it had been a funny story to tell Cassie when he'd finally reconciled with her – even if she didn't fully understand why he hadn't exactly been thrilled with the job.
They'd stayed out in New York for three weeks – Cassie had been lent an apartment by some guy she'd met called Adam who Sid couldn't help feeling slightly jealous about, and with her waitressing job they had enough money to enjoy the place together as tourists before returning home to Bristol. There Cassie had moved into Sid's place, which his Mum had been surprisingly okay with, and Sid managed to get a job selling computer games while Cassie flitted from job to job as her moods changed. They hadn't had much cash and what little they did earn they usually wasted on getting exactly that, but they'd been happy. Which was why it had come as such a shock when Sid had woken up one morning to a note simply saying "I'm sorry Sid" and a phone call from a frantic Michelle telling him that Cassie had turned up at her place the night before in a state before disappearing into the night. If it hadn't been for the panic in Michelle's voice Sid may well have just tried his best to forget about Cassie and finally move on – after all it wasn't exactly like she hadn't already done it twice before – but something about his friend's phone call made him realize that whatever crazy shit was going on in Cassie's head he needed to be there for her. And he was doing his damn best but it wasn't fucking easy trying to find somebody in one of the world's biggest cities – possibly the biggest, he didn't know – he'd failed Geography – and even if the seasons had been right he wasn't getting another job involving tights.
Sid sighed as he stopped walking and tried to figure out where he was actually going. He'd tried most shops and resteraunts and all of them had told him there was no Cassandra Ainsworth working in them. The only places he knew of in New York were from the odd episode of Gossip Girl that Michelle had forced him to watch over the years and he highly doubted that Cassie would be living in Tiffany's. He suspected she wouldn't be allowed through the doors.
It was now the end of his first week here and he barely had enough money for the plane ticket home – his Mum was broke and Tony had told him in no uncertain terms that there was no way in hell he'd pay for Sid to travel back – that it was his own fault if he ran out of money for travelling across the world once again after "that ditzy mental case Cassie". He figured his other mates would help out but he hadn't spoken to most of them in a while – they all had their own lives now – and anyway he doubted they'd be able to sum up enough money. And even if they could, how would they get it to him from England? If that was even where they still all lived.
There was no other solution – if he stayed a day longer he'd have no money for the ticket home. He'd have to buy one and go, and he'd have to do it today. It wasn't as if he'd given up on Cassie – he'd fought for her and tried his best but maybe now it really was time to just let go.
Then he noticed her – running through the throng of people, looking in a desperate rush to be somewhere. Her long blonde hair flew back as she ran and some strands flew into other's faces but she didn't seem to care. Sid was still grasping the fact that she was really there, only a few yards from him, when he saw what she had been rushing towards. Or should he say who. The love of Sid's life let out a squeal as she flew herself into the arms of an older and annoyingly good looking man, who in return twirled her around in the air before planting a kiss on her cheek. Sid turned away, a sinking, twisting feeling in his stomach as his heart shattered all over again. It was at this point that Sid realized something he should have realized a long time ago – a small Jack Russell was pissing on his shoe.
Franky's car groaned nosily as she parked in the yard of Creevy Farm. The engine had been close to dying the whole journey but Mini had refused to let her stop off and get more fuel.
"Look – if you stop this car I swear to God I'll change my mind and get out of it. Don't give me that option", she'd told her.
Now that they'd finally arrived however, Franky could see in her friend's face that she wished she had gotten out of the car.
"We don't have to go in if you don't want to", Franky reassured her.
"Well we don't exactly have much choice do we", Mini retorted. "I either stay in this shit hole where everything smells like dirty laundry and spunk, or go into the other shit hole where I'm likely to step on cow crap and be interrogated by a ginger. Neither is exactly a great prospect".
"It's my Dad's car", Franky apologized. "It was the best I could get on short notice".
"Which Dad?" Mini quizzed. "From the smell of it I'm guessing the fatter one, am I right?" She shook her head. "Whatever – I just need to get out of here before I puke".
Mini climbed out of the car to see Alo walking towards her, surprise and happiness on his face. She had no idea what exactly she was planning on telling him or how the hell she was going to word it but at that moment the sight of him was enough. She threw herself into his arms as they held each other in a tight embrace. It was cosy and comfortable and she felt safe and at home but she couldn't put off her pregnancy forever. She had to tell him and she had to tell him now.
"I've got something to tell you", she told him as she pulled away from the hug, her voice shaky.
"Me too", he said, and then lowered his voice to a whisper as he noticed Franky. "You'll never guess what I've just found out about Rich".