Hello everybody! This chapter was a bit difficult for me to write today as my good friends are going away to university this weekend and I'm feeling a bit lonely. But I pushed through and finished up this chapter for you since I know most of you are loving the consistent updates! Thanks so much to those of you who continue to read and review this story and add it to your favourites/alerts. It makes me amazingly happy to know that people are reading this and enjoying it :)

And as usual, this is based on a true story but sadly I have nothing to do with Skins and therefore do not own these characters.

Chapter 4: Safe

I was woken up from my pleasant slumber by the sound of Emily's hushed voice. I noticed immediately that she wasn't cuddled up next to me as she had been when we first fell asleep. She was still next to me, but was now sitting up and seemed to have her head buried in her hands.

"Mum, please. It's three in the morning and I'm in fucking France, how am I supposed to know where Katie is?" she mumbled. I would have smiled, she sounded so cute, but I could also hear the pain in her voice. She probably had a massive headache by now and was likely feeling the hangover set in. "Look, mum, I've got to go, I really need to get some sleep. Goodnight."

She hung up and huffed before tossing her cell phone back down onto the bed. She laid back down next to me and turned to face me, smiling as she noticed that I was awake.

"Sorry for waking you," she whispered huskily before kissing me lightly on the lips.

I shrugged. "It's alright. Who's Katie?" I asked, rubbing my eyes in an effort to seem nonchalant when really the question was eating away at me. All I could think was "please don't tell me she's your girlfriend".

"Ahh, Katie's my twin sister. Bit of a party girl, that one. Mum didn't know where she was, as usual, and somehow thought that I would," she said, rolling her eyes. I could sense some kind of hostility or resentment just radiating off Emily, so I tried to comfort her. I took her in my arms and squeezed her, maybe a bit too tightly and kissed her gently.

"We should really get some sleep," I said as she snuggled in closer to my chest. She nodded against me, and we fell back asleep curled up together like that.

We were up exactly one hour later at 4 in the morning so we could be the first people in line for the coaches that were due to pick us up at 6 to take us back to the airport. The plan was to get us on a plane as soon as possible and get us to Heathrow before an even bigger snowstorm hit Paris and potentially closed the airport.

Emily and I rushed around the room, gathering all our things and throwing them in our bags. We knew we both looked like absolute shit, but neither of us seemed to care.

We were in the lobby at 4:15, sitting on our bags and waiting for the coaches. And yes, we were first in line, thank goodness. But the downside of getting up at 4 was that neither of us could see outside as it was pitch black, so we couldn't really be sure of just how bad the weather was out there.

Emily seemed to be acting a bit weird, almost as though she was avoiding me. She wouldn't really look at me and responded a bit shortly whenever I spoke to her. It was worrying me, especially considering what had almost happened last night. I wasn't even really sure if Emily was gay. I couldn't help but worry I had been pushing her too hard last night and that now I'd essentially pushed her away.

After about 45 minutes of sitting in silence, I turned to Emily and stared her down. I continued to stare at her until she finally decided to acknowledge my presence and looked at me with an apprehensive look.

"Ems, what the fuck?" I asked, trying my best not to sound harsh. She flinched slightly and shook her head.

"I'm just...worried," she replied, knotting her fingers in her hair. "I mean, is it even a possibility for us to be together? Are you even gay? Where do you live? What do you do for a living? How old are you? Did I push you too far last night? Did I not push you far enough? Why did it feel so nice to sleep next to you? Why don't I want to go home?"

I was flabbergasted. How could she possibly have been thinking all these things about us...about me? We'd only known each other for less than 24 hours. This was madness, something here should have been sending off alarm bells in my head. But what was even scarier was that I wasn't scared. Emily didn't make me feel uneasy or uncomfortable or anything of the sort.

And that scared the crap out of me.

I could only imagine that she was feeling the same way. So I did everything I could to assure her that I wanted exactly what she wanted. That I wanted to know everything about her, too. That I was worried about what things were going to turn into when we got home.

"Yes, there is a possibility for us to be together. Yes, I am gay. I live in Bristol. I work for a publishing company and I edit articles and textbooks. I'm 24. You didn't push me too far last night, and you didn't not push me far enough. I'm glad we didn't have drunken sex. I want more than that for us. I don't know why it felt so nice to sleep next to me, but I do know that it felt nice to sleep next to you, even though you woke me up at 3 am. I don't want to go home either because I'm scared of what's going to happen once we get back to reality. I'm already scared that things won't work out and nothing has even started yet."

I sat there for a few moments after, just staring at Emily. Taking in all the emotions that were written all over her face.

And then I leaned in and I kissed her, trying desperately to convey all my confusion and all my want and need and lust, just hoping that she would finally get it.

The coaches pulled up a moment later. Emily and I walked outside together, holding hands and pulling our bags behind us through all the snow that had accumulated overnight. We didn't say anything to each other, but I knew that the silence was what we needed right now. I needed a moment to process things and I was sure Emily did too. Frankly, I was scared shitless. I'd never done anything like that before. Let anyone in like that before, especially so soon after meeting them. But Emily made me feel like I was alright. Like whoever I was would be accepted unconditionally, and that every emotion I felt was perfectly fine and justified, as long as I talked to her about it and reciprocated. She just made me feel safe, and I could only hope and strive to do the same for her.

Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought in a review :)