In any event 5
A/N- Another quick update as my wife is busy with a dressmaking project and I have been pretty much left to my own devices.
Caroline was dragged out of her research by the sound of hammering on the front door, as she rose to answer it she was careful not to topple any of the pile's of printouts that covered the large desk.
"Kate?" Caroline said, blinking into the strong sunlight as she emerged from her low lit study. She removed her glasses and passed her hand over her eyes. "What's wrong?"
Kate pushed into the house, her face thunderous. "What's wrong? Caroline! I have been ringing you all day! I rang school and Beverly said you called in sick! You! She told me that she has never known you not to come in on a Monday morning, sick or not."
"She's making a fuss." Caroline dismissed with the wave of a hand. "I'm fine, I just wanted to take some time, I didn't have much on today, I am sure they will struggle through without me."
"Right. So why haven't you been answering my calls?" Kate demanded, her hands on her hips.
"I was busy, reading, I left my phone upstairs." Caroline explained. "I am sorry if I worried you, nothings happened has it?"
Caroline felt tiredness suddenly overwhelm her and she slunk back into the chair in the study, Kate following her into the small room.
"Where's Mya?" Caroline asked frowning deeply.
"With my mother. What is all this?" Kate asked, her anger and concern not completely leaving her yet.
"It's some reading, family law stuff." Caroline admitted, folding her arms around herself and squaring her shoulders.
"This is what you have been doing? Reading up on family law?" Kate asked aghast.
"I know you probably think it's not my place, that I shouldn't get involved." Caroline said. "I just wanted to find out exactly what we...what you are going to be dealing with, so that I can give you good advice, if you ask for it." She explained.
Kate nodded in understanding and stepped closer to Caroline's chair, bending to take Caroline's hand.
"Thank you." She said with a small smile. "I am sorry to come barging in... I just thought..."
"What?" Caroline asked, suddenly curious.
"I thought maybe... the stuff with Greg...Mya...maybe we had scared you away." Kate tried to shrug it off.
"What happened to trusting me?" Caroline asked.
Kate sighed and pushed her way onto Caroline's lap in what was the only chair in the room.
"Sorry." Kate offered, kissing first Caroline's head and then as the blonde woman looked up to her, her lips. "I do, I will."
Caroline wrapped her arms loosely around Kate's waist to keep her from slipping off her seat and even more to keep her close.
"So what did you find out with all your research?" Kate asked.
Caroline let her head fall against Kate's chest with a sigh. "That unless we figure out how to build a time machine, we're screwed."
Kate sighed. "It isn't that bad is it?"
"It's as bad as it can be. I take it you didn't make a formal written agreement with Gregg two years ago? Didn't get him to sign anything? Get advise from a solicitor?"
Kate shrugged. "You know I didn't. It was a verbal agreement, between friends." Kate insisted.
"Well, even the written agreement would have been worth very little if we end up in court." Caroline admitted. "If only we had used a clinic and an anonymous donor. Or even if we had been civil partners at the time, things would be different. Why didn't I find out all this back then?" Caroline said hopelessly.
"Because you didn't want to think about it?" Kate said, sounding a little accusatory, feeling defensive and tensing in Caroline's arms. "You had other things going on and I thought we could trust Greg." Kate added more reasonably, she didn't want to fight.
"I do love you Kate but I think it's clear that you're a terrible judge of character, particularly when it comes to men, remember Michael Dobson was your friend and now this jerk." Caroline said irritably.
Kate got up from Caroline's lap and began to pace a small path back and forth in front of her, her temper rising even as she tried to fight it. "Unbelievable." She muttered to herself.
Caroline could see she had said the wrong thing and she tried not to panic as she watched and waited.
"Do you know that was the first time you have ever said that you love me?" Kate said stopping in her tracks and looking directly at a confused Caroline. "And in the same breath you massively insult me." Kate was shaking her head.
Caroline stood. "It can't have been, I've told you before, surely?"
"No." Kate said, looking at her feet and then back into Caroline's bewildered face. "You never did. Not once. There were times when I thought you were about to... But it was always...I'm fond of you...I care about you."
"I told you that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you!" Caroline reminded.
"You did. It was incredible...but you never actually said, because I love you." Kate said, holding back tears, her voice trembling as were the hands that Caroline took in her own.
"I felt it. You knew that. I should have said... I loved you, I do love you, I never stopped loving you." Caroline said definitely, opening her arms just as Kate fell into them.
"I love you." Kate mumbled against Caroline's neck and although Caroline had known that to be the the case, she suddenly realised that hearing the words was something else, something wonderful, something she had needed and she had denied Kate that for so long.
Caroline pulled her head back to look at Kate and was surprised to find, when Kate reached up with her thumb to wipe away a tear, that she was the one crying now. Kate pulled her back in for a tender kiss and then suddenly Kate was pulling at Caroline's top, their lips still pressed together and her own hands fumbling with the waistband of Kate's trousers, untucking her blouse and letting herself in.
Caroline began to walk the pair back towards the wall and as their kiss finally broke apart, she found she was almost panting for air. Her hand reached up to stroke Kate's cheek with the back of her fingers whilst her other hand roamed beneath her shirt, landing upon the material of Kate's bra and squeezing the cup gently.
"God, I love you!" Caroline said as she pinned Kate to the wall, her leg sliding between both of Kate's and her thigh pressing upward against her. "I love you." Caroline whispered, her breath tickling the skin behind Kate's ear and making her feel quite giddy. "I love you Kate and now I don't think I can stop saying it."
"I think I can learn to live with that." Kate told her with a chuckle as their lips met again.
Xxxx
Caroline was sat in Kate's living room as the woman she had spent the afternoon in bed with busied herself in the kitchen with making cups of tea.
"You used to be Kate's boss." Kate's mum said.
"Yes that's right." Caroline said with her most cheerful smile. She sat up straight, her knees and heels pressed together, hands together in her lap, very prim.
"I remember." The older woman remarked, not giving much away.
If she remembered Kate speaking about Caroline, about what had happened between them, about their plans for a future together, she didn't mention it. And Caroline wondered what else she might have known, had she received tearful phonecalls? Had she held her daughter as she cried herself to sleep?
Kate's mother was quiet and turned her attention back to her Granddaughter, who was imitating her Mother by pouring her own cups of tea with her pink plastic tea set.
"Tea!" She called to her Grandmother as she held out an empty cup in her direction.
"Oh thank you Mya." Kate's mum said, raising the drink to her lips and pretending to drain the little cup. "Delicious!"
Mya's face lit up with a smile and she took back the cup and went back to her game.
"Has she been okay mum? I was a little longer than I thought I'd be." Kate said popping her head back into the room and sharing a secret smile with Caroline.
"Of course, and why would she not be with her own Grandmother?" Kate's mum replied.
Mya was heading over to Caroline now, trying to balance a pretty cup on a plastic saucer and concentrating so intently on keeping the cup in place that she didn't see the ragdoll in her path and the next moment was tumbling heavily onto her knees.
Caroline was the first to reach her and she scooped the child up quickly into her arms as Mya screamed loudly. Caroline rubbed soothing circles on Mya's back as the little girl wrapped her chubby little arms around Caroline's neck and sobbed into neck.
"Oh dear! My poor darling!" Caroline cooed as both Kate and her mother watched with similar expressions of concern. "What a big brave girl." Caroline continued, jigging Mya up and down slightly until the child's cries began to lessen.
Caroline returned to her seat now and sat a pink faced Mya on her knee."Good girl." Caroline said as she rubbed her hand over each knee in turn. "All better?"
Mya's bottom lip protruded exaggeratedly and she looked up from beneath her pitifully set brow, then as quickly as the incident had beset her, it was forgotten and she hopped off Caroline's knee.
"Tea!" She called happily to Caroline.
Xxx
A/N- Thank you for reading and for feedback. xx