Rita stretched as the film credits began and the clock in the hallway whirred and begun to chime 10:00.

She arched her back from the cushions and raised her arms high above her head, yawning loudly before slumping back against the sofa, allowing her arm to brush up against Connie as she shifted back into position.

"Tired?"

Connie asked, feeling the beginnings of a yawn of her own in her jaw and she held the back of her hand over her mouth to cover it.

"I just cant seem to keep up with these two!"

Rita grinned, nudging Grace, who sat on the floor in front of her, with her toes so that she tilted her head all the way back to look at her upside down.

"Tired yet?"

She asked, and Grace shook her head so that the very tips of her hair brushed against the floor.

"Nope."

She said, her voice strained from leaning back, and beside her Florence rubbed her eyes and flopped to one side against the pillows that they had arranged about them.

"We could stay down here and watch TV if you're tired, Mummy?"

Grace twisted herself around so that she could face them properly, catching her mother yawning again.

"Grace..."

Connie murmured with a sigh.

"We'll be really good, I promise...we'll just watch DVDs until we fall asleep!"

She pleaded, widening her pretty brown eyes in what Rita already knew was a failed attempt at getting around her mother.

Connie adjusted herself on the sofa so that she could sit up straight and ran her fingers across her forehead, but before she could begin on her list of reasons why she didn't want them to sleep in the sitting room, Rita clapped her hands onto her knees and leant forward.

"I know! Why don't you bring your bedding down here and you can make one big bed on the floor? And while you're doing that, your mum and I will get some bits together so that you can have a midnight feast. How does that sound?"

She asked, laughing at the stunned expression on Grace's face, and Florence scrambled up to sit next to her, both girls glancing nervously to Connie, just waiting for her to say 'no'.

But instead Connie gave a sideways glance to Rita, and with the wave of one hand she let herself fall back against the sofa again without a word, defeated, and Grace let out a squeal of excitement, bobbing about on her knees for a moment before standing up and ushering Florence from the room to collect the bedding.

Connie listened to the pound of their footsteps as they rushed up to Grace's room, and overhead they could hear the scrape and clatter of things being pushed from Grace's bed, and muffled laughter as the children gathered things to bring down.

She breathed out a sigh and turned to face Rita, just looking at her for a moment, a small frown between her eyebrows.

"I'm sorry, was that awful of me?"

Rita asked after a moments pause, unable to read Connie's expression, but worried she might have overstepped the mark.

The flicker of a smile curled at Connie's lips and she gave the slightest shake of her head.

"No, not at all..."

She glanced down to where she held her hands in her lap, folded neatly against the fabric of her trousers. She thought how old they looked, curled there, every line and wrinkle highlighted by the dimness of the light, their shadows long and dark. She'd been noticing more and more lately how her body seemed to be changing in ways that she didn't notice until they were there, and then they would shock her with their presence the way she had been shocked to find her first grey hair at the age of 27.

The way her skin seemed thinner, for instance, how it creased about her eyes and stayed in lines about her mouth. This was what happened then, as one grew older, she thought, you were constantly surprised by your own bodies ability to just wear out – the colour fading, the elasticity giving... and she frowned to think that tomorrow she would be one more year older.

She flexed out her hand across her thigh, watching the lines lessen only slightly, and she watched as Rita's own hand slipped to cover hers, her fingers curling about her own, her thumb rubbing gently at her palm.

"I should have said yes, to Grace..."

She sighed, and tilted her head to look back at Rita. How perfect she looked in the light, how prettily her eyes shone and the skin that curved about her jaw was so taught and flushed that she couldn't help but imagine kissing it.

"I don't know why I didn't."

She added.

Rita squeezed her hand and inhaled, slipping her legs out from underneath her and touching her feet to the floor.

"Well, you can make up for it now by making them a midnight feast they'll never forget..."

She said, standing up as she spoke, and she tugged Connie up to her feet by the hand, smiling as she groaned.

"And then once they're in bed, I'm going to take you upstairs and give you a proper massage...get rid of all that tension of yours..."

She added, catching the glitter of a smile behind Connie's eyes as they moved into the kitchen.

-1-

Hello everyone! Hope you all enjoyed the update, quick question – I want to know whether you'd like to see Rita give Connie a romantic, but fluffy massage, or a romantic, fluffy AND M-rated massage? :) xxx