Aloha boys and girls! I'm back with a story that for whatever reason won't show up on the main GSH page, but if you're reading this then...great, at least someone is! So this is the first installment of this story, as explained before it jumps around a lot but this takes place about a month into Pete and Allie's relationship. As requested by the lovely Hollister (hope you had an awesome birthday btw!) there's a pretty big Bovver chapter coming up after this which I'm pretty dran proud of/nervous about. Anyway, you know how I work by now: reviews OCD another chapter by the weekend!

Enjoy!

Pete sat staring at the huge pile of marking on his desk; the school bell had signalled the end of the day at 3.30 and despite having just gone 7 which meant he'd been working for a total of 3 ½ hours, he swore the pile was actually getting bigger. Whoever decided it was a smart idea to give exam papers to ten year olds was a total wanker. Dropping his head into his hands, Pete groaned, knowing he was going to be sat here until tomorrow morning. Not that he had anything else to do; Allie had been in Paris for some fashion conference for the last two days and wasn't back till Wednesday, so between no girlfriend, no football, very little food in his house and not getting the pay rise he'd been hoping for, Pete Dunham was royally pissed off.

The classroom door opened and he didn't bother lifting his head, knowing that it was Benjamin, the only other teacher here who actually knew how to have a laugh; which despite the fact that the boys in their respective classes got good grades and the fact that the kids and parents always ranted and raved about them at parents night, meant none of the other teachers on staff could stand them.

"Mate, I need to get out of here, what'd you say we order some food and go outside for a bit?" Pete asked him tiredly, pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"You read my mind," Allie's voice startled him and he looked up at her where she was standing, leaning against the door frame grinning at him as she held up a large brown bag.

"What're you doing here?" Pete laughed, pushing himself away from his desk and grinning at her broadly. He'd never admit it, but he had missed her a lot more than he should have the past 48 hours. When did she go from being the stupidly fit bird on the train to the woman he couldn't live without seeing for more than a day?

"I got bored in Paris," she shrugged, chucking her handbag down onto one of the desks. "And Lara has it covered, so I thought I'd come back home." She winked at him. "I figured I had better things to do here,"

Not even bothering to answer her, Pete picked her up and crashed his mouth down onto hers, placing her on one of the desks and moving to stand in between her legs, brushing her hair off of her face and smiling smugly against her mouth as she moaned and tightened her legs around him.

"Hmmm," she sighed as his lips left hers and trailed down her neck. "God, I missed you so much,"

Pete felt his chest tighten slightly at her words, relieved that it wasn't just him who had been pining the last few days. Burying his face in her neck, he inhaled the smell of her hair and closed his eyes as she started brushing her fingers up and down his spine.

"Come on," she whispered, kissing his ear lobe and pushing him back slightly so that she could hop off of the desk. "I bought food and its going to get cold if we don't eat it soon,"

Eyeing the brown bag eagerly, Pete followed her out into the hallway and frowned when she stopped suddenly.

"Where's Ben?" she asked, looking around the empty hallway. "I got some extra stuff in case he wanted anything,"

"Ben!" Pete shouted and the small Scottish man popped his head into the hallway.

"Oi, oi," he smiled at Allie. "There's my girl! Thank God you're here, he's been walking around with a face like a smacked arse for the past 2 days,"

"Oi, fuck off," Pete shouted back at him. "Do you want some food or not?"

"Nah, mate," he waved them off. "Go have fun, I'm pissing off home now, tomorrow's lesson plan can go fuck itself for all I care. I'm just going to wing it."

"Night," Allie laughed, waving him off and following Pete down the hall towards the doors that led to the playground.

Allie smiled as he walked them over to the same bench where they had sat over a month ago, back when they were so nervous around each other, when they'd first kissed.

"So," she grinned down at him as he flopped down on the bench. "I got you crispy duck, seaweed, prawn crackers, special friend rice and chicken noodles,"

"Oh fucking hell, you legend!" Pete laughed, leaning forward and grabbed one of the silver trays that had spring rolls inside. Pulling Allie down so that she was sat next to him, he laughed when she handed him a beer.

"Shit, you think of everything don't you?" he leant down and kissed the side of her head, watching as she took out one for herself and took a long sip, kicking off her high heeled shoes and wiggling her toes.

"So come on," he nudged her with his knee. "What was France like?"

"You really want to know?" she licked some plum sauce off of her finger and smiled at him. "Ok, Dunham, it's your funeral…"

It was an hour later when they were both slumped on the bench, looking up at the blackened night sky, the only light around them coming from the building behind them.

"I can't move," Allie mumbled, not even having the strength to lift her head up from Pete's chest to look him in the eye. "That third bowl of special fried rice was a mistake," hearing him laugh lightly, she began running her fingers over his arm and smiled. "How's the speech going?"

Pete shook his head and laughed; he hadn't really thought about the fact that he'd have to make a speech at Steve's wedding next month and it was starting to sink in. And the fact that every time he saw his brother, Steve made it a point to remind him that it needed to be good.

"He's my big brother," Pete snorted. "You think it'd be easy wouldn't you?"

"Not really," Allie laughed. "If I had to make a speech about Rich or Harry, I'd be screwed."

"Am I ever gonna get to meet them?" Pete frowned. "Or your Dad?"

"As soon as their all back in the country, I'll let you know," Allie snorted. "Harry's still in Australia with his latest lady friend, Dad's still playing the martyr in Mexico and Rich is just a plain old boring bastard, you don't want to meet him,"

She stood up and stretched, letting her white sweater ride up high enough to expose her flat, tempting looking stomach to Pete's eyes and suddenly, he wasn't feeling so tired anymore. Despite being together for just over a month, he and Allie hadn't let the physical side of their relationship get much further than fooling around. He wasn't sure why, because it wasn't as though he didn't want to, looking up at her as she smiled down at him, her lightly tanned stomach still peeking out from beneath the sweater, he realised that that really wasn't the case; but he was scared of going there with her, afraid that if he let her in more than he already had that he'd be a complete fucking goner and being the leader of a firm, he couldn't afford that.

"Hey, Mr. Dunham," Allie grinned, tilting her head to one side and grabbing one a stray football that was lying by the side next to them. "Fancy a game?"

"Against you?" Pete laughed and shook his head as she gaped at him in outrage.

"Yes, against me!" she laughed, playfully kicking him. "What? Are you scared you might get beaten by a girl?"

Standing up so that he was towering above her, Pete took the ball out of her hands and spun it on one finger, smiling at her smugly.

"What are the actual chances of that?" he asked her, dropping the football down and catching it on his foot, balancing it for a few seconds.

"Slim to none," Allie shook her head and grinned. "But I'm willing to take a chance,"

Throwing off her scarf, she ran barefoot onto the field next to the playground and turned to face him, walking backwards on the slightly damp grass, wrinkling her nose when she felt it squelching under her feet.

"Come on," she shouted heading towards the goal post and jumping up and down, trying to warm herself up.

Shaking his head, Pete jogged onto the pitch; the girl was a fucking lunatic…but that just made him love her all the more. Kicking the ball as he went, he lightly tapped it and it rolled past her into the goal.

"Oh, this is going to be fun," he grinned at her, undoing his tie and tossing it to the side.

"I let that one through," Allie told him indignantly.

"My mistake," Pete laughed. "So what, are we just taking penalties or are you actually going to grow a pair and play me?"

Laughing and raising her eyebrows, Allie rolled up the sleeves of her sweater and shifted from foot to foot, eyeing him seriously.

"Oh, bring it on, bitch," she told him, reaching down and scooping up the ball. "I get to shoot first,"

"Fine," Pete held up his hands and they switched places; grinning at Allie as she placed the ball carefully in front of her and then bit her lip, determining where she should aim, Pete rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

Taking a few steps back, Allie took a run up and kicked the ball as hard as she could, wincing when it veered off completely to the left and hit a tree.

"That was a practice," she shouted as Pete doubled over in a fit of laughter before strolling over to retrieve it.

"You're kicking with the wrong part of your foot," he told her, coming back to stand in front of her with the hint of a smile still playing on his lips.

"How can I be kicking with the wrong part of my foot?" she frowned. "It's a foot, you just swing it at the ball and hope for the best,"

"Nah," Pete shook his head and then moved so that he was in line with her. "There's a trick to it. See you were kicking with your toes which is why even though you've got a lot of force behind it, you have no control," he tilted his own foot to the side and pointed at the inside of it. "Kick with this bit and you have a lot more control because you're balance it better."

Allie grinned at him and felt her heart swell a little; he was beyond cute when he went into teacher mode.

"Plus, when you tackle someone," he continued. "If you go for the ball with your toes, they'll have you on your arse in a split second, but use the inside and you can snatch it off them before they even know you're there,"

"Tackling?" Allie laughed. "Have you seen my height? I don't need a tactic like that not to be seen, Jesus Pete; I'm about a foot off qualifying as a dwarf."

"Come on then, Dopey," he grinned at the hand gesture she gave him. "I bet you a fiver you can't get this ball of me,"

He kicked it into the air and started doing the annoying thing of catching it on his foot over and over again without making it look in the slightest bit difficult.

"Unless you're scared," he winked and turned slightly, whacking the ball into the back of the goal and shouting triumphantly as he threw his arms in the air.

"Alright, you're on," Allie nodded, reaching up and pulling her hair into a loose bun, some of the honey coloured tendrils falling down softly against her face.

"Go!" she shouted, running past him and towards the ball, laughing when she heard him swear and take off right behind her. Kicking the ball ahead of herself, she ran after it, grinning when she caught a glimpse of Pete's shirt right next to her and turned suddenly, kicking the ball back the other way.

"Fuck," Pete stopped and watched as she travelled with it, tapping it lightly and quite frighteningly tactfully. Shaking his head, he jogged after her and just when she was about to kick the ball into the goal, he reached out and grabbed her by the waist, hoisting her up so that she was above his shoulder he snatched it away from her and whacked it into the goal.

"Yes!" he shouted, still not putting her down. "Did you see that? It was bloody beautiful!"

"You cheated, you bastard, that's why!" she smacked him on the back of the shoulder and kicked her legs. "I can't believe you did that!"

"What?" he laughed, putting her back down and grinning at her as she smoothed her hair back behind her ears and jabbed her finger in his chest.

"You saw I was getting good and you bloody panicked, didn't you?"

"You reckon you would have won?" Pete stepped back from her and shrugged.

"We'll never know, will we?"

"Fair enough," Pete grabbed the ball back from the net and placed it in front of his feet. "Come get me,"

"Those sound like famous last words to me," Allie told him, taking a deep breath and then running towards him. Suddenly he spun away from her and started running with it towards the goal…she couldn't let him win again…not this time. Doing the only thing she could think of, Allie shot her foot out and kicked the ball away from him, sending Pete flying in the process.

"Shit!" he yelled as he hit the slightly muddy and still wet grass head on, looking up just in time to see his girlfriend score what he hated to admit was a fairly impressive goal for a bird.

"Yeah!" she laughed, doing a little dance. "Now who kicked who's arse?"

"You tripped me up!" Pete laughed at her, shaking his head and wiping his dirty hands on his trousers….there was no point in worrying about them now.

"I tapped you," Allie told him, walking back over to where he was sat and smiling down at him proudly. "It's not my fault you fell down like a little girl,"

"Alright, alright," Pete laughed and reached up, grinning slyly when she took his hand. "Ah, Harding, you just made the biggest school boy error in the world," he told her, catching her look of confusion before he yanked her down into the mud next to him, laughing when she shouted something distinctly unladylike as she landed arse first in the watery ground.

"I can't believe you just did that!" she shrieked, but Pete realised she was laughing at the same time. Shoving him onto his back so that he was lying down in the mess, Allie examined her once pristine white jumper and shook her head.

With a what-the-hell shrug, Allie flopped back next to him, catching the look he gave her and grinning. So what if she was crazy? She was young and head over heels in love and-….

She caught herself and stopped moving suddenly, her eyes going wide.

Had she really just thought that? The L word…the actual L word that she'd never said to anyone before, barring of course her first boyfriend when she was 17 when everyone's idea of love was being as dramatic as you could as often as you could. But this, this felt different…Pete wasn't like anyone she had ever met before; the fact that he could make her heart stop just by looking at her, or make her laugh until she had tears in her eyes or the way he would touch her without thinking about it, like now, the way his hand was wrapped around hers, his fingers brushing over her knuckles as he stared up at the darkened sky without a care in the world.

Holy shit.

Allie Harding was in love with Pete Dunham.

"What's wrong?"

She broke out of her reverie at the sound of Pete's voice and turned her head to face him, her heart jumping when his bright blue eyes bore into hers.

"Huh?" she squeaked, apparently unable to get her vocal chords functioning at a normal rate.

"You're not pissed that I messed up your shirt, are you?" Pete frowned, suddenly realising that when it came to girls, there was a fine line when it came to messing about. And he'd learnt from the last girl he was with –the psychotic one who hated all his mates- that ruining their clothes was rule violation number one.

"What?" Allie laughed and shook her head. "No, no…I was just thinking about something…"

Pete looked at her expectantly, wanting her to carry on and then chuckling when she simply left it at that.

"When did you turn into the bloody Riddler?" he laughed, propping himself up onto his elbows and turning to look down at her. "Come on," he met her eyes and Allie felt her stomach flutter again. God damn butterflies…

"I was just thinking about how, um," Allie bit her lip. She wasn't anywhere near ready to tell him she loved him yet, partly because she was scared that if it turned out that the feeling wasn't mutual, she would probably die. "I was just thinking about how much your mates are going to laugh when they find out that I very nearly beat you in a football game,"

"Right, that's it," Pete grinned and pulled her to him, wrestling her playfully and tickling her sides, listening to her shriek with laughter as she tried –albeit reluctantly- to escape.

"Pete, stop!" she squealed, laughing so hard that her stomach actually started to hurt. She was surprised when he actually did, but then upon noticing the position they had somehow ended up in, felt her breath catch in her throat. Pete was sat up with her straddling him, her hands locked in his and their eyes unwavering as they stared at each other, still slightly out of breath from their play fight.

Allie's heart sped up as Pete let go of her hands and let one drift up to gently cup her face, the other one holding her body to his, sweeping down the length of her spine until it was resting in the curve of her hip.

"You're so beautiful,"

The words caught her off guard and for a second, she was unsure whether she had heard them or not; it wasn't that Pete never said stuff like that to her, on their first date when she'd met him at the train station in her green strapless dress, he'd simply looked at her for about a minute and then muttered something along the lines of 'fuck me' under his breath, but it was the honestly in his voice when he said it that made her heart beat quicken.

All thoughts were soon pushed out of her head when Pete kissed her, softly at first but then harder, deepening it and pulling her even closer so that her legs were wrapped around him. Allie pushed him back so that he was lying down and then fell on top of him, their mouths still fused together, tongues battling playfully as they seemed to momentarily forget where they were: on a muddy school field in the middle of the night. It was crazy.

Allie moaned gently when Pete switched their positions, laying her down gently and then pressing his weight on top of her, his mouth leaving hers and kissing his way down her throat and chest, until with a frustrated growl, he met the material of her sweater and realised he couldn't go any further. Allie scraped her nails across his shoulders, scaring herself slightly at her willingness to simply scream at him to take the sweater off, but she couldn't do that. Allie wasn't exactly a blushing virgin, but when it came to Pete, she knew that when their relationship took that step, she wanted it to be special, she wanted it to be everything she knew it could be. And even though her body was doing its best to convince her otherwise, she couldn't let it happen on a muddy sports field ten feet away from a children's playground.

"Fuck," Pete hissed, suddenly pulling away from her and sitting up, rubbing the back of his head and breathing harshly. He'd very nearly let himself get carried away just then, let himself forget about where they were and how it would effect their relationship in the long run. Fucking hell, the woman terrified him; usually when he met a girl it was a sealed deal within a week, but Allie…Allie was different. The reason he had never gotten caught up in all the romance bollocks with the few other girls he had been with was because he didn't really care about them that much. And therein lay the difference…he was in love with the woman next to him and it was turning out to be both a curse and a blessing.

She was on his bloody mind 24/7 for a start, and then when he was with her it was like he lost control of who he was for those few hours and fell into some kind of Allie induced coma. Which was making it harder and harder to stop every time he kissed her. Laughing at the blatant pun, he let out a deep breath and tilted his head up to the sky.

"Pete?" Allie sat up and gently rubbed his back. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah," he nodded, smiling at her but not quite meeting her eye. "It's just getting harder to…" he laughed bashfully. "I had to stop,"

Blushing slightly and making him want to kiss her even more, Allie looked down at the grass and licked her lips, still able to taste him. Looking back up, she saw him staring at the building in front of them, trying to hard to keep his eyes away from her, almost scared of what would happen if he didn't.

"No you don't," she whispered.

Without even knowing she was doing it, Allie reached up and pulled his head around, kissing him deeply and grinning against his lips when he immediately pulled her back into his lap, murmuring incoherent things in her ear as she let her mouth move lower, pressing soft kisses against his neck and his jaw.

"Oi!"

They broke apart and squinted at the bright light that was coming towards them at a fairly rapid speed.

"Fuck off you little buggers!" the distinct voice got nearer to them. "And if I catch you here again, I'll rip off your….Pete?"

Ben stared down at the flustered couple, unable to suppress the huge grin on his face as he raised an eyebrow at their dishevelled state.

"I thought you went home," Pete frowned at him, giving him what Ben knew to be the I'm-going-to-fucking-kill-you-in-the-morning stare.

"I thought you were a pair of horny little bastards from the high school across the road," Ben laughed, his thick Scottish accent and hearty laugh breaking the tension slightly. "So I guess its surprises all around, isn't it?"

"We were just," Allie ran a hand through her mud matted hair and grimaced. "We were playing football," she explained, feeling like a naughty teenager who'd been caught fooling around with her boyfriend by her Dad or something.

"I'm sure you were," Ben switched off the torch and both Allie and Pete breathed a sigh of relief; at least now they weren't so embarrassed. "Right well, everything's locked up so maybe you should just head home," he grinned. "Maybe take a shower…" he looked down at Pete and mouthed 'A cold one'.

Flipping his friend the middle finger, Pete pulled himself to his feet, bringing Allie with him and watching as Ben saluted them, strolling back across the field to the teachers car park, his laughter echoing through the air.

"A shower probably isn't a bad idea, actually," Pete laughed, gesturing to Allie's outfit which was covered in mud. She had a big smudge on her face as well, but he didn't mention that one.

"Yeah," she laughed, wiping her hands on her jeans and shaking her head as she realised that that only seemed to be making things worse.

"Do you fancy coming back to my place for a bit?" he asked and then winced at how that sounded. "To use the shower," he clarified. "It's only about ten minutes away, but if not I can drop you home,"

"No," Allie shook her head. "Your place sounds good," she bent down and retrieved her scarf and Pete's tie which had been cast off at the start of their failed football game. "You're not going to make me watch football again though, are you?"

"Not unless you try and switch it over to fucking Desperate Housewives again," Pete laughed when she threw his tie at his head.

"Well," Allie smirked, tying her scarf back around her neck and strolling towards his car. "We'll both just have to be on our best behaviour then, won't we?"

"I almost forgot,"

Allie very nearly jumped as Pete came to stand behind her where she was making them both coffee and waiting for him to get out of the shower. Placing the white envelope in front of her, he moved over to the fridge, pulling out the milk and a chunk of the chocolate cake he had stolen from work when one of the kids had a birthday.

"What's this?" she asked, turning and leaning back against the counter top, still wearing the shorts and one of his shirts that he had given her to change into after her shower. Unfortunately, Allie seemed to be unfamiliar with how sexy most girls looked in blokes clothes, and watching the way the thin material clung to her skin as she leant forward, sliding his coffee across the counter, Pete asserted that his girlfriend was far from being an exception to this rule.

"Open it," he nodded to her, taking a sip of his coffee and watching her intently.

"Wow," Allie gasped, then looked up at him with a huge smile on her face. "Your brother wants me at his wedding?"

"'Course," Pete grinned back at her. "Although I'm pretty sure its more to do with the fact that I've been with you for two months and they still haven't met you. I reckon they think I'm bullshitting them,"

"This is really cool," she bit her lip, slightly nervous at the prospect of meeting Pete's family.

"So you're up for it then?" he asked her through a mouthful of cake.

"Yeah," she laughed leaning over and stealing some of the chocolate frosting and unconsciously licking it off of her finger. Pete watched her intently and tried to keep himself in check. God damn women…

"Hey, the receptions at the Dorchester Hotel, that's where-..." Allie was cut short when all the lights in the flat flickered out one, twice, then died completely along with the TV which had been humming along in the background.

"Oh you're having a bubble," Pete groaned, glancing around the dimly lit apartment and shaking his head.

"It's not just us," Allie told him from where she was stood looking out the window. "The whole road's gone,"

"Bollocks," Pete hissed, remembering the last time his building had a power cut it had taken the best part of a day to get it back on again.

"Don't suppose you have any candles, do you?" she laughed, not needing light to know what expression he had on his face. "Now's the time to admit it, Dunham,"

Grumbling something under his breath, he reached into the drawer behind her and pulled out a pack of candles, handing them to her without meeting her eyes.

"Cinnamon scented?" she raised and eyebrow and bit her lip, trying not to laugh at him.

"My fucking mum left them here, alright?" he shook his head, reaching for a stray lighter that Bovver or one of the boys had apparently left and handed it to Allie.

"I wasn't saying anything," she laughed, placing the small candles on the counter top and lighting them before moving over to the small coffee table opposite the sofa and doing the same. Pete watched as the candle light flickered over her features, making her look even more stunning than she was usually.

Meeting his eyes, she smiled feeling slightly nervous for some reason; maybe it had something to do with being in a candlelit flat with your boyfriend who for some reason looked even more do-able in candlelight than he did normally.

Giggling to herself, Allie tried to establish when she became the type of girl who used the term 'do-able'.

"So, we have no TV, no radio," Pete shrugged. "What d'you wanna do now?"

"Bollocks,"

"No, I swear to God, it's true,"

Pete turned his head to the side and looked at Allie who was lying next to him, staring up at the ceiling with a definite smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. Bored of sitting and waiting for the lights to come back on, they had decided to grab a bottle of wine and start playing 20 questions. Immatuer maybe...informative...definately. It was a almost like they had created their own little world away from the GSE, away from work. Just the two of them. It was perfect.

"You were 6 when you had your first kiss?" Pete raised an eyebrow at her and watched as she giggled.

"Hey, I was young and he had a Sesame Street tricycle that I wanted a go on," she shrugged as Pete laughed. "What can I say? I was a shallow, shallow child,"

She nudged him playfully. "Anyway, what about you?"

"Uh," he laughed and rubbed his face with his hands. "I was 12, and it was with a girl called Rachel Ayton on a school trip to the national science museum,"

"Smooth," Allie laughed, leaning her head on his shoulder and frowned. "Wait a minute, you went to the science museum," she raised her eyebrows. "I figured you to be so much more of a skive off school and go to McDonald's kind of guy."

"Oi," he chuckled. "I'm smart as fuck," he tightened his arm around her shoulders. "I think that was when I worked out that I wanted to be a teacher, well, at first I wanted to be a footballer, but I'm not good enough,"

"How'd you know?" Allie frowned. "You can't be that hopeless at it if you teach it for a living,"

"I'm not," he yawned. "I guess it was more that we didn't really have the money to go to any of the football academy's that I would have needed to go to if I wanted a decent shot at it,"

Allie bit her lip, almost afraid to ask him about his upbringing; she knew from that he had told her already that he didn't have the greatest childhood in the world.

"So how come Steve didn't go to University and you did?" she asked carefully. "I mean, not that that's a bad thing, it just seems…" she sighed. "What made you want to go?"

"Steve was too involved with the firm at that point," Pete told her. "I don't think he realised that at some point he would actually have to go out and do something other than be the Major." He snorted. "As for me…fuck knows; I just used to look at him and my old man and think, I don't want to get to that stage, you know where I'm laying bricks for practically peanuts and cleaning up other people's crap for a living."

"I didn't know your Dad was a builder," she mumbled, laying a hand on his chest and feeling his heart beating beneath her fingers.

"When he wasn't pissed out his head, yeah he was," Pete shook his head. "He wasn't a bad bloke, he was just pretty messed up. And Steve was always the golden boy, whereas I was…I think I was just there. You know, once when I was seventeen, I came home from school and I'd gotten into some bullshit fight at lunchtime, fuck knows what about, but either way I'd been hit, and I mean badly. This kid must have been twice my size and give or take the few cheeky punches I'd managed to get in, he'd pretty much beaten the shit out of me. So I come home with a black eye, my lip was split, knuckles bruised and instead of asking me what had happened or even congratulating me the way he would have done with Steve, my old man stands up, calm as you like and smacks me one."

He felt Allie flinch slightly against him, her hand tightening a little bit on his t-shirt.

"And I mean hard enough to send me flying back into the wall and give me another black eye. Then he sits back down and carries on watching TV." Pete laughed bitterly. "Then at about 3 in the morning, my mum comes into my room with an ice pack and just sits on my bed crying. She never told me why, she didn't even say anything, she just sat there for about an hour looking and me and crying her eyes out. So I guess a part of me going to Uni was to make her proud."

Allie rested her chin on his chest and looked up at him, her eyes shimmering slightly as she smiled at him, reaching out and tracing his jaw with her fingertips.

"I bet she is," she told him. "I know I am,"

"You didn't even know me back then," Pete laughed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"I know," she mumbled. "But I know you now, and I know how hard you've worked to get where you are. I know how much you love your job and those kids," she kissed his chest through the material of his shirt. "You've got a lot to be proud of,"

"Too bad my Dad never saw any of it," he shrugged and caught the confused look on her face. "He died about three weeks before I graduated from Uni,"

"Oh baby, I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Nah," Pete shook his head. "He wasn't all bad anyway," he smiled. "On my eighth birthday he bought me the official England football sticker book, saying his old man had done the same for him and it was what had made him a Hammers fan. So every year he would get me another sticker to go in it and we'd go down the park for a kick around, not even Steve was allowed to come. It was just me and him all afternoon. There was always one he couldn't find though…Geoffrey Hurst, number 6 on the squad. He never found it and so when he died, I just kind of chucked it behind my bed."

He looked down at her face and saw she wasn't looking at him, but biting her lip, obviously wanting to say something but finding it difficult to work out what. Her eyes were shimmering with tears and he knew that talking about this must be reminding her of her own loss; he didn't know much about her mother, only that she had died when Allie was nine. Pete didn't even know how she'd died, but it was a subject that he wasn't sure he could broach with her yet.

"Which reminds me," he grinned at her, trying to get her mind off of the subject. "My mum keeps yammering on about meeting you,"

"Really?" she asked, a smile gracing her face and making her eyes light up once more. "You told her about me?"

"'Course I did," he laughed. "And Steve, although I'm pretty sure the bastard thinks I'm lying,"

"Why would he think that?" Allie giggled.

"Well, I told him that you were this stunning, classy," Pete slyly pushed her onto her back and leant over her, pressing his lips to her throat. "funny, intelligent bird who got on with all my mates and didn't give a shit about the firm, and he claimed that girls like that don't exist," pulling away from her for a long moment, he frowned down at her. "Shit, that does actually sound to good to be true, what if he's right?"

"And I'm all a big figment of your imagination?" she gasped.

"It could happen," Pete grinned. "What if that night on the train, Mickey beat me into a coma and this is all in my head,"

"Well," Allie smiled wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling his mouth down to hers. "You can either bitch about it, or you can take advantage of it,"

Pete grinned and then kissed her deeply, eventually letting his mouth drift down to run along the skin of her jaw and her neck, smiling against the sweet smelling skin when she let her head fall back, giving him greater access.

"Jesus, Pete," she whispered, biting her lip as his hand ran up her leg which was bared by her shorts. Moving further down her body, Pete kissed over her chest and stomach until he reached the hem of his shirt that she was wearing and pushed it up far enough so that he could press a soft kiss against the flat, toned surface of her stomach. His hand drifted lower to hold onto her hips when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye; pulling away from the area of skin he was kissing, he let his eyes flicker down and tried to work out whether he was seeing things or not.

"Allie," he mumbled with a smile on his face.

"Hmm-Mmm," she sighed happily, still running her hands down the back of his neck.

"You've got a tattoo," he laughed and immediately her head snapped up so she was staring down at him.

"Oh, yeah," she laughed. "I forgot you hadn't seen it yet," she bit her lip and pushed herself up onto her elbows, nodding to his hand that was still lingering on the waistband of her shorts. Pulling the material down slightly, Pete smiled at the small lady bird sat low on her hip.

"It's a bug," he frowned.

"It's a ladybird," she laughed, smacking the side of his head playfully.

"Alright," he grinned. "What's the deal with that, then?"

"When I was five," Allie sighed, shaking her head as he continued to stare at it strangely. "I had this little red coat which my mum bought me from some baby boutique thing and I loved it, I'd wear it everywhere, even in summer, I had such a thing about this little coat. Anyway, one day I'm at school and this other girl has the same one so I start crying, being a girl basically and so to make it different, my mum sewed black spots onto it and she always used to call me her little ladybug," she smiled sadly. "So on my sixteenth birthday, I, along with a very drunk Lara stumbled into a tattoo place in Camden and I came out with this,"

"What'd Lara get?" Pete asked her, feeling a little better when she laughed and the darkness in her eyes dispelled a little.

"You don't want to know," she rolled her eyes. "And besides, I'm pretty sure my mum would have approved, she was a total hippy when her and my dad first met. She was a lunatic, but in the best way possible; I always used to hate Harry and Richard when we were growing up, because they got more time with her than I did," she laughed. "Pathetic isn't it?"

"How'd she die?" Pete asked her gently.

"Cancer," Allie smiled sadly, pushing the hair out of her eyes and looking up at the sky. "It started off in her ovaries, but it spread to her lungs and eventually her brain. It was the brain tumour that killed her in the end,"

"Fuck," Pete shook his head and kissed her stomach again, trying to work out how the hell someone could live through that. Watching your mother die that way when you were just a kid. "Baby, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-…"

"No," Allie shook her head. "Don't be daft; I always wanted to tell you but, when's the right time to have the guess-how-my-mum-died speech? Besides I don't remember much, I was only 8 when she got diagnosed and the rest just," she waved her hand. "It's there in dribs and drabs, but it's almost like the year she died kind of…didn't happen. I remember she would always wear make-up when I was in the room with her, her way of proving to me that everything was fine. And it worked to give her her due because whenever I saw her, she just looked like mum as always so I never really questioned what was going on." She took a deep shuddering breath and Pete suddenly hated himself for ever bringing it up.

"Until one night, just before she went into the hospice, I was in bed and I could hear voices coming from downstairs where we'd set her up in one of the guest rooms because she was too weak to make it up the stairs. So anyway I snuck down to see what was going on and I looked through the door and there she was lying in bed coughing up all this…this blood. And she was so pale, and she was shaking and I don't…I don't think I've ever seen someone look so scared in my entire life, Pete." She looked at him with tears in her eyes and shook her head lightly. "She knew she was dying and in that second, so did I. We took her to the hospice the next morning and she passed away two weeks later, just before my 9th birthday." She laughed, tilting her head back as though physically trying to keep the tears from escaping. "So every time I look at that little ladybird, I think of her. And I remember her as the crazy lady with the loud laugh who would make cakes with me and force me to dance around the kitchen to Dolly Parton and the Temptations every Sunday morning, not as the stranger I saw that night."

Pete laughed softly against her skin, struck suddenly by how strong this woman actually was to be sitting here now, talking to him about this.

"Depressed enough yet?" Allie joked, wiping her eyes. "If not I'm sure we can go to a video store and rent Steel Magnolia's,"

"Oh fuck no," Pete looked genuinely alarmed and Allie had to laugh. "I'm serious, I had to watch that once before I vowed never again,"

"Who made you watch Steel Magnolia's?" she frowned.

"Swill," he nodded, grinning when she burst out laughing and covered her face with her hands. "I'm serious, he might come across all hard and shit, but the man's a complete bitch when it comes to films…"

"So how'd you meet them?" she asked, needing to take her mind off of something other than her mum. "I mean, I know you met them at Uni, but…"

"I met Dave first," he grinned. "And he introduced me to Swill…first night out on the town, we end up using half our student loan to bail the bastard out of jail for indecent exposure."

"You're joking," Allie burst out laughing, looking down at her boyfriend in complete disbelief.

"I fucking wish," Pete grinned and shook his head. "You really want to know the story?"

"I think at this point, I need to," she nodded.

"Right, well like most things with us, it started with a bit of a drinking session that may have gotten a little bit out of hand…"