A/N: Started in May 2023. Canon-divergent. Prompt fills.
Disclaimer: I don't own EastEnders.
Our Once Barren World Now Brims with Life
1. "Come back, the bed's cold without you."
Suki wakes abruptly. It's still ink-black outside—the deepest part of night.
She closes her eyes and rolls over, expecting to come into contact with the warm weight of her lover slumbering beside her, already anticipating slipping her arm around her waist and resting her cheek against the curve of her shoulder.
But all she comes into contact with is cool bedsheets.
Suki sits up at once, blinking blearily as she fumbles for the lamp on her bedside table. Dim light floods the room at once, throwing all four corners into relief.
Eve is nowhere in sight.
It's enough to set off a sense of disquiet. Of the two of them, Eve is the heavier sleeper—twenty years of being conscious of every little murmur from her kids and another year of dozing uneasily at the side of a man she was afraid of means that she is liable to wake at the slightest thing.
She swings her legs out of bed and pads for the door. Relief floods her at once when she sees light streaming from the kitchen.
"Eve?" she calls softly. "Eve, is that you?"
After a moment's pause, her lover answers. "Yeah, it's me."
"What are you doing up at this time?"
"Nothing. Just getting a drink. Go back to bed."
Suki hesitates for a moment. There's something not quite right about Eve's voice, like she's trying too hard to sound upbeat and reassuring. Cobbled with the fact that she'd been rather subdued all evening, and it doesn't sit right with her.
Still, she won't press. Not yet.
"Okay," she says. "But don't be too long. The bed's cold without you."
"I won't be."
Suki leaves it at that, crawling back between the cool sheets. But sleep evades her. She always rests more easily with Eve's reassuring weight beside her.
At least half an hour must pass with her staring into the darkness, and Eve still hasn't reappeared. Suki rolls over, finding the clock on the bedside table. Three-twenty.
She gets out of bed again. This time, she won't leave it. If it was the other way around, Eve would be right there with her. How many times has that happened over the last few years? When she had tried to push her away, to be cold and cruel, but Eve had seen right through the bravado and refused to leave anyway? This time, it's her turn to be there for Eve.
She pads along the corridor, coming to a pause in the kitchen doorway, taking in the scene provided by the muted lighting under the kitchen cupboards.
Eve looks the very picture of desperation. Back hunched, head in her hands, empty bottles of beer at her elbows. Zeeb Parkes would be inspired to write a hundred lyrics of dripping despair based on that one image alone.
It unsettles her. She hasn't seen Eve looking that broken for a very long time, not since the turmoil before she'd had her vows blessed with Nish.
"Eve," she says softly, stepping into the room. "What's wrong?"
Eve looks up at once. Her eyes are red-rimmed and bloodshot. Has she been crying?
The though propels Suki forward at once, and she moves to pull out the chair next to her.
"Nothing's wrong," Eve says, her tone slightly slurred. "I'm fine."
Suki raises an eyebrow. "Drinking at this time in the morning? Yeah, looks it."
"I'm northern. Any time is a good time for alcohol."
Eve always deflects her pain with humour. If Suki's defence mechanism is to go on the attack, Eve's is to act the fool. She softens her tone now, reaching out to take her hand.
"You know you can tell me anything," she says. "Maybe I can help. I've had to problem solve for four kids and several businesses. I'm pretty good at it."
Eve's lips quirk. "It's not worth troubling you with, honestly."
A step forward, at least, an admission that there is something bothering her.
"I want you to trouble me," she says gently. "Look how much I've relied on you over the last few years. We're partners. We're supposed to be able to tell each other everything. Look, let me make us a cup of tea and we can talk about it."
Eve's eyes have gone misty. Suki thinks the mention of their partnership is what melted her. "Yeah, okay."
"Good," she replies, pushing her chair back. She plucks the empty bottles of beer from the table and leans down to feather a kiss against the crown of her lover's head. "Won't be long."
Eve remains with her head bowed as Suki bustles round the kitchen. She tries to keep the sense of anxiety in check. There can't be anything seriously wrong. It's just because she's so accustomed to Eve being loud and facetious, so content with the world.
But she'll feel a lot easier when she knows the truth of the matter.
Tea finished, she rummages for the paracetamol and brings it and the mugs over to the table, laying it all out before them.
"Figured you might want to nip the headache in the bud," she says.
"Always so organised," Eve murmurs, popping a couple of pills and knocking them back with a swig of tea.
"Call that years of experience as well."
Suki lets a couple of minutes pass between them in silence, filling the time by sipping at her own tea. When Eve seems to be making no move to open up, however, she presses forward gently.
"So?" she says, reaching out for her hand.
Eve says nothing for a moment more, then slides her phone towards her. Suki looks to her with a frown.
"Check my messages," she says, index finger picking at a bit of loose litho on her mug.
Suki unlocks the phone and taps on the messaging app. Nothing out of the ordinary catches her eye immediately. Fifth conversation: a picture from Ash, probably a view or an exotic dish—her daughter documents her adventures in Canada meticulously for them both to follow. Fourth conversation: a gif from Freddy, probably a silly meme. Third conversation: a response to Stacey; Drinks in the Vic tomorrow, yeah? Second conversation: a kissy face emoji sent to Suki herself in response to a droll text about flattery not absolving her of her inability to put dirty washing in the bloody hamper.
It's the top text that's the shocker. Not a contact, just an unrecognised number. Suki glances at Eve for clarification. She only nods, squeezing the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger in an exhausted, defeated gesture. Suki clicks on it to read the thing in full.
Hello, Eve. I got your number from Claire. It's your mum.
She pauses at once, gaze flying back to her lover. "My God, Eve."
"I know, right? Total head fuck." She's still staring down at the table, her tone flat.
No wonder she'd been quiet and despondent all evening. If she's had this on her mind…
Reluctantly, Suki turns her attention back to the rest of the text.
I know it's been a long time. I heard that you were living in London now, but don't know the district. Your dad and I would like to see you, if you also feel like that is something you could do. Give us a call, we can arrange something.
Suki rereads the text twice more, letting the words sink in. She pushes the phone back into the middle of the table, where it sits like a hand grenade that neither of them dare touch again.
Best to work through this logically, she thinks. They both work best that way in their professions. Might as well extend that to this problem. "Who's Claire?"
"Old mate back in Bradford," Eve responds. "Haven't seen her since before I got banged up, but we text each other from time to time. I had no idea she even spoke to my parents. Then again, I make sure we never touch that subject."
"And I don't suppose you know why she's reached out to you out of the blue?"
Eve snorts. "It's all I've thought about all evening. Time? Guilt? Illness? Take your pick. Could be any and all. Or none. Wouldn't surprise me if it was just a morbid urge to take a look at me to torture themselves with the image of what my sister would look like now if she was still alive."
Her eyes glisten with unshed tears. Suki feels an ache deep in her own chest. The words hit a little too close to home. But this isn't about her guilt over Jagvir. This is about Eve and what she needs. So she reaches out to still her lover's hands, drawing them away from the mug and twining their fingers together.
"My love," Suki says. "Look at me."
The term of endearment, murmured in Punjabi, does the trick. Eve raises her eyes from the tabletop for the first time all conversation.
"How long has it been?" she asks gently.
"Over twenty years. I'd just finished uni when I last saw them. We fought, just like always. It was the day that I finally gave up on ever gaining their approval."
Suki remembers that day in McKlunky's, with the smell of greasy fried chicken mixing with the faint scent of Eve's perfume which she caught whenever she inhaled, the tang of salt on her lips which in a few hours would be replaced by red wine and Eve, and the warm, soft feeling inside her that had come from being with someone she liked, someone who was letting her see beneath her own guarded exterior. She remembers the resignation in Eve's tone when she'd responded that time might have healed but she'd stopped trying.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks softly. She's known her for almost four years now, and she still doesn't know that much about Eve's life before Walford. She's always respected Eve's right to privacy, the way that Eve has always respected hers when it comes to painful topics, but bit by bit she has found herself spilling all of her darkest secrets and the deepest hurts.
"What is there to say?"
"I don't know," she admits. "I don't even know if it'll help you. But you've always encouraged me to talk to you when I'm feeling beaten down with everything. You help me. I just want to do the same for you."
Eve's eyes soften at that. She squeezes her hands. "You do help me. Every single day. I thought I was destined to spend the rest of my life alone with my regrets and remorse, but then you were there. We might have taken the long road, but I promise, I've never been happier. I love the life we've built together, and I love you."
"Then let me be here for you now," Suki says. "Let me in."
Eve sighs, then nods. She tips her head back so she's talking to the ceiling.
"It was my graduation. I'd just finished my law degree. It was all I'd dreamt about since my sister died. I thought it would help me to deal with the guilt, y'know, if I could dedicate myself to helping others who needed justice. I hadn't seen them since I left home to go to uni in the first place. I never went back to Bradford in the breaks, I just worked and got wasted. But I thought…I thought if they could see me then and see what I'd achieved…"
She swallows hard, tailing off.
"But it didn't go to plan," Suki finishes for her.
"Of course it didn't. It was stupid to hope that it would. I was always the disappointing daughter, living in the shadow of my incredible sister who had it all. Absolutely gorgeous, all the boys falling at her feet, bright and vivacious. And then there was me. Sullen and combative, and gay."
"So they came to the graduation…?"
"Oh, yeah. Probably felt like it was their moral duty. I was so desperate to hear them say that they were proud of me. To hug me. Even just smile at me. Anything that might have suggested that they could accept that they still had one daughter left. I looked for them when I was on stage. And there was nothing there. Just blankness. Not even a clap."
Suki doesn't know what to say. All she can do is squeeze her hand. Their circumstances from youth might have been vastly different, but she can understand that sense of displacement, the desire to fit into the world around her, to be accepted. Wasn't that what she'd wanted too? Why she'd married Nish, forced down the frightening emotions that sometimes overwhelmed when she was least expecting it?
Eve sniffs, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "And I knew what they were thinking. They were sitting there watching me graduate wishing that it was my sister up there instead." She gives a sardonic smile that doesn't suit her. "They never voiced it, of course, they were afraid that that would make them monsters. But they didn't need to. It was obvious. A part of them wished it had been me who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time that night. Can't say I blame them, really. There was a time in the aftermath when I was so eaten up with guilt that I wished the same. That it would have been better for everyone concerned if it was me who was dead and my sister who was still living."
Her candidness, her total lack of anger brings a lump to Suki's throat, and she rushes to stop that train of thought. "Don't say that. There are so many people round here who wouldn't be better off without you. The Slaters certainly wouldn't. Look how much you've helped them over the last few years. Stacey adores you."
That brings forth a watery smile. "Yeah, I s'pose."
"And what you mean to the Slaters…that's nothing compared to what you mean to me. You're everything to me, Eve. I wouldn't be better off without you. It was you who saved me. Who saw me for me…and didn't run in the opposite direction."
Eve grins, a shadow of her old swagger about her. "What can I say? Stone cold disdain has always been my weakness."
Suki rolls her eyes, unable to mask her own grin. "The point I'm trying to make…The fact that your parents couldn't accept that they have one living daughter left, that they couldn't cherish you all the more…that's on them." After Jagvir's death all she'd wanted to do was cling so tight to the three beautiful souls she had left. She can't pretend that she hasn't made huge mistakes in the past, but she has never once stopped loving Kheerat, Ash, and Vinny. Never. "What was it that you told me? To surround myself with people who could forgive me? You've done the same. You've got a whole new family who love you and would do anything to support you. And you've got me."
Eve cracks the first smile she has all evening. "You know, even after all this time I get chills hearing you say that. I was sometimes terrified that I'd never be able to have the whole of you, just the parts you could give when Nish wasn't around."
Suki feels a lump in her throat. "You don't have to worry about that anymore. I'm here for you, always."
"Yeah, I know." Eve gives her a watery grin, squeezing her hand tight. "Anyway," she continues, voice stronger for the assurance. "I went to them afterwards. But by then I was in the wrong frame of mind. I was angry and hurt, just this coiled spring ready to unleash all of that pain and anguish that I couldn't be enough, that I would never be forgiven for not being there that night. I lashed out at them, lay all of that hurt at their door. And their silence spoke volumes. They didn't say a word. I knew then that I was dead to them."
"Oh, Eve."
"I tried to reach out a couple of times after that. Birthdays, Christmas, that sort of thing. It never got any better. The conversations always ended the same way, in that horrible, bitter silence. So I decided that there was no point in continuing to try. I wasn't what they wanted. I blocked their numbers, vowed never to return to Bradford. I threw myself into working myself to the bone and partying at night, never maintaining a relationship for long. Sometimes through choice, sometimes not. It wasn't a healthy lifestyle. And then I got banged up for GBH, and you know the rest."
The washed-up, struck-off solicitor with the loud mouth, swaggering into Walford as if she'd always been there, forcing her way into Suki's heart despite her best efforts to keep her at bay. Getting under her skin with her pithy remarks, igniting a spark of attraction that she had barely dared to think about for the longest time, until it had become an inferno she could no longer ignore, one that had burned her from the inside and made her reborn from the ashes. Who had shown her that she hadn't been living for the last twenty years. Who had given her the courage to throw off the toxic shackles of her internalised homophobia and deep denial that she could ever be like that. That she was gay. That she could proudly live her truth, with the fight and fire she had always had.
Overwhelmed by the affection, the love she has for this woman, she brings their joined hands up to her mouth to kiss Eve's, giving them another tight squeeze. Her lover's eyes close at the sensation, and a small smile tugs at the corners of her mouth.
"So, what will you do?" Suki asks.
"I don't know," Eve says, and her voice cracks, raw and scared. "I don't know."
"Well, you don't have to make any decisions right now," Suki says gently. "They've ignored you for twenty years. You have the right to take as long as you need to make your mind up. And whatever you decide, I'll be right here with you."
"You will?"
"If you want me to be, of course."
"I couldn't ask you to do that."
"You're not asking. I'm offering."
"It might not be all that pleasant for you, either. They're…difficult."
Suki knows that's Eve's diplomatic way of insinuating that they might not be so accepting of their daughter's choice of partner beyond her gender, either. But what could they possibly say that she hasn't heard a hundred times before by small-minded, bigoted idiots?
"I'm sure I can match them in that regard. What's important to me is being there for you. Because I always will be. Right here to comfort you." She smiles slightly. "Right there to give your parents the Suki Panesar special. I've had years to perfect the scathing disdain that I direct at others on a daily basis."
Eve laughs. "I was on the wrong end of that a fair bit at the beginning, wasn't I?"
"You were more than a match for me when you weren't a drunken mess."
"A bit like now."
"Tipsy, maybe. I've seen you in far worse states. Throwing food in the café, for one."
She groans. "Don't remind me. The day my probation officer came to visit. I was totally out of it. Jean covered my back by saying she'd given me food poisoning when I threw up in front of her."
"Yes, and I came in for round two."
Eve smirks. "Even back then you were magnetically drawn to me, weren't you? Couldn't keep away, even if it was to give us a harsh lecture."
"Yeah, right," she scoffs, but can't resist grinning. Because as much as she won't admit it aloud, there had been that frisson of sexual tension right from their very first meeting. She hadn't known it for what it was back then, but she had got a certain thrill each time they'd butted heads, pitted their wits against each other. She'd liked the challenge, and that had evolved into grudging respect. Into attraction. Into love.
She clears her throat, forcing herself back into the present before she can lose herself down memory lane—only the good ones. She never wants to think on the bad ones again.
"You know what, you should give them both barrels, really make them squirm. Bring along your girlfriend and your wife."
Eve snorts. "What, and make them think that I'm polyamorous as well as a lesbian? They wouldn't speak to me for another twenty years after that." She pauses. "Actually, that might not be a bad shout."
"I'm not sure Stacey and I could pull off being happy participants in a ménage à trois," Suki laughs. "I still think she only tolerates me for your sake. But I'm sure we could manage to get along for a few hours if it was to help you."
"Stacey's developed a bit of a soft spot for you, even if she'd rather die than admit to it. She thinks we look good together, that we're good for each other."
"Well, she's right about that one," Suki teases.
"Yeah, definitely. We make one hell of a hot couple."
And they're so well-matched in personality too. Eve has never tried to douse her fiery spirit, but gives her the tools to carve out her own destiny of empire builder. Eve knows that she's made huge mistakes in the past, but she's never judged her for them, only encouraged her to be better.
Through Eve, she has found the courage to live the life that she wants, to be brave in the face of her community and others who have judged her for the feelings she cannot change—the feelings she never wants to change.
And she has tempered Eve, too. Eve's acts of impulsivity could easily have landed her back in prison. Often, she thinks with her heart, not her head. Which can be sweet and romantic, but not when she's squaring up to thugs and not thinking of the dangerous consequences of half-baked schemes.
Together, they just work. A formidable team. Partners in all things.
"Thank you," Eve says now, squeezing her hand. "You being here for me…it means more than I can say. It's all I've ever wanted. Just someone to care about me. I get that with the Slaters, too, of course, but it's different with them. They're my new family. My crazy mum and sister, little brother in Freddie. Kids, even, in Stacey's. But I've always wanted a partner, someone to share my life with. I've never had that before, not really. And then I met you."
"And I needed someone who wouldn't be scared away by my harshness," Suki says. "Someone who'd stick around no matter how awful I was to them. Someone who could be patient and help me to accept myself, who could wait for me to catch up. You could have said that it was too much. You could have found something easier."
"I kept saying I would," Eve jokes. "But no matter how many times I said I was done, I was just lying to myself. You'd wormed your way inside, and I knew you'd ruined every other woman for me. There were times I wished I could wash my hands of it all and find someone simple and easy to be with. And I probably could have done it, eventually. But there would always have been a sense that I'd settled. That I would never be able to feel a fraction of the things that you made me feel. Waiting to be with you…even being with you, with Nish sniffing around, that was the hardest thing I'd ever done. But all of that pain, all of that heartache, every single moment of it was worth it for us to be where we are now." She pauses. "Suki, you once said that I was the best thing to ever happen to you. The same is true for me as well. And I don't regret any shitty thing that's happened up to now...because all of those things led me to you. Whatever happens with my parents, I know I can get through it if I have you."
"Always," she promises. "Now let's get back to bed. Stacey will have your head if you're late opening the van up, and she'll probably pin the blame on me."
"Well, your wicked ways have made me late a few times," Eve murmurs. She's truly smiling now, and Suki's heart swells. It's good to see that spark, even if it's more muted than usual. Eve can be serious when the situation calls for it, but melancholy has never suited her. And she'd seen it far too often in the early months, when they had been struggling to come to terms with the situation they'd found themselves in, with all of the fear and frustration that Nish brought.
Eve stands now, and Suki mirrors her, reaching for her hand. She twines their fingers together, relishing the way that Eve squeezes hers, and together they make for the bedroom.
They clamber back under the sheets that have long since cooled. Suki encourages Eve onto her side, facing away from her, then moves closer so she can press her front to her lover's back, slipping one arm around her waist to pull her closer, pressing her face into her shoulder. She feels all of the tension seep out of Eve's posture at the contact between them, and for the first time all evening, she truly seems at peace.
Nevertheless, Suki remains wide awake, listening to the gradual deepening of her lover's breaths, waiting for the steady descent into slumber. Only when Eve begins snoring can she truly relax herself, burrowing closer, holding her tight.
There's no quick fix to this, she knows that. The trauma inflicted from parents to children can take years to undo, if it's even possible. And half of the time those traumas spread like cancer through the generations. She's guilty of doing that with her own, though she is still working hard to make amends where she can.
Whatever Eve decides, whether she decides it's worth reopening those wounds, she'd meant what she'd said: she will be there to support her, be her shoulder to cry on, her strength, just as Eve has been to her so many times in the past.
Because they are partners, lovers, soulmates, and that's all there is to it.