Author's Note: A Maeve/Otis AU fic.

Spoilers for the whole of Sex Education (potentially) so I suggest watching all episodes of this wonderful and lovable series before reading.

Starts just after that heartbreaking scene near the end of Episode 1.7 where a bomb is thrown and a trust is shattered.

I 'needed' to write this because Maeve Wiley deserves to be happy.

If only she can give someone a chance to explain.

Chapter 1

Day 0

Maeve let go of Jackson as he stumbled to the side of the front entrance to the school and – one hand leaning against the brickwork – began purging his stomach of even more of the vodka and orange and whatever it was he had eaten earlier in the night.

She tried to block the sound from her consciousness. Vomiting made her sick – hah! – and even if she tried to think of it clinically as emesis the noises emanating from her putative boyfriend were still conspiring with her anger to make her stomach start to buckle and churn and she reached for something – anything - to focus on and, absent conscious thought, turned to walk back into the building, murmuring, "Don't die on me."

She saw a slump-shouldered Otis in the centre of the doorway leading into the dance room, taking one step forward, another back, eyes ogling the floor, as bereft as she had ever seen anyone and deep beneath her rage and her pain and her loss she wanted to run to him and hug him and spend the rest of eternity protecting him from anybody – anybody – who tried to hurt him again.

But the fire was still blazing and the chasm was expanding and the breach could not be sealed.

"Oi! Dickstain!" she almost roared. "Where the fuck do you think you're going?"

Otis turned and his eyes met hers and the fear and the sorrow and the despair and the shame and the regret almost quenched the fire, almost bridged the chasm, almost sealed the breach, almost made her want to envelop him in her arms and stroke his hair and softly whisper that she forgave him and that she knew he would never ever deliberately try to hurt her and she tried to get there, she really tried, but she couldn't. She couldn't. The betrayal was too raw and the pain was too strong and the loss was too recent and her armour was holding and she could only stride up to him and poke him in the chest and glare directly into his eyes.

"Why the fuck would you do that?" and her voice was full of accusation and condemnation.

"Why the fuck would you try to set me up with Jackson?" and her voice was full of indignation and resignation.

"Why the fuck would you let him pay you to tell him what I like?" and her voice was full of isolation and desolation.

"Fucking answer me, Milburn!" and her voice was full of anguish and the absence of hope.

Otis looked at her and away and a million words scrambled across his face without ever finding a passage to freedom.

"Tell me, Otis," and the almost pleading tone in her voice fought bravely but vainly with the steely glare in her eyes.

Otis' eyes fluttered like wounded butterflies as his last remaining hope for deliverance from her strength faded, crumbled, collapsed and shattered.

His voice was raw with undraped honesty. "Because I loved you, Maeve."

Her breath hitched and her eyes transformed into globes of shock and confusion. "What?"

He still ogled the ground and his voice cowered in his throat but she heard his words clearly; a clarion, a siren, a celebration, a wake. "I loved you and I'm sorry."

She knew. She had hoped he had been talking about her and when he said she knew why he couldn't do Them anymore she was certain but what did it mean now? What did it mean when the foundations of her trust were tattered and battered and shattered and clattering amidst the bleeding wreckage of her heart?

"I'm sorry," he repeated because he had no other words to say.

"Yeah," she snarled because she had no other words to find. "Sorriest excuse for a 'friend' I ever had," and that word carried all the contempt and bitterness and years of built-up rage against every man who had ever promised her the moon and gave her an ocean of dung; all of it directed at this gangly mess of contradictions she had believed was different from anyone she had ever met.

He was just the same.

A clone, an avatar, a replicant.

A fraud.

But he 'loved' her.

Her voice was steel as skepticism strengthened her frame. "Why would you push me to be with Jackson if you loved me?"

He opened his mouth and words tried to form and he couldn't meet her eyes and then Jackson's voice carried from the distance, "Maeve, where are you?"

She didn't move her glare from Otis' form as she called in response. "I'll be there in a minute, Jackson."

She glared at the still-wordless Otis for an eternity then her breath hitched and she thought she would cry but she spoke through a jaw clenched to prevent herself screaming at him. "I am so angry with you, Otis. So hurt and so..." She searched for the word, found it. "Disappointed."

He nodded and swallowed and she watched the last memory of hope seep from his body and she wanted to enjoy his misery, wanted to gain some satisfaction at inflicting in return even a minute fraction of the pain he had given her but she couldn't. She couldn't.

She pushed her words past a throat flickering with flames. "But I don't want to lose you if I don't have to."

Otis looked at her and confusion and understanding wrestled in his eyes.

Jackson's voice floated again from outside. "Maeve. Maeve."

"In a minute, Jackson," she yelled back, hating the tone he had started to draw out of her.

Otis kept silent, his blue eyes watching her warily. Hopefully.

Maeve stared at him for more long eternities, her jaw set against a sob, her eyes subduing tears, until finally she was steel again.

"I can't do this tonight, Otis. I can't think straight. I need…" She paused and swallowed then was strong again. "Come to school early tomorrow. Meet me at the wall. If you're not there when I get there we are definitely done."

"I'll be there," he promised as he forced his eyes into hers.

Her eyes held onto his for as long as she could bear then she dropped her head and turned and walked away.

Her voice was still steel as she called back, "You look good tonight, Otis."

He hesitated then called after her. "You're gorgeous in that dress, Maeve. I hope Jackson told you that."

An unseen smile momentarily felt freedom but that wasn't a tear in the corner of her eye.

Author's Note: She's not a muse. She's a real person. And I'll fight anyone who says she isn't. That is all.