Thank you for the reviews.

Now, guess who wants to do anything but revise, meaning that she has allowed herself to write and hence why you have a chapter so soon after the last...

Guess who also needs to catch up with series 13 as she has only watched up to episode 3...

Please enjoy

(And if you've been here a while, you knew that this character was going to show up at some point in the flesh. Not just get talked about...)

Five

"I hate that you talk to Andrew so much."

Kim didn't know why she said what she did as she knew the look that Rachel was about to give her. It was a look that Rachel had usually reserved for students in the past but Kim noticed that it was probably for anyone that she thought was acting like an idiot. And Kim didn't think that she was being an idiot.

"We are both on your side," Rachel said as she sat next to Kim on the sofa, taking a sip of the wine that she had just got them.

"It doesn't feel that way."

"You are seeing friends as enemies at the moment."

"Sorry for feeling like everyone wants to stab me in the back."

"Which is why you need our help."

Kim scoffed. She might have taken Rachel's help if she had been the one to be at Waterloo Road but she knew that this was Rachel trying to put in a good word for Andrew.

Rachel shifted a bit, sitting up a little straighter and putting her wine down on the coffee table. "We can talk business if you want to."

If Kim was being honest, she didn't. If she was being honest, she wanted Rachel to act as her friend and allow her to bad-talk Andrew and just agree with her. She didn't want Rachel to, sort of, take his side.

"This is a bad time, isn't it?"

Kim turned to see Holly in the doorway of the living room. The thing with Rachel was that she was firm but fair. Kim had seen it with the students and it had translated into the way that Rachel parented Holly. She did find it strange that Rachel very rarely lost her temper but as she had explained to Kim years ago, sometimes being disappointed got better results than being angry. Because anger was usually met with anger. Disappointment was met with guilt.

So it was quite understandable that Holly knew when her mother was being serious.

"No. What's up, darling?" Rachel said, relaxing a little.

"It's not important," Holly said.

"But what is it?"

"Charlie messaged me about going into town tomorrow. Can I go?"

"Yes but find out times and where you are going and how you are going to get there."

Knowing Holly like Kim did, she knew that Rachel would ask those questions and already have the answer to a couple of the questions. In fact, if Rachel asked, Kim was sure that she would give some of the answers.

"Thanks, Mum," Holly said before she disappeared with them both hearing how she ran up the stairs.

"How much does she know about Andrew and how we know him?" Kim asked.

"The basics," Rachel said.

"You know we both had different definitions of the basics when it comes to our personal life."

"I've only told her that you and Andrew have been together in the past. And together as meaning in a couple. She was young and started asking questions when… Andrew was around quite a bit because we were working together on a job and she had been ill so I was attempting to work from home. I think she thought… but I told her that, at most, Andrew was a friend. She kept asking why because she had heard that girls and boys can't be friends and if they are, then it means that they are more involved." Rachel rolled her eyes. "You know that I would never do that to you and… he isn't my type."

"I know that. Because he is my type." Kim said.

It was a cheap shot at a joke. Mainly because they had both had a partner that the other didn't get along with. Although Rachel could always say that she got the rougher deal. Because as much as Kim didn't like Eddie and vice versa, there was never a plan to push the other one out and Rachel had been a great mediator between them. Kim had never been a mediator between Rachel and Max. Mainly because she had been so blind to it.

Rachel's posture changed again and Kim knew what was about to happen and attempted to prepare herself for Rachel's honesty.

"I know you don't feel this way but the LEA believes that you were asking too much when you wanted to change the name of the school. I understand why. I've heard it all many times. But you also know that if the LEA want to find a reason to moan about things, they will. You should have really directed your students to where the LEA is based. You would still have the same mutterings going on about the school but at least they would have slightly understood the disruption that was going on."

"So I was just meant to carry on through the disruption. That day…"

Kim didn't need to say anything more. Rachel had already given her so much comfort over Chlo's death that Kim hadn't realised that Rachel was hurting just as much as she was. Holly had said something in the end. Which embarrassed Kim.

"I know, Kim. Trust me, I know. I can't even remember who I started screaming at about it all but I remember someone having to pull me away and telling me to calm down. I left straight away and worked from home for the rest of that day and the week."

"Wendy said that Andrew didn't know."

"I didn't have the heart to tell him and he had been away on a job. When he came back, it was old news." Rachel sighed. "Look, Kim, here is how things look from the LEA's point of view. Waterloo Road is a liability. The school was doing fine. Every school has been doing fine which has just been a funny way of saying that our backlog has been so much that the ones that have screamed the loudest have been seen first. And some schools have only been seen because things have started to go wrong. Waterloo Road is falling into the second category. The category of things going wrong. Andrew isn't the first hand of help. He is the last thing that Erica is going to allow before she shuts Waterloo Road down."

"They are struggling with school places as it is without closing down more schools."

"They will just keep making the classrooms bigger and causing more problems than they are solving. It is a disaster waiting to happen. We both know that it will cause more teachers to leave the profession. Overworked, underpaid. No, the LEA isn't helping itself. Sometimes, I can't work out how they can't see the knock-on effect but then again, some of them have only stepped foot in a school recently because they have kids. Some, I swear, haven't stepped foot in a school since they left at 16 or 18."

"I just…"

"Just let Andrew help. Let's get the obvious out of the way. Of course, he still has a soft spot for you but that isn't going to cloud his judgement. He is offering a helping hand. Kim just… let him help. Unsurprisingly, he is very good at his job. Gets more involved than he should do but he is like me. We don't like to see schools and headteachers fail. Especially if they weren't really given a chance."

Kim knew that she had to say what she said next. She needed someone to understand why she couldn't take Andrew's helping hand. It was stupid and selfish but she couldn't help the way that she felt.

"I don't know if I can trust him again," Kim said. "After everything, I know I should be able to but I can't, Rachel."

Rachel's features softened. "You don't have to trust him. Not fully. Just enough to save Waterloo Road."

Kim shook her head. "I think… it would be all or nothing. Either I trust him or I don't. And I'm… I'm scared where it might lead."

Kim took some comfort in the look on Rachel's face. There were some level of understanding. Like if a certain someone was to re-enter her life, Rachel would find herself in the same predicament and they would be having the same conversations. Although, Kim could imagine that Rachel would be able to put up a better front. Or a slightly better front.

"Okay but if you don't trust him, how are you going to make it work?" Rachel asked.

Kim had thought about this after her conversation with Andrew the other day. It became more clear to her over the last couple of days that Rachel and Andrew were talking to each other. And as much as she didn't need someone else getting involved in this, she knew that she could trust Rachel.

"That might be where you come in."

To Rachel, the friends she had made over the years were more important than her family. After all, her mum was dead, her father was God knows where (and she didn't care whether he was dead or alive) and her sister was the same (and those bridges had definitely burnt down to a point where she didn't partially care). She didn't really know any other family. No aunties, uncles, cousins. Even no grandparents. Her parents had been as singular as she felt most of her life.

Family didn't have meaning to her.

She would usually scoff whenever someone said that blood was thicker than water. Because she didn't know what it had to do with anything.

But she had always wanted to find out the meaning of family.

So when she married Adam, she thought that she was a step closer to finding out.

When she found out that she was pregnant, she was equally the most excited and most frightened than she had ever been in her life. Her mum hadn't been the best role model and Melissa had made a mess of motherhood with Philip. But Rachel hoped that she would do better.

She couldn't exactly pinpoint the moment she started drifting away from Adam and he started drifting away from her. One moment they were living together, all three of them, in complete harmony (or as harmonious a household could be with a two-year-old) and the next, Rachel realised how separate they had become. Adam hadn't noticed when she brought it up with him and it took her months to show him what she meant. She knew that their relationship had been filled with obstacles but she didn't quite think that it would hit the obstacle that it did.

Family was still foreign.

Family had gone from what she had been told was a family (a dad, a mum and a child) to just her and Holly. It wasn't how she wanted it but Adam seemed to have his separate life now. And sometimes she had to prod him to be a father.

So Rachel was happy enough when Dex started calling her Auntie Rachel and equally, she was happy that Holly started calling Kim, Auntie Kim. Out of everything that happened at (the Rochdale) Waterloo Road, Rachel was happy that she still had Kim.

Although she didn't know how much longer she would feel that as she waited for Andrew. For some reason, she felt like this was all going to go wrong.

"Happy to be back," Rachel said when he entered her office. "I bet Kim has you locked in some dark room."

"You know what, I've been in worse offices than the one I am in at Waterloo Road," Andrew said as he took the seat next to her. "What has Kim asked of you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Come on, Rachel. I'm not stupid."

"I kept telling her that. Along with the fact that you can do your job." Rachel sighed. "I almost told her the other day."

"Tell her what?"

"That I told you to leave. After everything with Dex."

It might have been years but even Rachel couldn't believe that Dex had died. Every time she saw Holly with her friends (which was a mixed group of girls and boys), she knew that Dex should be a part of that group. She knew that there should be weekends where Dex showed up on a Friday night or Saturday morning and only left because Kim had come round on the Sunday night to get him, or vice versa. Holly should still have her best friend. Kim should still have her son. Dex should still be with them.

Andrew sighed and softly said, "Rachel, I asked you a question. You answered me honestly and I decided to leave."

"But it is the reason she can't trust you. Because she thinks that she will let you back in again and you will leave again."

That was probably more honesty than Kim would have liked but Rachel didn't really know what she was going to do or get it across to Andrew why Kim was being so difficult.

"I don't mind that. I would just… She is hot and cold. One minute I feel like we are getting somewhere and the next, I feel like I am back at square one."

"You've known her longer than I have."

"And you would get somewhere with her."

"You don't know that for certain."

Andrew had the decency to chuckle politely at that. "Maybe I am just suggesting that you wouldn't have the whole 'one step forward to go two steps back' like I am."

"What excuse did you tell Erica?"

"That things have been quiet at the moment and that the senior management are being rather cautious. I know Kim talks to you so I don't have to tell you that she feels like she can't trust anyone and she is being put down left, right and centre."

"So how are we going to make her trust you enough that she can feel secure in her job?"

Andrew gave her a puzzled look. "We?"

"Not going to lie, Andrew. I don't think either of you can do this without me being some unauthorised third party and rules are made to be bent slightly."

"How you ever had any order in your schools when you bent the rules all the time I will never know."

"I gained their respect and trust. And like I told Kim, with the types of kids that we deal with, screaming and shouting is never going to work. They get more than enough of that at home."

"Have you got a plan then?"

After the chat with Kim, she obviously had some direction as to how she was meant to deal with this. It wasn't the way that she was going to deal with it but it had given her several ideas. Rachel was sure that if things went to plan, things would be more than okay. With the LEA and Waterloo Road, and between Kim and Andrew.

"Not completely yet," Rachel said. "But this is what you are going to do on Monday morning when you are back at Waterloo Road."