Thank you for the reviews.
I honestly thought that my motivation would pick up once I stopped revising for my exams but it doesn't seem to have happened that way... And maybe I am putting a little more emphasis than I need to on the little thing that I've got planned for the Christmas period... Mainly because the last two years have been... well if you've been following along for the last two years, you will know that it's been down to the wire. Hence the idea that I've had this year...
Anyway onto this and I get that the start of this might seem a little out there but I kinda want to take you back to Dex and everything that I can make happen there. I mean if the show is going to give us nothing, I've got to make it my job to make something of nothing...
Enjoy...
Three
2014
"Kim?"
Kim couldn't stop herself from spinning around at the familiar voice. And she was certain that the shock of seeing Andrew again was the only thing stopping her from slapping the smile off his face.
"Andrew? What the hell are you doing here?"
That had set the tone. And Andrew's smile faltered slightly.
"I've umm… just started the headship at the secondary school next door." He said, pointing to the boundary between Dex's primary school and the secondary school that most of the pupils from the primary school ended up going to once leaving (which would probably include Dex if they were still in the area).
He didn't ask the question back straight away. Meaning that Kim had time to think about how the last time she had seen him, she had been childless and now she had one and was waiting for him to come out of school.
And her thoughts must have been projected onto her face for Andrew to say what he did.
"I assume this is what Rachel meant when she said that I might bump into you sooner than I think and when I did, we had a lot to catch up on."
In her friendship with Rachel, there had been more times that Rachel had said that she was grateful got Kim than the other way around. More so recently as Kim had given Rachel the safe space she needed to make quite a crucial decision whilst also being a shoulder to cry on.
But Kim was so grateful for her now.
"It needs more time than a quick chat though," Kim said.
She wondered whether Andrew already realised that but it was probably confirmed by the teacher calling out her name and the little boy she had subsequently brought over to him. Who proceeded to try and hide behind her legs due to Dex's (rightful) aversion to strangers.
"He's four," Kim said before Andrew started to assume things. She tried to pull Dex out of his hiding place. "This is Andrew. A friend of mine. Why don't you introduce yourself?"
She watched as Dex looked up at Andrew with a questioning look (although, she didn't know how different it was to the questioning look she gave Andrew when she first met him). After a few moments, he looked up at her, giving her a look of 'do I really have to?'. She didn't really need her son to be four going on 14. She dealt with enough teenagers without her son already being one. But Dex got that he wasn't going to get out of it as easily as maybe he hoped.
"Hello," Dex said, sounding like it was the last thing in the world he wanted to say. "I'm Dexter. But no one calls me that. So I'm Dex."
Andrew smiled. "Well then Dexter, are you enjoying school?"
"Not really. Holly isn't here."
"Are you two friends then?"
Dex's face lit up and Kim was glad he had already had a strong friendship with Holly. Even if they were terrors, with silence never being a good sign.
"The best!" Dex almost shouted. "I want her to come to school with me but Mummy and Auntie Rachel say that she isn't old enough yet."
"Maybe that is for the best. Maybe next year when she joins, you can make sure that she is ready and a little less scared of it. As I think you might have been."
Dex shook his head and Kim knew that it was a lie. It was the reason why he wanted Holly to be with him. That was until Rachel had a word with him and that had changed his outlook on school. Kim wanted to ask Rachel what she had said but knowing only parts of Rachel's life, she could assume that it had something to do with her awful home life when she was a child. And Kim knew that she wouldn't get the child-friendly version that Dex got.
"I'm Mummy's brave boy," Dex said.
"I'm sure you are," Andrew said before he looked up at Kim. "I'd better let you two get home."
Kim opened up her handbag and grabbed the pen and small notebook that she always kept in there, joining her phone number down on a clean sheet of paper before ripping it out and handing it to Andrew.
"I might regret doing this because… well, last time did feel like a stab in the back. One moment you were saying that you couldn't leave me and then the next, you'd jumped on a plane." Kim sighed. "But we should catch up. Especially if there is a chance that we will bump into each other."
She could tell that Andrew was trying to stop the smile from rising on his face but was failing miserably. He took the paper off her and with a goodbye to Dex and a nod at her, he left them and Kim let out a long breath.
"Come on, Auntie Rachel and Holly will be waiting for us when we get home," Kim said to Dex as she held her hand out for his.
"Can we have the sleepover tonight?" Dex said as he took her hand.
"Dex, we've already said many times that Holly is sleeping round tomorrow. On Friday. Because then you don't have school and we don't have to be up early."
She thought that Dex mumbled something to himself but she wasn't certain. And if anything, she didn't want to see how overtired her son might be by asking what he said, with the tantrum of the other night still fresh in her memory.
But she now knew that Andrew had the potential to be back in her life. And she knew that would be one of the topics for conversation with Rachel that night.
Present day
"This is off the record," Kim said, staring directly at Andrew.
It had been a tense couple of weeks, with both Kim and Andrew finding it hard to find the right balance between them doing their jobs and getting in each other's way. The last week had been the week where they had seemed to find their footing and have the understanding of when to push for something. Kim especially wanted the tensions to die down a lot more and as much as she knew that she had to trust that Andrew would just include the relevant parts in his report back to the LEA, she knew that there was no harm in making sure that he knew that points where she really didn't want him to note anything.
And to give Andrew his due, he put his notebook and pen onto the coffee table in front of the sofa and leant all the way back to signal that he wasn't going to pick it up again.
"Or do you…" Andrew started, pointing his thumb at the door to signal whether she wanted him to leave.
"No, you can stay," Kim said before she turned back to Lindon and Joe. "I know you both know about the governor's meeting that is happening this afternoon. And I know, Joe, that you are teaching and because it has been organised last minute, but I… I need to know that I have both of your support. And I need you both to be honest with me now. I'd respect you more if you told me that you had a problem with me now rather than stabbing me in the back at a later date."
It was an uncomfortable position that Kim had put them all in. She wanted it uncomfortable. It wasn't just enough to hope that what happened last term wouldn't happen again. She had to make some sort of a stand. And because she didn't want anyone else to know the cracks at the top, she couldn't remove Lindon from his post.
She was glad that it looked like Joe wanted to give his answer (and hopefully support) the moment she finished. She wasn't particularly questioning his loyalty. But it was hard to completely trust everyone.
It was Lindon's answer that she was most interested in. Bearing in mind that he was the one to stab her in the back last term and that he would be the one who sat next to her in the meeting later.
"You have my support," Lindon said.
The problem with Lindon was that he was, the majority of the time, a very serious man. And Kim wouldn't have called him out for lying there and then but part of her wanted to ask how he could make her believe that. Meaning that she knew that she had to trust that he was being genuine.
"Same with me," Joe said, giving her a look to tell her that he thought he had already made it clear in the conversation they'd had on the first day of term.
Kim felt like she had no other option but to nod at both of them. "Good. Thank you." She hesitated for a moment. "If there isn't anything else."
Both of them shook their heads and made a move to leave her office. Andrew didn't. And Kim knew that he was watching her as she let out a long sigh. He wasn't going to say anything until she had said something. Which was part of the new way that they were working with each other.
"I trust Joe." She said.
"But not Lindon?"
"Not in the way I used to. I'll have to see how this meeting goes. I don't want a 'yes' man though."
"I used to wonder if we would get on better if I was one. I quickly realised that it caused more arguments than when we actually did disagree."
Kim allowed herself to smile. "Yes, well… there were times when I wished I could see the world as you saw it. And then there were times when I thought… maybe we were a bit… toxic. Isn't that what the 'kids' say now? Just our constant arguing."
"I don't think we were ever… necessarily bad for each other. I just wonder whether the circumstances were never right for us. That we were always in situations that could and did break us."
Kim couldn't argue with what he had just said. Not that she wanted to argue with it. It did always seem that things could never be perfect between them for long.
"I think that there will be a part of me that will always love you." She confessed.
He gave her a small smile. "I think that I am the same too."
If Andrew was being honest, he didn't really know what to do with himself half the time. When he took on the job, he hadn't realised that it meant a temporary residency at the school in question. It just meant that he was waiting around for something bad to happen just so that he could report on whether Kim and her staff handled it well.
He almost went to the BU just to see what it was like but Kim was still a little wary about the staff seeing him around. Especially as someone had seen him. Which had caused a small argument that Andrew hadn't wanted.
So Andrew knew that he wasn't doing his job properly.
And he didn't need someone to confirm that. Especially in writing.
But he has also expected Rachel to have gotten in contact with him a little sooner than she had done. And the text was definitely to the point.
Rachel: You're going to need to give Erica more than you are giving her.
Andrew: What has she been saying now?
Rachel: That she is getting nothing regarding Waterloo Road. And then she doesn't want to hear anything I have to say about it because I know Kim too well. I hold my tongue and not say that you know her better than I do.
Andrew: Once upon a time I would have said that I did know her more than you.
Rachel: Is she still being difficult?
Andrew: Don't act like you haven't already heard her side of things. Holly probably tells me more than she should.
Rachel: You know she will come around eventually.
Andrew: Before or after we lose our jobs?
Rachel: Before. Trust me on that. You're in the office next week, aren't you? Will have to catch up properly then.
Andrew sighed. If there was someone who would be in the know, it would be Rachel. And maybe just a little bit of outside guidance with inside knowledge would help him in knowing how he could make the rest of his time at Waterloo Road productive and constructive. And all whilst not stepping on Kim's toes and causing her to believe that Rachel was the enemy as well.