Disclaimer: I don't own Skins, I don't own Naomily and I don't own supermarkets...such is life.

Author Note: Let's pretend that Skins never happened. Of course we still get to keep the characters and for the most part everything is still the same...except Naomi didn't go to Roundview. Let's see what could have happened!

P.S. I do realise I have other fics I need to finish, I'm hoping feeling excited over a new fic will help. I do plan to finish 'It Ends Tonight' soon.

In This Life

There's no such thing as silence. Even when there's no one talking, the world is full of sound. The way fabric rubs together when a person walks, birds singing in trees, aeroplanes flying through the sky. At one forty-six in the morning. The majority of people were tucked up in bed ready for the next day to begin. Emily Fitch, however, arrived at a supermarket with a list in hand. The place was busier than she'd expected; a dozen or so cars parked in the car park and two staff members sat behind tills. Despite there being a number of people around, there was a strange silence created by the lack of music playing and the decreased number of shoppers. Emily pushed her trolley around the aisles, noticing for the first time the lack of silence. When she walked past the meat and dairy sections, the fridges buzzed, an incessant droning that had it been all she could hear for days, Emily suspected it would send her mad. Various aisles of crisps, shampoo, cat food, kitchen roll and many more products should have been the hub of quiet. Instead she listened to another shopper humming along to a song Emily didn't recognise, or a member of staff throwing multi-packs of crisp onto a shelf. Each sound new and frighteningly loud compared to what Emily was used to. She continued shopping, traipsing up and down the aisles in search of items she didn't desperately require but wanted to purchase anyway.

'All I want is a packet of eggs, is that too much to ask?' Emily hovered by the flour, watching as a customer snapped at a perturbed looking worker.

That was the first time she noticed her, the first time her eyes set upon the white-blonde hair and sea-deep eyes. She was beautiful; not in the conventional supermodel kind of way, Emily noted, just, beautiful. Transcendent, she thought, before realising how silly that word sounded when comparing the beauty of a stranger. She wasn't even sure why she was so captured by her. She was, after all, someone she didn't know and chances were someone she never would know. That didn't stop her looking, watching her move gracefully, her arms flailing about as her mouth spouted out a speech that outlined how cruel battery eggs were and what a disgrace it was that anyone still sold them. The boy, barely out of school, didn't care, he unpacked his crate and when the plastic was removed from the free range eggs, the blonde was off on her way.

'Fuck,' Emily muttered under her breath as she dropped a packet of self-raising flour carelessly on the ground. She bent down to pick it up and when she'd replaced it on the shelf, the girl was gone.

'Do you need any bags?' the woman at the till asked, passing her a handful when she answered. Emily began loading her shopping into the plastic carrier bags. She stifled a yawn, covering her mouth with her hand.

'Bit late to be doing a full shop?' the woman asked, surprisingly chipper for someone working through the night.

'I'm not that tired,' Emily replied, making small talk. She was tired.

Summer had arrived, the sticky nights that only came round once in a while had appeared and Emily couldn't sleep. She'd tossed and turned for a couple of hours before getting out of bed and dressing again. Her laptop was still on, so she checked her Facebook page, where she read a message from her sister offering her the option of a double date for later that week. She quickly declined, the ease of typing words she'd never say in person not escaping her. Food was her next thought, a midnight snack; a sandwich made of cheese and pepperoni. Only she had neither cheese, nor pepperoni, there wasn't even two slices of bread. She made a list, checked the cupboards, made sure to leave nothing out. When she was done she realised there was little in for breakfast and certainly not enough variety for lunch and dinner unless she wanted to eat baked beans and apples for both meals.

'That'll be sixty-four seventy-two, the woman stated, pulling Emily from her daydream.

'Keeps going up and up,' she muttered, getting a smile reaction from the woman.

Her mind drifted again as she pushed her trolley towards the exit. A DVD display pulled her attention away long enough for her to push her trolley right into another one. Metal collided, sounding worse than the minimal damage she imagined would happen.

'Watch where you're going,' the other shopper snapped, her voice familiar to Emily. She looked up at her, stopping when their eyes met and Emily got lost in that same sea of blue. A sea of blue that she finally realise was one she'd come across before. A distant memory but one that stood out as clear as that evening. That same pointed nose, eyes with a hint of grey and lips that looked ready to be kissed. She had kissed them. Once. Ten years ago.

'Not even going to fucking apologise?'

Emily jumped, pulled from the past and back to the present where the girl, Naomi she was called, stared at her with contempt. 'I'm, I'm sorry.'

'You don't even bring your own bags,' she pointed out with a roll of the eyes. 'I should have guessed, selfish, ignorant people.'

'What?' Emily asked, transported back to her teenage years with a simple sentence.

'Ignore them, it's good that you're passionate about something.'

'I don't care, they're a bunch of fucking tits.'

'Exactly. Besides, I think it's great that you care so much about the environment.'

'I forgot to bring my other bags,' she muttered, smiling at Naomi as she analysed her slightly matured features.

'Oh, okay.'

'I'm really sorry for not paying attention to where I was going,' Emily continued, attempting to right her wrong, despite the frosty response she got in return. If it had been anyone else she'd have been offended, but she distinctly remembered the cool exterior of the first person she ever kissed. The first girl she ever felt something for.

'It's okay. Do we, have we met before?'

'I don't think so,' she lied, tripping over a stuttered response before regretting her dishonesty. She thought about her life since the kiss, since she chose to step away from the straight life her family expected of her and allowed her feelings to take control. She reminded herself of how many times she'd done that since Katie pulled her from Naomi's mouth, dragged her out of the party before she could even say goodbye.

Emily didn't move, or speak, instead she watched the Naomi repeat herself and turn her trolley away. Emily's heart ached for a missed conversation, a righting of a wrong. Her heart jumped about in her chest, forcing her to feel, whatever it was causing her gaze to linger over Naomi longer than she knew was expected. Longer than she ever had, even then. She watched her until she'd turned down an aisle, disappearing further into the supermarket. Emily pushed on the handles of her trolley, guiding it towards the exit, towards her car and away from the only person to ever make Emily feel brave.

When she arrived home she was anything but tired, in fact she was elated, a second wind caused by, she didn't know what it was caused by.

The next night she returned to the supermarket, not because she couldn't sleep, she found herself drawn in by the silence, by the persistent sounds that could send people to sleep. She pushed a trolley around the aisles, barely caring to look at the products on the shelves. By the time she was ready to leave, her trolley was empty and her eyes were drooping from tiredness. She could have slept for hours had she been home.

'What the fuck am I doing?' she muttered, staring around the entrance of the shop. She didn't need anything, couldn't really afford to spend much money even if she did. Then she saw it; a flash of blonde, whiter than a brand new t-shirt and her heart began racing along until the woman turned around and Emily realised it was someone else. Her hair was a few inches longer, her eyes chocolate like her own and her stature about a foot shorter than the girl she hadn't realised she'd been waiting for.

The next night she went again, for no apparent reason, or so she had herself believe. She filed through the clothes section, found a couple of cheap tops and carried them around the rest of the supermarket in a basket. Every hint of blonde causing her to jump out of her skin; hope, excitement, fear, all things she'd felt on that night, there sending her body into an adrenaline induced wakefulness. But for another night the blonde didn't show.

By the fourth night she wasn't sure why she even went along, what purpose it would serve when she had little money to spend and plenty of sleep to catch up on. She wandered slowly around the aisles, stopping for a while by the eggs, reading a story on one of the boxes about a free range farm not far away. She wondered why Naomi bought eggs from the supermarket at all when she seemed so interested in animal welfare. Another night and the she didn't appear.

The next night Emily went along with yearning in her heart. She wasn't sure why, but she needed to see Naomi again, to watch her hair move about her shoulders, or stare for a moment longer into those blue eyes. Her beauty lived on in memory and always had done, for years she'd thought about her frequently. Wishing she'd acted upon her feelings, fought against her family's prejudices and told the world that she, Emily Fitch, was gay. Naomi wasn't there, her chance to perhaps try again slowly dissipating as the night went on. Emily assumed she'd probably never see her again, a lost opportunity. An opportunity shaped in a way she wasn't even sure she wanted. Her mind wandered, her heart raced and she wished for things she'd never allowed to happen.

Exactly a week later, Emily stood in the entrance, a trolley in her hands, as she began her stroll through the shop.

'Last night,' she told herself. She wasn't going to go again, except to do her shopping. A week of pointless endeavours that went nowhere. It was a waste of time, a waste of money and a waste of energy. That was, until she saw her. Blonde hair neatly organised on her shoulders, blue eyes disappearing into her sockets as she rolled them sarcastically. Naomi, stood by the same worker, tapping her foot with impatience as she awaited the release of the free range eggs.

Instead of going to her, talking to her, Emily turned around and walked right out of the supermarket.

Author Note: What did you think? If you liked it, or even if you didn't, please tell me in a review!