A/N: Alrighty, I don't know how this is going to go, this is the first time I'm posting something that isn't intended as a one-shot, so it's a little unnerving! A train trip gave me the inspiration for this, nothing special, just a trip through suburbia the other day when I spotted a disused bus... If you like it, leave a review and let me know.

Disclaimer: I don't own Skins, if I did, I'd be making more money!

The bus had been parked there for a month. She had seen the bus every day for that month, on her usual trip down the street as part of her job as a parking inspector. It was what appeared to be an old double-decker bus, painted a vivid shade of blue, along with the word "FREEDOM" painted in a colour sequence that matched the colours of the rainbow.

Every day she took an opportunity to study something new about the bus, being that it was such an odd thing to find in the middle of a more or less ordinary looking street. The first day she noticed that alternate windows of the top section were blacked out. The second day, she noticed the wheel hubs were painted a bright green colour, and the tyres a bright purple, much like old style whitewall tyres.

The third day, she noticed the Union Jack that hung in the window of the bottom section. The fourth, the fairy lights that were draped around the outside of the bus, running the length of one side. The fifth, an unfinished painting on one of the lower section windows. And so it went on. She always looked around, but never saw any sign of life at the bus, assuming the owner must be off somewhere, doing something.

But that's not to say the bus was abandoned, because she did see some things that had changed. A curtain that shifted. A mirror that moved. A cute stuffed monkey that occasionally was seen hanging from the rear view mirror.

She was there, this time, in an official capacity, inspecting the area around the bus, trying to see if there was anyone around. The council had received a complaint about a loud party that had taken place on the bus, and she was there to issue it's owner with a warning notice. She was unable to see any movement from inside, and so would have to knock on its door, which had coloured glass in place of its usual clear counterpart.

She extended her hand and knocked three times on the door. She waited what seemed to be a suitable amount of time, and, having not received an answer, decided to knock again. "Hello?" She asked.

"Oh, bollocks." She heard a voice whine from inside. "CAN'T YOU SOD OFF, IM TRYING TO SLEEP!" Came the female response.

She knocked again, more insistently this time.

"FINE. Be there in a second, keep your vagina on."

She smirked at the comeback, and waited patiently. The coloured glass distorted her view, as the occupant of the bus reached up. The door swung open, to reveal a tall young woman, with shoulder length peroxide blonde hair, in a white t-shirt with a picture of a pig on it, and a pair of black and red checked boxer shorts.

The blonde looked half asleep, as she rubbed her eyes and had a pissed off look on her face. "What do you want?"

She swallowed, because she had never seen a woman more beautiful, and there was something about her that drew her in, making her heart stop. She had to mentally shake herself and remember that she was in uniform and working.

She cleared her throat. "Are you the owner of this bus?" She asks the blonde woman, her voice sounding a little huskier than usual.

"S'right. How can I help you?" She answered.

"My name is Miss Fitch. I'm an ordinance inspector with the local council. We had a series of noise complaints last night that were reported, loud music and revelry coming from this bus."

The blonde looked at Miss Fitch, and blinked for a few moments. "Erm... Yeah. Sorry about that, it was, uh, my birthday, and some friends threw me a party." She said, sheepishly.

"Ah, I see. Good night?" Miss Fitch asked.

"Yeah, actually. And you're interrupting my hangover sleep."

"I can only apologise. But, in my capacity as ordinance inspector, I am required to serve you with a warning notice against disturbing the peace."

"Are you shitting me?" The blonde replied, her eyebrows raising slightly.

"I'm afraid not." She held out an official piece of paper. "If it happens again, it's a £300 fine."

"Fuck!" She replied, grabbing the piece of paper from her. "That's ridiculous!"

"Again, I am sorry to have to serve you with the warning. Especially considering your bus is quite... Unique." Miss Fitch said, lifting her eyes to indicate the bus.

"Is that a compliment? Are you complimenting me, as well as serving me with this notice?"

Miss Fitch shrugged. "I guess I am." A smile crossed her lips. "It's very colourful. Do you live here alone?"

"Yeah." The blonde replied. "Look, I haven't got time to stand around chatting all day. You've come here to do your job, and I need to sleep off a hangover. So... Thanks and have a nice day."

The blonde reached up to a lever and swung the doors shut, trudging off back to bed.

"Uh... Happy birthday, then." Miss Fitch mumbled, before walking away.

A few hours later, Miss Fitch, or Emily as she was known to friends, was waiting in line at the coffee shop for her usual lunch of a large latté and a chicken and avocado wrap. She sat outside at one of the tables, and where she usually occupied herself by reading whatever trashy mags were around the tables, this time her mind was on the blonde in the bus. Who was she? What did she do? How did she end up living in a bus?

She shook her head and drank her coffee. Her phone buzzed with a message.

"Ems. Coming out tonight? -K"

Her sister Katie with her usual Friday text message.

"I guess so, what time am I meeting you?'-E"

"I'm coming to pick you up. 7pm, yeah? -K"

"Ok, so you'll be at mine at 630, then? -E"

"Gotta make sure you are dressed right, lezzer. See you then! -K"

Typical. Her twin sister seemed to think her taste was far superior to hers and so tends to direct what she wore whenever they went out. She'd been doing it since they were teenagers, and no matter how many times Emily asked, or just plain told her to stop, she still insists on it. Like it is her right as the elder twin, or something.

Emily brushed back her cherry red fringe and finished the rest of her chicken wrap. Her mind went back to the colourful bus, and it's annoyed owner. Surely she was just annoyed because Emily had woken her up, and wasn't always like that? She pictured the woman in her mind, and what stuck out the most in her memory was her blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. No doubt, she was beautiful.

Her ringtone jolted her from her thinking, and she picked up the phone.

"Hello, Emily speaking?"

"Emily, it's Claudio. How soon can you get back to the office?"

"I'm just finishing my lunch now, Claudio. I can be back in about half an hour. I've just served that warning notice for that noise complaint last night." Emily explained.

"Right. I need you back here to collate the data for the monthly complaints report. Be back here by 130pm to get started." Claudio replied.

"Ok, Claudio. See you then." Emily said, before hanging up.

Bloody complaints reports. Someone else was supposed to do those, some office lackey, not the ordinance inspector.

But that all goes out the window when departments are short staffed. Which the council was. Typical.

Emily sighed, and finished her coffee, tossing her lunch rubbish into the nearest bin. Thankfully the walk back to the office wasn't too far, and it gave her another chance to walk past the mysterious bus. She wondered if the blonde was still sleeping, or if she was up and going about her day.

And then she wondered why she was still thinking about the girl. Normally she wouldn't give a second thought to a person she was serving a notice to. But the blonde, even in her half awake state, was gorgeous, and Emily couldn't help but feel a strange something that was gnawing at her insides, a curiosity about the blonde that tugged at her, kept her thinking.

Before she could think about it, Emily found herself down the road from the colourful vehicle. She stopped in her tracks and watched, as she spotted two people standing outside the bus, one of whom was its blonde owner. The other, was a thin brunette girl, around the same height, and a little waifish looking, Emily thought.

The blonde had obviously combated the hangover, and was now dressed in a pair of skinny jeans and a band shirt, as well as a pair of black Vans, her long hair tied at the back. She was occupied with a paintbrush and cans of paint, and appeared to be painting one of the bus windows.

For a by-law breaker, the blonde was appealing to Emily. Most of the people she served notices on were gruff types with delusions of persecution. The blonde, on the other hand, while she had been rude and abrupt in ending their conversation that morning, had not tried to deny or blag her way out of it, which made a change from the usual chorus Emily got of 'honest, it wasn't me, I don't know what this is about!' that she was so used to hearing.

Emily walked towards the bus, observing the blonde as she busied herself painting the side of the bus. The brunette was sitting on the steps of the bus, smoking a cigarette and looked as though she was bored out of her mind. She was dressed in a sort of long shirt that seemed to double as a dress.

As she got nearer to the bus, the brunette looked right at her. The brunette tilted her head to the side, and one side of her lips curled onwards in a smirk. She looked at the blonde and obviously said something, because she dropped her paintbrush and turned in my direction. Her eyes met mine as I came up to the bus.

"Afternoon..." I said, with a smile. "Doing a spot of painting?"

"Er...yeah." The blonde replied, turning to the painting on the bus, which was of an octopus with its tentacles wrapping around the lower torso of a naked woman. "Work in progress, y'know."

"Yeah, I've seen it progress, I walk past here often. It's looking good." Emily said, brushing her fringe out of her eye and tucking it back behind her ear. If she was being completely honest, the work was probably the most erotic thing she had seen painted in the side of a bus.

"...Thanks." The blond replied, a look of part shock and part curiosity on her face. "You come past here often?"

"Every day, actually. Part of my inspection run." Emily said, with a sheepish smile. She darted a quick glance at the brunette, who, despite looking bored, appeared to feign an interest in the conversation between the two.

"Oh, right. As part of your... Council job, was it?" The blonde smirked.

"Y-yes." Emily stuttered in reply. There was something about the blonde's expression that made her stomach flutter. She looked as though she wanted to eat Emily up. The redhead flicked her eyes down to the pavement to hide her own vulnerable expression, because she had all of a sudden become nervous.

"Yeah... Look, sorry about the noise last night. Won't happen again... I'll get my mates to drag me clubbing or something next year." The blonde said, as Emily looked upwards, taking in the shape of her shoulders, that were covered by a tight fitting, faded Beatles t-shirt. She couldn't help but notice the colourful collection of charity wristbands that adorned her right wrist. Without getting a closer look, she recognised two that were identical and dark blue in colour, one that was a lighter blue, a black one, a light pink one, and a rainbow coloured one.

Emily suddenly realised she had been staring a little too long, particularly as she had just realised that to any passer by, including the blonde's brunette friend, it looked like she was staring at her crotch. She could feel herself blushing as she looked up into a pair of amused blue eyes, and she could swear that not only could she see the pupils dilating, but it was a good bet that hers were doing exactly the same, at that moment in time. The blonde didn't blink once, and neither did Emily, but the redhead could just make out the crease that formed in the blonde's brow.

She heard a distant cough to her left, and the noise appeared to break the visual contact between the two.

"Uh... Look, it's ok. I'm sure it was some local old granny on a power trip." Emily said, brushing it off with a joke.

"Ooh, I'm not sure Mrs Higgins would like you calling her that. Makes her sound a little too much like the town who-"

"Oh, no, I didn't mean it like that..." Emily started, before her words caught in her throat, as she got a look at the blonde's amused expression. "You're fucking with me." She said, flatly, forgetting that she was on the clock.

The blonde tried, and failed to stifle a giggle. "Yeah, sorry. Can't resist it with you official types." She said, giving her a quick once over look. There was a sense of disdain about the tone of her voice.

"Right." Emily replied, feeling a little deflated. She wondered why she had stopped here in the first place. "Well, I'll leave you to it. Have a nice day." She said, with the brightest smile she could muster. She turned away and started her walk back to the office, feeling somewhat crushed.

That's the end of the first chapter, reviews welcome :)