An utterly ridiculous amount of time has passed since I last updated this, but given that my exams are nearly over now I decided to indulge in a bit of Fanfiction for the first time in weeks and weeks (so please forgive me if my writing is a bit rusty), and this is where I ended up.

MOUNTAIN OF AFFECTION

Six: Sigh no more, ladies

Caroline often found herself considering the possibility that Kate's handbag was somehow a small-scale version of the TARDIS.

When she'd finally pulled herself together in the hospital car park, Kate had driven her back to school, and Caroline had marvelled all the way at how composed her girlfriend had remained when a car had pulled out in front of her, how willing she was to bide her time behind a learner. If it had been up to Caroline to get herself back, she'd probably have ended up somewhere in the depths of a valley, bleeding into the crumpled roof of her car.

Somehow they'd reached the staff toilets without meeting anyone in the corridor, and there Kate had unveiled all of the things that Caroline was in constant need of and yet never seemed to be able to lay her hands on, the hairbrush and the chewing gum (she also carried Smints as an alternative: "They're more discreet for meetings") and the Paracetamol. All Caroline had brought with her were some bloody cucumber sandwiches.

"Are you going to be okay?"

All she wanted was to go home. No, all she wanted was to go round to the farmhouse and sit on the wall with Gillian, for the pair of them to hold mugs of too-hot tea between too-cold hands and spill their secrets to one another. Caroline couldn't do that with anyone else, not even Kate.

"Caroline, you don't have to go to the meeting if you don't feel up to it."

There was something about Kate which made her uniquely difficult to confide in, something which meant that Caroline kept her mouth shut because did not want to tar her with bitterness. When she was with Gillian, it was different, because they were both damaged goods, they'd both seen terrible things, done terrible things, and got through it.

"I need to be there. It'll only take a couple of hours," she said, pulling her hair back into a ponytail because even Kate's hairbrush couldn't make the ends look less bedraggled. She looked gaunt even to herself without hair to soften her face, her eyes dull and the skin beneath them streaked dark purple. "Don't suppose you've got any stain remover in there?"

"Sorry, no. Are you sure you–"

She held a hand up, short-cutting the conversation by way of preventing the inevitable hurt in Kate's expression when she snapped I'll be fine, Kate. She hurt her too often.

"Don't be nice to me. Save it for the organ loft."

Kate smiled, and Caroline left her gathering up the contents of her handbag from the sink side, afraid that she wouldn't find the courage to leave if she stayed any longer. Beverley was watering pot plants in the corridor, something which seemed to be a full-time occupation in itself. Perhaps Caroline should employ someone else under the job title of 'gardener', although that would rob Beverley of the opportunity to hover inconspicuously when Caroline wasn't where she needed to be. Poor Beverley, her employer was deranged and she still managed to be kind and tactful, and to have a perpetual supply of chocolate HobNobs. Caroline wouldn't be able to function without her, just like she wouldn't be able to function without Kate, and look at how she treated them, even knowing that.

"They're in the conference room when you're ready."

XxXxX

Caroline had grabbed some files from her desk, hoping that they were the right ones, and hurried through to the conference room, where Gavin and two other governors were already seated across the table from Loretta Johnson. Gavin appeared to have got his hands on some of Beverley's HobNobs, and he nodded distractedly as Caroline murmured an apology, one hand remaining cupped under his chin to catch wayward crumbs.

There were two other governors along the table from Gavin, and across from them Loretta. Her lips shifted when Caroline sat down, like she was going to say something.

When Caroline's father had told her five year-old self that her mother had had an accident, Caroline had worked herself up so much on the way to hospital that it was an anti-climax to find her sitting up in bed. Caroline had expected her to look less ordinary than she did, and now she felt the same about Loretta. She was a bit paler, perhaps, a few hairs out of place, but other than that she looked as though this were a pay review, something uncomfortable but routine.

"Loretta," Caroline said.

She'd thought that she would feel pity, sitting here. She'd thought that it would be second nature to be composed about this, like she was about so many other things; she thought she would be able to calmly dig, bit by bit, around the hole until she understood why the ground had fallen in. Now, sitting in front of Loretta, the pity didn't come.

This woman had made her son's life a nightmare, made dyslexia into something to be ashamed of when she could have helped him to thrive instead, as Kate had done. It would have taken so little to show him that he was perfect the way he was. This woman had, for whatever reason, believed for a moment in time that hitting a child was something acceptable, and that moment was too long for Caroline. She didn't care why Loretta had done it any more. She had no capacity to feel anything more complex than fury.

Gavin talked her through the formalities; what they were there for, what she was entitled to. She confirmed that she didn't want a friend or a union representative with her in a voice that made Caroline want to throw something. Ordinary was the word, as it had been with Celia in the hospital. Someone in her position didn't deserve to sound ordinary.

"Do you want to talk us through what happened in the playground yesterday afternoon?"

Caroline couldn't help herself; she was trying to listen to Loretta, but her head was filled with images of Gillian, marinated in her own blood in the barn, and with Kate's gentle eyes and sing-song voice. There was an almost gruesome contrast between the three women in her thoughts, her relationships with them winding their way around one another, straining, threatening to tear.

She closed her eyes. Everything about Kate was so beautiful, her smile, her voice. And yet sometimes Caroline caught herself feeling empowered by how easy it was to hurt her, to make those soft eyes falter, the tone of that voice twist. When she was with Kate, most of her being went into trying to protect her girlfriend from harm, and a tiny, disgusting part of her undid all of that work.

Caroline and John had fallen to hurting one another constantly because it was simpler than trying to heal one another, and a part of Caroline couldn't move on from that, it wanted to keep on hurting someone else so that they would feel a little bit of what she felt. Did that make her a monster?

XxXxX