A/N: A strong T rating for this last chapter. Again, I hope you have enjoyed this wild ride and please leave a review, they truly make my day :).

xiv.

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My mamma used to tell me: "Girl, it ain't that cool to see a man you love and start to act a fool." Well, tell me what's a girl in love supposed to do? Tonight, I'm breaking mamma's rule.

Be my man – Asa

.

.

Martha Costello goes back to work, the next day. And the day after that. She checks Sean's flights, online, smiles when he lands. It's nice to get her routine back, with court, and the cases, and the arguments, the quick smiles in the clerks' room. Charlotte is happy about the win and the way that it will reflect on Chambers, mentions that CW still looked drunk when she ran into her on Pump Court, the other day. "Shoe Lane should have stuck with defence," the clerk speaks, to herself almost.

On Friday, Jo is in the city so Martha takes the afternoon off. They leave Michael and the kids at the British Museum and go shopping with tonight's party in mind. It's a bar ball thing; Martha agreed to go after a bit of passive-aggressive argumentation with Charlotte that morning, the clerk noting that: "You used to go to events for Shoe Lane. Aren't you happy with your new home?"

As Martha understood it, it meant that after years of sucking up on Billy's behalf, she now didn't have any excuse not to do it on Charlotte's.

That week, that day, the more she thinks about it, the more unsure she becomes as to what to do about Clive. She chose him, sure, but they're nowhere near being fixed. They still haven't talked and when Martha thinks about him, now, she still thinks about them, and all she sees – feels – is the way he held her hand when they showed her the baby on the screen at the hospital.

Jo and she stop to get coffee and tea to go and Jo looks at Martha while they stand at the till (she's buying), head titled to the side. "So, he's mad at you because you lied," she states, matter-of-fact, confirming the diagnosis. Martha's told Jo about Clive – about Sean, at this point. Jo has rolled her eyes at Sean quite a lot, at this point.

"He's not just mad at me," Martha insists, because it bears repeating. "He sounded like he never wanted to see my face again."

So, yes, Jo pouts. Takes the lid off her tea cup and thanks the barista. The both of them stand move to where the sugar and milk are. "Because you lied?" Jo asks and in Martha's head, right now, there's that way, that way Clive said: 'We're done,' like it meant a lot to more to him than it did to her. Like he was deliberately, wholeheartedly, finally putting an end to seventeen years of whatever they were. He did that in full conscience, given the facts at hand. Now, when she says she needs time, he says he does, too, and that's never happened before. Martha's not sure he'll ever be able to forgive her, and she's not sure she'll ever be able to forgive him, either.

"I broke the rules," she tells Jo, who laughs, next to her, shakes her head. Martha's friend draws in a breath, blows it over her tea.

"Aren't rules meant to be broken?" she counters. A fair point, Martha shrugs, but then they have to be broken for a reason, don't they? Her reason wasn't all that noble. Martha sips on her coffee (black, no sugar); Jo looks at her and adds: "And what are you mad at him for?"

The first response – the default response – that comes out of Martha's mouth, then, is: "I'm not mad at him," because really, she isn't. Not really. Well - "I mean, yes, I am, but –" she continues, trails off.

If she's being honest with herself, she is mad at Clive. Mad at him for what he said about the baby, for saying that she'd lose it and that it'd be her own fucking fault, but the more time passes (especially because the baby's fine, now), the more she sees his point. Back then, she'd forced herself, talked herself into believing that the baby wasn't real, that she'd lose it either way, so where was the risk? Now, though, now that the baby is real, Martha can see how taking Sean's case and working herself into a state of total mental and physical exhaustion might not have been such a good idea. How seeing her ex, who has a tendency to set both himself and the people around him on fire, might not have been such a great idea. Especially because she, herself, has a tendency to allow him to get under her skin. Martha felt like she owed it to Sean but now she can see how lying to Clive about it, the one person who's always had her back, how thinking that she could do everything on her own, might also not have been such a great idea. For better or for worse, he was rightfully worried. She was selfish.

"I think I'm mad at myself," she admits to Jo, coffee on her lips. Jo makes a face, pours more milk into her tea.

"Well, that's shite," she settles with another shrug, heading for the door.

.

During their fight, Clive also said something else. It didn't get to her. Not on the spot (in that moment, she just felt outraged, angry), but afterwards. A few nights later, when she woke up at three in the morning and could not get back to sleep. 'You think you can handle losing,' he said, glared at her with fury in his eyes. 'Want me to remind you what happened last time or are the nightmares enough?'

He'd never mentioned it before. Every time she woke up in the middle of the night, he'd hold her but had the courtesy not to ask what the dreams were about.

(He knew, anyway. From the way she tensed and fought him in her sleep, sometimes, muttered: 'No.')

And the truth is: initially, Martha thought the nightmares would stop when she got back to London. Thought that they would stop when she'd start working again, when she'd get pregnant, when Sean's trial was over. They haven't stopped. During the Berrian trial, one morning, a handful of journalists caught up with her on the way to court. She'd gotten quite used to navigating around them, repeating 'no comment,' again and again like a motto, except that one day when she found she couldn't speak. They were crossing the road, Martha remembers, climbing back onto the pavement when one of them tripped. A stupid accident – the guy tripped because he didn't see the edge of the road with the weight of the camera on his shoulder, clearly it wasn't his fault – but to keep himself from falling, he hung onto the closest thing he could find: Martha. He grabbed her arm and she pushed him off; he let go almost right away, apologised, but when she got inside the robbing room, her hands were shaking, and she was on the edge of tears. She'd looked into his eyes and saw someone else'sface, for a second. Someone whose face she barely remembered, his features a soft blur.

Now, obviously, it wasn't him. Brown Hair, she decided, with his sunglasses in the pocket of her shirt, was a tourist. He probably went back to wherever he came from, vanished into thin air. So, the rational part of her brain is not quite sure why she sees him everywhere.

It'd started getting better, over winter, got worse again when Martha found out she was pregnant. She doesn't know what it is, exactly. Self-preservation, her brain making her hyper-aware of her surroundings. Sometimes, she just wishes she could just sleep.

She went to her GP about it, a few days ago. With Sean's trial sorted, she had more time. 'Can I take sleeping tablets?' she asked, a fair question – considering. Her doctor frowned, stopped typing at her computer.

'Not particularly great but not particularly dangerous either, depends which ones you're taking. Why?'

Martha almost rolled her eyes and: why do you think? she almost said but held her tongue, faked a shrug. 'I can't sleep.'

Dr Bhavsar smiled at that, amicably, shook her head. 'Look, I can give you a prescription but a little bit of anxiety, in your condition, that's perfectly normal. I can recommend –'

The words just came out of Martha's mouth. She didn't mean to say them, it just – 'It's not about that,' she said, her jaw set.

The doctor looked up. Martha remembers how she stopped staring at her computer, then, turned to face Martha and caught her gaze. There was a clock in the room, it beat a rhythm. Tick – tock. Tick – tock.

Martha, to tell the truth, is not quite sure why she said it, then. Then, and not any of the other, many times that she's been to the doctor these past few months, for the baby or for the flu she caught last winter. Now, that day, at the end of an appointment to schedule her next scan and tell her that her blood pressure is a bit high. She looked up and caught Dr Bhavsar's gaze, bit her lip and said: "I got assaulted. Little bit over a year ago." Her shrug was light, then, like it was when she told Clive, that first time, told him like it was a case, somebody else's case. "I see him everywhere."

The conversation took a whole different turn, then. Martha's not sure she liked it. Dr Bhavsar said all of the right things and yet, it didn't make any of them easier to hear. Martha walked out with a referral, unsure as to whether or not she'd call. The GP gave her a flyer, too, put it in her hand and said: 'I don't want to overload you with information right now, but do look at this when you're ready. I think it fits what you've described.'

She took the flyer home. It talked about PTSD. Martha rolled her eyes, sighed and hid the damn thing from view, in the drawer of her bedside table. Parked it to the side of her brain for another day, waited for nicer things to come and cloud her mind again.

.

There was a dinner, a few years back, she remembers. Black tie, long, floor length dresses – Clive looked good, class. Martha eyed him all night, didn't make a secret out of it. It was a different time when she could just casually catch his gaze every once in a while, smile, lipstick leaving kisses against her glass. It was just before midnight when he finally walked up to her and said: 'Bit weird, not seeing you out there on the dance floor.'

She laughed, light, contagious. 'At house parties, there are two types of girls, Clive. The sitting room ones, the dancers, and the balcony ones, the talkers. I personally like to alternate between the two.'

He laughed, even if this had nothing to do with the house parties of their twenties (it was a ball room, not her flat in Peckham; it was Champagne and red wine, not the cheap kind from the off-licence down the street). Yet, somehow, it had a lot to do with them, too. Clive grinned, threw Martha a knowing smile and said: 'Do you want to go out to the balcony, then?'

She laughed, following his lead; the air was cold, outside, the middle of winter. She was about to light up a cigarette when he kissed her, there and then – no warning, no flirt, just a kiss. His hands in her hair; she responded to his touch, caught his gaze when he pulled away.

'Do you want to come home?' he asked; she chuckled a bit, shook her head.

'You have a date, Clive,' Martha pointed out, her look thrown back to the ball room. He shrugged, shook his head.

'Say the word and I'll ditch her. Say I have a stomach bug or something,' he whispered, kissed her again.

There was an oddly flattering element to it. How even in their thirties, it was always her he seemed to gravitate towards, like they had that bond, like it would (could) survive anything. This was before Jérôme, before – well, everything. 'No,' Martha said, though, quietly, shook her head again. Looked out at the view of London in front of them and lit up a cigarette. Smoke filled the air; she'd lost a case, that day, not an important case, but a case nonetheless – it had broken her heart, a tiny bit. 'Just stay here for a while, yeah?' she asked. He leaned over the railing next to her, watched ash fly away into the wind.

.

It's that bond they seem to have, again, the one that seems to endure everything. A few weeks ago, before they had their fight, Clive's sister took Martha aside at their brother's ten-year wedding anniversary celebrations. They stood in the garden, sipping tea.

'So, when's my little brother going to 'fess up to our parents, then?' she asked, a smile playing on her lips. Martha frowned.

'What –'

'I'm an obstetric surgeon, you know? I can tell a pregnant woman when I see one.'

Martha smiled, let out a soft chuckle. She was barely showing, back then, but – 'It's not him,' she told Eleanor, honest. 'It's me. I, er – I've been here before, let's say.'

Understanding washed over Eleanor's face. She looked down at her shoes before crossing Martha's gaze. Out in the garden, her own kids were racing each other to a tree. 'I'm so sorry,' she breathed. 'I didn't mean -'

'It's fine,' Martha nodded, looked out towards Clive. He was about to call the winner of the race. 'I'm just cautious,' she explained. Terrified, is another word that came to mind; she expertly pushed it away.

'Understood,' Eleanor smiled, winked. 'Your secret's safe with me.'

Later, Martha eavesdropped on their conversation. Brother and sister; she was coming back from the bathroom, Clive and Eleanor stood at the bottom of the stairs.

'You gave her Grandma's ring,' Eleanor noted. Martha saw Clive nod, leaning against the wall. His sister smiled, bumped her shoulder against his. 'Finally,' she stressed, teasing. 'Fifteen years you haven't shut up about her –'

Clive chuckled. 'Oh, piss off,' he said.

'It's true!' Clive frowned and crossed his arms; his sister dropped a kiss to his cheek, forcing him into a hug. 'I'm happy for you, baby bro.'

'Does that mean I get to avoid the drum kit?' he chanced and –

'Not. A. Chance,' Eleanor grinned, slipping away from him.

.

Martha's still wearing the ring. She didn't give it back to him. It didn't feel right because every time she looks at it, even now, she remembers the way he grinned at her one night – they must have been in their late twenties. Her gaze was focused on the ceiling, a cigarette in her mouth. He was lying in her bed, made a joke, raised an eyebrow and said: 'We should get married.' Martha laughed, rolled her eyes and shook her head at him. 'I'm serious,' Clive joked, then, added, shifted to his side to look her in the eye. 'If we're single at forty. Get married, move to the country, have a garden with dogs and grow fruit and vegetables.'

She chuckled, remembers thinking that he was still a bit drunk, probably. 'No,' Martha said, grinned. 'Absolutely not.'

Clive huffed out a laugh. 'Wow, pretty sure most men would get offended, Martha Costello.'

She kissed him on the lips, her fingers around the back of his neck. 'You're not most men, though.'

.

The Friday that follows the end of Sean's trial, Jo and she finally leave the coffee shop around one in the afternoon, on the hunt for a ball gown. The venue of that night's event is located at a mansion a bit outside London, the dress code is formal and none of the gowns that Martha owns (she's tried them all on, this morning) fit anymore. Jo also insists one should never, ever wear the same outfit twice so, as a consequence, Martha, according to her friend and the official, unwritten rules of fashion, apparently needs to go and spend another six hundred quid on a new one.

She tries on dozens of dresses. Every single blue or black one in four different shops. At the end, Martha unfortunately has to come to the conclusion that not only the pregnancy stuff looks terrible, but so does the rest of it. It's either too large or makes her look fat, or reveals too much cleavage, or is way too tight on her arse. Martha sits down on a chair outside the fitting room, glares at Jo as if the baby bump they have to navigate around is her fault, and sighs. Maybe, she could use that as an excuse not to go, couldn't she?

"Let me pick one, okay? You try it on," Jo says, doesn't even let Martha disagree before she's off talking to the salesperson.

.

She's in the bath when she texts him. There is a mask in her hair, painted toes resting above water at the other end of the tub.

Are you coming to that thing tonight?

She sends it before she can force herself to stop and think.

Yes. He answers, almost immediately. What are you wearing?

Now, she knows what he means. He's thinking tonight, at the ball. She imagines him standing in front of his wardrobe, trying to decide between a suit and a tuxedo. It's not exactly what he asked, though.

Nothing. She responds. Waits a beat. I'm in the bath.

It's easy to be like this, flirt with him behind the screen of her phone; Martha can almost pretend that they are something they aren't. She puts her head underwater for a few seconds, fingers threading through her hair, and allows her mind to wander back to a time when his hand would have found the space between her legs, below the bubbles. When she emerges, the phone chirps by the sink.

Hm. Okay. Now I can't get that out of my head.

She smirks to herself, starts typing something, deletes it. She's tying a towel around herself when her mobile beeps again.

Not a complete no, then, Clive says.

He makes her smile, still.

.

Martha carpools with Jake and Bethany, later on. When they get there, the mansion looks like a castle to Martha, with miles and miles of gardens and land around it. The three of them chitchat in the cab, nothing of importance; Jake is still boxing, from what he says, and Bethany still supporting, her look resting on his face as he speaks. The young woman's hair is held up in an elegant bun, a couple of loose strands framing her face. When they exit the car, she stays back, close to Martha, purse in hand. People here look familiar, clerks and solicitors and barristers: the biggest night out of the year for the London bar. It's late August – back to school. Martha used to hate these events, to tell the truth, dreads them even more now that she can't even drink.

"I meant to say," Bethany smiles, her heels tapping the ground next to her. "Congratulations, Miss," she whispers. "On the trial and –"

'You need to own it,' Jo said, that afternoon. 'It's the only way you're ever going to find something that fits.'

'I –' Martha began, trailed off, looked at her reflection in the mirror. The dress was red, long, draped around her body. The opposite of the black, large thing she was originally hoping to find.

'You look hot in that, by the way,' Jo added, sitting on a chair in the fitting room area. The salesperson nodded, smiling, like salespeople do (like she did for every single dress before that).

'I look pregnant,' Martha countered.

'You are pregnant,' Jo laughed, standing behind her. 'I mean, really, how much longer do you think you're going to be able to hide it? You've had the scan, everything's fine, so what are you afraid of?'

Martha frowned, thought: so many things, actually. She sighed, turned to her side and studied her reflection in the mirror. Admittedly the dress didn't look quite as terrible as the others had. It complimented her curves, was bright red, sexy, but – 'People treat you differently when you're pregnant,' she said.

'Mar, trust me, in a few months, you're going to be like: yeah, please, do treat me differently and give me your fucking seat on this fucking bus!'

She laughed. The dress was two hundred quid above budget, of course, and Martha ended up getting it anyway. At least, she thought, she wouldn't have to tell people. They'd just see, she decided.

So: "Thanks," she tells Bethany with a smile. Here we go, she thinks.

.

She has fun, that night, strangely enough. Talks to Nick and Niamh for a bit, successfully dodges Harriet and indulges in the required amount of sucking up, gets an approbatory nod from Charlotte as she chats up her third solicitor in a row. It's funny how quickly people switch gears, Martha notes, as she gets praise after praise over Sean's appeal, as if last year had never happened, as if the murmurs behind her back had just been a dream. She's pretty sure they're all still talking behind her back, now, but for a completely different reason, she muses, sipping orange juice in a champagne glass.

(She does a bit of damage control about that, too. Reiterates that she's not going anywhere, that she'll keep her cases and that frankly, when she did try to stop working, it didn't suit her.)

People get drunk, eventually, speech too loud for her sober brain so Martha steps outside for a bit, watches the night fall over the trees. It's a little after nine, the kind of summer evening that goes on forever, silk scarf wrapped around your shoulders. There is a group of young barristers about Nick's age smoking as she walks by; she inhales with envy, goes to sit on the stairs between the terrace and the gardens.

She recognises the sound of Clive's steps when he walks towards her. He stands, asks: "Can I?"

Martha smiles. Nods, silent, but shifts over to the side a bit, lets him sit. He drops next to her and she recognises his weight, too, the way his body fits next to hers. She smiles to herself. Sean must be on a beach, by now.

Clive has a bottle of beer in his hand; she hears him take a swig before putting it back on the ground. There's a clinking sound; he takes his jacket off, loosens his tie. She guesses the sucking up is over for him, too. "I'd offer you some," he says. "But –"

Martha nods, quiet, looks at the gardens in front of them. There are bushes of lavender and some pink flowers she doesn't know the name of, grass and twisted gravel paths.

Her eyes close, the skin of her bare arm brushing against the fabric of his shirt. She smiles to herself. "You know what I'd really kill for?" she asks. He shakes his head, raises an eyebrow, eyes slightly darker at dusk, she notes.

She doesn't say anything but just turns around to look at the group behind them. Clive turns, too, doesn't look like he understands, at first, until he does, lets out a short laugh.

Without saying anything, Martha sees him get up before she can really stop him, or convincingly call after him: "Clive," with the genuine hope that he might listen to her. He's back sitting by her side before she can even count to ten, with a fag and a lighter in his hand. She laughs, shakes her head at him.

"I can't."

"Come on, one cigarette isn't going to kill it, Marth," he breathes. "Plus, you need to celebrate."

Granted, she doesn't take much convincing and Clive is a good lawyer, after all. Martha lights the Marlboro up and breathes in as he throws the lighter back to the kids with a "Cheers!" shouted back, like someone who didn't go to Harrow.

The first drag is always the best one. She knows that, from the countless times she's stepped outside court after a long day and closed her eyes, rested her head against the wall with music in her ears, breathing in. She does the same thing, now, closes her eyes and lets the nicotine hit her brain. She feels Clive's stare on her face, watching.

"You've become weirdly tolerant of my smoking habits," Martha observes, opening her eyes as she exhales, ash dropping to the ground.

"It's a bribe. I'm hoping you'll take me back," he smiles, blunt, catching her gaze. Martha looks away, covers her silence by taking another drag. Usually, this is when she runs away. Don't, she'd say. Now, though, she doesn't, just lets the smoke rest in her throat and tilts her head back, blows three perfect circles up into the air.

Clive smiles, looks at her. "Nice."

"We used to do that when we were kids," Martha says, quick, taking another drag and repeating the process. Sure, it's a pretty useless skill, but a skill nonetheless. "My friend Jo and I," she explains. "We'd steal menthols from her mum and skip school to practice," she laughs and hears Clive join in, his shoulder bumping against hers.

She drops a bit of ash on the floor as she speaks, eyeing the park in front of them. Martha turns to him, holds the cigarette between them. It's half-smoked, tainted with her lipstick, Clive raises an eyebrow and she chuckles at the look on his face.

"Don't tell me you've never tried," she tells him.

He smiles, pouts. "Do joints twenty years ago count?"

Regardless, Clive takes her up on her challenge, in the end, reminds her of boys who tried to look cool in front of girls in school. He breathes in, tentatively, and almost coughs his lungs out in the process. Martha laughs – like the girls did, back then – and takes her cigarette back between her fingers. "Apparently not," she notes, amused, and he smiles, half coughing and laughing at the same time. She takes a few more drags to finish it, before killing it on the steps.

"You know," Clive starts, watching. The night is falling, slowly, steadily; it's a bit darker than it was when he sat down. "That dress is making quite the statement," he notes, catches her gaze as she laughs, glances up at him, a playful twinkle in her eyes.

"Is it?" she smiles, thinks about how Jo nicknamed it the Pregnancy Public Announcement Dress earlier, at the shop. And it's true, she was right. It's beautiful, and perfect, and Martha looks pregnant in it and maybe, it's time that she actually does.

"I've had five people ask if I knew who the father was already," Clive declares and she laughs, shaking her head at him. So people are talking about it, she confirms to herself. Weirdly, Martha catches herself thinking: good, too.

She raises an amused eyebrow at Clive. "What did you say?"

He makes her laugh again, lipstick framing her teeth, little lines forming at the corner of her eyes. "Bob from accounting, naturally," he says and when their laughter dies out, she catches him looking at her with a smile on his face, the kind of look he used to have when he watched her doing her hair in the morning, when he thought she wasn't looking.

"What?" she asks, a bit shy, running her tongue over her lip.

"You have a great laugh, Martha Costello."

A small breath escape her lips, then, when she recognises the words, somewhere between a sigh and a smile. If the compliment weren't so loaded, she'd probably say her thanks, go a bit red in the cheeks. Right now, though, all she can think about is how his lips felt against hers when he kissed her back then, sitting on a bench in a different park. She tenses, wonders what he's thinking, and whether or not he still loves her, thinks of Sean and of her mum and suddenly she can't look at him, anymore, stares out in front of her, the trees slightly moving with the wind.

"I quite like your arse, too," Clive jokes, quick, and Martha chuckles, shakes her head at him while playfully hitting his shoulder, thinks thank you, thinks I'm sorry.

.

As the minutes pass, neither of them moves to go back in. Martha imagines that she could still do a bit of sucking up and he probably should go back to playing Shoe Lane's infamous Head of Chambers but frankly, she feels content being a balcony rather than a dancefloor girl, these days. It's calm, quiet; she can watch time go by without feeling like she's committing a deadly sin. Clive tells her about CW's latest drunken exploits and she chastises him for his double standards, tells her about his parents and their latest cruise on the Mediterranean on this however-many-feet yacht that a distant relative hired for a family gathering. Martha thinks her mum and Roy went to Brighton, one weekend, recently.

Clive's beer has been empty for a while when she feels him fish inside his pocket for his wallet, pulling a paper out before placing it back inside his trousers. He nudges her shoulder and their fingers brush when he hands it to her, she's not quite sure what it is at first, until –

"They gave it to me after you left," he says. Martha looks down, takes the paper between her fingers; it's thicker than it should be – she understands what it is as soon as she turns it over.

It's not like you can see much, really. The photograph is dark and a bit granular but she can distinguish the shape, a head, feet, arms. She feels Clive leaning in next to her, looking at the picture.

"I've spent the last two days just staring at it," he admits, a bit sheepish. "Can you imagine we made that?"

It's a bit weird, she thinks, to say the least. It's a bit weird that it's inside her, too. There's a little person, now, growing in there, and soon enough she'll be out here, breathing, crying, and whatever the both of them are, their primary duty is going to be to protect her, and raise her, and support her, for the rest of their lives. It's not only weird, Martha muses, it's terrifying, daunting – she was so worried about losing it that she never really wondered if she could do it.

There's a smile, though, on her lips; she remembers their daughter as she moved on the monitor. Martha had to wipe the tears from her eyes to see.

"Best thing to ever come out of us, isn't it?" she says, finally, and Clive nods, smiles.

"Yeah."

They keep studying the picture for a while, lit by the last remnants of sunlight and the outdoor lamps around them; Martha turns the picture to the left at some point and laughs, feels his questioning look on her face.

"What?" he asks, frowning.

"It looks like a bird."

"Come on," Clive starts, faking an eye-roll. She doesn't let him go on, though, insists, giggles in her voice.

"Look, I swear!" she says. "If you turn it like that," she adds, tilting the image a bit and passing it on to him, their fingers brushing again. "It's got a beak, like a parrot."

Clive laughs, shakes his head at her. "That's her hand, Marth. She's sucking her thumb."

She bursts out laughing, then, catches his gaze. He's smiling, too. "Well, I know that. I'm just saying, from that angle, it kind of looks like –"

She doesn't get to finish her sentence, then, because he kisses her. Her laughter and words die against his mouth and he's quiet, tentative, lips barely moving before he pulls away. Her heart races in her chest - ta-dam, ta-dam, ta-dam - when he does, holds onto her stare as she open hers eyes, fights a strange, almost overpowering urge to kiss him again.

Martha's the first one to break eye contact, looking around them and at the venue, people engrossed in conversation a few metres from them. "A bit public," she notes, the only thing that comes to her mind then, a combined rush of hormones and thoughts preventing any other coherent remarks from making it to her brain.

"Do you mind?" he asks, and frankly, she doesn't know if he's referring to the public or the kissing part of whatever just happened, but can't really bring herself to care. Instead, she fumbles around and retrieves the photo from her lap, hands it back to him.

"Here," she says. Her fingers shake, a bit; he takes her hand, pushes it away.

"No," he breathes. "Keep it."

And again, the sky is a bit darker than it was the last time she paid attention to it, as she slips the photo inside her purse. Almost night. A few people have left already; she can hear the music coming from inside the venue, only periodically covered by intermittent sounds of chatter. Martha pulls her scarf tighter around her shoulders, feels the wind graze her skin.

Clive smiles, the lights from inside the house reflecting in his eyes.

"She's going to be just like you," he says.

She laughs. "God, I hope not."

"Brave, strong, pale," he starts; the ghost of a smile forming upon his lips. "Hopefully saying no to all the boys."

Martha laughs, then, letting her gaze cross his again. She realises that yes, he's probably going to be that kind of father, screening everyone who'll come within ten feet of their daughter, while she'll be the one buying the condoms and telling her she shouldn't rely on anyone else for her own safety. It's a funny thought, really, oddly domestic and strangely, not that scary.

"Selfish, though," she says, swallowing, glancing up at him. And maybe that was the key, wasn't it, to them talking? Maybe, she needed to be the one to breathe, the one to start, to let it happen. "Career-hungry," she sums up Clive's words, something he said or something that she understood, when they argued. "Won't care about anyone but herself, prioritising work over -"

That's a sentence she can't finish. Not now, not after seeing the baby, her baby, not after the thoughts began swirling in her head that she could have lost it by her own fault, Clive's words still echoing in her ears.

Martha thinks he feels the shift in her tone before he even understands her words; she bites her bottom lip and looks away. Sometimes, she can't bring herself to even lay a glance on him. She's angry, hurt, has been so for quite some time, now, in spite of all of the chuckles and light conversation they've had. She likes holding his hand until she remembers how it crushed hers.

"Marth," he starts. She shakes her head. "I didn't mean –"

"Oh, don't tell me you didn't mean it – " she snaps. The words are too quick, a bit harsh; it's not really what she means, not really what she wants to say to him. "I just –" she starts, sighs. He's looking at her, she knows, feels his gaze against the side of her face but she makes a conscious effort not to look back, just stares at the night and at the trees far away. "I think we always mean the things we say when we say them," she declares. "Or else we wouldn't say them in the first place."

It's a bit of an unbeatable argument, she knows, one she's always held dear, in every fight she's ever had. Anger is when truth comes out, isn't it? She thinks he really did think that and wanted to hurt her with it. What a bloody success.

She hears a smile in his voice, then, a shake of his head. "You can be wrong, though," he counters.

"About what?"

As Martha speaks, someone laughs loudly, in the background, inside the venue; it makes her miss the moment when he does, quietly, too. Catches her gaze, shrugs. "Everything?"

She sees his hand, resting on his knee and wonders if he'd still let her rest hers on top of his. They used to do that, she remembers, they'd sit face to face and she'd trace the line of his knuckles, wonder if he'd move to catch her hand when she fell.

"No," she tells him. It sounds certain, like when she spoke with Sean a couple of days ago, said: No, I won't follow you to Belize, no. "Not everything," Martha pauses. "I chose Sean. That was true. Over her. Over you. You were right about that."

Her words are factual, true, because that's exactly what it was. A fact, a choice that she made. Of course, she didn't think of it in those terms, back then, she doesn't even think Clive did. It felt like damage control, like trying to catch fog through her fingers, but that's what it was. Martha did that, chose that and oddly, it's easier to admit it to him, now, than it was admitting it to herself.

"I knew the risks," she explains, wishes she still had that cigarette in her hand to push smoke out of her lungs. "I chose his life over the possibility of losing hers and I don't even regret it. As her father, you have every right to hate me for that."

Because, yes, the fights that hurt the most are always the ones where the things that are said are true. When weaknesses are exploited, flaws hung on walls for everyone to see. Clive wasn't wrong about everything. He was right, actually, about most of it.

"Don't apologise for what you said, Clive," she tells him, words it took weeks to understand. "You were right."

Oddly, he catches her glance and nods, once, a sad smile on his face. He's genuine when he says: "I'll apologise for what happened after, then." He holds her gaze, takes a deep breath before he adds: "The partying and the -"

He only stops talking because she interrupts, figures where this is going, and as much as she suspects it, Martha isn't sure she actually wants to hear. "We've split up, Clive," she says. "You can do whatever you want with whoever you –"

"Nothing happened," he cuts her off. A silent breath escapes her mouth when she frowns. "Just once, a girl in a club," he admits. "I took her home but I just –" He looks away, a bit red in the face, lets the sentence hang. Martha gets it, she thinks. "Well, I couldn't, I guess. She looked like you but she wasn't you. I put her in a cab and sent her home."

Martha looks up, then, and frankly doesn't know what to do with that bit of information. With him being that honest, when she couldn't even trust him with Sean. Her jaw clenches until she smiles, jokes: "Bet she wasn't happy."

They both puff out a laugh, Clive bumping his shoulder against hers. "She wasn't," he confirms, shaking his head at the memory (no doubt embarrassing) as Martha closes her eyes for a moment, listens to the sound of his voice in the dark. The night's fallen, by now, stars in the sky. She wonders if Billy is watching over them, sometimes.

"I booked an appointment," she almost whispers, quiet, a bit later. Her voice is low, she's not sure how to say it. How not to say it, either. "To talk about stuff," she pauses, wishes could still get a drink. "The nightmares," she admits.

Clive seems surprised. He frowns, shakes his head. "Another thing I should never, ever have brought up. I'm so -"

"No." Her voice is firm, decisive. "The delivery wasn't -" she chuckles, catches his gaze. "The most tactful, let's say. But you were right. I'm not sure talking to a complete stranger will help, but I've got to try something."

It may not even be about Brown Hair, she thought to herself, when she dialled the number her GP had given her. It's about the things that she's survived, that she needs to deal with before this baby comes around and changes their world forever again. Martha needs to protect her, now, by sorting herself out, maybe. Talk about how she let her father slip away. How she lost the baby, lost Clive, Billy. Sean.

She remembers sitting there in front of the boy she used to love and thinking he was right. That every single minute he spent in that jail brought him closer to a death sentence. He was there, breathing, living, needing to be saved. It never occurred to her to put a foetus before that. To put her relationship before that. She chose him. Would choose him again. Won't choose him now, though. He's not the one who needs her anymore.

"God," Martha hears herself say, shaking her head, almost forgetting where she is. "I'm already a terrible mother, aren't I?"

Clive's stare immediately locks over hers, his voice sounds more certain than she's ever been. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard you say."

The words come quick with a look of utter disbelief on his face. It's strange, though, it's something that Jo could have said, she knows, out of support and friendship. Something that Billy would have said, too, out of love, maybe. But not Clive. He only ever tells the truth, doesn't he?

"I –" she starts, confused -

When he speaks, she notices, he glances up at her with a look of raw honesty that she's only seen on his face once before, when he stood next to her and said: 'I meant what I said.' She remembers the courtroom that felt stronger, taller, bigger than the both of them and: "You're everything that I want her to be," he says, now, smiles something proud and sad at the same time, like a parent afraid to let go of the back of a bike as their child rides away. She wants him to teach their daughter to cycle in Hyde Park, she muses, the three of them on cold winter Sunday afternoons. "I thought that you'd lose the trial, the baby, that'd you'd fuck off North again or worse," he says, pauses. She looks up, thinks of bridges and cold, dark rivers. "I thought I'd lose you when all I had to do was to trust you."

"Clive, I –"

"You made the right decision, Marth, a hundred times over. It just hurt that you didn't trust me with it. That you thought I wouldn't understand. And that you didn't love me. You don't need me. I need you. You're a lot stronger than I'll ever be."

There are stars in the sky that night and when she looks up, they feel like the sunlight coming through the stained glass at the Church. She remembers the day when he called her brave, once upon a time, wonders if that's what he meant by it. If it is, she hates it. Hates herself for even being able to make a decision she didn't want to make, for doing pros and cons with two things that she could die for. All she wants is for that baby to be anything but that, wants her to be kind and smart, and caring, like he is. Martha feels a ball blocking her breaths in her throat and yeah, maybe she is strong, but she isn't sure that she wants to ever feel as alone as she did, back then. She swallows her tears, quiet, for a long while, her hand caressing the fabric of her dress and looks up at him, eventually.

"I'm sorry," she tells him. Martha's not someone who apologises much. Not over things that matter. It makes Clive look up at before she says, her voice breaking: "I do love her, you know. So, so much."

.

It's a while before they move again; disentangle from an embrace, her head in the crook of his neck. She holds onto him and breathes in the scent of his cologne; Clive smells like early morning and kisses dropped like butterflies on her skin. Martha feels him shift slightly, a little while after the last group of people out on the terrace have gone, shakes her head no. "Don't move," she pleads.

Clive lets out a soft laugh, next to her. "What if I need to go to the loo, then?" he asks and she smirks, shakes her head again, against his shoulder.

"No," she states, eyes still shut. "You're too comfortable."

He makes fun of her for a bit, sure, but he doesn't seem to disagree very strongly, either. They stay like this a while longer, Martha's body absentmindedly swaying to the rhythm of the music still playing behind them. She feels his left hand move from the side of his thigh to somewhere between them.

"Again, this is going to sound stupid," he starts and she laughs, finally opens her eyes and pulls away enough to lace her fingers with his, hands on her midriff, over the fabric of her dress. She wishes she could take it off, really, wishes she could feel his skin upon hers, like last time, but his hand feels warm, anyhow, wonders if the baby can feel it too.

She hasn't slept properly in months, and yet, now, she feels calm, next to him. She's not sure what they are, but he makes her feel like she could try to be better at them. Kids with an 'us' bubbling under their skin.

Clive's hand rests upon her stomach for a while, even after hers leaves it. His fingers tap a beat to the music, slow, peaceful, boys singing about girls. His shoulder bumps into hers and she lets them move a bit, in sync, slow pace and voices accompanying the tiniest movements of his body against hers.

"Hello, there," he says, to the baby, and Martha smiles, tries very hard not to chuckle at him. He crosses her gaze, raises an eyebrow. "Maybe it's time for you to start talking to her, too…" he jokes and she smiles, nods.

Her voice is a bit shy when she admits: "I have. A bit." His fingers finally leave her stomach and he takes her hand in his, in the space between their thighs. "I asked her to stay," she whispers.

"Well, I guess she listens to you then."

Clive is silent for a bit after that. When she looks into his eyes, Martha thinks he's trying to find words, struggling for the right thing to say.

"I know you don't need me," he hesitates. "But I'd really, really like to be part of her life," he admits, catching her gaze. It's funny: he looks insecure about it, unsure of Martha's reaction in a way that she really, really isn't.

She smiles, nods, once, like it's the most natural thing in the world.

Another song comes on, in the background, and he starts swaying to the music a bit more intently this time, her body stirring in sync next to his. He smiles, takes her hand in his. "Come on, dance with me," he speaks, helping her to her feet.

They danced, in Nottingham, she remembers. Laughed too loud for a hotel bar with boring jazzy music soft in the background - the kind of playlist that includes Fly Me To The Moon, Diana Krall and Melody Gardot inadvertently blending into one another. He singsonged to Norah Jones' Turn Me On in her ear, she recalls, as he now puts his hands on hips, lets her move to the music in his arms. It feels different yet similar, better, clearer, like a black and white film that's been colourised.

The song makes her think of ocean waves as they ruffle the sand on the shore.

I try to hide that I need you like I need the sky to light up at night, so I can see where I'm going, when I'm walking to you.

They don't move much, at first. Martha's so close that she can hear his heart beat, feel his breaths in her hair. It's nice, out here; she thinks that she could stay forever. She listens to the lyrics, closes her eyes, thinks about him.

And that you seem to be the air that I breathe and the last thing I think of as I fall asleep but recently, I'm starting to feel like I'll be slipping away at the end of the day into dreams of the two of us, running away. It's okay, I'll just say I was drunk yesterday and hope that you still want to stay.

She laughs, then. Loud, uncaring in the night. She laughs because as the chorus starts (and I call you up, in the middle of the night -) he pushes her from him with a swift change of positions and has her spinning on her toes in her dress in the middle of a party that most people have left and doesn't seem to care. She laughs like she hasn't laughed in a long time and when his arm wraps around her again, she tilts her head up at him, her feet rooted to the ground.

She looks up at him and God, she thinks, there are about a million things that she'd like to say to him. She'd like to tell him that she forgives him. That she hopes he can forgive her. That she doesn't know where they're going, or where they are, or if she really needs him but whatever this is, now, she wants that. Not a couple, not a relationship, not something to be trapped in: just them, now.

"I –" she starts, stops, watches his face as he tries to read her mind. She smiles and she'll tell him, she promises herself as she looks into his eyes. She'll tell him all these things, but not now. Now, she decides, she wants to kiss him, so she does, her lips against his with her fingers in his hair and his hands cascading down to her hips; he holds her close, like he'll never let go. She smiles when she pulls away, out of breath. "I love you," she says and smiles up at him. "I love you, I love you," she repeats, raw and honest. Her heart races in her chest. "More than Joy Division, more than anything. Don't ever let me go ever again."

Clive nods. Cocks his head to the side and says: "I love you too, Martha Costello. And I won't, I promise."

.

It takes time, she learns. Dedication, fluctuations, a desire, a commitment, sometimes, to compromise. There's the easy stuff, the early stuff. The funny stuff.

The first time she texts him: "she moved," Martha's in court, her hand on the much, much bigger bump on her belly hidden under her gown and he texts back: What? Your mum? Again?

She laughs so hard it feels like she can't breathe, has to hide it behind a cough when the judge throws her a strange look.

(A few months later, Clive stares as they watch the baby make Martha's own skin stretch, move with its shifts inside her. "That is so weird," Clive says, mesmerised. She laughs, and yes, frankly it is a bit odd, but – "I fucking love you," he tells her, then, catching her lips as the words tumble out of his mouth. His kiss is strong, powerful. "I really, really, fucking love you.")

.

She panics, though. Her second trimester is supposed to be there for her to feel better, relax and prepare, but instead, it's when shit starts to get real. One night, her heart races in her chest. It's 4 AM and the both of them are working at Martha's kitchen table, the kettle grumbling with boiling water in the background. She's curt and horrible to Clive, looks into his eyes and says: "How the fuck are we going to manage?" because clearly, the both of them won't be able to go on like this once the baby's born. How the hell are they going to keep up with this job and care for a child? "It'll fall back on me, won't it?" she accuses, watches Clive look up from the papers in front of him. "I'm going to have to stay at home and I can't do that, Clive," she insists, catches his gaze. "I'll go insane." The moment he looks down at his phone, she harps on it. "Don't look at your fucking phone, I'm –"

He puts his hand up. She stops. Passes the phone to her. "Read," he says. "Just read."

So, in the end, she relents. Sits down on a chair opposite him and does read. It's a thread of emails; she recognises the name of the charity in the signature right away. This guy, Curt Higgins, made billions when he sold his app to Google, set up a charity to lobby for the government to provide better detention facilities in the UK. There's a whole sob story about how he was in prison himself; Martha's never really quite paid attention to it, but –

She reaches the end of the thread, her brain in overdrive. It's the middle of the night and maybe they shouldn't be discussing this now, but then when? "Clive –" she starts.

"Open it," he says. "Open the attachment."

She does. Reads again. And again. There are too many zeros at the end of that number, it's – "That's wrong," she just says, shaking her head and handing the phone back to him. Clive giggles, catches her confused look.

"Yes. Money's wrong, capitalism is wrong," he teases. "Viva la revolución. We all know you vote Labour."

She half-chuckles and half-glares at his joke, bites her lip. "No, I mean, Clive, if you quit practicing, it's -"

Because, yes, that's what it is, isn't it, from what Martha's read in the thread. He went and had about a dozen chats with them, meetings with Curt himself, and the document with the whole lot of zeros at the end is a job offer. Policy and Fundraising Director, which Martha imagines means a whole lot of hand-shaking, people-pleasing, consulting. "I didn't want to tell you until I had the offer," he explains as the thoughts run through her head, confused. "I just heard back tonight. I was going to tell you tomorrow morning, not now in the middle of the night, but –"

Martha stays quiet, just looks at him, frowns. She doesn't really care that he didn't tell her, it's more that – "But that's never been what you wanted," she tells him, shakes her head. "Going in-house, it's not –"

He laughs. Genuinely, wholeheartedly laughs; she almost smiles as an automatic response. "Not what I want?" he asks. "I wanted silk and I got silk, Marth," he tells her, honest. "Then I wanted to get Head of Chambers, and I got that, too. Now what? Sit around for twenty years like bloody Alan waiting for my shoulder to get tapped?" His voice pauses; he catches her gaze. "I want us to see each other. I want to see that baby grow up. I don't want us to ever fight about cases again –"

She opens her mouth at that, he cuts her short of saying anything.

"You know it'll happen, Marth, it always does." She's silent for a while after he adds: "I love this job, but you're right: we won't be able to manage if we both keep up with this life," he insists. "One of our careers needs to take the hit and this job has always mattered to you more than it did to me."

There are tears in her eyes, that night. She thinks he knows exactly how much this means to her, knows that she won't ever be able to thank him enough, for trusting her, choosing her, being the best partner in crime she could ever wish for. He holds her tight, in bed, and a smile reaches her eyes when she says: "I love you," and also jokes: "Will you marry me?"

Martha's thrown back to his crack proposal in their twenties – they are forty and still technically single, she muses. Clive laughs when he crosses her gaze. "I'd suggest you think about that again because I might actually say yes, one day."

.

The last problem they solve, Martha is thirty-eight weeks in and feels enormous, bored to death, stuck at home since Charlotte more or less escorted her out of Chambers a week before, claiming that no, they couldn't run the risk of her giving birth in the middle of a hearing. They've freed the spare room in her flat to make room for a crib, but they still don't have a name. She keeps throwing in the most ridiculous suggestions at him until Clive tries to push her for a serious one, one night, and Martha rolls her eyes at him and says: "Oh, for God's sake, it can wait!"

The music goes dead, later on that evening, in her apartment, and when she asks him to go and switch the disks in her record player ("I'm about fifteen months pregnant, I'm not moving from here, Clive,"), he takes a bit too long, comes back with a sharpie and her copy of I'm A Fool To Want You, circles the name three times.

"Why –" she begins, about to scream at him for vandalising her property, when her voice goes quiet, jaw clenched. She looks up at him, catches his gaze. "You're serious," she states, from the look on his face.

"I would never have brought it up if I wasn't."

Billie Ann Costello-Reader is born on the 9th of January 2016 and she's the most beautiful thing either of them has ever seen.

.

A year later, they find themselves signing papers at the register office with Clive's parents, siblings and Martha's mum. Billie keeps pulling at Clive's hair and the dress Martha wears is the one she wore on their first date, and there are no churches, no vows, just a ring on her left hand, this time, and a knowledge, at the bottom of Martha's heart, that this will work out. They're not the average spouses, parents, lovers, partners, friends. She's the one who proposed, kind of as a joke until they looked at the numbers and realised it made sense, financially speaking. He's the one who sacrificed his career for their family. Generally, they work things out. Sometimes, they fall, but you can't be mad at someone as much as she was mad at him, once upon a time, without being stupidly in love with them in the first place.

The day they get married, she thinks back at the evening they spent in that mansion on the outskirts of London and: it's you and me, she thought, back then, just like she does now. 'Come home,' she whispered in his ear as they slow-danced to the music that played behind them 'Come home with me.'

In the background, the song said: and I know we'll have to pretend that we're fine for a night but then again I know you know that we'll be all right in the end.

.

The End.

.

.

[1] 25 ans by Ben Mazué

[2] Fly Me To The Moon by Frank Sinatra

[3] Turn Me On by Norah Jones

[4] I'm A Fool To Want You by Billie Holiday

[5] Call You Up by Viola Beach