Disclaimer: Do not own
Set two years after the Christmas episode, because I just watched it last night and the Nathan/Marnie relationship was absolutely adorable. Just a little look into what Nathan might be thinking about his relationship two years down the line.
Two years didn't seem like a long time, Nathan reflected, not for the thousands of things that had happened. He stood in the doorway to Nathan Jr.'s room and just watched him sleep. This had been the biggest change, not the baby, he'd been ready in ways he hadn't even anticipated for the baby, but the flat was a big thing.
After a few weeks in the community centre with Marnie and the baby Nathan had finally admitted that this wasn't the best place to try and raise a kid; so he'd gone to Simon, because Simon always knew what to do about shit like that.
Simon had gone with him to the council housing people, and with some creative lying, two days later he and Marnie were in emergency housing. 6 months after that they'd been moved to a more permanent flat, with the council paying their rent.
After that things just started happening. He'd managed to get a job in the cinema as a cleaner, and held on to it for nearly three months, a record for him. After than had come odds and ends of jobs, none of them permanent, and each of them eating into him a little, but he kept at it anyway, because he wanted Nathan Jr. to have things, nice things, and he wanted Marnie to keep smiling at him when he surprised her with a little gift, for no other reason than he'd been passing a shop and had the money in his pocket to buy her something.
The others in his little group of friends had been surprised by how serious he had been about all of this. They'd expected him and Marnie to break up, for him to lose interest in the little family he'd fallen into, for her to run off with another man. But Nathan wasn't his dad, and in his own way he loved Marnie and Nathan Jr. as much as he was able, and despite the stupid jobs he was taking, and the fortune he wasn't making, he was happy.