A close call. A close shave. By an immaculately curled hair's breadth and the skin of her perfectly straight teeth. And though Fiona doesn't know the first thing about football, she's pretty sure this is what they call pulling off the Hail Mary. Deeply-held secrets are not often revealed in half measures - they are strung with an almost physically palpable tension, violent and destructive on release, rarely failing to leave a mark on their target. The decision to reveal a confidence has to carefully judge the promise of catharsis against the damage it is likely to cause - but Fiona didn't need catharsis. Whether it was rationalization or not, Fiona's guilt at keeping her feelings from Holly J was mitigated by the knowledge that if this was anything, anything else, she would trust Holly J implicitly. But this was not a matter of trust, it was about preserving a friendship that meant more to Fiona than anything in the world.

The decision to keep a secret, however, isn't worth much if one is not its sole owner. Grudgingly, Fiona had to concede that the news being delivered by proxy was likely what tipped the balance in her favor. Though the aftermath of Anya's revelation ultimately felt more like a stopgap than a real resolution, Fiona still had to wonder if her making moony eyes at Holly J in The Dot wasn't perhaps a subconscious invitation for Anya to call her out. Fiona could deal with the cleanup work, the damage control, but if it fell on her shoulders to say the words herself, there was no way her relationship with Holly J could have come out intact. She knew the look in her eyes and the waver in her words would betray her, more so now that the buffer of a nice bottle of extra brut was no longer an option. The only thing more unacceptable than Holly J thinking this was anything more than a glorified crush would be for her to catch Fiona glassy-eyed, oozing Dom from every tiny pore, knowing she had broken her sobriety.

This was the outcome Fiona had hoped for. As far as she was concerned it was the only possible, the only acceptable, outcome. Yet she couldn't escape the persistent needling that her fortune was not blind luck and circumstance, a feeling that she had just been allowed to get away with something. Fiona wanted a clear line in the sand - what she got was a question mark. At the very least, it meant that Holly J was matching her efforts to keep their friendship intact, and Fiona was grateful that the other girl had chosen not to needle her about any of the messy details. There was a way that conversation should have gone, a predictable arc it should have followed - things that should have been said, questions that should have been asked, and an ending which, to at least one of them, was all but a foregone conclusion. That's not how it went. The actors ripped up the script and decided to wing it, but whether they wrote a new ending in the process seemed yet to be determined. Either way, Fiona was grateful that she had been given an unexpected opportunity to play her cards close to the vest.

Of course, even the best poker players get caught bluffing. A stolen glance, a smile, a quirk of the head. Another close call.