We Drive Tonight

	Sharon couldn't sleep. Of course she couldn't. Time was slipping through her fingers - and she couldn't waste it on sleep. Not if she wanted to do something with her life before it fell apart around her. Tomorrow - she looked at the clock glaring at her, barely having the energy to move her head and she groaned - later today, for it was ten-to-three in the morning, it would all be official. Tomorrow - later today - Zoe was moving in. Not that she hadn't moved in anyway. A top here, a CD there, slowly but surely she had slithered into Sharon's home... into Dennis' bed. There was only one thought that made her sicker than she was when she thought about Dennis & Zoe, and that was that, as of tomorrow - later today - Dennis was giving her permission to call this place home.

	Like everywhere she had ever been, this house held memories for Sharon. Mixed; some good, some bad. But it was undeniable that while the strongest of all these fell into both these catergories, the memories she had of Dennis were the best ones this house held. And right up until the moment Zoe's ectastic cries had penetrated the thin walls, the headboard of Dennis' bed making continued contact with the wall all that time ago, Sharon had truly believed that it had worked the same for him.

	But she knew their situation now. She was just his sister, and she did sisterly things, like his laundry. But sometimes, just bundling his bed linen into the washing machine made her want to cry. Because it seemed as though he had made love to her on every set they owned. She remembered; she remembered every time, and now... well it wasn't her he laid down on his bedsheets anymore was it? And just knowing that, let alone hearing it, Sharon felt as though he was tarnishing her every memory of him. Did he want to forget her, was that it? Didn't he see that he couldn't force the same on Sharon?

	Obviously not, because he was trying so hard. And Sharon knew that as soon as Zoe could legitimately tell anyone (and she would no doubt tell everyone!) that she lived with her boyfriend, that he would be lost to her forever. This was to be Zoe & Dennis' last night apart. Sharon was almost thankful that Zoe had decided she wanted just one last night back at the Slaters, to say goodbye to her home before committing to another.

	With that thought, realising what was to happen sooner than she could bear, Sharon pushed away her threatening tears, and pulled back her duvet, the cool air licking at her warm skin. Zoe would no doubt be on the doorstep at the crack of dawn. Sharon had few precious hours to ensure she wouldn't lose him; to make him see she couldn't lose him.

	Stealing the few steps across the landing and looking anxiously over her shoulder as she went, as if she was expecting to be followed.... caught out, she closed her palm around the handle on Dennis' bedroom door, her other hand resting against the varnished wood that she pushed decidedly, almost stumbling into the room, immediately enveloped in darkness again.

	A breath got caught in Sharon's throat, sure she had heard movement coming from Vicki's own room. Waiting just a couple of seconds and thankfully hearing nothing further, she slipped further into the room. Her pretty painted toes gleamed up at her as she stood in a shaft of silvery moonlight seeping through the gently billowing curtains and into the carpet. It almost felt like an intrusion against her tired eyes but as she looked across to the bed, she saw it was a blessing.

	For she could see him. Dennis. A heap curled up underneath the covers. Lifeless and still apart from the rhythmic rise-and-fall of his chest, the release of gentle breaths that sounded more like sighs. And then there was the way he would murmur to himself. Sharon smiled warmly, her heart swelling with adoration as she saw the way his arms were sprawled instinctively against the pillow next to his. Whenever she had lain his arms like that, she had never slept. Firstly because he would probably wake up, around this time, and be able to think of something better to do than sleep, and secondly, most importantly, she didn't know how she was meant to sleep when there was something... someone.... so beautiful next to her. So she would spend the hours she lay in his bed admiring him, watching his eyelids flicker, his lips quiver, the way the light went across his face.

	Unable to stop herself, she went round to the right hand side of the bed, climbing down next to him. She lay down, scooching her head into the pillow so that she was entirely in-line with him, so close, so perfectly close that his eyelashes practically went underneath her own every time they flickered. It made Sharon tingle to realise that he still looked so much like an angel as he slept.

	So close to him once again, there came a rush of adrenaline Sharon remembered well. She could do anything. So she lifted her hand and slowly caressed his cheek. But her heart quite literally stopped with a painful abruptness as he murmured. However, for as long as the next few seconds felt, he didn't raise another sound and Sharon dared to relax, sinking down onto the linen, trying to fight off the hurtling embrace of sleep. But she was weak, and her eyes had just about closed when a voice, thick with sleep whispered,

	"What are you doing here?"

	Managing to scale down a scream of surprise to a frightened gasp, her eyes snapped open. And immediately, Sharon was drowning. Pulled so deep into those piercing emerald eyes, as if they were seeking out her very soul.

	"It's you." she murmured rather pathetically back, well aware that she sounded relieved.

	"Who did you expect?" he smiled, a whisper of a laugh escaping the corners of his lips as they rose. "You're lying on my bed.... why... why are you lying on my bed?"

	"I... I wanted to see you."

	"You're seeing me."

	 She smiled warmly, lifting her hand against his cheek again. "I think I preferred you when you were sleeping."

	Raising his own hand, he pulled Sharon's hand gently back from his face, and she was stung, soothed only as he laced his fingers through hers, running the pad of his thumb across her knuckles."I wasn't sleeping."

	"No? So what were you doing? Resting your eyes?"

	"That's right." And he heaved himself up onto his elbows. As he leant over Sharon, she shrank away, curling up protectively, scared he was about to tear his hand free of hers and chuck her out. But he just flicked on the lamp on the bedside table and squinted at the clock before flopping back against the pillows with a groan, rubbing his eyes furiously with his other hand. "Bloody hell... and so I should be at three o'clock in the morning Sharon!"

	Sharon felt herself flush, and she pushed herself up, sweeping the hair back from her face and gabbling "Yeah... Yeah... course you should. Sorry. I-I-I'll go... big day tomorrow and all that... j-j-just go back to sleep... I'll see you t-"

	But he climbed across the bed, staring up at her with interest as he pulled on her hand again and forcing her to sit back down. "I told you... I wasn't asleep."

	She half turned towards him, resting her knee on the duvet and barely managing to raise a smile even to humour him. He lowered his gaze, staring intently at their clasped hands as the moments where she could have been speaking passed them slowly by.

	Finally, he let his own words fill the emptiness. "What are you doing lying on my bed at three in the morning Sharon?"

	"I told you-"

	"Yeah, yeah..." he agreed quickly, nodding and gulping back his irritation. "You wanted to see me, I heard you the first time. But you've seen me... and you're still here. You must have a bigger reason than that. Why did you want to see me?"

	"I thought... maybe..." she began miserably, aware that the words were sticking to the roof of her dry mouth. "...to talk?" And she raised the conclusion of her sentence unintentionally like a question, which was met by Dennis raising an eyebrow.

	"At three in the morning?"

	And Sharon found herself staring at the duvet again. She recognised this one well. Stripes. He'd lain her down on these covers, promising "You're never gonna lose me, I promise. We're always gonna be together" before answering a kiss that had come from Sharon's own lips, a kiss it would have been pointless trying to fight. But maybe he should have tried. Because for all his promises, he was still so nearly lost. 

	She only realised that more moments had passed her by as Dennis leant across again, his soft fingertips settling against her jaw and slowly tilting her chin up so she would meet his eye again.

	"Hey." he said gently, as if this was the first time tonight he had spoken to her. "Are you gonna tell me what you wanna talk about or do I have to guess?"

	Finding the words to point out what she needed to talk about seemed impossible, and though she knew it was the last thing she should have said, she mumbled, "It's nothing, it doesn't matter."

	He laughed. "Well, that's a classic." But when he saw that she was blushing, guilt swirled gently inside. "Sharon... you know you can talk to me don't you?"

	"No." she hit back, without meaning to sound so cold and certain - not really meaning to have said the words at all. "No... not about this I can't."

	His shoulders sank in defeat, and he sighed, clawing back his lip as he took in her response. He listened to the desperate pattern of her breathing, and he could feel it starting to wind him up just like a spring. So he forced himself to look back up into her face, into those big glittering eyes, and to shrug, like he couldn't give a damn.

	"What you still doing here then?"

	She gulped, the words suddenly beating painfully against her throat, lodged there like a lump, just waiting to slip into the uncomfortable stillness of the room.

	"Dennis... can we get out of here?"

	Dennis didn't think to deny her. There were words shining on her very lips that she would not speak for as long as they were here, he knew that. And he wanted to hear them, because tomorrow... later today... he was going to be letting her go. The very memory of her was going to be one he couldn't let himself think of again, so just a couple of hours with her... to say goodbye?

	She'd slipped into her room, the door gently clicking shut. She'd come back literally a minute later, having thrown off her night-shirt, in favour of a denim skirt and black top that slid off her shoulders. They were each tellingly rumpled, but still, catching sight of her as she slid nervously back into the room, backing up against the door and clawing at her lip, Dennis was in awe he tried desperately not to show. Even at three in the morning, she could pick clothes up off her bedroom floor and throw them on and still look incredible.

	In that same (missing) heartbeat, Dennis wondered, what was he going to do... how was he going to hide what she did to him when it was to be that she hadn't just tiredly flung off her clothes... that some bloke had torn them off, desperate to lie her back against the bed, to...

	He shook the hideousness of the very thought away, pulling his top down over his bare chest, smoothing out the folds of the material and smiling awkwardly over at Sharon, waiting for the moment she would, however fleetingly, meet his eye.

	"Alright?" he whispered, aware how cracked his voice sounded. He needed a drink.

	"Yeah." she replied, hunching her shoulders and nodding quite uncertainly. "Yeah, I think I will be."

	With that, he picked his way across the room, and she shrank away as his fingers brushed her arm on course to close around the door handle. Dennis had definitely felt the flinch upon contact, and wasn't sure who it had come from, so they just exchanged a smile that said nothing in particular before he pulled open the door and slid out onto the still landing, creeping towards the banister, careful not to step too heavily before stealing down the staircase. He could hear Sharon behind him, taking in shallow little breaths. She sounded genuinely afraid that she would be caught sneaking out of the house with him at this time. But they hadn't done anything, what could anyone do besides scold them like a couple of kids? Dennis was more than willing to take that chance, and knowing that Sharon continued to follow him down, assured him that she was too.

	Lifting the latch on the door, he turned and waited her to slip past first. She'd hesitated for a moment and then gone forward, and every sound was suddenly amplified, freed from the confines of the house's four walls. He listened to the sound of Sharon's heel scraping against the damp stone as she bounded down the steps to the pavement. The scent of the fallen rain still held thick in the air. Dennis stood and savoured it for a moment without really knowing why. But for a moment, he did wonder, would things be the same when he got back here? After he'd spoken to Sharon, heard whatever it was she needed to say, would everything here look the same... smell the same... feel the same? Or was she about to change everything for him?

	"Dennis?"

	Her address was so quiet, it barely reached him. The look in her eyes, however, was like a thunderbolt. So wide... so bright... so deep and so... so sad.

	He shook the feeling away before it shook him anymore. He thundered down to the pavement and unlocked the car doors.

	Andy Hunter had leant him his own precious BMW. Why, Dennis was still not entirely certain. Something to do with Zoe moving in. 

	"Help her lug her gear across... don't wanna be seen carrying boxes across the Square that have got pink teddies and old Bunty annuals in do ya Dennis? Nah... and anyway, sooner she gets in, sooner she'll be out again, and then you can stop all this pretending, can't you? I mean, I wish you all the best, course I do, but me and you both know where your head's at don't we? How is Sharon by the way?"  

	So he could suss a couple of things, but Jesus, why did he have to be so smug about it? So Dennis had snatched the keys away without so much as a "cheers". Because no matter what Andy said, Zoe was moving in.

	Wordlessly, he got in and started the engine, pulling out of the Square without so much as looking at his passenger, let alone asking her if there was anywhere in particular she wanted to go. But she didn't seem bothered. She was staring contently out the rain splattered windows into the sleepy blackness beyond, her chin rested against her palm.

	So, for the half hour he drove, Dennis was left alone with his thoughts. And there seemed to be only one he could return to.

	Sharon wasn't Andy. And unlike Andy, Dennis hadn't banked on Sharon having anything to say to him about Zoe moving in... he hadn't banked on her having anything to say to him about anything. That had pretty much been the way things had fallen when they had split up and neither of them had had the energy to fight it. And what if... when she spoke... when she had said what she needed to say... would Zoe still be moving in?

	He barely remembered Sharon was sat next to him, even though she was all he could think about, and he practically jumped out of his skin as she leant across and curled her hand around the one resting against the steering wheel.

	"Stop."

	
	Dennis' heart was pounding as he realised he'd obediently slowed just outside dark and deserted woodland. He hadn't been anywhere near... since... 

	He gulped, and forced himself to look at Sharon, who had turned in her seat to face him, her knees drawn up to her chest. But they dropped a little as she studied his face.

	"Darlin'...?"

	"Wha'?" he managed finally, copying her stance and forcing a smile to his lips.

	But she shook her head and smiled back. "I... I don't know what to say."

	"Wanna go back home?"

	"No." she said quickly. Then she dropped her gaze, fidding with her hands. Realising she was wasting time, she looked up at him again. "This... would be so much easier if we were... I dunno, strangers."

	He laughed in spite of himself, until he caught the look of seriousness of her face. So he pulled the handle and kicked the door open, resting against the roof of the car for a minute.

	"Dennis?"

	"I thought you weren't meant to know who I am?" he teased. He heard her laugh and settle back before he ducked back into the car, slamming the door and grinning at her before extending his hand.

	"Dennis. Dennis Rickman."

	Her smile widened as she stared at his hand for a moment before grasping it firmly. "Nice to meet you, Dennis Rickman. I'm Sharon... Sharon Hanley."

	"Eh?"

	"You didn't think I was gonna tell you about Den & Angie did you? I might be looking to pull... Nah, Carol... my real mum... her name was Hanley."

	"Oh. Right." And he just stared at her, not really knowing what to say, because she... was she flirting with him? Already?

	"Not that I mattered to her much." she said weakly, her shoulders sagging, and Dennis felt compassion stirring. He knew how that felt.

	"You met her?"

	"Yeah. I tracked her down after Dad was..." She jiggled her knee with her hand. "... well, y'know."

	"Yeah, I know. So what happened? Didn't she wanna know?"

	"Oh yeah." She laughed bitterly, rolling her head back. "Said we were great friends. Friends, can you believe it? The woman gives birth to me... abandons me... forces me into a life with Al Capone and Judy soddin' Garland as parents and she wants to be friends?"

	His hand falling against the one she had against her knee, he squeezed it reassuringly, running his thumb across the back. 

	"She obviously didn't see what she'd be missing."

	"It wasn't so much that I wanted her to miss me... was trying to make her feel guilty enough to wanna buy me a pony. Cos y'know, for all the years as Dad's precious Princess, he never bought me one!"

	"Sharon, you lived in the middle of London above a pub... where were you gonna keep a pony? Between the barrels of Fosters and Churchill's in the cellar?"

	"I'd have managed!" she bleated, gazing into her lap distractedly as she laughed gently with him. "Anyway, what about you?"

	He bristled immediately, his smile falling from his lips. She knew damn well there was nothing to tell.

	"What about me?" he snapped.

	But his tone seemed to go over her head. "Well... your mum?"

	"What about her? Always off her face, going through any bloke that so much as smiled at her. Each and every one of them meant more to her than I ever did, even if they only stayed the one night. They were all more important than me. Especially your old man." He nodded towards her, and she felt a tightening pain in her chest - sympathy. "She loved me then. At least she said she did. Only, her way of showing it was slobbering all over me, and... she'd reek of god knows what." He shuddered in repulsion without even realising it. "I hated her touching me. Cos the only time she'd wanna be anywhere near me... hugging me was when she'd tell me how special I was cos I was Den's boy. Way she went on, I thought they were Romeo & Juliet or summat."

	"Your mum musta been really young." It was pathetic, but it was the only thing Sharon could find to say. She knew she'd been pushing it with her question. She'd never really expected him to answer, let alone to a length that would tell her in no uncertain terms what his life had really been like. Her heart was quietly breaking. How could he not have been loved for who he was, not for who he was part of?

	"Seventeen."

	"So Michelle... and Vicki... were just a replay then? Don't surprise me."

	"Yeah. Well, when it suited her, I was perfect. Cos I was Den's son. She never let me forget it... I guess that's why I idolized him so much, y'know? And you..."

	"Me?" Sharon repeated, stunned to say the least. When had they suddenly leapt forward twenty-odd years and brought her into his life?

	"You." he nodded, a smile stretching out from the corner of his mouth. "My mum loved you. You were Den's little Princess, and Mum always used to say that was because that's exactly what you looked like - a princess. Blonde hair, big, sparkling eyes and these little pouty lips that could get you anything you wanted. She said she bought you a tiara once, just to complete the look, y'know?"

	Sharon gasped. "That was your mum? I remember that tiara - I wore it til it broke! But... I got given that by the babysitter..."

	"Lau-Lau?" he asked, raising an eyebrow and laughing as Sharon blushed.

	"I can't believe she told you that's what I used to call her. I just never..." She chuckled, lazily covering her mouth with her hand. "God, I'd forgotten that... I could never say Paula, always came out as Laura... Lau-Lau." She looked distractedly over at Dennis, her stomach fluttering as she realised he was gazing back at her with unbridled adoration in his eyes. "But she... she was babysitting me pretty much as soon as I came to the Vic... I was three, so she would have been... fifteen?"

	"Yep."

	"Oh God." she muttered tiredly, pressing the flat of her palm against her forehead. "My bloody father..."

	He laughed again, tapping a rhythm against his knees. "So I guess I should thank you."

	Sharon couldn't see how and couldn't stop herself saying, "Should ya?" only afterwards thinking that that had sounded unnecessarily callous and that she may have hurt him. He seemed to be staring at his knees rather intently, but then she saw a flicker of a smile as he looked up at her again.

	"Well, yeah... if she hadn't loved you so much... your dad would never have taken such a shine to her and... I wouldn't be here. Though..." He turned and stared out the window, rain beating against it once more. "...that wouldn't have been such a bad thing..."

	"Hey!" she said gently, reaching for his hand again and lacing her fingers through, praying to God that there were no tears in his eyes. "Don't talk like that. I'm glad you're here."

	"Are ya?" he shot back, his voice quivering.

	"Yes! Please... Dennis... look at me!"

	After a moment or two, he obediently did so, gulping back what was obviously a sob.

	"I always hoped you would be y'know. Mum made you out to be so special, just like she did with Den. I'm just glad she was right... right about you anyway. I wondered what you were like as much as I did him." He shifted in his seat, lifting his hip and withdrawing his wallet and flipping it open, pulling out a scrap of a photograph from behind a wrinkled heap of notes and handing it to her.

	Sharon recognised it immediately, the memory of the moment staring up at her crashing through her. Sat against Lau-Lau's knees on the floor, smudges of bright pink lipstick across her little lips, the tiara perched proudly on her head, blonde curls spilling out from underneath, a smile so wide it showed off all her little white milk teeth, right to the back, Lau Lau's arms wrapped protectively around her, happiness showing in her eyes as she kissed Sharon's cheek.

	"Oh..." she gasped lovingly. "Lau-Lau..."

	Dennis smiled as he reached across to take it back. "She nicked it out of your mum's albums before she left Walford, gave it to me when I was about seven. I always thought you were beautiful too... promised her I'd take good care of this because... "Sharon Watts is precious, Dennis," that's what she said... and she was right-"

	Catching the way he was looking at her, Sharon tore her own gaze away. "Stop it."

	But he didn't, too wrapped up in the apparant warmth of his memories as he put his wallet back and drew his knees up to his chest. "-and I... I always wanted to meet ya. I'd skive off school and get the tube to Walford... I don't know if you know this... but I got you to serve me when I was seventeen. I mean, it was no biggie, I'd flirted my way into alcohol since I was about thirteen, good at it too- but you... I couldn't... because of who you were and... well, I didn't have to... you looked at me a couple of times, but you just gave me the drink, and even then, I just... I couldn't believe how incredible you were. But I couldn't exactly tell you who I was could I... but if I didn't, I knew I was gonna end up stalking you or summat and... I didn't know about Vicki... cos my mum had never known about Vicki... and when she turned up at the funeral like that..." He laughed again, as if he could barely believe himself. "...I didn't have a clue who she was..." He turned towards Sharon, who hadn't so much as drawn breath while he had been speaking. "...I guess I shoulda seen the family resemblance huh? But then-" He squeezed her hand tighter, suddenly aware that he still held it. "-she said who you were... and I just knew it was gonna change. Didn't really recognise you without the tiara, but you still... you were still so incredible because somewhere inside you was the little girl I felt like I knew. Precious Sharon Watts."   

	Sharon was silent as she took in the loving look in his eyes, unable to escape it anymore - captivated by it even. But still the colour rose in her cheeks as she rolled her head back against the headrest, curling up into the seat, her knee knocking continually against the gear-stick.

	"I'm not precious. I'm not even special. Not like you."

	He laughed, and the bitter edge to the sound cut right through her like a knife. "Me? Yeah right, Sharon, I'm only here cos of two people and I never mattered to either of them. What's so special about that?"

	"Well, my mum didn't exactly want me did she? And you... you're so special... to Dot, Zoe, Vicki.... me..."

	"Am I?" he asked, again sounding so very doubtful.

	We drive tonight and you are by my side
	We're talking about our lives
	Like we've known each other forever

	"Yeah you are. Not sure it woulda been the same if you'd lost me my licence... but... you've carried a photo of me round for nearly twenty-five years without knowing more than my name... that's special."

	"But that's you-"

	"It's what you did. And I... I hope I didn't disappoint."

	"You couldn't. Y'know, I think my mum only had me cos she was hoping I'd be just like you. Musta been such a disappointment when it turned out little Denise was a Dennis. Bloody woman, she clung to your dad like anything, why she couldn't have called me summat else... anything that didn't mean I'd be walking in the shadow of a dead man my whole life..." His gaze slid awkwardly across to her. "Sorry."

	"Don't apologise to me honey, it was you who found out he wasn't pushing up daises, not me. It must have been pretty hard for you too. Like he was a living, breathing..."

	"Me?" Dennis finished, shoulders sagging in defeat. "Yeah. Look at that Dennis, that's why you're here, that's what you're destined to become. That didn't make me feel special Sharon, it made me feel like I was dead too."

	"What?" She couldn't believe that that was what she had really heard him say, but according to the look in his eyes, she hadn't heard him wrong. "Oh darlin'... why?"

	"If Vicki had come back any other night..."

	"Shit." she breathed, her chest tightening as she immediately followed what he was talking about. "Me."

	"Mmmm." he murmured softly, not really noticing her unease. "If I'd just had a couple more hours eh? Maybe I coulda made you see..." But his voice trailed off and his gaze fell away as he suddenly realised he was broaching the most sensitive of subjects.

	Uneasy silence set in, and Dennis just stared at his knees, surprised to find that Sharon's hand was still loosely wrapped around the one he had rested against the left. Seeing that he had registered their connection, Sharon pulled slowly back, laughing.

	"This is ridiculous - we're not doing very well for strangers are we? You should be telling me what you do for a living-"

	"Barman. My boss likes to call me the bar manager, but I know I'm just under her thumb-" he teased, happy to see a smile creep up on her lips.

	"She sounds like an absolute dragon."

	"She is. If she's not careful she's gonna end up like the woman from across the Square... Pauline Fowler... she's so much more than a dragon, she's like a fuckin' dinosaur!"

	"Dennis!" she giggled, hitting his thigh. 

	"Yeah well! Anything else you wanna know?"

	"Yeah, but you go."

	And as she gestured for him to speak, he picked up his cue immediately. "Tea."

	"Eh?"

	"Well Sharon, I know nothing about you right? I think I should at least know how you take your tea in the morning just in case we-"

	"No!" she cried, laughing again as her flailing hands rained down on him, slapping wherever they struck. "That's not what we're talking about!"

	"Jesus, alright!" he chuckled, fending her off with his arms to protect himself before even considering straightening up. "Just thought I should check! So what are we talking about?"

	"You. Tell me things I don't know."

	Butterflies stirred in his stomach as he listened to her. There wasn't anything Sharon didn't know. She knew he'd killed a man for God's sake, what could there possibly be that he hadn't told her?

	"L-L-Like wh-what?" he stammered.

	"Little things." she said warmly, tracing patterns into his jeans with her finger. "Like who was your first kiss with?"

	He guffawed. This was new. He'd never had this type of coversation with anyone. No-one had ever been interested enough in him to want to know pathetic details like that - and Dennis would have felt pathetic for divulging them. So how was it that Sharon could get it out of him.... what was it about her?

	"Annie. Annie Wilkins. Well, actually, it might not have been Annie... are we talking tongues here?"

	Sharon laughed. Nothing he said could surprise her anymore. "If you like."

	"Then that was Janey-" He gave her a sideways look. "-her sister."

	"You're horrible! You were ramming your tongue in there by your second kiss? With Annie's sister?"

	"Er, scuse me, pot... kettle... black! I was twelve, I didn't know any better!"

	He had expected her to at least acknowledge his reference to the Mitchells. He hadn't meant to and thought it would come back and pretty much slap him across the face. But Sharon didn't care. She was just happy she was here with him... just him... not having to pretend, just being able to talk to him about stupid things.

	"You were twelve? Bloody hell, I was nearly sixteen!"

	"Yeah right!"

	"I was! It was only after I slipped my tongue in there that I became a slapper!"

	"You've never been a slapper."

	She smiled. "Nah, not like you eh?" She hugged her knees. "So c'mon then, if you were sucking face when you were twelve, how old were you when you first did it?"

	He didn't even pause for breath before replying. "Thirteen." He laughed again as he watched Sharon's mouth fall open. "What?"

	"I... I dunno what to say.... thirteen? Jesus, I... I was just sixteen I think but... thirteen?"

	"Yeah..."
	
	"Well, who with?"

	"Lisa. Was in my third or fourth home by then... she was fourteen... fuckin' gorgeous... gorgeous fu-"

	Sharon was practically scrambling over herself to lurch across and clamp her hand against his mouth. As he obediently let her silence him, she fell back, shaking her hair out of her eyes. "So was she the best then... Lisa? Or did you shag your way round the homes after that?"

	He tilted his chin, quite literally looking down his nose at her, with a doubtful look sparkling in his eyes. "Lisa...? What, like in my whole life?"

	"Yeah, go on. Who's the best shag you ever had? And she was legal?"

	With a laugh, Dennis turned away, immediately lifting his hand to scratch pointlessly at the nape of his neck. He could feel the heat prickling in his cheeks. How was he meant to answer that when...

	"Wow." he'd said quietly, before he even realised. "This is embarrassing."

	"Embarrassing?" she echoed, hunching forward a little in interest. "Why? C'mon, who was she?"

	And when he said nothing, even though his lips were evidently quivering with words he could not speak as he stared at her; she realised, her mouth hanging open once again as she slouched back.

	"Oh.... Wow... I, er... wasn't expecting that one. I mean... are you sure? Me?" And she puffed out a breath, shaking her head in disbelief. Dennis just watched as her hair fell about her flushed face.

	"Yeah. I'm sure." And he gently pushed back the curtain of her hair, revealing the tantalisingly slope of her neck and the exposed shoulders he remembered so vividly covering in kisses. "So... er... what about you? One of the Mitchells... Tom?"

	It was the logical thing to do, which is probably why Sharon hadn't expected him to turn the question back on her, her stomach plummeting to the floor. "Well I guess I can say now can't I? It was you."

	"You're just saying that."

	"No. No, I'm not. It was definitely you. Not that it matters now eh? Because I'm sure Zoe feels exactly the same way..."

	Ah. They'd gotten there then. The moment that told Dennis in no uncertain terms why he was sat here with her in the middle of nowhere at going on for four in the morning. He'd been waiting for this, but now that it was here, just considering it made him feel sick. So he just gazed at her, feeling the awkwardness in the minute distance between them. And he settled for a gentle smile to conceal his nerves.

	"I dunno. That doctor she was with... might have been self-prescribing the little blue pill..."

	"Like you'd need a pill!"

	"Oh, you reckon, do ya?"

	"I know so."

	She didn't return her words in the same fliratious way he had sent his, and he couldn't ignore that. He couldn't be cocky about it. Oh, bad choice of words Dennis, mate. But, she... she'd just sounded so... defeated. This was gonna have to become one heavy discussion, and he didn't know if he could bear it.

	"Sharon... Zoe... moving in... you are alright with it aren't you?"

	She looked up at once, like he'd just hit her, and Dennis knew he'd done it. He'd reached the point of no return. Her eyes were wide and sparkling, and he couldn't help but search out the tears that were not yet there. And her lips were quivering. Words... sadness? He just didn't know.

	"Wha... What do you want me to say? Whatever it is I'm meant to say, tell me and I'll say it."

	He laughed nervously. "The truth would be nice."

	"You don't wanna know the truth."

	He stopped for a moment, before shifting onto his hip and edging closer to her. "If I don't wanna know, why am I here eh?"

	"Because you know I'm not alright with it. That I won't ever be alright with it, but I have to make like I am, because there's nothing I can do about it."

	"So what exactly is it you're doing right now?"

	"Wishing I could sleep." she answered honestly and he humoured her with a weak smile. And after just a beat of silence, she looked to him again, murmuring fervently. "Dennis... does she make you happy?"

	He blinked at her as he studied her face. "Who's asking?"

	She was baffled. "Well... me..."

	"I know that Sharon, but who are you asking as? Because if you're asking as who I think you are, I'm not gonna answer."

	She couldn't stop herself scoffing bitterly. "Right, so it's just before you move Zoe into my house that you remember she isn't the only one you've had in your bed? Brilliant timing darlin' - it's only now you care?"

	"What are you talking about? I care, of course I care!"

	"Then change your sheets."

	"What?" 

	"She's not sleeping on those sheets. See, unlike you Dennis, as much as I'd like to, I haven't forgotten. I remember you. Or at least, I think I do. Because you've disappeared. The Dennis I know... he has more sense than this... he's warm and... considerate. And I want him back, I don't want you here... you're cold and you're selfish... I want Dennis back."

	Each of her words stung at him as she let her tirrade loose, shivering with absolute fury. He gulped back his defence, realising that even in his head, it didn't stand up. And he couldn't help but think about the sheets covering his bed either, as pathetic as it made him feel. After a moment, it hit him like a ten foot wave. Stripes.

	"I can't afford to love you because I can't afford to lose you."

	"You're not gonna lose me. I promise. We're always gonna be together."

	Oh God, Oh God, Oh God!

	"Maybe... Maybe he just don't exist anymore."

	Sharon scoffed again, glaring at him piteously. She couldn't believe that that was the best he could come up with. "Oh yeah course, cos I changed you right?"

	"That's not a bad thing..."

	"Er, hello! You left me remember?"

	Dennis found himself looking awkwardly at his knees again. He saw her point... that's where the change had brought him, but did she seriously expect him to forget?

	"We... We just wouldn't have worked."

	"Know that for a fact do you? Cos I don't. How can you say you know what would have happened to us when I don't? Don't you see... that's why I didn't want to let you go. I believed in you."

	He could feel tears prickling uncomfortably in his eyes. No-one... No-one had believed in him, ever. Yet here was Sharon... and what had he done to her? 

	"And if you're gone... if you're truly gone, then tell me, and I'll try my best to forget. I'll even be gracious to Zoe if she's what you... just tell me she makes you happy."

	"What is being happy Sharon?"

	She looked at him quizzically for a moment, and for a split second saw the vunerable little boy that had spent a good three quarters of his life carrying around her photograph, idolising the little girl in the tiara his mother lovingly gave, fantasising about the moment he would meet her and be a part of her life, just hoping that his mum would love him just half as much as it was evident she loved Sharon. He didn't have answers, because no-one had tried to give them to him, which meant only one thing - he fucked up again and again. Sharon didn't want him to be so lost, for she was the one harbouring the love for him he had missed for so long.

	"It's love, darlin'." she murmured gently, feeling herself soften. "Loving someone so much, you can't stop thinking about them, feeling jealous about what they could be doing when they're not with you. Wanting to see them all the time, even if it's just for a second to see them smile. And when they're not smiling, you just wanna hold them and say that you can make it all better.... and when they cry, you just... kiss away the tears... and everything about them excites you... you can barely breathe when they're close to you... and you can know the worst things about them, the very worst things and you can still... wake up in the night terrified, but only because, for a second you think... they might not be beside you anymore. And you feel sick cos... you don't know what you'd do without them."

	The time flies by
	With the sound of your voice
	It's close to paradise
	With the end surely near.

	She could feel her words pulsing dangerously against her throat, so she cleared it hastily. She could not cry in front of him. There was a silence, Dennis seeming pretty shell-shocked as her words were forced in.

	"Then, no." he managed finally, nervously meeting her eye. "She don't make me happy." 

	Sharon promptly burst into tears, ducking her head so he would not see the tears fall, although this was a pretty pointless exercise because he could not help but hear them, or take in the way she shook so violently. He reached across to touch her, but she shrugged him away, straightening up, pulling on the handle and kicking the door open, staggering out into the rain. She paid no attention to it, not even feeling it as the freezing droplets lashed against her bare skin, making it sting.

	Dennis was just a heartbeat behind her, diving out into the open and rushing round the car towards her. But she saw his approach and paced backwards.

	"Sharon!"

	"No! Don't touch me, don't talk to me! How can she not make you happy, why doesn't she? You... You broke my hea- You broke me... you gave up on us... and for what?"

	"I... I don't know." he cried pathetically. "But Sharon, please... you know I can't leave you out here. Just... Just get back in the car. I'll take you home..."

	Spluttering on a sob, she nodded, and fell against the car, grappling for the handle before managing to wrench open the door and sink into the passenger seat. But Dennis didn't start the engine. He was too preoccupied with staring at her as she wiped her eyes and shivered with cold, with emotion. He truly hated himself.

	"I'm sorry." he murmured awkwardly.

	"What? What are you sorry for? Lying to me... convincing me you loved me?"

	"I wasn't lying. I did love you... I do love you."

	"Yeah." she scoffed bitterly. "you just got confused somewhere along the way eh? But that's alright, you were allowed to get confused, cos you'd already screwed me a hundred times by then hadn't you? You didn't need me anymore."

	"That's not true!"

	"Isn't it? Well, I'll tell you something shall I? You were the person I loved the most. You are the person I can't stop thinking about, wishing you were next to me when I wake up at night... feeling sick when I realise you're not... jealous when I realise what you're doing with her on the other side of the wall. I love you... I love you so much, but I never would have if you hadn't... but you did... and now you tell me I let you go, I let her move into our home... because I wanna see you happy... and she doesn't make... how could you do that to me?"

	"I... I never meant to hurt you... I just... you said we should move on..."

	"I know I did. And then I meant it. But if you're just gonna settle for anyone... baby, you need someone you can't breathe without, and until you know you've found her, I take it back. Cos that's the least you need... you know that... so stop humouring her..."

	Dennis rolled his head back, laughing nervously and clicking his tongue in the side of his mouth. "You're good Sharon, you know that? Almost had me going there, darlin'. But you're not stupid... you're calculating." He pressed his fingertips to his temples.

	"What?"

	"Don't come the innocent alright? It really don't suit ya! You know "she" was you. There, I've said it now, happy? That the kind of mind fuck you were looking for darlin'?"

	Sharon shook her head, her eyes narrowed as she tried to decipher what he was saying. "What are you talking about... she...? Who was me?"

	"Someone I can't breathe without?" he hissed, hating that she was making him come out and say it.

	Taking in the way his eyes were shimmering so fiercely, she laughed, pulling at her fingers. "You're still breathing." she muttered quietly.

	"Don't take the piss Sharon."

	"Me take the piss?" she cried angrily, finding the strength to lift her head and glare at him, beginning to shake with the force of her fury. "If I did, if I ever did, it was because I learnt from the master! You let me fall in love with you Dennis, you let me feel something I really believed was real! Then you decide "actually, no - maybe it isn't!" and two weeks later, you're shagging a... oh bloody hell, you're never gonna love her are you?"

	He glared at her. "Well, I ain't gonna love her like I loved you if that's what you're waiting for."

	"Did you really love me that much?"

	"You know I did." he nodded awkwardly.

	"No. I thought I did. But I'm thinking, if it was true... if it was so great... if I was the One... why is Zoe moving in? Why are you with her at all? Why aren't you still with me?"

	Dennis was floored, how the hell was he meant to answer that when it wasn't even straight in his own head? Sharon waited to hear his words, whether they were to be protests, rejection, argument or reconciliation. But he had no words to offer her, and she rolled her head back, releasing a bitter laugh, looking at him and making him shift uncomfortably under her gaze.

	"Maybe I wasn't eh? Maybe it was never anything more than sex? Good sex... great sex, but that didn't have to be about me did it? You know you're good - half the women in the Square could tell you as much..." And she scooted closer to him, curling up as she pressed her hand just above his knee, letting her fingers dance up his thigh. "Like Kate hmmm? Tell me about Kate..."

	Sighing, Dennis pushed her hand away, which seemed to amuse her as she cocked her head, trying to meet his eye. He scowled at her defiantly, shrugging.

	"What's Kate got to do with anything?"

	"Nothing, darlin', nothing at all. She's a friend of mine, that's all, and she's a bloody good manicurist!" Sharon splayed her hands, displaying her gleaming, shapely nails with affection. "You think for all the hours it takes to get these looking as good as this we just sit there in silence? We're women Dennis, we talk, it's what we do. I know all about you and Kate."

	He looked up at her in alarm and she laughed softly, glad to have gotten his attention. 

	"And I know what you did... I know you came on to her the night after you kissed me the first time. The very next night! That's fast even for you. Was that cos I said no? Was it? Don't look so surprised darlin', she told me all this because she knew that you were no good for me, she knew... even when I didn't believe it... that you'd hurt me. Seems she knows you better than I ever could don't it eh?"

	Dennis' eyes narrowed, glittering with unmistakable anger and upset as he shook his head. "That's not true."

	"Isn't it?"

	"No! Jesus Sharon... Kate was just... she's sexy yeah, she's clever... she has to be for a copper, reckoned she could suss me, but I never... never told her anything close to what I..."

	"Never told her what you did to Jack huh baby? Maybe she wouldn't have wanted you then eh? Wouldn't have fallen in your bed once you and Dad got rid of Phil, let alone back out of it, for Vicki to see... me..."

	"Were you jealous?"

	"Oh, get over yourself!"

	"No, c'mon... I didn't exactly see you falling over yourself to meet other men!"

	Sharon laughed cruelly right in his face. "Oh yeah Dennis! So you get me flat on my back, show me exactly what I'm missing and then I can't bear to let anyone else touch me, cos sex with you was just so incredible..." And she rolled her eyes, but Dennis felt that it was his turn to be amused, to laugh.

	"Something like that, yeah. Do you know how long it took for the scratches on my back to stop stinging?"

	"Shut up."

	But he didn't, and just smirked at her. "Three weeks."

	"I don't care."

	"No, and you didn't then did you eh? Too busy simpering at Den. I hated him, I really did, and all I wanted to do was walk round that flat without a shirt on, for him to ask if I'd gotten into sort of fight. You'd have liked that wouldn't you Sharon? Cos I coulda said "Yeah I did. Your precious daughter tore the clothes off my back... in fact we trashed the flat... couldn't get enough of each other... at it for hours... actually, was the best sex of my life... aren't you proud Daddy?" Guess I'm just like him eh? Always wanting what I can't have..."

	"That's not true though is it?" Sharon managed after a while, nibbling thoughtfully on her lip. "You had me... and you threw me away like.... like the johnnies we weren't using..."

	"Ouch." And Dennis physically winced. She softened a little at that and gave him a weak smile, letting her words seep out slowly.

	"Tell... me... about... Kate."

	The breath that escaped him sounded very much like he was gagging on it. "Why?"

	"I think you loved her."

	"What?"

	"You heard me. I know the things you said to her that night Dennis. You said, if you hadn't been sent down, which you have to admit is pretty ironic for a policewoman's lover; then you reckoned you and her could have been long term. And I think you were serious, even though at the time, you were still jumping absolutely anything in a skirt..."

	"No! Sharon..."

	"You tried to get her to go with you to Brighton didn't you? When she was staying with us... staying with you. Cos you wanted that dirty weekend back didn't you? Only... it wasn't so dirty was it? Because you wanted to make it special didn't you... that's what you said to her that night... cos you wanted her... you gonna tell me you didn't?"

	"No. I've been attracted to other women Sharon, just like you and all these other men of yours..."

	Her mouth gaped in disbelief as she looked at him. "Excuse me, but which one of us is the cheap little whore here?"

	"I don't know." he shot back smoothly. "Which one of us slept with our husband's brother? Which one of us slept with our own brother?"

	"Which one of us begged our sister to..."

	"Use me instead." Dennis smiled affectionately, apparantly not ashamed to have this latest charge laid at his door. "And which one of us got used eh? Even after one of us was begged never to stop hmmm?"

	"Kate?" Sharon offered brightly, happy to see the irritation in his face at the diversion she had created in their exchange, bringing it full circle to the point she was determined to address. "You coulda just told her you were through... off for a little holiday at Her Majesty's Pleasure and all that, but you didn't... is that cos you're selfish and didn't mind hurting her, or because you hoped she'd still feel something for you... like you did for her?"

	He laughed coldly, trying to deflect some of this intense attention. "Feel something? Me?"

	But Sharon wasn't fazed. She understood what he was doing and it just didn't work with her, not anymore. So she nodded. "You darlin'. You told her you wanted your last night together to be special. That don't sound like just casual sex to me. So did you make love that night Dennis, to Kate?"

	He rolled his head back against the head rest, sighing. "Oh for God's sake!"

	"That's a yes then. But that needs feeling... so tell me you didn't love her."

	"I didn't love her." he answered fiercely, not leaving a breath before his response.

	"Alright." she said gently, bowing her head and barely realising as her hair fell about her face. "So what about me... you and me... we were in love weren't we?"

	He looked up at her in alarm, his eyes wide and shimmering in panic, but not because (and Sharon understood this, she knew him too well) her words were wrong, because she was wrong, but because now she was gone, he didn't want to remember that that was the truth. But it had been lain out in front of him, and he knew he couldn't deny it. So, closing his eyes as he took in an uneasy breath, he bit down on his lip, clawing it back and wincing at the pain this induced, although he simultaneously welcomed it. A sharper pain went through him as he opened his eyes, and was pulled straight into Sharon's own. His chest was tight and he felt so much like he was drowning and he just knew there was nothing he could do to save himself now.

	"Yeah. Yeah we were."

	"So... what about our last night together... did you make that special too because I never knew that's what it would be did I baby... our last night...? So we could have done anything. Might have been just sex that night... or maybe we screwed each other senseless... or maybe I had a headache hmmm... wasn't in the mood for it? That wouldn't be right though would it, Dennis eh... as I remember it, you and me were always in the mood for it. So tell me, on our last night together... did you make love to me?"

	The words swelled in Dennis' throat, his confession, the desire to yell "Yes!" at the top of his lungs and just to reach over and pull Sharon into his arms, never let her go and plead for her forgiveness, lavish her in every loving sensation he'd have to force her to forget when the reality of this morning broke. Broke them. But instead, all he managed to do was avert his gaze from her imploring own and hunch over the steering wheel, hands moving round instinctively to check that the key was still in the ignition. It did strike him that in looking away, he was proving himself to carry some guilt, and he didn't want to leave himself open to being so easily read, not by her.

	"I should... take you home." He cleared his throat hastily and Sharon drew in a humoured little gasp as she rolled onto her hip, shifting towards him. 

	Her sweet scent was tantalizing and made his head buzz  uncharacteristically. It was like he was paralyzed as he felt her move closer, her warm breath dancing across the side of his face as she managed, in that husky way that sounded as if she'd been in the cold for too long to send shivers rocketing down Dennis' spine. She knew what it did to him and time was, when they were together, she knew exactly what sort of reaction it would have gotten out of him, and it was nothing that could be spoken.

	"Ohhh!" she murmured slowly, sending his stomach twisting over itself. Because it sounded so much like the lustful moans he was kept awake at night thinking about, longing for. "You did. Let's see if I remember huh? When it mighta been you were... or should I say when we were doing it, when you were touching me, because you knew you never would again. Now, don't you think that was a bit unfair of you baby? How do I know that I was... " The flicker of her tongue across her glistening lips as her next words slipped out almost made Dennis moan in her place. She was driving him crazy with her flirtation and he hated that she knew it. "...sincere enough that night, hmmm? What if I could been... louder? Would that have made you stay?"

	“Stop it!” he managed to force out desperately, quite obviously several beats too late to give off the impression he wasn’t fazed.

	Sharon, however, was highly amused, her eyes sparkling with untold lust as she shifted across the gear stick, grinding down into Dennis’ lap before he could stop her. He knew he should have, but somehow simultaneously knew that he never would have. He was longing for her too much, well aware that every moment that crept past them was one less he had to feel this way and not feel quite so guilty. Guilty at loving the way Sharon murmuring sensually, her breath hot against his cheek  “Oh baby, we both know you’ve never meant that!” was making him quiver.

	He could feel how damp the inside of her thighs were getting, the moisture seeping through to his own clothes, and he loved too that it was his knee between her legs, holding them apart and causing her skirt to rumple and surrender her sun-kissed thighs to his hungry gaze.

	“Mmmm!” he protested weakly as she circled her hips and ground tauntingly down onto his excited groin once again. 

She laughed softly and injustice beat furiously in Dennis’ chest as he realized that he was her source of amusement, because he’d tilted his head back and his eyes had instinctively closed to savour the bliss of every sensation. She’d rendered him helpless. He tried grappling for his senses like a drowning man fights to get to the surface and breathe.
	
	“I do! Sharon, I mean it, I-“

	“Liar!” she hissed, trying to prove her point by bearing down hard and leaving him to cry out loud. “You want this!”
	
	And he tried to gasp out his next protest but found her mouth was against his, claiming his hidden kiss before he could so much as breathe. And what could he do but kiss her back? She was too insistent for him to fight. This was natural, this was right. His hand tangled in her hair to force her kiss harder onto his needy lips. He wanted to feel every breath of passion she held in the memory of them. While he moaned as she willingly complied, imparting her lips so that he might thrust his tongue into her mouth, she laughed cruelly, drawing back and loving that she could see such blatant desperation is his hungry eyes as he searched her face frantically for some explanation.

	"You want this bad."

	In her next breath, she encouraged him forwards and he took her lips again with a hunger that took every breath out of her and made her head buzz for her every selfish reason, loving the way their tongues battled with one another when there seemed to be no war to fight. As his hands began to tread an amourous path across her thighs, inching up her skirt, she pushed him back, pressing her palms against his to keep him back once she had lifted her hands into hers.

	"I never said you could touch."

	Loving that she had licence to be so cruel when this heartless bastard could be so weak as to leave her, Sharon was pretty much assured that she'd be able to lean in and reaffirm their kiss, taking it for its taunting emptiness. But it seemed as though Dennis was not powerless to stop her, because his eyes were cold as he looked at her, as she imagined hers must have been as she looked at him. He caught her wrists as she tried to snake her arms tighter back around his neck and pushed her away, scowling. Sighing, she took the hint and wriggled back into the passenger seat, idly watching him.

	All at once he was in a state of panic, the engine choking as he hunched forward, twisting the key in the ignition so desperately each time that it was cutting into his fingers, making him wince. And Sharon watched almost as if she was bored, her chin rested on her palm, her head tilted against the window, lazily trying to give off the impression she was studying the dawn.

	Straightening up, she uncrossed her legs and sighed matter-of-factly: "The tank's empty."

	Without waiting for his response, although she did see his mouth gape with question as his own gaze flickered to the gauge, she kicked open the door and stood up in the bracing morning's breeze, hunching her shoulders against its intrusion, bowing her head as she began to walk.

	"Where are you going?"

	Sharon didn't stop as she heard Dennis calling out towards her from the car. She just lifted her head that little higher, driven by nothing but defiance as she shot back scathingly; "To get the petrol we don't have, less you fancy the fifteen... twenty mile trek back to the Square, cos I sure as hell don't!"

	She listened to his footsteps, pounding against the dusty ground, littered with niggling little stones as he raced towards her, and she sighed, wondering why it was she was stood here waiting for him when she mighta carried on walking and forced some much needed distance between the two of them. He appeared in front of her, pacing backwards as they began to walk so that he might keep her back if she did indeed eventually decide to run.

	"What the hell was all that Sharon?"

	"I don't know what you're talking about darlin'."

	"No, course you don't." he laughed bitterly, tilting his head back to release the sound to the atmosphere. "Cos that's you all over ain't it?"

	She couldn't stop herself smirking as she listened because she knew what it was he wasn't saying in as many words. She'd been all over him. Her lips twisted into a cruel smile as she met his eye, shaking her head in amusement.

	"What did you think I was gonna do to you Dennis?"

	"Oh God, shut up." he muttered, turning away and lifting a hand to rake it through his hair, scratching incessantly as he reached the nape of his neck.

	"No, c'mon... tell me, I could do with a laugh!"

	As he whipped his head round, glaring at the suggestion vehemently, Sharon snorted out her laughter, feeling very pleased with herself.

	"You thought I was gonna screw you!"

	"No, I-"

	"Oh bloody hell, I love it!" she giggled, not caring that every sound that left her mouth to suggest it was cutting right through him. "Would that have suited you baby, huh?" she asked as she finally managed to straighten up, pushing her hair back from her face. "Quick fumble in the front seat, never so much as making it to the back? Do you know how pathetic that makes you?"

	"Me? I wasn't the one-"

	"No, you weren't and don't you ever go forgetting it!" she spat, pulling his incomplete words entirely out of context for nothing other than her own gratification and his pain. "I wouldn't cheapen myself like that, not like you have with your little whore - I just wanted to see how weak you were - and let me tell you, it's so sweet to know I was right all along... you really are pathetic! Is that the only reason Zoe bagged you darlin', cos she flung herself at you, screaming "Screw me" when you knew you couldn't touch me again? Cos that's obviously what you wanted... couldn't keep your hands to yourself could you?"

	"What the hell is it with you?" he growled, bundling his fists into his pockets. "You always talk like it's all me, like butter wouldn't fuckin' melt - and yet... it always seems to be you giving me the come-on!"

	"Maybe it is." she managed eventually, hating that in those few words, he had indeed made her cheap when she was sure it wasn't possible. "But I know where I stand these days Dennis, you made sure of that darlin', only have I or haven't I just proved you ain't so sure yourself? You're moving Zoe into our home this morning and you.... you still want me. That's pretty sad darlin'... and desperate if you don't mind me saying...."

	He laughed bitterly, the volume of his voice rising with the feeling of irritation. "Mind? Oh no Sharon, why would I mind? You go ahead and tell me how to live my life, go on, cos it's got nothing to do with me has it?"

	"Oh, put your bloody toys back in the pram eh, you're not impressing anybody!" she shouted back, rolling her eyes. "Besides," she said, rushing the tip of her tongue along the cushion of her lips as she levelled with his gaze again. "it's pretty obvious you were dying to cop a feel-"

	She smirked as he moved forward on his toes, anger playing in his face. He snatched up her wrist, his nails cutting into her flesh as he snarled, "You evil-"

	She wrenched her wrist from his grasp, cradling her arm as she studied the marks he had left, pacing backwards to distance herself from him as she now knew she should have done in the first place. "You ever touch me again and I swear I'll-"

	"You'll what?" he demanded, defying her by rushing at her and shaking her by the shoulders. "Scream? Go ahead darlin'... be my guest, but it's only fair to warn you, no-one hears you out here! No-one! Could get away with murder..."	

	He shoved her away as soon as he realised what words had left his mouth and she froze, taking in the way his eyes were glittering so coldly as he glared at her, she knew that it wasn't just a throwaway comment, and suddenly every rustle of the leaves on the trees was enough to rob her of breath, to scare her.

	"Oh God-" she whimpered, shaking her head as she staggered back from him. "-please tell me you didn't... not here..."

	But he nodded steadily, raising his arm to gesture to the opening in the woodland. "About half a mile that way, yeah... yeah I did. Wanna go pay your last respects do ya? Cry a bit over the spot where the big man fell? Yeah, why don't we, eh? Ages since I went on a nature ramble..."

	He swept past her, securing a grip on her elbow as he went to pull her forwards with him, muttering quietly;

	"Not since I killed him actually."

	"No!" Sharon cried, tearing herself away. Dennis swung round as soon as he realised she had leapt back, and he watched as she bowed her head, face pressed into her hands, murmuring frantically, "Oh God, what am I doing? Why am I... oh God..." 

	But then she whirled round to face him, and he flinched at the sincerity of the venom he could see her eyes. He didn't really know why it surprised him, all he knew was that he didn't like it.

	"Dennis, you... you bastard!" Her knees seem to buckle beneath her as she bawled at him, and she sagged, slamming into him as she pounded her fists anywhre they might strike him. "Why won't you understand?"

	"Whoa-whoa... up you get, come on!"

	"Don't touch me!" she snapped, flinging her hair defiantly over her shoulder as she straightened up. "Idiot."

	Nibbling his lip, he looked away, rolling back on the balls of his feet and trying to appear nonchalant as he waited for whatever she was bound to fling at him, to sting him.

	"You told me to stop the car Sharon." he informed her bluntly.

	Screaming in frustration, she whirled round, glaring at him, those eyes still holding the power to make him flinch at the force of her emotion. "But I didn't know that this was... it did I?"

	"Well, I apologise, but the council never seemed that bothered there ain't anywhere local you can take a man to kill him and get away with it."

	"Why are you doing this hmmm?" she demanded furiously, cocking her head to study his face as she edged towards him, the gravel crunching beneath her feet. "Why are you doing this now?"

	He spat out a vicious laugh. "Why? Cos you brought back the memories Sharon, you're the reason I'm here right now... you reckon I've been coming back here off my own back do ya? Christmas, birthdays, laying flowers for the evil bastard? Cos I ain't... I don't feel nothing... I killed him in cold blood..."

	"No.... No..."

	He moved forward to meet her, caught his hand roughly around her jaw, his jagged fingernails cutting into her cheeks as he held her there, forced her to take in the seriousness, the anger in his face as he hissed;

	"Yes! You're looking at a murderer darlin', you know you are, so hey, c'mon, let me give you the tour..." She whimpered as he shoved her away again, rubbing her sore cheek as she painfully watched him pace round, wired and hurt, throwing his hands round in erratic gestures. "Here's where I made him stop the car, here's where I pressed the gun into his back, there's where I made him stop... that's when he started on you... then's when the train came along... so we were over here when he told me Den wasn't six feet under, and right there, right then, that's when I shot him... had to watch him bleed to death on the floor-"

	"Stop it!" she screamed, rubbing her temples, trying to make herself believe that he wasn't meaning to make her hear all this, imagine it. "Please just stop it!"

	"Why? I ain't even showing you this to scale, why don't we take a walk eh?"

	"You think I wanna hear this?" she blasted, throwing up her hands. "You think this is what I wanna talk about, what I wanna see?"

	"Be grateful you never had to see it. Cos I still see it every fuckin' night!"

	"Well, whose fault's that Dennis, huh? You decided to kill him, not me!"

	The power of speech seemed to have deserted him for a second, and it took several false starts before he could force out his feeble sounding reasoning.

	"I couldn't- I couldn't let him get away with bad-mouthing about you like that. He knew how to play me and he knew he had to talk - I was the one holding the gun, see... but he was scum Sharon, wasn't even fit to say your name."

	"Oh well, that's alright then-" she scoffed. "-so you killed him... for what? For my honour? Well, cheers Dennis, I feel so special!"

	And she turned away, coughing so violently into the screen of her hands that both that stood there were afraid she was about to be sick. Inwardly cursing himself, Dennis stepped up behind her, pressing his hand into her bare shoulder, frozen by the night. Whimpering, she shrugged him off.

	"Don't you think I would have preferred to know you were safe... back at the flat... away from all of this, never having to...?"

	"Yeah right, and you think I woulda ever been safe if I hadn't? Dalton's boys don't betray the boss man Sharon, otherwise they've got a price to pay, and it's usually on their heads - or have you forgotten he wanted me dead?" 

	"Of course I haven't!"

	"Or does it just not matter to you anymore because I-"

	"Because you what?" she hissed, eyes flaring as she cut him off, unable to contain her anger anymore. "Fell into my bed... touched me like that with blood still on your hands? Made me fall in love with a killer? For fuck's sake Dennis, I've heard all this before, I know it OK, I've had the nightmares!"

	"Well, try living them an' all." he muttered darkly.

	"I don't want to." she confessed shakily, tears creeping thickly into her voice. "But I... Dennis, I can't stand seeing you hurting like this..."

	"I ain't hurting." he bristled, lips twisting into a scowl. "Why should I be hurting?"

	"Because it don't matter what you try and say to me, I know you're not this cold!"

	"As ice, darlin'." he assured her viciously. "I told you, I don't feel nothing."

	"N-Nothing?" she questioned miserably, tilting her head again so she might meet his eye as definite tears burnt upon the surface of her own.

	"That's right." he confirmed, trying to nod steadily and instead faltering as he had to force back a sob he knew she could see pulsing in his throat. "Nothing."

	"Right." she conceded with a sigh, rushing her hands up her arms to encourage the warmth that seemed to have all at once deserted her. "So... I guess you never meant it when you... all those times you were telling me that..."

	"Telling you what?"

	"That you loved me." she managed after a loaded silence that stretched about ten seconds as she nibbled on her lip, wishing that she could keep the words back, but knowing she needed to say them too much. Because he was making her doubt everything she had been sure of - although, if she was honest, she hadn't been sure of anything since she'd first seen Zoe propped up against the kitchen counter, covered only by one of Dennis' shirts and looking as though Christmas had come early. But Sharon had been forced to realise that there'd only been one thing coming, and she knew he never did it early!

	She was only made aware that a wistful smile had claimed her lips in that moment stolen from her misery in favour of her amusement, as Dennis looked at her, face dark with the confusion of it.

	"I loved you." he sputtered, out the side of his mouth, lips barely flickering to emit his words. Sharon watched him and listened to him, but shook her head sadly because the very way in which he was saying it only made her all the more certain he didn't mean it.

	"But you just said you never felt anything. How can you love someone when you're numb?"

	"I have to be."

	"Why?" she pushed, seeing a flicker in his eyes that she understood meant she was winding him up. He wasn't prepared to open with her and she knew it, but what did she care? She'd felt his fist slam into her face before now, knock her to the floor, she was more than prepared to take her chances here, if only he'd talk to her.

	"Because otherwise people get hurt Sharon!"

	"Murdered, you mean?" she questioned, knowing she was only doing it to rile him and hating that she was indeed so bitter as to need to.

	"You know I never wanted to do that!" he cried, sounding so desolate that Sharon's heart was in pieces before all the words had even left his mouth.

	"No, I know." she agreed, nodding fervently as she stumbled forward, hands frantic just to touch him. "And you know you don't wanna do this either!" 

	But as her hand curled around his forearm, his gaze dropping scathingly to this daring connection as if she was administering a lethal poison into his veins and he ripped himself away, demanding ""What's this?"

	She gulped, her hands suddenly feeling clammy and her throat parched and tight. "This is- You said that if Vicki... if she'd come back any other night... you said you coulda made me see. So that's what I'm doing... here, now, tonight... before it's too late - I'm making you see... trying to make you realise what you'll be throwing away if Zoe moves into the house today.... cos I meant it Dennis; I believed in you, I still do and I'm sorry darlin', but I'm just not prepared to let you go."

	

	Letting go of a sigh of disbelief that only escaped him as he dared to smile; a smile lazy and content that made Sharon believe it was OK to smile too, that he might have taken some of her words for their fierce sincerity, Dennis stared at her, otherwise cold and motionless as he had professed himself to be.

	He hated that he could see such... such hope in her incredible shimmering eyes as she gazed at him, hair lapping playfully at her shoulders as she rested her head to one side, because... surely... surely she knew there was nothing left to hope for? Not for them.

	It seemed she got there only as she looked at him, her smile flickering from her lips as she watched his disappear as soon as it had come.

	"Why... Why are you looking at me like that?" she murmured, laughing nervously.

	"Like what?"

	"Well... like I've just pulled your hair."

	"Because this is all just total bollocks Sharon!" he barked hotly, falling back and raking his clawed hands through his messed waves right from the hairline, matted with a guilty and simultaneously remorseful sweat. "I told you I don't want any of this!"

	"Oh yeah, course, cos you want the family so much right?"

	"Yeah!"

	"You're lying Dennis." Sharon told him firmly and refused to let herself so much as blink as he glared at her. Because she knew it was himself he was trying to convince. "If it's the family you want, then I'm just your sister aren't I?"

	 He couldn't look at her as he stammered out his unconvincing reply of "Y-Yeah", blinking continually, eyelashes fluttering as he ran the tip of his tongue round his cracked lips, making them glisten in a way that made Sharon burn with wanting to kiss him - softly, just to whisper that it was all gonna be OK, if only he'd let her make it that way. But instead, all she could manage was a cold, ringing laugh of disdain.

	"See!" she spluttered, lifting her finger accusingly. "Even you know you're lying now! No-one touches their sister like you were touching me back there and you know it!"

	"You were kissing me!" he raged, his eyes narrow as he tried to fathom it, clawing at his face. "You were... all over me! What kind of sister does that to their brother eh?"

	"Why don't you ask someone that knows darlin'?" she challenged, raising her eyebrow, inviting him to defy her when she could see he didn't have the strength or the understanding. "Cos I don't have a brother!"

	"Then who am I?" Dennis yelled, really shaking now, voice swaying so wildly that it had begun to sound like he was pleading with her to enlighten him to all the minor details he had yet to know. "Who the hell are you looking at if I ain't your brother?"

	Sharon bit back her lips as the tears splashed down her cheeks, she now powerless to stop them as she whispered weakly, gasping through her suffocating sadness. "I'm looking... ah... I'm looking at my last chance..."

	"You don't mean that." he said stiffly, seeming painfully unmoved by her emotion.

	"You mean you don't wanna believe that - that we might actually have a chance..."

	 "That's cos I know we don't Sharon!" He was trying to sound stern, maybe even angry, but all she could hear was his desperation to believe his words himself. It all melted away, and the feeble words that fell from his lips next didn't seem as if they might have belonged to him at all, nothing but a whisper to have come from a motionless mouth. "I threw all our chances away..."

	"No, you didn't - I'm not gonna let you!" she gabbled, rushing at him and looping her arms shakily around his neck so that she might cling to him. "Do you understand me Dennis, I won't let you do this to us!"

	"Why won't you get it?" he roared, pulling her away even as she fought to hold onto him. "There is no us! I don't want you! I'm with Zoe now!"

	"Oh and you think she wants you do you?"

	"You've heard her sweetheart, you know she wants me!"

	Maybe it was the way he was loving taunting her so mercilessly when she was certain he knew she'd been crying into her pillow at the times when she couldn't help but hear Zoe screaming in ecstasy for the pleasures Sharon missed so much having for her own; or maybe it was the insufferably smug smirk that had sprung up in the corner of his mouth. But whichever, inside, Sharon was reeling, and couldn't help but strike him hard around the face with her palm, needing to reclaim some of her lost self-respect. She would have winced as she registered the ferocity with which her hand made contact with his skin because it sounded very much like it stung, but why should she have cared for his pain. He didn't feel anything remember?

	"Do you think she'd still want you if she knew what you'd done out here huh? She thinks she's living out some Cinderella story stealing away my man, but see... the thing is, I can't ever remember Prince Charming coming equipped with the handgun ready to leave great big, bleeding holes in anyone that pisses off his Princess!" 

	His eyes darted around wildly, studying her face as he suffered this tirrade and she gasped as she saw a flicker of recognition in his soulless eyes at her last word. 

	"Oh baby... I'm not Den's Princess am I? I'm yours..."
	
	Dennis was thrown, choking out incoherent protests that just made Sharon chuckle absent-mindedly as she listened to him splutter.

	"This isn't abou... about you... we're talking about... Z- Zoe!"

	"Mmmm, we are. And that's all you'll ever do again with one little word from me..."

	"You wouldn't." he snarled, barely managing to straighten up under the force of her threat.

	"Why wouldn't I?" 

	"Because you can't blackmail me back into your soddin' bed!"

	She raised her eyebrow, smiling coyly to herself, and loving how it seemed to rile him. Because she was well aware that he knew she'd give it her best damn shot. "You know as well as I do that we'll never be happy unless we're together. And I've tried playing rough, Dennis-"

	She licked her lips suggestively and against his will almost, his stomach twisted over itself, knotted with longing as he couldn't help but recall the first night she had ever allowed him to touch her - except she had been the one to touch him first, slamming him back against the table, making that bottle smash to the floor as she clawed the shirt off his back. And he hated that he was thinking about it, because he knew he was playing right into her clamouring hands, imagining just what she had anticipated.

	"I've tried playing nice..."

	Yeah. The one and only time Sharon had indeed "played nice". He'd taken her to bed again, eager to make every sensation less frantic this time. He'd wanted every touch to mean something, he'd wanted to acquaint himself with her beautiful body by covering every inch of her kisses and he'd wanted to show her how much she meant to him - he'd wanted to make love to her. 

	And what was even more incredible than the every notion was that she had let him, and with the morning after, which Dennis had been certain would bring nothing but the same regret on her part, the crippling agony of this rejection on his; he had dared to go out on a whim and confess to her that he wouldn't have "changed anything about last night", it was so wonderfully new to hear her say that she wouldn't either. And he knew that the weeks that followed, the weeks they had fallen in love with each other... he knew that had been Sharon "playing nice".

	"So..." she murmured thickly, suggestion oozing from her every word and making Dennis' skin prickle most uncomfortably. "...playing dirty's all I've got left. And I will, Dennis. I'll do whatever it takes..."

	
	Stunned it was true, but Dennis couldn't help falling back on the balls of his feet, laughing cruelly, right out loud as kicked mindlessly at the sodden leafs on the ground.

	"To catch a killer eh Sharon? Oh I like it darlin', very original."

	"The way you did it wasn't though was it Dennis hmmm?" she shot back, shivering now but through nothing but the anticipation. "Storming into his voice, pressing the gun into his back to make him move, did it feel good? Hauling him out here, shooting him in the middle of nowhere just so no-one could hear. It's tired... it's old!" And as he glared at her, twitching... unnerved, she glared defiantly back, feeling her lip curl. She was past letting everything she couldn't change get under her skin, into her head. It was done. It was what could be done that mattered.

	Anger creased his face as moved further back from her, this time in disgust. "Well, I'm so fuckin' sorry you weren't impressed Sharon! Tell you what, next time I'm in the mood for making someone choke their last, I'll knife 'em shall I?"

	"Why go to the trouble of a weapon at all eh?" Sharon suggested coldly. "Why don't you just beat them to death, cos I know damn well you'd have no trouble doing that!"

	"What the hell do you know?" he bawled, bending double as he feared he was about to be sick.

	Her laughter was high and forced, it was unnatural to the ears, but she couldn't help it. "What do I know?" she hissed. "Oh, you'd be surprised baby. I know that... that night in The Vic? I know that if they hadn't been holding you back, if it hadn't have been my blood you spilt that night... if I'd never showed up, never cared enough to wanna bring you home to me, then you woulda killed him... you woulda killed our father!"

	"He ain't my father!" he spits vehemently.

	"Oh well, honey, now you're just confusing me. I thought he was the whole reason me and you aren't-"

	Caught, Dennis covered by shrugging his shoulders. "Maybe he is, but be honest with yourself Sharon; you idolise the bastard, you'd never have given him up... not for me."

	"You never gave me the chance to get that far! You just let him slither into your head and why? I thought I mattered to you!"

	"You did!" he cried, voice descending into piteous afterthought as he mumbled; "You do."

	"But now... we were wrong, is that it?"

	Shivering, Dennis shook his head. "Not us... me."

	"Well, what's wrong with you?" she demanded fiercely.

	"I should never... not with you-"

	"Why, because Dad says so? When did you get so weak baby? I mean, maybe I'd understand if we'd only ever had that one night, but even then, you were already telling me you loved me-"

	Scowling, Dennis looked away, muttering to himself; "Idiot."

	"Were ya?" Sharon questioned, cocking her head and just hoping that he might meet her eye. "Well, what about me then? Cos no matter what I did or said afterwards Dennis, we both know I didn't fight you off, and however long it took me, I got there, and I love you too."

	Biting nervously into her thumb, she watched him intently, waiting to see her words take him. And when they did, his back went so rigid, Sharon was certain it must have been painful.

	"What?"

	"You heard me." she answered firmly. "And if you don't realise it's true, then yeah, you are an idiot."

	"You.... love me?" he spluttered disbelievingly, barely managing to move forwards in a straight line. His eyes darted all across her face, trying to find some trace of a cruel and vicious lie, stomach dropping as he found none. "You still love me?"

	"Just cos you reckon you've moved on, jumping the first little slapper to flick her hair at you, it don't mean the rest of us stop feeling Dennis. People... normal people that is - they don't just stop loving someone, just like that."

	Cruelly, he answered her with a pounding applause. "Oh this is fantastic! You love me yeah Sharon? Like, you care about me, don't wanna see me get hurt?"

	"You know I don't!"

	"What, so you prove it by... betraying the bloody idea of love, telling Zoe that I-"

	"Don't you ever talk to me about betrayal Dennis Rickman!" she spat angrily. "Don't you fuckin' dare!"

	"Well, why not? That's what you'll do - you'll fucking ruin me!"

	"I'll be with you! I'll be there!"

	"No!" he bellowed, so confused, so hurt and not able to make sense of a thing the way his head was pounding. "Jesus Christ, you think it was bad when we were together Sharon? The whispering, the gossiping, the staring? You tell anyone this and I... I told you that because I trusted you for fuck's sake!"

	"You lying bastard!" she screamed, lifting her hands to mindlessly strike him. "You told me because you had no choice, but you still... you'd let me fall in love with a lie! And I know that's what you wanted - you didn't just want the sex or you'd never have told me right from the beginning you loved me - you wanted me to say I felt the same way, and what if I could have done huh? Would you still have been rushing down here, putting bullets through Dalton's head? You told me what you did out here Dennis, and you know I still loved you... more than anything. You wanted me to love you and I know it, whatever the price, that's why it came from Dad's mouth. You could never tell me and he just wanted us to be apart. But I do, I love you... so this is it, this is the price. Either you admit, here and now, that somewhere in that head of yours that that's still the truth, or I bloody well will go back to Zoe and let her know exactly what kind of lie she's involved with! So c'mon, what's it to be Dennis?"

	"You love this don't you?" Dennis managed finally, feeling his lip curl. It had been so long and she was still able to burrow under his skin. It was horrible that he was indeed so weak when she was the one he was meant to be relegating. He'd always been so sure he'd never be able to do it because she meant so damn much, was always so close, but right now, he really was cold; cold because she was. He didn't really recognise her. Sharon could be catty towards Zoe, sure, wanting to remind her that she was the one always going to mean the most to him - but this?

	This was so below Sharon. She'd felt his every emotion, experienced them with him after that dreadful confession. She'd taken in every word and still she had loved him, hating that he might have hurt so much. But with the tender kiss she had left imprinted on Dennis' mouth as she had left that day, he had truly believed that she loved him for everything he was, and everything he wished he wasn't and that she'd always keep the secret locked away in her heart, that she might just concentrate on loving him still.

	"Not this." she said simply, turning her head to give him one piercing look. "You."

	Dennis almost winced as the words stabbed at him. Because his resolve was dying away and he wanted so much to believe her. But he couldn't, because... when hearts got broken, everything was bound to slip out. Could he really be so surpised she was vengeful when he had hurt her so much in abusing her love? Their every moment of intimacy, when they might have just lain tangled innocently together, sharing secrets in hushed voices were gonna come back and bloody well gonna strike him in the face. 

	"If... If that's true then why are you doing this to me?"

	"Because you've left me no choice. I told you, this is all I've got left."

	"You think I'd actually want you if you went ahead and did this cos you're bloody well deluded if you do!"

	Sharon glanced at the floor, giggling softly as she fought to keep her hair from falling about her face. "Oh baby, you're so funny."

	"What the fuck are you on? What's funny about any of this Sharon? This is just you, out to get, I dunno... revenge cos I hurt you!"

	"You didn't just hurt me - you fuckin' well tore me apart and left me there in pieces and your trouble is Dennis Rickman, you're never going to give more than a fuck! And me, well, I'm just a lost cause cos I do love you. I don't want to hurt you... you know that don't you? You hurt, I hurt, but then, that's all I've done since you left. You don't wanna do that to me either do you?"

	He shook his head miserably, lip quivering as he bit into it. "I didn't mean-"

	"I don't care what you didn't mean, Dennis, all I care about is what you did mean, what you do mean. So please, just tell me what you're feeling in there before I really do get desperate."

	"Confused." he mumbled pathetically.

	"Is that... me? You still think me and you only ever happened because you were confused? Is that what all that was back in the car? Cos I know what I want and it seemed to me like you did too... I just want... I want that. I want what we were, cos we were good and we were definitely better than anything you & Zoe could ever hope to be. You know that don't you?"

	"You can't say that."

	"I just did." she stated simply, shrugging her shoulders. "And I'm still waiting on something."

	He scoffed, tearing his gaze away. "Why do you always have to make everything so complicated?"

	"Well excuse me!" she coughed, eyes bulged as she glared at him in surprise. "I didn't go out of my way to prove Dad was still alive, I didn't sit in dark corners eyeing up my relatives for a quick one, and I didn't abandon the person I loved to go jump the first slapper I saw in a mini skirt! Jesus Christ, why did it have to be her Dennis? Cos y'know, for everything you've done that makes my blood run cold, she's never gonna deserve you."

	"But with Zoe, it... works. She's simple..."

	Laughing bitterly, Sharon nodded. "Oh yeah, simple's right Dennis, I've seen single cell organisms with more intelligence than her!"

	"She's alright!" he cried defensively. Sharon kept walking and just raised her eyebrow. He wasn't trying very hard on Zoe's behalf and she couldn't miss it.

	"Have you forgotten she was one of the ones gaping when I followed you into the Vic that day? She was disgusted baby, just like everyone else, cos yeah, brothers and sisters don't dare to do what we did, so tell me, if you're right, if we were so bloody wrong, then why was she chasing you so soon afterwards huh? Maybe she was the one wanting to offer the basic therapy this time eh? Cos I know she had you on that couch! Maybe she wanted to make you all better? You feeling better these days baby?"

	Dennis cast his eyes down guiltily as he slowed. Sharon did too, closing in on the pace distance between them and watching him with interest. As their gazes dared to meet, Sharon smiled. Because she understood what was happening inside of him.

	"I guess I'm... I'm still sick."

	"Go on..."

	"I don't really have to do I?" he told her steadily, scrunching his shoulders. "You know I still love you."

	
	Sharon's next breath swam through her in a gently, shuddering sigh of relief that went right down to the floor of her stomach. She was shivering with the anticipation of it, knowing that when she dared to open her eyes, she could make it all alright again. She didn't even mind that he was looking at her like he'd, well, just confessed to murder. Because that look was old; she could deal with it. 

	The smile took over her lips as she moved closer. She heard his apprehension get caught in his throat, but she ignored it, looking bashfully to the ground, the clumps of twigs and leaves crunching underneath her feet. She felt pathetic, loving that there were butterflies fluttering in her stomach. But lifting her head to gaze at him, they disappeared. Instantly. Because she knew damn well what was right.

	Sharon was shaking as she pressed her hands into his chest, moving them up in one sweep and lacing her fingers together against the back of his neck. And he was shaking too. Dennis was afraid, of her no less when the last time he'd been here, he'd had no choice but to kill a man. Oh the darlin', didn't he know that she was there, that there was nothing to be afraid of?

	It seemed not because as she edged up towards him, to take his lips, his kiss came down, tentatively before she could offer her own. Winding his arms protectively around her waist, Dennis drew her closer, held her tighter and suddenly realised how much he had missed her, her kisses. But he felt cheated as she drew softly back, murmuring;

	"Say that again."

	Smiling in spite of himself, the injustice pounding painfully against his ribs, he offered her no words, simply bowing his head and kissing her again. She moaned lovingly, wrapping her arms tight around his neck as she began to suck teasingly on his bottom lip. But he wrenched himself away, leaving her to stagger forward now left open and unsupported. Defiantly, she composed herself, straightening up and flinging her hair over her shoulder. But the confusion set it immediately, making her shake in an entirely different way as she glared at him, expectant, but somehow not wanting to have to hear a word.

	Except now, Dennis appeared to have them, biting down anxiously on his knuckle as he paced around, eyes darting frantically across her face,

	"No! No, I can't do this... I won't do this!"

	"You just have! C'mon Dennis, what's wrong with you?"

	"Wrong? Sharon, are you crazy; what do you think's wrong? What the hell is it you want from me?"

	She spun round, laughing manically, shrill and irritated. "Oh darlin', I just can't think! I mean, I love you, you love me, so what the hell have we got to do with each other?"

	He rushed at her, catching her around the shoulders. She would have wriggled to free herself, but his eyes were too captivating. And that wasn't a good thing because he was the one that seemed crazy. Why did he need to be so wound up, so desperate? Why did he need to fight everything he knew was right? 

	"Do you want us to be together again, is that it?"

	She cried out in frustration, throwing her head into her hands as the sound attacked him. "No, Dennis!" she snapped sarcastically. "What gave you that idea huh? Idiot! Of course I do!"

	"Well, I can't do that, I can't! Not when you're threatening it out of me!"

	"What?" she hissed, blood beginning to pound in her ears. "What the hell are you talking about?"

	"That's what you're saying isn't it? Love me or lose everything and I won't do it!"

	"I don't want you to lose anything!" she exclaimed passionately, tears shimmering in her eyes as her voice swayed with her unease. "I don't wanna lose you, don't you understand that? We're meant to be together... aren't we?"

	He scoffed, shrugging his shoulders. "If you're so sure, why are you having to ask me? You think I haven't thought about it, lying there at night, never closing my eyes cos I know all I'll bloody well see is you; so instead, I'm lying there, listening to you, like that's any better... but yeah, I can hear you and sometimes you're crying, and I hate that I can hear it because... is it my fault? Are you crying cos of me?"

	"You wanna stop me crying? You wanna make me stop? Then fuckin' well mean it!" she bawled, tears pouring down now that made it pretty obvious that if he had ever meant to make her stop, he was too damn late. She spat her words viciously out, slamming her fist down into her thighs to reinforce her point. "Tell me you love me and fuckin' well mean it, don't leave me out in the cold anymore!"

	Huge wracking sobs tore through her and she was almost bent double, choking on her misery. Dennis couldn't bear to watch her like and be left in no doubt that he had indeed done this to her every time he had heard her crying alone in the dark while he lay with his arms around Zoe.

	"Cos I can't take it anymore. I can't! I can't..."

	"Hey shhh!" he pleaded, pulling her against his chest where she collapsed, without the will or energy to fight him as her tears drenched his top. He rocked her gently on the spot, letting her silky hair slip through his fingers as he tried to soothe her, knowing how treacherous the whispers sounded, but needing to say them for his own gratification because he never wanted to hurt her, even less ever wanted to realise it. "C'mon darlin', it's OK, I swear it, shhh!"

	All that Dennis knew as he cradled her there was that he had to get her away from it, from it all. Because this, everything he'd had no choice but to make happen here, this was everything that had tainted the every moment he had loved her. He was like that, Jack, he tainted everything. Dennis still did not sleep, all these months later, saw him, him bleeding to death, right here; groaning in agony as it got harder and harder to breathe - oh God, Dennis saw it everytime he closed his eyes. So either, he forced these terrifying images upon himself or he lay awake and actually cried, sobbing for everything he had destroyed, because, as Zoe lay next to him, he would be forced to listen to Sharon crying her every lonely tear. Lonely without him.

	He couldn't help but realise the stark paralells between the two of them. Because he... being without her, especially at night when all that really kept him back was one soddin' wall, it had crucified him. All he'd wanted was to throw Zoe out and go and slide into bed beside Sharon, bring her into his arms and whisper his apologies, tell her that he loved her with everything he had, enough times to make her believe it, millions, without a breath in between if that's what it would have taken. But Dennis, he was haunted by her pain, holding her all those times before that she had cried, all the many times he'd been the one to cause it all. He simply wasn't brave enough.

	But Sharon, God she was. She was so bloody strong, and he envied that so much. What showed his strengths? The fact that he'd shot Jack Dalton dead with a steady hand and a steely look? He was nothing, he was worse than pathetic and he... he was apparantly all Sharon wanted. Because she'd been the one to do it at last, to defeat that wall. And she'd... climbed into his bed, lain there, daring to do what she had used to do and she'd been admiring him, loving him with her every breath whilst he lay, vunerable in another consciousness that tortured him every night.

	Pulling back and stepping to her side, Dennis guided Sharon from the treacherous woodland, arm wound protectively around her shoulders. He was never gonna let anything happen to her again, never again did he want her pain to be his fault. She cried still as she rested her head listlessly on his shoulder. The tears made her cheeks sparkle in the most spectacular misery, but she seemed content enough to hold him too, murmuring gently as if she was allowing herself to breathe for the first time in a long time.

	"C'mon Sharon... this place..."

	"Are you frightened?" she questioned dreamily.

	"No!" he answered, a little too quickly, instinctively holding her tighter as he began to tellingly shiver.	
	
	And that was what Sharon picked up on, lifting her head and letting her gaze just drift over his face, taking in the way his lips flickered so wildly, the way they seemed so cracked, neglected and obviously devoid of words when he needed them so badly.

	"Oh baby..." she whispered, unable to stop herself letting her finger-tip slide over his rough lips. "...it's alright! You don't have to be scared anymore..."

	Dennis froze, recognising the words he had spoken to her just moments before. It's alright. But how the hell could it ever be alright? For her maybe, Sharon was innocent. Wounded, hurting, yes, but still so damn innocent. She'd been a Princess all her life; first in Den's eyes, in Paula's and yes, in Dennis' too. But what was Dennis? He was a murderer, nothing more, haunted by his victim for the every night he should have been building the courage to bring back the woman he loved. But he realised now that Princesses were naive.

	"Scared?" he spat coldly, shoving her away and barely feeling the stabbings of guilt as she whimpered. "You patronising little bitch!"

	"Wh-What?" she managed to stammer at last, terror in her eyes that just couldn't reach him anymore. She could barely bring herself to straighten up, pull in a breath because she realised, with this choking sensation darker and heavier than ever before, that she was scared. Of him, being with him, here. God, he was right, they should just have... gotten away, and now... oh God, what now?

	"You have no fuckin' right to tell me how to feel, ever!"

	"Alright...." she said shakily, seeing danger in his eyes. Real danger.

	Dennis laughed bitterly. There was that goddamn word again. "Alright?" he blasted, before adding scathingly; "You haven't got any bloody idea what's it's like to be scared, I mean really scared have you? None at all. You're never gonna know what the hell you're talking about, so how about you just shut your fuckin' mouth, mmm?!" 

	Terrified, sobs were battling to leap up from where they were lodged painfully in Sharon's throat and it took her so long to find the words even though they were raging instantly against the roof of her mouth, waiting to hurtle from her tongue and to damage him, just as badly as if not worse as she felt she had been hurt. What was it about him? For a man she had been so certain loved her, he truly was venom. Maybe, maybe Den had been right.

	"Maybe." she hissed quietly, refusing to allow herself flinch as he moved round to meet her eye, surprised and somehow looking irritated that she dared to have an answer for him at all. "Or maybe I'll wait for you to do it again eh? Cos you're good at that aren't you Dennis, spilling blood? C'mon!"

	And her gaze dropped to his hands, curled into fists at his side. She was glaring right at him in the next moment with a defiant sweep of her head, daring him to strike her with the one look.

	But as he realised what she was imploring him so emotionlessly for, his hands uncurled, dropping away, like he was disgusted, terrified of his own menaces. Whatever he might have said, done, she must have known that he'd never meant to hurt her, and would never knowingly do so, however angry she made him. Because whatever he said and however he meant it, for that... for that... he was always gonna be sorry. In this instance, however, he knew he was right. She was never gonna feel terror like he had, all alone in that night all those months ago that had turned him into him a killer. She was too protected, too loved to ever be exposed to anything like it.

	Sharon couldn't read off his reasoning this time, too crippled by the every distraught emotion he had forced on her. Snarling "Spineless bastard!" at him with all the malice intended, hoping her disappointment in his anger cut so deep that he bled, she turned and without even realising, caring where she was heading, she beat her way through the leafy barricade of drooping boughs, out to snare her. But she could not be hurt by anything, anyone more so than the man she left behind as she ran, needed so desperately to escape.

	Because she couldn't hide in the comforting pretences of their love anymore because pretence no longer seemed to comfort her. It left her cold. Because out here, in this, all his memories, the break of day brought out someone she had never seen in this man. She'd never believed it when her dad had spitefully unravelled his revelation, and even as Dennis himself had confirmed it for her, made her blood turn to ice with his words, she'd still only ever been able to see her best friend, her lover, never someone that could have done something so.... vicious. And still she'd loved him, forcing the very idea of it from her head because of that emotion, eclipsing everything else.

	But now, here she was. Right where he had done it. Marched a man to his death. Watched it, caused it. She couldn't pretend that her lover was pure anymore. He was a definite murderer. And so capable too; she'd seen it in his eyes. Her stomach was still twisting over itself and suddenly the man she could once have trusted with her life, she now trusted with nothing, especially not her life. Not after Jack.

	Dennis had taken several painful moments to convince himself it was best to follow her. After all, she was infuriating him. Love him she might, but she couldn't dictate his emotions just because of it. Jesus, it was her bloody fault he harboured any emotion at all. But unless she could truly say she'd felt every aspect he felt as he stood surrounded in all this, in every miserable, petrifying memory, that she'd killed the first person to ever matter, then she did not have a word to say on the matter that he should have been forced to hear.

	Inwardly, Dennis berated himself as he began to give chase, feeling sicker and sicker as he realised where it was exactly Sharon was blindly racing, and he couldn't help but yell for her, more and more desperately each time.

	"Sharon! F*ck... no! Sharon!"

	He knew that when Den had "died", Sharon had blamed herself utterly for the bitterness of their last exchange, feeling as though she may have just killed him herself. So... oh God, how she must have felt to realise he had lived without her so long when she had been so consumed by so much. Well, Dennis mainly, and that was the precise reason the prodigal son could not think of his own father without the most intense stirrings of hatred right in the pit of his stomach, and oh, how he hated that the regard he carried for Sharon right at the moment was hardly any different. She was so... stupid. And there was only Dennis to save her from that downfall.

	Pushing himself forward without the energy to allow this moment, it felt as if he'd torn his hamstring in half, but was placated as he managed to snatch at Sharon's elbow. She wrenched herself away, spinning round in accusation. But she didn't scream for him to get away from her as he might have expected. She stood perfectly still, pulling in breaths she was fighting to steady as she took in his proximity.

	"Hit me." she demanded.

	"What?"

	"Hit me." she repeated, in the same non commital tone, almost growling out the invitation. "Do it again. Make me bleed, c'mon Dennis, make it pour out of me... do to me what you did to Jack, show me who you really are!"

	A cruel smile emerged from the side of Dennis' mouth. It really was humouring. Painful, but still... she really thought this defiance was gonna work, make her seem strong in his eyes. But he knew her, inside and out, and he knew how scared she really was. But still, she was never gonna know how he had felt as he'd stood here, knowing that his life was to be maimed all in one shattering moment. None of her words were ever gonna take away that feeling.

	"Move that way a bit Sharon eh?" He tilted his head to the right. She shot him a look of confusion, bewilderment even, but she moved over obediently, gasping in fright as twigs snapped threateningly beneath her feet. "Mmm, that's it... forward a bit. Yeah. Right there darlin', right there."

	Sharon began to shake as a dreamy look of escapism caused Dennis' eyes to glaze. He smiled again, softer and with so much more meaning this time, but that did little to reassure her, making her stomach writhe in the most nauseating of ways.

	"I don't know how you do it..." he murmured warmly, with a gentle sigh of misplaced affection. "...but right now, you look so fuckin' beautiful." 

	He chuckled then, amused by something quite obviously which only unsettled his object further. He rolled his head back a little and Sharon audibly winches as several of the bones in his neck ground together. Knowing how it made her cringe, he laughed again, an apologetic edge in there somewhere - but why was it making her skin crawl?

	"But then I guess, he was never going to was he?"

	"Wh-Who?" Sharon asked weakly, wishing she wouldn't and knowing that the sickening feeling in her stomach intensified with her every breath because she was pretty sure she knew already.

	"Jack of course!" Dennis smiled, that lazy, distracted schoolboy smile that had only ever melted Sharon's heart before now. But it was fucking sinister. Where the hell was the Dennis she recognised? Where had he gone? "How many men do you reckon I've killed huh? No... don't answer that. I don't think I'd like what I hear. Well sorry baby, but you're not gonna like this either. The Boss fell right there."

	He nodded at her and she shivered, immediately letting her gaze tumble down her own quivering form. "H-Here?"

	He nodded solemly, but began to shake too as his own manic laughter, held true by the amusement like that of a child pulsed through him. "Congratulations, you're stood on the very spot that I killed him. How does that feel Sharon? Are you scared?"

	

	It was all she could do to nod, and even that felt he'd cut all her muscles in half, and she nearly screamed out in agony as she sank to the ground. But she realised the cries that escaped her sounded so pained because she was sobbing, each one tearing her chest open and making it more and more impossible to breathe. But maybe she didn't want to, because if she did, she would only think and she didn't want to, not while she was there, right there. She was almost grateful for the scorching tears that were blinding her, because she thought if she might have been able to examine the sodden forest floor, she might somehow have recognised lashings of Jack's blood still on the clumps of leaves.

	So she knew it was impossible, she knew, but then so was this. Dennis would never... ever do this to her. But when had there even been a moment Sharon had considered that he might have murdered a man? Never, maybe she knew nothing. And she felt such a pathetic fool, because even now, in those dark betrayal, she loved him for the every wasted breath he forced out, and why? She didn't know him at all, did she? He was lost to her now. And maybe he always had been.

	"I told you not to cry for the bastard Sharon!" Dennis growled in growing agitation, and he was positively shaking with rage as he stepped forward, wanting to reach down and drag her up from the ground. But she flung herself down against her knees, leaving him stung, barking; "I told you never to cry for him!"

	"I'm not crying for him, you pathetic murdering... I'm crying for me! How the hell did I get it so wrong?" Sharon laughed bitterly, tearing her eyes from his face, stricken all in that one moment. Because he was the one that was wrong. "Oh... but I always get it wrong don't I darlin'?" she muttered into her palm, not caring that it was smeared with the damp earth. "It's the only thing I know how to do and this... is this the only thing you know how to do Dennis huh? Yeah, I reckon it is. You don't know how to have a conscience, feeling... everything... it's all just been lies hasn't it? And...for God's sake...." she croaked, her tone caught halfway between desperation and despair. "I'm in love with you! That's all I needed tonight for, that's all I was trying to say, I never needed to hear any of this, see it! Why, why are you doing this to me?"

	"Because I... I can't let you love a lie Sharon, you're worth so much more than that!"

	"Yeah?" she screamed accusingly, such wounded passion in her eyes, Dennis almost winced. This was all too raw. "So why the f*ck did you make me stand here? Where you killed him, is this what I'm worth?" She fell back on her knees, choking miserably. "Dad's... Dad's right isn't he... you never knew how to love because you're... you're just too vicious. And me... I'm just a desperate little whore because... I actually believed that you loved me! Why? Why would I do that if this is all you are?"

	"Because..." Dennis cast his eyes guiltily to the forest floor, biting down so hard into his lip that the coppery taste of blood soon flooded his mouth. But he drank in the taste, knowing he deserved every second of pain. "Because I do love you... oh God-" 

	He rushed forward, cupping his clammy palms roughly around her jaw, tilting her head so that he could let himself be wounded further by the sight of the million glassy tears burning in her gorgeous eyes. And in the next second, he threw himself down to his knees in front of her, the debris of the season breaking beneath his weight, levelling with her gaze without surrendering this sacred touch as her tears cascaded over his skin.

	"Please baby, please understand... I have to hurt you, I have to."

	"No!" she pleaded, shaking her head. "I can't... I can't take this, Dennis, please... just make it stop."

	He nodded as he sniffed back the tears that defied him and still fell, unable to meet her eye and reassure her with his convinction, repeating; "I have to hurt you... otherwise all I'm ever gonna do is love you and I just can't do that anymore."

	"Why not?"

	"Because I never deserved the chance and this... here... this is everything I really am Sharon, and what I really am means I'm never gonna deserve you..."

	 
	"What are you gonna do to me?" Sharon asked weakly, after a painfully long silence that had only served to reassure her errant lover that she understood. Because she didn't. She never would. He gasped, as if he was petrified just to hear her speak, wounded at such sad words of mistrust.

	"What do I have to do to make you stop...?"

	She lifted her head defiantly, flinging his touch away and hissing steadily; "You know what. You're gonna have to kill me. Isn't that why we're down here... right here? Maybe it's more what I've gotta do Dennis eh? What did Jack do? I mean, obviously, I know why you hauled him out here, but what did he say when you were pointing a gun in his face? What did he say to you to make you pull the trigger? Would it work if I said it too, would that make you want me dead too? Cos I'll say it, whatever I have to, I'll say it a thousand God damn times, as long as you promise you'll take the pain back with you, that'll you make it stop. Cos I won't go back with you Dennis, I won't go back with you just to be without you."

	Dennis turned his head, rejecting her words without any of his own to say why. "I'm not about to hurt you Sharon..." he said weakly, sounding so distant, so lost. "Not like that."

	"Why not? I want you to! I'd rather be dead than watch that snivelling little slut move in on you, thinking she's won, thinking she can keep you when you've said she don't make you happy. I can't see you trapped in something like that when I could... when we-"

	"No!" he cried out, pressing his hands to his temples and the one word of protest ringing out painfully like a plea. "Please, stop trying to make everything alright, just stop. Don't you see, I don't deserve any of it, I won't take it, so don't waste your time offering it to me yeah? Cos I want it, I want everything I can have with you darlin', and I'm scared, scared if you push anymore, I'm gonna break and I just... I can't."

	"Go ahead and break." she told him calmly, slowing nodding her head. "It's OK, Dennis, it is. Break, shatter into a million soddin' pieces if you have to. You know the truth of it don't you baby? It's always there, black and white and it never changes. And the truth is, me and you... we fit."

	"No." he managed again, with a more vicious edge to his tone as he glared accusingly at her. "You're twisting it, twisting it all, right from..."

	"The first time." Sharon confessed softly, expressing no shame in doing so. "Your words, not mine, but they're still true. You're right Dennis, we're right!"

	"You seem to be missing the vital point here Sharon. Killed... a man... right there."

	"I know. But you knew what you'd done when you were... how shall we put this huh... seducing me? No... no, that's not fair is it? After all, I stopped you leaving, we did it in my bed, hmmm, how many times? Point is, you knew what you'd done, you knew what you were, and you still came after me, wanting me. Now, don't get me wrong cos it's pretty damn obvious I never minded isn't it? Even after you told me about all of this, I still wanted you didn't I? You can't bail on me again, not when I'm here trying to tell you there's nothing you can do that's gonna stop me loving you, wanting to be with you..." 

	Shooting him a dangerous look, she clawed at the debris littering the forest floor, gathering it in her hands and letting it filter through her fingers.

	"So this is it? This is the spot? Well, look at it will you Dennis? It's leaves! That's all it is - leaves, twigs and dirt! You can't scare me out of love!"

	"But I... I have to be with Zoe..."

	"Oh, cos your own sister wasn't an easy enough lay for you darlin'?"

	"Because-" he hissed back bluntly. "-then I don't have to think.. feel, it all just goes on around me. I can be numb again, I'll be safe like that and it's... it's all I deserve!"

	"Well what about what I deserve?" Sharon bawled, tears still coarsing miserably down, dripping off her slippery cheeks. "Don't I deserve to be happy? Cos you're... you're the only person who can do that for me Dennis, you must know that. I need you to be happy. Please don't say you wanna leave me crying for you on the other side of that bastard wall, cos one day soon, I'm gonna be all outta tears and I don't wanna be numb darlin'. I can't live like that. I can't live like this. I can't keep waiting, hoping. Just like you... wondering which one of us is gonna make the first move. Cos this is it for me, this is my move." 

	Her eyes soulful and wide with sparkling tears, she gulped back a sob she barely knew if she'd be able to choke out let alone stand him hearing its ugly birth too. As she looked up at him, knowing she saw recognition in his tortured face, knowing he was falling through the every memory of that first night as her words evoked them.

	"You know what happens next is up to you."

	"Please..." Dennis begged, voice swaying to illustrate this heavy emotion as he looked at her... well, tried to, his tears blinding him as they poured down. "Please just get up. I'm sorry... I'm so sorry. I should never... we should go home..."

	"It's not home." Sharon informed him coldly from where she pointedly did not move an inch upon the muddy forest floor. "And I told you... I'm not going back there just to lose you. I'd rather stay here... I'd rather die here."

	"Stop it!" he yelled, shaking furiously. And all at once, Sharon saw a child. She was having to wrestle back her every emotion, because each one screamed for her to reach forward and pull him down into her arms, to whisper she could keep him safe. Because she saw every moment this formidable soul had been frightened, pleaded for love and still been left alone to cry his miserable tears. But she'd been made to understand that no matter what she could say or do, he could never feel safe here.

	And yet she still leapt up, totally against her own words, crashing into him in her desperation to know she held him. But to watch him cry hurt all the more and she cased his jaw in her shivering palms, trying to stem the flow of tears with her thumbs. "Sweetheart... please just... dry your eyes. Dry your eyes then look at me and give me reasons. Because I'm gonna need them... bloody good ones if you're really telling me I can't have you. There's... There's never gonna be better than you and me Dennis. And if I know that when I was the one turning you away, then you definitely know it. So tell me why you're fighting this baby, cos all I'm hearing is excuses. Tell me why Zoe's the one that's gonna get to love you when I'm the one curled up on the spot you killed a man and still screaming that I love you more than she's ever gonna know is possible. You said no-one would hear me... why won't you?"

	"I... I need Zoe."

	"Why?"

	"Because she's nothing. Next to you, she's always gonna be nothing... everything I'm owed."

	"Nothing?" Sharon pushed desperately. "She's nothing... you feel nothing?"

	"No."

	Sharon couldn't comprehend the wave of emotions that crashed down on her as the realisation dawned. Part of her wanted to hit out at him for making her fall apart for the sake of this emotionless car crash he'd been calling his new "relationship", him "moving on", but what was stronger more than anything was the sheer relief. He'd told her he loved her still, that was what mattered, because somehow, even through all this, she believed him. Maybe it was because sometimes, so many times, she'd felt like Dennis was the only person she had left to love in the world, but her reason didn't matter. She was always going to love him, and when it came to Zoe, he was cold. Maybe he wasn't lost entirely.

	"What if I told her about this Dennis?" she challenged bravely. "Would you still love me? Would you still feel anything for me?"

	"You know I would."

	"But the problem here is you know I'd never tell her. And that's because I love you. And it'll never matter what you do to me, I'm always gonna. Because in this whole crazy mess of a life, you're one of the only things that'd ever made any sense. Sometimes, none at all-" She looked miserably around. "But I.. I don't wanna be that lost. And if you're honest with yourself, you know she's the only damn thing standing in our way. Or is it just my heart you wanna break with all your dirty little secrets?"

	"I never wanted to hurt you." Dennis began, inwardly cursing how pathetic the words sounded as they left his mouth.

	"And I never wanted to feel like I'm losing you, so we're both failing miserably here aren't we?"

	Staring at Sharon for several tense seconds that kicked painfully at them both from the inside; lumps rising in their throats and restricting their laboured breaths, Dennis shook his head as he edged forward. Sharon could have confessed to being frightened of him, however fleetingly. But as he towered above her, she somehow understood, without enquiry. So she straightened her back and lifted her hands, warmed only as Dennis held them, helping her to her feet and pulling her into his arms, winding them tight around her as he nestled into her shoulder, wetting her bare and chilled skin with these burning rivers of remorse.

	"No." he whispered, sounding so broken and yet so... so hopeful as he tried to assure her to the contrary. He wanted so much to do right. "I'm so sorry."

	"Shhh!" Sharon soothed shakily, by nothing but the instinct of a lover, pressing her clammy palm into the nape of his neck to draw him closer. She hated to see him hurting. It broke her fuckin' heart. Not that the pieces had been reassembled since the last time, and that had been all she had been hoping for tonight and instead, the suggestion she would return home lonely seemed more and more painfully likely.

	"I mean it, I don't... I never- Sharon, I'm so-"

	"I know darlin', I know." she told him, feeling her own voice crack. And it was through her own veil of tears that she continued to speak, all in a moment, sobbing just as hard as he was. "It's alright, shhh, I'm here... it's OK..."

	 "I don't wanna keep doing this to you." 

	"Then come back to me." she whispered against his ear. "Please, just come back..."

	"I want to. I want to so much."

	Sharon only then allowed herself to release an apprehensive and flickering smile of relief, clinging onto him tighter. But her blood ran cold as she felt him miserably shake his head.

	"But you... you let me go. I have to do the same."

	"No!"

	"Yes." he sniffled, blinking back his tears as he gave her a sorrowful look, awash with regret. "You really think we could be happy together with all this hanging over us... everything I've done... to you... here? What about what I am Sharon? You... You know you can't trust me."

	 "I love you." she countered fiercely. She could not let this happen to them, not again - not when they meant so much.

	But Dennis only shook his head sadly, lifting her small and seemingly delicate hand carefully into his and lacing his fingers through. "That's not the same thing and you know it. I love you an' all, but that don't mean I trust myself not to hurt you. What about tonight eh? I brought you here didn't I?"

	Sharon replicated his movement, with the ferocities of a perpetulant child. "No. I... I came to get you, I did this. I just... I needed to talk to you. And I'm sorry, I swear, I didn't know that this was- I never wanted any of this." 

	"I know." he assured her, biting guiltily into his lip as he cast his eyes down. "This is my fault."

	"You're not listening to me!"

	"That's cos I can't!" His voice swayed dangerously with the heightened emotion as he couldn't help but continue looking into her wide eyes, bright with sparkling tears. "You didn't make this happen Sharon, whatever it is you wanted, I know this wasn't it. I know... you never wanted to believe I coulda done this, but I did. I do bad things baby, it's all I know. I left you didn't I? I told you I loved you enough times to make you believe it and then I left you on the word of some cold bastard whose never gonna give a toss whether I live or die. But he's... Den's half of me. I'm just like him. And you know you've always needed better than that. I'm sorry, but I-"

	Sharon held up her palm to silence him, staring at him coldly, wanting to keep back any other emotion before she was reduced to begging him once again. "Stop it. Just tell me... are you saying me & you... that we have no chance - ever? You're saying that that's the way it has to be because I deserve better?"

	He wanted to give her words in reply, but his voice, weakened by this heartbreak, simply could not carry them, and he was let to hang his head guiltily in submission clawing back his cracked and remorseful lips.

	"OK..." she said immediately, afraid that if she took a moment to allow any of his words to forge real meaning, she was going to burst into hysterical tears, she was going to scream. "But if you're really gonna do this to me... to us then you owe me something darlin'. You owe me anything I ask for."

	"Ask." came his soft prompt, knowing that she was so painfully right.

	"I just want time. With you. I want you to pretend we never had this conversation, that you never made me cry. However long we have darlin', please - just treat me like you'll keep me. Please, do that for me."

	He so wanted to close his eyes, and block out the finality he was forcing. He was consoled in knowing that he was right however, that he could never again break her heart if he left the broken pieces be. But she had voiced his one remaining desire and he'd never known how to refuse her.

	"OK. For you."

	The smile that dared to take her lips, glistening with the effect of the many tears to have run down, broke Dennis' heart. Because he was going to console her with nothing more than the most treacherous game of play pretend. But her eyes sparkled with an emotion that wanted so much to become happiness, and she spluttered on a gurgle of relief that he was well aware had been just as ready to present itself as another harrowing sob.

	Sharon rushed at him, flinging her arms around his neck and nestling into his shoulder, murmuring; "Thank you, oh God, thank you!" feverently into his ear. He was still in the moments she waited for any sort of response, too stunned at her sheer closeness, dropping his arms tight around her and letting his head buzz with the beautiful familiarities of her scent. And he could feel more tears burning viciously in his eyes. Because every moment was going to be a lie. Loving her so openly, knowing he would walk away, back to something that would never come close.

	He hated it, he hated it so much, but he knew he was right, he knew it. He wasn't going to let himself be the one to hurt her so much anymore. He was nothing, no-one. She'd heal. No doubt he'd fall apart without her, but he was never going to be what mattered.

	But he couldn't deny his own selfish need, holding her so close, so tight, he was sure her breaths weren't solely laboured because she longed to cry.

	When he finally let her go, she staggered back, looking a little stunned, stung even. But the corners of her mouth lifted and she offered Dennis her shivering hand. He looked at it doubtfully, tremoring too, as if he feared she'd shatter the moment he touched her. She laughed nervously, spluttering on all this heightened emotion and Dennis smiled sadly, understanding he had to drop his hand into hers, curling his fingers around and holding her steady. He let her step in front of him, knowing she was anxious to bring them back to the clearing, perhaps hoping that, away from the evil concealed by the trees, she'd recognise the man she had been sat with back in the car, talking so gently about ponies and tiaras.

	The moment she moved forward however, Dennis knew he should have gone first, if only to illustrate the crippling need to protect her. He had so much to make up to her... how had he become so mad? He held onto her hand tighter, wincing as so much as a twig snapped beneath their feet. Anything, it seemed, could make him remember what he had become, what he would always be. And he hated it, he hated it so much.

	His heart dared to lift as he saw the car ahead, able to escape the low branches beating against them, waiting to snare them, ruin them. How was it that he managed that so well on his own? Why was he such a poison?

	Sharon of course, was unaware of how he was torturing himself, and allowed herself her first steady breath of the biting air, flinging her hair across her shoulder as she happily took in surroundings she at the very least recognised. She was praying they could be safe now. Slowly, she turned round to face Dennis, never surrendering her hold on his hand. She'd never let him go. Never.

	"You're gonna be fine darlin'. I swear to you, you'll be OK now."

	Dennis bowed his head, nodding solemnly, pouring his every last emotion into believing her. She stepped bravely forward, picking along the pavement away from the woodland, only serving to move further into a night she was never going to understand. But she didn't dare be afraid. Not while Dennis was beside her, not while there was a single moment left that he might call to her, and need her as he had used to do, as she still needed him.

	Neither of them had trained their breathing into regular patterns, still choking on the presence of tears and sobs that, although not voiced, were apparantly not willingly to leave their throats should they be required later. So between gasping in breaths that were painful in their tightened chests, they'd keep their gazes between the ground and each other, almost surprised each time their eyes inevitably met, smiling awkwardly, and wishing the silence away even though they had no words. They had gone about half a mile, having finally reached a main road; therefore with some hope of civilisation beyond, and they still had not said a word. Were they terrified of what had gone by, of what Sharon had sworn they would not mention? Or were they content, to be together... playing pretend?

	No. Dennis defied it, he defied it all. He hated play pretend. He wanted a reality, a reality that encompassed Sharon as she had once been. Been to him. He knew it could not last, not if he was to release her as he knew he should, but he was tired of this silence, this apprehension when there was so much he wanted. The roads were pretty much deserted, bar perhaps the one lonesome car that trundled past a few hundred yards back. So, all there was was Sharon, and the promise he had made to her, her words beating furiously against his temples again and again as if they too were fighting to escape him and be true.

	Treat me like you'll keep me.

	And so was that why he pulled on her hand so fiercely, forcing her to slope back mid-step to level with this pressure. Her gaze, as it glided over his face, was questioning his every feature. But she saw fit to smile coyly, perhaps understanding as he stepped close. She stretched up in anticipation, her freezing palms curling around the base of his neck to draw him nearer. And there was this awful thought that maybe this wasn't what he meant, but her every last breath of hope had gone into his promise and knew that if she was the one to make this happen, he would not break their bond.

	But no. His lips pressed into hers in the earlier breaths and she was consoled as she fiercely returned this solemn kiss, knowing that he meant the every word he dared not speak but that he knew she heard anyway.

	"Oh darlin'-" she whispered as she edged back, not willing to surrender more than a breath to their distance. "-where did you go?"

	"I-" His voice wavered immediately as he fought to recover his justification and quickly finding he was left bereft. "I don't know. I'm so sorry-" And he bundled her closer, whispering thickly; "Please... Please forgive me..."

	"I love you." Sharon replied softly as she held him. "I don't need to forgive you. I just need you to stay with me. OK?"

	She felt him nod and she dared to let herself smile for the first time in what felt such a long time. He moved back with an obvious reluctance, but Sharon kept hold of his hand so they moved on, not quite speaking and yet not quite silent, so much said in the glances they snuck at each other.

	"You ever disappear like that again, please just... tell me... I wanna come with you."

	He looked up in alarm. "You don't mean that."

	"You know I do. I might not understand all the ways you've been hurt Dennis, but I swear to you... I've felt it all. I had no choice; you don't leave the person you love the most to hurt. So if it ever takes you again, like it did back there, then I'm going with you."

	"Why won't you just believe that... that might be who I really am?" he questioned meekly, his look pleading with her to scream that she had nothing but the overwhelming need to escape him and his evil. At least that way, there could be no goodbye.

	"Because I know you. Maybe I don't know who you were... maybe I'm not gonna understand who you're gonna be... and maybe I wouldn't want to but I know who you are. And you're not any of this anymore. You're just... you."

	"Well, do me a favour and spell it out to me eh Sharon? Because I've never known who I am, never liked what I thought I was. That's why I do all the things I do. All the wrong things..."

	Her eyes flared, flashes of violent colour flinging away the likelihood of any impending hurt he looked set to deal her. "Like me you mean?"

	"No. Everything but you and that's what I hate the most." 

	Sharon winced at the force with which he drilled his fingernails into her wrist.

	"Why did you have to be Den's daughter Sharon? Why couldn't you have been anyone... anyone else? I coulda made you so happy."

	"You still can." she assured him with a flickering smile. "Dad doesn't... no-one else matters to me Dennis, not anymore, not after everything. I just want you..." 

	Sharon understood the way he looked at her in such panic. For all the ways he had hurt her this morning, she had no choice but to understand, for she was the only one that would. She knew what he was trying to do. To save her. He thought that to hurt her as he done back in the menances of the woodland, she'd bolt. That she'd stop loving him and his guilt would finally ease. But she simply couldn't let it be like that. There was no reason she should ever stop loving him. Whether he knew it or not, he was her world. And yes, he made her angry, and yes, he'd left her to cry alone, but he was also the only one that could get her to mean a smile, the only one that had it within him to make her happy.

	And he'd told her that's what he wanted to do. Too afraid to, maybe, but that was what he wanted, and she was the one that had to make him see that's what they could be - happy together. She could have come right out with it, pleaded, maybe shouted til she was hoarse, but if there was one thing she had realised about her errant lover tonight, it was that he was still so vulnerable. Nobody else in the world could have appreciated Dennis Rickman in such a way, because it just wasn't in the character he lays out for the rest of the world. Only Sharon knew who he really was and dared to love him for that, his every flaw - and she had a suspicion that he hated it.

	Still, he'd said nothing to her declaration, but she had seen it register on his beautiful face and was somehow content with just that, holding on a little tighter to his hand and saying nothing further on it. She knew better than to push him on such a point... she had all the time in the world - and she intended to spend it right next to him. 

	"I know you're not likely to believe me when I say this to you darlin', but y'know, in some ways... I'm just like you."

	She smiled at his look of disbelief, knowing she had been proved right. "Yeah, OK. I know you think I'm just Dad's spoilt little Princess, but if you get back to basic... why am I here at all? My own mother couldn't stand the idea of me, so I wound up at The Vic, and I was so damn miserable. If it hadn't have been for Michelle and Mark, I think I mighta done myself in. And... God, I thought about this so much, when you told me about Jack; me with my lip still swollen and I just knew how much you hated Dad too-" She smiled weakly as Dennis struggled to look into her face. "I felt it..."

	"Don't." he managed at last. "Please don't."

	"No!" Sharon countered breathlessly, slowing up and rounding on him, taking up his other hand too. "Don't you get it? I understood. I really did."

	"No you didn't." Dennis threw back miserably, pulling his frozen hands away. "You've never hated Den, Sharon - you don't know how."

	"Oh, I bloody do." she announced passionately, flashes of colour playing in her sparkling eyes. "I know it's not always seemed that way, but yes I do - I hate him... he cost me you... us and if you don't get what that means to me by now..."

	He rebuffed her questioning look with one of apology, inclining his head and wordlessly prompting her to carry on.

	"-sometimes I thought I'd much rather have been with you, way back then, bouncing between homes and I... I do mean that. You're gonna tell I don't know what it was like, I know you are and you're right. Perfect, pampered little Princess plucked from obscurity right, I don't have a clue. But I think... I think I mighta had you and I know then it woulda been alright... for the both of us..."

	"No chance." Dennis dismissed her words quietly with a simple shake of her head. "You need to get it into your head Sharon, you can't - save - me. Not then, not now - not ever!"

	"I don't believe you." she countered defiantly.

	"Well maybe you missed the bit about me murdering Jack then huh?"

	"Oh God, will you just shut up? That doesn't matter anymore - I heard it, I saw it - and I'm already past it! I still want you Dennis, and you need to get it into your head there's nothing you can do to change that!"

	"Oh no? I was nasty back then Sharon, under Jack's wing, always doing what I was told, talking with my fists. You wanna know what it woulda been like being there with me back then darlin'? OK. Well... Boxing Day 1991... while you were holed up in The Vic, slicing into your soddin' wedding cake with Mitchell's hands all over you, you know what I was doing? I was breaking someone's legs. Both of them, snapped... all cos he'd refused some business deal with Jack... it's pathetic really, it was only worth about ten grand, but still... needed to be taught a lesson didn't he eh?"

	"This isn't gonna work Dennis..."

	  An insincere smile sprang up from the corner of his mouth, challenging her to the contrary as he cocked his head. "25th October 1994; ah, this is another special one for you right Sharon? Phil's engagement party and I... I wasn't far y'know, I could hear it all going on in The Vic... God, if I'd just known what you were gonna become to me darlin', I mighta gone across and helped you out, but I was too busy half killing some guy who didn't pick up his bar tab. I heard he was in Intensive Care for nearly a fortnight and oh... Jack was proud of me, he was..."

	Shivering with the repulsion Dennis was longing to see, Sharon asked; "What the hell made you so angry Dennis? Why... Why would you want to do all that?"

	"Ah! The question, Sharon - the question. Why don't you tell me why you're doing all this eh sweetheart? What the hell is it that makes me worth all this? Why won't you just give up?"

	"Because I'm not a quitter." Sharon returned defiantly, barely leaving a moment for Dennis' glittering eyes to dance imploring across her face. "I don't give up on what matters."

	"Yeah." Dennis agreed bitterly, with a slow nod of his head. "Like your dad... like your family!"

 	"Like you!" she countered loudly, wanting to eradicate his words in her own. "Like being with you and I'll give anything to that Dennis, Dad, Vicki, Walford, anything. But you can't make me give up. Cos I won't. So c'mon, tell me about all the blokes you hospitalized on Jack's say so, give me some idea of how much it hurt... them, you..."

	Dennis scowled at her, unwilling to say a word. But Sharon softened, stepping closer as she clung fiercely to his hands.

	"I meant what I said to you when I left Dot's that day darlin'. I know the worst and nothing's ever going to change. Maybe it should have done, maybe it'd be easier that way, but I still love you and I don't see any reason why I should make myself stop, why I should even try... not while there's still a chance for us."

	"But there isn't." Dennis murmured weakly, sadly shaking his head.

	"Why?" Sharon demanded stubbornly, her enchanting eyes widening with the question.

	Sighing, Dennis tore his hands away from her hold and backed a pace away. Terror played across his tear-stained face as he turned back to face her. His lips quivering and Sharon was made aware he was holding back more tears, more excruciating sobs simply because he looked at her. He stopped, ramming his chilled hands into the pockets of his jeans as he anxiously shifted his weight from foot to foot.

	"Because I meant what I said to you an' all. I'm scared, I'm so damn scared and I hate it."

	"But I... darlin', I understand all that, it's OK."

	"No, it's not." he yelled, needing to do as much to make her flinch and keep her back. "You don't understand Sharon, you're never gonna understand." He challenged her look by asking; "I mean, do you understand how I felt when I realised it was you I'd hit that day? How sick I felt when I realised I had your blood on my hands when I... loved you so fuckin' much, when I couldn't make sense of anything without you? Do you know how much I hated myself? How much I still do?"

	Sniffling back the treacherous tears that had betrayed him and begun to fall, Dennis wrenched up his sleeve, showcasing the underside of his arm, marked by tales of so many wounds that had weeped - all in Sharon's name. As each scar shimmered menancingly in the light, Sharon threw up a hand to her mouth as she gasped in horror.

	"Oh darlin'... please, no..."

	"I've tried to stop, so many times. But I can't cos I'm always doing something, saying something that means you're crying yourself to sleep that night. I always hear you and it always hurts. I don't know any other way to make it stop. So let's just call it poetic justice eh?"

	"No!" Sharon cried, rushing forward and cradling his arm and holding on, even as he tried to pull away. With an awful awe, Sharon tenderly ran a fingertip over every raised mark on his skin, red and some sore. And as he winced, the sickening realisation hit.

	"These are new aren't they?"

	Dennis blanched his lip, saying only: "You were crying last night."

	Nodding guiltily, she asked uneasily: "Did you do this when you were... with me?"

	She hated the childlike fear that greeted her as she looked up for the honesty in his brimming eyes. Wordlessly, he shook his head.

	Although she was uncertain, Sharon chose to believe it was relief that shuddered through her at that moment. He'd admitted to never being so desolate when their comfort had been the arms of the other. So she drew him desperately down and he nestled into her shoulder as they clung together, needing to take one another's pain. Because Sharon realised that while Dennis had lain tortured by the sound of her tears on the other side of the wall, he had secretly bled out his remorse. So... he was wrong. She was going to save him. From it all. No matter what it took. 

	Feeling her own tears burn, Sharon pulled a fraction back from Dennis, gulping back a sob as she pressed her hands around his tear-stained face, whispering fiercely; "Why wouldn't you talk to me?"

	"What could you have done Sharon?"

	"Anything... everything."

	"Why?" he croaked, with barely even the breath to deliver his question.

	"Oh Dennis, how many times? Because I love you... what have I gotta do to get that through to you in there eh?"

	"Go home." he pleaded. "Stay away from me. You'll be safe that way... you can be happy!"

	Sharon looked away, laughing scornfully. "What are you trying to do to me darlin'? I can't do what you've done - I can't just go and bag some random guy to make it look like I'm doing fine without you... you. Because I never will be. And I'm never going to be happy like that. You think I can just walk away when I know what it does to you? You think I can leave you there?"

	"I'm not your problem Sharon."

	"But... I'm not ever gonna stop being yours am I; not if we keep living like this? Because I'll still be crying myself to sleep at night, too scared to let the tears fall cos I know now that you're there, taking it and letting it tear you open. It's not supposed to hurt like that baby, it's not!"

	"Don't you dare go feeling sorry for me Sharon, it's my choice! It's my pain!"

	"Yeah!" she cried out, agreeing with a furious nod of her head. "And you make it happen only because I'm hurting too!"

	He cocked his head, staring intently at her as silent tears poured down.

	Daring to smile, she dropped her palms to the back of his neck, pressing her thumbs into his jaw and giving him a deep look, drowning so willingly in his eyes, in the terror that was to take them both.

	"I'm not gonna let you hurt like this anymore, d'y'hear me.. I won't. Why did you lie to me? You were trying to make like you don't feel anything but these..." She cast her big sad eyes down to his butchered arm, pretty well assured that the other was similarly scarred. "...these tell me you've never stopped. And darlin', it's OK to feel, it is. Please don't shut me out like this, because I'm always gonna be here... feeling what you are. Why are we hiding from that?"

	"Because I... I never wanted you to feel like... this!"

	"Well..." Sharon was aghast, struggling for the right words as she clung on. "How am I meant to feel Dennis? I can't lose you... I can't walk away from you and I can't stop loving you! I tried, you know I did, but I can't. And when... when you and Zoe... I really thought you'd forgotten me... us."

	"No!" he gulped, sounding so damn stricken as he tried to steady his breathing. "No, I'll never... and hearing you, I just..."

	"I know." Sharon whispered immediately, wincing as she considered she might have to hear more of his pain, his evident self-loathing. "But Dennis, I'm begging you... just let me make it stop. You... You said that when we were together, you never... and when did I ever cry myself to sleep when I had you huh? No matter what you're feeling in there, however much you hate yourself, however much you wanna protect me, I think you know the only way we're going to be OK is if we stop hurting. We have to be together, Dennis."

	"But we- I..."

	"Don't you dare say you can't." Sharon said fiercely as she sniffled back the threat of her tears, the treacherous warmth of his own already sinking through to her skin. "Cos that's not gonna stop me OK? I'm just like you... I only wanna make you happy and I... I need you and you... you need me right?"

	His cracked lips slanted unfavourably and, terrified, Sharon felt her stomach drop, she began to tremor. But before she could raise his name, sickened at what she might hear if she pushed him, he nodded slowly, his wide eyes telling of how he wished he could rebuke her.

	"Then we have to go... me and you, tonight."

	

	Tears were brimming in Dennis' eyes as he looked at her, drowning in her determation, the promise he could feel in this offer. And he knew what he had to do, his only problem was, he couldn't do it. His throat was dry and he simply couldn't repeat the words to send Sharon away because he knew by now she was not prepared to hear them. He was drained and he was aching. He just wanted to hold her and pander to the desire to never let her go. He knew he was destined to hurt her and he hated it but he was by now well aware she was not prepared to take his excuses whilst they might craft a chance at love - something Dennis was only just aware that he had missed so much.

	Yes, he was a mess and he still believed himself to be a monster. But to refuse her was to hurt her more than even the emotionally cold could bear.

	Basking in the solace she was begging him to seize in a glance, Dennis threw his arms around her, pulling her so close it was almost as if her breathing died away. But maybe not even that mattered, because she clung to him too, understanding what she chose to.

	"We can't look back, Dennis."

	"We just go?" he murmured quietly, presenting the uncertainities of a child.

	She nodded slowly as she caressed his glistening face. "Just us."

	"And that means we'd be OK?"

	Sharon wished so much that the right words might have been ready in her mouth to console him. But they weren't. "Well, I... I don't know. But... it means the hurt'll stop, it means the tears'll stop falling..." She smiled softly as she tenderly brushed away the sparkling waterfalls that came from his eyes.

	"But what... what about Vicki? What about Den... what about Walford?"

	"I told you... I'll give anything to being with you. I know what's important now."

	"But..."

	"No." she said sternly, refusing to give him opportunity to sway her. "Us, Dennis... just us."

	He nodded, as if he were defeated and Sharon clutched his hand as they continued to walk the night in silence. It had been about ten minutes, the long desired petrol station now in sight, when he pulled on her hand again to bring her round to face him, wounded expectation holding her features.

	"Can you really do that.... for me?"

	Sharon relaxed, falling in love with his disbelieving innocence for every breath she brought in. Oh, everything, every beat of pain was forgiven.

	"Yes." she said softly, stretching up to leave a whisper of a kiss on his unassured lips. "I should have done right from the beginning."

	"But it'll... kill Vicki."

	"It'll kill us if we don't go, Dennis. You know we can't play happy families anymore. We'll explain it to Vicki..."

	"How? How can we do that if we're running away?"

	"Somehow!" Sharon countered defensively. "One day!"

	Dennis shot her a suspicious look, somehow understanding that his little sister's explanation might never arise. "She'll hate us."

	"We'll hate us. Don't you understand darlin'? We have to try... we have to get away for our own sakes. What if... What if this was really it and we just let it go cos I was too scared to stand up to my dad and you were left stuck with Zoe for years on end? I know you're miserable baby, I've heard everything you've said to me tonight... everything. And I'm not gonna leave you there when I wanna make you happy, when I wanna take the pain away. If we're together Dennis... it's not gonna hurt anymore. You can make it right."

	"What if I don't though? What if I'm so screwed up that I can't?"

	"Screwed up?" Sharon echoed in disgust. "Bloody hell Dennis, have you even thought of how you'll feel if we go home? She'll destroy you, you know that. She won't mean to, I know she's just a kid. But you wanna be with me, and I want you too. So stop punishing yourself because that punishes me too. You said you don't wanna hurt me..."

	"I don't." he affirmed with a sniffle. "I never did. But I just know I will."

	"Not if you'll just give yourself a chance. I believe in you darlin' - why do you hate yourself so much?"

	Dennis looked away shamedly, but Sharon was not deterred, pressing her hand to his cheek.

	"Tell me."

	"I... I'm everything I never wanted to be. Everything you should never have had to suffer."

	"What are you talking about, suffer? I love you!"

	"I'm Den's son Sharon! Just like him. And you know that since I met you, I've hated that so much, but I just can't change! I'm a user, I manipulate people to get what I want-" He gave her a deep look at those words and she flinched, unable to miss his meaning. "I'm cold, I'm selfish... and what about my own merit eh? I'm a killer."

	"So?" Though her tone was convincingly nonchalant, she was betrayed by the way he watched her tremor. "I want who you are Dennis, everything. I swear to you, I'll take it and I'll love it all, if you'll just stop pushing me away. I know you love me too, I know that despite how much it's hurt since we split up. I know you don't wanna let go. So you're not cold. Cos that's an emotion... it's called remorse - and I am not gonna watch you bleed it out!"

	Sharon studied his face with mad and darting eyes, terrified as to what kind of reaction she was about to read in his face. She only wanted to hear one thing and she was so unbelievably scared, because he was too. She could barely breathe, though she was perhaps breathing too much, chest absolutely heaving as her wounded heart pounded to the point of pain, willing him to speak.

	"I don't know what I did to deserve you."

	"And I don't care." she returned breathlessly, her chest feeling so tight she feared she was about to pass out. "Just say we'll go."

	Sharon watched the guilt play on his face. He tilted his head up, blinking furiously against the bright rays of daybreak. The tears shone like diamonds upon the surface of his eyes, and he blanched his lip with such a ferocity that Sharon waited painfully to see the rise of his blood.

	"OK."

	She threw her arms around him with such a force of relief that she caught him off balance as he held her, and they swung uneasily round, never wanting to surrender the desire to be close, to touch.

	"Now c'mon!" Sharon stated bravely, holding his hand so fiercely. She nodded towards the forecourt. "We go in there, we leave again... we'll be OK."

	Dennis only nodded, so weakened he only had her faith to cling to. He was aware that as he looked at her, he loved her. He loved her for the every breath she had used to fight him, to make him hold on. He loved that someone so blinded by love could be loving him, even for his every flaw, his every mistake. He believed she was wrong to, but she wanted to make him happy, pull him free of the existence that otherwise looked set to suffocate him and he was but a child. There had been so much confusion and too much longing to bear. He needed her to stay, he needed her to keep loving him, otherwise he remained without purpose and weeping in pain.

	Bowing his head, he gave into his need for proclaimation, kissing her soft and willing lips.

	"I'm so sorry Sharon."

	"What for?"

	"For making you believe it. It shouldn't be this way, you should be with someone else."

	"No." she replied with soft determination. "No way. You hated that and I... I did too."

	"Only because you knew how I felt. I'll... I'll get over myself..."

	Flashes of colour danced violently across the surface of her brimming eyes. Her lips twisted unhappily and she deliberately pressed her nails into the arm she knew was marked by tales of his every concealed emotion. As he winced, she simply shook her head, never taking her eyes from his face and whispering;

	"I don't think you will. I don't want you to. So why try? Stop running baby. Just let it make sense. You don't have to do any of this anymore."

	Closing his eyes, feeling as though he was being scolded, Dennis nodded. "You know I love you right?"

	"Look at me Dennis."

	But he couldn't bring himself to allow the harsh light of the world to bleed in and attack his itching eyes. So Sharon reached up, cupping his face, knowing that at her touch he couldn't help but look at her, being pulled helplessly into the depthlessness of her captivating eyes.

	"I know." she said slowly.

	"I'll try." he promised her frightfully. "I swear to you I'll try."

	Brushing his lips, and feeling the laboured breath that followed dance comfortingly across her face, she repeated; "I know."

	They walked across the main road wound together, needing to reassure each other in their silence. So much had been said, so much had stung, perhaps silence was best. It was a comfort, in it's nothingness, it could say anything it was meant to say to make everything alright.

	Slipping into the shop, Sharon stole away from Dennis, just for a moment to murmur her requests at the cashier who looked like she'd been driven half crazy by staring at the same spot on the wall since her shift undoubtedly began seven hours previously. Sharon drew back a few moments later, having at last drilled the keywords through and maybe even received some braindead imitation of a smile.

	She turned back and watched anxiously as she saw Dennis, somehow immersed in something he had picked up from the mess of a toy stand, holding it without his wind-beaten and raw hands like it was a precious jewel. He looked so painfully awestruck, Sharon was loathe to move forward. But from this moment, they were in absolutely everything together. So, pulling in an uneasy breathe she translated into a smile, she stowed her hands into her pockets and went to him, asking;

	"What have you got there darlin'?"

	She immediately berated herself as she realised she sounded so much like she was addressing a child but Dennis proved distant and took up no issue, which only served to unsettle her more. He did turn to look at her, but there was something in his eyes that told her he didn't see her.

	"Look after her Dennis." he murmured distractedly, looking down. "Look after her."

	"Who, sweetheart?" she asked, stepping up and pressing her hand into his arm and creating comforting circles with the pad of her thumb.

	"The Princess."

	It was only then that Sharon dared to examine what he held. And she shook, hardly knowing whether to recoil in horror at the menances it was by now obvious her past presented, or beg him to return to a guise she recognised. Sharon realised she had spoken to him in such a way because right now, he was supressed by the innocence and confusion of the child he had never recovered from being.

	For he was holding a little girl's playset. Dress up. A tiara. A tiara so much like baby Sharon, the Sharon Dennis had waited on in so many untold ways since his mother had introduced them through the distances of time, had worn so proudly.

	"I'm not a Princess anymore darlin'."

	He tilted his head, looking at her with such confusion, she was immediately blinking back tears and swallowing down lumps that restricted her throat. Somehow, this was so much worse than listening him venemously telling her every detail of killing a man. This was totally disarming. Sharon could feel herself breaking and she knew she just couldn't. She was meant to save him.

	"You can't just stop being a Princess. It's what you are."

	Sharon nodded slowly, reaching out to pull the set from his hands. But he would not release his grip, and suspicion had taken his eyes. 

	"You know how the story goes baby. The Princess always grows up. She always wants to live happily ever after. That's what I want too. So I stopped being a Princess. I left the castle and I... I want to live happily ever after with you. So let's go yeah?"

	But Dennis would not move. Sharon knew she shouldn't leave him, but she couldn't bear to stay. She didn't understand, she didn't want to try. Here they were, trying so hard to be together but she had never felt so alone, even in all the months her bed had been so cold and Dennis had lain with someone else on the other side of the wall, bleeding out his scarlet tears. She raced outside to the deserted forecourt, the false light so harsh against her brimming eyes as she slammed hard up against the unaccomodating wall, just hoping that her knees would not give out beneath the weight of such misery.

	Soon however, she was blinded by these millions of tears, as broken as the one she had left. And how she hated that she was weak enough to leave him when he was so lost, needed someone's hand. She wanted to offer hers, she wanted to so much. But as her sobs tore through her, she was so afraid they wouldn't be able to hold on. She might have already lost him.

	Sniffling, she wiped at her eyes, black smears marking her fingertips. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she called for a cab, rather aimlessly and she was asked to repeat her non-instructions several times her voice shivered so much.

	She shrank away into the wall as she dropped the small handset back to its place in her pocket, trying to hide, from the relentlessness of her tears as they continued to pour down. Together they'd suffered so much and still she didn't recognise her lover.

	Feeling warmth dance across her face that hadn't been there previously, she opened her eyes in fright. Dennis was leant, his body entirely in line with hers, watching her silently with no words to illustrate the sadness she read in his sparkling eyes.

	"I hate it when you cry." he said simply, his voice barely above that tortured whisper.

	"Oh, er..." Sharon forced herself to smile, turning away and wiping furiously at her eyes. "I'm not crying darlin'. Look... I'm fine."

	"Liar."

	There was no accusation present with this delivery. He spoke so softly to her and that frightened her all the more. At least his anger might have brought to her attention flashes of a man she recognised.

	"It's me isn't it?" Dennis mumbled, reaching for her frozen hand and splaying her fingers so that he might slip his through. "I did it again. I made you cry!"

	"Hey shhh! Listen to me, Dennis, I'm fine. I just... lost control for a second that's all." She lowered her voice, barely a breath so that he would not hear her pained deliberations. "I lost so much..."

	"You look so scared. What is it Sharon, what happened, why do you look so scared?"

	And raising her eyes to his beautiful face, Sharon almost choked on a sob that was ready to break her, all for his displeasure. Because a child still looked back. She'd done this to him. In the hours she had so selfishly stolen to reason him, to beg him back to their love, she had destroyed him. He'd tried to send her away and it was now she was forced to see it might have been for his own sanity. She was well aware he'd never truly accepted himself, so how was he meant to deal with the strength of something he felt so fiercely for the one person he would never be allowed. How did she suppose he could really have dealt with it when he had never had chance to feel before. She'd destroyed the one person she loved most in the world.

	She raised her question cautiously, afraid to throw him over an unsavable edge. "D'you remember what you said to me... just a minute ago darlin'? Do you know what you said?"

	He laughed, and Sharon almost screamed with relief at the sound. Because she knew it. Such a cocky laugh... Dennis' laugh.

	"Honestly Sharon, what are you trying to do to me eh? I ain't stupid; if you wanna back out on this then..."

	"No!" she bleated immediately, somehow feeling the force of rejection pushing into her chest. "Just tell me what you said."

	He sighed, casting a doubtful look in her direction out the corner of his eye. What was wrong with her? Did she have a memory lapse or something? "I said I'd try. For us. For you. I said I'll try for you."

	"And nothing else?" Oh God, she felt so sick. There could be no reassurance because he didn't even realise...

	"You know I can't make you any promises baby. I'm scared too y'know..."

	"Oh..."

	As the corner of his mouth rose into a hesitant smile, Sharon threw herself against him, her flailing arms swamping him as she pulled him close for the hundredth time. Except this time, she was never going to let go. Never. She couldn't lose him. Not like this. Not this way. She needed to keep Dennis close.

	"Don't be. Dennis, don't be. I'm here. I'm right here. Never going anywhere without... oh darlin', please don't let go. Hold on for me..."

	The cab ride back to where they had left the car, both too drained to really give serious thought to turning round and walking the darkened path they had braved together, was tight with anxiety. Sharon could not shake this feeling of loss, even as she was assured that Dennis sat beside her, clutching her hand. They had no words, Sharon too desperate to turn and look out the rain splattered window, as if afraid they were being chased by some unknown force. She began to make Dennis nervous, especially as he saw she was trying so hard to appear collected, all for his sake he knew - but he also knew that she was lying to him. He was reading it in her depthless eyes, and it was hurting.

	"Why do you keep doing that?"

	"Doing what darlin'?" she asked, breathless with the force of the brightness she spoke with. He could hear her voice tremoring, he knew she was trying to fool him. He didn't like it. He didn't like not understanding why. What had he done?

	"Looking round... like you think I can't see you. And you keep looking at-" He inclined his head, gesturing wordlessly to their clasped hands. "-like you think I'm gonna have disappeared or something-"

	Sharon smiled weakly, no words ready to excuse herself. She looked away, biting into her thumbnail as she gazed out the window and watched the rain streak down. Dennis did not so much as blink, watching her with pained suspicion. Sure enough, around ten seconds later, her troubled gaze had fallen to where she held his hand.

	"Stop it." he whispered, squeezing hers and bringing her eyes level with his through nothing but bashfulness. As the colour crept to her cheeks, she relaxed with a small laugh.

	"I'm sorry. I'll stop."

	Dennis didn't believe her - and he was right not to. She just needed his reassurance. Though she dare not say as much to her fragile darlin', she was frightened. So gut-wrenchingly frightened she felt sick. What was this night? What was it really going to become? So, it had hurt, and she had cried tears in such amounts they had fallen like the rain, begging for a release no-one could grant. But Dennis could have killed ten men and flung her to each spot he had slaughtered them, without desire and without choice, and still she would have wanted him. Perhaps it was right that that in itself could frighten her, but the realisation was that, however much she loved him, however much she begged and pleaded... she was losing him anyway. She could feel it and she didn't know how to stop it.

	Reaching the car once again, they'd really been battling against the pelt of the rain as they ensured the tank was refilled. Rain caught in her hair, and a stream of droplets running helplessly off the end of Dennis' nose, as he moved round to the driver's door, Sharon lurched forward and covered his red-raw hand with hers.

	"I don't think you should."

	He looked at her steadily for a moment, and then laughed. "Well, who else is gonna Sharon?"

	"Well... I can if you want."

	Lines of confusion swept over his face. "Can you even drive?"

	"Well, yeah. Dad taught me."

	"Oh, well that's a vote of confidence right there innit? Sharon, Den should never even been given a licence!"

	Humouring him with a smile, Sharon shook her head. "We've been out here for hours darlin', you must be wrecked. Please..." she pleaded sweetly. "...just let me drive eh?"

	"Alright." he sighed, recognising that he was defeated and stepping back to move to the passenger door. "But the second the signposts ain't reading as English anymore, I drive OK?"

	"Well, Wales might not be so bad y'know."

	"I'm not talking Wales Sharon!" Dennis scoffed as he ducked, easing into the seat and pulling the door shut after himself. "I'm talking Timbuktu or somewhere!"

	Smiling slyly, Sharon leant across the gearstick and pressed his needy mouth with her own. "Will you just trust me baby?"

	He leant back, the tension in his shoulders telling of his reluctance to relax. But surprisingly, Sharon proved herself to be a smooth driver, in spite of her nerves and the unease that had continued to build inside her over the coarse of this miserable night. Backing out onto the road, she had no idea where she was going. She didn't necessarily care, there was no-one on the roads to really present a problem to. She had driven for ten or so minutes before she realised that they had been silent minutes and the feeling that Dennis was watching her had died off long ago. 

	Distractedly, she looked to her side... and saw him sleeping peacefully. Curled so awkwardly into the shape of his seat, Dennis was dead to the world. Love swelled in her chest as she admired the innocence that held him in this slumber. And she was so glad of it on his behalf. She'd meant it. She'd hurt him in the time she'd spent with him, she'd confused him and damaged him, all things she'd never wanted to do in all madness and cruelty. He had been so drained, so just to see him sleep...

	If I could only stop the car
	And hold onto you
	And never let go
	I'll never let go...

	Even to herself, Sharon could not explain why she turned off the main road into a side street, she just knew that the need was there; to stop, to turn and look at him.

	"Oh..." she breathed softly, edging over on her hip to scoot carefully closer to him and caress his face, just for a moment, her arms sliding comfortably around him before she even knew what she was doing or understood the implications. "...sweetheart, look at you... I should have just left you sleeping shouldn't I? I hope they were nice dreams..." She nestled gently into his shoulder and continued to whisper to him, somehow comforted by his lack of response. It made the words easier. "I never meant to wake you, I swear. I never wanted to make any of this happen to you. But I... I had to try... I love you, Dennis Rickman. God knows, I tried to make myself stop, but I can't. I love you so much. I don't wanna lose you. So please understand why I'm doing this. I'm doing this for you... I can't lose you..."

	Tears had silently slipped down her seemingly forever dampened cheeks as she had whispered so sincerely to him and it was only now she felt the hot droplets drip off her face. So she hastily wiped her eyes, as ever only managing to smear her waning make-up.

	"Pull yourself together Sharon." she muttered bitterly to herself as she straightened up, gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. "He can't hear you. Just drive for God's sake."

	And it was perhaps just as well that Dennis did not stir as she did just that. Because contrary to Sharon's first thought, she soon realised the road required a lot of her attention. The twists, the turnings, the pelt of the rain stealing the light. And she had to find her way. There was only one way she could go to save him.

	Her breaths became tight and uncomfortable in her chest, her hands began to shake as she clutched the wheel. But she steeled herself and peeled them away, forcing herself to raise her eyes to the house. A weight descended upon her shattered heart. She had meant to run, but she knew she couldn't bring him too. This was what was right. But she was miserable. Sacrifices hurt.

	That voice, that one thick with sleep was the one that pulled her from her pitying stupour, frightfully at that. Because there was such a cold edge to his voice. His confusion, his suspicion... Dennis was making Sharon bleed on the inside.

	"What are we doing here?"

	And Sharon knew there was nothing she could do but nurse her wounds. Alone. She had to save him.

	"I've brought you home darlin'."

	Silence fell as Dennis' eyes alive with such mistrust burnt into her. Sharon straightened her back and even as she tremored, tried to throw back a look of defiance. Whatever he said, whatever happened as a result, she could not be weakened. He was all that mattered whether he chose to know it or not. But her stomach dropped unfavourably as his lips twisted and she hated the regard she could read in his face.

	"Never mind me being just like Den... you're not even his blood and yet you're just like him... every word you come out with is a lie."

	Sharon stared hard at the steering wheel, willing her composure to remain for every second they sat together. She wanted to flinch in repulsion. There wasn't much else he could have said to hurt her as much as he had accomplished in that one statement.

	"It's not like that." she answered steadily.

	"Isn't it?" he demanded viciously. "God, after everything you said, you... you haven't even got the guts to try! We were meant to go... somewhere.... anywhere, but you just can't cut the ties can you, Sharon? Knew it. Knew you couldn't do it. So much for love eh?"

	With a last damning look, he turned away, kicking furiously at the door. But before he could pull himself free of the car and illustrate the overwhelming need to escape her, Sharon reached over and pulled desperately on his arm. He glowered at her for daring to make such a contact, but her brimming eyes pleaded with him.

	Her words were barely there, her voice gone with the force of her world crashing down around her, and Sharon, helpless to stop any of it.

	"Please..."

	"Get off me."

	Dennis' return was low and menancing and Sharon felt a stirring of fright, gasping as she recoiled, barely realising she had released him and he was gone. A few moments later, she was out too, the rain still pouring down. The cool metal of the car keys soothed her burning palm as she called;

	"Where are you going to go Dennis? Where?!"

	He stopped, just for a moment, swinging round to face her with such a cruel smile on his face. "What's it to you Sharon? Why do you have to care?" He scoffed. "Sorry, you don't do you... that's what we're doing back here!" As the hurt flittered across her face, the smile became more firm. "But since you're so interested, thought I might go down The Imperial Rooms, see if there's anyone else needs taking out!"

	Realising she was looking back at him in all horrified seriousness, Dennis spat out a laugh as Sharon rushed forward, trying to cage him with the invitation of her arms.

	"Are you crazy?"

	"I must be to have believed you - for God's sake Sharon, get off!"

	In this flailing struggle, he caught her around the mouth, a scarlet trail trickling down almost immediately.

	"Oh God..."

	"It's nothing. It's OK..." she assured him weakly, pressing her fingertip over the trickle and just praying he wouldn't look away. He wanted to, he wanted to so much, but he couldn't.

	"I did it again..."

	"Hey, shhhh. Really, it's OK. But please Dennis, don't walk away from me, not in this. Hate me if you want, I deserve it. Make me feel it. Just don't... please don't leave me."

	"You want me to stay?"

	Daring to smile as she pulled her hand back, Sharon nodded. "Yeah..."

	"Here? With you... with Zoe?"

	"Dennis-" she began wearily, reading off his disgust. "-please, just listen to me..."

	He clicked his fingers. "That's the one, right there Sharon! I've been listening to you all morning darlin' and all I've heard is a load of lies! Seriously, why'd you say all that? Is it because of what I did? Did I really terrify you so much you were there saying anything just so you knew you'd get out alive.... is that it?"

	"Don't be ridiculous!" Sharon snapped, feeling that defiance flare alongside that sense of injustice. "You wanna know what scared me? You wanna know what's scared me more than anything?"

	"What?" he spat, evidently not all that bothered. But Sharon would make him be.

	"You! You not remembering that you stood in that garage and you were scolding yourself... like your mum would have done, hating yourself because you weren't looking after the Princess. Me, Dennis. The tiny little girl in the photograph you've been carrying round for years? And you know what, it was like I was stood with the seven year old your mum gave that photo to. It broke my fucking heart, so don't you dare accuse me of not caring about you!"

	He fell back on the balls of his feet, stunned. "What? What did I say? Sharon, I don't remember... what did I say?"

	"You saw this.... tiara. Like the one I wore? And you... glazed over. You said you were meant to look after the Princess, cos your mum... I tried to tell you I wasn't like that anymore. But you just... looked at me and said I couldn't change what I was. But I don't want you to look after me Dennis, whatever I am. You know I want more than that."

	"But I'm right aren't I?" Dennis returned shakily, terrified to not be able to place the moment she spoke of. "No-one can change what they really are. You... and least of all not me. I'm always gonna be that guy who chased you into the woods and threw you to the spot I blew someone's brains out. A killer. Always that cold."

	"I'm not doing this again." Sharon told him sternly. "None of that matters. Dennis, please, that's not why we're here!"

	Dennis shrugged his shoulders. "Well, "why" don't exactly matter now does it Sharon eh? You've done your bit, well done darlin'." 

	She winced as his words cut at her. She tried to reach out for him again, just to keep him there, even though she barely had words, let alone the ones that would make him see. She could feel this painful lump continue to rise in her throat. She needed so much to surrender and to simply burst into tears, but she knew she couldn't. But he saw her intention and raised his palms to rebuff her.

	"Don't. Just leave me alone." 

	As Sharon watched Dennis storm up the stairwell to number 5, she found that she relaxed, just a little. Because he'd gone home. And she knew she could keep him safe there. As much as it hurt to surrender him to the treachery held in the walls they were foolish enough to call home, she knew if they stayed, a Dennis she recognised would at least remain in her life. He'd learn not to resent that... he would.

	Flinching as she watched him kick furiously at the door, frustrated as he rifled in his pockets for his key, Sharon dared to move forward, pressing her hand into the damp stone of the pillar as she gazed nervously up the stairwell.

	"Do you... Do you want a hand?"

	She saw his spine go rigid and he glared at her venemously over his shoulder, lips setting in such anger and mistrust. "I don't want anything from you."

	"Dennis, please-" she protested weakly.

	"I mean it." he spat. "Stay away from me." He wrenched his key from the lock and sent the door crashing against it. Sharon bit regretfully into her lip. Suddenly, telling herself that she was doing the right thing was of very little comfort. All she wanted to do was take him in her arms and swear she would make it all OK. But she couldn't lie to him. She knew she couldn't make it all alright alone. Not yet.

	She could just imagine him slamming hard up against the door, perhaps sending his fist slamming into it also, knowing no other way to release the agonies Sharon had to subject him to. And she hated it, she hated herself so much. She counted the seconds, willing them away and moved calmly up the stairs, slipping into the darkened hallway of the house some three minutes later.

	The light was on in the kitchen. She felt a smile of daring flicker across her lips, leaning against the doorframe, feeling drained and heavy as she rested there. But she watched Dennis storm around the room. Never had Sharon seen a cup of tea so viciously made - and yet, she was mesmerised by him, so thankful not to have been noticed just for the opportunity to watch him. And perhaps that was how the smile on her lips became bigger and more firm, sincere as it sat there.

	And as he looked round, at last feeling her eyes following him around the room, she couldn't even bring herself to flinch at the venom in his eyes.

	"I wish you knew what you did to me." she said gently.

	Slowly, he turned his head, fooling her with the look of amusement that danced across his face before darkness descended once again. "Didn't do it all though did I darlin'? Forgot the bullets."

	"Don't."

	"Why not?" he demanded, straightening up and pressing his hands into his hips. "Is it cos you know I can? Or is it cos... us being back here means nothing you say matters anymore. Jesus, I really thought it did. But as ever... Rickman's just an idiot."

	"You're not an idiot, Dennis." Sharon told him sternly, but he rebuffed her glance.

	"No?" he pushed doubtfully. "Well go on then Sharon. Go upstairs and grab your stuff. Prove it to me."

	Blanching her lip, Sharon stared guiltily at the floor.

	"Well?"

	"I can't."

	Leaning against the sink, his fingertips curling around the smooth, shining edge, Dennis tilted his head back and released a high and mocking laugh. "Well, there's a surprise!"

	"Dennis, please! Don't you know this is killing me?"

	Sharon gasped in horror almost before the words had left her mouth. She felt her stomach plummet as she saw the violent flashes of colour in his eyes. Dennis, however, smirked as he realised which instantly made her feel worse.

	"Killing eh?" he mused quietly. "My speciality."

	"Stop it." Sharon pleaded, shaking her head miserably as the apologetic tears burnt.

	Dennis gulped back one mouthful of unstirred tea which, as a result, tasted foul on his tongue. He swirled it round and gulped it down, not even caring as it burnt at his throat, which felt raw from all the to'ing and fro'ing from the miserable hours that had passed him by without result or resolution. He carelessly slammed the mug down, sending the dubiously coloured liquid sloshing all over the countertop.

	"Whatever." he shrugged. "I'm going to bed." 

	Sharon sat in the kitchen, lonely aside from the heavy misery of her every thought. She was a fool. Yes, that was what she was. This was tearing her from the inside out and she was losing him anyway. But the pain of loving a child... rather than the man who taught her to dare, dare for everything that was precious between them, had taught her it was always going to be worth this sacrifice. Hate her he might, but at least here she knew him, quarreling pointlessly with the man she had dared for, and despite appearances, the man she was never going to give up on.

	She had long since known it would have been so much better to never have fallen in love with him, to always look upon him with the affections of a sibling. But the ability to even try and do that, in Sharon's mind and indeed in Dennis' estimation had long since died away. She loved him and had spent all these treacherous hours trying to assure him of the fact, only to reject him as his vulnerability accepted her words.

	Clutching her mug tighter and raising her tired eyes to the clock ticking slowly away on the wall, Sharon concentrated on the sensation of the warmth burning through to her skin until it made her wince. She shook her head as all these thoughts, many the same but just as confusing and hurtful, rushed forward at the first opportunity.

	It wasn't rejection, that just wasn't it. Sharon couldn't do that to him, not again, not now. She was just... protecting him. Like a sister would do. The very idea made her sick and she spluttered on a mouthful of tepid tasting tea, almost in protest... because she knew there was nothing... for God's sake, she'd forgiven him murder and she still wanted to wake up wound in his arms at night... there was nothing sisterly left inside her for him. She loved him. Or had he forgotten that already? Had he stopped loving her so instantly once again, just to save himself from the every wound he felt she inflicted upon his willing and ready flesh.

	In one great rush of determination, Sharon stood up, tossing the rest of her tea carelessly down the sink and rushing into the darkened hall. She paused as she placed her foot on the first step, drawing in a heavy breath as she looked nervously up the staircase. There was such promise if only she could make herself move. There was danger too, if Vicki, or Den caught her, much like those hours before, sneaking into her "brother's" room in the dead of night, or the struggling strains of morning depending on your viewpoint, nothing but confession would keep her standing. 

	It was never going to be that she was ashamed. She could profess her love for Dennis to anyone she knew... God, she'd defied the people on this Square that had known her all her life for the sake of Dennis' warmth, his love... it was that, if she admitted the intensity of her feelings, the ones never to have left her, she had no choice but to drag Dennis with her, and she knew he was not ready for that. He was too fragile... there was no other reason she would have betrayed him in this way.

	Climbing the staircase steadily, so as not to make a sound, Sharon found herself hiding in the shadows of the landing as she stole once again to Dennis' room. Her chest was tight, because she was well aware that so much had been said between the two of them and that he was smarting, likely to shout, curse and throw her out - going to draw attention to them in other words. And Dennis needed nothing less than that.

	And yet she relaxed as she stood in the corner of the room, watching the light slide across the carpet. The hours were melting away in these mesmerising moments. It was like time had turned back. Maybe everything could really be OK. Shared dared to expel the breath to have swelled in her chest, relieved to release it. Everything was just as it had been at three o'clock that morning, without the hateful words and unease. because there, chest rising and falling as steadily as it should, was Dennis, curled beneath the covers. At peace away from his conscious.

	"Dennis?" Sharon managed to force out croakily, the delivery sounding like she'd just smoked three dozen cigarettes. Watching him wriggle and fearing she had woken him, Sharon immediately regretted even raising the words. But there came nothing further and so... still, she dared, creeping round the edge of the bed and pulling up the corner of the duvet on the empty side.

	Sinking down on one leg, she climbed into the bed beside him, settling into the warmth built by his body. Realising his closeness, her chest swelled with a regretful sob she was biting back in painfully small pieces. She couldn't bear to release it, instead groping blindly in the darkness for Dennis' limp hand, wrapping her shivering own around it and kissing his knuckles. Tears burnt, and her resolve not to disturb him was all but gone in her next breath.

	"I never meant- oh! My darlin'... I'm sorry. I don't mean to hurt you, but it's... it's better this way."

	But her actions challenged Sharon's own words. Because she nestled into him, sliding her arms around his slender form before she kissed his shoulder and invited the embrace of sleep. She didn't intend to move from his side, even if the reality of the morning was to force her away. Just one last night, she promised herself. One last night.

	Once again, however, just as her eyelids began to drop, that thick voice, somehow sounding more beaten than the time before, reached out for her.

	"It's not."

	Her spine locking, Sharon suddenly realised that against her, Dennis too was as stiff as a board. And her stomach jolted uncomfortably.

	"Dennis...?"

	"It's not better."

	Scooching further into the pillow, Sharon shrank away, allowing Dennis freedom of the bed to turn onto his hip and face her. She wasn't quite sure what it was in this one moment that stole her breath away. Was it his innocent beauty? The art of his pain, or just the fact he was so close, his warmth remained hers, even as his displeasure and sadness showed on his darkened face. Or maybe it was simply because for these few moments, he had not demanded she leave him be.

	"Do you... Do you want me to go?"

	With little energy he was so scarcely removed from his slumber, Dennis shook his head. "Do you think you'd still be here if I did?"

	"I am sorry y'know." she returned meekly.

	"You said."

	Colour crept into her cheeks that she tried to hide in the pillow. "I should just give up talking when you're sleeping."

	"You should check I'm sleeping."

	"Your eyes were closed Dennis, what more is there?"

	"You... talking. Me hearin' it. Why are you doing this to me Sharon?"

	A painful lump rose in her throat as she drawn further into his sparkling eyes. "Because I need you."

	Lines of confusion creased Dennis' forehead. "Need me what? Need me to get lost, need me to grow up... what?"

	"Nothing." she said gently, hunching her shoulders beneath the duvet. "I just need you."

	"Oh yeah? And what about in the morning? What about when you have to get up, when you have to get out... and we're back to playing happy families. Are you still gonna need me then?"

	"Of course I am!" Sharon cried out, somewhat indignant at the suggestion. "You think I'm doing this just to hurt you, to hurt us? Dennis, I couldn't do that!"

	He didn't look angry, and that was almost worse in Sharon's view. He looked pained, like... like he was losing his hold on something... something precious. Just for a moment, she scrunched her eyes tight shut as she felt the tears beg to fall. But feeling his every laboured breath dance solemnly across her face, she couldn't help but return her gaze to his face, savouring every second of this bittersweet closeness.

	"Then what happened to us Sharon? Cos the way you've been talking... we meant something, and now... I mean... I'd have gone. With you."

	Cautiously, he pressed his palm to her burning face - burning in shame. And as he touched her, his thumb going so slowly and so tenderly up and down her cheek, she might have wept.

	"I know." she told him shakily, covering his hand with hers just to savour his touch, afraid she would soon have forgotten it if she did not dare. "And I wish we could have gone but... oh my darlin', I'm so sorry."

	"You're not sorry enough to make it better though are you? Cos believe me Sharon, this is not better."

	"Do you believe that I love you?"

	Sharon read his hesitation in a moment. She supposed she should have expected, but it cut deeper than she could ever really contemplate.

	"Please..." she pleaded desperately. "...you have to believe that..."

	And she writhed against him, needing to close in on a distance that didn't exist but was still so deeply felt. Her every muscle was tight and ready for the misery of the rejection she so deserved, but still she bowed her head against his and kissed his neglected lips. In itself, it felt so natural. But Sharon was made to feel so cheapened, unintentionally so as Dennis pushed himself up on his elbow and enquired;

	"Is this all you want... sex?"

	"No!" And she moved miserably back from his lips, before admitting defeat and sinking back against the bed, entirely in line with Dennis' sorely abused form. It was only then that she realised, despite all their words, they had not managed to dislodge their hands, holding fiercely on for every moment. Sharon concentrated oh lacing her fingers through his, her chest tightening as she at last let go of one almighty sigh.

	"Dennis... I can't let you love me-"

	"You can't stop me."

	But she was firm. "I can't let you love me when... when you can't even love the parts of you that mean I love you. That's not how love goes."

	"So... what? We're back to play pretend?"

	Sharon nodded guiltily. "Just for a while. I need to know that you can feel the same way about you as I do or... we're never gonna work, no matter when, how or why. And I'll help you... I'll be whatever you need, whenever you need me, I swear."

	He gave her a questioning look that made her shiver with unease. "Really? So... tell me you're not a mercy mission."

	"What?" she asked, giggling with a quiet nervousness.

	"Tell me you're not trying t'save me."

	Smiling gently, she griped his hand a little tighter and whispered; "I love you."

	Though he was grateful to have heard the words and returned her smile, Dennis had to remind her; "That's not what I asked."

	So Sharon told a lie. Convincingly. Because she was loathe to move from the warmth of his bed. So much had felt so right here. 

	"I'm not trying to save you. I meant everything I've said to you. I want us to go away, I want us to be happy... and I know we can be, just... not tonight."

	"So what are you doing in my bed?"

	"Shhh." she soothed, stroking his wrist. "This isn't you darlin', you know we're more than that. I just... wanna be here. You know, when you left... the weirdest thing was... lying in my bed. One night I was sleeping next to a lover and then, the morning came and I couldn't look my "brother" in the face, because I wasn't looking at my brother. I've never really had one have I?"

	"No." Dennis agreed at last, sounding extremely reluctant to have been backed up into such a corner. "No, you haven't."

	Relieved beyond telling that he recognised the truth of her agony, Sharon pressed his lips once again. He received her kisses warmly, catching his hands around her jaw and pressing into her as he drew her nearer.

	"Wait on me darlin'... please."

	Dennis froze, hands tremoring as he reached to brush her hair from her face. "Sharon, I... oh God... Zoe's moving in!"

	It made Sharon cold too with the realisation, but somehow, this recollection seemed to be the most insignificant of all. "So?" she shrugged. "It's not like she hasn't already. I don't care if this hurts her or not. All I care about is you - and I'm not gonna get you out my system anytime soon - not after what we've just been through. That's us Dennis, no-one else."

	As we round the corner to your house,
	You turn to me and say;
	"I'll be going through withdrawl of you
	For this one night we have spent."

	"But you'll... I know you will-" Dennis managed to begin rather frightfully. Concern creased Sharon's fevered brow, because he was making so little sense. "She'll move in and you won't even... look at me. And I know I should never... but... I need you."

	"Well good!" she smiled, relieved. "You've gotta listen to me darlin'. Maybe I won't look at you; but that's only cos Zoe's gonna be there an' all. I'm just the ex remember? The sister? But none of it means I don't want you anymore. I said I'll be whoever, whenever and I will. So if you think it's working, you and Zoe... then I'll be your sister. And if... if you think you still want me, like I want you, then we'll go. But-"

	Sharon peeled back the duvet. Dennis went instinctively rigid, fearing she was about to leave him, when she was presently the only thing that made him feel safe in this bubble. He pulled himself up and grabbed her arm. She turned in surprise, feeling his fierce grip against her skin. Her heart sank as she saw the sparkling fear in his eyes, and she gave him a soft smile of reassurance that died away as she dropped her gaze to his butchered arm. She slid her hand around his wrist and held his arm straight as she admired each ugly mark.

	"What does Zoe say?"

	"She doesn't know." he muttered.

	"But..." Sharon was astounded, if not simultaneously relieved. "...sweetheart, she's your girlfriend, how can she not know?"

	"Because it's none of her damn business is it?"

	He winced as he wrenched himself savagely away. Sharon too was stung, seeing how she had hurt him so. She crawled up to headboard, her back straightened against the wall and hesitantly bowed her head, peppering the base of his neck with apologetic kisses.

	"I'm sorry.... darlin', I'm sorry..."

	Relenting, Dennis sighed, flopping back against the pillow and gesturing silently for her to wriggle back down into the warmth they had previously shared. She felt his arms around her and considered she was forgiven. But as he screwed his face up in pain, she realised exactly what it was she presented to his wounds and shrank away.

	"Oh... Dennis... I'm- It's all my fault isn't it?"

	He laughed gently. "I'm hardly gonna say yes, am I? Besides.... I'm not letting you go. Not yet..."

	

	So it was that Sharon slept wound content in Dennis' sorely abused arms for a few peaceful hours of that morning. They were not disturbed, but still Sharon awoke, quite suddenly, for no other reason than the surprise, the bliss at recognising Dennis sleeping beside her, their two drained bodies tangled so perfectly together. It felt so natural. She couldn't even rationalise to herself why she crawled away, knowing only that she had to. Dropping her gaze to the floor, she prayed silently that she hadn't woken him. She did not know how to sanctify herself right now. Because right now, only fear drove her from his arms.

	She crouched as she recognised his jeans, rumpled in their careless removal no doubt, abandoned upon the floor. She lifted them up and stowed her hand into his back pockets, where, she was by now well aware that he kept everything of immediate importance. She sighed in relief as her hand closed around his wallet and she let the clothing slide free of her grasp, flipping open the wallet and stealing that scrap of a photograph. Without it, perhaps he would forget what Sharon had been, and she could love him less tortured. And love him she would, she would not stop. She just hoped he would remember what they were to become.

	Sharon knew well that she'd never sleep in the lonely temperatures of her own bed, so stole back down the staircase into the safe darkness of the hall. With a defeated sigh, she padded into the deserted kitchen and flicked the kettle on to make yet another cup of tea she was sure she would not touch. As she waited for the kettle to boil, she stood, staring dumbly at the photograph. And pity for her lover stirred. Sharon didn't love Lau-Lau as much anymore, even in the haze of seemingly perfect memories. 

	Paula had scarred her son, the man to mean most to Sharon in all the world, in more ways than he was going to let even Sharon see. It was unforgivable. Sharon just wanted Dennis back. She wanted to forget the man she had walked the woodland with, for he was not the one she loved. But she knew she would sleep haunted by him for longer than she was brave enough to contemplate. She didn't know what she was doing back here. It was all such a blur now. They should have kept on running, she could have held onto him then...

	In a fit of confusion, nerves and anger, Sharon slammed the photograph down beneath the teabags and slammed the cupboard door, hoping it would all just be forgotten. 

	And so she sat again, without distraction, without reason, her hands wrapped around the same mug of tea that rapidly cooled and was left untouched. She watched the moments tick away with the assistance of the clock looming on the wall, her eyes itching with tiredness at the effort of such concentration. But she defied it and concentrated harder still.

	The time was nearing quarter to seven when the stairs creaked. Sharon's spine locked, almost to the point of pain. She was not ready to deliver her explanations, would the excuse of insomnia really work this time?

	Pressing her palm into her burning forehead, Sharon waited with baited breath. The relief at recognising Dennis, a long sleeved (oh, the realisation of as to why still made Sharon want to cry; she didn't think she'd ever get over someone so precious damaging themselves in such a way) top, obviously pulled roughly over his head. A half hearted smile took his lips as he saw her slumped there, looking nervously over her shoulder at his approach. He went forward slowly, thinking that he was giving her time to get up and escape him. And if that was what she wanted to do, he resolved not to stop her.

	But she smiled back. "Hiya." she breathed quietly.

	"Hi."

	"You alright?"

	She realised immediately how stupid the question sounded and dropped her gaze, flushing. Dennis laughed quietly, and somehow, that eased her a little. She was at least able to look him in the face, tracking him as he moved into the kitchen.

	"Well... I could be better."

	"Yeah." was all she managed to offer by way of reply and she knew how piteous it sounded, but she had little else. "Look, sit down... I'll make you a coffee."

	He watched her with an air of amusement, his lips curving into a smirk as he leant back against the draining board, making no effort to move to the seat Sharon had so readily vacated. As she reached over the other side of the sink to grab the sugar, he caught her wrist, letting her gasp of surprise pass him by as he enquired softly; "Why did you go?"

	Sharon continued to stare at the connection he made between them, love swelling in her chest at the very idea that he had dared. "I don't have a reason, Dennis."

	"Are you.... backing out on me? Already?"

	"No!" she told him sternly. "I'm not leaving you OK? I just... I was awake. That's it." 

	And she stepped closer, slipping her other arm around him and pulling him closer.

	"Dennis!"

	Hearing Vicki holler from the landing, the two of them sprang reluctantly apart. Sharon gave him an apologetic smile and turned away, leaving the mug of coffee on the table and leaning against the sink. She raised her eyes to the clock in alarm. It was three minutes to seven in the morning - what the hell was Vicki doing up?

	"Why is your soddin' girlfriend calling me at seven in the morning?"

	Vicki rushed into the kitchen, looking bleary eyed and furious, her tired face blotchy and unwilling, slamming her mobile onto the table like it was contaminated with the plague.

	Dennis' guilty gaze settled on Sharon, who spoke into her palm. "Zoe's keen then."

	"Keen?" Vicki spat. "Dennis, unless you want me to bludgeon your girlfriend round the head with her new bedside lamp, you're paying to get me out of here!"

	He laughed weakly and nodded, pushing himself up and asking; "Forty quid gonna do it for the morning, Vicks?"

	"I don't care!" she groaned dramatically, flinging herself down in Dennis' vacant seat and gulping down the hideously cold tea Sharon had not touched. "Just get me out."

	So Dennis edged upstairs on the pretence of "going to get his wallet". Vicki raised her eyes to Sharon's face and growled through her teeth.

	"I know Zoe's a friend of mine and everything but - argh! I can't believe she's so- bloody hell, it's only Dennis!"

	"Mmm." Sharon agreed. "Can't say I'd be her greatest fan with that sorta wake up call darlin'!"

	"You aren't kidding. All she wanted to know was if Dennis was up yet, cos she's nearly finished packing up! So I said "no fuckin' way!" and threw my phone across the room. But... hang on! What are you two doing up? Dennis that nervous is he?"

	"No idea." Sharon shrugged, somehow not entirely able to meet her little sister's eye. "He's only been up a couple of minutes."

	"Oh yeah, and what about you?"

	Sharon offered a weak smile. "Y'know me, I don't sleep. And anyway, what about you, what the hell are you gonna go do at seven in the morning, Vicki?"

	"Get on the tube and go a long way away hopefully - motion might send me back off to sleep and then I might be half-human by the time Zoe's actually moved in and is jumping round the place like a hyperactive hyena."

	Sharon spluttered dangerously on a burst of laughter. "I don't think I coulda put it better myself."

	Vicki grinned, edging past Dennis as he wandered back in. She upturned a glass from the draining board and leant into the fridge to recover the carton of juice. She slammed the door as she replaced the mandatory dribble and tilted the glass to her lips, eyes widening appreciatively as Dennis extended five rumpled twenties in her direction.

	"Here."

	"Mmm!" she squealed delightfully into the liquid, making it bubble. "Presents!"

	Sharon watched wide eyed as Vicki leafed gleefully through the notes and whirled round reproachfully in her seat. "Dennis!"

	"What?"

	"That is not forty quid."

	He shrugged nonchalantly and leant in to kiss Vicki's cheek. "S'only money - see you later sis."

	"Bye!"

	And she was gone, racing up the stairs to get dressed and be gone before Zoe could arrive. Dennis watched her go with the slightest smile on his face and Sharon felt it. The idea of family settled him so much. And perhaps her too, because as he turned away to shut the door on Vicki's departure, Sharon's stomach dropped, somehow already aware of the sadness she would read in his eyes as he turned back to face her. Only, as it turned out - it wasn't sadness. It was suspicion.

	"Wh-What's up?"

	"Where is it, Sharon?"

	"In Vicki's back pocket most probably darlin'..."

	"Don't take the piss, you know I ain't talking money - where's the photo?"

	Rushing her hands up and down her arms as if she were all at once cold, Sharon looked desperately away, raising shakily; "Why? Why do you need it?"

	"Why did you take it?" he demanded with a low malice that did indeed make her shiver. "You've got no right."

	"I've got every fuckin' right!" she snapped back as she glared at him. "It's poison."

	"What?" Dennis hissed, his tone most definitely letting Sharon know he considered her notion utterly ludicrous.

	But she spoke back with a cold calmness, not even flinching as his eyes narrowed with the absurdity of it all. "That's what's doing it."

	Tilting his head back, Dennis released a dry laugh. "God, and you said I was crazy-"

	Sharon snapped her head round immediately, glaring at him. She had said nothing of the sort and was all but ready to protest. Dennis, however, was not about to give her time to speak her piteous protests. "She's dead Sharon... my mum's dead. I watched them bung her in the ground remember?"

	She only scoffed bitterly by way of reply. "Well, that don't mean anything does it Dennis? I thought I'd done the same with Dad an' all, but you and Vicki just had to go and prove me wrong on that one didn't you?"

	He cast his maddened eyes down for a moment, guilt suddenly awash in his coloured face. "Yeah." he agreed quietly. "But you know I never wanted- not after-"

	But his imploring gaze, wordlessly pleading for her forgiveness did not reach her. She wouldn't allow it because she simply couldn't believe it - not now.

	"Oh, whatever!" she snapped, sending her chair crashing to the floor in her haste to be up on her feet, to create a distance between the two of them as she felt the anger build inside of her. 

	Leaning against the side, Sharon stretched up on her toes, practically pulling the upper cupboard door off its creaking hinges, she yanked it open with such brutality. Lifting the teabags, she uncovered the flimsy photograph and slammed the tin audibly back down. She slammed the cupboard door with such viciousness as she turned back around that Dennis almost jumped at the impact. And he was not settled as he read the thunder in Sharon's eyes.

	"You want it sweetheart, by all means - take it!" The curl in her glossy lips was unmissable as she flung the photograph aimlessly in his direction, not caring if he was ever to lay eyes on such a destructive memory ever again. Dennis on the other hand, cared quite obviously, slamming his palm protectively down over it to pin it to the table and picked up his wallet to return it to its rightful place. "But I just want you to remember that your mother isn't the only one in that photograph that died."

	Seeing the look of pained... angered confusion that took his face at that moment, Sharon sighed, just willing herself to have the fight left inside of her. She moved slowly around the table, curling her thumb and forefinger around one edge of the photograph before it disappeared from her view into the shielding folds of Dennis' wallet. She watched him tense as her touch came forward, but she remained defiant.

	"Tell me who you see when you look at this darlin'. Tell me who this little girl is."

	"Sharon, you know who-"

	"I want to know who she is to you... tell me why she matters so much."

	Defeated, Dennis let her take it back, ramming his wallet back into his back pocket and scraping the chair back to sit to Sharon's side at the table. His clammy hands pressed into the table top, Sharon lifted her own hand and pressed it over his, stroking across his knuckles with her thumb. Her darting eyes quizzed him he knew, gliding pointedly back over the photograph. Only he found now that his mouth was dry and he could barely bear to look at it.

	"I love her." he admitted shakily.

	"But she's three years old Dennis... you're nowhere to be seen for another... year and a half."

	"I know." he replied, in a low tone that sounded so much like a growl. "And look at my mum, Sharon... she's got you and she's so happy. I just... f*cked things up as usual..."

	"Hey." she soothed gently, squeezing his hand. "Enough."

	"It's true." he continued bitterly, his eyes so torturously fized on the memory, the memory that could never really be his. "I never mattered to her... like you and Carol I suppose. only... nastier. Then she gave me this and I just saw the beautiful princess... the magic princess. I used to think you musta used the wand you've got and cast some spell to make her into the kind of mum I wanted. I mean, I got wise to it all pretty soon after that, but I always thought, if I found you... you'd be able to make it alright. But I ruined it for you too."

	"No! Dennis, that's not true."

	"Don't lie to me Sharon. I'm a lotta things, yeah, but I'm not stupid."

	She pulled back, a little stung. "I didn't say you were."

	"And that's why this-" The photograph tremored tellingly in his grasp. "-matters so much. She's what you were before... before Den & Angie could make you miserable, before Vicki... before the Mitchells... before me. This is you before you made a single mistake. And that's what I want for you."

	"What, you want me to stay stuck as Dad's spoilt little Princess?"

	Dennis only hunched his shoulders, mumbling; "If it ain't broke..."

	Anger so intense flared inside Sharon at that moment, she was blinded by rage, reaching over with both attacking hands and wrenching the scrap from Dennis' hold, tearing it right down the middle and flinging the pieces back upon the table.

	"Well it is! I don't want you to love her Dennis... I want you to love me."

	He remained staring, looking almost broken-hearted at the halves. But regret refused to stir inside of Sharon. She waited, battling to bring every breath in as she silently willed him to look at her.

	"How could you do that?"

	"Because I'm what she became. I'm not three years old anymore Dennis. I'm just like you, I grew up and I made mistakes. But I still love you for yours... why can't you love me for all mine?"

	"I can. I do."

	"It doesn't sound like it to me."

	And I want to speak these words
	But I guess I'll just bite my tongue
	And accept "someday, somehow" 
	As the words that we'll hang from

	"Sharon-" he began tersely. "-what the hell is it you're expecting from me? I didn't wanna come back here, but now that we have, you don't understand why I can't love you like I did?"

	"No. I don't understand how you can love her and then love me. Because I somehow don't think you've ever looked at that photo and thought "Wow, I'm so gonna talk her into bed twenty years from now"."

	Dennis scowled and Sharon's eyes widened pointedly. Perhaps her case was rested.

	"You were my dad's Princess. I just wanted to look after you."

	"Oh, and that meant sleeping with me an' all did it?"

	With a groan of irritation, Dennis rested his head in his palms, clawing at his hair all the way from the nape of his neck. "Look, I didn't plan to feel like that alright? It just... happened."

	"I know. I was there" she muttered, not quite unheard, under her breath. Then she realised how embittered she sounded, and sighed. "Dennis, I... all I'm saying is, you either wanna go on protecting this three year old... some self absorbed little brat you never ever mattered to, or you wanna love me like I love you. You're everything to me darlin', I'm begging you please, don't throw me away on a smile."

	

	Dennis found it so hard to look her in the eye. Sharon recognised this, watching the pain dancing across his face, and covered his tremoring hands with her own as she waited for him to discover the will. He bit anxiously into the cushion of his lip and confessed shakily;

	"I never wanted it to be like this, Sharon... ever."

	She nodded gently, accepting his words with the painful honesty in which they came. And the words were right, of course they were. Sharon had never wanted any of this to happen either. She'd never wanted to take her apparant "brother" for her lover when she had longed for a brother since she had been the little princess he had spent so many years idolising. She'd never wanted to find herself so helplessly in love with him when it might have been so easy to reject him and hold this coveted family together. But it was what it now was and Sharon simply couldn't let go.

	"Tell me what you wanted."

	"I needed you to... to still be her." His eyes strayed to the torn photograph. "And I know how stupid that sounds but... I love her. Look at her, she's so small, she don't know nothing of where I come from, what I've done... she weren't never gonna judge me. I was just... gonna show up and... she was gonna be so proud to know me... her brother."

	Sharon felt herself flush guiltily, very aware of the hostility she had treated him with at their first meeting, as he had first arrived in the Square, nothing more than an ex-con, a chancer.

	"She's my sister." His soulful eyes travelled up to level with Sharon's own uncomfortable gaze. She wanted so much to avert her gaze, but Dennis pressed firmly into her hand, wordlessly letting her know he was not going to let her. "I... I don't see her in you."

	"You don't?" Sharon questioned, a hint of surprise in her tone. Of course she knew that for the most part, that had always been true, or they'd have never have taken that daring chance together and been together. And that tension, the passion that Sharon had never forgotten, it would all have still be there, bubbling manically away, simply waiting to explode and overcome them both anyway. But if he did not see this treacherous and yet simultaneously innocent little girl within her, then Sharon was at a total loss as to what this whole miserable argument could possibly be about.

	"I tried, I mean... you were Sharon, but... well, you know how I felt and it was... straight away. Do you have any idea how scared I was? Knowing this... tiny little girl, looking up to her for all of my life because she was my big sister and she was gonna be so obviously perfect and then... meeting you? You... You terrified me."

	Sharon laughed weakly. "I swear, I never meant to be so cold..."

	"Cold?" Dennis questioned, raising a dubious eyebrow and shaking his head almost immediately, dismissing her words. "Oh no... no way. It wasn't that. It was that... I felt it... straight away... and I didn't understand it. I just... knew you were so much more than that little girl, and I didn't know you anymore. And I was so scared, because... I loved you anyway, but it was so much different. And I seriously thought there was summat wrong with me because whatever I was feeling, I needed you to feel it too. I just... needed you. I needed you to want me in your life."

	"Well, I do." she said softly. "But I need to know something too. I need to know how you want me in your life sweetheart because, from what you're telling me... she's your sister. And yeah, OK, I'm her. But I'm not the things you love her for anymore. Maybe that's how we're so different eh? Because I'm not innocent, I'm not pure and I screw up a lot of the time. It's human nature darlin'."

	"It's me." Dennis muttered darkly to the table.

	"No!" Sharon said sternly. "Dennis, if it is you then, bloody hell, it's every other bloke I've ever been with an' all. You are not the sole reason I've made mistakes, so for God's sake, stop blaming yourself. And it... it wasn't even a mistake! I mean it, I'd go through every second of it again and d'you know why?"

	Dennis was honest at this point, hunching his shoulders and shaking his head. He really didn't.

	"Because I know we loved each other. I know we still do, and that... that's something massive. And I know, darlin', I know it was new to you, but that's not gonna make it wrong. You being unsure, you being scared doesn't mean we should let go." She straightened her back against the chair and blanched her lip, telling him determinedly; "I won't."

	"That's the bit I'm never gonna understand. Why are you holdin' out for me? Why me?"

	"Because no matter what you think of yourself... the things you've done... the things you haven't - I know you meant it when you said you loved me. And it takes guts to mean it, Dennis, especially when you had to accept that this little girl was gone, that it was different for us. But I need you to know that I'm proud to know you."

	He laughed bitterly and Sharon was silently stung that he appeared to be doubting her sincerity.

	"I screwed up your whole life."

	"Not true." she muttered immediately. "You gave me reason... which is why it was so hard on everyone else... they ain't used to it either."

	Her glance implored him to believe in her and he smiled softly. "Maybe."

	"Sweetheart-" Sharon said at last, feeling too content in their silence to dare to shatter it with such words. But she knew she had to. "-you might not think you're certain of all that much, but you know what's right and you know what's wrong, that's what reason is-"

	He looked at her in panic, instinctively holding her hands tighter, and oh, she loved him for it, even if it did appear he was simply doubting her all the more.

	And I... I don't wanna speak these words
	Cos I... I don't wanna make things any worse.

	"-I'm not saying I'm wrong for you, I'm not saying I'm right... I won't, because I need you to know it yourself. And I swear to you, that's the only reason we've come back here. I might be setting myself up to lose you, I do know that. But you have to understand I love you enough to let it happen if that's what's right for you. I just... needed tonight to tell you that... to tell you that I love you."

	He cast his eyes down to the table and nibbled at his lip for several, slow, silent seconds. Then at last came just one word, one breath to assure her that whether he accepted her reasoning or not, he understood.

	"OK."

	Breathing a sigh of relief, Sharon squeezed Dennis' hand once again and pulled herself up, her chair scraping back. She stood over him and he moved out a little, his glittering eyes dancing across her face as his frozen hands pressed into her sides, holding her steady. Sighing then, he bowed his head, his crown pressing into the warmth of her stomach.

	"Oh..." she murmured gently, curling around him and kissing his hair as she reached to hold him too. "We'll be OK darlin'. Whatever happens... we'll be OK..."

	"No." he mumbled sadly. "No, we won't. Not if you leave this to me. C'mon Sharon, please. You know what I'll do... I'll screw it up, I'll go wrong... like I always do... I'll... I'll-"

	"You'll have me." she countered assuringly, hating that the blame was creeping back within him so readily. "Any way... any time, whatever. People go wrong darlin', they go wrong all the time, but that don't mean they can't make it right. You can do that too."

	"But what is right? Tell me what you want me to do."

	Sharon shook her head sadly and tilted his chin, caressing his feverish face with the pads of her thumbs as she sank down, crouching in front of him. "I can't. This isn't about me anymore."

	His eyes narrowed. He looked at her as if she was crazy and she humoured this notion with a weak laugh as he whispered hoarsely; "But it's always been about you. Don't you get that? That's why it's so hard."

	"I know it's hard, baby, I do. But I can't tell you how to live your life because if I did-" She looked away momentarily, sighing heavily as she admitted her own selfishness. "-I'd want you with me. And if... six months... a year down the line, we could both see that I'd made you choose wrong... Dennis, I'd never forgive myself. It's the last thing I want in the world to hurt you..."

	"How can you say that when I can't seem to stop tearing you up?"

	"Because whatever you decide, family or... something else... I know you'll never leave me - I trust you not to do the thing that'd hurt me the most."

	He nodded dumbly, shamefully wiping his brimming eyes and sniffling as he asked; "When do you... uh... want to know?"

	"I don't want to know Dennis." Sharon informed him gently. "I want to see, and that takes time. I want you to show me what it is you really want. OK?"

	"I don't know." he confessed meekly. "I mean... I say I understand but..."

	"Alright." Sharon nodded in understanding, licking her perfectly glossy lips nervously before she reached up, pressing her palms against Dennis' face once again and speaking oh so softly as their eyes locked. There was simply no way either could look away, even as tears brimmed, begging to fall. "Look at me. Really look at me - and understand one thing. Whoever it is you see when you look at me, whoever it is I have to be for you, just remember that I'm the fool that loves every breath of you. I know them... and I love them all, even the ones you wish you'd never taken, those horrible moments you wish you could let go. And whatever kind of love it is we're gonna wake up to when Zoe bashes the door down later, remember that, even in those moments you have hurt me... remember it only hurts because I love you... because I'm that fool that's never gonna stop."

	Dennis' every breath after this declaration was heavy and laden he was so shaken. His eyes were manic, darting across her glistening face, wordlessly pleading with her not to mean it, even though he could be in no doubt that she did. He tremored, unable to bring his gaze away, even as her touch lessened, falling away to his knees as she pushed herself gently up. His eyes followed her still, too mesmerised by the truth he read within her. He was amazed by her. He just didn't know what he'd done to deserve her.

	"Now, I'm going to bed. And when I get up to answer the door to that girlfriend of yours cos you're dead to the world, I'll still be meanin' every word... night darlin'..."

	Tenderly, she kissed his forehead as he, still somewhat stunned, managed to murmur. "Night."

	And Sharon padded out tiredly to the hall, raking her hand through her hair. As she turned and raised her foot to climb the first stair, she couldn't help but seeing again that piteous form slumped in the chair, his eyes so glassy and unconcerned.

	"You will... try and get some sleep, won't you?"

	A flicker of a humoured smile went across his cracked lips then without him raising his eyes to recognise her question. But after several long seconds, he finally looked at her and murmured; "Yeah."

	Sharon was hardly comforted but had to accept what she knew was to be her only offer and she climbed the stairs heavily to her own room. Sliding beneath her covers, she was immediately aware of how cold she felt here alone. She was lonely - because she was keeping her solace at bay, lost to his own confusion and doubt just a few feet away.

	Except as Sharon lay so rigid there, so exhausted and yet so unable to sleep, too alive with misery and fear, Dennis was closing in on the measly distance to exist between them - once again daring to take a chance because he was ill. He missed her so much he felt sick. So sick. And he felt what Sharon had felt as she had stolen across the dark landing to him. He felt the apprehension, the anticipation, the fear of rejection, but more than anything, he felt the confusion. He felt it so intensely, it was eating into his soul and Sharon was the only one in the world to understood this most intimate, most feared part of him. He just wanted to lie with her - in her warmth, in her promise of love. Maybe then, it would make sense. Maybe then the confusion might hurt him a little less.

	"Sharon?" he whispered hoarsely, wincing as this address seemed to shatter the stillness of her room.

	Though perhaps not, because even as the curtains billowed and every frame upon her shelves seemed to quake - Sharon was the one thing to remain still. Dennis fell into the trap - he readily believed her to be sleeping and he didn't want to disturb her, not when he considered everything he had put her through in these last few hours to drain her so. That said, however, he could not seem to leave her immediately, snuggling down beside her on the bed and holding her. It was everything she had dared to do with him. Perhaps he just needed to lie here so she might know what it had meant to him.

	Sharon felt his closeness and she was frightful. She felt his warmth, his breathing dancing across the nape of her neck, and she was consoled. She could not force her eyes to close, too terrified she might forget a single moment. After all, she did not know this was not some kind of wordless goodbye - because she had offered him goodbye. And if that was what it was, she didn't want to know it.

	"Sharon, please..."

	She almost spoke out in reply, before realising she was of course, asleep and she could not - that she dared not, whether or not he doubted her state of consciousness.

	Sighing, at last aware he was to rise nothing from her, Dennis struggled up, swinging his legs to the floor and pushing himself roughly up from the sagging bed. He did not bother to close the door as he rushed through it, racing down the stairs and giving no thought to the noise it created against this treacherous tranquility. He went and bashed around in the kitchen drawers, viciously in fact, as he searched desperately for a crumpled packet of cigarettes and a lighter. At last he located them and threw himself into the chair he had previously occupied without even bothering to close the drawer

	The flame sputtered pathetically from the lighter the first half dozen times Dennis clicked desperately at it, cursing out the side of his mouth as his lips held the cigarette ready. He laughed, bitterly humoured as at last, a glorious, glowing flame leapt up to his will. But the end of his cigarette was never lit. For the light had fallen across the torn halves of the photograph. A little girl was smiling up at him. Smiling even though she was broken. Smiling even though Dennis was so desperate.

	He tore the cigarette from the side of his mouth and threw it carelessly across the table, snatching up the photograph in his hand and racing back up the stairs to Sharon's room with only one thought left in his aching head.

	Sharon curled up tighter beneath the covers, squeezing her eyes shut as she heard Dennis step heavily back into her room. She was willing him away, to sleep... to his own peace. For him to be here would only make things worse in his head. But Dennis of course, was painfully unaware of her thoughts and, casting a glance at her seemingly sleeping form over his shoulder, sank back onto the bed beside her, his back to her as he stared at the photograph.

	Uncurling his other hand, Dennis tremored as he held the lighter, fighting to produce that same flawless flame. And as it finally appeared, he held it to the corner of the photograph.

	Sharon, having turned anxiously over onto her side, had felt this new light burning uncomfortably against her eyes - for she had expected to be greeted by a darkness. And yet, there was light and she... she could smell burning.

	She couldn't pretend anymore and she pawed desperately at Dennis' back as she pulled herself up, needing to know what he had done.  

	"Dennis! Dennis, what the hell are you-"

	Her address so suddenly behind him startled him, and he leapt up, whirling round to face her with such guilt in his eyes. But it died a moment later as they both looked to the photograph. The memory was burning away in his hand. His little princess was dying - at his will.

	"Dennis!"

	But he rebuffed her call to quash the flames, to save himself harm. There could be no worse harm than that he had already suffered. He lifted his head defiantly and gulped back his fright, his pleas til just one remained.

	"Now will you believe it's you I want?"

	

	Tears poured down Sharon's face. She was growing more and more frantic simply watching the flames. Whereas, Dennis, even as he trembled, perhaps frightened by his own apparant strength of mind, appeared mesmerised by the manic flickering, at last managing to smile as the little princess had done - and doing it only because she had died away. Only because as the memory of her died away to the last blackened ember that burnt into his hand, he was free.

	But it provided little release, for Sharon was now the one caught up in such turmoil, pushing herself forward on her knees, reaching to cradle Dennis' hands, to spare him injury she was so sickeningly certain had already been inflicted.

	"Please!" she wailed, choking on her sobs. "Dennis, you'll hurt yourself - stop it! Let go!"

	It was only as he at last drew his gaze away and to her tear-stained face, somehow attracted to the desperation in her pleas, that Dennis realised what he had done, sadly admiring the diamonds gathering in her beautiful eyes. He slowly curled his hand, her own still wound protectively around it, into a fist, crumpling the flames. It was then that he sagged down onto the bed and Sharon wound him desperately into the protection of her arms, just wanting to feel him close, to know he was safe.

	Though she longed to speak, she couldn't. The force with which she cried restricted too her ability to breathe - to the point of pain. But she didn't care for her own, only his, and she held him like she would never know his closeness again, fearing it so deep inside with the display she had just been forced to witness. What if that had simply proved she's pushed him over a dangerous edge? She held him as he lay silently tremoring in her arms like a child, and she dropped kisses frantically into his hair.

	"Oh darlin', why... why are you doing this to me? I thought you were gonna- and if anything happened to you... oh Dennis, what would I say?"

	"Say you believe me."

	"Don't you dare question me." she demanded fiercely. "You know how I feel, or else... you wouldn't be here... none of this woulda happened!"

	Dennis straightened up, fighting free of her arms and he looked at her with tired and suspicious eyes. "Does that mean we woulda just gone? Like you said we would?"

	"I-"

	"Because she's gone Sharon. Whatever she was to me, she's dead. I killed her." He chewed thoughtfully on his cheek for a moment and added; "Y'know, it's true what they said... Jack and that... it is easier the second time. But then of course, Jack knows that..." 

	Sharon recoiled as he smiled, the crner of his mouth rising so insincerely.

	"Oh Dennis.... don't..."

	"Why?" he questioned gently, sounding so desperately interested. "What's to stop me? What's to stop us? I've shown ya, so please... let's just go...."

	But she just shook, shaking her head so sadly as she looked at him... denying him.

	"How can you be so cruel?" she whispered.

	"What?"

	"You don't know how much I regret not just... carrying on, driving somewhere, anywhere - starting our life again. You are never gonna know what it took for me to look over at you and know I had to come back here, that I had to give you a chance, at everything. But that's you. I did that for you. I haven't changed... and if I have it's because of what you did to me - telling me you loved me, looking like you meant it - I still love you Dennis. I'm not like you... I know I said I wanted a family but my God, since that night... that first time... no matter what excuses I made, there has not been one time I've looked at you and seen anything close to a brother. I'm in love with you and that controls everything. You know I want to get up and run with you, you know I do. But I'm selling my soul here, trying to give you that chance, of a family, because if I take your hand now, if we walk out of here, I'll never be able to let you go. We'll be running forever!"

	"Then it's not just that you don't believe me..." Dennis answered quietly, so hurt. "...you don't even trust me!"

	"I love you!"

	"But you don't trust me!" he countered bitterly. "What kinda love is that?"

	Sharon bit guiltily into her lip as she gazed at him, his eyes alive with hate and after several painfully silent seconds, she whimpered; "You broke my heart..."

	"What, so now you're cutting mine out for some sort of revenge?"

	"I don't want revenge!" she scoffed, hardly believing he could be so ludicrous. "I want you!"

	"Then why won't you prove it? Cos I'm all out over here... she's gone! If you won't... then I've got nothing..."

	"Don't say that." Sharon begged him croakily.

	"But it's true... it's right there in your face... you don't even want me..."

	Sharon was unaware whether she gasped in horror at hearing his words or at her instinctive reaction of striking him round the face with her palm. She didn't know whether she was sorry, or whether she was still angry, still so hurt at the suggestion. But maybe, maybe she'd just proved him right. She felt so ill. What had she done, what did it mean now?

	She gagged as she sank back on her knees, her gaze sliding frightfully to him. The smile upon his lips was cruel. So Sharon tore her brimming eyes away and spoke to the duvet, her clammy hands quivering in her lap.

	"Well... if that's what you really think of me darlin', then maybe it's just as well we came back here. If that's what you really think, then there is nothing. Congratulations, with any luck, Zoe will be here before breakfast and you'll be able to forget my every word won't you eh? Now get out!"

	Dennis rose slowly, somehow not expecting the cold conciseness of her reply. Fighting with all her will, Sharon raised her heavy head and flung him a defiant look. Without words, without movement to recognise his defeat, he moved from the room, chased away from the glare to leap from her betrayed eyes. As the door clicked shut, Sharon allowed herself to crumble, gasping out a sob as she threw herself against the bed, kicking against it like a wronged child, her screams of frustration muffled in the pillow, her pouring tears starching the material. Wrong, it had all gone so wrong - and it was all her own fault.

	Dennis, meanwhile, had stood, ready to torture himself, waiting to hear her reaction on the other side of the door, his shaking hand still wound around the door handle. In fact, all of him was shaking, he couldn't stop. He was shaking so vigorously, he felt sick, and such a feeling wasn't eased as he listened to Sharon cry. Somewhere inside, he felt that he blamed himself. And yet, then injustice would flare and he was back in that vicious cycle of hating her, hating himself, loving her... he didn't know what to do. 

	Why... why had she been like that? He'd given her everything he had left, everything that they both knew had been holding him back so viciously from loving her as he had done, as he had dared. And yet, still he knew he had read mistrust in her beautiful eyes, whether or not she loved him, and in that one glance, Dennis hated that he doubted her. Sharon's love had been the only thing to touch him and not make him feel like he wanted to tear himself open. And now, it was gone. She had thrown him to the chance of this "family", waiting for Zoe to move in on their home, every moment they had shared together. What was there to make sense to him now? This was why he'd wanted to turn around and go as Sharon had said they had to. Dennis saw now that she was right - but he'd seen it too late. Sharon didn't want him anymore.

	He'd been fighting the urge to turn and pummel his fist into the wall, not wanting to wake anyone that slept here tonight, never knowing how he could even begin to explain himself, how fiercely he felt every feeling. So instead, he stomped back down to the kitchen and snatched up the crumpled packet of cigarettes in his singed hand, the lighter still curled like a precious jewel in his other hand. Pulling open the front door, needing to escape the four walls of this house and everything they had seen him endure, he pulled it shut and settled himself on the stairwell.

	The morning was cold. It was cruel. And there was nothing Dennis could do to stop it becoming what it would. He'd tried everything he had. He was lost. And where was Sharon to save him? Would she want to? He scoffed, knowing immediately what the answer would be, haunted still by what he'd seen in her eyes. The last thing he wanted was to lose her and yet he could feel her slipping away and it hurt beyond anything he had known before and he was nothing but a killer, never wanting to feel anything. Somehow he hated her for that. He'd been safe before Sharon, before loving her so... so dangerously, and now...

	He sat so stiff on the stairwell, hunched forward as he toked on the cigarette, for no other reason that it was something he knew, a sequence that calmed his maddened, wasted body. His eyes travelled miserably around the Square, his heart sinking as he saw the light through the window of Number 23. It wasn't even half seven in the morning and yet he knew that Zoe was already up, dropping photographs of her grotesque family into cardboard boxes, rushing round like a little girl at Christmas. Dennis' throat tightened, dried out by the smoke he just had to inhale. He was trapped, how could Sharon ever believe there was a chance here for anything?

	Sighing, he flicked continually at the lighter, staring deep into the flame. Sharon believed it because he had strived so hard to convince himself of it in leaving Sharon. He'd really thought something else could be right but... he was so scared to be without her.

	"But you knew it was true didn't you Rickman?" he hissed bitterly to himself. "Why would she ever want you? Bastard. Stupid fuckin' bastard!"

	Gasping miserably, he rammed the cigarette between his desperate lips, just wishing he could stop shaking. He almost laughed as the milk float rattled round the Square, as the postman moved round, whistling cheerily to himself at such an ungodly hour. All such normal things, things that proved the world around was right as he sat here but... how could it ever be right? Didn't these people know what he was going through?

	The postman catching his eye as he stepped off the pavement from the Gardens, Dennis viciously quashed the cigarette into the stairwell and leapt up, moving back into the house and slamming the front door, making sure the bloke knew that the last thing he wanted to do right now was indulge in social niceities with Dennis.

	He pulled himself back up onto the first stair, his calf muscles pulling uncomfortably as he moved further up. But a flash of colour from the direction of the lounge caught his eye and he went heavily back down in spite of himself. He bit into his lip as he leant against the door, recognising Sharon curled so sadly up on the sofa, cradling a glass of wine like it was a child. The struggling sunlight fighting through the curtains had created the glint Dennis had seen and he regretted that it had. This was such a sorry image.

	"What are you doing?" he raised quietly, knowing it would probably be so much better to not say a word, but he just couldn't stop himself.

	The corners of Sharon's mouth couldn't even lift into an imitation of a smile, they were so weighed down with sadness. She did not lift her head to look at him. She just said; "What does it look like?"

	"Isn't it a bit early for that?"

	A mocking laugh tore through her chest. Dennis watched it heave.

	"It's about five hours too late Dennis. It's all too late."

	He felt a sob press in his throat. Because he knew she was right - he felt it too. So he backed out again, ready to surrender his shell to his approaching existence. He grasped the door handle, drawing the door shut behind him. He had no other words. But Sharon was suddenly struck.

	"I'm sorry."

	"What?" he returned, hardly daring to believe he'd heard such words. His heart raced, and he just didn't know whether he was relieved to hear it, because somehow, she was reaching out. Whether it was to hurt him or bring him closer once again, Dennis had yet to know or care. He was just so... stunned. He slid back into the room and clicked the door shut, his next breath caught painfully in his chest as he looked up and found Sharon looking right at him with her bright, piercing eyes. 

	"I didn't mean to hurt you...."

	"I deserved it."

	Sharon shook her head sadly, her eyes brimming with tears. She pulled her leg out from underneath herself and pulled herself up, scooting forward and setting her glass on the coffee table before she edged towards Dennis, reaching to clasp his hands.

	"That doesn't matter. I do trust you Dennis, I do. We... We tried to build our life together, in spite of everything, doesn't that prove I trust you?"

	"But why?" he whispered, his stomach dropping as he suddenly realised why he'd seen such a damning look in her eyes. "I broke your heart... and we're not together anymore..."

	"Yes we are." Sharon said gently. "Whatever I say, whatever I do... I don't make sense without you."

	"So why... why are you making me stay here with... with some schoolkid?"

	Sharon smiled wryly. "She was your decision, Dennis. You were mine... but she was yours, remember?"

	"So... So can't I just... make a mistake?"

	"Yes." she nodded. "You can make as many as you like. I just... don't wanna be one of them. She's simple sweetheart.... Zoe's simple - that's what you said... you might be right... that might be what you need. But I'm still here, and I still love you. That's why it hurts right?"

	"Yeah-" he replied weakly, clinging on to her hands with everything he had left. "-fuckin' kills."

	Unlacing their fingers, Sharon pressed her palms to his burning face, tilting his chin. "I'm only human Dennis, I don't have the answer. That's why we have to stay here, see what happens.... see what doesn't. We have to know the answer before we run. But if we do-"

	"I don't want you to let go Sharon! Don't... Don't!"

	Sharon stretched up, kissing away his tears as they fell, whispering his own words into his ear. "Then say you believe me. Believe I still want you. I'm sorry baby, I'm so sorry. Shhh! I won't... I swear to you, I won't. Oh, c'mere!"

	The two of them had fallen listlessly into a tremoring heap of compromise back against the sofa. Sharon sat, and hating the tension that she could read in Dennis' spine, so rigid she was ready to wince, she forced him back against her, cradling his head in her lap. He was consoled only as she smiled down upon him. That was what he wanted to wake up to every morning - and he was so terrified of what this one morning was going to bring to his door.

	Her fingers dancing idly through his messed hair, Sharon continued to admire him as he held her hand in his frozen own, stroking her fingers, needing this one simple motion to remind him what it meant to breathe. That was what he wanted. He didn't want to just exist. He wanted to run - it would make him feel alive.

	"You do know I love you, don't you?"

	"Mighta had a suspicion." she teased gently, her beautiful features softening all the more. She bowed her head, her breath teasing his lips as it left hers. "Yes darlin'... I know. I ain't gonna forget it in a hurry either."

	"So there's... still a chance for us?"

	"Well... that kinda depends on Zoe, don't it?"

	"I'll tell her." Dennis said immediately, but Sharon just laughed, tucking her hair behind her ear as it fell around her face.

	"You bloody won't."

	Stung, Dennis couldn't even force himself to raise new words of protest, his beautiful face crumpled in confusion. "Well, why not? Sharon, what is it that..."

	"What, you think she'd just take it? "Oh sorry Zo, but I figure my sister's it, thanks for not unpacking your bags." She'd wanna kill me!"

	"I wouldn't let her touch you. You're worth more than that."

	"Am I?" Sharon quizzed, releasing one, long and doubtful breath. "Cos you know what, I wouldn't blame her! Someone did that to me and I'd- mmm!" She nodded in agreement as Dennis grimaced, considering it. "And anyway, you know she'd never keep quiet... she'd go straight to Dad and Dennis, we'd never be anything again after that... and I don't want to let go. You know I don't."

	"But... if you won't let me... then you're saying she has to move in here. That's crazy - Sharon, that's so wrong."

	"Was that what it was when you asked her to move in here? Darlin', I'll carry anything for you, but you can't blame me for your mistakes."

	"But that's what it is, it's a mistake."

	"And I need you to make it. Bring Zoe here and let her be that mistake. You can understand that can't you? I need to know we'll be OK, I need to you won't regret me like you do her."

	"But you're nothing like her, how can you say that?"

	"Because I'm scared! I'm scared of how much I need one person just to feel alive. I'm scared that... you're that person, that I can't make you be someone else - someone Dad would let me love the way I want to. I'm scared that I might not be able to keep you... I'm scared that I won't be able to stop someone, somewhere, hurting you."

	"You mean Den." Dennis muttered cagily.

	"Of course I do. He'd tear us to pieces. I can't live through that again."

	"We'd pick 'em up," he assured her in a murmur. She smiled, stroking his hair but shook her head, doubting him still.

	"We don't know how. That's how we got into this mess remember?"

	"But I- oh God, Sharon, this'll hurt too much!"

	"No it won't. Because I won't cry anymore, I promise. I ain't gonna give you reason to hurt anymore. Because I... I'm gonna be watching Zoe, I'm gonna be watching how wrong the two of you go. And you'll hate it baby, I know you will... but every mistake you make, I'll love you a little bit more. Because it's gonna be one less thing that can happen to us when you come back to me... and I do want you back, Dennis, I do. But only if you want it too."

	Sharon missed him almost as soon as the warmth of his body left hers. He pulled himself silently up, his narrowed eyes challenging her as he twisted against the sofa cushions.

	"Why would I want anything else?"

	Why does tonight have to end?
	Why don't we hit restart
	And pause it at our favourite parts?

	"I dunno." Sharon shrugged, pursing her lips in thought. "Cos it makes life easier, less complicated?"

	"Easier?" he laughed, evidently amused, those beautiful lines forming around his eyes. "Just can't see that, less you're telling me I should marry her and knock out a couple of kids an' all, just to have the easy life."

	Sharon looked into her lap, flushing in embarrassment as he brought her words into context and showed her how ridiculous they truly were.

	"I like complicated." he whispered, his breath dancing across her face as he edged forward, teasing her lips. "Complicated works."

	"Mmm." she murmured as his eager lips came down upon hers. "Does for me an' all."

	Easing his tongue into her mouth against the insistence of her own moving into his own, Dennis pressed a little down into her, covering her once again with his warmth. Sliding her top off her shoulders, he caressed her exposed skin. She was burning for his every touch, but... but...

	"Dennis, no..."

	"What?"

	"I don't want... oh darlin'... we can't do this yet..."

	Shamed, Dennis slumped back, biting into his thumb. Sharon straightened her clothes and gave him a sympathetic look that he detested. She crawled up against him and, casing his shoulder, peppered it with apologetic kisses.

	"I thought you wanted-"

	"I do. Just... not yet. If I... Dennis, if that was all you meant to me, do you not think I'd carried on back in the car? But I don't wanna be reduced to... taking what we can get... we're better than that - we belong together." Pushing herself up to the height of her knees, she kissed his cheek and whispered slowly in his ear, "You... belong... to... me. I know that so I'm gonna wait... wait until you're mine completely. I'm not doing this now because I'm not turning this into some sorta goodbye - that was never what I wanted to say..."

	Sighing at his recklessness, Dennis turned his head. "I'm sorry."

	"Don't be. I'm not."

	Dennis couldn't help but smile, so intoxicated by her closeness. He pressed his fingertips beneath her chin and drew her lips to his, kissing her firmly. She invited his caresses, their bodies at once so tangled and needy. But they sprang apart with a whimper as the doorhandle was pushed down with a creak, their two hearts pounding in erratic sync as Den moved oblivious into the room, glancing at them both in turn, sat stiffly at opposite ends of the sofa, through his hooded eyes.

	"You two are up a bit early." he said gruffly, snatching his keys up from the little bowl on the sideboard.

	"Er, yeah. Know me... bloody insomniac."

	"And what about 'im?" Den inquired, nodding to Dennis.

	"Went for a run."

	"Ah, so you thought you'd just... keep each other company?"

	"Yeah." Dennis answered dryly, in a way that was making Sharon's chest tighten so she was silently struggling to breathe. "Problem?" 

	"No. Why should there be? I'll... I'll be off then." 

	The door clicking shut once again, Sharon and Dennis at last dared to look at one another once more, each puffing out a sigh of relief. The danger in Sharon's eyes glistened in a way that even Dennis was made to understand. It had been so close, almost catastrophical. Den was never without a suspicion to act upon and there was no way Sharon was willing to surrender Dennis to it once again.

	Sharon slumped wordlessly back, pressing her palm to her feverish brow and raking her hair back.

	Dennis didn't have words to draw any out of her in turn. He simply dropped his hand over her quaking own, caressing her knuckles with his thumb. Her gaze travelling gently over their connection, Sharon smiled weakly, her chin resting on her palm.

	Blowing out a breath of courage a few content seconds later, she pulled herself up, mumbling to herself as she wandered across the room to the door.

	"Breakfast..."

	Giving her few seconds, Dennis got up with a sigh and followed Sharon into the kitchen. She had opened the cultery drawer and her frustrations were being vented on the loaf of bread with a very large knife. She did not see his piteous smile. He stepped up behind and curled his hand demandingly over hers across the handle, gripping it hard and just trying to pull it steadily from her grasp.

	"Stop it." he whispered softly.

	And she did. Only because she had frozen in absolute fear, knowing his touch against the knife. Hers lessened only through the most sickening fear, her stomach twisting all over itself as he drew it back. She turned back against the side, her manic eyes pleading with him as they raced across his face.

	"Please..." she begged croakily, her gaze flitting in terror to the large shimmering blade. "...please just give it to me."

	"Why?" Dennis quizzed, his face crumpling in contemplation. But he needed mere seconds to work it out, watching Sharon tremor before him. He tilted his head back a little, his cold burst of laughter hitting the ceiling. "What d'you think I'm gonna do Sharon?" he demanded. She whimpered by way of reply as he taunted her, turning the knife so the edge pressed lightly into his wrist. "Something like this huh? Make it bleed - make it better?"

	Sharon was grateful that she sent it clattering to the floor with her flapping hands, at last allowing herself to release the painful breath building in her chest. "I can't bear it." she confessed tearfully, raising her brimming eyes to his face. "Dennis, I know you've been deliberately hurting yourself because of me - and that's tearing me up, so don't you dare- I just can't bear it... the thought of it!"

	Feeling himself flush shamefully, Dennis bit into his lip and turned away, muttering; "Yeah well... it's over now."

	Sharon couldn't look at him. She turned back towards the sink, her shaking hands caught tight around the edge of the countertop as she tried to steady herself, nodding wordlessly. Dennis watched her guiltily until she snatched up the wrapping of the bread in her hands and covered it again. The scrunching was enough to pull him from such a saddened captivation. He turned away, bashing around in the cupboards above him to bring a bowl down in front of him and pointlessly grabbing the cereal. He doubted very much he would touch it; the very thought of eating made him feel physically sick, on top of every other thought inside him and that was envoking the same reaction, but still - it was a distraction.

	"I, er... I said some terrible things..." he said awkwardly, twisting his torso to look at her over his shoulder. "...in the woods."

	Sharon hoped inwardly that he could not tell of how she had convulsed, repulsed by the memories she was sure were never going to leave her. She justturned to face him, the sincerity in his eyes, the apology, tearing right at her soul. She could barely manage to bow her head in recognition.

	"Yeah." she returned quietly, letting her gaze fall to the floor, so unsure of what else there was to say. "Yeah."

	"And I'm sorry. You never deserved... oh God Sharon, please just believe I'm sorry. Really."

	The corners of Sharon's dried lips could barely lift. She just watched him, going slowly forward and seemingly falling into a crouch mid-step, pulling open the fridge and straightening up, leaving the milk next to Dennis' hand. "Here."

	He smiled gratefully, amazed at a movement so... so normal. Sharon returned it, things were beginning to feel right.

	"I mean it. I never... I never meant to do... I never meant to say any of those things. Not to you."

	"Well I'm glad you did."

	Dennis chuckled dryly, unscrewing the cap of the milk and tilting the bottle of the cool white liquid sloshed over the cereal, drowning it almost. He sympathised - he felt so much like he was drowning too.

	"You've lost it." he informed her, with a disbelieving shake of his head.

	"Maybe." Sharon answered softly, her lips at last curving with some sincerity. She tilted her head to the side so that she could admire him better. "Not gonna lose you though am I?"

	Stunned at such an outright question, the kinda question to break or break the existence he was living, Dennis stared at her for a few seconds. Sharon was not unnerved by his silence however, she was too immersed in the love she could read in his eyes.

	She was amazing, she really was.

	"No." he assured her. "No, you're not."

	We'll skip the goodbyes
	If I had it my way, I'd turn the car around
	And run away, just you and I.

	"Then I'm glad." she affirmed with a slight nod, dropping her hand comforting over his on the countertop, both of them ignoring the milk stood devoid of its cap. "I mean it. I'm glad of every second of it. What's this gonna be if you can't tell me what's going on in your head, if you can't talk to me!"

	"I wasn't talking!" he protested. "I was... crazy."

	Sharon just laughed and stroked his knuckles with a sweep of her thumb. "We all go crazy sometimes. Now-" She drew her hand back and nodded pointedly to the bowl of cereal sat between them. "-you gonna eat that?"

	Again, Dennis shook his head in disbelief as a soft laugh pulsed through him. He didn't understand how she could care for him, right down to the stupidest, littlest things such as this. Obediently, he took up the bowl and sat down at the table. Sharon, he noticed to his unease, was gone. He almost got up to follow her but he... he trusted her to return.

	Dropping his spoon into the cleared bowl, it was seconds before he felt the pressure of someone's hands against his shoulders. He relaxed, just knowing it to be Sharon. He leant back to look up into her face and she returned his smile, leaning down and planting a kiss in his hair.

	"Feel better?"

	"Kinda, but-" As Sharon moved round to pick up the bowl, Dennis wound his hand around her wrist. Her gaze snapped to him. She wasn't scared, she just recognised he was waiting on her attention. "-where did you go?"

	He released her as her eyes sparkled lovingly, trusting her still. "Your room." she told him. "Left you a present."

	"What?" he questioned, laughing as though she'd just told him some sorta joke.

	"Go look." she urged him, dropping the crockery into the sink.

	Casting her a doubtful look of amusement, Dennis obediently got up and moved out into the hall and heavily up the stairs, edging into his room. Everything looked as he had left it, apart from the fact Sharon had made his bed. He smiled to himself. That was one of the reasons Vicki had never made an effort to move out, live independently. Because if she didn't have Sharon on hand, unable to move into any bedroom without taking it upon herself to make the bed, then poor undomesticated Vicki would only have to do it herself. 

	Sinking onto the bed, he began his search, leaning over and rifling in the bedside cabinet. Nothing.

	He got up and checked the dresser - even the wardrobe. Still nothing. He looked anxiously around the room. Where the hell would anything be?

	Moving back towards the bed, he decided to go for broke, flinging the top pillows down to the other end of the bed.

	And he laughed. This was so like Sharon. He sat against the bed again, taking up the present. It was thin, glossy and bent to his touch. It was a photograph. His stomach lurched for a moment as he feared that maybe Sharon had picked up the pieces and put Lau-Lau together again. But he was pacified as he remembered he had burnt the Princess. He was safe.

	He was looking at a picture of himself. Now that was something he wasn't used to. But he loved it, unable to stop his smile growing wider against his lips. Because he was looking back at Tenerife. His arms were wound tight around Sharon, the shirt that served to cover her entire sun kissed body, drenched as she sat back against him in the sunlight, smiling a smile it was obvious she truly meant. In this one moment, she'd been truly happy - and Dennis had been there with her.

	They'd been sat in the frothy surf, Sharon squealing as each little wave soaked her through, making her laugh and making her teeth chatter all at once. She'd been cuddled into Dennis for hours, complaining it was "Absolutely freezing!" and Dennis had kissed her each time and let her know she was "-an absolute wuss!" And they hadn't moved. They'd stayed there all day and watched the sunset.

	"Found it then?"

	Dennis almost jumped at the sound of Sharon's voice. He looked up sheepishly and saw her, peeking apprehensively around the door.

	He nodded, looking down to the photo again. Sharon felt more at ease then and slipped past the creaking door, closing it behind her with a definite click, allowing the two of them another private moment as she settled herself beside him.

	"I'd forgotten about these..."

	"I hadn't. The rest are still underneath my bed. In shoeboxes... like dirty little secrets."

	"It ain't like that though is it?" Dennis asked, pushing for reassurance. She saw his need and shook her head with a smile. 

	"Not at all. But... all those times I was crying... the times you heard me? This was why. I'd be looking through these, just hoping to God you'd never have a better time with Zoe... pathetic isn't it?"

	As she flushed, staring into her lap and fumbling with her hands.

	"No." he assured her in a whisper. "It's not pathetic - never gonna happen though." He tilted the photograph so that the gloss on the surface caught Sharon's attention and she would turn her head to look. "Best two weeks of my life here..."

	"Yeah. Mine an' all."

   	"This is what I want us to be, y'know."

	Sharon just looked intently at him with her incredible eyes. "Life ain't a beach darlin'."

	"Could be though, couldn't it? Just... being sat there... watching it, feeling it... in the sea!"

	"Yeah." Sharon nodded with a giggle. "Getting drenched, getting freezing cold and then going back to the hotel and getting-" As Dennis smirked, Sharon raised her palm and said; "Y'know what, I'm not finishing that sentence."

	"Shame."

	Shooting him a look, several silent seconds passed until she dropped her hand over his, resting against his knee, lacing their fingers together. "It's alright if you wanna hold on to memories darlin'. I just... I want you to keep the right ones close. That little girl, you meant nothing to her. But you're so much more than your bloody mother ever was. So let it go. Take that-" She nodded towards the photograph. "-and remember what you mean to me now."

	And she watched happily as he took out his wallet, opened it up and slipped the small photograph in behind what remained of his notes.

	"Yeah?"

	"Yeah." he agreed, dropping his wallet on the bed and leaning across to kiss her. Her hands against his jaw forced a deeper kiss against her lips. But then there came a furious rapping on the front door followed by a familiar voice.

	"Dennis?"

	Sharon groaned, but Dennis' fingers danced up her cheek and drew her back to him. She was weakened and gladly returned his kiss, but broke away with more determination as the doorbell trilled again.

	"Dennis..." she whispered regretfully. "...the door..."

	"Leave it." he insisted.

	"But... Zoe-"

	"So? What's to say I'm even in?"

	Amused, Sharon returned to him, kissing him firmly for just another moment, before demanding; "Don't be so cruel, you. Get up."

	Sighing heavily, realising that this one awful moment had come to claim him, Dennis did as he was told and rose, moving with a resigntation out onto the landing. He looked over his shoulder and Sharon smiled at him, tilting her head forward in coaxing.

	"Go on! I'm right behind you."

	Smiling weakly, he gripped the banister and went slowly down, step for step. Sharon was indeed right behind him, almost crashing into him as he abruptly stopped, wincing at the force with which Zoe was bashing at the door.

	"Dennis! Are you in there? For God's sake, get up - you best not have forgotten what day it is."

	"I don't wanna do this." he whispered frightfully.

	Sharon nestled into his shoulder, tweezing open his back pocket with her finger and thumb. She slid his wallet in, knowing he felt it and returned gently. "I know. But just think of where we're going once you have eh? Winging it back to Tenerife..."

	She kissed the corner of his mouth, unable to reach any further round given the way they stood. But Dennis appreciated the touch and moved forward, opening the front door with a reluctant hand and one last sigh. It revealed a very disgruntled looking Zoe peering over the top of a loaded box, so many more assembled at the kerb.

	"Oh, at last!" she growled, barging her way through. "Where have you been? I thought you were meant to be helping me with this lot."

	"Yeah, in waking hours, Zo. I... I only just got up!"

	Zoe huffed, looking very unlike she believed him. Smiling, somehow amused at the farce she knew was only going to intensify for as long as it played out beneath her watchful eye, Sharon moved down to the last step, leaning against the banister.

	Zoe didn't even notice the bemused look of longing passing between her boyfriend and his unannounced lover.

	"Well, just stand there gawping then, Dennis!" Sharon said loudly at last, tearing her gaze away. "C'mere Zo, give us that... looks heavy and he ain't gonna be no use to ya-"

	Sharon only just managed to stop herself adding "-ever" as Zoe staggered gratefully up and delivered the box into Sharon's arms. "Cheers Sharon, s'killin' me and I've got so many others-"

	"Lucky Dennis!" Sharon mused, her lips flickering flirtatiously as she swung round to move back up the stairs and met his eye on the way. "Oh and Zo-?"

	Dennis stared at the floor, uncomfortable to see the women in his life, the woman he loved being so damned courteous to the other when all he wanted to do was scream out to Zoe that it was over. He simply didn't get how it was Sharon keeping him from doing that. He only knew that he had no choice but to play along.

	"Yeah?" Zoe replied, her ponytail whipping her shoulders as she turned expectantly from the door. Oh there was so much she could say to break this apparantly triumphant little girl, to take Dennis now, to give him their life in the sun but...

	And I... I don't wanna speak these words
	Cos I... I don't wanna make things any worse.

	Sharon smiled, carefully picking up the battered clump of faded pink fluff and said; "I love the teddy..."