Chapter 43

When Hope pushed the door open and ushered a subdued Shawna back into the house, Marcus was perched waiting on the arm of the sofa.

"How are you?" he whispered, quietly as Shawna slipped into his arms. He kissed the top of her head, gently, but his eyes were on Hope who gave a non-commital shrug.

"I'll be OK." She muttered, muffled by her scarf and his shirt.

"Anyone for tea?" Hope asked, doffing her own coat after a moment, and heading for the kitchen.

"Hmph-mm." Shawna confirmed, muttered against his chest, and he held up two fingers for Hope as she left.

"Where..." Marcus began, and felt her tense against him. "Um... did... should I just leave this?" Pushing away from his chest, gently, Shawna stared him in the eye and shook her head. "Where did you go?"

"GP." She muttered, leaning against him again, unable to look him in the eye while she talked about it.

"Did she help?"

"A little. She's booked me an appointment with a counsellor."

"That's good." She tensed again, and he paused, wondering if he were supposed to say something else, but she relaxed again, and then eased away from him to remove her coat.

"Thanks."

"For what?" he rested back against the chair.

"For not mentioning the police."

"This isn't about punishing him, this is about helping you feel better." He pointed out, without having to pause for thought.

"Hope helped me with that one," she admitted, hanging the scarf up. "I was tying everything up in to one big bundle, and you weren't... Everything revolves it at the moment, and that's not... not..."

"Not helping?" he suggested, and she shook her head. "Not accurate?" she smiled, gently, but it was Hope from the kitchen doorway that supplied the answer.

"Not fair."

"On you." Shawna clarified, taking his hand. "It's not fair on you, to wrap us up in that." He started to argue, but she cut him off. "Listen... I know it's important, I know that we're not entirely separate, but... it hasn't been coming between us, Marcus, I have. Hope says it's understandable, and so will you, and it might be, but it still isn't fair, so I'm going to stop that. That's what I want to get out of this — it's not going to go away, I'm not going to be able to forget or anything like that, but I can stop myself letting it get in the way."

They all paused, Hope and Shawna waiting, and Marcus desparately trying to process the information into a response.

"Thank you." He finally managed, unable to come up with anything else, and Shawna's smile grew wider.

"There you go." She turned to Hope. "Told you, no argument."

"Alright, you guessed right." Hope admitted, passing the tea around. "There's still the song."

"Doesn't have one." Shawna retorted, slipping into a seat and tugging Marcus down beside her. "What song?" he asked, trying to keep up.

"Hope says that everyone has a song they think defines them — or that they want to be them — somewhere in the back of their minds. I said you don't think like that."

"Do you have a song?" Hope leant forward.

"No." Shawna's broad grin spread further. "Not any more. Well, sort of."

"Hah!" Hope snapped upright. "What was it?"

"You never told me?" Shawna nudged him with an elbow, spilling even more of his tea over his hand.

"What was it?" Hope reiterated, whilst he changed hands and wiped the spill off on his trouser leg.

"Teenage Dirtbag." he explained, reaching out to the table for a tissue to clean up the bottom of his cup.

"Oh." Hope's little outburst made him sit up, and he followed her gaze to Shawna, hunched in the corner of the sofa.

"I'm 'Noelle' then." Shawna realised, focussed off into the distance.

"You were, a little." He stressed the past tense. "It was just as much about being outside of all the loops, stuck on the sidelines." He shrugged. "I don't feel like that any more."

"Are you replacing it with anything?" Shawna almost begged, leaning in against him.

"Everybody's Changing." he smiled, gently, wrapping his arm around her gently. "It's... I'm not the guy on the sidelines any more, and not just with you. It's... it can be scary here, sometimes, and all the boundaries are shifting, but they're shifting because I'm making them, and that's good."

"What about that changes that you aren't making happen?" Hope wondered, and he shrugged. "It's difficult to tell which ones are which. I came up here knowing things would change, and they are. If I wasn't here, Nick and Ally would probably be dealing with most of them so... they're all my choice, really.

I mean, I chose to come here because you were coming here, and for all the wrong reasons to start with, but you've always helped me. As soon as I realised that I couldn't rely on you, I had to make the decisions myself, everything seemed to change. Suddenly I wasn't following you around like a puppy any more, I was just following you for you... that seemed to work."

"Wow." Shawna settled into the crook of his arm, leaning the back of her head against his chest. "Good changes, you know that, right?"

"So far." He squeezed her, gently.

"What about you, Shawna?" Hope peered over the top of her cup. "Have you got a song?"

"Let Me Entertain You." she laughed. "Nothing more complicated than that."

"See, I've got songs for everyone, but I'm going to have to change yours now."

"Mine?" Shawna asked. "Or his?"

"Both. You'll Be In My Heart."

"Oh, you are just too cloying sometimes." Shawna mimed vomiting, but Hope saw the warmth in her eyes, and didn't back down.

"No, really, it's you two. Different ways, different times, but you're both there for the other one, both the strong one at different times. It's great."

"So what did you have for us, then?" Marcus wondered.

"Oh, dear. Starry, Starry Night for you." She admitted. "Sorry, it's just... well, early in the year you just seemed so lost, sometimes. And then out on Bleak Hill... when I heard about that it just kind of confirmed things."

"What about me?"

"You're a U2 fan, after all, you should know." Hope smiled, and began to sing. "I know a girl, a girl called... "

"Party girl." Shawna joined in, and they sang quietly between the pair of them until lunch.

Marcus got up to answer the door, eyes fixed on the book as he navigated the sitting area on autopilot, and looked up into an unfamiliar face.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, after a moment.