Chapter Text
1. Rana
“I don’t think we can be mates.”
Rana wipes at the skin under her eyes, smearing the dark make-up into the hiccupping tears she’s still holding back. She barely recognises the tired figure in the mirror; her brain swims with too much booze and confusion and Kate.
"I miss our friendship…”
She tugs at the rings adorning her fingers with a harshness that recalls Kate’s brutal rebuff earlier. She wants to be sick but she’s just spent the last twenty minutes crouched over the toilet with nothing to show for it. Zeedan had offered to hold her hair – to rub soothing circles into her back and promise her everything would be alright – but she’d shrugged him off with a whimper. He soon caught her drift and retreated to the bedroom where Rana knows he’s now waiting: worrying about her and whatever’s going on in her head.
His guess was as good as hers at this point.
Carefully she slips out of her clothes, shivering as the autumn wind swirls outside. It doesn’t escape her when her fingers shake as she unhooks her bra and reaches for her pyjamas. She feels like she’s standing in somebody else’s skin – like she’s an imposter, caught in a once familiar world she now feels irreparably separated from.
She can hear Zeedan sighing next door as she struggles with the buttons on her top. The inside of her cheek feels raw from where she’s relentlessly chewed on the soft, pink flesh there. The blood is still fresh and sharp and present in a way that Rana savours. When everything around her seems to be slipping between her fingers, she relishes the tangible reminder of now. Because soon enough she knows she’ll go backwards, falling into the memories and…
“You make me sick.”
Her throat constricts around another sob as she steadies her hands on the edge of the porcelain sink. She shuts her eyes and swears she can picture every colour of revulsion burning in Kate’s eyes as she glares at her: black and the palest yellow reflecting from the streetlamps mixed in with the warmest amber Rana thinks she’s ever seen. She tries to imagine the memory into something less painful but her fingers twitch as she senses the momentum heading forwards, away from the scorn and into someone else entirely.
There’s a click as she unlocks the door and shuffles across the threshold. Zeedan is sitting under the covers, his big chocolate eyes full of earnest concern and for some reason it makes her feel a thousand times worse. The sheets are already pulled back for her to slide her small frame in with ease. His arm automatically wraps around her and she tries to trust the comfort he’s offering her, tries to allow the warmth of his touch to seep into her heart.
“Hey…” he starts, his voice soft and nervous. “Sorry for upsetting you earlier.” He pauses and Rana can feel herself stop breathing. “Are you okay?” he asks finally.
Her face scrunches up into what she hopes is a smile.
“I’m fine. Can we just go to bed?” she begs him before he can refute this obvious lie. She knows what a pathetic figure she must cut: so tiny in the vastness of the bed, face puffy with crying for reasons she simply cannot explain to him or anyone else. But she also knows Zeedan loves her so it’s no surprise when he nods gently and reaches over to snap off the light.
They shuffle down the bed and she curls into his side as he hugs her tightly. His lips graze her hair as she presses her ear against his chest. She attempts to ground herself with the steady thump of his heart beneath her, wishing herself away into somewhere she hopes can make her feel happy again.
The ticking of the clock crawls forward as Zeedan’s breathing slows and she realises he’s slipped into sleep without her. The silence creates a vacuum and Rana can feel the momentary calm scattering as her thoughts reappear and reverberate around her skull. Everything is so messy and confusing and painful and before long she’s lost in the chaos, the evening replaying in her vision like an old video tape. In the centre of it all, at the eye of the storm, waits Kate.
Zeedan doesn’t stir the whole night; Rana barely sleeps.
***
Mrs Fairport has to ask her three times what she’s doing before Rana realises she’s left the blood pressure cuff on for the whole consultation. She apologies profusely but it never touches her eyes and Mrs Fairport leaves with a curt nod that indicates she noticed.
Moira grabs her between surgeries to discuss the rota for next month and Rana wants to scream the entire time. She doesn’t know why… well, that’s not entirely true. She knows, she just doesn’t understand.
“Anything bothering you, Rana?” Moira asks when Rana fails to register the news that she’s been allocated her own chronic disease clinic starting in November. Rana smiles – the same smile she’s been giving Zeedan and Alya and Yasmeen when they find her moping around at home – and she expects Moira to move on.
Instead she says, “Have you had anything to eat?”
Rana glances at her apprehensively – there are still technically four minutes until lunch – but shakes her head. “Me neither,” Moira explains. “I hear Roy does a mean potato scone. How do you fancy we go together?”
Rana doesn’t have time to shut her jaw before Moira pushes her out the door.
“It’s a shame for someone with such exquisite dentition as yourself to be frowning so much,” Moira remarks as she bites into her roll with fervour. Rana sips at her tea, wincing slightly as it burns her tongue, as she stares down her barely-touched scrambled eggs.
“I’m fine,” she replies, shaking her head as the over-worn phrase slithers through her.
Moira cocks an eyebrow. “Darling, you’re more miserable than Jeremy Hunt in a hospital.”
Rana’s lips quirk upwards and she convinces herself she might even be smirking.
“Are you still having trouble with your girlfriend?”
Her whole body freezes before the familiar wave of bewilderment and sadness she’s been soaking in for weeks washes over her. For half a second there she thinks she might have forgotten about it. It makes her smile mirthlessly. She has these moments, just moments, when she escapes herself: when Zee wraps his fingers around her hand and tucks them into his pockets because they’re cold; when she’s at that sweet spot between one glass of red wine and the next and she feels like she’s floating between heaven and earth; when she first wakes in the morning and hasn’t quite remembered she’s Rana yet. Now her bones feel scorched beneath the tangled web of veins and muscle desperately trying to hold her together. Everything is so hard, like there’s a piece of her missing and now she’s just broken.
Moira is waiting for her to reply and Rana knows she won’t accept the silent treatment like Zee.
“Something like that,” she mutters.
“Have you spoken to her yet?” Rana scowls and tries to block that night from her memory forever.
It doesn’t work.
“She said she doesn’t want to be mates,” she whispers making Moira hunch over her plate just to hear. Rana’s throat feels suddenly dry as she starts to tear at the skin by the edge of her nailbed.
“And what did you tell her?” Moira enquires, slurping on her earl grey.
It’s a good question. Rana knows what she said, even with all the alcohol she’d consumed. She remembers it with excruciating detail, like she’s being asked to tell a patient’s family that their loved one has died: the chill from the air fills her lungs, the crumpled sensation in her chest as she pled with Kate to forgive her reappears, the moment of torturous hope hacks into her side again when she remembers the sensation of Kate’s fingers slipping between her own.
She knows what she said, but she’s not entirely sure she knows what Kate understood. She can’t blame her; Rana is still in the process of working it all out herself, how could she expect Kate to know her better than herself?
And yet, deep down, a part of her does expect it. And it makes her mad that Kate can’t suddenly put her finger on what’s bothering Rana and tell her how to make it better. For some reason, she senses Kate has the power to do that, to make everything stop feeling so bloody awful, if she would just do something. And all she knows is when Kate walked away from her, that hole inside her became a gaping wound.
“I told her I’m sorry,” Rana answers and she can feel the tears as if they were freshly falling.
“And she still doesn’t want to be friends?” Rana nods as she wills her body to shrink into the seat. Moira appears to be mulling it over in her mind, like a cryptic clue for the Weatherfield gazette. Rana expects Moira is pretty good at crosswords.
“Do you want to be friends?”
Rana’s head jerks up to find Moira innocently blowing on her cuppa, one eyebrow arched in anticipation of her answer.
“Of course,” Rana replies forcefully, and the strain in her voice catches her by surprise. “Why wouldn’t I?” she asks, and she waits for the universe to respond. All she can hear is her heart beating, terrified, in her chest.
“Oh, I’m not sure – it was just a thought,” Moira answers unhelpfully, her fork making a bee-line for Rana’s untouched eggs. Her eyes are so full of desire and Rana swallows as she wonders: what does she want?
“I…”
Rana opens her mouth, thinks, then shuts again. It hurts to be so uncertain about herself. It’s like her actions are breadcrumbs, winding her through a forest she can barely discern from the shadows. Nothing she does makes any sense; nothing she feels puts her at ease.
Eventually she settles for, “I want her to not hate me,” because, while not the right answer per se, at least it’s the truth. “And I wish my brain could give me a rest from thinking about her all the damn time,” she adds, a wave of relief washing over her at her sudden honesty.
She rubs at her eyes, her head dipping as she exhales heavily. When she looks back at Moira she’s watching her quizzically but Rana’s too exhausted and frustrated to even begin contemplating what’s piqued her interest this time.
“We’d best get back or Dr Cunningham will threaten to give me my flu jab again,” she sighs, standing from her seat and walking to the counter to pay. As she hands Shona her ten pound note the door jangles behind her and a familiar voice greets her ears.
Rana feels her heart stop at the sweet, light tone – the giggle in Kate’s smile as Daniel teases her about her dubious double denim fashion choices – and Rana’s veins fill with dread as she realises as soon as Kate notices her all that cheeriness and ease will disappear. Her stomach flips and next thing she knows she’s ignoring Shona’s change filled fist and hastily retreating out the door. The scent of jasmine flows straight to her brain as she dizzily stumbles onto the street and tries to make sense of her warring desires – at once rushing to escape Kate and yet simultaneously wanting nothing more than to turn back, grab Kate’s hand and tell her… something.
When she returns to the medical centre she closes herself off in her room and hyperventilates for a few minutes. She’s grateful when Moira arrives before proceeding to go nuclear at her for her little abandonment stunt. It keeps her from imploding, at least for the next few minutes, and it allows Moira to write off the tears in her eyes as a result of her yelling.
The afternoon surgery lasts an eternity but when Zee asks her how her day went she tells him the usual story and allows him to touch her forehead with a kiss. She doesn’t mention Moira or the eggs or the disgusted scowl she glimpsed as she escaped the café. She doesn’t tell him that she wants to be happy again because, for as long as she’s known him, Zee has been her happiness. She doesn’t find the courage to cry in front of him so she waits till he falls asleep and she’s left to her preying mind before allowing her emotions to emerge.
And no matter how much she might wish it, her mind never settles on anything except Kate.
***
“You fancy Kate.”
She hears the words like they’re a pair of hands scratching across her body, tearing at her skin to reveal the slow beating heart beneath. Imogen can barely keep herself from snarling as she says it, devouring every ounce of pleasure she can from watching Rana squirm. It makes Rana wish she had smacked her one back in the bistro all those months ago when this all started. Whatever this is.
She hears herself deny it, hurling her own insults back at Imogen and whomever else will listen. It’s rare for Rana to feel self-conscious, but when Todd clearly hears Imogen’s accusation she wishes the cobbles would open beneath her and swallow her whole. It’s not just embarrassment at having a fight in the street or her neighbours having front row seats to her private life: it’s this cold, slicing fear that cuts through her like a knife slashing her aorta as she starts to wonder maybe she’s right…
Imogen notices, like she’s noticed everything apparently, and smirks as she storms off. It’s astonishing, really, that Imogen can walk away having just lost Kate and somehow Rana feels like the one who’s been sucker-punched. Because it’s nonsense, isn’t it? The idea that she could possibly fancy Kate is like one big joke, as daft as suggesting she was in love with Dev or Moira or Norris.
Except Kate isn’t Dev or Moira or Norris; Kate isn’t even Zeedan. Kate is just Kate.
Sean emerges and proceeds to worry over her in his generally fumbling way. She supposes it must be because the fear she feels in her heart is just as apparent on her face, drawing her in lines of uncertainty and panic. Out of kindness he supplies her with wine to dull her senses but even the pleasant hum in her belly can’t stop her whole body from feeling like it’s being twisted up.
She thinks about the last time she was truly afraid – when she saw Bethany slip into a car with that creep Nathan – and she thinks about how naturally Kate had set her at ease. She curses herself for wanting to run to Kate for comfort now too because she simply can’t. It doesn’t stop her from wanting it though, and her chest aches from needing something so badly she can barely think straight.
She recalls how sick she felt watching Kate and Imogen kiss, how she loathed every second of it. What Imogen said makes sense in that horrible, gut-wrenching sort of way: like realising the lump in one of her patient’s breasts is probably cancer. Her fingers shake so dreadfully she swears she can hear her bones chatter. She shuts her eyes, hoping the darkness can banish what months of denial and hoping and praying couldn’t, but all she succeeds in accomplishing is locking her thoughts inside.
She needs to do something, anything, to pull herself back from this shuddering cliff edge. So she turns inward to the space around her heart, and searches the place she’s come to call home. A mantra emerges and she slowly repeats it in her head until it starts to soothe her:
She wants Zeedan, she loves Zeedan, and she’s convinced having his baby will make this all go away.
It works for minutes, maybe, if she’s being generous, until she walks into the bistro and sees Kate with her husband. She notices the contour of Kate’s neck, the soft way she bites her lip as she’s concentrating, the funny little wrinkle in her nose when she smiles. She notices how much she notices her, and Imogen starts to feel more like soothsayer than a harpy.
With Kate doggedly filling her senses, she drags Zeedan back to her bedroom and tries to bury her feelings in his soft, tender skin. When he kisses her neck and tries to keep her close, she presses the back of her hand against her eyes, blocking out reality as she tears apart the image of long brown hair falling against her shoulder… a taut, flat stomach pressing against hers, the taste of a soft button nose between her lips and the sensation of joy that floods her when she imagines it’s someone else that says, “I love you” just as she collapses in ecstasy.
“I love you too,” she whispers back as the truth wraps its lithe fingers around her throat and chokes her.