xxxXxxx

"Because I fink I love you, alright?"

The moment the words left his lips Enoch closed his eyes and wished they hadn't. They were words he couldn't remember ever saying in his life, and didn't really think he would. They felt weird and awkward and the already tense atmosphere became much worse for him in a matter of seconds.

He had meant what he said about owing Olive some sort of explanation for his behaviour, and about being scared because for once, Enoch was terrified and didn't want to accept it, so he didn't.

He shouldn't have brought her over.

"You...you what?" Olive's voice was little more than a whisper that he wouldn't have heard at all had she been any quieter. He still didn't turn around. It was embarrassing enough without her having to see how one of his hands was shaking in front of him and he probably looked like he'd seen a ghost.

For all the cold, rough exterior, he was a lot more nervous than he cared to show.

"Maybe." Enoch muttered, "I don't know exactly. I dunno 'ow ta tell, but I was 'urtin' you and I was too wrapped up in bein' bloody scared of it to notice. So there. Now you know."

"...The reason but not the problem, huh?" He could practically hear her smile in her voice but still, Enoch didn't look around. "But why on earth couldn't you tell me that? Enoch, did you really think I would mind?"

"Because I didn' know what I thought. It ain't somefin' I'm that used to. I kinda figured I should figure it out first an' not lead you on. Someone told me that was mean. Sod them but they weren't wrong. Guess I pushed ya away instead."

He glanced over his shoulder but didn't look even for long enough to really see her face without averting his eyes. There was something. Of that much he was sure, whether it was love or not was another matter because he didn't know how to classify that. No sooner had he turned his head back to stare down at the counter top did he hear a chair scrape back and Olive get to her feet.

"Enoch..."

"Wh-" Before he could move, or even turn, Olive's arms slipped around his waist and he tensed just slightly at the hug. He was growing used to the tingling sensation inside his chest whenever she touched him and save for a stolen and thoroughly rushed kiss in the corridor, he'd all but avoided all contact for days. She didn't say anything at first, and he tilted his head to peer over his shoulder as he felt her chin against it. "Olive?"

She let him go and Enoch finally sighed and turned around on the spot. Olive was smiling, and looking happier again than she had in days of his ignoring her. He did feel guilty for that, it had taken her to actually say she thought he was changing his mind to kick himself into a better gear.

"If you think for a moment that I wouldn't want to hear that then you couldn't be more wrong."

"Even when I acted like that? Bloomin' selfish. I took it for granted that yeh'd still be there, 'owever long I took ta figure it out."

"It might have been selfish..." Olive laughed and Enoch for a moment stared at her like she was mad. Might have been? Even he didn't need three people to point it out, he knew damn well he was selfish but before he could open his mouth to argue, Olive had continued. "But did you at least figure it out?"

"Maybe. I just got so used to 'avin' you around lately, I never realised..." Enoch stopped himself and looked away. It wasn't easy for him to talk like this. He never had spoken like that to anyone at all, it felt awkward and forced and was the furthest thing from natural to him but now the floodgates were cracking open it was like he couldn't quite stop it. She deserved it.

Then Olive's hand was on his face and her eyes were kinder than ever as she looked at him. He did not deserve her patience. Not now or ever, but boy, was he glad for it.

"You never realised what?"

"That it might be more." Never had he felt more drawn to her than in that moment and his gaze flickered several times between her eyes and her mouth. Whoever started it, he didn't know or care very much because nothing mattered quite as much when Olive was kissing him, it just mattered that she was.

She stopped it first, leaving him with his eyes closed and lips slightly parted and sort of lingering in the middle ground between them for a few seconds before he opened his eyes and cleared his throat a little awkwardly.

"Yeah, well...probably shoulda just left it unsaid."

"What for? Enoch, you don't need to be embarrassed, you have no idea how glad I am you told me."

And she did look happy. Enoch could never logically fault that. In fact, she looked so happy she might burst. Had he really even said it? He'd only said that he thought he loved her, he didn't really know what to call what he felt around her now so he supposed, with his non-existent experience of it, that it had to be love when it was a right sight more than plain attraction.

"Really? Kinda just sounded stupid ta me."

Olive's smile didn't dim at all, forever seeing the good that Enoch could not. She took a step back so he wasn't looking down quite so much and started to wring her hands together in front of her.

"Enoch, you know I'm in love with you, don't you? I have been for a while."

No. No he did not know that. He hadn't known that at all. It took him long enough to accept that she liked him in any romantic way at all in the first place. Reading emotions was not his strong point at all as had clearly been evidenced.

He shook his head slowly and Olive looked down at the floor.

"Well, I am. I do. I just...I thought if I told you that you'd...well, close up and get awkward and not want to see me, but then-"

"I did that by myself anyway."

He supposed he should have been glad to hear it, and to some extent he was. There was a little part of Enoch that unbidden was smiling and relieved to hear she did love him. Now he knew perfectly well what all those looks were. The looks the others said were obvious that they could see and he couldn't. It was love behind her eyes, much like there was now, and now it was in the open he supposed he could recognise it in her face where he'd only been confused before.

Olive was looking at him nervously, he could see her fingers twisting with her pleated skirt and her eyes, bright as ever but a little more anxious now as she waited for him to say anything else. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. Instead he reached up and tugged his tie loose about his neck.

"Ya can sit, ya know? Ain't no one 'ere for me ta 'ide away from this time. I'll be right back."

"Enoch?"

"Right back." He just nodded and started to pull the loop of the tie over his head as he left the room.

Enoch sighed as he slumped against the wall of his bedroom and ran a hand over his face. Tossing his tie onto the bed he glanced out of the open door as he unbuttoned just the top button of his shirt at the collar. Olive loved him. If it hadn't been he who had blurted it all out first, he might have reacted exactly as she thought. She had every reason to think he would. Enoch wasn't exactly the most forthcoming with his emotions, the ones he even entertained at all. Now his gut was twisting and untwisting around itself every time he looked at her and his mouth dried up when he wanted to say something. He thought about her more times than he cared to admit and every time she so much as touched his hand or his cheek he felt pleasantly warm as though her very hand was a hot water bottle. For five minutes he had let his guard drop completely. If that's what love was, it wasn't too horrible after all, maybe he could do it. Or he was just being a childish idiot. That was probably equally likely.

He sucked in a breath and straightened up off the wall. With his head at least a little clearer and himself at least a little more composed, he was much more comfortable. He could handle it, and more than that, he wanted to. So without leaving her to wonder much longer, Enoch left his room again.

He found her not in the kitchen where he'd left her, but in the adjoining sitting room. For the several times she'd been here, Olive hadn't seen much of his home at all. It was so different to her home that Enoch had never been inclined to show her. She looked up as he entered from where she sat on the arm of the couch and smiled at him as he came in.

"Told ya...right back." He muttered and walked over to stand in front of her, looking down a little more at Olive.

"Enoch? You don't mind my saying it do you? I mean, I only thought because you ha-"

"-No I don't mind." He said quietly. Truthfully. "I just...oh 'ell... 'ow d'ya know?"

Should he have asked that? Maybe and maybe not. He wanted to hear the answer really to know if it would help him decide at all. He'd never talked to anyone at all about the extent of his feelings for Olive because even if he'd wanted to, which Enoch certainly had not, there was no one who would listen. So now even though he knew he wasn't good enough for her, and didn't need anyone else to tell him that again, Olive deserved to know.

"Because I just do...I don't think you need to overthink it, Enoch, you don't need to understand everything."

"Good 'cause I bloody well don't understand 'ow you can be so good."

Olive laughed and Enoch's lips twitched in response. He sat down and reached out a hand to pull her sideways off the arm of the couch and properly onto the cushion. She gasped and the surprised little giggle that escaped her lips might have been the prettiest sound he'd ever heard as of right then.

"But I think you know anyway, Enoch...you look different."

"...What?" Just before he could think about kissing her and shutting them both up, she had to go and say that and Enoch raised an eyebrow. "No I really don't."

"Your eyes do."

Enoch scowled and Olive bit her lip, probably to stifle a laugh, and he got his way.

"Okay fine. Now you look the same again."

"Better."

But of course he did know. He couldn't explain it, or rationalise it, and that did bother him the slightest bit, but Enoch did know all the same. Everything she did in that moment drew him in much more than it ever had like all his coldness and fear about it was exploding out in one rush of hormones. Because he did love Olive, and she could read him like a book when he let his guard down enough, and he sure had now.

Enoch didn't want to say it twice, even if he hadn't quite said it once, so he just nodded minutely and then Olive had thrown her arms around his neck and he didn't have time to so much as question it before she was laughing against his lips as happily as he'd ever heard.

Enoch smiled when Olive loosened her arms and leaned away. He couldn't help it. He could say that her mood was contagious, or that maybe he was finally letting a little of her light seep into the darkness that all but shrouded him all the time. Both were probably true but could be summed up simply in that, for the first time in a long time, he was actually happier.

Olive noticed. Of course she did and for a second he thought he saw moisture welling up in her eyes but then she blinked at it was gone. "I knew I'd get another smile from you one day."

"Don't go finkin' I'm gonna be cheerful. You're quite enough for that, Olive."

"Then the world really would be backwards, wouldn't it? Can't have that, can we?"

"Definitely not." He muttered and without any other thought at all, pulled her back to him.