For All Eternity

It's Gonna be Alright

Their bed dipping next to her and some loud shuffling and mumbling pulled Dianne from her sleep. She didn't know what time it was but she knew she was tired and wanted to fall back to sleep. Especially because she could have been almost certain she was having a rare dream- what about- she couldn't remember but she knew she was desperate to fall back into it. So, she drew the pillow in her arms close to her chest and kept her eyes closed; beginning to drift off again. That was until the pillow was pulled from her arms and a semi-cold hand traced behind her ear, clearing her forehead of hair. The owner of the cold hand then proceeded to kiss her temple and whisper "n-night Dot."

Night? She felt like it had been a good few hours since she fell asleep-"Time is it?"

"About 2."

"Joseph," she opened one eye, her tone harsh, "have you been working that entire time?"

"Pretty much, I didn't check any of my emails or anything today."

"This is why you get headaches and you can't wake up," Dianne had gone to bed at 10pm, after repeatedly nearly falling asleep keeping him company. There was, of course, a reason he was replying to emails at 10 at night- they had spent the morning doing radio promotion on regional radio stations, requiring Elise to drop Connie off at school. Then they had taken the late morning and majority of the afternoon viewing four houses in Oxfordshire. And then looked after a five-year-old who's main passion in life was to run riot and talk nonsense instead of going to bed.

"You're probably not wrong, sorry," he kissed her shoulder, "today was good though."

"It was, I loved the houses but the villages?"

"Mmm, too posh. Maybe we should be looking more towards Wiltshire," Joe mused, snaking his arm around her waist, turning the light, which was on when she had fallen asleep, off.

"Or Brighton."

"I mean yeah. I want a really small village though on the edge of a big one. But with a nice small school and tonnes of fields."

"It's tough, I thought we would go and fall instantly in love with something but somehow," she paused to yawn, "I don't think that's going to happen."

"No, well we've got until September to find something, haven't we?"

"Yeah, oh Joe, guess what?"

"What my Dot?"

"Kev's leaving."

"Strictly?" Joe asked, lips on her shoulder again, thumb stroking her hand.

"Yeah. He let us know that it's gonna be announced next month."

"Wow, I mean what a guy, makes sense though, having won with Stace and being knocked out early."

"I'm not gonna pull out this year. Obviously, if I end up pregnant then I'll either pull out late or go for no partner. I'm not ready to stop unless I have to."

"Good. I trust you. Will you be able to fall back asleep now?" He asked, they had had a pretty considerable chat for gone midnight on a Thursday.

"Should do. G'night Joey."

"Night Darlin." The kiss was on her neck this time and soon enough he was lightly snoring against it, hands relaxing their grip on her. Dianne didn't have so much luck. The future talk had woken her brain up. Especially because the contract was sat in her inbox, waiting to be signed. It wasn't that she was conflicted, she had just found herself hoping that there would be a reason she wasn't signing it. But she still wanted to do it, that was the confusing thing, she still wanted to have a partner and dance and potentially win. She just wanted a baby too.