An Unholy Alliance

Chapter 58

“So I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” said Katie with a hopeful smile.
Naomi nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be in tomorrow unless something really bad happens.”
“And hopefully nothing really bad happens,” said Katie with a smile.

The two of them lingered, Katie was still waiting for Ianto to finish his lesson. Naomi felt bad leaving her alone and waiting a few minutes with her friend wasn’t going to make much of a difference in how long it took her to get home.

“Would you like a hug?”
Katie’s eyes widened. “I thought you didn’t like people and contact and stuff.”
“I’m getting better with it,” she said with a shrug. “I just thought… you know, it’s fine if you don’t want to hug or whatever-”
“No, no,” said Katie, shaking her head. Before Naomi could say anything else, Katie pulled Naomi into a hug. Naomi smiled. Naomi let out a deep breath, she didn’t realise how much she was worrying over it. The hug ended as Katie pulled away.

Spotting Ianto at the other end of the corridor, Katie started walking towards him.
“See you tomorrow then,” said Katie, waving to her friend.
Naomi smiled. “See you tomorrow.” She waved goodbye to Katie before heading outside with as smile on her face.

There had been no visions at all which was brilliant, she didn’t want to invade Katie’s privacy and find out about her past. If Katie was comfortable telling her about things, Naomi would be happy to learn about her past that way, not through some weird angelic abilities. She felt that it might be a little weird how happy she felt just from hugging her friend.

Heading home, Naomi greeted Michael and her sister with a smile.
“How was school?” asked Michael as she took her shoes off and put them on the shoe rack.
“Fine, a little boring,” said Naomi with a shrug. “Samiel asked about things before the first class even started. Also, I think there might be a parents evening in a week or two, I don’t know how we’re going to deal with that.”

Michael shrugged as he stood in the doorway to the living room. Naomi set her bag down by the shoe rack and hung her coat and blazer on the bannister.
“What’s for dinner?” she asked.
“Hot dogs,” said Michael. “But I can cook you something else if you don’t want them.”
“No, hot dogs are fine,” said Naomi with a smile. She followed Michael into the living room and sat next to Abigail on the sofa to watch the tv for a while.

Just as the ad break started, Michael brought in a plate for them with two hot dogs on for each of them. He then returned to the kitchen for less than a minute to grab his own plate.

As Naomi ate her dinner, she couldn’t help but smile to herself. She could hug her friends now without dealing with visions of their past. Naomi was rather happy with her current situation, she was coping with school well and she was more than civil with Michael and Abigail. And visiting Hell on the weekends was ridiculously fun at times, especially with the baking and sessions of playing Dungeons and Dragons for an entire day.

She was happy and she no longer felt at home. Naomi felt like she had a family.