History Fanfic / TrueLoveIsNeverAStraightPath

* AdaptationalRelationshipOverhaul: In canon, whilst Helen seems enamored with Michael and Michael is shown to be willing to get her out of sticky situations, their relationship goes no further than that. Here, they actually fall into a romantic relationship. At least for a little while.

** Chapter 2 and 3 sheds a little more light on Laura's parents than we get in the show, revealing that they were rich, but wanted her to marry someone specific and were overbearing. Laura's marriage with Michael, the reasoning for it being also left unexplained in the show, was a subsequent attempt to break free from her parents, meant to highlight how she was an independent woman who had found love elsewhere, even if it did backfire on her.
** Chapter 3 provides an explanation for why Carole remains living in the leisure centre in spite of the implication that she does have other options available to her - apparently, her stepmother won't let her live in her house for any more than a week, her mother is now in a nursing home, and the homeless shelters won't take them in anymore after an unspecified NoodleIncident involving Ben and a lighter.

* InternalReveal: Brittas finally figures out in Chapter 13 that Helen has been cheating on him, although the audience knew since the third episode in canon of her cheating ways.

* MeetCute: Helen's canon first meeting with Michael, where he removes the bow from her hair to help her be more difficult to recognize from the police, is recontextualized as this. However, another moment comes when Helen first meets Michael at Parrot's Bar, where she spills wine over herself and Michael helps clean her up.

* WhatDidIDoLastNight: When Helen decides to go back to Brittas in Chapter 21, she finds the house empty. Impatient with waiting for him (and unaware that he's decided to stay with Laura for a while), Helen decides to pull out a stash of beer kept in the fridge. In the next chapter, Helen ends up waking to a living room somehow containing several puddles of vomit, a large crack in the TV, cigarette burns and scorch marks on the walls, a torn apart couch, shards of glass in the sink, and ''something'' in the fridge [[TakeOurWordForIt which makes Helen concludes that it needed to be thrown out]].

* AdaptationalJerkass: Despite being set around Series 3 and 4, Ben is portrayed more in line with his Series 6 characterization as an EnfantTerrible rather than his Series 3 and 4 characterization as a toddler prone to TroublingUnchildlikeBehaviour, but otherwise harmless.

* AdaptationalRelationshipOverhaul: In canon, whilst Helen seems enamored with Michael and Michael is shown to be willing to get her out of sticky situations, their relationship goes no further than that. Here, they actually fall into a romantic relationship.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Helen has this reaction after being dumped by Michael, realising that she had been unappreciative of her husband and had been using him.

** Ben's toy rabbit and electric chair seen in "The Last Day" were originally used in the show merely both as a sight gag and as a form of ToyBasedCharacterisation suggesting that Ben [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehaviour has a worryingly dark streak]]. Chapter 27 of this fic gives the toy a backstory, revealing that Carole found it at a Charity Shop and that the toy electric chair actually housed a toy Brittas at first. The toy Brittas ended up vanishing, forcing Carole to sub in one of Ben's toy bunnies when he proved inconsolable.

** For "Shall We Dance?" , the staff gala still goes ahead, Brittas still asks Laura to dance with him, and Michael still appears at the centre to try to win Laura back, although the outcome of the latter two events is drastically different.

* AdaptationalContextChange: The chapter covering the events of "Playing with Fire" still has Brittas tied up to a methane generator and hit at by Jenny, but the reasoning for this is changed - whereas in canon, this was because he was unwilling to remove Gavin from the timetable so that he and Jenny can go house-hunting, here it's because Brittas convinced Gavin to break up with Jenny, and she blames Brittas for this.

** Whilst Helen's previous husbands are never given any names in canon (barring her accidental marriage to Harry Johnson), Chapter 6 names one of them Rory.

* ParentWithNewParamour: Chapter 6 features a scene where Helen explains to her older children about her plans to leave their stepfather. The three have slightly different reactions - Jonathan, having been ConditionedToAcceptHorror on the topic of his mother's affairs, was apparently running a bet with George on the matter and Tom is more interested on the idea that it will get him more toys. George is the only one to have doubts, as he actually likes Brittas and prefers him to his biological father.

** After listening to Carole offer herself up as a ParentalSubstitute to George in Chapter 22, Laura expresses her concerns about Carole's ways of putting children in closed drawers and cupboards as a parenting style, fearing "how Mr. Brittas would react if said upbringing led to young children going around stabbing the customers because of their fear of the outside". The later set "High Noon" would reveal that Carole's son Ben keeps a knife with him, whilst Series 6 would feature him and his half-siblings [[TookALevelInJerkass taking a level in Jerkass]], with Brittas considering Ben at least to have worryingly violent enough behaviour to prevent him from going anywhere near the general public and a NoodleIncident implicating said knife in scaring off a busload of children.

* ParentalTitleCharacterization: Unlike his siblings, George notably refers to Helen as "Mum" and Brittas as "Daddy", hinting at the fact that he's the stepchild with the most disinterest for his mother and the most love for his stepfather.

* RelativelyFlimsyExcuse: Michael attempts to pass off Helen's twin sons with Brittas as being the children of Laura and him so that he can get the money from his father's will. In spite of fears that the twins' large nostrils (a trait inherited from their actual father) would give their identity away, it seems to actually work... until Chapter 17 reveals that Michael's father wasn't fooled for that reason.

* TwoTimingWithTheBestie: PlayedWith, as Helen's best friend Laura is currently estranged from her husband, but Helen pursues a relationship with Laura's husband Michael anyway. Notably, even Helen realizes the oddness of having an affair with her friend's husband and chooses not to initially reveal it to her.

* CallForward: Brittas' EroticDream at the beginning of Chapter 17 ends with a goose swooping in and attacking him, referencing the later in canon episode "Curse of the Tiger Women" moment when the dream that Brittas had been having all series ended with him being attacked by a dying goose.

** Laura has a romantic dream at the end of Chapter 16 where Mr Brittas kisses her after telling her that he was not bothered by her being late. It's noted that whilst she usually has dreams where Mr Brittas would be a kinder man, this was the first one where they actually kissed, a hint at her growing feelings for him.

* AdaptationalJerkass: Despite being set around Series 3 and 4, Ben is portrayed more in line with his Series 6 characterization as an EnfantTerrible rather than his Series 3 and 4 characterization as a seemingly normal if prone to slightly odd behavior toddler.

** Whilst Michael's father is mentioned several times, he never appears in the flesh. Here, he shows up at a business dinner with Helen and Michael and some attention is given on the relationship between Michael and his father.

* EroticDream: Laura has a romantic dream at the end of Chapter 16 where Mr Brittas kisses her after telling her that he was not bothered by her being late. It's noted that whilst she usually has dreams where Mr Brittas would be a kinder man, this was the first one where they actually kissed, a hint at her growing feelings for him.

* ParentWithNewParamour: Chapter 6 features a scene where Helen explains to her older children about her plans to leave their stepfather. The three have slightly different reactions - Jonathan, having been ConditionedToAcceptHorror on the topic of his mother's affairs, was apparently running a bet with George on the matter and Tom is more interested on the idea that it will get him more toys. George is the only one to have doubts, as he actually liked Brittas and prefers him to his biological father.

* RelativelyFlimsyExcuse: Michael attempts to pass off Helen's twin sons with Brittas as being the children of Laura and him so that he can get the money from his father's will. In spite of fears that the twins' large nostrils (a trait inherited from their actual father) would give their identity away, it seems to actually work.

** For "Mr. Brittas Changes Trains", the staff still go to a hypnotist show, Brittas still gets hypnotized, and Brittas still takes Laura to dinner to impress those seeking to make him the British Representative on the European Leisure Industry Standards Committee, although the outcome of Brittas' hypnosis and how this impacts the dinner is very different from canon.

* MockingMusic: After Brittas learns that his wife had been cheating on him all along, he tries to distract himself by putting on a radio station to try to distract his thoughts on the way home. Unfortunately for him, the tune which plays is "Our Last Song Together" by Music/NeilSedaka. Even worse, when Brittas takes a closer look, he realises that he had accidentally played the ''Best of Neil Sedaka" tape he had gifted Helen back in "An Inspector Calls", prompting a memory about how Helen had always preferred the sadder tunes about one-night stands and solitaries on the tape, due to the fact that they summed up her hopes and dreams. The result is that it causes him to realise that all that Helen wanted to do was to get away from him, making him struggle to not cry on the way home.

* MockingMusic: After Brittas learns that his wife had been cheating on him all along, he tries to distract himself by putting on a radio station to try to distract his thoughts on the way home. Unfortunately for him, the tune which plays is "Our Last Song Together" by Creator/NeilSedaka. Even worse, when Brittas takes a closer look, he realises that he had accidentally played the ''Best of Neil Sedaka" tape he had gifted Helen back in "An Inspector Calls", prompting a memory about how Helen had always preferred the sadder tunes about one-night stands and solitaries on the tape, due to the fact that they summed up her hopes and dreams. The result is that it causes him to realise that all that Helen wanted to do was to get away from him, making him struggle to not cry on the way home.

''True Love Is Never A Straight Path'' is a ''Series/TheBrittasEmpire'' fic by Tropers/HoloMew151 first released in 2023. This fic begins when Helen, still reeling from the events of "Sex, Lies and Red Tape", once again comes across Michael T. Farrell III at a bar. It's not long before the two begins a romantic relationship, having reprecussions on the relationship between her and Brittas, her friendship with Laura, and the budding romance between Laura and Brittas.

* MeetCute: Helen's canon first meeting with Michael, where he removes the bow from her hair to help her be more difficult to recognise from the police, is recontextualized as this. However, another moment comes when Helen first meets Michael at Parrot's Bar, where she spills wine over herself and Michael helps clean her up.