Disclaimer: Don't own the Bill or it's characters.
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DS John Boulton could hear the muffled voices. He was feeling dazed, his vision was blurred and his head hurt like hell. He couldn't move, he had crap in his mouth. Sand or dirt or something.
Someone was leaning over him, a shadow in the half light.
"Are you alright...can you hear me...?"
It was cold.
He felt a hand on his arm and other voices and shouts in the foreground before there was nothing but darkness.
XXX
DS Claire Stanton opened her eyes. She was still lying in bed she and John had shared an hour or so ago. She sat herself up and looked down to the empty John shaped space beside her. Where was he? Why hadn't she just gone and followed him.
What did Beech want? Why had he called really?
She tried John again...voicemail.
She threw it down and got up and dressed and that's when the phone rang, she stooped and grabbed it off the bedclothes and stuck it to her ear, "John? Erm...Gov? What? WHAT?"
XXX
DS Don Beech was shaking. He had killed him, he had killed him! He had returned home and showered. He shrubbed himself clean and toweled himself dry until his skin was red raw.
He lowered the binds in the bedroom and sat there in the half light. Traffic noise muffled from outside.
He could see John's face...his face as he forced his head down and down smashing it over the concrete.
His hand was over his mouth...it had to be done...he had to be silenced...he knew too much now.
His mobile sung to life on the bedside unit and he grabbed it and saw that it was DCI Meadows.
This was it...this was the call that was going to be the start of it...
He answered, his voice gruff so he coughed to clear it, "Yeah..."
It wasn't what he was expecting, "What? How...I mean...", he swallowed down trying to clear his head and paced about the room, "...is he ermmm...?"
He dropped the phone...John Boulton was alive!
XXX
At the hospital Claire Stanton saw DCI Meadows waiting at the entrance doors as he made further calls.
He looked up at her in mid flow and asked, "Claire? What are you doing here?"
Claire really didn't know what to say. "Ermmm...I was worried about John...is he?"
"He's in emergancy surgery...I've been told it's touch and go...he has sustained severe head injuries..."
Claire pulled her hair back and felt awkward for being there, "has his..."
"I've contacted his next of kin"
She backed off and nodded trying to act normal, "I'll get to work then...the relief must be all shocked"
"Yeah..."
Claire didn't go back. She sat in her car and cried. This was all Beech's doing, it had to be. And he was out there knowing what he had done.
Did Beech mean to KILL John? John's survived so will he try again...
She was out of her depth now...too emotionally involved, she couldn't do this anymore.
XXX
6 WEEKS LATER
Claire Stanton walked through the entrance doors to the hospital and made her way to the recovery suite.
She slowed as she came to the ward she knew he was in and peered through the glass to see John lying in the bed. She pulled her hair back, intook a deep breath and pushed the door and entered.
John's eyes were closed but they soon opened when he was aware that someone was approaching him.
She smiled. She didn't know what else to do. John didn't smile, he justed started at her then overted his eyes downward.
"So...she breathed, long time no see"
John was silent.
"Look...I know I'm probably the last person you want to see but...I wanted to...I NEEDED to see you"
John finally turned, "Why's that? To clear your conscious? Well you've done that...now do one"
Claire swallowed down, "look...I know what you must think of me...but I wasn't lying about us"
"There is NO us"
She lifted her hand, "John..."
"Claire...just go...I don't want you here...and don't bother to come back, because I don't know you...", he gave her eye contact and she really could see the anger in his pupils,"...I don't want to know you"
"John please...I know how you must be thinking..."
"Do you? Do you really? I'd beg to differ on that account! Just GO...there isn't anything else to say and anything else to do...you're dead to me as far as I'm concerned"
Claire put her hand to her mouth, turned on her heel and swept away through the doors. John turned his head and closed his eyes, heartbreak was a painful thing...but he was brought up to just get on with it and move on.