A/N: Set in the aftermath of the helicopter crash but a different subsequent storyline to that on the show. Those that know me won't be surprised to hear that Connie, Jacob and Grace won't feature much (along with numerous others they may get a mention in passing though!) And apologies if reading this chapter affects you in the same way it did me writing it. Nearly 2 years after Jeff's death and I was actually sobbing like a baby writing the reference to it below.

Short chapter by my standards (sorry!) but i was so emotionally drained I decided to split my 1st chapter in 2...

The cup hit the edge of the hearth and shattered. The blonde woman didn't register the noise of either the impact or the scattering of the thousand tiny pieces of china across the slate. Blood was rushing to her head, the pounding sensation like nothing she'd ever felt before. No. She had felt it. Only once. But this time she wasn't scared for her own life. She was scared for somebody else's. There was another sound coming from somewhere. High pitched and blood curdling. She felt her knees start to buckle beneath her and remembered she needed to breathe. The noise stopped and she realised it had been her own screams. She felt arms round her, catching her as she fell. Dixie. She clung to her friend. Shaking hands clutching at the fabric of the woman's t shirt. Desperately trying to hold on.

"Rita…? You're okay... I've got you sweetheart... Talk to me? Please? What's happened?" Her eyes scanned the room frantically for clues and then to whatever Rita had been watching on the TV. Her initial thought as she registered the carnage depicted by the images on the screen was that her friend had been freaked out by some sort of disaster movie. It wasn't making any sense. Slowly though, her brain registered the scrolling bars across the screen. The breaking news headlines. The five letters that had spelled home for so long. It was her turn for the colour to drain from her face.

She continued to hold her friend tightly, felt her rib cage heave as she struggled to get her breath, struggled to get the words out.

"There's a video... Charlie stopped them filming... it was Iain… Oh god Dixie I know it was Iain"

The older woman released her hold momentarily and fumbled to pick up the remote that Rita had also dropped to the floor, fingers shaking as she found the button to rewind back through the footage. She paused having seen the familiar face of the senior nurse appear on the screen. Rita looked up again and they both watched horrified as the story unfolded over Charlie's shoulder. A figure in paramedic green hauling themselves out of the smoking helicopter wreckage and sliding head first down the side of the stricken craft before landing in a crumpled, lifeless heap on the tarmac below. The noise that came from Rita as she saw the clip again literally turned Dixie's stomach. She helped her friend to the floor as her legs fully gave way beneath her, her instinct simply to rock the sobbing younger woman in her arms as she strained to see what happened next. She swore in frustration as Charlie's face blocked out everything behind him and the voice they both knew so well demanded that the owner of the phone ceased filming.

Pausing at the end of the amateur video, Dixie was just about to turn her full attention back to her house guest when something made her stop. The final image that the voyeur's phone had captured as it pointed to the floor. A piece of twisted yellow and black twisted metal that had skidded to rest next to the cameraman's feet, now captured on the frozen screen. Dixie tilted her head to read the plate and felt her vision start to swim. Y377 PWT. She squeezed her eyes shut but it did nothing to block out the images that were invading her thoughts. Y377 PWT. The registration of a vehicle she'd spent more time in than any car she'd ever owned. A vehicle in which she'd experienced more happiness and sadness than most did in an entire lifetime. The vehicle she'd driven alongside her husband for all those years. The one she'd stubbornly returned to the hospital alone the day he didn't come back. The vehicle she'd subsequently occupied in body only as a new partner tried to get through to her, tried to help her cope. Shutting him out. Fighting him. Pushing him away. Not realising what it would come to mean to her that he still came back. That he tried again. Broke down her defences brick by brick. Became her best friend. It was in that vehicle that he taught her she could laugh again. And boy did they laugh. The vehicle that she should have used as a space for conversations he would later also find hard. Helped him not to run scared from a love that he deserved but had no experience of receiving. It was only these last few weeks that she realised how much she'd failed him in that respect. Ignored his chance at happiness in pursuit of her own. And now? What of him now? Was it even too late to make amends? She snapped from her thoughts and inhaled deeply to try and find a strength from somewhere. Rita needed her now too and there was no way this was happening again. No way.

"Right darling" she spoke softly but firmly to the top of the blonde head that was buried in her chest, trying desperately to keep the quiver out of her voice. "We are absolutely no use here. That picnic tea we just made for the beach? Scrap that. We need it for where we're going. Do you think you can get a bag of stuff together?" Rita looked up at her, cheeks streaked with tears, brown eyes filled with fear, pain, confusion and Dixie thought again.

"Oh sweetheart I know..." she bit her lip to stop her own tears from falling, squeezing Rita's hand in an attempt at reassurance. "I know. Come on we'll do it together. Get our bags, get in the car. We'll be there in under three hours. We can call them on the way"