"For Helen it's like headlights coming up in the dark, hitting her in the face every time she remembers it...she's blocked it so much and buried it so deep that when they bring it back she re-lives it."

- Nicola Walker

Helen comes round slowly to feel gentle hands teasing back her hair from her face. Her head resonates with pain and she cannot open her eyes. It is ok though, she knows these hands. These are hands that she can trust. Something soft and warm presses against her forehead. She groans at the pressure but it's only for a moment. The fingers are back, teasing strands away from the sticky substance that covers her face. Blood, Helen thinks. That's bad. She doesn't remember the blood. That's also bad. They must have knocked her out. The softness of the facecloth presses against her skin again, light touches wiping across her forehead, over her left eye, down her cheekbone. Everything hurts. A trickle of something warm runs down her face and Helen isn't sure if it's water, or a tear, or blood from an opened cut. But it is ok, it will be ok, Julie is taking care of her, like she always does. Helen moves her lips, trying to speak. Her mouth is dry, lips cracked, throat raw, tastes like a bird cage. Her first words are slurred almost into a moan. The hands replace the facecloth again, smoothing over her head.

'Shhhh...'

Helen tries to blink her eyes open and realises that she is lying on her side with one of them pressed into a pillow. What she can see is blurry, something bright, familiar. She blinks again, struggling to focus. A face. Close. It's a good face though, a safe face. And she knows this face.

'Oh Helen.' It's very soft, very sad. Helen doesn't know if she should cry with relief or guilt. She doesn't understand what has happened since last night when this face was disappearing behind a slammed door.

'What... are you doing here?' Her voice is a croak. She pushes her head up to get both eyes working, to see for sure that this is real, not another part of her imagination. Louise sits back on her heels where she is kneeling beside the bed. Helen isn't quite sure what bed, where here is exactly, she doesn't recognise it, but that is not important compared to the fact that Louise is with her here, wherever they are.

'Louise.' She stretches out a hand towards her, fingertips just brushing her face. Louise's eyes close. Helen crumples.

'I'm...I'm sorry.' The tears well up fast. She pulls her hand back to swipe across her face, rub her temple.

'I'm so... sorry.' She holds her hand in front of her mouth, trying to press the sobs inside but her whole body shakes, she has to hold herself together. Her mouth works, trying to form words but she can't breathe, can't make the air come out between the choking in her throat, and she doesn't know what words will make this better, what words can ever be enough to even begin. Louise opens her eyes and the pain in them makes Helen bite her lip, go still and quiet with guilt. She caused that. It is all her fault.

They look at each other. Unable to make a sound come out, Helen mouths the words again.

'I'm sorry.'

Louise sighs and leans forward, arms going around her and Helen is sobbing into her shoulder, clinging to her, feeling Louise shaking with tears herself, and her hands stroking her hair again. Lovely Louise, lovely, kind, patient, open-hearted Louise who she does not deserve.

Eventually, they calm down slightly. Helen lifts her head and pushes Louise's brilliant hair back from her face, thumbs the tears away from her eyes, kisses her to check that this is still real. She is still confused. Her head throbs and she has no idea how she got to where she is.

'I'm sorry,' Louise says and Helen's confusion deepens. That can't be right. She is sorry. She is the one who has done everything wrong, not Louise.

'For locking you out last night,' Louise continues.

'That was... not right. I just...' She looks down and away. Helen flexes her right hand, feeling the memory of banging on the door.

'Louise, Louise please. Just let me in, let me talk to you, please. Louise. Just let me in. Please Louise let me in.' She doesn't remember what else she said, begging through the letter box, before the gathering crowd started to distract and scare her. She blinks and twists her head.

'No, you were... it was... You were upset. I shouldn't have...' Helen's eyes go huge and blank as the things she shouldn't have flicker before her eyes. Louise's hand on her knee brings her back. Helen looks around again; she definitely does not recognise this room.

'How did you...? Where are we?' Louise pushes herself up off the floor and sits on the bed beside her.

'DC Scott phoned me, the blonde one, this morning.' Helen's face is a blank.

'You turned up at her house.' A hot trickle of horror sneaks down Helen's spine.

'It's not...' she says sharply, looking sideways at Louise.

'I mean, I didn't...' She stops.

'I know.' Louise sighs. Then she reads the fearful question in Helen's widening eyes.

'No you didn't do anything inappropriate. If you don't count turning up on her doorstep drunk and refusing to leave as inappropriate.' Helen hangs her head. Louise sounds tired, though resigned rather than angry. When Helen peeks back at her, there is a ghost of a smile about her cheeks. Helen cannot respond but the faintest of faintest of hopes warms her heart.

'They... brought me here?'

'The two of them that turned up at the house, yeah. You remember DC Bailey then?' Helen nods, uncertainly.

'I was drinking.' She presses a hand to her cheek, her mouth. That stickiness that her hair was caught in before, she remembers now, it was vodka, spilt vodka, and vomit.

Two pairs of arms are holding her up, hard under her armpits and round her waist, but she is boneless. Her legs drag, pedalling weakly under her weight against an unsteady floor. Her head lolls.

'Get lost, bitch.' She slurs. 'Bit...bit...chesss.'

'Come on Helen.' A voice like a teacher's, almost in her right ear, and another one sighing in her left. The world tries to heave them all off and the floor comes dangerously close then is gone again. Everything is blurry and, although she can hear, Helen cannot process the sounds she hears around her, voices, scuffling feet, clatters and bumps.

'Remind me to thank you in the morning, Jan, getting me out of bed for this.'

'Speaking of beds, madam.' There is a significant silence that is marred by the clunk of something hitting the floor as the whole world sways again. Helen thinks she should be paying attention, this sounds interesting, if she could only understand where these voices are coming from or what the words mean.

'Ok Helen just try to stay upright, just another minute.'

'What are you on about beds for?'

'I'm on about whose bed you were in when I phoned you. Eh?' The floor changes, becomes harder and slippier beneath their feet. Helen thinks bed sounds nice. She would like to be in bed right now. In fact, bed with either of these two actually sounds good, or both of them. She tries to say so but what comes out is an unrecognisable sort of moan.

'Here we go.' Helen's legs give way and her knees hit something hard. Everything swings around her. Her head seems to sway away from her neck and back again.

'Oh dear. You'll feel better for it.' That's the teacher voice. There is a hand on her back, more hands are pulling her hair back from her face. Helen's entire insides seem to turn inside out and she heaves dryly.

'Come on Helen. You need to get it out your system.' The voice is encouraging and a bit impatient.

'What are we going to do if she won't...?'

'Well... She'll need her stomach pumped, the amount she's drunk, and can you imagine the boss's face, both their faces, if we have to explain that? Because, frankly, personally, I don't want to.'

'What are we gonna do then? I'm not sticking my fingers down her throat.'

The world spins faster and faster, dark and light, voices pushing and pulling nearer and farther away. Helen's knees press hard into the hard floor. There is a hand on her head. Fingers dig sharp into her shoulder. Her father's voice is in her ear.

'Watch. You watch.' The floor is cold. Her knees hurt. She is shaking. The pincers grasp her harder. She opens her mouth and his hand covers it.

'Quiet, you little bitch.' His palm is big enough to cover her whole mouth. Panic swells in her stomach. The edge of his finger rubs against her nostrils. Her head is full of the smell of him, sour and musty. Her stomach churns. Fingers pinch her neck, tug at her hair.

'There.' It's a grunt. 'See. There.' She can't breathe. Her mouth twitches uselessly, tongue swipes at his hand, knees ache, head burns; she can taste him too, dirty; bile rises. Her head flies forward and she vomits hard.

'About time.'

'Shhh, there we go.'

The voices are female again. There is a hand on her back rubbing softly. She is shaking. It it Louise's hand. Helen's eyes are huge as she struggles to sort one thing from another. She swallows hard.

'They... took care of me. The police... detectives.'

There is quiet for a minute. Helen sits staring at her hands in her lap. Louise's hand is still on her back, gentle and caring.

'Helen?' Louise takes one of her hands in her free one. Helen lifts her head.

'Will you... can you just talk to me... about... explain some of it? What they said in the papers?' Helen nods slowly, but finds she doesn't know where to start. Louise is looking at her, hurt and worried.

'I just, I don't understand why you would do... that. I know you've had it bad, really bad.' Louise squeezes her hand.

'But... God...' She blinks hard, looks up at the ceiling then huffs a short, sharp breath of determination.

'Why would you pay some woman for sex when you could... when we...' Louise swallows and looks away, then lets go and shifts away from her.

'Bloody hell.' She looks at back at Helen and Helen feels tears needling at her again.

'You know I... I thought you... I thought... we, loved each other.'

Helen pushes her chin forward and bites her lip. Her stomach is churning again. She doesn't know how to explain this but she is going to have to try and that scares her. But if she doesn't, she will lose Louise for good and that's too much to bear.

'I do,' Helen whispers.

'I do love you.' She clears her throat.

'That's why I went to her. Because... because... sometimes I... want things that... sometimes... there are things that I don't want you to be mixed up with... I'm not a good person, Louise. I'm not nice. And, and sometimes... I need... I do things that aren't good or nice either... I don't know why.' Helen risks a glance at her.

'And you don't deserve that.'

'Like what?' Louise's voice is taught with the effort of holding herself together. Helen flinches.

'What did you need her for that I couldn't give you?'

Helen feels her shame thicken and boil in her belly. She looks down again and her voice drops till it is only just above a whisper.

'I would get her to hurt me.' Louise's head snaps round but Helen pushes on, refusing to look at her until she has finished this.

'Not just mucking about, either. A lot. And, sometimes, I... I would hurt her. If she... really... needed the money, she'd let me do that.'

There is a long silence.

'I never wanted you to know that.' Helen's voice breaks and she covers her face with her hands. This is it, she is sure, this is it all over, her life, her nice safe little life with a little bit of love in it is over. She has waited so long to have something like this, something clean and nice and caring, and now she has ruined it. Of course she has. A dirty, nasty little bitch like her has to ruin everything.

'Where d'you think you're going to go?' It's her voice, her wheezing laugh sour in her face.

'You think someone's going to take you in? Who's going to want you. Nasty little mucky creature you are. D'you hear this? The little bitch thinks she's leaving us.'

And his face is leering at her too, both of them, mouths open with laughter that itches and crawls under her skin. Then the slaps, the punches, the insults, the accusations, the fingers pulling at her clothes, her body, pinching her, twisting her, jeering. She lies still when it is over, exactly as they leave her. Still and quiet.

'Stupid bitch.' Her mother nudges her head with her foot.

'You're good for nothing. Hear me? Nothing.'

Helen gasps harshly when fingers brush hers. The contact burns for a second. Then it is Louise again, this strange bedroom again, safe again. Louise's fingers tangle with hers and she lets them, too grateful that she still wants to touch her to even begin to think what this might mean. Helen stares at their hands, clinging to each other. They don't seem like they belong to the two of them.

'Helen.' Louise chokes and Helen's eyes fly up to search her face. She must hate her. She must. She is a hateful person, she knows that. Even she knows enough to hate herself. Any right thinking person must despise her absolutely.

But Louise's face is melting soft, aching with sorrow, and Louise's arms are pulling her in against her, Louise is pressing her face into her neck and wrapping her up and whispering her name so tenderly, so sad.

'Oh Helen. Oh Helen.'

Helen is numb. Her head is swimming. She can only nod, slowly, wonderingly, when Louise kisses her forehead and says,

'Come on home.'

Title inspired by this quote:

"It probably would be too much to say that he feels the darkness lift at the touch of her fingertips against his lips. But it shivers, and light bleeds in among the cracks."

- Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union.