Author's Notes:

Story begins from the episode aired on Friday 21st April 2006. It follows an alternative route to the episodes aired on the BBC following that date and is not intentionally similar to storylines which come about after the date above.

The main storyline primarily involves the characters involved in the showdown between Johnny Allen and Phil and Grant Mitchell as they attempt to have justice for Sharon after Dennis' death the previous New Year's Eve. Other plotlines are used as subplot only and may not be brought to a full conclusion. My apologies if you get attached to a side plot; I am only one writer and not the whole team that the soap requires for the job.

Main Characters:

Ruby Allen, Louisa Lynton.

Jake Moon, Joel Beckett.

Grant Mitchell, Ross Kemp.

Johnny Allen, Billy Murray.

Stacey Slater, Lacey Turner.

Tina Stewart, Charlotte Avery.

Bradley Branning, Charlie Clements.

Phil Mitchell, Steve McFadden.

Jane Collins, Laurie Brett.

Dawn Swann, Kara Tointon.

Pat Evans, Pam St Clement.

Charlie Slater, Derek Martin.

Peggy Mitchell, Barbara Windsor.

Summary of Important Previous Events:

Having killed his brother Danny in order to save the Mitchell Brothers from their backfired revenge plot with Johnny Allen; Jake attempts to make amends by taking care of Ruby. He has opened up 'Scarlet' on advice from Johnny's solicitor and despite Ruby having previously told him she wants nothing to do with him, she has just agreed that it may be the best way for them to both put the past behind them and move on. He enlists Grant's help to run the bar and since Ruby is more inclined to trust Grant's advice since their chat at the country pad in Essex, there may be hope for a reconciliation and smooth future yet. Then, is anything that easy in Walford?

Chapter One

The air was cold and musty at number 41 when Jake was abruptly awoken by an alarm clock he didn't remember setting. He managed to venture a hand out from under the covers and slap the alarm off, before closing his eyes and trying to ignore the fact that another day had begun. Outside he could hear the rumble of a delivery van and the honking of what he assumed was Charlie's cab trying to get out from behind it. The Square was far from quiet even at this time in the morning, but in the Moon household the still lonely air filled Jake with hopelessness.

Glancing at the clock he noticed it was still only a little after six. What possessed him to set a wake-up call for that early? Alcohol was of cold comfort to him, but at least it got him to sleep at nights. However the problem with it was that while he was inebriated, he acted without much sense of reason and even less memory of the matter. It may have seemed sensible to catch the early bird at nine or ten last night, but now… If it was Charlie making all the noise, he must be on another airport run, which would have meant an early morning for all at the Slater household.

Finally having opened his eyes, Jake stared up at the cracked ceiling and wondered if Ruby's mornings haunted her with as much ghastly recognition as his own. It didn't take his thoughts long to wander back to the subject of Ruby Allen, Johnny's now estranged seventeen year old daughter. If he was honest with himself; his thoughts barely left her. After what had happened with Danny at the Allen's country pad, Ruby seemed his only hope of redemption and therefore all he consumed himself with.

While he hated the thought of being like Johnny - one of Ruby's more cutting remarks to him, and one that practically drove him to suicide in fact – their was a part of him that almost wished he had Johnny's aptitude to disassociate himself with guilt or remorse. Thoughts of his brother would forever linger in Jake's mind. He couldn't remember a time when Danny wasn't his first thought in times of trouble. He'd always been dragging his brother away from one mess or another ever since they went into care as children. He rarely complained as they were the only family each other had back then. Their parents Bob and Alison had kept it a secret that they had given up the boys to the social services until they were lost in the system. It wasn't until they were out on their own again as teenagers that they managed to track down Alfie who with the help of Nana Moon was trying to raise his baby brother Spencer.

Nana made sure they were taken care of as much as any other family member then; but a loving Grandmother, never notices the trouble young men can cause. Or maybe she chose not to. Either way having someone genuinely care for them couldn't stop years of intuitive fending for yourself. It certainly couldn't alter Danny's odd propensity for getting himself into trouble. Eventually everyone got tired of Danny causing bother and that meant leaving again. There were times when Jake felt more like Danny's luggage than a brother; though oddly it was always Jake that bore the weight. Now there was no one, there was no baggage to carry, no peace to keep… no one to share a drink with or open up to. All that lingered in Jake's life now, were ghosts. Ghosts and Ruby.

Ruby. Would she really move on and accept him running what was basically her club? She obviously didn't like him, but I suppose an income was important. She is still Johnny Allen's daughter after all. She was used to nice things and being treated… well, better than most. He wouldn't go as far to say spoiled, but she'd never had to struggle, had she? If it were begging and taking charity from the Slater's forever or letting Jake pointlessly endeavour to make amends by running Scarlet on her behalf…

Bloody Hell! The delivery. Now he remembered why he'd set the alarm. His first day as manager and he'd forgotten that all the stock was arriving early to allow for him and Grant to make the preparations for Opening Night. He jumped out of bed; fortunately still half dressed in yesterday's jeans and T-shirt and flicked back the net curtain over his window. From the back bedroom window he could just make out the grubby white van parked awkwardly across the street outside Scarlet. He threw on a jacket ran down the stairs and haphazardly pulled on a pair of trainers before racing around the corner to open up the club. As he rounded the corner into Bridge Street he couldn't help but cast a glance across the square to the Slater's. Someone was in the window. He didn't have time to wonder if all the commotion had woken his young boss, as Charlie stepped out of the cab in front of him and gave him a tired looking scowl.

"Not a good start to your first day, is it?" He said looking mighty ticked off.

"Sorry Charlie, I'll have him move out of your way right now. I had no idea it was this busy first thing." Jake began to explain. Charlie shrugged unforgivingly, and gave him very short shrift.

"Well you wouldn't, you haven't been in a fit state to show your face this early lately. I thought you were trying to help Ruby out. Late to open, smelling of drink and look at you. I'm looking out for that girl and you are supposed to be…"

Jake couldn't handle much more of Charlie's sermon; he looked over at the delivery driver who was tapping his watch and rolling down his window.

"Well I'm doing my best and I'll clean up once I get the stock inside. I'm sorry…"

"Yes, well you should be. I'll be talking to Ruby. Maybe she should get someone else in to run the club. Someone she can rely on."

Charlie got back into his cab and waited a few seconds for the van to move around the corner a little, before almost mounting the curb to get passed it and out of the way of Jake and the busy Square. Jake apologised to the van's driver and carried about thirty crates and boxes down into the bar in the space of twenty minutes before signing off an invoice and practically collapsing on one of the plush red couches in the dimly lit club. He'd closed his eyes for all of a minute when he heard footsteps on the stairs and smelt a sweet musky perfume that told him exactly who it was approaching.

"Ruby?" he said before she'd even rounded the corner. This in itself put her on edge as she had been looking straight ahead and knew he hadn't seen her until she saw him. She took a step back as he moved towards her.

"Sorry… my alarm…" He caught himself about to lie and something stirred in his guts and he fell silent.

"I came to see what you are doing for tonight. I don't want the place to be too sleazy looking." She told him pouting a little and gazing at him unapologetically.

Jake slightly resented the fact that she assumed he would make a bad job of the Opening; he was doing this all for her after all. Didn't she realise that she could have asked for caviar and penguin suits and he'd have gone along with her, even if it did seem downright ridiculous given the people attending. Instead of complaining or questioning her about her ideas further, he told her that he'd do whatever she wanted.

"Just give me some notes or a plan of how you want it to look and I'll go and…"

He broke off mid sentence as the way she was looking at him was making him feel decidedly uncomfortable. He'd stopped himself short of thinking she was spoilt earlier, but the look she wore at that moment told him that he was little more that dirt on her shoe. Ruby hadn't been meeting his gaze as he spoke; instead she was looking him over unappreciatively. It then felt rather obvious to Jake that she wasn't going to find it easy to move forward or ever start to forgive him. It had always been Danny that caused him to run away, that or the unforgiving nature of locals with no time for him. He felt the urge to run again now, but he couldn't. He had to stay, for her, even if she didn't want him to.

"And what?" Ruby said after the silence had begun a beat in her ears and the shape of the last words he'd spoken were echoing incoherently in her brain.

"What do you want from me?" Jake blurted out; when his mind had run in so many circles that he'd forgotten what they were even talking about. All he could see were images of her cold stare as they drove back from Essex, or the sight of his brother slobbering all over her when he arrived at her home, before things all went to hell. He wondered for a moment if she had known Danny had tried to grope her, if she thought he would do the same. There were so many things he wanted to ask her. She was the only one who knew what Danny was like at the end. The only one who might understand, or could make Jake's actions seem necessary, given how ill Danny had become - though he may never have got so messed up if Jake hadn't sent him away - whichever way Jake saw it, he was always guilty.

Phil and Grant, they had their own agenda, and they looked at things so differently. They had gone to Essex willing to kill Johnny, Jake wasn't a killer. At least he had never meant to be. He wasn't like any of them, not even Danny in the end, as he'd killed Dennis with no remorse at all; but Ruby saw him worse than the rest. To her, he'd killed his own brother. She didn't know it was Danny holding that knife while Sharon screamed into the New Year. On the second anniversary of her sister and mother's death, Jake had come into her house and murdered the closest family that he had. He was unforgivable.

"I want you to open the club tonight and take what you consider to be a fair wage and put the profits in my bank account. I want you to keep out of my way and run this place decently. I don't want you causing trouble for me and I don't want you coming in here looking like a tramp. Who'd want to drink here and be served by someone looking like that?"

"I'm sorry. " Jake replied simply. "Give me the bank details and I'll make sure your money is paid every week."

Then to add salt to his wounds, Ruby told him to take an extra two hundred from the club account and buy himself a suit if he had nothing of his own that was decent enough for the Opening that night. He'd normally have told someone where to go if they insulted him that obviously, but Ruby had a right to treat him like crap. He'd take as much as she was giving.

"I'll bring in some music later. It's too late to have the night themed, but I want someone on the door to make sure the dress code is kept to."

With that she turned and after a moments pause at the bottom of the stairs she rounded the corner and left. Jake put his head in his hands and fought the urge to open one of the vodka bottles that he'd just carried down stairs. Right then he didn't believe she'd ever stop hating him, let alone begin to forgive.

Ruby trembled as she turned away from Jake. He made her feel uncomfortable whenever he was around. If hearing him talk to his brother about how Danny had groped her in her tranquiliser induced sleep wasn't enough, he'd then gone and beaten the living daylights out of Juley just for saying 'hello' to her. She wouldn't have wanted to spend any time with any of them after the things they had done, but there was something about Jake's eagerness to be around her, which made her stomach tie itself up in knots and her brain seem to clench under the weight of too many thoughts. He claimed he was trying to help, but he'd come to Essex to help Danny too and look what happened when Danny wouldn't be helped.

For a moment Ruby considered apologising to Jake for being so spiteful about his clothes. It was obvious he'd just rushed out of bed, when she saw him run from 41 trying not to trip over his shoe laces. It seemed he was trying to make amends for her situation, but since her father had put him up to it, how could she trust him? When she was consumed with thoughts of how dangerous Jake could be, she thought she would be better off keeping him sweet, but then she saw how desperate he was to please her and it seemed crazy to think he'd actually hurt her. He'd been so angry at Danny for what he'd done. When he took that gun from his brother, she knew something horrible was going to happen. She'd just thought that with Danny the way he was, it was better that Jake had it. Now she saw how they would all have been better off if the guns were in the lake!

She thought of asking Jake why he was doing this. What Johnny was doing for him in return. Her father had convinced many people to do his bidding, either with money or unspeakable threats. She'd seen what her father was capable of when he pointed a gun at the Mitchells in the club last year. She wanted to ask Jake what threat he was under, that could turn him into such a mess. Though she doubted he'd tell her the truth. With a deep sigh she ascended the stairs and headed for somewhere safer.
Grant almost knocked her over as he turned to go into the club. He smiled cheerfully at her and was whistling for some reason. In the corner of her eye she saw Jane watching them across the street. As much as Ruby appreciated that most people were looking out for her after her Dad had been locked up, she couldn't help but wonder what they were thinking of her.

"Don't forget to lock up, Ruby." Grant said as she began to walk away stiffly. She shrugged as though he was speaking bad English and she'd missed the point. "Scarlet's is your responsibility now; don't want to get the place smashed up on the first night…"

"Jake is in there." She replied coldly.

"Oh! You not staying to plan things for tonight? Is Jake alright down there? I saw the delivery; well I guess half the square heard it!" Grant said trying to be amicable and read her face for how her time alone with Jake had gone.

"I told him I'd drop in some music later and to make sure the place isn't seedy and full of tramps." Ruby said flatly, still watching how Jane peered across at them from the café window, obviously pretending to clean the breakfast bar. Grant chuckled.

"Well I know Walford isn't quite the West End, but I'm sure Jake is doing his best." Ruby shrugged and the short sharp intake of breath through her nose told Grant that things hadn't gone well at all.

"Yeah, maybe he is doing his best. I just want to know why. What's my Dad up to?"

"Jake never saw your Dad, he got asked in to see Johnny's solicitor. He said that Johnny had put everything in your name and that he'd been recommended to run the place, but it was up to you. Your Dad is going to be away for a long time Ruby, if not the rest of his life. He wants you to have opportunities like any father."

"I'm not interested in him. I told you before, Johnny Allen is nothing to me; I hate him. Though I guess I'd be foolish not to take up opportunities like Scarlet and well… Jake can stay for now, but if he does anything…"

"What do you think he's going to do to you, Ruby?" Grant asked rather exasperated by her attitude. "He's just looking out for you, since your Dad's… away."

"Why though? I don't trust him. He's always following me and asking me if I'm okay. I just want him to leave me alone."

Grant reached to touch Ruby's shoulder in what he hoped would appear to be a sympathetic gesture, but she pulled away so quickly it were as if he'd threatened her with a knife. Another thought which conjured up painful images involving Jake. Even in her own mind she couldn't get away from him. She trembled a little with raw feelings, shook her head at Grant's concerned expression and walked away towards Stacey who was hurrying to open up the stall before she missed out on any sales or got a lecture from Mo.

Grant sucked in his bottom lip and sighed with frustration once again. He knew exactly why Jake was trying to take care of Ruby, but it wasn't for him to start passing on information, especially since Ruby had been only too happy to hand over her own father to the law. He had Courtney to think about and Phil had Ben, neither of them wanted anything to jeopardise that, even if it might give Jake Moon a more peaceful life. Grant owed Jake his life, but spending it in gaol, wasn't part of how he saw his future.

Jake didn't particularly have good morale at the best of times, he could put on a cheerful front, but inside he felt alone and dishevelled. Danny had never really allowed him the freedom to be happy-go-lucky and carefree; they had their moments, but it was never long enough between disasters to really find himself enjoying life. He thought that he would for a little while when he got it together with Chrissie, but a fine mess that had turned into as well. Recently the outer appearance was a lot more similar to what was inside, and when people – okay Ruby – took such a disliking to that, it was hard for him to see any point in repairing or disguising what was on the inside either. He heard voices upstairs and strained to hear what was being said. When he did pick out a few words and more to the point who the conversation was between, he soon wished he hadn't.

"I don't trust him… I just want him to leave me alone!"

The words rang in Jake's ears like his own gunshot into his brother's back. He hadn't meant to kill him; he couldn't even get that right. It always looked easy on TV when people disarmed a gunman by shooting them in the shoulder and making them drop the weapon. They always made it to hospital or an interrogation room. Danny just fell to the ground dead; a look of shock on his face and a cold lifeless stare.

"Jake!" Grant said shaking him by the shoulder. He'd obviously been talking to him for a few moments already, but Jake hadn't even noticed that he was no longer alone in the club. The only voice louder than his conscience lately was – yes you guessed it – Ruby's.

"Ruby was making a point with that tramp comment then? Did you even sleep last night?" Grant asked with a quizzical expression on his face. Jake shrugged and set about putting away crates of lager bottles and alcopops.

He lost himself in work for most of the morning and when Ruby arrived to give them the music for the sound system in the office, he left her to talk to Grant – something she obviously felt more comfortable with – and set off home to clean himself up as she'd requested. He didn't take any money from the petty cash, but used what was left over from his last pay packet at the Bookies to buy a new dark blue suit and complimentary shirt and tie which the sales woman had said 'nicely brought out the colour of his eyes.' Well maybe that would win a point or two with Ruby anyway. There was little else he felt he could do to impress her.

Opening Night had been going pretty well; Jake had spent most of the evening behind the bar, while Grant kept an eye on the dodgier clientele and Ruby glamorously mingled. On a couple of occasions Jake thought he saw Ruby drinking more than fruit punch and in addition to worrying about her; he also grew quite concerned that as she was just less than six month's shy of eighteen, even her position as club owner wouldn't stop them having the licence taken away if the law were tipped off. Stacey had made some comment within earshot which he hoped might improve Ruby's attitude, but as usual Ruby wasn't cutting him the least bit of slack.

"Well at least he made an effort… You might not like him Rubes, but at least he does as he's told." Stacey laughed with a sly glance at Jake as he pulled up a few more bottles for Deano and Gary. Ruby met Jake's eyes with a venomous glare and downed what Jake now assumed was orange juice with a large quantity of vodka.

"Yeah, but who's telling him?" She said coldly before adding another barbed remark for his consumption. "Gangsters always do look good in sharp suits, don't they?" She giggled at her best friend, and moved behind the bar to take a couple of bottles of some over sweetened alcopops. Then a smash silenced the club for a moment before they were treated to the predictable 'sack the juggler' retorts from the Square's 'funny-men' and it all got forgotten for the next cheesy chat-up line.

Jake had reached to take the bottles away from Ruby, finally seeing that however uncomfortable it was, he had to be professional where the drinking laws were concerned. She flinched at his touch and one of the bottles fell to the floor, before she scathingly told him in tones similar to how her father would reprimand people, to go to the office. He sighed heavily wishing he'd let her take the bottles and asked Grant to deal with it later.

"Well, go on." She said coldly, beckoning Grant over to work the bar. Jake bit his lip and turned away from Stacey's mocking smirk and walked out to the office. Ruby was there a few minutes later and he took a deep breath ready to speak and realised he'd forgotten what he'd just formulated to be the right response to her summons.

"Look, Jake I'm the boss now, you wanted me to do this and…"

"You may be the boss Ruby, but you are still under age and I can't let you drink like that."

"You can't let me drink, but your brother wasn't meant to drug me with sleeping pills either was he? I figured that at least this time I can decide how 'out of it' I want to be."

Well I guess that answered one of Jake's questions; Ruby did know how Danny had drugged her to keep her out of the way while her father tried to kill people in the garden. What's more if she knew that then she also knew that Danny had been groping her in her sleep; as these revelations had both been revealed in what would turn out to be his last argument with his brother. He suddenly felt like he'd been justified in shooting his brother. How had he got so messed up that behaviour like that was okay? Ruby would be eighteen in a few months, but Jake knew that Danny saw himself as her brother while Johnny was playing a father figure to him. How had his own brother got so lost that he had no morals left at all? Suddenly Jake was filled with hatred for Johnny Allen and in that moment he knew exactly why Ruby was so angry and bitter.

"Drinking won't help get rid of the memories, Ruby. Believe me, I've tried it." Jake said compassionately.

Ruby had expected Jake to get angry with her. Part of her wanted to push him to the extreme and see how far he was willing to go, or how much he had to put up with because of her father's threats. She had never expected him to sympathise with her.

"Maybe I'm not trying to hide from memories, Jake. Maybe I just want to see if you are like your brother, if you just hurt people and take advantage of women, like he did."

Jake knew the 'he' she was referring to was her father not Danny. His skin crawled at the quick associations she was making and he wanted to tell her he was nothing like Johnny, but he still remembered how unsuccessful that was last time he tried it. Be it through drinking, hard work or biting his tongue when he'd usually want to punch someone who treated him like dirt; he'd do anything rather than give into that darkness again. After Grant tried to run him down in his Land Rover, he knew that suicide wasn't a road he wanted to go down, although Ruby was making running away seem better and better by the minute.

"I'd never hurt you, Ruby. What Danny did to you was disgusting and I'll never forgive him for it. I know we had a rough upbringing, but I thought I'd taught him to treat women with decency and I thought…"

"It's okay Jake, I'm sure he'll never forgive you for killing him either!"

Ruby thought that her comment was just another shove towards making Jake tell her the truth about why he was hanging around and trying to be nice to her. She thought eventually he'd try and threaten her or even better own up to what Johnny had over him. She didn't anticipate him looking as though he was going to cry and walking out of there without uttering a sound.
As the door softly fell shut behind Jake; for the second time that day, Ruby felt that she had gone too far. Jake had done nothing to hurt her, he got angry when he was clearly very drunk and upset that she wouldn't accept his kindness. She had been torturing him with his own guilt for weeks and in return he'd done everything he could to protect her. He took her away from all the terrible events of that day. He gave her his own money in order to take some of the stress away from her having no income while living with the already stretched Slaters. He took her home when under all the stress she'd started sleepwalking again and wandered across the square in her pyjamas. He hadn't even tackled her or run away when she waved a knife in his face. It had been her making the threats, her holding the knife and taunting him. She thought Jake was like her father, but in reality it was her that had become more like Johnny.

Grant asked her what had happened with Jake as they were closing the club a little after two in the morning. Stacey had agreed to wait outside with Bradley, and Ruby knew that she'd been third wheel for most of the night and made excuses to help Grant in order to give them some time alone. Now though she thought being gooseberry would have been preferable to Grant's awkward questions. She admitted to drinking too much and taking it out on Jake when he told her off. She told Grant she'd made some hurtful comments and that she intended to apologise.

"What did you say to him, I didn't see him again after you took him off into the office to… tell him off?" Grant asked, while he counted up the night's takings muttering figures every now and then and jotting things down in the book of takings.

"I said some things about his brother. Unforgivable things… even considering what he did, I shouldn't have said that." Ruby had been mulling over how much like her father she was becoming, now that she'd been left on her own. She knew that she hadn't liked what she'd turned into in the office with Jake. She'd scared herself.

"So what exactly do you think Jake did?" Grant asked, treading carefully so as not to put himself in the firing line once more.

"He shot Danny. I saw him take the gun, I heard the gun shots from the house and he didn't deny it when he drove me back to Stacey's. That's why he has been so screwed up. He murdered his own brother."

"What if I were to tell you that it was… self-defence?" Grant asked awkwardly skirting the truth. Ruby looked confused, but as though she were addressing new questions for the first time in almost a month of anger and grief.

"I saw Danny smack Jake with a baseball bat, but he wouldn't have killed him." Ruby reasoned without a lot of self-belief, which Grant was very quick to pick up on.

"Are you sure about that? Danny was really gone in the head, you must have been aware of that, Ruby. You were living with the guy after all." Grant explained.

Ruby fell silent. Too much of what Grant was saying rang true to her and conflicted with the facts she'd assured herself of. Not for the first time in recent weeks, she wished her mother or sister were still alive. They would have given her some solid advice. Thoughts like these usually spun her off on another reel of anger towards Jake; mainly from the lost sibling association alone, and not because she blamed Jake for everything bad in her life. Now though she saw how Jake may have understood what she was going through more than she'd previously thought. If this didn't shake the foundations of her mind enough, what Grant was about to say would certainly cause the fault lines to crack.

"It was Danny who killed Dennis last year. Your father took the blame, but then he was to blame. Danny should have been in some institution, his mind the way it was. Your Dad used him, first to take out Dennis and leave Sharon to look forward to raising her longed for child alone and then to play games with me and Phil. You know Danny was about to kill me, don't you? He had a gun at my head and was ready to kill me and my brother. Jake did what he had to."

Ruby couldn't speak, her head was reeling from all these new suggestions and the feelings they were causing her to be swallowed up by. After asking if she was okay and receiving a faint smile and a bewildered look, Grant went to the office to put the takings in the safe and Ruby went outside to interrupt Stacey and Bradley making out. She needed to go to bed, lock the door and go to bed; even if she doubted whether she'd get any real rest until she found out what had really happened in Essex. However the cold air meant that fate had a different plan. While Stacey and Bradley tore themselves apart, all the alcohol Ruby had consumed caught up with her and she made the assessment that rushing to the club toilets would be a better idea than jostling for the bathroom at the Slater's when she was really desperate. She told the lovebirds to go on ahead, that Grant was inside and he could walk her back across the square if necessary.
Ruby wasn't aware of how much time had passed while she sat in the toilets and pondered why Danny was dead. She hadn't known that Jake was defending the Mitchells, because she'd seen the Moon brothers fighting only a few minutes before, she'd assumed Jake was like the rest of them. Now fearing she might have been wrong all the time, she didn't know how she was going to face Jake again. Eventually she realised that sleep would be the best way to help her make a rational choice on how to deal with the situation and she finally left the ladies toilets. Unfortunately when Grant had seen that Stacey was no longer outside, he locked up and went back over to the Vic for a much needed rest, leaving Ruby stuck inside the club for the night.

As she left the public toilets at Scarlet she heard a noise and quickly called out to see if it was Grant. When she received no reply, she rushed to the office for help or to check the security tape herself for what might have caused the clattering noise. When she found the office empty and discovered that most of the lights had been turned off she panicked. The noise seemed to be coming from the toilets behind the bar, so she quietly made her way up the stairs to leave and call Grant to deal with it. It was then that she discovered the door was locked and with no keys of her own, she realised she was trapped.

After ten minutes of rooting through her bag for a mobile she realised she'd left it at home, as was always the case when you actually needed the things, and began to sneak down towards the office to call Grant or even Jake if she had to. It was then that she heard the loud smash of a bottle and what sounded like someone falling over in the men's toilets. Perhaps it was just a drunk, maybe even Gary or Deano; they had been putting it away some during the night. She didn't have to be afraid of them. She called the Vic and got no reply after a few rings and decided to try Jake. It might be awkward, but she knew he'd help her and it meant that she didn't wake the entire Mitchell clan by constantly dialling their number for ages. She planned what to say, but it was irrelevant when there was no answer at 41 either. She called Grant's mobile, it was engaged, and then she tried Jake's and plucked up the courage to leave a message when it wasn't answered.

"Jake, it's Ruby. I'm sorry I was angry with you… I'm locked in the club. Can you come and let me out, please? I think I heard something and… I shouldn't have talked to you so harshly before… I just don't know how to deal with everything. Please come over if you get this… Jake… I'm scared. Please help me."

Jake had been drinking ever since Ruby had verbally abused him for stopping her doing the same thing, along with every other sin he'd ever committed. He'd gone to be on his own, but some sense of responsibility had stopped him leaving the club altogether and running away like he wanted to. Instead he sat in the toilets while Grant locked up and drank a litre of vodka to try and silence his guilty conscience. It didn't work and by the time he'd drained the last drop at what may have been somewhere around two, he flung the empty bottle at the wall and collapsed in the disabled cubicle loudly knocking the door closed before passing out unconscious.

Picking up a bottle from behind the bar, Ruby walked towards the toilets hoping it was just Deano and that her biggest trauma would be living with his jokes over the next few days about how she'd faced up to him with a grim-face and a litre bottle of gin. Adrenaline was rushing through her blood stream as she prepared to hit any intruder with the heavy bottle.

"Who is it? Deano, Gary, if that's you come out of there. It's time to go home and throw up in your own toilets."

There was no reply so Ruby pushed the door open and tried to find a light switch. Not being familiar with the workings of the club yet, particularly the gents' toilets, she didn't know the light switch was in the hall outside the toilets themselves. She slowly walked along the row of cubicles, her heart beating madly in her chest.
"Please whoever you are, it's time to come out of there and go home. I'm going to have to call the police if you don't!"

She tried to sound threatening, but her voice trembled and she felt herself prickling with goosebumps. She held on tighter to the bottle and fearing for her life, she pushed open the second to last cubicle door. This time she was too consumed with panicked thoughts to say anything, she was walking further and further into the darkness and nightmare images of what may be about to happen swamped her thoughts. Faintly she heard a beeping noise and a tiny voice which felt like her conscience whispering suggestions or concerns around her petrified mind. Fear roared in her ears like the sound of the tide coming in and she suddenly woke herself from her terrifying reverie by yelling at the intruder.

Jake who had come round hearing the cubicle door clatter on its loose hinges beside him, blinked to try and figure out where the hell he was. Surrounded in bits of broken glass and feeling sick and like he'd been kicked in the head, he felt for something familiar. Realising he was in the toilet at Scarlet he tried to get up and dropped his mobile on the floor. It was then that he noticed the message on his phone that said he'd missed Ruby's call. He fumbled at the buttons and pressed the wrong code causing it to beep a few times before he heard her frightened voice. He could barely stand as he struggled to get up and find her. His mind was too fogged with alcohol to realise that he was the intruder she was scared of. All he could think of was protecting her and in the back of his mind was the pleasure that she had finally trusted him. He staggered out of the cubicle and heard Ruby yelling about police at the top of her voice, and then everything went black for a very long time.