Ste stormed across the square, crying uncrontrollably.
He looked utterly lost and didn't know where he was going.
Cheryl was stood talking to Rhys, but upon spotting Ste she trotted over.
"Ste, what's wrong love?" she put a hand on his back worried.
"I can't do it Cheryl. It's just going round my head, again and again, I can't think of anything else and it HURTS!" Ste sobbed inconsolably.
Brendan swaggered out of the club and down the stairs, watching Cheryl and Ste out of the corner of his eye.
"What is it love, what can't you get out of your head?" Cheryl tried to console him.
Ste backed away slowly, still sobbing as he pulled a gun out of his pocket.
"Ste what are you... Ste what are you doing?" Cheryl paniced and people started to drift toward the square at the scene before them.
"Cheryl?" Rhys yelled as he started running towards Ste who was currently pointing the gun at Cheryl.
Brendan too began to run towards them.
"Ste, why would you want to shoot me?" Cheryl whispered.
"It's not you I'm trying to shoot." Ste cried harder, raising the gun shakily to his own head.
"Ste no!" Cheryl screamed as a gunshot rang out.
Ste fell, holding the bleeding wound in his stomach.
At the last moment, Brendan had managed to wrestle the gun away from Ste's head, but it had still shot him in the gut.
"Rhys, call an ambulance!" Cheryl shrieked, running to Ste's now spasming body.
"Ste love can you hear me?" Cheryl said, tears in her eyes.
"Steven? Steven!" Brendan said, tapping Ste's cheek a bit.
Suddenly Amy had appeared.
"Ste? Oh my God, STE!" Amy screamed, trying to run towards him but Dodger, who had been stood nearby at the time, grabbed her around the waist.
"They need some space to get the paramedics in, Amy, just keep back a minute. You don't need to see this." Dodger warned.
"Let me go! Let me go!" Amy screamed, clawing at Dodger's hands but he held on, even as his hands got red raw.
Sirens roared up the road and stopped as paramedics jumped out the back.
It began to rain, Ste's blood puddling around him, on Brendan's pants and Cheryl's hands.
The paramedics loaded Ste onto the ambulance and Dodger finally let Amy go as she jumped into the ambulance alongside him, immediately taking his hand.
Dodger, though sometimes immature had agreed to go and look after Leah and Lucas until Michaela could come and take over and Cheryl too climbed into the ambulance.
She looked back at Brendan who didn't board with them.
"What are you doing? Get in!" Cheryl yelled through the downpour.
Brendan shook his head, his eyes on Ste.
Cheryl grabbed his arm and his gaze switched to her.
"Come for me, not him. I can't do this alone Brendan, I have been in a hospital too many times this year and suffered too much bad news in them to go on my own." she begged.
Hesitating only a second, Brendan jumped aboard the ambulance and slammed the doors shut.
It had been a week since Ste had committed suicide and luckily he was recovering fast.
Brendan, usually considered a villain around Hollyoaks had become a hero; he was shot friendly smiles and pats on the back all over the village, and it was driving him MAD.
He mostly tried to stay out of people's way and he discovered that the best place to do this was the hospital.
Most of the people there were busy sitting vigilantly by relatives' bedsides or sitting in a corner feeling guilty that they didn't visit them enough - they didn't have time for some two-second hero who was now respected highly just because he stopped a guy injuring himself badly, despite the fact he had hurt that man even more deeply than any bullet.
He never visited Ste of course, but Cheryl was there a lot and she was constantly trying to convince him to.
She didn't understand.
He hadn't been able to protect her from all the abuse at home, but she hadn't seen the worst of it.
He guessed that was why he had hit Ste - he had constantly seen his father hit his mother for doing something he didn't like - something as little as cooking chicken instead of bacon for tea - and telling her he was hurting her because he loved her, because she needed to learn how to do as he said so he could love her as much as possible.
He'd grown up with the idea that if you loved someone, it was your job to force them to do what you wanted them to so you could love them more.
Every time he'd seen that look on his father's face, the look that started with his father's eyes becoming shrewd and calculating before he saw him start to pick out the things his mother had done wrong, how the cooker had a spot that hadn't been cleaned, how the stew on the stove was near to bubbling over.
As soon as he saw this - and he always did, as he was constantly watching his father, entirely terrified by the menacing Irishman who towered above him - he'd hurry Cheryl out of the room, with promises of playing with dolls and teddy bears picnics.
They'd play in Cheryl's room for hours, pretending.
Cheryl would pretend to be a princess, or a fairy, or a damsel in distress.
And he'd pretend his father wasn't hitting his mother downstairs.
The worst was the sound.
They couldn't block it out no matter what and the sound of punches, kicks, his mothers screams, and, on several occasions the smell of burning flesh, made him sick to the stomach.
However, as they grew older, Brendan found it harder and harder to make up excuses for Cheryl to leave the room.
The most memorable incident was when Cheryl was eleven and he fourteen.
She was busy drawing and refused to leave the room.
"C'mon Chez!" Brendan said desperately, noticing how his father was now squaring up, ready to start bullying his mother. "We'll play anything you like!"
"For heavens sake, Bren, I'm not a kid! I don't want to play dollies or princesses, and I don't know why you want to either.
Suddenly, there was a huge crash as his father smashed his mother up against the wall.
"What are you doing? Let go of her!" Cheryl yelled, dropping her picture and running towards her father.
SMACK!
He smacked the back of his hand across his daughters face and Cheryl flew back.
Brendan now flew at his father - he was sick of it, sick of his mothers beatings, and his little sister getting hurt was the last straw.
However, Brendan too found himself against the wall.
His father put his face close to his, intimidating him much as Brendan did to others now.
"You think you're a big man, do ya? Think you can take me, now? Well, what's changed? 'Coz for fourteen years I've been doin' this to her, and you haven't given a shit! So now, I hit yer little sister and suddenly it's wrong? You're a coward Brendan Brady. And you're no son o' mine." he spat in Brendan's face before leaving his wife and two children slumped against the wall, bruised and bleeding - injured, but not as damaged as they were inside.
The cuts would heal, but the emotional scars would stay, with Brendan at least, forever.
Brendan sat back in the hospital chair, trying to stretch out a little.
God, why were these hospital chairs so damn uncomfortable?
You'd think, in a place where bad news was to be expected, there'd at least be some comfy chairs to cheer them up a bit.
Cheryl left Ste's room.
"How is he?" Brendan said carelessly.
"He asked to see you." Cheryl said. "You don't have to do it. But remember, he's recovering. Be nice."
He tried to walk into Ste's room but she stopped him.
"Bren... he's acting strange today. Jumpy. I don't know if there's something wrong, but... try and find out would you?" Cheryl said.
"And why would he talk to me?" Brendan said sarcastically.
"I am desperate, ok? He tried to kill himself Bren! I don't know what to do!" tears appeared in Cheryl's eyes.
"Hey, hey it's fine! I'll talk to him." Brendan agreed reluctantly.
Brendan entered the room to find Ste bouncing Lucas up and down on his lap.
Unsure of how to talk to him, Brendan just raised a hand in greeting and sat in the extremely uncomfortable chair by Ste's bed.
"Hiya!" Ste grinned, still bouncing Lucas.
Now Brendan was a little worried.
What had happened?
Had Ste lost his memory and gotten it into his head that they were still together?
Did he think Brendan stopping him shooting himself meant he loved him?
Suddenly, Ste held baby Lucas out to him.
"Can I ask you for a favour?" Ste asked cheerfully.
"Sure." Brendan said uncertainly.
"Would you punch Lucas for me? Hard as you can please." Ste asked, still smiling.
"What?" Brendan asked in disbelief.
"Go on! Right in the stomach!" Ste said.
"Are you kidding Steven? Coz that's not funny! That's sick!" Brendan said.
"No, I'm serious. Punch the baby Brendan." Ste said, his eyes boring into Brendan's.
"No!" Brendan yelled, leaping up. "Why would I do that?"
Ste too got up and stood right in Brendan's face, like Brendan had so often did to him.
"Because that's exactly what you used to do to me. You took someone innocent, someone who was weaker than you and you beat them up, because you could! So what's the difference, eh? What's different between beating up me and this baby?" Ste growled.
"Why are you bringing this up Steven?" Brendan gritted through his teeth.
"Because it just keeps going round and round my head and I can't stop it and it's YOUR FAULT! That's why I did it!" Tears began to drip down Ste's face.
"Did what, Steven?" Brendan asked as Ste sat on the bed, putting Lucas down and running his hands through his hair.
"I hit her." Ste whispered.
"Hit who?" Brendan asked emotionlessly.
"Amy." Ste whispered, and then covered his face with his hands, sobbing.
"I swore. Ever since I hit her that time, when she was pregnant, I swore I'd never hurt her again. But I did. And I hate it. Because it means I'm like you." Ste spat throught the tears.
This sentence stung Brendan, not because of what Ste was implying, but because he himself had said it.
Fifteen years old.
Cheryl was taunting him, talking about how he was apparently 'in love with' some girl he barely even knew.
It was just too much.
Before he knew it, his hand was raised and there was a red shaped mark on Cheryl's face.
And her eyes.
They were the terrified eyes he saw her look at their father with.
Cheryl ran to her room crying, and out of the corner of his eyes he saw his father stood in the corner smirking.
Angered by this, he whipped around to stand practically nose to nose with him - his father was huge, but he was extremely tall himself.
"You're learning." his father grinned. "Have to keep 'em in line."
"What I did just then... it was a mistake. I'll never do it again. I hate it. Because it means I'm like you."
"Why? Why did you hit her, Steven?" Brendan asked, in a daze.
"It was that morning... I don't know why, but you were in my head, and I was just so angry at you... About how you hit me and then wouldn't confess to it, and messed with my head, and ruined my life... with Noah, with Rae... and Amy was just talking about how she needed nappies for Lucas and how I wasn't listening and she yelled at me and... I just snapped, I... Oh God..." Ste dissolved into tears again.
"It was because of me?" Brendan was still dazed.
"I'm not blaming you, I just... why Brendan? What did I ever do? What did I do wrong? You started it, always you, you kissed me and then beat me up because you hated yourself! Why did you punish me for something you did? What did I do wrong except love you with all my heart?" Ste was now crying so hard he shook.
"Because that's what I was brought up on. I was shoved aginst walls so many times, hit around the head so much... my father punished me just for being born Steven! He punished me for something he did! Not to be cliche, but how am I supposed to know any better?" Brendan laughed without humour, tears in his own eyes.
"Because that should make you not want to be like him even more! What he put you through should have been so awful that you never wanted anyone to feel pain like that again! You protected Cheryl from it - she told me. So why couldn't you protect me?" Ste sobbed inconsolably.
Brendan, now crying also, sat beside Ste on the bed.
"I will." Brendan sobbed, kissing Ste's forehead on exactly the point where Ste had held the gun to.
Ste looked at Brendan and for once knew he wasn't lieing.