If there's somebody up there, could they throw me down a line
Just a little helping hand, just a little understanding
Just some answers to the questions that surround me now

If there's somebody up there, could they throw me down a line
Just a little guiding light to tell wrong from right
Just some answers to the questions that I'm asking you

I keep a vigil in a wilderness of mirrors
Where nothing here is ever what it seems
You stand so close but you never understand it
For all that we see is not all that it seems, am I blind?

The room was dark; a thick gloom seemed to hang in the air, covering every surface as completely as the layers of dust did. The TV screen had a smear through its centre from when he had last felt inclined to watch its meaningless flickering images, but that had been weeks ago now and the dust had quickly gathered again to replace the coating that had been wiped away.

Filling his mouth with the golden liquid from the bottle he winced. He'd never liked the taste of whiskey, or the way it seemed to burn at he back of his throat, but that didn't stopped him drinking it, taking it neat from the bottle as the social niceties of using a glass had long since abandoned him.

The single naked bulb suspended from the middle of the ceiling cast little illumination around the room, and that was just the way he liked it. He sighed as he took another drink from the bottle. How had his life come to this? He was fourty-three years old, and alone. So very alone. Everything he owned was contained within the confines of one small scruffy bedsit that had been his home for a countless number of years. It was a damp, dark and soulless room that reeked of depression and emptiness, just as everything in his life did.

His eyes came to rest on a photograph that was standing on a worn and battered cupboard in the corner of the room. Like everything else the glass of the picture frame was thick with dust, blurring the faces of the people behind until they were almost unrecognisable, but that didn't matter, he knew the image well. He had looked on it countless times over the years and he could recall the happy smiling faces with vivid clarity. The faces of people who he had once loved, people who had once loved him. Before… before it all went wrong… before he lost everything.

Breaking the foil seal of tablets he held in his hand he slipped two, then three, of the innocent white discs into his mouth before washing them away with the whiskey. Looking at the photograph again he repeated the action until the packet fell to the ground, empty.

A single tear traced its way over his cheek, down to his unshaven jaw line and the feel of it surprised him. It had been a long time since he had felt the impulse to cry, since he had felt anything but the empty desolation that had become his life. It was so long since any emotion had touched him that the feel of it stirring in his cold chest was alien and frightening. He had taught himself years ago never to let anyone reach him again. Never to let himself feel or to fall in love, never to risk the pain and heartache that came along with those emotions. The few "relationships" he had fallen into over the years had been nothing to do with feelings but rather a need to satisfy his baser desires for physical pleasures, but even that left him cold in the end.

Leaning back in his chair he looked up at the stained cracked ceiling and sighed. Eyes that had once been considered beautiful, that had once shined the brightest blue were now dull and lifeless, and what little life John Paul McQueen still possessed he was ready, he was desperate, to let go of.

Within a few minutes a second empty packet fell to the cluttered floor around John Paul's feet as the effects of the tablets and whiskey began to make his eyes droop heavily. He could almost feel the escape calling to him, beckoning him to leave behind the mess he had made of his life and embrace an eternity of nothing.

Turning heavy eyes to the picture frame John Paul once again sought out the faces of his family, his mother and sisters. People who had once loved him without question, people who had eventually turned away from him, or was it John Paul who turned away from them? The more time that passed the less he was certain of until all he knew with any kind of clarity was that he had had enough. He had tried at life and he had failed and now, finally, he was ready to see it end.

A small smile tugged at the corners of John Paul's mouth as his memories taunted him with the day that the photograph had been taken. His twentieth birthday party. A day of happiness and celebration and a day exactly two weeks before Myra McQueen disowned her son.

He could still remember the look in her eyes when she found out. The look of anger and disappointment, but most of all the look of sheer disgust. Her beautiful son had let her down in the one way she could never forgive. He had taken from her the one thing she had always treasured, sullied it until it could no longer offer her the comfort she so desperately needed that day. Two weeks after John Paul McQueen's twentieth birthday his relationship with Father Kieron had been exposed and Myra had never been able to forgive him, to forgive either of them.

His mother's last words echoed in John Paul's head as his eyes slipped closed.

"I don't know who you are anymore…"

"I'm still your son…"

"No… My son would never do that… you're no son of mine…"

That was the day that John Paul McQueen lost his family but it was also the day he lost himself. Without them he had no identity, no support and no strength.

Although his sisters, and most especially Jacqui, had tried to heal the rift and reunite the family John Paul had resisted. He had done enough harm and they deserved better. Myra deserved better than a son who would laugh in the face of her beliefs, destroying them under her own roof simply because of a desire that burned inside him. Eventually John Paul stopped answering Jacqui's calls. Eventually Jacqui stopped calling. Eventually John Paul was left alone.

There was a dull thud as the empty whiskey bottle slid from John Paul's relaxed grip and hit the floor. Consciousness was draining from his mind, leaving an empty hollow behind that was void of pain or regret. It was finally over. All the mistakes, all the pain and heartache, all of the wishing for more and being left disappointed, it was all coming to an end.

John Paul couldn't help but wonder if anyone would mourn his passing, if anyone would even notice. Would his absence from the world leave even the smallest impression? As the thick heavy blanket of darkness wrapped itself around John Paul's mind he knew that there was no one left who cared enough to miss him. All the love he had known had long since died and now it was time for the shell of the man to do the same.

The silence was absolute and the blackness was complete.

There was nothing.

He was nothing.

It was over.


And then there was the light.

Just a glimmer at first, a tiny hint of brightness shining far off in the distance but it was unmistakable and John Paul could feel himself being drawn towards it.

Was there some truth in the stories he had heard? Was there really a tunnel of light in death, leading on to salvation? Was there even salvation for someone like him?

As John Paul watched the light grew brighter and began to take shape. A figure formed from the glowing illumination. The figure of an angel, with long golden hair and a soft gentle smile.

"Hannah?"

"Hello John Paul."

Why was it that, in the last seconds of his life, John Paul's mind should conjure up the image of the first person he ever really hurt? The kind gentle girl whose heart he once broke and whose friendship he eventually turned his back on.

In so many ways it was wonderful to see that young girl again, to have the reminder that he had once known how it felt to be a real person. In so many ways it was terrible to see that young girl again, to have the reminder that he had once known how it felt to be a cruel, hurtful person.

"Why you Hannah?" John Paul asked quietly inside his own mind.

"It was your choice John Paul," She told him kindly. "You brought me here…"

"Me? How? I don't understand."

"It's too soon… it's not your time yet."

"I can't carry on like this Han… I won't… it's too hard… I can't live this life anymore."

"So don't... Live a different life…"

"Simple as that… you don't think I haven't tried…"

Hannah stepped forward, her feet seemingly gliding over the insubstantial ground until she was directly in front of him.

"You didn't deserve this John Paul," She said gently, her hand briefly touching his rough, unkempt face.

It was the first time John Paul had been touched with kindness in so long that, even though he knew it wasn't real, it still made him want to weep.

"I need to let go… I'm tired Han… so tired."

"I know." Hannah's smile was warm and gentle. "But it's not your time… John Paul… you've got another chance."

"I can't go back to that life."

"You don't have to… when I say you've got another chance I mean exactly that. You can do it again John Paul… you can choose not to have it end like this."

"I don't know what you mean."

"You're being give the chance to go back… to change things… well to change one thing."

"What thing?"

"That's up to you… but you've got to decide quickly John Paul… when did it start to go wrong? If you could change just one thing what would it be?"

"What if I choose wrong?" John Paul's head was spinning. He knew this couldn't be real, it wasn't possible. And yet he knew that it was. Somehow he just knew that Hannah was speaking the truth and he could change it all, he could save himself a lifetime of pain but only if he changed the right thing.

"You won't… trust me John Paul, you know what to do."

"Will I remember… this life… will I know what happened?"

"For a while you will… but it will fade… and then you'll just have the new life you make… choose well John Paul."

"I'm scared."

"But you know?"

"I know."

And he did. John Paul McQueen knew with absolute certainty, of all the mistakes he made in his life, he knew which one was the start of things. He knew what needed to change and he knew how that change should happen.

John Paul McQueen was only seconds away from death.

John Paul McQueen was only seconds away from re-birth.

John Paul McQueen had been given a second chance.


I get so confused and I don't understand
I know you feel the same way you've always wanted to say
But you don't get the chance
Just a voice in the crowd

I don't know the score anymore
It's not clear anymore
I can't tell right from wrong anymore
I just don't understand

The silence was absolute and the blackness was complete.

John Paul couldn't breathe or think or move. He felt suspended in time, frozen in an eternal moment that was unwilling to allow him the freedom to move on, as if time itself was still deciding whether it should grant him life or death.

Did he have his eyes closed? He wasn't certain. Did things such as eyes exist for him anymore, did HE even exist anymore? Perhaps he was just a memory of a man, a final echo of a life badly lived and soon to be forgotten.

He felt numb, no physical sensation touching any inch of his body as he waited. Waiting to see what came next, waiting to see if there was a next or if this was where he was finally allowed to simply fade away and become the nothing he had felt himself to be for so long.

"Do you love him?"

The voice sounded so clear, as if the speaker was standing in the room with him. John Paul took a deep breath, startled for a moment at the sudden rush of air that filled his lungs, the feeling of the hard counter top pressing into his back and the warm air that touched delicately at his skin.

John Paul's eyes opened slowly, tentatively, afraid to see and terrified not to. He winced as the bright light pierced his pupils, images of the room before him assaulting his brain with long forgotten memories and long abandoned feelings.

And then there was HIM. Standing there, his deep chocolate eyes shining with the tears that covered his cheeks, hope, confusion, fear and love all doing battle deep inside that seductively hypnotic stare.

"Not as much as I love you." The words fell from John Paul's lips with a startling ease, they were the words he had spoken once before, a lifetime ago. Had he spoken them before? Was there a before? Had anything even existed until the moment that Craig Dean had looked at him like that? Could anything ever exist again afterwards?

Craig shuffled slowly forward, fresh tears tumbling over his cheeks as uncertainty battled with desire in his eyes. The warmth of Craig's hands against John Paul's chest, pawing at him gently, urgently, sent tremors racing through his body awakening it from a slumber that had lasted too long. Every atom of his being came to life with a longing he had long since tried to forget.

But this couldn't happen. Not again. He couldn't let it. He wouldn't let it.

"Craig… Craig don't," John Paul breathed, the words burning his mouth as he forced them through his lips.

"I can't stop thinking about you," Craig wept, his face only inches from his friends, the heat of their breaths mingling together as the gap between them closed.

"Craig… Craig…" The name felt so wonderful inside John Paul's mouth again. He gasped softly as Craig's hands touched at his neck and then his face; Craig's deep dark eyes looking at him, needing him.

"I want you."

Their mouths crashed together with an urgency and a longing that had built up over weeks, months or decades. A desperate need that was new and exciting, that was eternal and terrifying.

For so many years John Paul had tried to forget the emotions and sensations that now cascaded throughout his body and soul. He had forced himself to put away the memory of the love he had once shared with that dark haired boy, made himself pretend that what he had once felt was long gone, that it had faded from his heart as the months turned into years and he accepted that he would never get to hold Craig again.

But a single touch of the man's lips was enough to reawaken everything that John Paul had lived his life without. It was enough to reawaken love, the ability to love and the feeling of knowing that someone loved you in return.

Kissing Craig was like being able to see again after too many years standing alone in the dark. John Paul's heart raced with a strong vibrant rhythm that pulsed through his body like the most intoxicating drug ever known.

But that had always been the problem.

Craig Dean was the drug to which John Paul McQueen had become quickly and irreversibly addicted. And like all addictions eventually the addict discovers that the price they have to pay is too high.

"Craig no." John Paul's voice trembled as he gripped Craig's shoulders firmly, pushing the man away from him despite the fact that all he really wanted to do was hold him, to make love to him and to be with him again, like it used to be before everything died.

"John Paul please," Craig's eyes glistened with tears and his voice trembled with emotion. "I know you want me…"

"It's not that simple," John Paul insisted, his fingers digging deeply into Craig's shoulders as he kept the man at arms length, knowing that if he let him any closer, if he gave in to one more kiss, then he wouldn't have the strength to stop things a second time.

"It can be…"

"No Craig… please…" John Paul closed his eyes for a second. He couldn't give in, no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much the touch of Craig, the taste of Craig made him feel alive, he knew where this ended and he couldn't live that life again. "Please don't do this…"

"I thought you loved me…" John Paul wished he hadn't looked up again as the pain in Craig's eye tore at his heart.

"I do love you," John Paul replied honestly. "I have always loved you… I WILL always love you…"

Craig hesitated. Just for a moment John Paul's eyes looked different. Not the bright blue of a seventeen-year-old, but a washed out grey of a much older man, eyes filled with loss and pain and yet, at their very core shone the love that had always lingered there. Craig blinked and John Paul's eyes looked the same as they always had, but the memory of that gaze lingered in Craig's mind, it felt as if John Paul KNEW he would always love him and Craig felt no reason to doubt that belief.

"Then why..?"

"This isn't right Craig… please understand… you're with Sarah, you don't want to do this to her, you don't want to betray her like this. You'll hate yourself for it. You'll hate ME for it."

"I won't… you can't know that…"

"I know Craig," John Paul said with a frightening certainty. "I love you… I WANT to love you… but not now… and not like this…"

Craig stepped back, John Paul's hands slipping from his shoulders as he moved out of reach, his hands covering his face as he turned away.

"I'm sorry," Craig said, his voice muffled through his hands, "I don't know what I was thinking… forget it… please just forget I said anything… forget I came here today…"

"I don't want to forget… Craig look at me... please…"

"I'm sorry, I made a mistake… I'm sorry…"

With a deep breath Craig raced for the door, his trembling hands fumbled with the lock for a moment before it would turn and grant him the escape he so desperately craved.

"Craig don't go," John Paul called but it was already too late. The door swung quietly closed and John Paul was alone once again. "I love you."


John Paul stood looking at his reflection for some time. His hand rested on the softness of his cheek as he stared at the features of the young man he had once been, the young man he somehow was again. He wasn't certain what had happened, or how fate had decided to let him have this second chance but he knew he had to do everything he could to make things right this time.

John Paul's fingers moved lightly over his skin, he had forgotten how smooth it used to be, how brightly his eyes could shine or how alive he could look when he smiled. For so many years John Paul McQueen had been living the life of a dead man but now he was reborn into a world that still held so many possibilities, if only he could make the right choices.

He had been desperately tempted to chase after Craig a couple of hours earlier, but he held back, now wasn't the time to make any rash decisions, he had done that once before and he knew where it led.

Closing his eyes for a second John Paul could clearly picture the look of hurt and rejection on Craig's face. His soft brown eyes filled with tears as John Paul pushed him away.

"Did you choose right?" John Paul whispered to his reflection. He couldn't help but wonder if he had turned away his only chance to be with the man he loved. It was possible that his rejection would stop Craig ever showing his feelings again. With one decision John Paul McQueen might have ruled out holding Craig in his arms forever, he could have permanently lost that opportunity. But if it meant he never lost that friendship, never lost his family or his life then it had to be worth the sacrifice. He knew where the alternative led and he wasn't prepared to go there again, no matter what the cost.

With a sigh John Paul let his gaze wander around the familiar, and yet startlingly unfamiliar, surroundings. The home of his youth seemed filled with vivid colours, welcoming him home with its warmth and promise of comfort. And yet being there felt wrong. It was the home he had left in shame so many years earlier. The memory of that day was burned into his mind but already the finer details were beginning to fade. John Paul wondered how long he would retain the memories of the events that had no longer happened, how long would he still hold onto the regrets of the fourty-three year old man? How soon before the seventeen-year-old boy would be all that he could recall? There was so much he had to do before that happened, so many things he had to say, before he forgot how important his words could be.

And then he saw it.

Somehow it hadn't crossed his mind, he'd been so consumed with thoughts of Craig and of putting things right that nothing else had registered until he saw that one thing.

With trembling hands John Paul picked up the photo, his fingers running lightly over the happy faces that were forever sealed behind the glass.

It was the picture taken at Jacqui's wedding. It was a picture of a happy smiling family. His family.

John Paul's vision blurred as tears filled his eyes, a large teardrop falling onto the face of Myra. A deep ache shook his heart and a pitiful moan fell from his lips. She was around now. Somewhere out there in Hollyoaks village was the living, breathing Myra McQueen. John Paul felt the sobs begin to shake his shoulders.

She wasn't dead and she still loved him. There were so many things John Paul was being given a second chance with and he knew that, whatever else might happen, he was never going to let himself lose his family this time. He would fight with every last breath he had and he wouldn't walk away, no matter what, no matter why.

John Paul never wanted to face another day like the one when he got that letter. He had moved so many times that when it finally caught up with him it was battered and crumpled and the news inside was months old. By the time John Paul got to read his eldest sisters words it was already too late. Myra McQueen had died and been buried, and her son hadn't been there. Myra McQueen had died and her son had never got to say he was sorry.

Six months after her death John Paul had returned to Hollyoaks and stood before his mother's grave. He'd watched, from a distance, as Carmel laid fresh flowers. Even then he had been unable to approach her, unable to face that look in his beautiful sister's eyes, the look he had seen the day he walked away. The look of disappointment.

Reading the words on his mother's headstone, the list of her loving children and seeing his own name in the midst of them had released the tears that he had been holding back since he first heard of her death. Falling to his knees amongst the flowers John Paul had wept, his shoulders shaking violently as he mourned so much more than the loss of his mother.

"John Paul love, what's wrong?"

John Paul jumped at the sound of the voice behind him and the picture frame fell from his hands, the glass cracking as it hit the ground leaving a jagged line near the edge of the picture.

"John Paul, son, what is it?"

A hand pressed against John Paul's shoulder and he turned slowly, tears still rolling over his cheeks as he looked into the face of his mother.

"Tell me… what's wrong," Myra said, her soft eyes filled with concern as she slipped her arm over her son's shoulders, desperate to know what had caused him such distress.

"Mum…" John Paul gasped the word, "I… mum I…"

"What is it?"

"I… it's just I… I've missed you so much." With another sob John Paul fell into his mother's arms, drawing the comfort from her embrace that he had been denied for so long, that he had denied himself for years.

"What are you talking about," Myra asked with an uncertain laugh, "I've only been gone a few hours."

"I'm so sorry mum," John Paul said in a muffled voice. "I'm so sorry for all of it… I never meant to… I didn't think I…" John Paul's voice broke into heavier sobs as Myra pulled him closer.

"John Paul tell me what's happened… what didn't you mean to do? What is it son?" Myra held her son tightly, his body trembling in her embrace as the tears of heartache and joy streamed from his eyes.

Pulling back from his mother's arms John Paul scrubbed at his face, roughly brushing away the tears from his cheeks. For so many years he had regretted never having told her how sorry he was. Even back then he'd never been able to apologise. He had known just how much he had hurt Myra but stubbornness or stupidity had stopped him from saying he was sorry. Maybe if he had been able to find the words she would have been able to forgive.

"It's nothing… I'm being silly," John Paul said turning away. How could he explain that he was sorry for something that hadn't happened, that was never going to happen? How could he tell her that he had lived out a life of lonely regret because he had never found the way to say sorry?

"John Paul?" Myra rested her hand lightly on his shoulder, encouraging him to turn back and face her. As he did Myra caught a glint of something in John Paul's eyes that startled her. There was such an age in them, a maturity and a pain that went far beyond his years and the sight sent chills racing the length of her spine. What had caused such a look in that young man's eyes? And then, as soon as it had appeared, the strange echo was gone, as if it had never been there, causing Myra to wonder if it had been a trick of the light or something in her imagination.

"I just never tell you that I love you enough," John Paul said quietly.

Myra smiled at her son's words. "That doesn't matter," she said, "I know you do."

"But I should tell you… I never find the time to tell you…" John Paul shook his head and sighed. "There are so many things I never bothered to tell people," he said quietly, more to himself than to Myra.

"What's troubling you John Paul?"

"I've gotta go out…"

"Where to… why?"

Wrapping his arms around his mother John Paul hugged her tightly. "Everything's fine mum… really… and I do love you… I really do."

Myra McQueen stood in the centre of the room for a while after her son had left. Something had happened to him, he seemed changed but she couldn't quite figure out how. Shaking her head she stooped to pick up the broken photo frame. The crack in the glass seemed to separate John Paul from the rest of the family. Myra carefully removed the photograph from the damaged frame and placed it on the side, pausing for a moment to smile at the faces of her children before walking into the kitchen to throw the broken glass away.