"Talk that talk, well now they all know your name

And there's no coming back from the place that you came

Baby don't do it"

...

It had been 11 years. 11 years since she had first step foot on these wide cobbled streets, albeit then, it had been in the company of her husband, Paul, and his siblings.

She had never imagined the path that she would end up on when she had first sauntered into the Rovers Return, decked out in Gucci and Saint Lauren. The friends she would make, the enemies she would create. The men she would loose and the torture she would endure. The course of lust, love and heartbreak she was heading towards.

All because of this one street.

This street, was the reason she had ended up the way she had. The reason she looked back with so much regret, pain, intrigue. She questions the decisions she had made, where she would be if she had taken a different turn. She'd spent many hours mulling over her colourful past. Reminiscing. She let her mind cast back to the moment she had been most weak. The points she had almost ended it all.

Liam, Frank, Peter & the fire. She could no longer count the number of devastating things that had happened in the past decade, things that she had caused, things that she suffered for. But she could pin point the 4 times her heart had truly broken and whether it had ever healed was something she wasn't sure of.

Liam's death was the first time she felt her heart truly shatter. Sure, Paul's death had been painful, having been with him for so long, that chunk of her life was critical to where she was now. But truthfully, her and Paul had been walking on fire for some time now. They were on the verge of splitting after Carla had uncovered his infidelity and although she adored him, her love for him had already been crumbling. Little did she know that only months after Paul's death the underlying feeling she had for his brother would bubble to the surface, changing everything. She would never regret anything more than telling Liam she didn't love him and walking away from the life they could have had together. Moments later he was dead and she would carry that forever. It was his untimely demise that had sent her spiralling into a deep depression, that she questioned if she had ever come out of.

When she'd called off her wedding to Frank, unable to live with her feelings for Peter whilst Frank tried to create this perfect life for them, she'd felt awful. Only awful became broken.. when he had taken the ultimate revenge, raping her in her own flat, leaving her bruised and battered on her kitchen floor. Her body used and abused. Her control stolen from her in the most cruel way. She questioned to this day how it had happened, how she hadn't fought back. She was quick to fight back at the best of times, no wonder people had questioned her authenticity when the crime had become public knowledge.

Peter's infidelity had shocked her to the core, she remembered the moment he had told her, his words like a punch to her gut, knocking the air out of her lungs. After all they'd been through, the fighting to get where they are, the way he had supported her through her ordeal, and now he was having it off with a girl half her age. It was funny how it can take years to learn trust, and just moments to shatter it. But it wasn't his affair that was the killer, it was the timing. They were newly married when it had began, fresh from the alter, quick literally. Hayley had just died. She was grieving...

And growing their child. Their precious baby girl. Tears still fell to this day as she thought back to to the few precious moments she had experienced as came to terms with the prospect of becoming a mother. Not to be.

Finally, the fire. In the fresh day of light, she now knew she wasn't to blame but for such a long time she had carried the deaths of Kal and Maddie and it had sucked the remaining lust for life out of her. She was held to blame, and life had become pointless. Throwing her money away was a quick thrill and allowed her to suffer for what she had done, almost to the point where she lost her business, her home. She might not have lost them but it left her reckless, sleeping with her fiancés chef, ruining their future.

She had never had it easy. From growing up on a rough council estate with not a penny to her name, drugs being sold from her pram and going to sleep to the sound of her mother, slurring her words from a week long bender.

Even when she had met Paul and fallen for his charm, his mother had always been wary of her and given her a hostile welcome, keeping at her arms length and never failing to remind her she wasn't what she had wanted for 'her Paul'. Even after a 7 years of marriage to him, Helen still saw her asl the girl that had wrapped Paul around her little finger and not his devoted wife. She's virtually been sidelined when Liam died.

But she was okay. She was tougher than most. She had thick skin. She had to. Her tongue was sharp and she had her wits about her. You didn't get to know her or befriend her without perseverance. She looked after herself and did what she needed. Life wasn't perfect but nor was she.

It had its ebs and flows but she rode them without fear.

Until she had moved to Wetherfield. That is when it had changed. That is when she had began to change. Each and every tragic event knocking a peg off her. The walls she had built so high began to waver and crumble. Soon cracks appeared, bits gave way, and the fragile girl that quivered in the shadows of the 'cruella' persona she had become known for began to seep out.

People saw she wasn't as invincible as the tough woman she made out to be.

She'd owned her 'queen bitch' title with ferocity but even that couldn't stay forever.

...

As she had gotten out of her car, a glossy black merc (naturally), parked discretely away from the main street, she paused, wondering why she was back here and why she was doing this to herself. She found herself biting her bottom lip, a habit that had sent many men into a state of lust in the past.

Sure, she had a rather bad track record for torturing herself, be it drinking too much or throwing money away like it was pennies, but surely she had learnt her lesson now? Surely coming back to the place that had wounded her, stabbing her over and over again with one bad thing after another, was a stupid idea? Surely she knew better?

Nope. Didn't seem to. She was back here, 11 years since she had first arrived.

Time to face the music.