Set near the end of series four. What if Ebony saw Amber and Jay kissing at the Eco Camp? How would it change things in the fight against Ram and will Ebony ever forgive Jay? Read and see :D

Ebony hummed absently to herself as she made her way through the forest picking up bits for dry wood and brush for the fire as she went

Ebony hummed absently to herself as she made her way through the forest picking up bits for dry wood and brush for the fire as she went. As a rule she wasn't much for manual labour; especially when it meant gathering wood for those tree-hugging Eco's. Ebony was not a nature girl, not even a tiny bit, but for once she really didn't mind the chore she was doing.

The Eco Tribe had done more for her in the last couple of hours than she would have ever done for any of them in a lifetime; it was quite humbling. And for once she was in a very good mood. Ebony couldn't remember being this happy for a long, long time. She was finally with Jay, the man of her dreams; who she loved and knew he loved her back.

Ebony smiled happily as she watched a grey squirrel bound across a long tree branch and jump successfully into the next tree. As a city girl she didn't particularly enjoy being in the middle of the forest but all this nature couldn't bother her now. It was necessary of course – the city was no longer a safe place for her or Jay.

It felt strange to her to realize that she wasn't going to be living in the filth of that city anymore; with its constant battles for power and control. Now, she could live free and happy with Jay; they could find somewhere, anywhere, and live their whole lives together. And maybe they would have children; little Ebonys and little Jays running around the place – maybe a cat too, who knew?

Ebony giggled to herself as her imagination ran wild. She frowned slightly as she remembered what they might have to face before any of those dreams could come true. It all came back to Ram - Ram; the leader of the Technos and until very recently Ebony's husband.

She had always wanted Jay. Almost from the very first moment she saw him. Not the very first moment because at that point she'd wanted to strangle him for invading her city. But after that, she'd known that they were meant to be together. Then, as was rather common in Ebony's life, someone had come along and spoiled it all; Ram. Ram, was the leader of Jay's tribe 'The Technos', he was a genius who could do anything he wanted with a computer. He created a scene in virtual reality of her beloved Jay kissing Amber; her worst enemy. She immediately assumed that it was real and finished with Jay; accepting Ram's proposal of marriage for revenge

Ebony sighed in regret at the memory. She sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, deposited her bag of wood beside her and rested for a moment. 'I wasted so much time that I could have spent with Jay because I believed Ram' she thought, scowling in disgust at how she could have ever trusted that creep over Jay. It relieved her to know that she had finally gotten wise to what Ram had done and managed to save what she had with Jay. 'It was the best decision I ever made apologising to Jay,' she thought happily. 'And I'm not one for apologies!'

She twisted a stray braid around in her fingers. She was surprised that after everything her and Jay had been through they were finally at the point where they were free to roam the world together. Ebony found that she didn't usually have much luck with men and was pleasantly surprised that this time, things were going exactly how she wanted them to. Her and Jay had had to flee the city; both running from Ram's incurable wrath. He'd sent many of his Technos after them, and that's how they had ended up here at the Eco Camp.

The only downside that Ebony could see in their current situation was the inescapable bane of her existence; Amber.

Yes, they were safe, warm and well fed while staying with the Ecos but Ebony had to put up with Amber constantly flirting with Jay and it was making her sick. 'She is driving me insane! Trying to fool Jay into thinking she's not a nasty little cow and trying to get her claws into him like she did with Bray.' Ebony thought; clenching her fists in anger.

She scowled irritably as she remembered Amber flashing baby Bray in her face like having Bray's child was some kind of trophy. Ebony really didn't care much now... Bray had chosen Amber and so Ebony had banished them both from the city to get him back. She was over Bray and wasn't especially bothered now that Amber had had Bray's baby. Ebony had Jay and Jay loved her in a way that Bray never had.

Looking at Jay holding Baby Bray in his arms staring down into the child's eyes has stirred up feelings in Ebony that she hadn't thought she'd ever feel. It was a perfect picture, Jay was everything she loved in a man; he was powerful and authoritative but also caring and sweet and kind and just plain wonderful. And he was hers; her man. A feeling of warming happiness swelled inside of her every time she looked at him and seeing him gazing so happily into Baby Bray's little eyes made her want to spend the rest of her life with him; she wanted a family with him.

Here she was, only 18 years old and just looking at Jay holding a child made her want to have children with him right away. She chuckled slightly, fully aware that she was getting ahead of herself. Ebony was a rational girl, well most of the time at least, and knew that having children would certainly have to wait until they found somewhere and got settled down properly; away from Ram. And Amber.

The happy feeling inside of her burst sharply and was replaced with burning anger in its place as she remembered that she still had to get Jay away from the evil blonde tramp. The thing that was really getting to Ebony was the way Amber kept giving Baby Bray to Jay to hold and cosying up to him like Jay was hers and they were a perfect little family. Amber had even turned to her and said gloatingly 'He'd make a wonderful father wouldn't he?' She had wanted to pound Amber's face into the dirt. But unfortunately Jay wouldn't have approved, or even understood. He didn't get why Ebony didn't want him near Amber when they were back in the city and wouldn't understand now. He didn't understand that Amber was a deadly, slimy viper who always wanted to strike at the things Ebony loved the most.

Ebony unclenched her fists and stretched her arms above her head in an effort to release some of the tension that Amber always instilled in her. Sometimes just the mention of that devious little wolf in sheep's clothing's name was enough to cause Ebony's muscles to coil and her fists to clench.

She looked down at the bag of wood that she had collected. 'The Eco's are probably wondering where this has gotten too' she murmured to herself. She grabbed the bag in her hand and pulled herself up off of the tree stump.

'Hmm...' She thought 'Now which way do I go to get back...' She looked around her turning in a full circle trying to remember which way she had come; and saw nothing but tree after tree. 'God damn, this is why I hate nature, everything looks the same' she complained out loud. She searched the floor in an attempt to locate her own footprints and follow them back the way she had come but the forest floor was far too dry for her leather clad feet to have made an impression.

'Grrrr' she growled, 'How could Jay have made me stay here with these tree huggers in the middle of nowhere? And how could he have let me come out here gathering wood all alone?' She knew the answer to both of those questions: Amber. But she was already far too angry at being lost in the stupid forest to begin dwelling on her boyfriends annoying habit of believing Amber was a nice person who he could spend time with without her trying it on.

She stood rooted to the spot, not really knowing what to do with herself. She figured that it was probably best not to try wondering around aimlessly picking any direction; she could end up miles away from camp. She practically jumped out of her skin when there came a deafening rumble of thunder from overheard. It was so loud that Ebony was sure it had made the trees around her vibrate. She looked up at the sky and saw that the clouds had turned a steely grey and in no time at all it began to drizzle with rain all around her.

'Great! That's just great!' she shouted, angrily kicking the tree stump she'd been sat on. She couldn't believe she was stuck in the middle of the forest with a storm coming on. Ebony would never admit it to anyone but she was very frightened of thunder and lightning; she always had been from being a child and she did not fancy being stuck out here in the open once the storm really hit.

'Wait!' she exclaimed, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. She remembered Trudy telling Jay that if he got lost in the woods all he needed to do was follow the river down into the valley and he would find his way back to camp. Of course Trudy hadn't been kind enough to share that information with Ebony before she'd headed out. In fact, Trudy had said to her 'Don't get lost' in a rather smug voice as Ebony had left. Luckily for Ebony Trudy couldn't resist showing off to everyone, Jay included, how well she knew the countryside now that she was no longer a city girl like Ebony.

'Right' now all I have to do is find the river...' Ebony said, squeaking as another clap of thunder boomed above her head. She heaved the bag of wood over her shoulder, making sure that the flap was tightly shut so that the rain didn't get in and ruin the dry wood, and began walking. She wasn't particularly good at navigation but she knew that the river Trudy had mentioned ran through the middle of two sloping hills and so set off in the direction that the ground dipped downwards.

Sure enough after only five minutes of walking the trees began to become less dense and she could see the river down the sloping green grass. As she reached the river she looked up and down it both ways. To her right the river sloped upwards towards the mountains and to her left it travelled gently downwards. She breathed a sigh of relief and wiped some rain off of her face with the back of her hand. She turned left and relaxed, knowing that soon she'd be back in Jay's arms cuddling up warm and dry inside their tent.

She walked at a relatively fast pace. Ebony hated the rain almost as much as she hated thunder and lightning, not because it frightened her but because it was annoying; she was soaking wet and her leather clothes were not meant for these kind of conditions. It wasn't raining particularly hard but the water collecting on leaves in the trees above her was forming big fat droplets which kept falling inconveniently on top of her and dripping down her back making her shiver with cold.

Ebony kind of wished that she'd accepted Amber's offer to borrow one of the Eco's big fur lined coats, but it had been relatively warm when she had set off and she hadn't really wanted to accept anything from Amber anyways. If Ebony was proud of being better than Amber at anything, it was her ability not to rely on others. Amber had always needed people, worn her heart on her sleeve. 'And that's why she's weak' Ebony muttered, bracing herself against the wind as goose bumps erupted all over her body. Only Jay got to see Ebony's heart.

Jay. The one thought that could warm Ebony as she walked through the wind and the rain with only her red cropped bodice on and her thin leather pants. He was everything she would ever need. She smiled a wide, happy smile and decided she would tell him that when she saw him. She was close now; she could hear voices and smell food and burning firewood.

She moved through the remaining trees to get to camp. She began falling back into the role of city Ebony, walking like she owned the place and like she wasn't fazed one bit by the fact that she was freezing her butt off in the rain. Amber had to be reminded who she was dealing with after all.

As she strutted towards camp she began to be able to see snatches of the camp through the leaves.

She stopped and smiled blissfully as she caught a glimpse of white blonde spiky hair through the trees. She'd been planning on taking the wood she'd collected straight to that Hawk guy but the wonderful temptation that was Jay lured her into walking in his direction instead of the direction of Hawks tent.

She could see Jay better now, as she moved closer, pushing leaves out of her way as she went. She could see him talking passionately about something but couldn't see who he was talking to. She stopped and allowed herself several seconds to just... watch him. The man she loved was truly beautiful.

Suddenly he leaned forward out of her line of sight between the leaves. She couldn't help smiling at her own school girl desire to simply look at him from afar. She eased forward slowly, not wanting him to catch her and moved the remaining leaves out of her way.

Her smile dropped away from her face like a plane falling out of the sky. Tears sprang to her eyes as the bag of wood that she'd been carrying slipped from her grip and landed on the soft, wet ground.

There was Jay, her true love, the man she loved more than anything she'd ever known. And he was kissing Amber.

Slowly and tenderly, the way he had kissed Ebony so many times. It was like time had slowed down almost to a standstill... and Ebony stood there... watching him kiss Amber... her Jay, her love... kissing... HER.

Ebony felt her heart breaking inside of her, shattering into a million tiny pieces. As tears rolled down her cheeks faster and faster, she felt her chest tighten and she couldn't breathe. Everything hurt, her whole body hurt with grief; the grief of losing something so precious to something so evil. It was like being on fire; every inch of her skin was burning, burning with the ache of betrayal.

She was unable to drag her eyes from the horror of what she was watching. A sob escaped her without her permission. She couldn't bare this pain any longer but she couldn't move. She was trembling, all over; she couldn't control herself as she brought a shaking hand up to her mouth in an attempt to stifle the sound of the sobs that were now forcing their way out of her, wracking her body.

She closed her eyes, the image of what she had just seen burnt on the inside of her eyelids, as the familiar pain of losing a lover to that witch washed over her once more. Only this time it was much, much worse; she had really loved Jay. Her knees were shaking and gave out from under her. She fell to the floor, defeated, broken at the base of a tree. Tears were burning her eyes, streaming down her face and mingling with the rain. She couldn't quite believe what was happening. She opened her eyes, tears blurring her vision, to see if it was really real.

She gazed across the campsite, her tear-filled green eyes locked with the most beautiful chocolate brown ones she'd ever seen in her life. How she wished she'd never seen those eyes now. The look of absolute horror and guilt on Jay's face as he realised that she'd seen what he'd done made Ebony cry harder.

'Ebony...' she saw him whisper as his eyes filled with tears.