Loss.
The woman.
The nurse was hovering over the latest patient, looking pityingly at the bandage wrapped round the girl's head. Suddenly the girls eyes flicked open, and she looked round at her surroundings with rising panic.
" Who am I?" she shouted. " Where am I? Why's my head hurting me?"
The nightmares were terrible, but the heartache was much worse.
"...you're disgusting..."
" GET OUT!"
" You're miserable, Janet," she says, her face contorted with anger. Please, no, Rachel. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!
" I don't give a monkeys," I say to her, watching the sadness mix with anger and disbelief on her face. I do. I do care about you, Rach. I was just angry, and disappointed you weren't taking a chance with Sean.
NO!
Janet shot up in bed, her sheets soaked in sweat as the memory of Rachel being dragged to her death stayed fixed in her mind. She couldn't cope, the image of her best friend falling to her death, to the last memory of her arguing with Rachel.
" I don't give a monkeys," her mind mocked her, and Janet closed her eyes tighter as tears trickled down her face. Shit.
" Mum?" a hesitant voice said from the doorway.
" Taisie? Hold on, I'll put the light on," Janet fumbled with the bedside lamp, and she blinked at the harshness of the light. She stared dimly at her youngest daughter. " What's up, kid?"
" I couldn't sleep," Taisie replied quietly, tears falling. Janet felt her heart clench with pain when she noted her daughter's stance. She seemed so unsure, so unlike her usual self.
" What's up?" Janet whispered quietly so as not to disturb Elise or her own mother.
Taisie's face glowered at her, more like her usual self. " What do you think? I had a dream, about...," she couldn't say it.
Janet nodded, guessing correctly whom it was Taisie had dreamt of, " About Rachel?"
Taisie winced at the name, her bravado failing, and fresh tears made their way down her cheeks. " Yeah," she whispered brokenly, looking down at her toes. " I -sorry, I just find myself in the house, outside that bedroom, and I open the door, and find myself trying to pull Rachel up that cliff, but my hand's sweaty, and she...she falls," Taisie cried harder, and Janet leapt out of bed, uncaring of who heard them, and wrapped her arms around Taisie's shaking shoulders, pulling her into a shaky embrace, as Janet was finding it hard not to burst out crying herself. " But that's not the worst," Taisie sobbed, pulling away and pinning her mother with a red rimmed stare, " Mum, Rachel was looking at me like she was disappointed I couldn't save her life!"
" Oh, sweetheart," Janet pulled her back into her hug, gripping Taisie hard. The dream Taisie had just described was terrifying in its content, more than her own. " You know Rachel was never disappointed with you."
" How do you know?" Taisie asked, her voice muffled against Janet's chest. " I walked in on her and Kevin that night. I didn't want to get her in trouble. I was just so shocked that's all, what if she hated me?" Taisie cried harder at the thought.
Janet's tears fell in Taisie's hair as she rubbed her daughters back, the same way she'd done it when her daughter had been a baby. " She never hated you," Janet tried to tell her daughter rationally, " she loved you and your sister equally." Taisie's dream and what she described the way Rachel had looked at her, with disappointment and anger made Janet wonder if Rachel was even aware of her presence as she was being dragged to her death. Taisie had no need to worry if Rachel was disappointed no one had tried to save her on the cliff, Janet did.
" I loved her too, mum," Taisie sobbed. " She was the bigger sister me and Elise never had. She was the first adult to truly understand me. She also helped Elise with her self confidence, understanding her as well, and she wasn't even a psychiatrist ." Taisie pulled away, and stared at her mother in the eye. " Do you remember when you first introduced us? I was having problems at school, but Rachel sat me down and listened, actually listened to me. You did too, but you had little luck, but Rachel did. She gave me good advice, and I looked up to her. I loved her. Elise loved her, too."
Janet remembered only too well what Taisie was talking about, and it was one of the reasons why she'd been so jealous of Rachel. Look at her, almost an old age pensioner, two teenager daughters brimming with hormones, and she was living with her mother.
Now Rachel, Rachel was young, bubbly and brimming with life, hiding the abuse Janet now knew she'd suffered behind a mask, and yet when she was with Taisie, she was like a mother or a sister when Janet could sometimes barely relate to her youngest. It was more or less the same with Elise, but Elise wasn't like Taisie, not by a long shot.
" She's right, mum," Elise's voice interrupted them. Janet and Taisie pulled away, but still held on to one another. Both of them looked at Elise. The girl standing in the doorway looked as bad as Janet herself thought she did, her eyes were red rimmed, and her hair was mussed. Wordlessly Janet held out one of her arms, inviting Elise into the embrace. Elise rushed over, and wrapped her arms around Janet and Taisie.
" What did you dream about?" Taisie asked her sister bluntly; Janet smirked. Taisie was so much like Rachel it was terrifying, both dark haired, both acted older than they were, and tougher, blunt to the point. But both girls were smarter than people thought they were, and both were kind and compassionate, though they often tried to hide it.
Elise let out a staggering breath. " I dreamt about us, having a picnic, Rachel was laughing at one of your jokes," she smiled at Taisie, though it vanished quickly " but then we were on a cliff, where that woman, Helen, was pulling Rachel to her death. There was no sign of you or anyone else. I tried to stop her, and pull Rachel away, but we were being dragged down the cliff. Rachel gripped my hand," tears started to fall from the older girl's eyes, but she forced the words out of her mouth in one breath, " and she told me to let her go, to save herself. And then, she fell."
Janet had thought she didn't have any more tears to shed, but she was wrong.
When Dorothy woke up, she went to check on her daughter and granddaughters, and she found all three in Janet's bed.
Gill Murray dressed and headed to work, even though her heart wasn't truly in it. For the last week Gill had thought back on the nightmare that happened, Rachel fighting Helen, gaining the upper hand, only to be pulled down to her death on the rocks and the sea below.
"...you're good. One day, you'll be very good..."
Gill remembered telling Rachel that, when they were in Bristol, dealing with that Leach investigation. She'd taken Rachel because she was one of her best detectives. Rachel had shown promise, and time and again she'd brought in results. Gill wasn't blind, she'd known Rachel looked up to her like a mother figure, which was why Gill had always been so hard on the girl. But after meeting Sharon Bailey, and comparing her to Alison, who'd held the family together when the old bitch had left, was it any surprise? Gill had seen first hand how Alison, usually a kind, motherly type of woman whom Gill both liked and respected, acted around her mother, the contempt had been so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Rachel was like her in many ways; she was just as vulnerable. Hearing about how Rachel had been abused as a kid had only made Gill's sense of guilt even worse, not to mention how her marriage had never worked out the way her DC had hoped.
When Sean had burst into the office, punched Kevin, Gill had leapt into her evil boss routine, and shouted and ranted at Rachel, and later suspended her from work. Gill remembered a few years before, when they'd lost the Steikos case, how she'd threatened to chuck Rachel off MIT, how Janet had told her in confidence that Rachel had lost her baby that same day, so she wasn't feeling well emotionally. Gill had almost rushed over to Rachel's afterwork, but the damage had been done, and besides would Rachel really want her anywhere near her?
Now that guilt was making a comeback. Why the fuck was it so hard for her to look out for her officers?
Gill shook her head. Now Rachel was dead, and she would have to accept that. But could she? Now she'd made the same mistake she'd made when she'd threatened to throw Rachel out, only this time she would never be able to tell Rachel how much she'd meant to her. Hell, she'd even made sure not to invite Rachel to Sammy and Orla's engagement do.
" I'm a bitch," Gill said to herself.
" Ma'am?" One of the officers looked up as DSI Julie Dodson walked in.
" What?" Julie asked, hoping for something distracting. She was due to meet up with the Assistant Chief con, and Julie had been hoping for anything to delay the meeting. Something about Karen Zalinski made Julie, who'd been arresting scum, seen autopsies, and all kinds of horrors that would make the ordinary person white in the face, nervous.
" Got a call from the Royal Oldham," the officer told her. " They've got a woman that needs identification, apparently she was brought in by fishermen from the east coast."
" The east coast, why the hell did they bring her here?" Julie asked; surely they had hospitals in Yorkshire?
" Apparently she's from Manchester, she has a gym card on her."
Julie sighed. " Okay. I'll get round there." She turned to leave, but her officer said, " Ma'am, I thought you and the Assistant Chief con had a meeting."
" We do," Julie stopped by the door. " If she rings, tell her where I am."
" Yes ma'am," the officer replied, thinking no chance will I talk to that frigid bitch.
" DSI Dodson," Julie informed the doctor who was meeting her, holding up her warrant card, then holding her hand out.
The doctor smiled, and gratefully took it. " Dr. Valentine, it's nice to meet you." Inwardly he was surprised the police would send a Detective Superintendent, but he didn't say anything about it.
" What can you tell me about your patient?" Julie cut to the chase.
Valentine shrugged, " Mid 30s, brown hair, brown eyes. The fishermen who brought her in said she was soaked to the skin, fully clothed. They said she was unconscious, and she had a nasty blow to the head."
Julie nodded, " What about this gym card? I was told it was how the fishermen knew she came from Manchester."
" Yes, here it is," Valentine reached into a pocket, and pulled out the gym card. Julie examined it. It was from Manchester alright, unless of course there were other places called Oldham in the country. She checked both sides, but found no name. Just a serial number and a phone number. Then she remembered something. " She's lost her memory?"
" Unless you hear someone ask in a clear Manchester accent going, " Who am I?" with a nasty bump on the head, then you'd think it was a joke. She's got amnesia."
" Okay, let me see her," Julie said, and the doctor took her into the room. Valentine led her over to the bed, and Julie's eyes widened as she took stock of the woman on the bed, a massive bandage round her head. Rachel. Rachel was here, she was alive. " Shit," she murmured.
Valentine looked at her hopefully, " You know her?"
" Know her?" Julie looked at the doctor. " I watched her fall from a cliff. I need to make a call."
Outside the hospital, Julie rang Gill.
" Hiya Slap," Gill said over the phone, though her voice sounded like her heart wasn't in it. Julie knew if she was going to say Rachel was in the hospital then Gill wouldn't believe her.
" Gill. I'm at the Royal Oldham. Get here quick. Bring Janet with you. Now." Julie ordered quickly before putting the phone down before her friend could ask her why. Now all she needed to do was wait. She couldn't thank her lucky stars, in fact none of them could, that Rachel had had her gym card on her when she'd fallen from the cliff. It made sense, Rachel's car had had a bag full of gym wear.
Julie sighed as she thought about Rachel's loss of memory. Would it be easy to get it back?
Finally Gill and Janet arrived. " Okay Julie, what the fuck is it, I was in the middle of a briefing?" Gill asked, none too happy.
" Gill, I know, but-" Julie tried to explain, but they were interrupted by Janet gasping.
" Rachel?!" she called as she watched a white gowned figure leave the hospital, a bandage wrapped round her head. Janet's eyes widened as she took in the girls features, her eyes wide with fear.
Rachel stopped for a moment, but then she started running away. " Rachel," Janet called. " Wait!"
Dr. Valentine staggered out, his hand on his head. Gill snapped out of her disbelief, and ran over to him with Julie. " Doctor, what happened?"
Valentine shook his head, wincing at the pain in his head when he'd made the move. " I was making sure she was okay, then she hit me."
Meanwhile Julie was on the phone. They had to find Rachel, and Julie knew exactly what to say to get things moving.
