The Secret.
Ooh thankyou for your reviews! Here's the 2nd & last bit, a muddled sort of twizzly finale. Let me know what you think! XX Sarah
Jonny is beginning to feel as if he's wasting his time. The rage he'd felt when he commandeered Jac's bike and started to comb the streets at speed is starting to dissolve into something more rational as time passes and he remains unsuccessful. His arms are starting to ache and his feet are going numb, and he'd forgotten how sodding freezing the bike would be in this weather. His earlier aggression may have led to a few road laws being broken, too, and he's starting to dread Jac's reaction when a speeding ticket lands on her doorstep. Now he doesn't even know where he is, and he's about to just turn around and head back to somewhere he recognises when he spots the hazard lights up ahead, and the familiar vehicle that's responsible. He touches on the accelerator as he approaches, his heart suddenly in his throat. The scene appears deserted, save for a Community Support Officer who's standing by the car shivering and frantically smoking. She would go into an early labour on her own beside a remote A road. She just would.
"What's happened?" He shouts the words as he pulls up, wrenches off the helmet and runs towards the man. "Where is she?" The young man frowns, he's devoid of Jonny's urgency.
"You shouldn't wear jeans on a bike like that, mate." Jonny glares at him.
"Where's the woman who was with this car?" He speaks slowly and loudly. "Is she having the baby?" The young man looks confused again, and now Jonny's hoping that she is in labour because his mind is starting to conjure up all sorts of awful alternatives from kidnapping to getting herself arrested.
"Well I guess so, yeah. Probably not today though. Bump's not dropped yet, you see," He starts to mime this out to Jonny, still clutching his fag and holding his hands out to demonstrate his expert knowledge on the matter, which is based solely on the recent arrival of his niece. Jonny cuts him off with a face like thunder.
"Where the hell is she?!"
"Okay mate!" He holds his hands up in defence now. "She slipped on the grass as we were passing. She's hurt her arm." He shrugs. "Paul's taken her to Casualty, and left me on this bleeding roadside." It's all Jonny needs and he darts back to the bike, missing Dave's face light up as an AA van pulls up behind them.
ooooo
"Sacha!" He tries to dart away out of view as his F1 shouts for him across the busy ward, but he's always been hopeless at being inconspicuous.
"2 minutes Gemma, I'm busy."
"Well, you're going to have to be un-busy." She looks hassled and he relents, holding out his hand for the set of notes she chucks to him. "Anterior shoulder dislocation sent up from the ED. She's refusing pain medication and generally living up to her reputation. I am so not getting paid enough to deal with that." She holds her hands up in the air and Sacha sighs as he reads the name on the file.
"Jac." He abandons his current task to Gemma and heads to the side room. She looks up accusingly as he enters, but her face softens a little when she sees it's him. She's shaking, writhing in pain on the bed, and she looks so forlorn there on her own it melts his heart. "What happened?" He starts gently, perching beside her and examining the injury, concerned by the blueish hue to her fingers.
"I fell over." She snaps, and he frowns in confusion as he notices her muddy attire. She cries out with a fresh wave of agony as he touches her shoulder, shrinking down further onto the bed and giving him the urge to scold her.
"For god's sake, why didn't you let the ED give you any analgesics?"
"Why do you think?" She breathes in a wobbly voice, her good hand on her bump, eyes squeezed shut against the pain now and face drained of colour. "I can handle it."
"No you can't. The muscles are in spasm, I can't attempt a reduction unless I sedate you. Soon. Because the way those fingers look we'll be talking surgery before too long. I take it you haven't had an x-ray?" She shakes her head and he puts his hands on his hips.
"Please Sacha." Her voice is small, begging, and it dawns on him that she's manipulated her way upstairs and onto this ward to be treated by somebody she trusts. He reaches out instinctively to stroke her hair, because she looks so small and vulnerable when there's fear in her eyes.
"Alright." He replies gently. "But I'm giving you a low dose of Ketamine first. No arguments." Then, "It'll be fine, okay?" When she looks conflicted at the idea. He calls out onto the ward for Gemma, and the F1 returns tentatively with the drug, eyeing the ferocious patient who, thankfully, seems to have relaxed in Sacha's presence.
"How're you feeling?" She tries innocently, receiving only a glare in return. Sacha administers the injection and Jac barely reacts, then slowly relaxes and lets him take her arm whilst the F1 moves to her other side, handing her an oxygen mask and instinctively taking her hand. She regrets that move as soon as Sacha starts to manipulate the limb under the minimal anaesthetic, and Jac is bone crushing to the point where it's Gemma who squeaks in pain with the movements. Both women screech as there's a satisfying crack and Sacha looks pleased with himself. Jac flops back down against the bed, breathless from the shock and still shaking a little.
"Right, half hourly obs please Dr Wilde. And page me if these don't pink up again in the next ten minutes." Sacha indicates her fingers as he places the arm gently into a sling.
"I can do that." Jac replies softly, mortified all over again now that the panic's gone. She swats the F1 away as the girl starts to prod her blueish fingers.
"You," Sacha scorns, "will be sparko in three."
"Don't be ridiculous." Jac murmurs, already sinking back into the pillows and letting her eyelids droop.
ooooo
Jonny storms up to the desk on AAU, already fuming again, fuelled by a security guard who'd told him not to run in the hospital. He'd had to wait nearly half an hour in the ED before somebody worked out she'd been transferred up here. Now he knows where she is and the scene at the desk baffles him; Sacha and Gemma are giggling amiably over something as the girl proffers her hand out to her boss and he pats it mockingly. If Jac's been admitted he doesn't understand what they could possibly be finding so funny.
"Jonny!" She spots him first. "We were just talking about you." She has the audacity to be smirking.
"Where is she?" He barks, and Sacha comes out from behind the desk with sympathetic eyes, recognising panic when he sees it.
"She's fine. Absolutely fine, I treated her myself. She dislocated her shoulder and I'll dare say she's bruised her ego a bit too."
"Where is she?" He repeats his earlier question more calmly.
"In the side room." Jonny frowns, because that doesn't sound like 'fine'.
"Don't worry," Gemma pipes up again as she spots his concern, "She fell asleep and Dr Levy here is a soppy git who can't bear to wake her up, even though we need the bed." Sacha confirms this with a nod and a shrug. "By the way," she continues as he heads off to find her, "she tried to crush me during the reduction." Gemma shows him a bruised wrist. "When the big day comes, you give that woman an epidural if you want to live." She winks at him and he smiles, lightened by the mood.
Jonny creeps into the side room and places the helmet on a chair. Sacha's right, she's in a deep slumber and she looks adorable. She's easy to love when she's asleep. He takes a seat on the side of the bed and strokes her hair, making her stir a little.
"I'm sorry." It's a soft whisper from the bed, and he barely hears it.
"It's fine." He speaks, then frowns when she doesn't open her eyes at his words.
"I'm sorry I'm sorry. No. Sorry. No no no." His lips part a little as he realises she's still asleep. Her face contorts in anguish at his touch, and a few tears slip down her cheeks as her eyes squeeze tightly shut. She's having a nightmare.
"Jac." He tries more forcefully and she wakes with a start, blinking and orientating herself. She doesn't say anything as she looks up at him, her face unreadable. "You're crying." He states, confused if anything, and she brushes her cheeks self consciously. "Talk to me."
"Let's go. They'll need the bed." She shifts away from him and tries to force herself up, but the bed's flat and with only one arm and her baby's weight to contend with she only manages a few inches of up before yelping from the pain in her shoulder and flopping back down again. She frowns, infuriated. "Help me up."
"No. Just, talk to me." Her eyes gloss over and he wonders if he's just put the final nail in their tentative civility.
"You love it, don't you." She spits, using anger to veil her upset.
"Love what?" He groans in response, so sick of this game.
"Suffocating me. Controlling me." His eyes flash towards her, and he looks angrier than she's ever seen him before.
"No. No Jac, I do not love that the only way I can get more than two words out of the mother of my child is by physical entrapment." The air is thick with his venomous words. "Or, apparently not even then." He adds when she remains mute.
"I can't." She whispers. "I can't."
"Yes you can, why the hell not?" He doesn't relent. "It's putting words together, one after the other. You do it every damn day."
Her face changes at his words. She understands why he's so upset, and that she hasn't considered him at all. She's spent months trying to get used to considering her baby and in all the emotional upheaval the thought of there being a third person in the fray as well has just been easier to ignore. She's never trusted herself to have responsibility over other people. She's never been any good at it at all. Her vision clouds with tears and she struggles her way more forcefully up off the bed. She exclaims in raw frustration at how hard the motion is, the pain in her shoulder brings a fresh sob to her lips. Then his arms envelop her and helps her up, he drags her into his chest where she can bury her face away from his eyes and cry into his body as he holds her. He always will, because he knows how to look after people, even her, even when she's being a first class bitch.
"I can't. I mean, I can't do this." He holds her tightly, taken aback by the revelation of her fears.
"Yes, you can." He whispers again softly, the meaning clear now, and his sentiment equally so. "We can."
"You don't understand."
"Let me try." She's silent, but the tears have abated and she appears to be thinking carefully. "Okay," he continues when she doesn't respond. "Let me take you home. Get you something to eat, and some fresh clothes." He feels the mud that's caked to the back of her jumper as he speaks. She doesn't exactly nod, but she looks up at him in acceptance, resigned to the idea for the sake of her aching body.
ooooo
Jac pads sheepishly into her living room, getting Jonny's attention with her subdued manner. She's wearing sweats, holding the hoody around herself where she can't zip it with one hand, clutching a towel and a bottle of shampoo. He turns to face her and smiles; She's hating every minute of this.
"How much does it hurt?"
"It's fine. It's tolerable."
"You should have taken the Morphine." He sounds chiding, as bad as Sacha, and she shakes her head.
"My stupid accident, my problem." She means her pain to deal with, her instinct to protect the baby from unnecessary risk.
"Right." He answers flatly, because there's really no point in arguing when she's made her mind up. She doesn't move, and he looks at her questioningly.
"Help, then!" She hisses eventually, making him laugh. He almost skips across the room to her side, and diligently zips up the hoody, protecting her modesty.
"Is this Elliot's?" His voice is still laced with annoying amusement.
"Mine doesn't fit." She snaps in irritation. The sentiment is truer than ever now he's trying to squeeze her, the bump, and her injured arm underneath the fabric with difficulty. After his morning of panic he can't deny that he's a little pleased to see her mortified and fuming at him; Perhaps this will be a lesson learnt.
"Anything else?" He asks innocently, eyeing the shampoo and her still muddy hair. Her jaw is set and he's waiting for her to explode and call him an infantile waste of space, so he's surprised when her features drop and she's awash with a fresh wave of hormonal tears.
"Stop it." She mutters childishly. "You know there is, you could just help me."
"Oh hey, come on." He puts an arm around her that she shrugs away painfully. "Of course I'll help you, you silly mare. You know I will."
"You have to just do it, Jonny. You can't play stupid games like this." He looks at her like she's cracked. Gentle teasing and sarcasm are at the root of most conversations they have, and even with her hormones on overdrive he doesn't understand why she's taking offence now.
"Give a guy a break." He keeps his tone light. "I have to keep that lofty air of mystery alive, you know, otherwise the girls get bored."
"Not with a baby." She states through tears. "You have to be there all the time, Jonny. No games. No getting preoccupied." She reiterates, as if she's introducing him to the notion of fatherhood for the first time. He's no less confused.
"Yes, I know not with a baby. What'd you think I'd do, not change its nappy till it sits up and asks me to?" She sobs harder into her good hand, the rest of her still bundled into the jumper. She looks ridiculous. "Jac, what has got into you?!" They're wretched girlie tears, and he banks on her irrational behaviour being due to hormones. He sighs and guides her to the bathroom with a firm hand. There's a thick inky silence between them as he drags a stool in front of the sink and sits her down, puts the towel around her shoulders and drags her hair carefully into the basin. She looks up at him with red rimmed eyes, the trust slowly budding again. Then, out of nowhere, she starts to talk.
"A girl died. A six year old girl, in my care. It was my fault." He freezes for a second, his hands unmoving in the sink as her submerged locks slip away between his fingers in slow motion.
ooooo
There's a slap, a crack that stills the argument momentarily. Jac grits her teeth and ignores the sting of tears, she won't give the bitch the satisfaction of a reaction.
"Just do as you're bleeding told." The woman growls the words at her, and they square up to one another; They're the same height. "I need some fags. I'll be ten minutes." Jac's still quiet, her blood boiling irrationally as she tries not to fall into the inevitable trap of their worn out brawl, but it rolls out like clockwork anyway.
"You want some fags. When the hell do I get what I want?" She snaps defiantly, almost earning herself another slap. She doesn't care, her cheek's still smarting from the first.
"You've a roof over your head you ungrateful girl. That's more than some." There it is. She's not allowed to complain because she's not the worst off person in the world. She never has anything to say to that because it's true, and self indulgence makes her sick. She folds her arms and sets her features into a dark scowl, willing the stinging sensation away from her cheek and watching her foster Mother stalk out of the park gate and disappear from view. The anger in her gut keeps boiling; She hates being told what to do. It leaves her aching with coiled frustration far more than any physical wound would. The first twelve years of her life had been so utterly devoid of discipline that her thirteenth has slapped her in the face with an unimaginable level of anger and conflict. A whole great book of rules and regulations that make her want to scoff and scream all at once. She turns on her heel and surveys the three kids that she's been left to guard with narrow eyes. Her skin prickles as little Ellie, doe eyed dark haired little Ellie, grabs a fist full of Jac's jeans and tugs to get her attention. This mismatched gaggle of unwanted mongrels are well versed in turning to the tallest person around for answers. Well versed in abandonment, that is. Jac's dark expression doesn't falter.
"Jacky." Ellie whines, holding her pale, chubby arms up towards the thirteen year old, who to her appears as an adult.
"No!" She shouts, and the child's face falls. "That's not my name. Just fuck off!" The child starts to cry. Big, fat, shameless tears that give Jac some sort of cathartic release, as if she can feel this honest kind of anguish through a six year old whilst her own guard remains intact. She turns her back on the responsibility with a determined defiance, and stalks off in search of solitude.
Away from the picnic benches and through a gap in a line of trees, there's a deserted fishing lake and the air is still. The dense conifers muffle the noise from the park, the sound of tears that are contagious amongst the young ones. Jac squeezes her eyes tightly shut and wipes away the stray ones from her own cheeks. She will not cry. Nobody will see her cry. To counteract the wave of weakness she picks up a stone from near her feet and launches it with an angry exhale. It hits the lake surface a few metres away, makes the smallest of chips in the ice, then skids out towards the middle and comes to a forlorn standstill. She glares at it, because that's just perfect. That says it all; A dark black speck on a huge white canvas that, try as it might, has made no impact at all. Her gaze drops to the shore, just near her feet, and she gasps and steps back as she sees the shapes moving beneath the ice. She squints at them and peers closer, then smiles. They're fish! She gets onto her hands and knees for a better look, transfixed by the idea of a whole world of activity beneath this barren, impenetrable surface. She shivers as her jeans get wet, but closes her eyes and breathes calmly. She's alone, this moment is hers, in this scene she can be whoever she wants to be.
Jac's reverie is punctured by a strange noise. Her gaze snaps up, out, over the lake and she exclaims aloud in confusion as she tries to make sense of what's before her. The child is making a beeline for the abandoned stone. She's not supposed to be here, she's supposed to be by the benches with the others. Why the hell is she here? The child slips on the ice and squeaks in shock. Jac leaps back onto her feet. Her legs are numb, they're made of lead. The crack in the ice echoes and reverberates, she can feel it in her bones. She can see what's happening, and it shouldn't be happening. The scream that echoes in her ears doesn't feel like it's her own. "Ellie!" Then the scene starts to move. The child has vanished, she's plunged through the surface into the world beneath it, and Jac scrambles dizzily in her wake. Every step is a setback, every movement creates more destruction. She's nearly there when she falls through the surface. Her legs are already useless, like blocks of ice tethered to her waist, and the rest of her limbs follow suit as she struggles urgently. She can see Ellie's face. She can see the parted lips and the wide eyes, but her own body doesn't work anymore. Her muscles are made of rock, and this new world is dark, darker than before. She needs to go back. She needs to go to a time, so unimaginable now, where the cold wasn't the only conscious thought.
The image is of the sky. The brilliant white sky that looks blue and and green and purple and mottled in confusion as she blinks. She's cold. She's so cold and the sky is the least comforting thing in the world with all is bracing infinity. She's stiff and her body is jerking around out of her control and she's breathing but only because they tell her too. She's so cold she thinks she might forget otherwise. There's shouting, and a glimpse of something silver and reflective. She doesn't know where it's come from or why it's pinning her down on the ground. She doesn't know anything.
ooooo
"You don't have to tell me." Jonny punctures a lengthy silence with his words, and they catch Jac off guard. He sounds sort of resigned to her secrecy, and she gets a pang of something she doesn't recognise as she registers the way he's carefully massaging conditioner through her hair.
"Mmm." She makes the noise involuntarily, surprising herself, and he seems pleased at the reaction. "It's not that I don't want to."
"But I won't understand." It's the same hurt tone as before and it makes her feel guilty.
"You can't." She tries carefully. "I don't." It's true, her feelings are in knots at the moment. Some days she doesn't know whether she's on the edge of laughing or crying, just that she's constantly on the edge of something. Now, when she closes her eyes all she can see is Ellie's face and all she can feel is the weighty guilt and all she knows is how abruptly unfinished the story is. There was delirium, and hypothermia, and after that she never saw the family again.
"You could try me." He continues with a shrug, twisting the moisture from her hair and encouraging her to sit up a little with a coaxing hand. She sighs.
"I'd forgotten. I was thirteen. I can't believe I'd forgotten." He winds the towel around her head and gestures for her to stand, an arm around her waist to protect her from dizziness or unbalance.
"You were thirteen, when this girl died?" He asks softly.
"Yes." She doesn't understand the relevance, why he's not curious about the circumstances instead.
"That must have been tough." She shrugs.
"I don't know. It was my fault." She's wondering if he'll take the bait, demand the story, then he'll see that bit of evil inside her again and their equilibrium will be rebalanced back to something she understands. She feels less emotionally unstable if she can rely on his hatred. He looks at her strangely, and she feels like she's being analysed so she looks away.
"Don't be a martyr Jac. Jesus, it doesn't suit you. It never has." He uses the word 'never' with such an infinity that it makes her wonder how he came to know her so well. She ponders how he slipped in through the gates untraced. It's caught her off guard, and she lets him guide her through to the living room without protest.
Jonny's eyes are trained carefully on Jac. He's consistently unnerved by how much she needs looking after, despite his willingness to oblige. Mo finds the idea scornful. She's a broken record with all her bitter proclamations that Jac has him right where she wants him; Worried and obedient. Mo doesn't know her like he does. Mo wasn't there on the fire escape, right at the beginning, when she'd confessed her fear to him in a secretive whisper. Mo wasn't there when the morning sickness had far exceeded its welcome and she'd crawled into bed for a whole weekend of exhaustion. Mo wasn't there at the scan when he'd boldly announced they should keep the gender a surprise and she, in a departure from her usual rationale, had nodded in agreement and they'd shared a snatch of a connection. Mo wasn't there when she really did manage to contract food poisoning and her pallor had far exceeded that of her sickness because she was so horrified that she'd made a mistake. Mo isn't here now. Mo can't see the depth behind those eyes.
When he first got to know her he thought he understood; She's closed off. She has barriers, defences, a web of untruths to hide behind. These past few months have altered that analysis more deeply than he could have imagined. There are no lies. In fact, he's seen her try to fib and she's as transparent as a toddler. She's been closed off because she doesn't have anything to share, and that's what scares her most. She doesn't avoid falling in love, or opening herself up, she just doesn't know how to. She doesn't strive to protect her reputation, one that's scarred with gossip and mistrust anyway, she only strives to protect her patients. This pregnancy appears to stir feelings in her that have previously lain unreachable, and she's one volatile chemical reaction away from completeness or collapse.
Jonny sits down on the sofa and draws her body into his, leaning back and letting her conceal a whimper as he nudges her shoulder accidently. He smirks to himself as she lays against him and he can watch the steady rise and fall of her chest; He loves that his presence can have this relaxing effect on her. It won't last, because her head is far more complicated than that and it's probably already off, racing to places he doesn't have the directions for. But, perhaps they can just spend the afternoon in each other's arms, sleeping off the adrenaline together.
"Jonny?" She whispers, her eyes closed.
"Mmm?"
"Why the hell is my helmet on the coffee table?"