Andy

"Katie?" I wasn't sure if I was dreaming or hallucinating because there was no way Katie, my Katie was sat in the middle of a field at four in the morning. I walked carefully over to her and knelt in front of her in an attempt to catch her attention but I found her once full of life eyes cold and unresponsive. She hadn't even noticed me.

"Katie," I repeated as I took her hands in mine. This shook her from her thoughts and she jumped up scurrying backwards a couple of paces her eyes and body language revelling how frightened she was.

I was stunned by Katie's reaction and froze for a couple of seconds staring at Katie who was now shaking violently.

"Katie, its ok it's only me, its Andy."

"Andy?" Katie's voice was barely above a whisper but it was obvious that the thought of him being near had calmed her.

"Yes, its me, its me," I said, my voice soothing as I slowly stepped towards her. Neither of them needed to say anything else.

They just fell into each others embrace. Katie had calm considerably but Andy could still feel her shaking against him.

I lowered my head resting it against hers inhaling her scent and feeling her soft hair against my cheek. I couldn't help thinking how much I loved her and how much I had wanted to just hold her in my arms. My wish had come true but I felt guilty because I was taking pleasure from this moment when she was so obviously hurting.

After a while we end up sitting side by side in the field watching the sun rise, my arm protectively around her shoulders and eventually she rested her head on my shoulder. We sat in silent's not having spoken since we had started hugging almost an hour ago.

"I think we better get you home before Chas and Jennie go on the rampage," Katie looked up and smiled tiredly nodding in agreement and I put my arm around her waist to pull her to her feet but Katie winced and pulled my arm away from her back. I was immediately worried, "what's wrong? Are you hurt? Let me see." And before I gave her chance to do anything I'd moved behind her and lifted the back of her pyjama top up revelling a couple of big nasty purple bruises. Now I wasn't just worried I was furious I wanted to know who had done this but when I looked to Katie her head was bowed and she had silent tears running down her soft cheeks. Suddenly all the fury was lost and all I wanted to do was pull her into my arms and make everything better. I moved to sit beside her once more only this time I carefully pulled her into my lap and sat there rocking her and stroking her hair lost in my own thoughts. When I next looked down Katie had fallen asleep and this time I didn't fail to notice the winter pyjamas she was wearing and carefully rolled the sleeves up to revel yet more bruises but this time they were finger shaped. Someone had pinned her down. Tears filled my eyes; I couldn't believe this had happened to Katie. After a while I regained my composure and decided what I was going to do.

Chas

"We've looked everywhere, I think we need to call the police," Jennie stated for the third time in three minuets.

"No, we need to give her more time it's only been just over three hours, she'll come back when she's ready," I try to reason just hoping I'm right.

"If not the police then lets at least call Nick."

"Ok, lets…" I was interrupted by the front door being opened and Andy walking in with a lifeless Katie in his arms.

"Katie, what have you done to her." I immediately lash out fearing the worse.

"Ssssshhhhh, she's asleep." Andy said annoyance all over his face as he moved over to the sofa and place Katie on it. She stirred slightly but didn't wake and we all turned to look at each other.

"I'm sorry, we were worried. How did you find her? We looked everywhere," I whispered lather loudly.

"She was up by the caravan just sat in the middle of the field staring off into space. I thought I was dreaming at first but it was her."

Andy looked worriedly over to Katie tightly clasping his hands together.

"What's wrong?"

"Is she still going out with the cop?" he spat out.

"eeerrr, yer, what's it got to do with you?" I wondered what on earth any of this had to do with Nick.

"What's this got to do with Nick?" Jennie sounded annoyed.

"There's something wrong I've never seen her like this before. Has she told you? I want to know how she got the bruises, who gave her the bruises." Andy was now sitting by Katie's head and moved a strand of hair out of her face.

"Bruises? What bruises?"

"Don't tell me you haven't noticed. She's covered in them. I just want to know who. It was him wasn't it. I know it was. you wait till I get my hands on him" His voice was angry but he kept the sound low at the same time.

I didn't know what to say I look over to Jennie and she was as clueless as me.

"Look," Andy was no longer calm as he lifted Katie's top revelling her bruised back. "Now you can't deny it, tell me who. No wait tell me where to find him?"

I pulled back in horror. Andy was right, how had I not noticed. Had she been behaving differently? I thought back to the last couple of times I'd seen her but she had been spending a lot of time with Nick recently. It just had to be him.

I looked back down at Katie. Andy had pulled her top down again and had a stray tear rolling down his cheek. Why hadn't she come to us? We would have helped.

"Hold on, how do we know its not you?" I couldn't help my self we had all seen what he had done to Jo and Katie was the only one who stood by him. Was that because she was scared? How long had it been going on?

"Me, I could never do that to Katie. Not Katie."

"What and it was alright to do it to Jo." I shouted back.

"No I didn't say that. Do you really think that if it was me I would have come here? I want to help her, to stop this happening. I love her, I always have."

At this point Katie stirred and looked up to find us argument paused looking down at her with concern.

"What?" she spoke groggily then sat up looking from me to Andy to Jennie and back again wondering what was going on.

"What's going on?" she spoke more sternly this time.

Jennie moved over to her, sitting on her knees in front of her.

"Were just a little worried about you." Little was an understatement we were a lot worried. I hadn't forgotten what she had said earlier about the fire being her fault. Katie shifted uncomfortably removing her eyes from Jennie's.

"Katie, you took off we were worried. What happened?" Jennie sounded calm and I don't know how she did it. I was anything but calm and neither was Andy he was pacing back and forth in-between the stairs and the front door.

"I had a dream, that's all. It confused me which is why I ran."

"Do you think were stupid," Andy had snapped and even I could see that his out burst wasn't going to get us anywhere.

Katie shot up, "you have no idea what you saw. You don't know what you're talking about. It's none of your business," and with that she had shot past us and was sprinting up the stairs.

"Well that was great; you've just made it worse. She's not going to talk to us now, not after that." I was fuming. Jennie was doing great and he had to storm in with his huge feet making it worse. What were we going to do now? How where we going to get her to open up?

"I'll talk to her."

"No, I think you've done enough damage." I snapped back. He looked hurt but I didn't care. How could he be so thoughtless?

We sat for a while in silents, each of us trying to figure out the best way to talk to Katie.

"You coming," I looked up and saw Jennie at the bottom of the stairs. She didn't have to say anymore I knew what she meant.

"Yer, lets get this over with."

"Katie, it's only us." Jennie spoke quietly as we pushed the door to her room open. Katie was curled up on her bed with her back to the door. She didn't answer. We sat next to her but she didn't acknowledge our presents.

"Huni, Andy told us about the bruises. You want to explain?"

"Andy doesn't know what he's talking about he just jumped to conclusions. I fell that's all, nothing more to it."

"If you just fell what about the bruises on your arms." I turned to see Andy stood in the doorway his arms cross over his chest.

"It's not what you think. I promise I wouldn't let that happen."

"What else are we meant to think, really Katie we've hardly seem you for weeks."

"If you don't come up with a better explanation than that I'm going over to that copper's right now to kick him into the middle of next week."

"That's not helping Andy."

"Stop." We all turned to Katie. "It's not what you think can't we just leave it at that."

"No, you're hurt; we can't just leave it at that. We want to know what's going on and were not leaving until you tell us." I sounded strong and determined even if I didn't feel it.

"Fine," she sounded defeated, "fine, I'll tell you b-but you have to promise not to hate me."