This one might (hopefully) be a bit teary…! Love, IJKS xxx

Chapter Two

In some ways, it felt like no time had passed. And in others, Charlie felt like she had been resting in Joey's gentle embrace for eternity. They remained on their chairs, looking down on the world below them where at home, Ruby had cried herself into a fitful sleep in Casey's arms and Brax had kept guard over Charlie at the hospital.

"What happens now?" Charlie asked, as she watched her loved ones begin to stir.

She watched as Ruby cried in Leah's arms, preparing for a visit from Sid to discuss turning off the life support and Casey appeared at the hospital with Brax, only to be sent away again.

"Do you want to stay here or move on?" Joey asked.

"I don't want to leave Ruby," Charlie admitted. "She's going to turn the machines off today. I don't want her to be alone. I want to support her. Does that make any sense?"

Joey smiled sadly and nodded.

"It makes perfect sense," she said. "I wish there was some way that we could let her know that you're here and you're safe."

She sighed and put her arm around her.

Ruby allowed Casey to hold her while Leah saw Sid out. He'd come round, as promised, to talk through turning Charlie's life support off. It had probably been the most difficult and heartbreaking conversation of her life. It still didn't seem real that Charlie, the person she loved most in the world, was really gone. Sid had maintained that Charlie had died back at the house, right on the floor of where they were sat now. But it was too hard to accept. She was breathing and her heart was beating. Ruby so longed for some sort of hope.

"How does all this work, Joey?" Charlie asked.

Tears continued to fall as she watched Ruby get ready to go to the hospital, having requested to be there when the machines were switched off, not wanting Charlie to die alone.

"What do you mean?" Joey replied.

"Does everyone go through this?" Charlie asked. "All that colour and then this place? Does everyone come to this waiting room?"

"I think so," Joey said. "It's where I came."

"Did someone come to meet you?"

"My mother," Joey replied, with the ghost of a smile.

"And did you watch the world, like we are now?"

Joey nodded, surprised when a lump formed in her throat. She hadn't felt sad for such a long time now. Heaven was too good a place to dwell on the bad things. But out in the waiting room, they were somehow trapped between worlds. All she looked forward to was Charlie's first experience of pure happiness.

"I watched Brett find out," she revealed. "And I watched you for the longest time."

She smiled faintly, suddenly realising where her sorrow had suddenly come from. She empathised with Charlie for having to watch Ruby and Brax and the rest of her loved ones suffer. But it had been harder to watch such a lack of mourning over her own death. Brett had been sad and so had some of her former colleagues. But nobody else had even known to be sad. Nobody had noticed that she was missing, not even Charlie. Especially not Charlie.

"What's wrong?" Charlie asked, studying her face.

"Nothing," Joey replied, forcing it to be true.

Now wasn't about that. Now was getting Charlie through her death and into a place of joy.

"Have you met a lot of people here?" Charlie wondered, accepting her answer.

Joey smiled, gazing at her.

"No," she said. "You're my one and only."

"I love you, Mum," Ruby said sadly as she sat by her mother's bedside.

She held onto her and failed not to cry while Brax stood behind her, begging her not to go through with switching the machines off. Casey hovered in the doorway uncertainly. He could barely imagine the pain that his two most precious people must be in.

Charlie wept from above and Joey held her as tightly as possible.

"I wish I could tell her that I'm not there," Charlie said, her voice catching. "I wish I could let her know that I'm up here and I'm safe and that she's doing the right thing by letting me go."

She swallowed, her throat aching with sorrow as she listened to Brax try to convince Ruby that she was making a mistake.

"And I wish I could tell him too," Charlie continued. "I know that we weren't meant to be together, Joey, but I care for him. I love him. I can't help it. And I don't want him to be in pain."

Joey nodded, continuing to offer as much comfort as she could. Suddenly, Charlie turned to her.

"Is this too weird for you?" she asked worriedly.

"Weird?" Joey asked.

"To listen to your ex-girlfriend talk about her boyfriend?"

Joey smiled and kissed her temple.

"Up here, things like that just don't matter," she explained. "You learn pretty quickly that the presence of any kind of love can only be a good thing. I've watched you be with Angelo and with Brax and as much as I've wished to be the person you wanted to be with, I knew I'd get my time with you again one day, in whatever way we want that to be. I knew I'd never lose you because you don't lose the people you love best, Charlie. You may have to be apart for a while but you will always come back together in the end."

Charlie gazed at her.

"You've always been the person I wanted to be with," she said softly. "I just wish I hadn't been so stupid not to realise it in time. I wish I'd never made that awful, awful mistake."

Joey hugged her again.

"It's okay," she whispered. "Everything is okay now."

They turned their attention back to the scene below, just in time to see Brax lock himself in Charlie's hospital room and pull out a gun.

"What's he doing?" Charlie asked in panic.

Brax was beside himself as he sat beside Charlie's bedside. He promised her that nobody was ever going to take her away from him and ignored everyone else that was banging on the door. He heard Ruby cry that that was her mother and he felt bad for separating them. But he couldn't bear to let her go. He couldn't let Ruby kill Charlie.

"But I'm already gone!" Charlie cried desperately, wishing that Brax could hear her.

She broke down at the sight of both his and Ruby's devastation.

"She's doing the right thing!" she said. "I'm gone! I'm up here! I'm not in that body! I'm not breathing by myself! Let me go, Brax! Please? Let me go!"

Tears consumed her in deep, shuddering sobs until she sank onto the absent floor. Joey held back for a moment before coming to kneel beside her. She wrapped her arms around her and kissed the top of her head. Charlie curled up in her lap, resting against her and continuing to cry, not for herself but for the ones she loved. Joey stroked her hair soothingly, knowing that the hardest part of dying was having to say goodbye.

Ruby waited desperately outside Charlie's room. She had already lost her but now she was missing out on her final moments. She hated Brax for making Charlie's tragic death all about him. She hated him for his violence and for the path of destruction he had led Charlie down. And she hated him for shutting her out and claiming Charlie as his own, as if he was the only person that felt like they were dying too because Charlie was gone.

Charlie jerked when she heard beeping. Looking below with Joey, she watched Brax panic over the machines. She had flatlined and her body could no longer breathe.

"Open the door!" Charlie begged.

She looked desperately at Joey, asking if there was something they could do.

"I don't want Ruby to be in the hallway when I go!" Charlie said through her grief. "I want her to be there, holding my hand. Because that's what she wants, Joey. Please?"

Joey nodded and concentrated. Charlie watched her urgently. Below, Brax allowed Sid into the room to fix the machines. Then, as he left, Casey charged in to stop Brax holding up the room any longer.

"I love her," Brax said desperately, his voice cracking with emotion.

Casey was understanding but he knew he had to do everything he could to put this situation to an end. He reminded Brax that after everything he'd done and everything he was, Charlie had still always believed in him. He begged him not to let her faith be unfounded.

"That was one of things I loved most about you over the last year," Joey mused.

Still with her head in Joey's lap, Charlie looked up, confused.

"I might not have thought Brax was any good for you," Joey explained. "And I might have been horrified by all the things he's done and everything he's capable of. But I was touched by the way you always tried to see the best in him. It made me think about how you were with me. You were the first person who ever made me feel special."

Charlie reached up tenderly and stroked Joey's cheek with her thumb.

"You are special," she said sincerely. "I wish I'd had the chance to make you see that."

Joey smiled and kissed her hand.

"Maybe we'll get that chance now," she suggested.

Charlie nodded and sat up, brushing their lips together again. Like the world they were in, their relationship was undefinable. It didn't quite make sense and yet it did. Charlie wondered how long it would take to get used to a world of contradictions that made everything feel okay.

Sid had stepped in and convinced Watson not to arrest Brax and take him into custody. Brax had then apologised to Ruby, who had asked him to be there when they switched the machines off.

Charlie and Joey watched from above as Ruby and Brax sat in the hospital room, close by Charlie's body. Charlie clung to Joey as she watched herself slip away. She watched Ruby and Brax break down and her heart broke for them both.

"Is there no way I can comfort them?" she asked desperately.

"I'm sorry," Joey said softly, fighting her own tears. "I wish there could be another way."

"But you made Brax let Sid in," Charlie said. "And you made Casey sort everything out. Can't you…?"

"I can't create that kind of link between this world and that one," Joey tried to explain. "If any of us could then don't you think it would have happened all the time?"

Charlie nodded sadly. She gazed down at her own lifeless form and wished all her love on her daughter. She wished love on Brax as well. And she clung to Joey for all she was worth.