Sorry for the delayed update - I had internet access problems over the weekend. Thanks for the reviews received so far, if anyone has a minute to spare please leave one - I love reading them! Also, just a quick note, time has moved on in this chapter from the last, and this will happen fairly often in this fiction so you need to take notice of the dates at the top of each update (am going with the disappearing storyline habit that Hollyoaks has!) Anyway, enough explanation, hope you enjoy...

3. Unravelling

March 16th 2015, 5.24pm

"Oh Jack, it's like he's fallen apart" Frankie said, as she clutched the cup of tea Jack had made her on her return. "He's been drinking way too much and I don't think he'd eaten properly since the last time I went to see him. He's lucky his work have been so sympathetic but I don't know how long they can keep things going as they are – and he's got the flat and everything. Oh God – it's all unravelling, and there's nothing I can do.

"Oh Frankie, I'm so sorry" Jack said, pulling her closer to him. "I thought last week might have helped."

"Yeah, that's what I thought… hoped, too. Or at least, I don't know, drawn some sort of line under it but if anything it seems to have made things worse. I mean the only blessing is that he pled guilty"

"Well he couldn't really do anything else could he? Not in the circumstances" Jack interjected.

"No, but at least we didn't have to sit through a trial, but then when the judge gave the sentence. I mean three years, its nothing is it- not really, and afterwards he just kept saying 'It's not enough! It's not enough!' over and over again. And then after – well I didn't think it could be any worse than the funeral, but turns out I was wrong about that. I mean, I spent Mother's Day listening to his heart break, over and over and over again." Frankie said, the emotion evident in her voice. "And there was nothing I could do because he's right – I mean he'll be out in what, 18 months? And that's not enough is it? Nowhere near enough, and if I think that – how can I expect him to feel any differently?"

"Well, I don't suppose any sentence, however long, would be enough for him at the moment, but hopefully when he's had a bit more time"

"Yes, but there's still the inquest to get through yet. And I can't see how he'll cope with that. I mean there'll go through all the details won't they – everything that happened and what they did, and I don't think he's ready to hear that. I think it might send him over the edge and he's so close to oblivion already it scares me"

"So, you weren't able to persuade him not to go then"

"No," Frankie said, close to tears, "I tried, god knows I tried but he wouldn't hear any of it. Kept saying that he had to go, that it was the last thing he could do for her, and that's all he can see, the only thing that seems to matter. And there was nothing I could say to change his mind, nothing…"

"Oh Frankie," Jack said, at a loss for what to say, resorting, in desperation, to clinging to practicalities "And they've got a date…for the inquest? You said it had been set when you phoned but I can't remember what date it was now."

"Yep, it's in for the 1st – they were just waiting for the trial. And it shouldn't take more than a couple of days – quite clear cut now, the coroner says. They'll still have to hear all the evidence but there's no doubt about what the verdict will be." Frankie replied, before continuing, "I just wish there was something I could do, anything, to make it better for him"

"And he still won't come home?" Jack asked.

"No, every time I suggest it he says he just can't and no matter what I say he just keeps saying it. I couldn't even persuade him to come with me today, not even for a few days, till the inquest. He said it'd be too hard to go back if he did, that he wouldn't be strong enough and that he couldn't risk it. That he had to go, and then, well we were back to where we started weren't we? We'd gone full circle and I might as well not have bothered saying anything. And..oh god Jack, what am I going to do?" Frankie asked, emotion finally overpowering her. "What can I do?" she managed to get out before the sobs which wracked her body stole her words.

And Jack, who felt just as helpless as Frankie, could only hold her tighter as she cried, and murmur words he didn't really believe to her, "It'll be OK, shhh, it'll be alright." over and over again.