Thanks for the reviews so far, I always like to hear opinions. I've tried to reply to everyone but if I've forgotten you I'm sorry and I'll try better next time lol.

Love never claims, it love ever gives; love never suffers, never resents, never revenges itself. Where there is love there is life; hatred leads to destruction.

Gandhi

The curtains around her bed rustled, causing Jackie to open her eyes. She gave a small smile as Burke and a rather pale looking Stuart slipped inside the area. The young detective eyed her almost warily. "How are you feeling?"

She tried to shrug and winced, belatedly remembering that her collarbone was broken and her arm was in a sling. "I'll be fine," she told them through gritted teeth, her head still felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool while someone played the drums against her temples.

Burke looked her over. "Aye you look it," he remarked.

Jackie blinked over at him, her face hurt too much to either smile or glare. "Oh you lot are really charming," she mumbled. A frown - or the closest she could get without wincing - played across her features. "Where's Robbie?"

"He…um had something to do," Stuart replied awkwardly, sharing a glance with Burke.

She stared at them. "Spit it out before it chokes you."

"We found who was driving the car that hit you," Burke informed her

"That was quick."

"They didn't exactly try to cover there tracks."

"Right, so who was it?" Jackie asked. "Was it connected to the case?"

"No, no it wasn't. It was a woman called Gillian Drummond, you spoke to her this morning."

Something clicked in Jackie's head as she took in her colleagues somewhat grave expressions. "His ex?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

Stuart nodded. "She followed you both to the crime scene, she wanted revenge."

"Does Robbie know?"

"Yeah."

Her eyes flickered shut for a moment, a mixture of exasperation that they'd let Robbie storm off on his own and sheer exhaustion.

On seeing this, Burke nudged Stuart's arm, prompting the younger man to say, "We'll leave you to get some rest. I wouldn't worry about Robbie, he'll be alright."

Jackie gave a clipped nod, she was too tired to keep up the pretence that she was feeling ok and they didn't look particularly comfortable standing there. Not that that surprised her, they weren't the tea and sympathy types and they preferred to actually be out doing something rather than sitting, watching and waiting.

"We'll come back later," Burke added, shifting awkwardly on his feet.

"Fine," she mumbled, her eyes closing over again.

Stuart drew his bottom lip in-between his teeth. "I can see what Robbie meant, she's not…" he trailed off, struggling for the words. He'd hated seeing her like that, the normally self assured Jackie looking somewhat dazed and confused, covered in bruises.

"She's been through a lot, give her some time," Burke replied.

"So what now?"

"We still have Gillian Drummond to charge and then we get back to the case, we can't just grind to a halt because of this," he growled.

"Yeah, yeah," Stuart muttered, staring out of the passenger window.

The heavy lock of the cell door clicked open loudly, and on hearing it Robbie turned to the uniformed officer next to him. "You can leave now," he informed her shortly.

She shook her head. "I don't think that's a good idea."

He drew in a sharp breath and shot her a glare. "Fine," he muttered distractedly as the door opened.

Gillian's head snapped up, her stiff posture relaxing when she saw it was him, a smile playing across her lips she got quickly to her feet and tried to move closer to him. He held his hand up, indicating that she should stay where she was. She did so but continued to smile at him. "I knew you'd come," she breathed out happily.

He swallowed back the lump of anger that had gathered in his throat. "Why'd you do it?" he asked.

"I did it for us! She was coming between us, she'd turned your head and you couldn't see that it's me that really loves you. I had to do something, you might think you love her but-"

"Stop!" Robbie barked, his voice echoing off the walls of the cell. "Jackie is a friend and a colleague, nothing more."

"No, she told me-"

"Because I asked her to, as a favour, to try and get you to realise that what we had was just a fling."

She shook her head. "No, no we're meant to be together, we can have a future together-"

"No, we can't." He ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. "You could have killed her!"

"So what if I had!" Her face twisted. "I saw the way you acted together, it wasn't right." She shook her head, her voice beginning to border on hysteria. "You were never like that with me, you always kept me at a distance, but with her! With her it was like she was the only one you could see, I wanted that, why couldn't you be like that with me?"

Robbie stared at her, feeling the exhaustion seep through him. "I thought that you knew it was just a fling," he shrugged tiredly. "I didn't mean to hurt you, but what you did was wrong and she didn't deserve it. You're going to jail, you know that don't you?"

She nodded, her eyes locking onto his face hopefully. "Will you come visit me?"

"No." He shook his head as he turned to leave the cell. "No, I won't." And as he walked down the corridor her screams of rage and frustration echoed around him.

Hearing something rustle next to her bed, Jackie opened her eyes and was surprised to find that the room was dark apart from the small pool of light provided by a bulb near the side of her bed. Her eyes flickered in the direction of the noise and she was surprised to see a rather rumpled looking Robbie slouched in the chair next to her. He shot her a somewhat apprehensive smile. "Hey, how you feeling?"

"Been better," she admitted candidly. "How long have you been here?"

"A few hours."

"I've been out for that long?"

"Well they've woken you up every hour to check you were ok, don't you remember?"

Her mind flickered back and sure enough the memories of being wrenched from her sleep by irritating questions came rushing the surface. "Now you mention it," she muttered. Her eyes scanned over his tired and lined face. "You look like crap," she informed him.

Her comment prompted a genuine grin. "Well you're not looking too hot yourself."

"At least I have a reason for that."

His expression fell again at that reminder, his hand reaching out to cover hers. "Burke and Stuart told you about-"

"Yeah, they did."

He sighed, his gaze averting from her face to stare at the bed linen. "Jackie…" He shook his head and looked back up at her. "Jackie, I'm so sorry. I should never have involved you in this, it was my mess and I should have been the one to fix it. This was my fault."

She twisted her good hand so that she could squeeze his fingers comfortingly. "You weren't to know what she'd do, it wasn't your fault, Robbie."

He shook his head. "I still played my part in it, I'm not blameless."

Jackie knew she could tell him she didn't blame him until she was blue in the face, and he still wouldn't believe her, so instead she replied, "Let's just move on, it's not been the best of days so I really don't want to dwell on it. It's over and done with, ok?"

"It's a deal," he answered gratefully. "I brought you some things as well, stuff I thought you might need."

"Gin?" she asked, her eyes gleaming.

He pulled a face. "Knew I'd forgotten something," he joked.

"Shame." She attempted to sit up, her attempts hindered slightly by the one arm that was in the sling, her hair falling across her face, prompting an irritated sigh.

Smiling, Robbie leaned forward and brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes before helping her sit up and back onto the pillows. "Better?"

"Much, thanks. So what did you get?"

"Usual. Toiletries, a book, some grapes-"

"Ah everything off the invalid's must have list."

"Only the best for you." His face took on a more serious note as he asked, "How are you feeling anyway?"

"Tired of hearing that question."

"Jackie…"

"I'm feeling less groggy, although I still feel like I've been set to with a baseball bat."

"You seem better. You had us all worried earlier. Stuart even bought you flowers but um infection control meant they can't be kept in here, so he's put them at your desk."

"Uh huh." Jackie smiled at Robbie's attempts to keep her spirits up, she knew that hospitals made him uncomfortable. "Robbie, I really am ok, and it's obviously getting late, go home and get some sleep."

"No, it's fine, I want to stay."

"Robbie, I'm just going to go back to sleep."

He looked at her almost thoughtfully and finally nodded. "I suppose I could go back to the station, get some work done."

"Yeah, after all it's always nice to try new things."

He laughed, and leaning forward kissed her forehead. "I've told them to call me at anytime if you need anything."

"I need peace and quiet, so get out," she told him good naturedly.

"I'll see you in the morning," he smiled as he reluctantly left the room.

At some point she'd drifted asleep again, only to be woken up by someone shaking her uninjured shoulder urgently. "Jackie! Jackie can you open your eyes for us?"

With some difficulty she did as she was asked, realising that the dull ache from earlier was now just sharp insistent pain, and that opening her eyes prompted a wave of dizziness and nausea so strong that she had to shut them again.

She felt someone lift her head up, the oxygen mask being secured back in place. Could hear and feel the rush of the panic that suddenly surrounded her. Their voices were muffled, as if she were under water and getting dragged deeper as everything began to melt away.

Robbie couldn't help but stare at the bright collection of flowers that Stuart had placed on Jackie's desk. He missed her, missed her presence. Despite the fact that he rubbed along quite well with the Boss and Stuart, it wasn't the same without her.

He tapped his pen against the desk, replaying what Gillian had said over and over again in his head. He'd never given the way he acted with Jackie a second thought, he was just himself around her, didn't need to try and be charming, or constantly be thinking about his next move, his next step, he could just relax.

It had been like that from the very first moment with them, although they had buried the spark of attraction between them and settled for friendship. Now though, now he felt confused, he was certain that he loved her, couldn't really deny the fact any longer, but he had no clue as to how to deal with it. The thought of losing Jackie today had terrified him, but the fear of her rejecting his feelings and destroying the friendship that meant so much to him was equally as paralysing. So he was stuck in limbo, which was actually no different to where he'd been since he 'd met her, it was just that now he was aware of it.

His thoughts were interrupted by Burke's harsh tones asking, "Well what do we have?"

Robbie's head jerked up and away from Jackie's desk. "Gemma called and let us know that it was the stamp to the head that killed him, caused a massive haemorrhage, guy didn't stand a chance."

"I informed his girlfriend, a Samantha Bridges. She was with him for part of last night, they had a row just before midnight and she left him in the pub they were in, one called The Goose in the city centre. She went out with friends instead, alibi's already been confirmed," Stuart informed him. "What she did tell me though, is that Kevin had a bit of a temper and quite often picked fights."

"So it could be that he's picked the wrong guy to mess with this time," Robbie commented.

"Yeah, it looks the most likely," Burke agreed. "Have you pulled CCTV from across the street from where we found him?"

"Done it, just looking through it now, could take a while though, after all we don't know an exact time of death," Stuart replied

"Aye, well just keep at it." Burke turned to look at Robbie. "As for you-"

He was interrupted by Robbie's phone. The younger man hit the answer button. "DI Ross." He listened to the person on the other end of the line, feeling the blood drain from his face. "Yeah, I'll be right there." He hung up and looked up at his colleagues. "That was the hospital, they've just rushed Jackie into surgery."