Danielle sat on the train, her head bowed, as remorseful tears fell onto her lap. As each tear slid from her eyelashes they caressed her cheek and reminded Danielle of the tender touch that Ronnie had given her. The way her thumb had brushed away her tears, and the soft skin of her palm had firmly and protectively held her face.

This was all too hard. What happened to the fantasies, the dreams of a perfect reunion? Danielle thought bitterly. She had built up in her mind her entire future, the relationship she and Ronnie would have and it had all slipped away so suddenly. She began to regret her words to Ronnie, she had said that she was never a mother. It was a lie. Since she was five years old she had had in the back of her mind. The dream of her real mother, and after her adoptive mum died, this Veronica Mitchell had become something to cling on to. A home, a heart, an oasis of comfort in the surrounding solitude. She had given her a place to stay when Stacey had chucked her out, she had been there and offered her support when Danielle had confessed her pregnancy. She had been vicious, heartless and cruel, but entwined somewhere within all of that, Ronnie had always been Danielle's mother and always would be.

The dichotomy was ripping Danielle apart. How could she love somebody so much and hate and resent them so much at the same time? She just wanted everything to be ok, she wanted it all to have never happened. She just wanted to curl up in Ronnie's arms and feel safe and loved. But that would never happen…could never happen now. Ronnie had rejected her pitilessly and mercilessly and nothing could erase that. Nothing could take away the hurt.

Danielle looked down at her hands. They were covered in dirt and grit still from where Ronnie had pushed her out onto the road like an animal. They didn't feel like hers. Looking at her own body, Danielle felt detached, as if nothing was real. The day had been so much, so painful that Danielle began to dissociate herself from it. If she really let everything sink in then she would die, she could feel it. The bone crushing sadness. So she tried to pretend that it was ok. That Ronnie didn't matter, never did. It made her feel less real, as if her own body wasn't even hers anymore. Maybe she was finally cracking up. Danielle smiled a bitter smile of ironic resentment as she remembered what Archie had said. He had said she was insane, unstable. Perhaps he was right.

The train moved outwards through the East end of London and towards Euston. As the journey moved, station by station onwards, Danielle felt more and more alone. Ronnie and Stacey were all she had. Now she was going back to Telford, away from them. And to what?

She picked her phone out of her bag, not knowing what, if anything, she wanted to see on the screen. She was faced with a voicemail from Stacey. She slowly pressed the buttons to play the message and raised the phone to her ear,

"Dan? Dan it's me, Stace." Danielle smiled sadly hearing the voice of her best friend. She wished that she didn't have to leave Stacey, but there was nothing left for her in Walford. She couldn't go back there after the humiliation, the rejection. Everyone would know, everyone would see her like Ronnie did, as the sick freak that nobody would want.

"Look I dunno what happened with you and Ronnie…" Danielle hurriedly and angrily pressed the cancel button to hang up the phone. She didn't want to hear that name. How could Stacey even say her name? Even hearing her name made Danielle ache. She wanted to throw her phone across the carriage. Instead she breathed. Trembling, deep breaths to try and calm herself. To distance herself more from all of this.

She looked back at her phone. She felt isolated. She was on her way from a home that felt unknown and unwelcoming and was leaving behind the unwelcoming and unknown places and people that had grown to feel like home. With one more deep breath she realised what she had to do. Her fingers shakily and slowly began to type the numbers into her phone.

Back in her flat Ronnie was still staring straight out, sightlessly into her flat. She blinked and let her eyes move slightly to scan around the flat. The chair by the window, Danielle had sat there, that's when Ronnie had held Danielle, she had promised her that it would all be ok. She had promised her and she had broken that promise. In fact only minutes later, right there, she had told Danielle that she was her biggest mistake. Ronnie clung onto the memory of holding Danielle. She tried to remember what she had felt like. She could remember Danielle's hands clinging on to her upper arms. She could remember how tightly Danielle had held on to her. It was as if she was clinging for life. She was clinging to her mummy, Ronnie thought sadly.

The guilt overwhelmed her, followed by the ache of loss. She felt dirty, disgusting. Ronnie wasn't used to being out of control. Ever since she had let her Amy be taken from her she had never wanted to relinquish control again. But now, she had no control, nothing she could do. It was a frightening feeling. She didn't know what to do with herself.

Slowly Ronnie stood, her stomach lurching with even the small movement of standing. She walked thoughtlessly across her flat into the bathroom. She reached into the shower and turned the water on full blast. She reached over to the other dial and turned it fully until it was set to hottest. As she stripped off the bridesmaid's dress it was like stripping off a layer of the filth associated with the day and all that had happened.

Steam rose off the water as it hammered down from the shower. Ronnie stood naked before it, only her locket still adorning her body. She wrapped her hand around it. She didn't want to take it off, she didn't want to move her little girl further from her. But inside it held the only picture she had of her baby and she could never let that be destroyed. She lifted the locket over her head with delicate reverence and lifted it to her lips. She laid a tremulous kiss against it before laying it oh so gently on the bathroom shelf before stepping into the shower and under the harsh spray.

She let the water wash away the tear stains and dark smudges that covered her face. Ronnie stood with one hand on each wall of the shower. Her hands pressed firmly against the cold tiles. She needed to feel something stable, immovable, fixed and she needed to support herself as her whole body felt weak and drained. As she stood under the shower, the water scorched onto her skin, the searing heat of it painful. But pain was good, pain stopped Ronnie from thinking about anything else. She needed to wash off the guilt, the regret, the remorse. She needed the water to burn it all away.

Her hands scrubbed over her face and through her hair. Eyes closed her tears began to fall once again, but they left no mark, no remains as the water swept them away in its path.