A/N Here is chapter fourteen. I hope you enjoy. :)

Two - Mike Dryden

The TV is playing to itself, quietly in the corner, as Lindsay scoops up the last of her mushy food and eats it, chewing it without tasting - something she's become adept at over the last few years because all the food here tastes like cardboard.

Lindsay puts her spoon down - no forks, no knives, too dangerous, after all - and switches her attention back to the TV. Playing across the screen is the news bulletin at six o'clock. The sound is muted but she's watched the headlines so many times today, she can tell what's happening.

The first story is about a conflict in another country, and as much as Lindsay wants to care, she can't find the strength to. The second is about the worsening economic climate - it looks like their headed towards another depression. To Lindsay, it's just another thing that doesn't affect her.

The third headline, however, affects her a rather large amount more. The headline heads 'Investigation into Police Corruption Continues' and above it is a picture of Mike Dryden, as he was in his glory days, in full Police uniform. She sighs, reaching over, stretching to her limit, and pokes the next channel button. In a moment, the news is gone, replaced by a rerun of a cooking show Lindsay already watched that morning.

The news stories about Mike and the investigation into other supposed corrupt coppers, past and present, started to appear a few days after Mike's visit to her.

The reason his picture is the one shown on the six o'clock news? He's the most senior officer, past or present, being investigated, a claim he surely doesn't want, nor care about very much, she can bet.

Lindsay thinks back to his visit, to his livid face and her anger, running like liquid through her veins. If she rewound time, back to a time before their affair had ended, right back to the beginning - before the heartache - she had once thought that if their relationship had come to an end, she would be able to deal with it, and they might be able to spend time in each other's company without shouting, or angry recriminations filling the air, that they might be civil with one another.

Now, six years on and many a broken heart later, Lindsay almost laughs at how naive she was. They cannot spend even the shortest amount of time in each other's presence before the shouting begins, before all the pent up rage aimed at each other spills out.

No, there is nothing civil about how they act together. Nothing at all.

Lindsay sighs again, leaning back in her chair and pulling her knees up to her chest, an act of comfort, of sadness.

She thinks back to what Mike asked her to do when he came to visit her. For some strange reason it had hurt Lindsay more than she had expected to discover that the whole thing had been an attempt to save his own skin.

She had liked to think that he came to visit her because he missed her, or felt guilty, or something. Not because she could be his saviour or his damnation and he wanted her to choose between the two.

She couldn't chose, no matter what she had told him when he had been sitting opposite her, his eyes looking like a frightened child. An angry, frightened child, she might hasten to add.

It is like deciding whether she loves him or hates him - she can never find the difference.

Lindsay rests her head on her knees, such a childlike gesture, but she doesn't care. She's tired, bored and alone, she's allowed.

It's been two weeks since Mike's visit and in those two weeks, he's been proved correct - AC-12 are coming to interview her about him. They must be clutching at straws if they think she held anything about Mike back the last time they talked about him. What was it Kate called her? A woman scorned, yes that was it. And women scorned don't hide secrets about their ex's corrupt activities, Lindsay included.

In three weeks - why three weeks, she's not sure - the newly promoted DI Steve Arnott is coming to interview her. This visit is different to Steve's last visit - now a little over five years ago now - and Kate's two visits, because this visit is an interview. The other three visits were just common courtesy - they didn't need to come to tell her in person, but they had.

Lindsay is unsure about what Steve is going to ask her, and if she's being honest, doesn't really care. Her life has started going so slowly, each day seemingly lasting forever, and she can't cope with it. Everyday just the same as the last, and just that same as everyday to come - except from the days when someone comes to visit her.

That's why she doesn't care what Steve Arnott is going to ask her. All that she cares about is that she gets to go out of this cell, talk to someone, change from the dull tedium of her usual schedule.

That's why when the man she hates more than anything in the world - the man she loves, too - asked to visit her, she just couldn't say no.

It was worth the anger, the pain, of seeing Mike just to do something different.

And anyway, Lindsay wanted to know why he wanted to see her.

Or maybe it wasn't worth it. The brief time spent out of her cell, talking to Mike, has left her empty, bereft of meaning. Her life no longer has a purpose.

Everyone's given up on her.

And she doesn't think she can live like this anymore.

But she must. Because Lindsay's strong and she doesn't give up.

Not ever.

She straightens her legs and crosses to the TV, turning the sound up and switching the channel to Watch. The Bill is being repeated again - Lindsay was happy when, a few months ago - they started repeated episodes in the evening too, so if she missed them in the morning she could catch up in the evening.

Lindsay quickly starts paying attention to the action unfolding on the screen.

She is wrong. Not everyone has given up on her.

Lindsay hasn't given up on herself.

Not yet.