Jack hears the keys turn in the front door and comes barrelling down the stairs while Charlie instinctively stands to attention.
"Where the hell have you been? You were meant to be back hours ago." Jack yells from halfway up the staircase. As he rounds the corner and enters the foyer he catches sight of Ella's face. "Jesus! What happened to you? Did you pick a fight with a bear or something?" Jack exclaims, brushing Ella's hair from the sticky, bloody gash above her eye. She swipes his hand away.
"Do something useful and call Doc." Ella commands Jack.
"Gees, moo-dy." Jack comments heading for the phone in the kitchen. Ella heads up the stairs to her room but stops halfway as she catches sight of Charlie standing at the table.
"Go home, Charlie." She says and continues up the stairs.
Disappointed, Charlie packs up his weapons and begrudgingly leaves. Jack returns the phone to its dock and follows the sound of running water upstairs.
"If I had known it was that easy to get that walking Alp out of the house the last few hours would have been a lot more pleasant." Jack says as he takes a seat on the toilet, watching the blurred figure behind the shower screen.
"Since when do we have the kind of relationship where we talk to each other in the shower? Get out, Jack!" Ella calls over of the sound of the running water. Jack pulls back the shower door and peers inside.
"Since Doc told me you could pass out and go into shock because of all the blood you've lost. So too bad, I'm not leaving."
"Get out, you pervert!" Ella shouts, slamming the shower door into Jack's neck.
"Ouch! Take it easy. It's not like we're related! What's your problem?" Jack yells as he rubs his neck. Ella pokes her head out of the shower, shampoo running down the side of her face.
"It's weird. We've spent most of our lives as brother and sister." She sees the hurt look on Jack's face and immediately feels bad. "I'm sorry. I over-reacted. I've had a shit of a day."
"I can tell. You have at least twice as many bruises as when you left. What happened?" Jack asks. Ella steps back under the flow of the water, washing the shampoo out of her hair and causing a river of red water to run down the plughole.
"I passed out at the prison and woke up in the infirmary with a psycho running lose, looking to hurt the little red headed doc and myself. I was off my game, cos of the GSW. He wouldn't have even got a hand on me otherwise." Ella explains, sounding tough, giving Jack the abridged story. "Oh, by the way, nice job leaving the round in my arm. I had to snake it from the prison Doc on my way out and one of the CO's nearly busted me."
"Doc said you would have bled out, so we had to leave it until you were stable. How was I supposed to know you'd go get in a prison fight? Did you get to talk to Burrows at least? I know how desperately you needed to get things set up with those boys." Jack tries switching focus.
"No." Ella replies sharply, immediately regretting showing any emotion to Jack.
Why not? And why do you sound so pissed off all of the sudden?" Jack pushes, knowing Ella is holding back.
"I really don't feel like talking about it right now, so drop it, okay?" She sighs, her voice giving way to the exhaustion of the last few days as she secretly washes the flow of tears from her cheeks before Jack sees them.
"Yeah, okay." Jack agrees as Ella turns off the taps.
"Hand me a towel, please." Jack hands her a clean towel but she gets the feeling that Jack isn't going to drop the subject that easily. She wraps the towel around herself, feeling her bruised muscles begin to stiffen as heat leeches out of her body and forms steam that adds to the fog on the mirror.
"You use a lot of hot water, you know." Jack adds helpfully as Ella walks over to the mirror and wipes away a patch of fog so she can stare at herself in the mirror.
"I've spent enough nights in the bush, without a hot shower that when I get the chance to have one, I like the temperature to be just short of scalding. God, I look like shit." She replies, pushing at the swelling forming around her broken nose. A pit begins to form in her stomach, and she worries about lying to Jack.
"Mission accomplished with the water, then. You can add red to your purple, blue and black colour palette." Jack smiles and stands to leave. "I'll bring up a couple of ice-packs. Doc said he would be here in about half an hour. He said you should lie down."
"I intend to. When he gets here, show him upstairs. Thanks, Jack." Ella replies as a sick feeling in her stomach grows; one which is completely unrelated to her burgeoning concussion.