More to come x I hope you're all still enjoying it, I will hopefully update again tonight! Reviews welcomed! :) xxx

"What're you reading?"

Max asked, kicking open the door to the on call room where he and Helena were staying with the toe of his shoe, two coffee's in a takeaway carrier swinging from his hand.

Helena glanced up as he entered, placing her book face down on the table next to her.

"Mrs Dalloway."

She answered, her voice so fragile in the silence.

Max placed the two coffee's down on to the table, opening the box and positioning hers in front of her, taking his own with him to the opposite side of the room where the sofa was longer.

"What's it about?"

He asked, deliberately drawing out the conversation to keep his mind from thinking about Zoe, ignoring the terrified nausea in his stomach, the prickle of hairs and lurch of his insides every time the ward phone rang from outside.

Helena drew up her shoulders to her jaw, sucking in a breath and looking at him, her eyes hesitant.

"Oh..."

She rolled her eyes as if it wasn't important but continued anyway, looking into the lid of the coffee cup.

"It's about this woman who's incredibly - well, she's a hostess and she's incredibly confident and she's going to give a party. And, maybe because she's confident, everyone thinks she's fine..."

She paused, looking up at Max, her eyes braver suddenly.

"But she isn't."

She added softly.

Max blew across the surface of his own coffee, watching the ripples, the coffee itself the colour of Zoe's skin.

"So what's the situation with you and Dr Hanna?"

Helena asked , changing the subject clumsily, after a moments silence, she could feel his thoughts drifting from the room.

He yawned into the palm of his hand before answering.

"Your husband said we weren't supposed to let you know about us."

He said, watching her reaction with interest. The half laugh of amusement, the roll of her espresso eyes, the press of her fingertips against her lips to quell her smile.

"Henry's an idiot."

She said eventually, her smile disappearing with her words.

She leant back in her chair and lifted her coffee to her lips, letting the steam rise into her face.

"So I'd noticed."

Max breathed, wishing he had added sugar to his coffee, just this once.

She raised an eyebrow.

"Most people don't..."

She said, watching him yawn again.

"Most people just turn a blind eye. I think it's because he's a doctor...if he was working class..."

She stopped abruptly, taking another sip of coffee but not continuing after she had swallowed.

Max sucked in another breath, he could still smell the sickly sweet smell of Henry's car air freshener on his clothes.

"Does he ever hurt you?"

Max asked slowly, expecting a flinch, an awkward pause perhaps. Instead she shrugged casually, looking up at him.

"Most of the time he just gives me that look..."

She said.

"What look?"

He asked, forcing himself to try to relax back into the sofa.

"That look...to say 'your life is so trivial'. YOU are so trivial."

She shrugged again and broke his gaze.

"Why are you still with him?"

He asked, prizing his feet free from his shoes and stretching his legs out so that his feet were under the coffee table.

"That's what we do isn't it? That's what people do. We put up with something bad to avoid something worse...?"

She spoke as if she wanted some sort of affirmation from him, that what she was doing was normal.

He bit the skin of his bottom lip before responding.

"He bullies you. Why should you have to put up with that?"

He asked, the tiled floor cold underneath his heels, another yawn threatening the roof of his mouth.

"If I didn't have him...he wouldn't let me keep the kids, not if everyone found out..."

She trailed off again, smiling nervously at him as if apologising for pausing.

"I'm having an affair."

She said the words quickly as if to get them out without him noticing.

"Ah..."

He looked again at the coffee in his cup. Zoe...

"With a woman."

Helena added , her voice even quieter.

"Oh..."

Max looked up, eyebrows raised, her cheeks were flushed and she touched a hand to the warmth of them.

"Sorry..."

She flapped a hand, flustered by her own admission.

"I don't know what's happening to me. I seem to be unravelling."

She drew in a deep breath and looked at him again.

"The woman I'm having an affair with, Bette, her name is Bette...she's a prison guard at the prison..."

The realisation was visible as it rose up across Max's eyes.

"The prison where Henry and Zoe are...?"

He asked, she nodded silently, her eyes glimmered in the glow from the ceiling light, her lip trembled and she smiled another nervous smile.

"Well then I guess we're in the same boat."

He breathed, balancing his coffee on his knee so that he could run a hand over his face.

"Come here."

He said, taking hold of his coffee again and gesturing with a nod of his head to the space next to him.

She moved tentatively, unsure of herself, stepping with uneasy steps over to the sofa were she sat stiffly on it's edge.

"I didn't mean to do it..."

The corner of her lip twitched as she spoke.

"I don't think many people do, do they?"

He asked.

"I remember on the morning of our wedding, I was only 17, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself: So, this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more..."

She fiddled with the fraying paper lip of her coffee mug.

"It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was that moment. Right then."

She glanced at him apologetically.

"And then...all those months, for one whole year I was miserable. Until a year later...I was going to buy eggs and she...Bette... walked out of the apartment block opposite as I was leaving. I was nineteen years old, and I'd never seen anything so beautiful."

She dipped her head with embarrassment.

"Her, coming out of a glass door in the early morning, still sleepy. Isn't it strange, the most ordinary morning in anybody's life?"

She flapped her hand again, as if it were all meaningless.

"Sorry to go on I think it's the worry..."

Max shifted forward, leaning down to place his coffee on the floor between his feet, sitting back up again and looking at her. She seemed to vibrate with nervous energy, her fear of the thought of what was happening at the prison mirroring his own.

She ran her fingers across her lips, her voice a strangled whisper.

"It would be wonderful to say I regretted it. It would be easy. But what does it mean? What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? It's what you can bear. There it is. No one's going to forgive me. No one's going to understand...my parents, my friends...my children. It was death. I chose life."

Managed to squeeze another one out. I think I'm still exhausted from the birthday celebrations last week! In answer to someone's question, yes I am still enjoying writing it ;) I'm sure I will get back into my two or more update 'swing' soon...perhaps tonight was the beginning.

Off to sleep now as I'm barely making sense due to tiredness! xx