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"Hey, you're awake." Punk said quietly, walking into their bedroom around 6am after getting home from work.

"I was up with Matteo." AJ said quietly, lying on her back in their bed, barely having slept at all.

"Is he ok?" He asked her.

"Yeah, he's fine. He just wanted a feed." AJ nodded.

"You must be exhausted. I feel like I'm no help to you right now." He shook his head, unhappy with himself. He didn't enjoy not being around to help with night feeds. He didn't want his wife to feel like she was on her own.

"Don't be stupid." AJ said, "I can nap whenever I want. This is your job." She shook her head. She was anything but mad with him. All she could really think about right now was everything her mother had said when she stopped by last night. It hadn't left her head for a single second. It was almost becoming too much for her. She already had so much bottled up inside, and somehow things kept getting added in.

"I caught up with Dean on my break last night. He swung by at the station." He said, stripping his clothes off as AJ watched, "It was something about my mom getting a letter from a prisoner." He chuckled to himself, pulling his t-shirt off as AJ looked over, the tightest feeling in her stomach as he spoke.

"Really?" AJ said quietly.

"Yeah." Punk shook his head, "He said it was this really weird letter. Someone called Nickie. I figured maybe it was an old friend or something but I didn't know my mom had friends in prison." He laughed to himself, pulling the sheets back on his side of the bed and sliding in beside his wife.

"So… what did the letter say?" AJ asked curiously, turning her head to look at him.

"Something about her wanting my mom to visit her. But she knows she's sick, so they've obviously stayed in touch for a while. But my mom can't write anything now. She doesn't even speak." Punk shook his head, running his hands through his hair tiredly.

"So what are you going to do?" She asked.

"About what?" He turned to her.

"The letter." She said.

"Nothing." Punk shrugged, "I don't know who it is and… the letter wasn't particularly eloquent in describing my mom's state of mind. If it is a friend of hers, it's a shitty friend." He shook his head as AJ gulped, "Anyway, what did you do with your night?" He asked, "How was my guy?" He said, gathering her in his arms and kissing her cheek as she smiled.

"I just laid on the couch, watched some movies, and your guy was fine." She smiled to him, "How was work?"

"Oh, you know." Punk grumbled, kissing her neck as she smiled.

"Phil, you should sleep." She whispered, whilst pulling his body closer.

"I will eventually." He smiled, lips against her cheek and then to her lips as he rolled over on top of her, dipping his hands into her shorts as she bit her lip and rolled her head back, suddenly desperate for her head to go blank from all the thoughts, all the worrying.

"Renee, can I speak to you for a second?" Shauna asked, walking into the radiology department where Renee was standing at the desk.

"Renee?" Renee chuckled a little, "I didn't know we were on a first name basis." She said as Shauna folded her arms and glared at her, "Uh… yeah, sure." Renee shook her head, walking after Shauna who walked quickly to her office.

"I won't take up much of your time. I know you're busy." Shauna said, closing the door behind her.

"Actually I was just-"

"Is April talking to her mother again?" Shauna asked curiously as Renee raised her eyebrows with surprise. She just assumed the conversation was going to be about work.

"Uh… no, not since they had a big blow up weeks ago." Renee said, "Why?"

"Ok, well as her friend you should… you should make sure she doesn't let her mom into her life again." Shauna nodded apprehensively.

"Ok?" Renee said, in a questioning tone, "You look worried." She shook her head.

"I'm worried about April." Shauna nodded, "You girls have been here for a while now. Feels like forever sometimes." She rolled her eyes, "But I've gotten to know you both, and I know her relationship with her mom has been up and down, up and down." She said, "The greatest thing that happened to her was cutting ties with her and marrying Phil."

"I agree." Renee said, "But… what do you know about her mom? I mean, yeah she's crazy but… a lot of people are crazy." She shrugged.

"I just… I remember her coming here when I was an intern. She was terrifying. And she terrified April, even at the age she was… seventeen, eighteen." Shauna said, "And I've… I've seen April's medical files." She shook her head.

"What does that mean?" Renee looked at her.

"Not intentionally. It was when she had Matteo. I got her history and she was admitted 8 times to hospital between the ages 4 and 6, with burns… chemical burns." Shauna shook her head as Renee looked across at her.

"Where is this going?" Renee asked.

"I just think that we need to keep her mother away from her. I saw her the other night and… the way she talks about her mom… it's like she's trapped. Like she hates her but she can't say it. It's completely common to see that with people who have been psychologically abused in their life." Shauna nodded.

"AJ is my best friend. She has been since med school. I think I'd know if she was… abused growing up." Renee said, "I mean… she had a therapist at one point in med school, but I thought it was just… I don't know, depression? The stress of med school?" Renee nodded, starting to worry the more she spoke, thinking about her friends complex relationship with her mother and what that could really mean.

"Just check in on her. Having a baby can be a stressful time anyway but… add all this on top of it." Shauna shook her head.

"You think her mom hurt her as a kid?" Renee asked sadly as Shauna looked across at her.

"They were a strange family." Shauna sighed, "Quite frankly, I know nothing, and it very well might not be my business… but Phil was looking for her medical files not too long ago, which tells me that she hasn't talked to him about it." She said.

"I just thought they had a bad relationship. I mean… when she was engaged to Jason, she was pretty close with her mom for a while. They'd go for breakfast and stuff." Renee said, finding it hard to believe.

"Yeah… that's why this form of abuse can be the cruellest." Shauna shook her head, "And can last forever without anyone noticing." She sighed.

"W-What do I do? Do I ask her about it?" Renee asked worriedly.

"No… no, just make sure that she knows that her mother shouldn't be in her life. Cause it could be easy for her to let her mom back in." Shauna said.

"You sound so familiar with all of this." Renee said.

"Young, what's my speciality?" Shauna raised a brow.

"Psych." Renee realised as Shauna nodded, "Have you always thought this about her?"

"Not always. But now I see it. Even more so when she's out of the work environment." Shauna said, "I just want to make sure she has people looking out for her."

"Sounds like she does." Renee nodded to her gratefully, "I'll call her tonight and see how she's doing."

"Just a coffee please." AJ nodded, standing at the coffee stall in the park, hand on Matteo's stroller as she waited for her order from the small, take-away coffee stall.

She paid and took her coffee over to a bench, sitting the coffee down on the table and putting the stroller on brake beside her. She looked around nervously, watching people walking through the park. Children on their bikes, dog walkers, joggers and cyclists.

"April?" She heard a voice questioning as she turned her head.

"Drake?" AJ questioned. Strictly speaking, the man she had called to speak to, she didn't really know what he looked like.

"Yeah, officer Drake Fields." Drake nodded, extending his hand to her as she stood up and shook it.

"Thank you for… coming to see me on such short notice." She said as he nodded, taking a seat across from her at the bench, "I didn't think I'd get a hold of you so quickly."

"I only work part-time at the station these days. I got some more time on my hands." Drake nodded, "You wanted to speak to me about a case I dealt with?"

"Yeah… I'm not sure what protocol you have to follow… if you can even tell me anything." AJ said.

"First you gotta tell me what case and how it relates to you. Let's start there." Drake nodded.

"Nickie Brooks." AJ said as Drake felt a shiver run up his spine, his shoulders going tense immediately as he looked across at AJ.

"Mhm." Drake nodded.

"I'm… I'm married to one of her son's." AJ explained, "They were adopted. They know nothing about her… I've only recently been told about her." She said as Drake nodded.

"What is it you want to know?" Drake shook his head, "It was a pretty public case."

"Did she really kill her husband?" AJ asked. She had no one else to confirm, and she couldn't rely on her mother's word. She had to be told from someone who was there, and so this morning after her husband fell asleep after satisfying the both of them, she looked into articles from when it happened and got her eyes on the lead officer for the case. It snowballed from there.

"What do you think?" Drake questioned.

"I honestly don't know. This is pretty new information to me. I don't know what to make of it." AJ shook her head.

"She killed her husband." Drake nodded, "Shot him in the head to be precise. With a gun she'd bought a week prior. We found a diary that belonged to her… a lot of entries suggested that she was planning this for a while."

"So she really… murdered him?" AJ swallowed the lump in her throat.

"In every sense of the word." Drake said, "She had a pretty heavy history of mental illness. Diagnosed schizophrenic. Didn't come from a very good family. That sort of thing."

"Why would she kill her husband? Was there history of… domestics between them?" AJ wondered.

"None on record, no." Drake shook his head, "I didn't know the dad. He seemed like a good guy from what I heard. Good with the kids. That sort of thing." He nodded.

"So was she in the middle of some psychotic break? I mean you were there. You obviously spoke to her." AJ said.

"She wasn't sane at the time, if that's what you're asking. She kept referring to a they… they made me do it. That sort of thing. She was off her meds. Apparently two weeks before she accidentally left her two year old son at the grocery store. She just walked out and left the stroller."

"Phil." AJ nodded to herself, getting chills as she thought about the demise of her husband's biological family. How tragic and horrific it all seemed.

"Just so many factors contributed to her being completely unstable. Once she was medicated and… healthier I suppose… she tried to kill herself, it was like she realised what she'd done. Pretty sad." Drake thought about it.

"You really remember this case, huh?" AJ nodded.

"It's not a case I'd forget." Drake shook his head.

"Is there anything else you can tell me?" AJ asked.

"No… not unless there's anything specific you wanna ask. She went to prison and the boys went to her parents." Drake remembered.

"What?" AJ shook her head, "Her parents?"

"Yeah, they were her foster parents if I remember correctly. I think she stayed with them when she was sixteen." Drake said as AJ put her hand over her mouth, suddenly realising, "They adopted her sons. That's what she wanted."