So I'm continuing this story bcs of the lovely feedback. I appreciated your reviews immensely, thank you!I hope you'll like this continuing!

In a way she knew that it would come up again one day, all these feelings and memories she had been trying to burry at the back of her head. Too painful to think about and be reminded of. It had been over 30 years ago but now the fear was there again just as strong as it was back then, maybe even stronger. Because now she knew. Now she knew what all the bruises and injuries in combination meant. It wasn't hard to work it out, almost obvious and yet she had failed putting it together when it was needed. How could she have been so blind. She could have helped, she could have provided it, could have saved her mum.

The pictures were so clear in her head that the pain became unbearable. Every single muscle in her body tensed. She was shaking, she couldn't breath. Her chest rose and fell but there was no air coming through to her lungs. Closing her eyes she tryed to calm herself but that didn't help at all. It had quite the opposite effect, the pictures just ran faster and faster through her mind like a photo roll.

She saw every little detail of her mother's injuries, the desperate tries to hide them and how she'd jump every time her father came home calling after his wife that he'd arrived. But back then Nikki didn't read anything into it, innocently believing what her mum would have told her: own stupidity, fallen on the stairs. But she wasn't innocent, if she'd just mentioned any of these things to another adult person something could have been done and it wouldn't have come as far as it had. Her mother could still be alive.

The sudden realisation of the past events hit her like a wall. She felt her chest tightening even more, the pressure in it increasing by the second. Her eyes were open yet she couldn't see anything, she had no focus. Her ears had shut down. All she could hear was the blood rushing through them in the rhythm of her rapidly beating heart. It was then that she felt two hands taking hold of her upper arms on each side.

A concerned voice made it through to her yet she couldn't understand what was being said, the dull sound still reverberating in her ears. The next time she heard the voice it became clearer.

"Nikki?! Calm down! Breath!", as she heard her name she snapped out of her memories back to present focusing on the man who was talking to her. Jack was looking her deep into the eyes as if though he'd get the answer to what was going on in her in them.

It took Nikki another moment to make out the instructions given afterwards. But when she did she instinctively tried to breath in and this time it actually worked. Inhaling the air around her she was getting more and more relaxed as her lungs filled again, the pressure succeeding with every time the oxygen came through her air ways.

Slowly she began to stop shaking and taking in her surroundings more clearly. She closed her eyes until she had completely calmed down from her panic attack. Jack was standing closer to her once again one hand on her back, the other smoothing up and down her left arm.

"Better?", his voice was soft and calming but the concern was still clear in his tone. Yet she didn't know whether she'd get a word out, still trying to figure out what had just happened.

Nikki nodded slowly although she felt a bit weak at her knees right now. She only ever had a panic attack like this when she was in Mexico over 3 years ago and just like back then Jack was by her side sensing that her condition wasn't as good as she was trying to make him believe. And who was she gotta be kidding? Jack? No, his forensically trained eye could sense the smallest of differences in a place he's never been to before and she, as he had known her for about eight years, was trying to convince him that she was alright while her legs were slowly giving in? 'What a clever, thought-through plan' she thought.

Jack was guiding her towards one of the sofas in the waiting area of the Lyell where she set down while he kept standing next to her. "Tea?"

Nikki shook her head. Normally she wouldn't be able to resist a hot, comforting cup of tea but at the moment she knew that she couldn't swallow the tiniest bit of it even if she wanted to. The memories still had their hands tight around her neck ready to spring into action again but she was keeping calm in an attempt to not give the anxiety a chance to hit her over again.

Nikki was leaning forward, her elbows on her knees, her hands holding on to each other as she was looking at the ground closing her eyes tightly once again, her thoughts returning to that specific day in the garden when she almost...

"Do you want to talk about it?", she could feel him watching her as she was replaying that moment in her head over and over again noticing that Jack was waiting for an answer.

"I just wished I did it.", she sighed, her voice shaky and her eyes almost glazing over half ignoring his question.

"Did what?"

Nikki was now looking straight forward at the wall opposite her with a cold expression on her face. "Killed him."