Nikki appeared back with Simone, who went off to make her a cup of tea to warm her up some more.
"Then I need to examine that knee." Simone remarked before she left. She saw Nikki's unimpressed expression. "Yes – I know you're a doctor, but you can barely walk and someone needs to look at it."
"Yes – they do." Jack agreed, a hint in his voice telling Nikki that she was not to argue the point.
Simone handed Nikki her own bag. "There's some paracetamol in there – I'll bring you a glass of water as well." She added before departing.
Jack gently pulled Nikki down into the armchair with him and wrapped his arms around her protectively. "Warmer now?"
She snuggled up as best as she could, given the bruises. "Yeah."
"I want to know exactly what he did to you." Jack muttered after a while. He needed to know how badly the creep had hurt her, but Nikki had other ideas.
"No – you really don't."
Jack hesitated, horrified. "you mean...he didn't-" He stammered.
"No no. He didn't do that." Nikki answered quickly, knowing exactly what was running through his head.
"I still want to know."
"It will make you angry and he's not worth you getting in trouble over." She responded firmly as Simone returned. Nikki also knew that Jack would be devastated to know just how vicious Ollie had been and she was anxious to protect him from the hurt it would cause him – Ollie wasn't.
"I hit with the gun and knocked her to the floor – that's when she hurt her knee." The student announced, much to Nikki's chagrin. They should have given him a muzzle.
"Shut up!" She warned him crossly, but Ollie was determined to anger Jack – to see how far he could push him so he carried on.
"I kept kicking her while she was on the ground and then I left her lying in the water."
Nikki felt Jack tense up and held him tightly. "I'm here, Jack. I'm right here." She whispered to try and calm him down.
"Ollie that's enough!" Katie intervened from under her blanket.
Simone handed the tea to Nikki and placed the glass of water on the table. She started rooting around in her bag and fished out the paracetamol, which Nikki obediently took to ease the pain in her knee.
Katie shook her head at her grandson. "I hardly recognise you at the moment Ollie – this isn't you!" she lamented "and why would you hurt Dr Alexander? I thought you liked her – you're always talking about her. I just don't understand that at all." Nikki bit her lip - an awful thought suddenly occurring to her. Katie asked to be taken to sit next to Nikki and Jack.
"I think you have a right to know why he's so angry." She told them. "My late husband – Ollie's Grandfather was at a care home in Scotland. Mary Thorpe worked there – and Amitra, Ollie said she had a different name then." She paused. "My husband wasn't really himself at the end and I found it distressing to visit I'm afraid, so Ollie was there more than me. I didn't recognise Amitra."
"But Ollie did." Nikki stated.
Katie nodded. "Yes. People died at the care home – residents, including Ollie's grandfather and Amitra got in trouble for it, he said. I knew there was an inquiry and things in the paper at the time, but I blocked it out. Ollie blames her and Mary Thorpe for his Grandad's death – and they both work here at the care home where I am – that's why he's angry."
"That explains why he burst in here with a gun" Jack exclaimed as Nikki sipped her tea. He raised his voice to the point everyone in the room winced and shot an angry glance at Ollie. "but that doesn't explain why you hurt Nikki or why the hell you brought her here in the first place!"
"Jack, I know you're upset but is it really necessary to shout?" Beattie asked from the opposite armchair.
"Sorry, Beattie." He mumbled, suddenly decided he'd scared Nikki with shouting as well as the old lady, and hugging her tightly.
Ollie, meanwhile looked away from Jack's armchair and declined to provide an answer.
"He said he was worried about his Gran in the storm" Nikki answered instead. "He also claimed he thought she was ill and wanted a second opinion from someone he trusted. I didn't want to drive in the weather, so I called a taxi. When we couldn't get through on the road, Ollie directed the driver to a back road. I didn't think anything of it at the time."
"That still doesn't explain why he beat you up." Simone pointed out.
Ollie still refused to offer any response.
"He was acting shifty" Nikki told them. "Like he didn't want anyone to see us – which I thought was odd if he was here to see his Gran – and then he pulled out a gun. I knew everyone had come up to the main house, so I was trying to keep him away. I tried to convince him I was on his side, but" She shrugged "I guess I was scared and he realised I was pretending."
Ollie looked back at them triumphantly, deciding he might have a way out of the trouble he was in. "There you are. She lied to me. It was a fit of anger. I didn't mean it. I was sorry straight after."
"You know, I'd really like to believe that, Ollie." Nikki took another sipped of her tea. "but when I managed to sit up in the flooded basement and you crouched in front of me – you didn't say sorry, did you. You told me it was my fault for making you angry."
"Which is basically what you've just done again." Simone added in disgust. "Blaming Nikki for you hurting her."
"Ollie – why?" Katie pleaded with him to explain, but he just sullenly turned away again.
Nikki looked down and drained her mug of tea, remembering the awful thought she'd had earlier. Her pondering didn't go unnoticed by Jack.
"There's something else, isn't there?" He prodded her gently.
"The pills" Nikki mumbled.
"The pills? What pills?" Jack questioned, instinctively tightening his protective grip on her again.
Nikki looked up at Ollie. "Before we came here, you previously invited me to the Halloween party." She gave an involuntary shudder and hardly dared to imagine what might have happened, had she gone. "Earlier at the lodge, a packet of pills fell out your pocket. I don't know what they are, but I hope you've got a good explanation because after the way you've be behaving, I can't help wondering if you intended to spike my drink or something."
"Not like that" Ollie muttered, showing the first sign of empathy that night as he remembering the way he'd thought of her before, but confirming Nikki's fears, nonetheless. "Not in that way."
"What other bloody way is there?!" Jack snapped at the student, although he did attempt to keep his volume down.
"I-I like her. I thought it would...make her like me too." Ollie stammered.
Nikki covered her face "Oh God I've heard enough!"
"I don't know who you are anymore." Katie bemoaned sorrowfully at her grandson. She turned to the two in the armchair. "I'm sorry Nikki. I'm so sorry."
Nikki patted her arm. "It's not your fault" she reassured the old lady, before Simone helped Katie back to her previous more restful position in the corner.
Simone returned and sat in Katie's recently vacated chair, insisting she needed to examine the damaged knee – much to Nikki's dismay. The latter was in a comfortable position snuggled with Jack and now that the painkillers had kicked in, she didn't wish to move.
The knee was badly swollen. Simone looked up "What exactly-?"
"It twisted when...I fell" Nikki answered, not wishing to mention Ollie's part in things and stir up Jack's feelings again.
"I'll have to ring Matt tomorrow. " Jack commented, looking disappointed by the very fact, but thinking it was the right thing to say.
Nikki looked at him confused for a moment. "Matt? Why would you-oh right – you don't know." She stared at her hands, considering the best way to approach the topic. "You know me so well – sometimes I forget that you can't see what's going on in my head."
He automatically placed a fond kiss on her forehead. "I don't think anyone knows what is going on in your head, Nikki. What don't I know?"
"Matt and I...we split up."
"I'll go and see if I can find some ice." Simone stood up, deciding it was a good time to leave. They appeared to have momentarily forgotten that were other people in the room. She took a blanket off the back of the armchair and laid it over them, before she headed off to the kitchen.
Jack pulled the blanket up to their chins and tried to hide his delight at Nikki being single again. "You ok about that? – you were with him a long time."
"Yeah. It was time. To be honest, it hasn't been the same since the plane crash when his friend died – the plane Matt was meant to be on."
Jack shuffled nervously.
"Hey it's ok." Nikki declared. "I know he told you first – it kind of says something that he couldn't tell me. Anyway, whenever I went over there – he was always working and hardly had time for me." She shrugged, both of them seemingly oblivious that under the blanket, one of her hands was lacing with one of his.
"I've always got time for you." Jack whispered softly in her ear.
A few hours later, when all was dark and peaceful, the storm outside was at last showing signs of calming, and the other occupants of the room slept soundly, Nikki awoke to find Jack wide awake and watching her. They spoke in whispers, so as not to wake anyone.
"You ok?"
She nodded. "one hand is cold though"
"Which hand?"
"The one you're not holding"
"Oh. Give it here then" He whispered and placed it in his slightly open shirt under the blanket.
Neither of them were quite prepared for the sudden increase in his heartbeat at their skin making contact.
"Better?" He asked, flushing slightly.
"Mmm." She agreed. "Have you got any sleep at all?"
"How can I sleep?" He murmured. "You could have internal bleeding or anything."
She looked up at him. "Jack, you know as well as I do that if I did, it would have caught up with me by now. Get some sleep ok? I'm not going anywhere."
Before either of them realised what was happening, Jack automatically leaned down towards her lips and there in the darkened room, they shared their first gentle kiss.
It was everything they had dreamed of and more.