Part One Hundred And Eighty One
When Karen and Denny reached G wing, Karen asked Gina to take Denny to the hospital wing, and to stay with her for the time being. When she entered the officers' room, she found Nikki, Sylvia, John and Grayling waiting for her, Dominic having obviously been assigned to return Tina and the Julies to their cells. Walking straight up to Sylvia, Karen waved the bunch of keys in front of her face. "I'd have thought by now that you would have learnt to properly look after your keys. This after all, wouldn't be the first time you've unwittingly lost them, now would it. The thought occurs, that you haven't learnt a single, bloody lesson in the entire time you've been here. The further thought occurs, that if you can't be trusted with such a responsibility, you should no longer be in your present employment. Now get out of my sight." Taking the keys from her before Karen could change her mind, Sylvia moved out of the office with far more speed and agility than her frame might indicate, leaving a slightly stunned silence in her wake. "As you are no doubt aware," Karen continued, turning to Nikki and not remotely losing her stride. "Disciplining junior officers, is one of the less delightful responsibilities of a wing governor. I am giving you carte blanche to give her whatever punishment you think fit." Finally acknowledging her superior's presence, Karen turned to him. "You look like you're just about ready to implode with fury." "What the hell, did you think you were doing?" Neil demanded quietly, though with the threat of menace barely below the surface. "I beg your pardon?" Karen replied, more than a little confused. "I asked," Neil said slowly and carefully, as if to a five-year-old. "Precisely what did you think you were doing, going up on that roof?" "Well, forgive me for being thick," Karen retorted flippantly. "But I thought I was trying to prevent someone from decorating the paving slabs out there, or have I missed something?" "You didn't even take the precaution of wearing a hard hat, for god's sake," Neil told her exasperatedly, his voice inevitably rising. Her face wavering for just a second, Karen realised that this thought hadn't once occurred to her. "Admittedly, that was something of an oversight," She said dismissively. "But as it happens, it wasn't necessary." Neil stared at her in aghast astonishment. "I don't believe I'm hearing this," He said a little more quietly. "Karen, this isn't like you." "Neil, if I'd done this strictly by the book, Daniella Blood would more than likely be dead now. I don't need that on my conscience, and you don't need the publicity." "You should never have tried to take the blade away from her," Neil said into the silence, neither confirming nor denying her assessment of the situation. "You weren't up there," Karen said succinctly. "You didn't see what she was doing with it." "Cutting, I would have thought," Neil said a little tartly. "That's what most inmates keep razor blades for." "Tell me," Karen said a little wearily. "Have you ever seen anyone in the process of doing it? Because believe me, it's a sight you wouldn't ever forget." "No, but..." "No, you haven't," She finished for him. "Like me, you've often found it a part of the job to deal with the after effects of such a pastime, but you've never actually witnessed it. The more she said, the more she kept on doing it. I couldn't just sit there, watching her get closer and closer to that main artery. Neil, if she'd had an arterial bleed up there, there would have been nothing you, or I, or anyone else could have done. I went up there to get Denny down safely and in one piece, and that's what I did. Now, can we please leave it at that?" "No way," Neil said quietly, still murderously angry with her for taking such a risk. "Karen, I can't have you working in such a stressful environment, when you are liable to make decisions, that are blatantly not based on your usual common courtesy towards your own safety. During the struggle you had with Denny, she could easily have pushed you off that ledge, whilst still keeping herself on a perfectly level footing." "And your point is?" Karen replied, her tone telling him in no uncertain terms to get on with it. "That is my point," He said in complete disgust. "You clearly don't give a damn about your own safety. Karen, you've been in this job, more than long enough, to know that you can't simply rush into a situation like this one, without giving due consideration to your own safety, you know that. I am more than a little concerned, that this no longer seems to be something to which you care to accord much thought." "My ultimate duty of care, is to the inmates," Karen stated firmly. "And in order to fulfill that duty of care, you have to think about how taking the type of risk that you did today, might put you in an irretrievably dangerous position. Karen, I don't want to have to do this, but you are forcing my hand. From this point on, I must ask you to consider yourself suspended." There was a long, awful pause. "Why?" Karen asked him, all the anger having dissipated, and her voice now containing only betrayal. "Karen, I am suspending you for your own good," Neil told her gently. "I need you to take some time out, to emotionally regroup, and to come back to the job, the Karen Betts I can trust. We both know that you came back to work far too soon, and I think that it's only now, that everything is beginning to catch up with you. I would like you to take a month, but I suspect that for you, that would be too much to ask, so I'm asking you to take at least a fortnight, before I see you anywhere near this place again." With a stunned, utterly appalled look on her face, Karen turned without another word, and strode hurriedly out of the office. As he swiftly made to follow her, John briefly stopped by Neil. "Well done," Was all he said, thinking that Neil had handled the situation admirably.
As John followed Karen back to her office, he could feel that her nerves were still singing with tension. Seeing Denny cut herself had undoubtedly affected her, and all John really wanted to do, was to hold her, soothe her, and persuade her to calm down, but he couldn't. She was giving off that tightly controlled air of don't you dare come anywhere near me. Sweeping into her domain, Karen noticed that her full ashtray of the day before was gone, meaning that the cleaners had obviously been in since the previous evening. She began stacking papers together, leaving her desk far tidier than she usually did, collecting together the various belongings she might want over the next couple of weeks. John stood and watched her, not knowing what he could possibly do to make her feel better. As if feeling his gaze on her, Karen turned to him. "You entirely agree with what he just did, don't you," She asserted, her tone clearly telling him that she was looking to continue her fight. "Yes," He told her simply, knowing that anything diplomatic wasn't going to go down well at this point. She didn't immediately respond, but he noticed her eyes flitting occasionally to the place where he suspected she kept her trusty bottle of scotch. Moving over to the wall safe above one of her filing cabinets, she punched in the code, opened the door, and began sorting through its contents. "It's funny," She said, glancing at him over her shoulder. "But one of the safest places to keep valuable documents, really is one of Her Majesty's prisons." "This is the last place I would think of keeping something like a passport," John said in astonishment, as she drew forth the little wallet that could take her out of the country if she wanted. "Prisons have to be constructed of as many flame retardant materials as possible, and it's far easier to get out of one, than it is to get in." Picking something else out of the safe, she handed it to him. "Will you do me a favour?" She asked a little more gently. "Will you take care of that for me? It's something I need to keep, but I'd rather not run across it unsuspectingly." "What is it?" He asked, thinking that he recognised the writing on the envelope. "Read it and see," She invited, knowing that John would appreciate its contents just as much as she did.
As John slowly read the letter Karen had received from Joe Channing, he felt an almost overwhelming combination of feelings beginning to swamp him. The sentiments were so delicately expressed, but with every word, feelings were induced in the reader that John wouldn't have expected to hear from his ex-father-in-law. Everything Joe said about his wife, and his raising of George, gave John an invaluable insight into Joe's relationship with his only daughter. He saw, perhaps for the first time, just how hard it must have been for him. But when he came to the part where Joe had mentioned Karen's clearly loving his daughter, John stopped, staring in wonder at the words before him. He had absolutely no idea that Karen felt so much for George, no idea at all, which made him again begin to question what she'd said before going up on the roof. Karen had said that she didn't have a lover to come back too, but surely she did, she had George. Granted, George wasn't entirely hers, but even so, she did have George, didn't she?
As she watched him reading out of the corner of her eye, Karen put her last few personal possessions together, leaving all the unimportant things, but taking the treasured ones with her. She moved to stand in front of her office window, looking down on the empty exercise yard, briefly glancing up at the hospital wing opposite, on whose roof she had so recently stood. She understood fully what had led Denny to go up there, and she understood why Denny hadn't wanted to come down. When John finished reading the letter, he put it back in its envelope, and laid it back on the desk. Walking slowly over to where Karen stood with her back to him, he gently put his arms round her from behind, feeling every muscle in her to be as hard as concrete. He laid his hands on top of hers, which rested on the sun-warmed ledge of the windowsill.
"You were amazing up there," He said into her hair, both of them looking out on to the silent grounds. "Bloody mental, you mean," She said turning her hands over so that her fingers interlocked with his. "No," He said with a fond smile. "You acted as though what you were doing was perfectly normal, as if where you were, was as safe as your balcony at home." "If I'd been afraid, Denny might have picked up on it, which would have wound her up even more." "What she did, it really disturbed you, didn't it." "Mmm," She said, trying to relax in his hold. "Not something I'll easily forget in a hurry." "Is that because of what Ross did?" John asked gently, feeling her tense slightly at her son's name. "Possibly," She admitted eventually. "Do you know what I see, nearly every time I close my eyes?" She asked into the silence. "I can see his blood, and there's never anything I can do to stop him bleeding. When I went to see him, the day after he died, I made the monumental mistake of looking at his arm, where he cut his wrist. That was probably the most stupid thing I've ever done, but I had to do it. What Denny was doing to herself, it was just a bit too close to that." John had inwardly winced when she'd told him of dreaming of Ross's blood, but when she'd explained why, his arms had reflexively tightened, as if by doing so, he could banish all the pain for good. Gently turning her to face him, he put his arms back round her, wanting to offer her comfort in the only way he knew how. There were tears in her eyes, but she was resolutely refusing to let them fall. "I wish you'd give into it," He told her softly, his own voice not entirely steady. "If I allowed everything to overwhelm me, John, I would crack up completely." They stood there for some time, Karen taking immeasurable comfort from simply being held by the strongest, gentlest, and at the same time, most passionate man she knew. He delicately ran his fingers through her hair, gradually feeling a little of the tension seeping from her body. "You should be available in pill form," She said into his shoulder, causing him to smile. After another long stretch of companionable silence, she said, "Thank you for being here today."" "I would say it was my pleasure," John said dryly, drawing slightly back from her. "But that wouldn't quite be appropriate." As their eyes met, all the adrenalin and electricity-fuelled feelings seemed to rise once again to the surface, the air positively crackling with the sudden need they had to bridge the distance. They both could feel it, and they both knew what would be the outcome, but neither of them could have stopped. When their lips eventually met, it felt to Karen as if she was coming home. After nearly two years of trying to forget what it had been like to kiss and be kissed by this man, suddenly all the memories were back with a vengeance. God, the things he'd done to her that night, she knew that he could remember it as well as she could. It was long, it was slow, and it was incredibly intense. But when they finally broke apart, John stared at her in astounded shock. "As unbelievable as it sounds, I really didn't mean to do that," He said, his thoughts reeling. Breaking into the first genuine smile she'd had in the last fortnight, Karen touched his cheek. I know you didn't, and neither did I, I think." "I'm sorry," He said seriously, moving slightly away from her. "Don't be sorry, John," She said gently. "Call it a fairly predictable reaction to an enormous adrenalin rush." "Well done," He said with a smirk. "You've come up with a much needed new excuse for my repertoire, but yes, you're probably right. Which reminds me," He said, suddenly remembering what she'd said earlier. "What did you mean, when you said that you didn't have a lover, waiting for you to come down safely." The smile was instantly wiped off Karen's face, something for which he internally kicked himself. "That's something only George can tell you, John, because I'm not entirely sure I'm right, and if I'm not, it wouldn't be fair to give you any false hope." "You're not making an ounce of sense," He told her gently. "As I said, I can't be certain. I've just had a couple of lights switched on today, that's all, and if I am right, it's not something I can or should tell you. I haven't even really discussed it with George, so if you want any answers, you'll have to ask her." As Karen picked up her belongings, she glanced at John's face. "Though I wouldn't ask George anything, looking like that," She said with a smirk, taking a tissue from her box, and gently wiping a smudge of lipstick from his lips. "Are you sure you want me to look after this?" He said, picking up Joe's letter. "Yes," Karen told him seriously. "It's not something I want to stumble on without warning, but it is something that I might want to look at occasionally." As she locked her office door, and they walked towards the outside, John's hand briefly slipped into hers and gave it a squeeze. "What are you going to do?" He asked. "Go away, somewhere, probably somewhere hot. Much as I'm loath to admit it, Neil was right in doing what he did, and I'd have probably done the same in his position. In fact, I did once do the same, or almost did, to Fenner. Believe it or not, he was as much of a workaholic as I am." "You are nothing remotely akin to Fenner, so don't ever let me hear you say so," John told her firmly, brooking no argument. As they passed through the gate lodge, and Karen handed over her keys, she had a brief impression that she was seeing this place for the very last time. But that was stupid, she reminded herself, because she would be back in two or three weeks, because to be away any longer would take away her purpose, the one thing she could cling too, that she knew without doubt she could do, come rain or shine.