It has been a while, a long while. I am sorry. I have not been so good myself. I hope this is ok. Please tell me any thoughts, suggestions.

Thank you.

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Nurse Hallodine stepped into the hospital room occupied by patient Danny Taylor as part of her night shift rounds. The patients' eyes were closed and his breathing was deep but his pupils constantly quivered suggesting restlessness and traumatic dreaming. Leaning herself against the bedside chair, the nurse allowed her eyes to explore Mr Taylor – covered in bloodstained bandages, connected to IV and BP machines and pale as a ghost. Her gaze trained to discern injuries and physical ails found itself also noticing the haunted look about the man and a vulnerability he seemed to emit. Sighing, Nurse Hallodine took the chart from the end of Mr Taylor's bed and after writing down some notes turned for the door… she hesitated as she reached the entrance, glancing back and wondering what had happened to him.

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'Hey little bro,' a youthful Raphie exclaimed before roughing up the young boys hair and dropping himself down onto the bed.

Danny looked up into his brothers eyes – they were red rimmed from crying, a bruise was forming on his jaw and there were red marks around his neck. Danny had been crying too but not for the same reason – no, he had been crying because it should have been him that his father had hit – Danny was the one who knocked over the vase – the one that had belonged to his father's mother. Danny knew that the yelps coming from outside the back door were meant to be his own.

'Hey, it's ok Danny,' the bruised brother began – 'it's nothing see,' he said, pulling a funny face.

"Yeah," the younger brother replied turning his head away from Raphie's and clenching his fists in self disgust. "I am nothing," his mind told him.

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He was falling backwards. The solidarity of the concrete roof no longer beneath his feet, instead with arms spread wide like the wings of eagles behind him, he plummed to his death, to eternity….. The ground caught him and pain shot through his arms, his chest and torso… but nothing else seems to happen… he waits… and waits – but eternity doesn't seem to come. Confused, his eyes open and he finds himself lying on a linoleum floor, a hospital bed to his right and a beeping machine lying on the floor to his left. He feels his cheeks flush at the embarrassment – he can't even lie in a bed straight. Now the nurses will come and fuss over his broken body, broken stitches will be restitched and he will wallow in his self worthlessness.

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'Visitors for you,' the nurse exclaimed after she softly rapped her knuckles against the wooden door frame. As she turns to leave, two people enter the quiet room.

'Oh look at you…' escaped from Vivian's mouth as she neared him and placed a hand on Danny's cheek.

'How are they treating you Danny?' Jack asked arms crossed in front of his chest and brow furrowed in genuine concern.

He nodded, 'Fine… they're treating me fine…'

'So they should be, you are a very important person to many people you know,' smiled Vivian.

Danny blushed. He didn't think so, but he did love his co-workers like he would assume a family was supposed to feel love for each other. He cursed himself, but he had let them down too – just like how he had let down his mother, his brother and Ella Simmonds.

'I think you overestimate my worth…' he half-whispered, half whimpered.

At first he didn't realise the words were actually coming out of his mouth – it wasn't until he, as if in some far away place watched the reactions of two people in the room as a stranger lying in a hospital bed spoke in a rush, telling them how he was a failure, how he was scared he would be miserable forever, how he wished for his life to end, how he read Ella's journals and ached for he had seen those words before – they were like his own. Danny's lips continued to move, their parting coordinated with the sounds coming from his voice box which it turn, created syllables and words and sentences. In that hospital room Jack and Viv were witness to the hurt behind a man, they at last saw the exterior stripped back to find a Danny plagued with darkness, torn by self doubts and lack of self worth and confusion that before the happenings of the last few days had not been evident.

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Jack listened to the words that were filtering through his ears and making connections within his mind. He could feel the hurt, he could see the pain and he could hear the vulnerability in the young officer's voice. Jack was glad however… glad that this moment of unburdening had finally come.