The screaming was by far the worst noise he'd ever heard in his life.

It was relentless, terrified, and sounded excruciating. He didn't know how she was even breathing through it, so endless it was. Then a morbid thought occurred to him; at least if she's screaming, she's alive.

It took him a moment to make his legs work and unfreeze them from the spot, but he scrambled to the edge. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the stone wall. He knew nothing but the fact that the sound would echo in his mind long after she finally stopped.

"Nicky," he said breathlessly, scarcely able to look over the edge without feeling the world spinning around him. The relief upon seeing her laying on a piece of small flat roof that stuck out was immense and he felt it flooding through his veins, calming the adrenaline that still pumped through them. He reached down for her. "Can you grab my hand?"

If he noticed her twisted, mangled leg, he didn't show it. Or maybe it was because he was trying not to look. He stuck his hand out further, shaking with effort and terror. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

The screaming turned to whimpers through gritted teeth. "I-I think so," she stammered. Lightning bolts of pain shot through her leg. Had she ever felt such pain? Maybe when her heart decided to stop working as it should, but even then, it wasn't as much blinding pain as it was utter exhaustion. Her breath hitched as she tried to throw her hand upwards, but didn't quite meet his outstretched fingers. She was losing hope.

Why had she done it? She was asking herself that a thousand times over. She had felt herself falling. If she'd tried, really tried, she could have saved herself. Yet she hadn't. Her head spun wildly out of control.

He was feeling desperate. He wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans. Even if she managed to grasp his hand in hers, she would slip straight back down again with how clammy his hands were. It was only as he looked down again that he noticed how gray she looked.

"Shit." He ran trembling fingers through his greasy hair. He didn't have a choice anymore. "Nicky, don't move. I'm going to get help."

Where the hell am I going to move to? Nicky thought as she sucked in a breath. With more effort than she thought she could muster she yelled, "No, don't!"

He hovered, his fingers curled around the handle of the door. He swallowed hard. It wasn't like he wanted to, either. He would be in even more trouble than Nicky would be. "Nicky, I have to."

"No!" There was a grunt as she forced herself to stay conscious through the pain. "Luschek, it'll be fine…"

It clearly wouldn't. Her voice trailing off was more evidence of that than he'd need. "Just stay there," he pleaded with her. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"What do you mean, my daughter fell from a roof?" Marka's voice rang out in her office, bouncing off of the white walls and filling the silence that had fallen on it before the phone had broken it. Through the glass doors, her assistant looked up. Marka flushed at the attention she'd brought on herself and lowered her voice. "You can explain when I get there," she said with a strained voice, "I'm coming over now. I'll be there in thirty minutes."

Picking up her bag from under her desk, Marka slammed her laptop shut. Her chest burned red with anxiety as she ignored the stares from her assistant.

When she finally arrived at the hospital, she dreaded going inside. There was no worse news than her child being hurt, yet she also dreaded seeing her daughter. No doubt she would be as combative as usual, coupled with...well, whatever had happened prior to her swan dive from a rooftop. And that was resting on the assumption that she even would be okay. Marka's hand trembled as she pushed the door open and ran to the desk. She ignored the line and pushed to the front.

"I'm Nicky Nichols' mother," she said breathlessly. "She just came in from a rehabilitation center nearby and she fell from a roof," she rambled, aware of how crazy she sounded. "Can you just please tell me where she is? How she is?"

The lady at the desk frowned for a moment before checking her system. She looked bewildered herself, which didn't exactly instill confidence. "Miss Nichols is in surgery right now, if you'd like to follow me, I can show you to a waiting room."

"I don't need a waiting room," Marka said plainly, as she didn't move an inch. Being fobbed off wasn't something she ever put up with and she wasn't about to start now. "I need to know how Nicky is."

A nurse appeared from behind Marka. "Mrs Nichols?" she said softly. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, clutching a clipboard to her chest. "Mother of Nicole?"

Marka turned to be faced with a nurse with choppy brunette hair and a light accent. The room was so stuffy she was finding it hard to breathe. She nodded quickly. "Yes?" she replied tightly.

"I'm Nurse Mendoza," she continued. "I'm looking after your daughter. If you'd like to come with me, she's out of surgery. She's out of recovery and into her room. Follow me."

Marka looked up to the ugly ceiling, full of pockmarks and strobe lighting, and said a silent little prayer. "Thank God," she mouthed. "And thank you," she said to the nurse.

Marka sat beside Nicky's bed. She didn't touch her daughter, who looked more like a paper doll than a person. She didn't clutch her hand in relief or whisper reassuring words in her ear. Instead she sat by her bedside, leant forward, watching every breath she took.

Outwardly, she appeared calm. Inwardly, she was berating herself. The last time she had seen her daughter in hospital, she had lambasted her for her addiction. Spat out horrible words about new choices and how she was messing up her life this time. And though it had come from a terrified place, she wondered how she had ever said those nasty words. The words 'your daughter has fallen from a roof' would put the fear of God into anyone. She didn't want Nicky replaying those words in her mind like she was now. In fact, sitting here, she couldn't hear anything but her own words. She couldn't stand it anymore. If nothing else, she would find out what happened. It was the only useful thing she could do.

She picked up her handbag and flew out of the door. And as the door swung shut on Nicky's room, her eyes fluttered open. A familiar perfume permeated the air and Nicky breathed it in as she came to. A croaky voice filled the room as Nicky forced her eyes open.

"Mom?"

"How can you not know what happened? Haven't you checked the CCTV?" Marka demanded. Her face hardened as her lips quirked down into a frown and she pressed her hands palms down onto the countertop to hide the fact that they shook. "This isn't good enough!"

The receptionist looked like a deer stuck in the headlights. "Why don't I take you through to another room?" she asked quietly, her eyes darting to the people milling around in the waiting room. From the moment Marka had stormed in through the front door, all eyes had been on her.

Marka followed her gaze and fury rose in her chest. "Yes, take me away from all of your would-be customers, why don't you!" Marka span on her heel and turned to the people waiting. "Don't send your sons and daughters here. You might not get them back!"

Ushered into a side room, Marka watched as a well dressed middle-aged man settled down at a desk. He shuffled a stack of papers before clearing his throat. "I'm the director of Riverside Residential. First off, Mrs Nichols, I'm very sorry to hear about your daughter and what happened to her."

"I'd like to know what happened to her," Marka stated, pushing his stack of papers aside so that her vision of his face wasn't obstructed. "I take it you haven't come here to just placate me," she said with a raised eyebrow. "With the amount of money I dropped on your assurance that my daughter would come out of this stay better than before, I don't expect her to come out worse off!"

"Of course not," he said, folding his hands together and leaning forward. "Our company will be doing everything we can to prove that this was a complete one off, shocking instance for us all. Your daughter should be - and would be in the future - completely safe in our hands."

Marka pressed her lips together. "I think you'd better start off by showing me the CCTV. Don't you? You have checked, haven't you?"

He nodded. "I trust that we can come to some sort of agreement regarding moving forward…"

Nicky looked up as the door to her room opened. The door swung open to reveal a frazzled looking Red. Her hair was a mess, blown by the winds, and her face was painted by a stark crimson lipstick but nothing else, leaving her looking ghostly pale. She wasn't disappointed to see Red, exactly, but she couldn't push down the feeling that Marka should have been there.

"Nicky," Red breathed, rushing over to her bedside. "Your mother called me. Are you trying to kill me?! Were you trying to kill yourself?"

Nicky had never heard Red so hysterical, and yet by Red's own standards, she had calmed down considerably. The older woman's presence brought more comfort than anything else could have, though, and Nicky found herself instantly more relaxed. Which was lucky for her, seeing as her requests for tranquilizers had been categorically denied.

Night had fallen by the time Red had managed to get to the hospital. She'd been on autopilot since she received the call she'd been dreading ever since she sent Nicky away in the afternoon, yet unable to get away from the shop. The call that had stopped her heart and made her weak at the knees. It was the one feeling that stayed with her all day. The same feeling as when Vasily had slipped from her field of vision in a park when he was four. The same as when Yuri totalled his car in high school. Her heart lived outside of her body now, in five pieces. Three walked around in New York somewhere, safe. One sat in a hospital bed with a broken leg. And the last piece lay cold six feet under.

'Nicky's in the hospital,' Marka had said, close to tears herself. It was the first thing she'd done as soon as she sat down in the cab on the way to the hospital. Truthfully, she had no-one else to call. 'She's in surgery and I don't know what's going on, but they say she fell from the roof.' A quiet pause before she had continued, 'I know it's you she'll want when she wakes up.'

It took all she had in her to cling onto the phone and not let it fall to the floor.

"Of course not," Nicky said, flinching at the bluntness. She looked away. "I was just looking out at the view, I swear."

Her gaze fell to the set of double doors. She wondered where Marka was, but was too proud to ask. Tears sparkled in the brown of her eyes.

"You're more trouble than all my boys put together," Red said, scolding her. Still, she pulled her wild child close, rubbing her cheek against Nicky's. "But I love you anyway."

"I love you too," Nicky said, resting her chin on Red's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...you know, scare you. I just wanted a change of scenery." She scoffed and gestured around, catching a glance at the cannula in her hand. "I guess I got it, huh?"

Red breathed out as her anxiety calmed. "You certainly did," she remarked, shaking her head. "Please tell me you got your fill of it, hm?"

Nicky let her head hit her pillow, her hair fanning out on the pillow. Red couldn't resist reaching out to smooth it, and Nicky didn't pull away from the touch like she had on so many occasions previously either. She shook her head, blinking away the tears that formed in her eyes. "Not really."

"Not really?" Red echoed. She brushed away the tear that fell as it slipped down Nicky's cheek. "What does that mean?"

"I don't want to go back there, Red," Nicky said, her voice breaking. It was only now, being here with Red, that she realized how much she had missed the woman. Nicky closed her eyes to try and stem the tears. "I felt so lonely there."

It was only now that she was letting herself admit it. She had always been okay on her own; she'd always managed to get by, without much hassle. But finding Red and being looked after...she had realized what she'd missed out on. Not letting people in had been a defense mechanism, but now her walls were down she was finding it difficult to rebuild them.

Red froze. Though she had already asked, she needed to repeat the question for her own sanity. "This wasn't on purpose, was it?"

Nicky shook her head. It hadn't been, really. But looking back, maybe she hadn't been as careful as she should have been up there because she didn't care. Maybe the ledge hadn't bothered her because if she'd fallen, at least she didn't have to face her demons anymore. Even she didn't know, but it being a possibility scared her. It made her blood go cold at the thought. She didn't want to be thinking things like that. She never had before.

"No," she said, though it didn't sound convincing, not even to herself.

"Oh, honey," Red murmured, looking up and trying to stop her own tears before Nicky could spot them. She wiped at her cheeks, swallowing hard. "You just need to get better, that's all."

"Please don't make me go back there," Nicky begged. "I don't want to go back there."

Red couldn't take it anymore, yet it went against everything she had ever stood for as a parent. She had been the one to take away the pacifiers, she had been the one to walk away as they screamed for her in nursery, the one who proclaimed that giving into tantrums and begging would only cause more heartache down the line….but she couldn't say no now. How could she, when she was seeing history repeating itself? How could she let another daughter down? Tricia played heavily on her mind as she squeezed Nicky's bony hand in her own.

And so although she knew it wasn't her decision to make, she nodded. "Of course you don't have to go back," she stammered, wondering how on earth she was going to convince Marka of that. She dropped a kiss on Nicky's forehead. "You never have to go back there."

A/N:

I'm sorry for the wait on this chapter but I hope you like it. I also hope you're all safe at the moment with everything that's going on. The world can be a scary place. Please leave a review letting me know your thoughts.

- Star xo