Carla woke with a start, her eyes darting about the empty flat; the duvet messily entangled around her legs and her skin covered in a thin veil of sweat.

She had seen him again.

Pushing herself up she walked into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, desperately wishing it was something stronger instead.

She downed the liquid in one steady gulp, quickly re-filling the glass before moving back to the sofa. Putting the water on the side table, she sunk her head into her hands, running her fingers through her now tangled hair, as she tried to steady her breathing. She sat up, grabbing the material of her shirt with unsteady fingers and began shaking it away from her damp skin, trying to give her hot flesh a much-needed breeze.

'I have to be crazy,' she had thought frantically. There wasn't any other explanation she could rationalize to make sense of it all; 'you've well and truly gone doolally, now Connor,' she scolded herself.

But she also knew that the night of Foster's murder was not the first time she had seen the shadowy figure.

The first was two October's ago: the day she and Trevor broke up. She had been at breaking point and contemplating reaching for the bottle yet again when she decided to head into an AA meeting instead to get some proper help. But when Carla saw Peter there, she had panicked and made a hasty exit, only to later have him come round to check on her. It enraged her that she had let her mask fall in front of him- that Leanne's fiancee had seen through the exterior she had built up around herself. So she responded the best way she knew how - by downing alcohol and lashing out at him as he had tried to help her.

But Peter's words had struck a nerve, and after kicking him out of the factory, she rushed into the ladies' to splash cold water on her face, hating the image of herself that reflected back at her in the mirror. But she fought down her nausea again and, after taking multiple shaky breaths, she fixed her makeup as best she could and made the decision to call herself a cab, knowing that she wasn't in a fit state to drive.

But it was as she turned to leave the toilets that she saw him — standing at the door, that damn smug smirk on his face.

"My, my how the feisty have fallen," Tony stated as he leaned against the bathroom door. Carla stood staring at him, her body shaking as the buzz from the copious amount of alcohol she had necked started to wear off. "Red wine not doing it for you anymore? I sure hope I'm not to blame for this sudden surge in strong tastes?" He stated with his trademark arrogance.

Carla moved towards the door, "Always about you innit Tony?" She managed to place her hand right through him to grasp the door handle, feeling a slight chill as she did. Ignoring the goosebumps that lined her skin, she pulled the door open and walked shakily into her office.

'Calm down. He's not real,' she told herself.

"Oh, but I am," Tony whispered into her right ear, causing her to collapse in fright into her chair. "You see," he rested his hands on either arm of her seat and leaned in close, "even though my physical form may not be whole, I can assure you that I am here."

"I've finally lost my mind, haven't I?" she croaked.

Tony chuckled. "Did you ever really have it?"

"So wh-what; are you here to torment me for the rest of my life?" Carla questioned.

Tony straightened up and walked about the office. "I've missed this place. I have to admit; I love the renovations that you made after my last appearance."

"You always did want to take the easy way out when it came to redecorating." Carla joked in spite of herself. Tony chuckled and turned to look at her. She shuddered at the intensity of his gaze; at the twinkle in his eye and half-smile. For a brief moment, it was as though she was looking at the Tony she had fallen for years ago. The man who swore to love her above all others.

'Hmmph, until he fell for little Miss Muffet, that is,' she snorted contemptuously.

"So, where is this man who was 'worth ten of me,' or shouldn't I have to guess what happened there?"

"Why are you here, Tony?"

"Well, funny enough, I never left, my dear. You see, this seems to be my punishment for everything I have done. I thought I had repented for causing Liam's death by trying to do right by his little boy, but it seems that the 'powers that be' didn't think it was quite enough -particularly after my grand finale a few months ago. So here I am," he outstretched his arms, "a ghost with unfinished business, per se."

"What kind of business?" Carla arched an eyebrow, her eyes not leaving the figure of her ex-husband.

Tony's face became sombre as he looked upon her. "Protecting you."

"Me?" she scoffed. "Protecting ME? You tried to kill me in your twisted murder-suicide attempt, you Scotch psycho!"

"Ever the romantic, me. But in all seriousness, Carla, I am here to warn you: Very shortly, a man will enter your life, and he will cause you great pain."

"Who?" she whispered.

"I'm not privy to that information, my dear. All I know is I can't fully enter the afterlife until I have succeeded in protecting you. I am only able to move between this factory and the in-between, as it were, until I have completed my task."

"So you've come here to tell me that I need to watch out for a man who may hurt me sometime in the future, but you can't tell me who, or when-"

"It'll be very soon, Carla," he interrupted.

"Oh, and that narrows it down, does it? You know Tony, you are as vile dead as you were when you were alive! You only want to torment me, punish me because I loved Liam and because I didn't follow you into the afterlife." She pushed herself up onto her unsteady legs up and leaned close to his transparent form, "well, you can trudge or hover around this factory all you want. But I will not be pushed around by the person who killed the only thing that…" she trailed off.

'You're arguing with a figment of your imagination, Connor,' she scolded herself. Shaking her head, she quickly grabbed her bag and mobile and exited the office.

But as she reached the main doors, she paused. "You know when you asked if it were you that caused my drinking? Well, it was," Carla turned back towards the office, her eyes fixed upon Tony as he leaned against the office window, "ever since that night in June...in here..."

Tony looked away from her, "What's wrong, Tony, hey? Feel guilty about it now? Because if any of this afterlife stuff is actually real and you're not simply my alcohol-fuelled mind playing tricks on me, then you would know that despite what I felt for Liam, that I did love you an' all." She looked down for a moment, "Don't you remember the night I proposed to you?" she asked quietly.

The corners of Tony's mouth curled up into a soft smile. "The elastic band…"

"I meant everything I said that night." She looked up as tears filled her eyes again. "And I am sorry that I hurt you, Tony. Whether you believe it or not, I am. But you killed Liam, you had no remorse for it, and you blamed me for driving you to it. And if that wasn't enough, you tried to kill me because you wanted her," She laughed, "who would've thought it, eh? Two men who I loved both ended up choosing Maria."

She brushed the back of her hand along her wet cheeks. "That's why I drink Tony." She continued, "To make myself feel as numb as possible to the truth, that I'm just a prize to be won and eventually discarded-"

"Carla, that's not-"

"-My family never wanted me, I were nothing more than a trophy wife to Paul and, as he much as he said otherwise, I know Liam would have chosen Maria when he found out she was up the stick. And then there was you," she cocked her head to the side, her eyes locking on his, "and that were just lust, weren't it? 'Cause when it came down to it… you said it yourself: Maria was everything I never was, right? I'm just the girl that no one wants."

Tony looked down and shook his head, "That's not true-"

She scoffed at his words, "I justified that it were different with you. How wrong was I, hey? 'Cause even after you confessed to killing Liam you swore that you would never physically harm a hair on my head. But you did just that. You may have broken me down, Tony, but I'll be damned if I let the memory of you destroy me any further..."

Carla sighed, her fingers idly playing with the bandage around her hand as the memory of that night washed over her. She didn't remember how she had garnered the strength to walk out of the factory, but somehow she did. Upon ensuring the ghost of her past was locked inside, she had found her way back to her flat.

Suddenly feeling the urge for another coffee, Carla rose to her feet, shaking her head as if to rid herself of the thoughts that plagued her. When did she get so paranoid? She didn't believe in ghosts, especially not in ghosts of her past husbands.

No. Tony being in the factory the night of Frank's murder, or the night she broke up with Trevor for that matter- it simply wasn't possible. She was more than sure she had hallucinated the whole thing. Because anytime Carla had 'seen' Tony in that factory, she had been in a severely depressive state and fuelled by alcohol.

'It's all just too coincidental,' she thought. After all, she didn't see Tony again for almost an entire year after that.

Until after that night in September…