Stu dangled from his rope bound wrists, his shoulders taking most of the strain. They'd tied his wrists behind, hands palm to palm, then his arms had been yanked up behind him and fastened to something. The blindfold sealed his eyes closed again. He shifted around, desperately trying to ease the strain, his bound arms stretched behind him, his shoulders aching, he tried to slow his breathing, but the stress from the way he was tied, and the never ending ache in his wrists, forearms and shoulders was crippling, he was struggling.

Silence all around him, he strained to hear anything. This wasn't like the last time, he had a bad feeling about this. Footsteps approached him.

"Detective Sergeant Turner!" he could hear the gloating in her voice. "how good of you to join us."

He tried his best to get a grip on the situation, "If you let me go now.."

"Let you go... why would I do that?" she moved up close, her hand cupped his jaw, fingers pinching, holding him still, "you're the bait!"

"Bait? Who for?"

She slapped his left cheek, hard. He gasped at the shock, his cheek stung. "I ask the questions." Her voice was familiar, he turned over in his mind, he'd heard her before, he just had to remember where.

"Or I just decide when and where we hurt you." She pressed herself close to him, her finger over his lips. "So best be very quiet until we tell you." He shivered in spite of himself, she sounded well over the edge. She slapped his cheek again, viciously hard.

He heard the sounds of movement, and the sounds of something being set up. "Is it on?"

"Yes." a second voice, again a voice he recognised, but couldn't place.

A volley of slaps were unleashed on his left cheek, which was soon stinging viciously, he could feel his flesh being bruised. Being unable to see them coming he was unable to brace himself or prepare himself for what was coming. A different hand unleashed a vicious volley of slaps on his right cheek. He was really hurting now. His face stung, the pressure of the wrap over his eyes was giving him a headache, he longed to strip the thing away from his face, but couldn't. His arms and shoulders hurt like hell.

With a chill in his heart, he heard the commentary that she was clearly providing to some kind of recording device. Something cold and sharp touched his right cheek. He felt something trickle down and knew it was his blood, the voice in his ear tell her you love her, tell Jo you need her. It was Jo they wanted, and they were going to use him to get to her, a memory of a text message pushed its way into his brain, he struggled to hold on to it, but the pain forced its way over the top of everything else. Stu tried to resist, another volley of slaps were unleashed, this time both sides of his face, his cheeks were stinging, but he struggled to hold it together, to stay strong for Jo, she needed him to be strong.

"Jo, I love you." he gasped out, as a hand grasped his hair, holding his head still, yet another openhanded slap cracked across his sore left cheek, and his body jerked against the force of the blow, he couldn't suppress the yelp of pain as his arms and shoulders momentarily took the strain of his entire bodyweight, and the ropes pinning his arms behind him bit harder. A flash of realisation, that the ropes were dominating him, he had to put the stress of being tied like this out of his head. The Nietzsche quotation loomed large in his mind whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger... he had no idea where that had come from, but he knew he had to get a grip. He began to time the distance between the slaps on his face, there was a pattern, if he could break it down into patterns, he could stay in the game. That way. He might just survive.

"Front desk says there's a package for you." Mickey turned to Jo as he put the phone down.

"Package?" Jo couldn't say why, but she had a bad feeling. She glanced around the room, "Where's Stuart?"

Mickey shrugged "he isn't in yet."

Jo nodded, and left the room, something was tugging at her memory again, vexed, she shook her head... what is it? She walked down to the front desk and picked up the package. From the moment she touched it, she had an inkling that something was wrong.

Eddie slit the envelope open, and gently eased the contents out. Jo's hand flew to her mouth to contain her cry of fear, as Stuart's watch slithered out onto Eddie's desk.

"A handkerchief with blood on it, and a DVD." Eddie said quietly. He didn't comment about the watch, he knew Jo recognised it. He looked at her strained and frightened face and gently patted her hand.

Jo put the DVD in the player, and they crowded close to watch, Jack Meadows, the Superintendent, Neil Manson, Sam Nixon, Terry and Mickey, Eddie... and Jo. She watched, her eyes processing the images of what the two kidnappers were doing to Stuart, her brain in deep freeze. When one of the two masked figures took a handful of Stuart's hair and jerked his head back, the distorted voice was saying quite calmly "Fail to comply, I'll take away his sight permanently and he will be dumped a long way from here. Comply..." a knife was pressed to Stuart's cheek until the point drew blood, "we'll see?" as a hand casually wiped the blood away with a white handkerchief.

Jo couldn't help herself, a thin cry of distress wrung from her as they threatened him, tears ran silently down her cheeks as they replayed the dvd, listening to the instructions. She couldn't wipe that image from her head, her partner, blindfolded, helpless, the knife pressed against his face, the intent clear. That woman, and somehow Jo knew it was a woman, would blind him permanently, if they didn't comply. She couldn't think straight, all she could think of was look on Stu's face the last time she'd seen him, last night at the pub, the warmth in his beautiful expressive brown eyes... Jo choked.

She loved him. Somewhere along the way, the lines had become blurred, and she'd fallen in love with the cocky, devious, arrogant young Sergeant, the how, why, where and when, didn't matter. Just the thought of what they were doing to him, she'd watched them slap him around, cut him, the dvd had begun with a close up of his wrists, tied brutally hard behind him, the flesh puffy and bruised, she could feel his pain...

Sam leaned forward. "They've tied him like that to stress you as much as Stuart."

Jo nodded, "I know." She looked at Sam, "but it doesn't make it any easier. What if... what if ... we can't get to him in time, and they blind him." Her voice was shaking, but Jo dug deep, she would not let that happen. Not to Stu. She couldn't begin to imagine what life would be like for him if he was blind.

Jo slammed the door on those thoughts... she couldn't see him like that... keeping him safe in her heart, that's what she needed to do. Hang on Stu, we're coming.