Nikki turned around to assure her friend she was in control, and also secretly scanning the back of the church for signs of Helen. Just where was governor Stewart? Where was Helen? Helen who cared about everyone so damn much? Helen who cut her holidays short for a dead woman. Helen who cares so much for a dead woman but not one thought for the living hell she had made of Nikki's existence. Helen hadn't even been game to show her face at the service. Brilliant. Yes that'd be right. Helen who pretended to care so much, Helen Stewart really didn't give a fuck.

"Don't go." Nikki had said to her the day she left on holidays.

"This can not continue Nikki. Do you understand me?:

"It did happen. It is happening Helen. You can't walk away from me."

But Helen did walk away.

And Nikki was powerless to do anything about it. She was crazy with powerlessness. She could do nothing. Nothing at all to prevent Helen from doing this, from hurting them both, destroying the most precious thing either one had ever known. And it made Nikki crazy. Crazy like the night that had ended her in Larkhall in the first place. Crazy like she felt now sitting helpless at the memorial service for her friend knowing that the death was not a suicide, not an accident.

"Don't go" Nikki had pleaded. It was all she had to offer. No incentives to stay, no promises, no threats, all she cold manage was those words. "Helen, Don't go."

The tenderness in Helens voice broke Nikkis heart as she replied "Nikki, I have to."

Her eyes pleaded with Nikki to understand. But Nikki did not want to. She responded sarcastically "Oh of course, the beach is waiting for you."

"Nikki, I an not going to discuss this." Helen replied sternly.

Ah yes, Nikki thought. What would Helen have done without that card to play. The -I'm the governor, your the prisoner, I don't owe you anything, least of all an explanation- Card

Yes Helen had played the game all the way, enjoyed it, got her kicks out of it, and then taken off. Finally she had let her true feelings known, she was disgusted by Nikki, she was afraid of her. That thought cut through Nikki deeper than any other. It had all been some sick and twisted game to Helen. And even knowing this, Nikki couldn't stop herself wishing desperately that Helen wouldn't leave. But she had.

~~

Nikki had been far from forgotten as she had accused Helen. Helen spent had her every available second digging into her case files, looking for loop holes, some ammunition for the upcoming appeal. She would have to dig carefully. Because just like the recent 'suicide' on G wing, the accounts of the murder that had landed Nikki Wade in prison had seemed incomplete. Something was missing. At first Helen thought was it just her desperation to believe Nikki's innocence? To help her gain her freedom? And then she had found it. The missing piece. But far from proving Nikki's innocence- that things Helen discovered only seemed to prove Nikki Wade was a liar and a cold blooded killer.

Anger burned in her heart as she realised Nikki had left such a huge part of the story out. And she began to wonder just what kind of person Nikki was? Did Helen know her at all? Was she just a liar and a killer? No. Something still didn't add up, and she wished she had let Nikki explain it the day she had left. Now she was stuck leafing through file after file looking for something that would help her understand.

She glanced occasionally at the clock as she worked. The memorial service would have started. She should be there. But she was scared to leave the desk even as she had hurried the others to the service to pay their respects.

In just the three months she had been away things had changed. Her clothes no longer fit, her stomach was swelling, hidden under layers of loose clothes. No one seemed to notice so far. But she couldn't hide it forever. Sooner or later they would notice. And Nikki? Nikki would notice straight away. Nikki would just know. She would take one look at her and know. And Helen owed to her an explanation. Nikki wasn't the only one keeping secrets.

Helen placed her hand gently over the loose fitting fabric of her clothes. As she did she imagined Nikki's hands, caressing her swollen breasts, splayed across her growing belly. There was always something Helen had found attractive about pregnancy. A baby was something she had wanted. One day. A baby didn't belong here and now. It was all so complicated. There was her job to consider. And there was Nikki. She tried to tell herself that Nikki Wade had nothing what so ever to do with her life. But in the deepest place in her heart she knew it wasn't so. And then there was the baby's father. Bile rose in her throat as she thought about him. He was another person she tried never to think about. She would remove him from the picture. He did not belong in her life.

Nikki didn't belong in her life either, Helen reminded herself. This fantasy illusion of a happy family type situation with Nikki was just not on the cards. Nikki was a prisoner in her care. In jail for murder. How can a convicted murder play any part in a happy family? And aside from that Nikki had always been so insanely jealous and possessive. When she discovered Helen was pregnant she would think Helen had been playing her all along. She would feel betrayed. And even if those things were not the case, there was the simple fact- Helen wasn't interested in woman. She was as straight as they come. She almost laughed at the absurd notion in her mind, having a baby with her convicted killer lesbian lover. How had her life taken such a turn?

The cold hard reality of the situation was that she was facing life as an unemployed single parent. She would lose her career, lose Nikki, lose everything. It was far from the life she had envisioned for herself.

Helen had not planned to return to Larkhall after her holidays. But things had got messy. She received that phone call, came running back, and now she was here. It was impossible now to walk away from the death on G wing, from Nikki's appeal, and from Nikki.