Chapter 8

It must have only been about six o'clock on Sunday morning, and yet Jenny lay in bed, wide awake, staring up at the ceiling as the winter dawn darkness refused to abate. She was exhausted after a very unsettled sleep, but despite this, she didn't anticipate getting any more shut eye - her mind was way too alert. With a sigh, she turned onto her side and rested her arm under her head, watching Ben as he slept peacefully next to her. As she stared at his innocent face, she couldn't help her mind wandering to how unfair this all was on him. He didn't know what had happened between her and Nick, and even if he did, he wouldn't understand. He wouldn't understand that his mother had once been someone else - that she should have been someone else. He wouldn't understand that the discovery had severed the bond that Jenny and Nick had shared; the connection that had made them, well, them was irreparably broken. He wouldn't understand any of it, and Jenny didn't want him too. Ever. Yet she knew that it was inevitable that one day - perhaps when he was a teenager - he would ask her why she had been unable to keep their family together, and then what was she going to say? Was she going to lie straight to her son's face? Brush him off in the same way she had done with Abby and Sarah? She didn't think she'd be able to do that. But either way, he would probably end up hating her for sending his dad away.

She closed her eyes as the pain of that thought throbbed through her heart. Yes, whether she lied to him about the reason or not, he was sure to harbour some resentment towards Jenny for breaking up their family. He was already unsettled about it all, or at least he had been when Nick had first moved out.

x x x

It had been two weeks since Jenny had found the photograph of Claudia, and she was doing anything she could to try and detach herself emotionally from it all, or else she knew she was going to have a breakdown. One of her ways was to try reading more books in an attempt to lose herself in another world and escape from the hell that was her own, but it wasn't working. She only realised that when it dawned on her that she had re-read one particular line about ten times without taking any of it in. With a groan of frustration, she flung the book across the room so that it smacked against the wall, the pages sprawling as it landed on the floor with a thump. She ran her hands over her face and closed her eyes against the terrible hollowness that refused to leave her stomach.

Keep it together . . . keep in together, she thought to herself fruitlessly.

It was only when she heard Ben crying in his room that she raised her head, snapping herself back into reality. Immediately, she scurried out of bed and hurried across the landing, pushing open his door to find him sitting up, and crying into his tiny hands.

"What's wrong sweetheart?" she asked in a gentle tone, crossing his room and sinking down onto his bed.

"I - I w-want my d-daddy!" he cried inbetween deep, shuddering breaths.

At his words, Jenny's heart seemed to break.

"I know you do," she sighed, shuffling closer to him and pulling him into a hug. "I do too."

"But h-he said he didn't w-wanna go!" he sobbed into her chest. "H-he said you didn't want him to be w-with us anymore!"

Jenny's blood ran cold, and a bolt of indignity shot through her as she absorbed what her son had just said.

"He said that?" Jenny demanded immediately, disengaging herself from him slightly. "When?"

"T-today, wh-wh-when he took me for t-tea," he replied, still struggling to catch his breath through the sobs.

Fury started to build up inside her as she pulled Ben into another hug, gently stroking his hair and rocking him slightly to calm him down. However, there was no way she could calm herself down - internally, she was completely livid! How dare Nick! How dare he say something like that to Ben! How dare he make out like it was all her fault! As her son fell asleep in her arms, Jenny made her mind up about something . . .

The next day, Jenny drove up to that all too familiar building, still as angry about what Ben had said to her as she was the night before. She flashed her old identification card at the guard, who let her in without question, either because he recognised her from six months ago, or because he was just plain stupid. Which ever one it was, Jenny didn't really give a toss - she was to focused on the task at hand. She parked up rather haphazardly in the space she had previously called her own and stormed into the familiar generic building, the clicking of her heels making an unnecessary amount of noise on the pristine white floor. She made her way directly to the 'matrix room' as it was called, knowing it was more than likely that Nick would be in there.

Sure enough, she pushed open the door to find Nick in there, staring at the matrix model, accompanied by Connor and Sarah, who were sitting behind a desk, half-hidden behind a teetering pile of research papers. Everyone's head snapped around as the door smacked against the wall. Nick's face furrowed in mingled shock and confusion, but Sarah let out an noise of excitement, looking incredibly happy to see her.

"Jenny!" Connor said with a smile, half-standing in a greeting. "It's good to see you!"

Jenny, however, ignored him, her anger at Nick to great to allow her to exchange pleasantries.

"You!' she pointed her finger at Nick furiously, feeling herself trembling with indignance. "Don't you DARE say anything about this break up to Ben again!"

The smile on Sarah and Connor's face vanished in an instant, and Connor sat back down again sheepishly, trying to hide behind a conveniently placed stack of papers. Nick looked utterly perplexed at the sudden verbal attack, making Jenny even more furious.

"Jenny, I - " he stammered.

"No, I'm being serious!" she cut him off, not wanting to hear any of his excuses. "I had to rock him to sleep last night because of what you said to him! About it being me that didn't want you to come home! He was in tears!"

"I didn't say it like that!" Nick exclaimed hotly.

"Maybe we should give you some privacy - " Sarah said tentatively, glancing round at Connor who was watching the argument with his mouth slightly open.

"No, it's okay Sarah, I'm nearly done," Jenny said to her, her eyes not leaving Nick's face. "If you ever say anything like that to my son again, I'll stop you seeing him. Do I make myself clear?" she added to Nick in a forced-calm voice.

"You can't do that, I'm his father!"

"Watch me!" she snarled. "You've left me alone to raise our son by myself, so I'll do what I like!"

"You kicked me out!"

"After what you did, you're lucky that all I did was kick you out!" she yelled, feeling her contempt for him rise with each passing second.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded, stepping right into her personal space.

"Well next time you blame all this on me, you'll find out won't you?" she said in the most threatening voice she could muster, stepping even closer to him, refusing to back down.

"Jenny, come on," Connor's voice interjected, and she was surprised to find him standing next to her, pulling on her arm gently. Sarah was tugging on Nick's shoulder to pull him away also. "Come out here with me," Connor said in a soft but firm voice, taking her by the elbow and leading her out of the doors.

Jenny threw Nick one final look of loathing before she allowed herself to be taken out. Connor walked her a bit down the corridor before he turned and stopped in front of her, looking at her with concern.

"You alright?" he asked, his hands either side of her arms.

She put her still-shaking hand up to her mouth and rested the back of it on her lips, fighting back the tears as she nodded her head. Now that the anger had left her, the same numb emptiness was setting in again.

"It's okay you know," Connor said. "It's okay to let it all out. It's good for you."

She looked up at him, finding the sympathy in his expression too much to take.

"I'm sorry," she said in a quivering voice. "I shouldn't have come here - "

"You're welcome here any time you want, you know that," he pointed out. "Although," he added with a slight smile, "maybe next time, you could try not to scare the crap out of us?"

She let out a small laugh, as a tear glided down her cheek. "I can't make any promises," she joked back.

He smiled, and pulled her into a slightly uncomfortable one armed hug. "Well you wouldn't be our Jenny if you weren't a bit scary I suppose - "

She laughed again as she pulled away, wiping away the mascara from under her eyes. "I'm just going to go before I humiliate myself any further."

"Okay," he nodded. "But you know where I am if you need me. Or if Ben fancies learning how to kick ass in the new Final Fantasy game."

"I'll bare that in mind," she smiled, and he squeezed her arm before she turned to leave.

As she walked back past the matrix room, she could hear raised voices coming out of it.

" . . .Cutter, go out there and talk to her!" Sarah shouted, sounding angry.

"Why? What's the point?" Nick yelled back. "You saw her! She hates me!"

Jenny hurried past the room and didn't slow down her pace until she was out of ear-shot of their argument. As she walked back to her car, she squeezed her eyes shut as Nick's words cut into her like a knife.

'She hates me . . .'

She didn't hate him. She loved him more than anything else in the world, except, of course, for Ben. She had thought he was her soul-mate; she had felt it pretty much as soon as they had met, but because she was engaged at the time, she hadn't allowed herself to believe it. But now she knew the painful truth - it was Claudia and Nick who were the soul mates. She had walked in on someone else's love story, and found herself caught up in it. But no more, she thought to herself as she slid into her car. That was it now - she wasn't going to let this destroy her. She wasn't going to keep feeling angry at something she couldn't change. She just had to accept the fact that she had made a mistake, and now it was time to move on. No more wallowing in self-pity, or making a public scene.

Enough.

x x x

Jenny sat up slowly so that she didn't wake up Ben, adjusting her vest top as she quietly slipped out of bed and tiptoed out of the door. If she was going to function on severe lack of sleep today, she would need a mug of very strong coffee - or perhaps several . . .

Yawning slightly as she walked into her kitchen, she flipped the switch on the kettle and reached for the biggest mug she owned . . .

"I'll have a coffee too if you're making one," a cold voice spoke from behind her.

Jenny let out an involuntary scream and turned on the spot, her heart somewhere in her throat. As her eyes found the culprit, she let the mug fall from her fingers in shock, and it smashed to pieces on her wooden floor.

There, in the shadowy corner, reclining back on a chair with her feet on the side table, was a figure that Jenny knew all too well, despite not having seen it in years.

Helen Cutter.

Panic taking over, Jenny wrenched her cutlery draw open and frantically fished inside it, eventually pulling out a large knife. She held it out in front of her, breathing hard and fast.

Helen didn't look at all perplexed by her reaction. Casually, she got to her feet and took a few paces forward, causing Jenny to raise the knife slightly higher, making sure her eyes didn't miss a movement the woman made.

"We need to talk," Helen stated simply, surveying her coolly with her hands on her hips.