Sorry last week was so harrowing. This week is the payoff.

Thank you for my reviews - I'm so glad you could all join me again!

Spoilers - this week - Erica discovers David has a secret, Adam and AJ have a heart to heart, JR is arrested.

...

Erica sat in the hospital bed in the stark white room that had been her home for the last few weeks. There was a drip running into her arm. The medicine was making her feel a little woozy but she was alert enough to hear David Hayward's footsteps in the corridor outside.

...

He had been reluctant at first to tell her what had happened to her family over the last months she had been unconscious in Pine Valley Hospital. But as Erica refused to co-operate unless he told her everything, he didn't have much choice. One daughter was crippled while the other was a widow once more and it was all her fault. She cursed her own stupidity believing she could handle the blackmailer on her own. When she got out of this facility she was going to make it up to her girls… somehow.

…

The door opened and David walked in, his demeanour as professional as ever as he examined her chart.

"Any discomfort." He asked.

"I'm feeling very light-headed." admitted Erica, "And I feel like I need to be sick even though I haven't eaten."

"Mm." said David examining the drip. "I'll half the 'factor C'. That should reduce the nausea."

Throughout the last weeks he'd been referring the ingredients to his magic Orpheus potion by code words. Constantly adjusting dosage until he was sure he had the right treatment for Erica. She was beginning to feel like a lab rat. But it was working. When he first began taking her off of the pain killers she had been in complete agony. There was still pain, but it was manageable.

David reached to take her pulse as an orderly came in.

"Dr Hayward, there is a phone call for you. You need to go back to Pine Valley hospital there has been a complication with one of your patients."

Erica's jaw dropped when she saw the orderly. A man she knew a little too well.

"Ben." She gasped.

Her former kidnapper stared back at her.

"Erica, I… I…"

David grabbed his arm and led him out the door.

"I told you not to enter this room!" snapped David.

"David. What's going on. David I demand you tell me why you have my kidnapper is in this facility! David..!"

David didn't come back.

…

Erica couldn't bear it any longer. Her curiosity pulled her from her bed. She needed to know what was beyond that white door.

With some difficulty Erica swung herself out of bed. Her limbs ached from lack of use and there was a wave of pain from her stomach. She ignored it as she shuffled across the room, towing the drip stand in her wake.

Erica tried the door. It wasn't locked. She peered out into a stark white corridor, no windows only dozens of doors, identical to her own. All the doors were wide open apart from the room opposite. Checking first that the way was clear Erica crept to the closed door, curious about what lay beyond. As she pushed it open, she heard footsteps hurrying down the corridor behind her. A hand grabbed her arm.

"Miss Kane," said an orderly she didn't recognise, "You really shouldn't be out of bed."

The orderly was a big man; Erica could do nothing but let herself be led away. But not before the door closed she caught a glimpse of a pale hand in the bed.

There was a young woman in that room.

Erica wondered who she was.

…