Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking

[swfc]

I thought it was Rice at first seeing as that he was really mean to Tracey and Zoe. Ah well, if it's not him, well.... Hmmm.... main character..... Jackie? Lol.... I was being stupid.

[luckyrabbit]

PART 14

Small, controlled portions. That's what Rachel had said. Just because she'd been released from the retreat didn't mean that she had been instantly cured, she still had a long way to go. And ignoring that and throwing herself back into her old eating habits wasn't going to help. Hence, the small controlled portions, eight times a day.

Matilda put the finishing touches on her sandwich and sighed, it always got worse when she was alone. Her mother and Tony were making…arrangements, Ric was at work, Cassie wasn't answering her phone and Henry…she had no idea where Henry was, he'd taken off early that morning, kissing her on the cheek and promising to bring home a surprise.

Speaking of Henry, her twin brother boisterously burst through the front door, his arms laden with shopping bags. Matilda laughed when he accidentally dropped one bag, tried to catch it and ended up dropping the whole bunch on his foot.

"Sure, don't offer to help or anything." Henry pouted when he noticed her laughing at him.

Matilda smirked and shook her head as he collected his things. "I just finished making a sandwich, are you hungry? I can make you something."

"Am I ever not hungry? Shopping is hard work. I don't know how you girls do it all the time."

"It's all in the genes." Matilda said airily, turning to go back into the kitchen as Henry started rummaging through his bags. "So what do you want? Peanut butter? Cheese?"

Henry caught her arm and spun her around. "Screw the sandwich." He grinned, keeping on hand hidden behind his back.

"What? But you just said-"

"I know but it can wait, come here, sit down." Matilda laughed at her brother's enthusiasm and let him sit her down on the couch. "Okay, close your eyes."

"Henry, this is silly-"

"Close your eyes." Matilda rolled her eyes and did as he said, she felt silly but she couldn't deny that she was curious. She frowned when she felt a heavy box being placed in her hands. "Okay, open them."

She looked from Henry to the box, wrapped in shiny purple paper, sitting in her hands. "What this?"

"It's your surprise, hurry up and open it."

Matilda sighed and tore at the paper, gasping when the packaging underneath was revealed. "You got me an Ipod?"

"Not just any Ipod! It's a thirty gigabyte, video Ipod."

"Henry, I…This is too much, I don't know what to say." Matilda said with tears in her eyes.

"How about thank you?" Henry smiled, rubbing her shoulder, before getting serious. "And it's not too much, it's just my way of trying to make up for…well, you know."

"But how could you afford it?"

"I'm not a slacker like you. I had a part time job in the city, it paid really well and I've been saving my money." He informed her smugly.

"And from the looks of all this you just blew the whole lot."

Henry shrugged, completely unconcerned. "There's plenty more where that came from, wanna see what else I got?"

Tracey was up and out of the car the moment she heard the gunshot, running through the halls in a frantic search, up ahead she saw the silhouette of a man dash past, she frowned and sped up.

"Eve." She gasped, stopping dead in her tracks at the sight of her partner, sitting on the ground, a hand clutched to her chest with blood seeping out between her fingers.

Eve looked up at Tracey, from her position sitting cross-legged on the ground and exclaimed. "The f*cker shot me!"

Tracey was torn, should she follow her heart and go and help her injured girlfriend or did she listen to her head which was screaming at her to follow the shooter and make sure he paid. Maybe there was a little bit of heart in that last one as well. Although it seemed much longer, Tracey's moment of hesitation only lasted a few seconds and luckily her mind was made up for her as Eve yelled at her to get after him.

As Tracey took off in pursuit of the shooter, Eve removed her hand from the bloody wound, to inspect it, and grimaced. "Ow."

Tracey crashed through the double doors in pursuit of the shooter and chased him up the long corridor, he had about a hundred meter lead on her. It may as well have been a mile. He made a left and Tracey could hear his frantic footsteps as he ascended the concrete stairs. She swore under her breath and poured on the speed, hitting the bottom of the steps at the same time the fire door at the top of the flight slammed shut. Taking the steps two at time, Tracey was at the top of the stairs in less than five seconds, with no regard to her own safety she burst through the door, the sudden burst of sunlight temporarily blinding her. And by the time she'd regained her sight the shooter had disappeared completely.

"Son of a bitch!" She screamed in frustration, kicking the nearest object which happened to be a rather unyielding gas pipe. She grunted at the sudden pain and hopped on the spot, clutching her foot. That slimeball had tried to kill her Eve and she let him get away. It was hopeless trying to search for him alone, the were a hundred different directions he could of gone in, her shoulders slumping she turned to make her way back inside the building.

Working as a towel boy at the Sands resort was supposed to be a stress free job, easy money. That's why Jon Whelan had taken it, that and the fact that it left plenty of time for him to concentrate on his music. He hadn't counted on the fact that people with money, of which the usual Sands clientele had plenty, liked to look upon those below them with such contempt and disrespect. Often taking upon themselves to make all sorts of jokes and cast aspersion on his character.

Barely able to see over the stack of pure white towels he was carrying Jon made his way, extra carefully, to the bare storage rack beside the sauna. Setting the towels down a flash of silver caught his eye. He frowned, another rich bitch has lost one of her trinkets, he thought cynically before realizing that this wasn't just some lost piece of jewelry he could turn in and maybe pick up a nice cash reward for.

"Oh sh*t." He muttered, trying to see through the steamed up porthole in the sauna door but it was impossible all he could see was white steam until, he made out some colour in the infinite white, maybe a brown or orange, he couldn't be sure. It didn't matter, all that mattered was that there was someone in there. He grabbed the handle and tugged as hard as he could. It didn't budge.

"Hello?" Jon asked loudly, rapping on the door. "Hey, is anyone in there? Can you hear me? Hey!" The brown lump didn't move. "Oh crap." He fumbled for the heat control without even looking, if he couldn't get them out he could at least kill the heat. "Where is-" He looked over when his hand had found nothing but wall. The knob to control the heat was gone, there was no way to lower the temperature. Desperately thinking of what he could possibly do he resorted to returning to banging on the door, trying to rouse the unconscious person trapped inside.

"Hey," He caught sight of his supervisor, Mr. Clemmons, walking past. "Help me, there's someone trapped in here."

Mr. Clemmons rushed over. "Then why don't you open the door you stupid boy."

"I tried, it's stuck. There's something jammed in there."

"Well, don't just stand there-" Mr. Clemmons ordered, taking the door handle with two hands. "-help me pull. I told Gloria that this thing was a lawsuit waiting to happen."

Jon scrambled to help, with the combined strength of the two men -well, one man and one boy- the door started to give and the with a sudden snap the door swung outwards the bracelet falling to the ground in two halves. The huge cloud of steam that billowed out was hot enough to scald both of the men's skin.

"Go on boy, get her out of there."

Without hesitation Jon rushed in, blindly reaching out and grabbing Cassie's hands, he dragged her limp body along the white tiles and out onto the teal carpet. He brushed some wet, brown strands of hair away from her face and tried to wake her. "Hey, miss. Are you alright? Can you hear me? What's your name?" He spat out his questions in rapid fire, hoping to get a reply to at least one. No joy. Jon took two fingers and put them to the girls neck feeling for a pulse. There was a tense few seconds where he thought he was going to puke but then he found it, it was faint but it was there. "Call an ambulance."

His order turned out to be unnecessary as Mr. Clemmons was on his phone the second after the door had flew open. He didn't want to get sued.

Considering the white hot rage that was threatening to consume Tracey, maybe it was better that she didn't catch the shooter, god knows Eve wouldn't have been too impressed if they had turned up riddled with bullet holes and dead as a doornail. She slowed her jog, the adrenaline beginning to wear off, she pushed through the doors and looked around for Eve. She wasn't there.

"Eve?" Tracey called out in concern, her voice carrying through the building ominously. A door opened and Tracey spun around with her weapon drawn, instantly on alert. It was Eve, who seemed to be remarkably alright for someone who'd just taken a bullet to the shoulder. In fact so alright, the only giveaways that she was injured was the white gauze pad peaking out beneath the strap of her black tanktop and the way she had her left arm folded carefully across her belly.

With her good arm, Eve held up a plastic evidence bag. "Thirty eight."

Tracey frowned, not making the connection. "What?"

Eve handed her the bag. "It's a thirty eight caliber, same kind of bullet that killed Macca, therefore it's not that huge of a jump to assume that-"

"It's the same shooter." Tracey finished breathlessly, examining the bloody bullet. "Um, Eve, how exactly did the bullet get from your shoulder into the evidence bag?" She asked with wide eyes.

"I dug it out and put it in." Eve said nonchalantly. "The wound wasn't really that deep, I'm pretty sure it bounced off my collarbone."

Tracey gaped in shock, it looked like she was more rattled by Eve being shot than she was. "What did you dig it out with?" Eve waggled the fingers of her right hand at Tracey who gaped at her. "You need to go to hospital, we should call an ambulance."

Eve flapped her good hand dismissively. "Hospital can wait, I've already packed the wound, it's not like I'm going to bleed to death." She explained. "Besides, I've already called this in and I'll be damned if I let those idiots try and run this scene by themselves…So I'm guessing that you let him get away."

"Let? I didn't let-"

"Well, all I'm saying is that if you hadn't hesitated you would've caught him."

"Hesita- You'd just been shot, I'm sorry if I was a little concerned." Tracey said angrily as the sounds of police sirens grew louder. She didn't exactly know why she was getting so upset, she always said didn't want special treatment because she happened to be dating her boss and she knew that if anyone else had made the mistake that she did, Eve would absolutely be tearing strips off them right now.

"Trace, I'm not having a go at you but-" Police cars screeched to a halt outside. "Look, we'll discuss this later, okay?" She turned her back and went to do her job without waiting for an answer.

"Where is she?" Sally Fletcher exclaimed, bursting through the double doors of the Northern Districts Hospital. "Where's my daughter?" She asked, rushing up to the nurse's station.

"Sally, you have to calm down, Cassie was just brought in." Nurse Julie said, looking at Sally sympathetically, it was so sad that one young woman had had to endure so much tragedy in her life. "Doctor Armstrong is with her now." She reached over and patted Sally's hand. "Just take a seat, I'm sure that she'll be with you in a minute."

"What happened to her? Is she okay?"

"She's stable." Julie spotted Rachel exiting Cassie's room and nodded to her. "Doctor Armstrong will be able to tell you more."

"Rachel! What happened? Is she going to be alright?"

"Cassie was brought in suffering severe heatstroke and dehydration." Rachel informed Sally. "We've managed to bring her body temperature back down to a normal level and we have her on IV fluids to try and rehydrate her body." She said in a tone that made it clear that she knew more than she was letting on. "Now, from what I got from the paramedics who brought her in, she had been trapped in a sauna at the Sands resort, do you know how long she might've been in there?"

"What? The Sands? I didn't even know she was going there, she was still asleep when I left this morning, I had to go into work to grade some essays." Sally babbled, her hand coming up to play with her necklace.

Rachel put a comforting hand on Sally's arm. "That's okay, Sal."

"Is she awake, can I see her now?"

"Ah...I'm afraid it's not as simple as that." Rachel said awkwardly. "Cassie is still unconscious."

"But you said it was just heatstroke, surely-"

Rachel took Sally gently by the arm and guided her to the hard plastic chairs and urged her to take a seat. "The problem is, nobody knows how long Cassie was trapped and the longer her body temperature was elevated to the degree it was at, the greater the risk of complications. We'll know more when she wakes up."

"Complications?" Sally repeated. "What kind of complications?"

"There is a possibility of damage to her liver, kidneys, heart and, unfortunately, her brain." Rachel explained as delicately as she could.

Sally gasped. "Brain damage?"

"Hey, I'm sorry about before." Eve apologized to Tracey quietly, in the car on the way to the hospital.

"It's okay. If I was in your position I probably would've said the same thing." Tracey said, not taking her eyes off the road as she pulled into the hospital car park.

"No, you wouldn't."

Tracey bit her lip and pulled into a parking space. "No, I wouldn't. But you've just been shot…I figure I should cut you some slack."

Eve nodded. "The slack cutting is much appreciated."

The blood loss had finally started to take it's toll, leaving Eve as helpless as a kitten, let's take a moment to say 'Awww!', and so she had to lean heavily on Tracey to keep herself upright.

"We should've come a lot sooner." Tracey pointed out, keeping a firm grip with one hand around Eve's waist as she guided her into the hospital.

"It's fine. All they're going to do is clean the wound out, disinfect it, then dress it and stick my arm in a sling for six weeks." Eve complained. Tracey looked at her skeptically. "Trust me, I'm a doctor."

"No, you're not!"

Eve pouted. "Well, I was only like one exam away from becoming one before I got recruited. Close enough." Then the thought suddenly hit her. " And I do have a PhD in psychology so, technically, I am a doctor." She didn't know why she didn't remember that before and decided to blame the blood loss.

Rachel, who was deep in conversation with Sally at the time, looked up as they pushed through the door, her eyes flew to the now blood soaked gauze pad on Eve's shoulder. "Oh my God, what happened?" She gasped, jumping up and rushing towards them.

"Got shot." Eve shrugged and then flinched at the pain the simple gesture caused. "Okay, shrugging with a broken collarbone, not a good idea."

"Come through." Rachel said, leading them into recuss. "First thing we need to do is get that bullet out." She said, pulling on a pair of latex gloves.

"That won't be necessary, Eve's already taken care of that." Tracey said sarcastically, crossing her arms and leaning back against the wall.

Rachel's eyes widened in surprise. "Uh, okay well, you'll need X-rays." She said, drawing back the strap of Eve's shirt and pulling back the gauze that was sticky with blood.

"Okay," Eve sighed. "but it's just a tiny fracture. I mean, seriously, shooting me with a thirty eight from that distance. Dude might as well have thrown a rock."

Rachel looked up from examining the wound. "You're surprising blasé about all this."

"Yeah well, after the third time, getting shot loses all of it's excitement." She squinted at Rachel, trying to remember where she knew the young doctor from. "Did you go to Sydney Uni?"

"Yeah."

"I knew I knew you! You were a freshman the year I graduated." Eve exclaimed, glad that she'd finally figured it out, it had been bugging her for ages.

Rachel stepped back and took a good look at Eve. "You were the kid! You were the genius kid!"

Eve beamed. "Yep."

"Why is Sally here?" Tracey asked, breaking up the reunion.

"Well apparently, Cassie somehow got herself locked in the sauna at the Sands." Rachel explained. "She's not in a good way."

Tracey frowned. "Was it deliberate?"

"I don't know, all I know is what the ambos told me."

Eve leaned back against the bed, shifting her left arm uncomfortably. "Trace, go and check it out." She instructed, throwing her good arm across her eyes.

Tracey pushed off the wall and stood at the side of the bed. "I'm not leaving you."

Eve shifted her arm off her face and smiled at her girlfriend. "I'm going to be fine, a couple of X-rays and few hours lie down and I'll be out of here, right Rachel?"

Rachel looked up from the chart she was filling out. "Provided your X-rays come up clear."

"Which they will. Trace, you're the only one I trust to handle this." She said, taking Tracey's hand in her own and rubbing it soothingly. "Baby," The pet name slipped out quietly. "we need to do our jobs."

"I know." Tracey agreed, squeezing Eve's hand and then letting it go. "Guess I'd better get out to the Sands then. I'll be back soon." With a wistful look at Eve, Tracey left the room.

"So," Eve turned her attention back to Rachel, who was slipping the finished chart into the holder at the foot of the bed. "I heard about you breaking up with Kim, what happened?"

Rachel sighed, she didn't mind her asking, after all everyone else in the town knew. "He slept with Kit when they were lost out in the bush, she got pregnant. We tried to make it work, but-" She shrugged helplessly. "He and Kit moved to the city with Robbie and Tasha a couple of weeks ago, they thought that the Bay was too dangerous to raise children in."

"Good call."

Rachel laughed. "Yeah. I mean it's not like we hate each other or…we're still friends, he comes back once a week to work in the gym, the bowling ladies, you know. It was just too hard."

"Mmmm, at least you tried that means you're a much better woman than I am. That boy just can't keep it in his pants, can he."

"That's right, you dated him for quite a while, didn't you."

"Uh-huh and he cheated with me Hayley."

"And you switched the paternity results." Rachel added, thinking back to what she had read in Kim's file when he was still her patient.

Eve smirked. "Like I said, you're a much better woman than I am."

Next time on Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking: Who shot Eve? Who tried to kill Cassie? The answer to one of those questions will be revealed.

So who do you think tried to kill Cassie and Eve?

[swfc]

The blood loss had finally started to take it's toll, leaving Eve as helpless as a kitten, let's take a moment to say 'Awww!', and so she had to lean heavily on Tracey to keep herself upright.

Awwwwwwww!!!!!

I am loving it heaps! Got me glued to the screens! Couldn't do anything else apart from read!

Really really great, Rabs!!! AMAZING & FANTASTIC!!!!

I'm guessing it's Henry that is after Cassie.

[Traceve]

omfg that was awesome, Rabsy!

Please post more soon!!

[luckyrabbit]

Well, I'm glad you guys liked it, it took forever to write, I've got to stop writing these long-assed chapters.

I'm guessing it's Henry that is after Cassie.

Really? Why?

[swfc]

Well, I'm glad you guys liked it, it took forever to write, I've got to stop writing these long-assed chapters.

I'm guessing it's Henry that is after Cassie.

Really? Why?

His whole sudden reappearance just seemed weird. And the fact that he's being all nice and the fact that he came home unannounced at all and didn't seem to want to tell his family the real reason why he's back apart from just saying, 'Why can't I come see my family' or something in the lines of that. I don't know. I get this feeling everytime you write scenes with Henry in it.

[luckyrabbit]

Hmm...that is interesting.

[Sarah_Lewis]

That was awesome do more soon please =o)

[Oxidizer]

Rabsey, that was awesome!

Is it wrong that I found Cassie being trapped in a sauna hilarious?

And I loved Eve and Rachel's reunion, leading up to Eve revealing that it wasn't the stalker who switched the results and that it was her

[luckyrabbit]

Is it wrong that I found Cassie being trapped in a sauna hilarious?

Not at all, originally she was going to be trapped in a tanning bed but then she wouldn't have been injured as badly as I wanted so I had to scrap it.