Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking

[Oxidizer]

LOL! That would've been funny as f#!k.

[swfc]

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.

Now, that, I find extremely hillarious!

[luckyrabbit]

Since I've totally been slacking on this story, here's a teaser for the next chapter:

"Curtis! Hey, Curtis!" A familiar voice pulled him out of his funk. He turned to see Belle running down the beach towards him.

"Taylor." The name came out as a sharp gasp as Belle plowed into him, nearly bowling him over with her enthusiastic hug. "What's this for?" He asked when Belle failed to let him go and started to hug him even tighter.

Finally Belle pulled back from the hug and beamed at him, tugging on the hand she had a hold of to get Drew moving again. "Can't a girl just be happy to see her friend?"

"There's happy and then there's spastic." Drew stopped and peered at her suspiciously. "What are you high on? LSD? Ecstasy?"

Belle laughed sarcastically. "I'm just high on life, is that a crime?"

"Depends on who you ask."

"What are you doing back so soon, anyway?" Belle asked, swinging their joined hands in a large arc between them.

"Ah, it's a long story."

"So? I've got the time."

Drew rolled his eyes at Belle's persistence but secretly he was grateful for the distraction. "Well, the guy I was staying with, Matt, decided it would be cool to see if he could bounce into his pool by jumping off the roof onto his trampoline-"

"Let me guess, he didn't make it."

"No. He ended up breaking his leg in two places."

"Boys are so silly." Belle sighed, tightening her grip on Drew's hand to let him know that she didn't count him as one of those silly boys.

Drew cleared his throat, the feeling of Belle's hand squeezing his was bringing up all sorts of unwelcome thoughts. "Speaking of silly boys, how's everything on the Ric front?"

Belle groaned. "I've kind of given up on Ric."

"Really?" Drew squeaked in surprise.

"Really." Belle nodded, smothering a laugh. This was going better than she had hoped. "I realized that by spending all my time obsessing over Ric, I've been ignoring what's been in front of me the whole time."

"That's…interesting." Drew said carefully, he didn't want to get over excited and blow everything.

"It is." Belle grinned, bringing there walk to a stop. "Buy me a strawberry milkshake and I'll tell you all about it."

"Oh, so that's the way it is. You just want me for my money."

"Trust me, that's not all I want you for." Belle winked, making a mental note to thank Amanda for her advice. This was going to work like a charm.

The new chapter should be up in a few days

[Sarah_Lewis]

omgness that was awesome cant wait for the update =p

[Oxidizer]

That was awesome, Rabsey! All things Drew work for me I can't wait for the full version!

[swfc]

Love it heaps! Can't wait for the full thing!

[Oxidizer]

Tick tock, tick tock...

[luckyrabbit]

Andy!

PART 15

"You know, I don't think that Rachel was very happy that you discharged yourself." Tracey said, trailing behind Eve as she made her way up the back stair to the police station. After all of Eve's test came back clear, just like she said they would, she had taken it upon herself to get discharged. While Rachel had strongly objected, there was really nothing she could do and had grudgingly sent Eve off with prescriptions for strong painkillers and antibiotics.

"The X-rays came back clear." Eve said simply, she would've shrugged but the sling her arm was resting in was a constant reminder not to. "She just wanted me to stay overnight for observation, I can observe myself."

"Let me rephrase that, I'm not very happy that you discharged yourself."

Eve paused on the landing at the top of the stairs, waited until Tracey had joined her and threw her good arm over the older woman's shoulder. "Trace, I'm fine. And with so much going on, you know that I'd drive myself crazy cooped up in a hospital bed." She tucked Tracey's hair back behind her ear.

"I know, but you have to promise that you're going to take it easy."

"I promise." Eve swore. Tracey raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Really!" Eve insisted. She smirked and prodded Tracey in the shoulder. "You're worried about me." She teased playfully.

"Of course I'm worried about you, you could've been killed."

"But I wasn't. 'Tis but a scratch." Eve waved a hand at her wound. "Albeit a very painful and inconvenient one." She noticed that Tracey was not amused. "It's not like I haven't had a lot worse, if I can survive getting blown up twice I can survive anything. Now come on, we've got work to do." She turned and entered the police station as Tracey watched her with worried eyes.

Jack looked up from his conversation with Rice when Eve strode in, looking like she didn't have a care in the world. "You're back already?"

"Should you be at work?" Rice added.

Eve raised an eyebrow defiantly. "Should you?" Rice frowned and tried to work out what she meant by her comment. "Look, I'll be fine."

"Well, if you need anything, I'm your girl." Lara offered as Jack and Rice mocked her, for her brownnosing, behind her back.

"Thanks."

"Did you find anything at the abattoir?" Tracey brought the conversation back to the case at hand.

"You could say that." Jack said, holding up a large plastic evidence bag containing a revolver. "Fitzy found it in the long grass in the field behind the building, about a hundred meters away. Must've dumped it on the run."

Tracey took the bag and inspected the gun. "Looks pretty old."

"It's ancient." Rice commented.

"Actually, it's an antique." Lara corrected him. "My grandfather is an antique gun nut. " She continued when the others looked at her funny. "I recognize it from one of his books, it's a Webley revolver, they were standard issue service weapons for British soldiers in world war one."

Eve bit her lower lip and thought about this new information. "Really? Okay, you two-" She pointed to Tracey and Lara. "my office. You two-" She nodded at Jack, who stood up, eager to help in the investigation, and Rice. "go away."

"So what do you think?" Henry asked, reentering the room wearing an expensive looking button-up blue silk shirt and doing a turn for Matilda's benefit. "Hey, you okay?" He asked in concern when Matilda didn't respond, opting instead to sit stock still, staring at the mobile phone in her hand.

Matilda jerkily shook her head and swallowed hard, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.

"What's happened?" Henry frowned, rounding the couch and sitting next to his sister, touching her shoulder lightly. "Is this about Lucas?"

Matilda shook her head again and let out a sob. "Cassie."

Henry frowned again and put his arm around his sobbing sister. "Is she okay?"

"She…she's in hospital. They don't know if she's going to wake up." Matilda's breath hitched as tears streamed down her cheeks, her nose, cheeks and eyes reddening. But when Henry tried to draw her into a hug she resisted, pointing to his new shirt. "I don't want to ruin it."

"It doesn't matter about the shirt. I can get another one." He drew her head down against his shoulder, Matilda's arms went around his waist, squeezing him tightly, he was the only thing keeping her anchored. Henry rubbed her back in slow circles and let her cry, even as a large wet patch darkened the soft material of his shirt.

"It's like I'm cursed, everyone I care about…I can't…" Matilda sobbed brokenly after a few solid minutes of crying, swiping at her running nose with the back of her hand. "I know that that sounds bad, totally selfish but I can't… What if I'm next Henry?"

Henry rested his head against his sister's, strands of their blonde hair mingling together. "Nothing is going to happen to you, you hear me? I would never let anyone hurt you." He almost growled, his eyes hardening. He tipped Matilda's chin up, so he could look her in the eyes. "Listen to me, you're my sister and I love you and I would die before I let anyone lay a finger on you." He promised solemnly and Matilda was a little frightened by the intensity in his eyes but mostly she felt comforted. For the first time in a long time she felt safe.

Ric restlessly rubbed his chin, leaning forward and then back again in his chair, keeping his eyes trained on his comatose girlfriend. "She might never wake up."

Sally looked up from playing with her wedding ring. "You can't think like that, Ric. She's going to be okay."

"You can't know that, you told me what Rachel said."

Sally nodded and shifted in her chair. "I know." She agreed softly. "But you have to keep your hopes up."

Ric rolled his eyes bitterly. "Yeah, whatever." He grumbled, making Sally sigh in defeat. She didn't know what to say to make the situation better. "You'll excuse me if I'm not a big believer in the power of positive thought."

Sally's reply was interrupted by a soft groan coming from the girl in the bed.

"Cass?" Cassie's eyes flickered open, her hand came up to tug weakly at the oxygen mask that was covering most of her face. "No, no you have to leave it on, okay."

"Wha…?" Cassie breathed, her eyes rolling around struggling to get some focus. Sally jumped up from her seat in the corner of the room and rushed to the door.

"I'll get Rachel."

"I thought that these records were sealed." Jack said, looking over Eve's shoulder as she accessed confidential military records on her laptop.

"And I thought that I told you to go away." Eve frowned, bringing the information she'd been looking for up on the screen. "Okay, here we go. Joseph Wilkins, grandfather of Stuart Wilkins, served with the British Army for two years during the first World War. He immigrated to Australia in 1923, and he brought his old service weapon with him; A Webley revolver. Annnnd," She brought up another browser window. "there's no record of it being handed in during the amnesty like it should've been."

Jack slapped his hands down triumphantly against the desk. "This proves it, Wilkins is Macca's killer, we should move on him right away."

"Uh, no." Eve corrected him, looking up from the screen.

"What? We have evidence now, this changes everything!"

"It doesn't change anything." Eve disagreed.

"He shot you!" Rice exclaimed.

"Really? I must've missed that, thanks for pointing it out." Eve snarked, making Lara and Tracey roll their eyes at Rice. "We will not be arresting Stuart Wilkins-" Jack opened his mouth to protest, Eve raised a hand to cut him off. "We will, however, be putting him under twenty four hour surveillance now that we know for sure that he's back in town. Lara, could you arrange to get an unmarked car over to his house as soon as possible?"

Lara grinned and nodded. "I'm on it." She exited the room to carry out her orders, glad that Eve was trusting her with them.

"Okay, now that's done, Trace why don't you share what you found out about the attack on Cassie with the rest of the class."

"Well, if it hadn't been for the knob being twisted off the thermostat, it would've looked like an accident. This guy knew what he was doing. In my opinion, it was definitely an attempted murder. If that towel boy hadn't of come along, Cassie would be dead."

"The Stalker strikes again." Jack announced.

"No." Eve said thoughtfully, hopping up and erasing Lucas' hit and run from the whiteboard.

"What are you doing? I thought that you agreed that the hit and run was deliberate!" Jack exclaimed.

"I do, it was deliberate. But it and the attack on Cassie don't fit the pattern. They were specifically targeted." She explained, drawing up a smaller separate square on the whiteboard and writing Lucas and Cassie's names in it. "These attacks-" She tapped the board with her marker. "-were personal."

Rice frowned. "So you're saying that they're not even related."

Eve let out a long breath before answering. "The timing is too coincidental for them not to be related but do I think that this is the work of the exact same people behind the Stalker? No."

Rachel flicked her tiny flashlight into Cassie eyes and was pleased, even a little bit shocked, to see the pupils react normally. "Okay, this all looks good." She said, writing her observations onto Cassie's patient chart. "But we still need to do a head CT and some blood tests, just be on the safe side."

Ric looked up from his death grip on Cassie hand. "So she's going to okay?"

Rachel nodded, looking impressed. "Against all odds, it certainly looks that way."

Ric and Sally breathed a sigh of relief while Cassie painfully swallowed another ice chip and croaked out. "So I'm a medical miracle then?" She asked, her voice coming out in dry rasp.

"Something like that, you're very lucky." Rachel said with an indulgent smile. "I'll go and set up your CT appointment." And with that the young doctor left the room to give the close knit family so privacy.

"You had us worried for a minute there." Sally said, taking a seat on the end of Cassie's bed now that she knew she wouldn't be in Rachel's way.

"Sorry." Cassie apologized.

"Hey, there's nothing for you to apologize for, this wasn't your fault." Sally rubbed Cassie's leg.

"Yeah," Ric agreed. "Do you remember anything about what happened?"

"Not really, it's all a bit of blur really."

"Well, did you see anyone weird hanging around or-" Ric pushed the issue.

"Ric." Sally cut him off. "I think that this can wait, don't you?"

Ric looked ashamed of himself. "Yeah, sorry. I just…"

Sally leaned over and petted his hand. "I know. Cassie, the police will want to talk to you, when you feel like you're up to it."

Cassie nodded. "Okay. I don't know if I'll be much help. I can't believe I was stupid enough to…"

"Hey, don't say that, anyone could've made the same mistake." Ric tried to comfort her, gently pushing a few strands of hair back of her face with his free hand.

"But they didn't, I did."

"Cassie," Sally sighed. "You can't beat yourself up over this. There's nothing you can do about it now."

Ric bit his lip when Cassie nodded sullenly, obviously she didn't believe them. "Hey, Matilda will be relieved that you're okay, she was freaking out."

Cassie's eyes widened in alarm. "You told her?" She squeaked. "I can't believe that you told her! This is the last thing she needs after everything she'd been through lately. What were you thinking, Ric?"

"I-I'm sorry, she's your best friend, I thought she should know." He exclaimed defensively.

"I can't believe you did that."

"Look," Sally interjected. "why don't I give Matilda a ring, let her know that you're okay."

"Thanks Sal." Cassie said, shooting a confused Ric a glare.

If you needed somewhere to think in Summer Bay, the beach was the place to do it, the rhythmic crashing of the waves and the shifting of the sand underfoot was just the thing to make you relax and helped you make sense of everything. And what Drew desperately needed was sense. After Dan had sat him down and explained, calmly and making sure not to leave anything out, Drew just had to get out of there. The women believed to be responsible for his father's death, were really the good guys. Not only that, they were alive. If they had survived could his father be out there somewhere? Could Peter Baker still be alive? What did it mater if he was anyway, Drew didn't care, at least that's what he had to keep on reminding himself.

"Curtis! Hey, Curtis!" A familiar voice pulled him out of his funk. He turned to see Belle running down the beach towards him.

"Taylor." The name came out as a sharp gasp as Belle plowed into him, nearly bowling him over with her enthusiastic hug. "What's this for?" He asked when Belle failed to let him go and started to hug him even tighter.

Finally Belle pulled back from the hug and beamed at him, tugging on the hand she had a hold of to get Drew moving again. "Can't a girl just be happy to see her friend?"

"There's happy and then there's spastic." Drew stopped and peered at her suspiciously. "What are you high on? LSD? Ecstasy?"

Belle laughed sarcastically. "I'm just high on life, is that a crime?"

"Depends on who you ask."

"What are you doing back so soon, anyway?" Belle asked, swinging their joined hands in a large arc between them.

"Ah, it's a long story."

"So? I've got the time."

Drew rolled his eyes at Belle's persistence but secretly he was grateful for the distraction. "Well, the guy I was staying with, Matt, decided it would be cool to see if he could bounce into his pool by jumping off the roof onto his trampoline-"

"Let me guess, he didn't make it."

"No. He ended up break his leg in two places."

"Boys are so silly." Belle sighed, tightening her grip on Drew's hand to let him know that she didn't count him as one of those silly boys.

Drew cleared his throat, the feeling of Belle's hand squeezing his was bringing up all sorts of unwelcome thoughts. "Speaking of silly boys, how's everything on the Ric front?"

Belle groaned. "I've kind of given up on Ric."

"Really?" Drew squeaked in surprise.

"Really." Belle nodded, smothering a laugh. This was going better than she had hoped. "I realized that by spending all my time obsessing over Ric, I've been ignoring what's been in front of me the whole time."

"That's…interesting." Drew said carefully, he didn't want to get over excited and blow everything.

"It is." Belle grinned, bringing there walk to a stop. "Buy me a strawberry milkshake and I'll tell you all about it."

"Oh, so that's the way it is. You just want me for my money."

"Trust me, that's not all I want you for." Belle winked, making a mental note to thank Amanda for her advice. This was going to work like a charm.

Next time on Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking: Belle sinks her claws into Drew. Kim returns to the Bay and the Stalker investigation suffers a crippling setback thanks to Jack.

There's a fun Eve/Tracey/Rachel/Kim scene coming up.

[Oxidizer]

Wow, I loved that!

Is it wrong that when I read this

"Cassie," Sally sighed. "You can't beat yourself up over this. There's nothing you can do about it now."

line I thought "well someone has to now Macca's dead"?

I seriously can't wait for the next part! I love the way Lara's slowly gettin' in with our favourite girls and Eve keep telling Jack to go away, I <3 them!

[luckyrabbit]

Wow, I loved that!

Thanks, Andy. I'm glad you loved it. I was so afraid that it sucked, it was so hard to write.

Is it wrong that when I read this

"Cassie," Sally sighed. "You can't beat yourself up over this. There's nothing you can do about it now."

line I thought "well someone has to now Macca's dead"?

There is nothing wrong with that at all. It's hilarious!

I seriously can't wait for the next part! I love the way Lara's slowly gettin' in with our favourite girls and Eve keep telling Jack to go away, I <3 them!

Eve just can't stand Jack (which may be a little bit of my bias coming through) and it only gets worse after he screws up in the next chapter, then she really gets the oppourtunity to rip him a new one. Here's a tiny bit of that scene:

Eve titled her head to the side and looked at Jack like he was something she had found clinging to the bottom of her shoe. "I would respond to that, but I kind of make a point of not getting into battles of wit with unarmed men."

"What does that even mean?" Jack grunted in confused anger.

"I rest my case." Eve said, making an observing Lara snigger quietly behind her hand.