If It Was Nick:

Quick one-shot as if it was Nick in the latest preview rather than Johnny. Enjoy!xx

Dedicated to Becca - AliKing_xo who is a queen and I love her lots xx

I allow myself off work a few hours early, stopping at Dev's before returning home with a couple of bottle's of Carla's favourite wine and bags of fancy nibbles. I wanted to surprise her, nothing big, her appetite hadn't been huge since the accident. But just a quiet night in; me and her.

Carla was coming home today, at last. No more 'wallpaper paste' hospital food as she liked to call it, or grotty blankets or wires coming out of machines left, right and centre. She would finally be back in the comfort of her own home, our home, where everything was perfect.

I have some time to change into a T-shirt and jogging bottoms, knowing that she wouldn't mind in the slightest what I was wearing. It would probably be a night of me holding her, stroking her hair, offering her as much love and affection as I possibly could. It was all I needed; her, just to be with Carla meant everything to me. To know she was finally safe and that I could protect her, just as I wished I had done.

But it was over now, the memories would scar, they always did, but I would try and rebuild her as best as possible, hold her together, with everything I had. We have the wedding to look forward to now, the happiest day of my life and it hadn't even occurred yet, when I could finally call her Mrs Tilsley. I had always thought she was too good for me, wondered why she even looked at me in the first place. But she had. How crazy was that ey?

I'm so lost in thought as I pour the second glass of wine, that it spills out over the rim of the glass, overflowing onto the kitchen tiles. I huff slightly, before grabbing a cloth and bending down to clear it up.

That's when I hear voices. Carla's voice.

"If he had any sense at all he'd just leave." She says as the flat door opens abruptly. I am about to stand up and make myself visible before I process the words she had just said. She was talking about me; once again doubting herself as a fiancée, thinking she was damaged goods. Which I suppose she was, but so was I, and together we fixed one another.

"Well you could say the same thing about you I suppose." Michelle pipes up and I frown... Was she suggesting what I think she was suggesting?

"I've got a factory here." Carla sighs, the sound of keys jingling as she chucked them down on the side table.

"Yes I know." Michelle agrees, exasperation in her voice. "But Robert's just bought a share in the Bistro hasn't he?"

Robert?

They were talking about Robert?

"Yes after sleeping with his new partner's fiancée, I mean, how can he work with Nick knowing what we did?" The words don't seep in properly for a few seconds. My mouth is instantly dry, but my palms, sweating. "The guilt's eating away at me every time I see him."

I force myself upwards, I couldn't hide away any longer. One of us had to be honest.

I can tell my face is full of hurt when Carla's eyes meet mine. She is shocked, stunned, I can always read her expression in situations such as these.

Who was I kidding? Situations like these? I made it out to be a regular occurrence.

The silence is deafening. I will for her to say something as I can't formulate any words to release. I wish she would laugh and tell me it was a joke, despite the fact that I knew it would be a lie, but I could live in denial, it was the easy option.

"...I'm just gonna... Go." Michelle finally announces, her voice shaky. She gives me a solemn glance before squeezing Carla's hand. "Good luck." She whispers before leaving and then we are left, staring each other out, fighting the silence for who will speak first.

"Tell me I didn't just hear..." I swallow, my voice husky. I was still holding the wine soaked cloth in my hand and it slips through my fingers, splattering on the floor at full force.

"...Nick." She gulps, the word sounding painful to say. I cup my face with my hands and pace around the kitchen, her eyes following me as she stands, frozen in the position she first arrived in. "I didn't know you'd be here."

"Evidently." I nod, trying to keep the anger, the betrayal out of my voice. "I didn't know I would be invading the gossip group of Weatherfield but that's just life. Karma, I suppose... So go on then..."

"I wanted to tell you." She blatantly lies, yet her voice sounded so genuine. "But things just... Got on top of me and..."

"When?" I whisper, because my throat is now sore and I'm trying to produce some kind of saliva to salvage it. I was holding, fighting back tears, which was also making it close up more, my body aching from the strain it was causing.

"New Years Day." She informs me and this hurts. This hurts because it had been over a month that I had been oblivious to this. I thought everything was fine, perfect in fact, until obviously the robbery happened.

"So you just kept it from me?" I ask her and she brushes a stray tear from her cheek.

"I didn't want to hurt you." She whimpers ever so slightly. "Please Nick, you've got to understand... I hate to see you upset... I couldn't do it to you. I was afraid to lose you..."

"What and so keeping me in the dark is going to prevent that?" I raise my eyebrows.

"You're the best thing that's ever happened to me." She argues.

"Huh well clearly not." I point out, her face falling in the process. "If you have to go and sleep with another bloke... My chef, to be precise, behind my back."

"I was hurting." She murmurs, we both knew it was no excuse. We both knew it was never an excuse, but she continues anyway. "I went to the casino, had a few drinks, he won a fortune and well... The next thing I knew is that I was regretting everything Nick. Absolutely everything. It meant nothing to me and I hate myself for it!"

"...New Years Day." I search my mind, remembering the events that went on around that time. "The day we argued and you went awhile... But then returned and let me make my stupid, pathetic speech about how I was a terrible fiancé?"

"I was going to tell you." She assures me. "I was Nick, but you were making all these promises and temptation took over, I gave in. I always give in."

"So that's why, you were being so weird? Distant?" I narrow my eyes, recalling moments from the past month. "That day at the canal? When you called the wedding off. It was guilt?"

"No it wasn't guilt." She shakes her head. "It was so much more than that. It was self-hatred. I didn't want you to get hurt, Nick."

"Yeah you keep saying that, and-" I begin.

"I was trying to save you!" She persists. "I told you, didn't I? I told you I would hurt you in the end, from that very first day. The day you saved me. Well this was me, trying to return the favour, because I love you too much to let you be destroyed by me. I'm poison. I break everything that gets in my way. I wreck any man that falls in love with me, and I annihilate myself in the process." Tears are streaming down her cheeks, she's practically begging, screaming.

I believed her. I didn't know why but I did.

So what I do, is I go over and I wrap my arms around her fragile frame, because I knew if I didn't, she would fall apart, as she always did.