Christian begins to remember what happened while he was comatose the following week, but Tori is adamant it is medically impossible. Meanwhile, Mackenzie reacts in the most unfavourable way conceivable by making a move on Tane.
Christian is making a full recovery from his near-death experience. Despite nearly dying at the hands of Lewis, he’s in a good mood and doesn’t appear to have been too traumatised by what happened in the Northern Districts abandoned ward.
Tori is in a very different frame of mind. She’s enraged and frustrated, and she’s directing a lot of her rage onto Jasmine. She can’t believe Jasmine was so blind to understand that her lover was to blame for the deaths of so many victims.
She vented her frustrations on Jasmine in a gym brawl at the end of last week. Tori had been avoiding her since the hospital incident, but Jasmine was determined to mend the split and went out of her way to find her. Their first meeting, however, did not go as planned.
Tori yelled at her, “Lewis is insane.” “How could you have missed that?” says the narrator. Despite knowing the past between him and Christian, you continued to advocate for him.”
Jasmine justified herself by claiming that she was the one who rang the alarm when she realised something wasn’t right. Tori is being unjust to her, and she isn’t scared to tell her.
Jasmine’s attempts to justify Lewis, claiming that it was his grief that drove him to act the way he did, pushed her over the edge. Tori couldn’t believe Jasmine would use sadness to justify his terrible crimes, and believes she’s just making excuses for Lewis because they were dating.
Christian, on the other hand, doesn’t hold it against Jasmine – he knows she saved his life – and he’s determined not to let Lewis’s actions ruin her and Tori’s relationship. He arranges for the three of them to have coffee together the next week, acting as a peacekeeper while he explains that if they had known the truth about Lewis, they would have all acted differently.
They all admit to doing things they’re not proud of — Christian struck the person, Jasmine may have seen the symptoms if she hadn’t been so focused on a happy ending, and even Tori admits to believing Christian’s lies when she began to doubt his integrity as a surgeon. They had all overlooked the warning indications and were caught in Lewis’ trap.
While Tori may forgive Jasmine, she still doesn’t understand why Christian doesn’t blame Lewis, to the point where he wants to see him seek psychiatric help instead of going to prison.
He should, she believes, be expressing more emotion. He’s in good spirits, and while he confesses that he has his off days and struggles from time to time, he’s doing OK for the most part. Tori, on the other hand, doesn’t get it – “How is that okay?” she wonders. You were so close to passing out!”
Christian says next week, “But I didn’t Tori, and I’m trying to hang onto that.” “Lewis is no longer with us, so let us simply focus on the here and now.”
He’s in such a good frame of mind, in fact, that he takes a major decision. He informs Tori that he doesn’t want to wait any longer and that he wants to move their wedding forward and select a date.
Tori is ecstatic — at long last, some good news. “Are you considering three or four months when the weather is at its best?”
“I was planning on taking 3 or 4 weeks off!”
Being so close to death has hastened the process. Despite Tori’s requests for him to remain quiet until they have a date set, half of the bay knows about their wedding preparations within a day.
They also secure their venue before the day is up, thanks to Marilyn’s assistance. Most venues in Summer Bay are booked months in advance, according to Roo, but Marilyn’s suggestion of using Brody’s restaurant and vineyard near Victoria sounds ideal. Their preparations for a whirlwind wedding are coming together well.
Despite the fact that Christian appears to be in perfect health, he appears to be haunted by demons.
When Christian closes his eyes during Tori’s idea of relaxation — a yoga practise – he experiences a flashback to his near-death experience. He hears Tori yelling for a resuscitation cart, Jasmine offering to place the pads on him, and Tori telling Jasmine to “keep the hell away from him” after his heart stopped.
These aren’t your typical flashbacks, though. Tori was feverishly trying to resuscitate Christian, but he shouldn’t be able to recall what was going on!
Nobody should be able to remember what happened while they were clinically dead; it’s a medical no-no. Christian, on the other hand, does, and he has no idea why. Worse, Tori has no idea what it means and can only perceive the scientific truth that he won’t recall it.
“You were clinically dead!” exclaims the narrator. Tori believes his brain was simply trying to fill in the blanks, but Christian believes there is more to it, and that there must be some explanation that science can’t explain.
