Guilt.
The word that described him – defined him. He'd never been completely sure why he'd done it. He'd just woken up that day and felt like he was suffocating. He felt claustrophobic in the flat – like the four walls were closing in on him and suddenly the hospital he worked in – the whole of Holby City seemed tiny. He knew he couldn't stay there and Grace had chosen to live with him, so she left too.
Of course when he'd discussed it with her that evening, Grace was worried about her mum, but he'd been so desperate to leave that he'd just spun her line-after-line about how it had been all Connie's idea because she knew that Grace loved America – She knew she loved her old school, her friends' were there...he just couldn't stop and the lies spiralled.
He'd been worried that he was painting Connie in a bad light – that Grace would think her mother didn't care again and was just 'palming her off'. He needn't have worried though – after the horrific accident and her subsequent long, tedious recovery, Grace was excited to get away from Holby – it was freedom and independence – normality.
They were gone the next day.
Sam was haunted by what he'd done to Connie though – and leaving had been stupid because the latter had reached the point where she was willing to accept the three of them as a family. Yes, leaving was stupid.
The root of it all stemmed from fear – Sam Strachan was afraid of his feelings. He'd felt differently about Connie since the argument in the cupboard. They had finally given in to their feelings again after years of bickering and frosty exchanges – and whilst Connie seemed content at first to go back to how they had been and pretend that nothing had happened, Sam had more trouble. The simmering feelings for his ex, he had long since buried, remained once again, bubbling away on the surface.
That morning the realisation had suddenly hit him - that Connie was the one he wanted. And it terrified him, so he ran.
He had got Grace to ring Connie as soon as he could, but Grace had been telling Connie so excitedly about how much she loved America – how happy she was that her mum had suggested it, that she didn't notice her mum's real feelings. Sam did. He heard the devastation he had caused.
Connie reacted predictably at first – later leaving him an angry message on his mobile, threatening lawsuits and a custody battle – though for some reason, the message was sent from Charlie's mobile rather than Connie's. But anyhow, the custody threat was exactly what he'd been expecting. A couple of days later, however, she hadn't pushed the matter any further – not even leaving him anymore messages and it became apparent that she was accepting the situation without a fight. Sam wanted to believe that she was just accepting it because Grace was happy – but it wasn't at all like Connie and it worried him greatly. The Connie he knew would fight him until she was blue in the face – something didn't seem right.
Grace wasn't completely happy of course. She missed her mum – although they did speak everyday – sometimes by phone, sometimes skype. Sam missed Connie to – massively. He never got to speak to her when she spoke to Grace – and when Grace asked if she wanted to speak to him, Connie answered vaguely, along the lines of 'not right now, darling' or 'I'll ring him later', but she never did. Sam had been quite excited the first time she'd said that, only to be met with disappointment when it never happened. He often wondered whether it was because she was angry with him for taking Grace or whether she just didn't know what to say to him.
In the evenings, when Grace had gone to bed and he was missing Connie more than usual, he tried to ring her but found her phone was out of service. Grace told him eventually, when he asked her about it, that Connie had apparently broken her phone and had a new number. Grace gave him the new one and he started trying to call her again, but she never picked up, so he started texting her instead. She ignored those too at first. When she started answering, her texts were riddled with mistakes or unexpected words and phrases – often making them illegible and Sam got the impression that she'd been drinking heavily. He got the gist of her messages though. She missed him too – another sign that she was intoxicated when she sent them because she would never admit to that if she was sober.
Sam was more than a little concerned.