Enjoy and please review if you can, I'd love to hear what you made of this as it's not my usual style :) Also- flashback in bold! -Sophie x
"If you are not on this bed then you are NOT my priority!" Connie shouted angrily, performing CPR on one of her patients as her troublesome daughter stormed out, throwing her new iPad to the floor with a clatter.
Tears stung the clinical lead's eyes. She'd never been so harsh with her daughter. The doctors and nurses around her stared open mouthed at Connie's outburst, Zoe and Cal among them.
The woman did a few more compressions before stopping, breathing deeply.
"He's been in VF for 20 minutes." She said quietly, looking at her feet. "Are we all agreed?"
The people around her murmured in agreement.
"Time of death, 8:34pm." Connie said, snapping her rubber gloves off and walking out of resus.
"Connie, wait!" Zoe called but she took no notice. Her high heels clicked their way to her office before picking up her handbag and walking straight back out again, through reception, and out into the carpark. The wind caught her unawares, hair blowing out of its pins and flailing around her hunched shoulders. It was throwing it down but Connie didn't notice- her cheeks were already soaked with tears, and her body already shaking.
Once she'd opened her car, the woman clambered in and slammed the door shut, leant back and took a deep breath.
"You can do this." She whispered to herself, but her mind was whirring to life with thoughts and snippets of conversation, none of which were particularly happy. The woman stamped her foot in frustration.
Connie drove home as quick as possible, trying to fight the thoughts that had once again raged war on her conscience. She parked up and went straight inside, locking the door, and sliding down it, her body racked with howling cries.
Her tough wall had crumbled; and she was on a spiral that was only going down, down, down. Down into a deep dark hole that she just couldn't climb out of, no matter how hard she tried.
Crawling into the living room on, she grabbed some tissues from her coffee table and held them to her face, trying to catch the sobs and the tears that were both in abundance.
Connie Beauchamp had been in this exact position before. The night Sam left her, the woman crawled into her living room on her hands and knees, legs too weak to support her.
"It's all my fault." She and whispered, pushing her hands though her hair. "Why was I so STUPID?!" She hit the floor hard with her fist, causing a loud bang that woke up her baby girl by the window who promptly started to scream.
"Quiet Grace please!" Connie screamed, trying to quieten the red faced child; but it was pointless. The sleep deprived mother had had 5 nights in a row of endless soothing and pleading with her daughter, just to stop the screaming for a few hours just so she could get some sleep.
It didn't work though. It never did.
Connie crawled to the corner of the room, put her arms around her legs and put her hands over her ears, trying desperately to block out the incessant screaming coming from the Moses basket.
Then it came to her.
The voice, telling her everything will be ok. All she needed to do was to take her mind off of it.
It was then she caught sight of the scissors she'd used earlier to trim some photos for her album. They glinted at her in the light of the chandelier on the ceiling.
No. She had told herself. No!
But in the end, the voice won, just as it always did. The woman grabbed the scissors and rolled up her sleeve, taking a deep breath as she made the first cut, and feeling the immediate release that flooded her body, like sunshine just after a storm.
And here she was again. Curled up in the corner, trying to block out the sounds of her mistakes that emerged from her head.
"I- I didn't check the stomach..."
"Your staff need you and you can't be there for them!"
"... then she must be here for her own gain alone."
"Who do you think you are?!"
And the worst- "...you are NOT my priority!"
The woman clamped her hands to her ears, just like she'd done all those years ago, trying to block out the sounds she really didn't want to hear.
But she did, and that couldn't be changed. I'm a horrible person she realised, eyes widening with horror. None of my staff like me. Grace hates me, the nanny walked out on me and I constantly have Guy Sleazy Self on my back. What's the point in me being here when all I'm regarded as is a witch? A horrible mother? A wicked boss? What's the point?
It was at this point that Connie got that oh so familiar urge to find something sharp and shiny. She scratched at her wrist, tears splashing onto the soft skin that had been clear for so long. However, now it was angry, red, inflamed at where the woman's sharp nails had scratched through her won skin.
But it wasn't enough. Of course it wasn't.
Connie scrambled up and stumbled into the kitchen, unable to see for the tears that were streaming down her face. She grabbed a knife from the rack on her counter, and felt the coolness of the blade against her hot, clammy skin.
She went back into the living room, not taking her eye of the shiny silver that seemed to be winking at her, beckoning her, wanting her to pull it closer to her skin.
Connie did as she was told, and cut her wrist until her trousers became blood soaked and she became light headed.
In her final minutes of bleary eyed consciousness, the woman scribbled a note before passing out on her floor, hitting her head against the corner of the coffee table as she did so.
Zoe Hanna climbed out of the ambulance, running to keep up with Dixie and the trolley, stuffing a piece of paper into her pocket.
"This is Connie Beauchamp, 31, attempted suicide through lacerations to her left wrist. K-O'd at the scene, suspectedly through blood loss. She's conscious but not responding." The paramedic said, as they burst through the doors into resus.
"Ethan, Lily with me please. Robyn- can you phone the number Grace's nanny left for me please and inform her what's happened." Zoe said, pulling on some gloves.
"Alright Mrs Beauchamp can you tell me if there's any pain coming from anywhere but your wrist?" Lily asked, inserting a saline tube into her arm.
"Head..." She said, her voice barely a whisper. "Right... Hand... Side..."
Zoe did a full assessment and decided to send her for an MRI scan to check for internal bleeding. By the time there was a free place, Connie had regained a little more strength and was able to sit up without vomiting too much. Once they got to the room, Zoe transferred her onto the scanner and went behind the glass doors that led to the control panel.
As the scanner started moving, Connie started to panic- what if the machine malfunctioned? What if she was trapped? She wasn't one for small spaces and immediately her panic levels soared. She started to hyperventilate and thrash about, trying to get free.
Zoe darted back into the room.
"Connie? Hey, hey it's ok. It's ok." She soothed, watching in concern as her colleague broke down into hysterics. She decided to do the scan later and take her to a side room to calm her down first.
Zoe wheeled her into the room and shut the door before closing the blinds. She turned to face her former boss who was curled up on her bed, sobbing into her knees.
Zoe dragged a chair next to her and sat down. She reached for her hand and held it gently, rubbing her thumb against the bandages that covered her scarred wrist.
"Connie, it's me, it's Zoe. I know we didn't really hit it off but you can always talk to me you know. Believe it or not, I offer some quite good advice."
"You have no idea what I'm going through." She mumbled, her arched, bony back shaking with sobs. The clinical lead moved her hand to her back and rubbed it gently.
"Try me." She whispered. Connie looked up to see Zoe all ears, holding a tissue. She took it gratefully and started to talk.
"Where do I start? My daughter hates me, I can't hold a nanny down for 5 minutes, I am so behind on my reports, I have Guy on my back every two minutes, none of you like me. I'm alone and I have nothing to be happy about. I have one friend- a little voice in my head that tells me that everything will be fine. It helps me take my mind off of it. All this with Jeff, it's just really hit me." She sobbed, looking at Zoe with large, scared eyes.
"I had a feeling you didn't call me back for the team." Zoe said. "You called me back for you didn't you? Because you're not coping?"
Connie nodded and put her head in her hands, breathing deeply. Zoe got out the piece of paper she'd stuffed in her pocket and read part it out loud.
"None of you would care if I went. None of you. Not even my own daughter likes me. I'm better off dead, where I can't irritate or get at anybody. I hate myself and the person I've become. I've been on a downward spiral for weeks and I just can't do it anymore. I'm sorry. Look after Grace for me. Connie."
The woman finished and looked at Connie. "Did you really mean this?"
"Yes." She whispered. "Every word."
Zoe couldn't just sit there anymore. She stood up and put her arms around the shaking woman who resembled a distraught child. Connie hugged her back and sobbed into her shoulder.
"Now, whatever happens, please remember this moment. I care Connie, and I know the rest of the team do too. We can help you through this, and the guys from Psych too. We're here for you, I promise. You are not alone, you will always be loved and you will always be wanted. Please, please, please don't forget that. I don't know what we'd do if we lost another colleague so soon."
Connie looked up at her and smiled a little.
"Thankyou. Thankyou so so much." She said, and she really meant it. Things weren't as bad as she'd thought, and with help from those around her, she could overcome each and every problem.