Disclaimer: All characters belong to the BBC.

A/N: This idea came into being after the episode of Holby where Connie first met John Grayson, but I'm only now starting to write it. So, please forget all previous conceptions of John's character. I haven't written for quite some time, so I may be a little rusty, for which I ask you all to forgive me.

Puzzle Pieces

Part One

Her mind was whirling, a mixture of sounds and images permeating her fuzzy brain. She struggled against the dizziness and nausea that seemed to be overwhelming her. But as soon as it had come, it had gone again. Then she was momentarily awake. She moved sluggishly under the duvet, reaching out a hand to the bedside table for her mobile. She knew that she needed help, but she couldn't quite figure out why. As she squinted blearily at the screen, scrolling down the list of numbers, her mind suddenly cleared enough to remember what she needed to know. Realising that there was only one person who might help her in this situation, she selected Ric's number and pressed OK.

"Ric, it's Connie," she said when he answered, knowing that her voice sounded incredibly sleepy.

"Connie, do you have any idea what time it is?" Ric demanded, having been woken from a very deep sleep.

"No, sorry," She said, and he was now awake enough to hear the slightly odd timbres of her voice.

"What can I do for you?" He asked, thinking that something must be very wrong for her to phone him at this hour.

"Erm," She said, clearly hesitating. "How long does Rohypnol hang around for?" Ric sat bolt upright, his own thoughts now whirling.

"Why do you want to know something like that?" He asked her carefully.

"I can barely think my way around the question," She said, her voice now sounding slurred. "So you can forget about an answer."

"About six hours," Ric told her, not liking in the least where his thoughts were going.

"I think that's what I might have been given," Connie said after a moment's pause. "And I need to find out."

"Would you like me to drive you to the hospital?" Ric asked, now extremely concerned for her.

"I probably shouldn't drive at the moment," She conceded, not really wanting him to have to help her.

"Don't even try," Ric warned her sternly. "Where do you live?" Connie had to think about this one, because the information didn't appear to be readily available to her.

"I can't remember," She said in horror. "Why can't I remember my own bloody address?"

"It doesn't matter," Ric tried to reassure her. "Just stay there and I'll be with you as soon as possible."

Pulling on some clothes, Ric frantically searched for Sam's number. He was the only person Ric could think of who would know where Connie lived and besides, if he was going to take Connie to the hospital, someone needed to stay with Connie's daughter. So many thoughts ran through his brain as he scrolled through his own phone looking for Sam's number. What on earth had happened to Connie? Though with the question she'd asked him he could hazard a guess. Had Grace been in the house when whatever it was had happened to Connie? Just who had Connie trusted enough to be tricked into taking a drink from containing Rohypnol?

When Sam answered the phone, he said,

"This better be good," Sounding as though Ric had woken him from a very deep sleep.

"I've just had a call from Connie," Ric began to explain. "She seems to think that she's been given Rohypnol."

"Shit!" Sam cursed violently.

"Quite," Ric said bluntly. "I'm going to take her to the hospital so we can find out, and because until it wares off, she needs looking after."

"And someone needs to take care of Grace," Sam finished for him.

"That, and Connie can't remember her address, which tells me that she's certainly been given something."

"Okay, I'll be there in about twenty minutes," He replied, giving Ric directions on how to get to Connie's house.

As Ric drove through the night towards Connie's house, he tried to fit the pieces of this particularly deadly puzzle together. Could Connie, someone who knew their way around men better than he did the casino, really get tricked into drinking something containing Rohypnol? Well, he supposed that even Connie had to pick up a bad apple once in a while. But who on earth would have the nerve to do something like that to a woman as formidable as Connie Beauchamp, Medical Director, cardio-thoracic surgeon and ice queen into the bargain. Though Ric reminded himself that the title of ice queen wasn't really fair. She revealed only too readily that she had a heart that could be broken like any other when her daughter had been hurt, and the active volcano of sexual desire that he'd encountered on her very first day, bore as little resemblance to an icicle as the warmth from a hearth on a winter's evening. But still he kept coming back to the question of who, and why. Connie wasn't exactly backward in coming forward where picking up men was concerned, nor was she remotely reticent in targeting any man's vulnerable spots when she no longer desired their company. Perhaps that was it, he wondered, perhaps Connie had given someone an unequivocal no, and he had been determined to have her no matter what the circumstances. Suddenly feeling a surge of rage at the thought of someone doing that to anyone, never mind such a strong-minded individual as Connie, he gripped the wheel tightly, vowing to find out who had done this to her, find out who it was, and preferably beat them to a pulp of gibbering terror. As he turned into Connie's tree-lined road, he saw Sam's headlights appear in his rear-view mirror, and they sped in convoy towards Connie's house.

When Connie had ended her call to Ric, she had dragged herself out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans and a jumper, tacitly ignoring the pile of crumpled clothes that she'd obviously been wearing earlier. She was absolutely terrified she realised, because not only could she not remember the details of her address, but she currently had no idea how she had ended up in such a position, nor could she put her finger on the answer of who had put her there. Feeling incredibly dizzy, and as though she was sleep-walking, she went into Grace's room, just to make sure she was still sleeping soundly. There she was, snuggled up under the duvet of her little bed, a soft smile on her face, obviously in the middle of some happy dream. Connie couldn't quite escape the irony that she, Connie, was in the middle of a nightmare. As she gently smoothed some hair away from Grace's face, she wondered, not for the first time, if she really was a good enough mother for this beautiful child of hers. She couldn't help but wonder nearly twenty times a day if Sam would make a far better fulltime parent for Grace. But as usual, her need for absolute control would win out, no matter what her privately held feelings were on the matter.

As she slowly descended the stairs, a wave of dizziness almost overcame her. She leaned on the banister, clutching the solid oak, gritting her teeth to try and surmount the nausea that was threatening to overwhelm her. Then the terror overtook her mind again, flashes of pain, of herself protesting, but above all else, the crippling realisation that she couldn't do a single thing about what was happening to her. Fear, in its purest form was almost crippling her, causing her whole body to tremble and her knees to go weak.