Notes: This is not my first Casualty fanfic, it is, however, the first I've ever put up anywhere. The rest are languishing in notepads and abandoned Word documents around the house. This is the introduction to a much longer fic, I'm not saying who it is about, you'll figure it out by about Chapter Three... Oh... and a disclaimer, none of this is mine, if it was the current series would be entirely different ;)
The Beginning
Your parents never made any secret of the fact that you were an unplanned child. They had been married for almost fifteen years when you were born, and after nine years of trying (and six years of not), you were a pleasant surprise.
You were named after a grandmother and an aunt, dressed in pink, brought home and shown off to friends and relatives whose own children were mostly entering their teens. Growing up you spent little time with your cousins, you were just a baby as far as they were concerned, someone who would get in the way.
Of course you were never lonely. Your parents loved and cared for you. Later you had to admit that you were closer to your father than to your mother. You often felt that your mother, the woman who had dreamed of having a child to love and care for, was a little disappointed by you. That you would never be the perfect daughter that you dreamed of raising.
You tried. You wore the clothes she bought you. Went shopping and did the mother-daughter things that were expected, but what you really lived for were the Sunday mornings you spent with your father. On a good day you could spend hours up at the allotment he tended. Together you would plant potatoes and marrows, talk about school, the business, anything.
Your mum would tell you off when you both returned for lunch. Your clothes would be muddy and you would hear her scolding your father while you changed. But by the time you returned she would be in the best of moods. Your father could always sweet talk her around to his way of thinking.
You did well at school. You were never at the top of the class, but you were never at the bottom either; a steady 'B' student. Your father was happy. Your mother suggested that if you tried just a little harder, perhaps then you could hit an 'A'. You would smile, nod at your mother, and go back to studying whichever Biology chapter you had been assigned for homework.
You didn't really know what you wanted to do with your life for much of your teenage years. It was always assumed by your mother that when you left school and finished college (probably a business management degree of some sort), you would then take your place in the family business. It wasn't that you didn't want to help your family, but all the time you spent with your father at the allotment he told you that you were destined for great things. Somehow the family business didn't fit into that great scheme of things.
It was as a result of the allotment that you decided the path that your life was set to take. Your father was fixing the shed roof one day, with your assistance, when he slipped from the ladder and fell, landing awkwardly. The minute that you saw him laying on the ground, arm bent awkwardly beneath him, you panicked. He was your father, the strongest, most important man in your world, he wasn't supposed to get hurt. Under his instruction you ran for help, an ambulance was called and you were both taken to the hospital.
You had always been a healthy child and so, at the age of sixteen, you first encountered a real hospital. You were more worried than your father was and when they took him into a cubicle you were allowed to acompany him. You were allowed to go with him when he went for the x-ray and delighted in studying the resulting film. When the doctor told you your father's arm was broken you were proud that you were able to point to the little dark line across your father's bone showing where the damage was.
You were then enlisted as the nurse's assistant to help set your father's arm in a cast. At that moment you knew that your chosen career would be one in medicine, without a doubt.
Later, as you sat at home with your parents, recounting the day's events to your mother, you announced that you wanted to work in a hospital. Your mother immediately assumed that you intended to become a doctor and began discussing your grades for science and the bills for medical school. You said nothing, your father knew what you meant. While the doctor had been nice, his visit had been brief. It was the nurse who had spent her time with you, talking to you, reassuring you both.
It was that day that you decided you would become a nurse.