First Casualty Fanfic so please be nice. I don't own any of the Casualty characters or in fact anything to do with the show. A tad AU with 'Ask Me No Questions' and afterwards.

Ruth couldn't believe it - she had finally got the surgical rotation. But what was Sarah saying to her now - something about her relationship with 'Dr' Fauldren being the factor that swung the decision in her favour. Oh dear - that meant more social events with Jay - at least that's what her mind thought. Her heart was positively elated at the prospect of spending more time with Jay outside of the hectic A&E department. Even her mind couldn't deny that the night at Jay's after the last social event had been enjoyable. Then her heart sank at the memory of what had happened afterwards - she'd only gone and run away from the only guy to seriously offer her a relationship.

As Sarah walked away, Ruth's mind went into overkill to try and figure out a way to convince Jay to continue to pretend to be her boyfriend - but she wasn't sure if she wanted to pretend anymore. How was she supposed to explain to Jay what she wanted if she didn't know herself? Before her mind could ponder anymore on the subject, she saw Dixie and Curtis come into Casualty with a patient who was obviously in a critical condition. Knowing they would be heading towards Recuss and that she'd be needed in there, she went ahead to glove up. Sure enough, Recuss was already a frenzy of activity as everyone seemed to need to get equipment ready for the patient. As Dixie and Curtis arrived in the room with the casualty, Ruth realised why. The casualty was none other than Jay. Ruth could barely contain her emotions as Dixie went through how he'd been found and his list of injuries. According to the information they could gather, Jay had been robbed as he'd gone into town for his lunch break. Despite his injuries, it had been Jay that had made the 999 call (although he had fallen unconsciousness just before the paramedics had arrived). It seemed that although the robbers were prepared to use frankly ridiculous amounts of violence, they had been apparently unconcerned with taking their loot, leaving Jay with his mobile phone.

Adam took the lead as Jay was handed over the Recuss team. As they started work on the stab injury in his chest, Jay stopped breathing. The task of incubating Jay fell to Ruth and it was honestly the first that Adam had seen Ruth truly scarred. However, her first attempt failed because her hands were shaking so much. It was the first time she hadn't been able to isolate her emotions whilst dealing with a patient. Knowing every second counted, Ruth handed over the responsibility of doing the procedure to Adam, settling instead on working on the injuries on Jay's abdomen, which she was disgusted to discover included several bruises obviously caused by a shoe.

Within half an hour, Jay had become stable enough to be transferred up to ICU to be prepared for the emergency surgery he needed. No matter how badly Ruth had wanted to follow Jay up there, she knew she was needed in Casualty for a few more hours. However, as soon as her shift ended, Ruth dashed up to ICU to see him. Yet when she got to the door of the unit, she found another woman already at Jay's bedside, who she guessed (correctly as it would turn out), was Jay's gran. Ruth thought about backing away, leaving before any one noticed. However, Jay's gran noticed Ruth's presence before Ruth could leave and beckoned her in.

"You must be Ruth Winters," she said.

"Erm, yes … how did you know?" Ruth enquired.

"Jay's been talking about you none stop since he started here." On seeing Ruth's face flushed red with embarrassment, she continued, "oh dear, I didn't mean to embarrass you. Jay's just the sort of person that ... well you know what he's like. He never stops talking. Even talks in his sleep."

Ruth found herself chuckling at this revelation, despite the gravity of Jay's situation but quickly stopped herself when she realised how inappropriate it seemed.

"Ruth, it's okay to laugh once in a while. Jay isn't the sort of person who wants people to be serious all the time just because something serious has happened to him."

Jay's gran proceeded to tell Ruth about the time that Jay broke his arm cycling as a child. She had been scarred witless seeing his arm misshapen and his sisters had gone as white as a sheet at the sight of it. Jay, therefore, was adamant that it was just a sprain and told jokes to make everyone else feel better until the paramedics arrived. He'd even refused pain killers to demonstrate that it wasn't that bad. By the time that Jay's gran had finished telling the tale, visiting hours were almost over. Neither of them had realised just how much time they'd spent talking so this came as a shock.

The next morning, Ruth found herself at Holby hospital despite the fact that it was her day off and she would normally spend this precious time in her room reading the latest medical journals. On her way, she had stopped off at the local bookshop to buy the book Jay's gran had mentioned Jay had been reading. Ruth couldn't explain why she'd done it - no, scratch that, she knew perfectly well why she'd done it; she just didn't want to admit it. It came as no surprise to either of them that Jay's gran was already at Jay's bedside. Overnight, Jay had been taken off the ventilator and was now on an oxygen mask. Ruth was more than happy to explain that this meant Jay was starting to recover though she knew that this didn't mean Jay would wake up anytime soon.

Jay's gran didn't seem to care about this last piece of information - which was completely out of character with the person Ruth had met yesterday. It seemed as if as soon as Ruth had mentioned that Jay was now able to breathe by himself, his gran had gone into a daydream.

"Mrs Fauldren, are you okay?"

"Oh yes," she said with a wide grin, "it's the best news I've heard in years."

"But you do know he might not wake up for days?"

"He's still going to wake up. That's what matters."

Ruth was surprised at just emotional Jay's gran was getting at this development.

"I'm sorry if I've upset you," Ruth said, mistaking Mrs Fauldren's tears of happiness for those of sadness.

"Oh, you could never do that after what you've just told me. I should explain. Jay's mum … she ran off when Jay was two, leaving my son with three kids under the age of five including a newborn baby. He tried his best but with him working on an oil rig I had to look after them more and more. Within a year I was caring for them full time. One day Jay's dad came to visit and they just didn't recognise him. It broke his heart. Before I could do anything to help, he'd driven off. Next thing I know, the police were knocking at my door, saying he'd been involved in a traffic accident and had been taken to hospital in a critical condition. I spent the next week at his bedside begging him to wake up. He never did. I think Jay became a nurse so he could help people - so that no one would have to go through what his dad did."

Both women had tears in their eyes by this point and Ruth found herself breaking her golden rule - telling people about her past.

"When I was eight, I came home to find my mum dead. She'd hung herself from the banister. My father decided that alcohol was the best way to forget what had happened. I decided I wanted to be a doctor because I knew I would have to work hard so I wouldn't have the time to remember."

As Ruth had finished her brief recollection of her childhood, she felt a hand clutch her own. Looking down, she found it was Jay's that was intertwined with hers. She jumped as she hadn't realised that Jay had come round from the anaesthetic but the tears in her eyes soon turned to tears of joy and she was quickly able to match the smile on Jay's face.

I didn't know how to end this so sorry for the ending.