Rita's neighbour, Peter, had gone to see Rita to borrow some tea bags, since he had run out and it was a Sunday evening and the local supermarket was closed. He hadn't seen Rita all day, he hadn't even notice her leaving the house for work that day, so he thought she might be staying with someone else – possibly the man he had seen Rita with more times than he could count over the past months – but he decided to try and visit Rita anyway.
X
Rita had taken the day off work, after calling Charlie to tell him that she was sick, to stay at home all day – mainly because she couldn't face the thought of going into work. The thoughts that had clouded Rita's mind that day were horrible, disturbing thoughts of self-harm, drinking, and suicide. Rita used to self-harm, although she hadn't done it in so long, and, although she had never attempted suicide in the past, she had considered it many times.
During the day the thoughts in Rita's head had gotten increasingly worse and she had finally given in and overdosed.
X
Peter knocked loudly on Rita's door, more confident that she would be home now that he had seen all of her lights turned on, and waited for any sign of life coming from inside the house.
Although Peter didn't know a lot about Rita he knew that she always remembered to turn the lights off when she went out and that she was friendly with the neighbours and always answered the door to anyone, unless they were trying to sell her something. He knew that Rita usually kept herself to herself and that she was always in work, which is why it was so strange that he hadn't seen her go to work or come back at all today.
"Rita?" Peter opened the letter box on Rita's front door and called her name through it. "Are you home, Rita?"
X
After 7 minutes Peter decided that he had to try the door to see if it was open, although he hated to because he felt like he was invading Rita's privacy.
It was open.
That was unusual, not just for Rita, but for anyone. There were still no signs of life inside the house as Peter stepped through the doorway. There was no music or singing that could suggest that Rita was in, but hadn't been able to hear him over the sound. It was silent.
"Rita!" Peter wandered through the ground floor of the cosy house, but he found no sign of his blonde neighbour, so he decided to check upstairs, in case there was a problem.
X
Eventually Rita was found unconscious in the bathroom, but the packets of paracetamol and ibuprofen that she had emptied and taken had been put in the bin, so Peter had no clue why Rita was unconscious. There didn't seem to be any sign of attack of forced entry into her house. He decided to call the ambulance anyway, despite not knowing how to explain his neighbours' current state.
X
As the paramedics arrived, Kate and Ellie, they attempted to resuscitate Rita; her heart had stopped beating and she wasn't breathing. There were no clues as to how long it had been since Rita had taken the overdose, but the paramedics attempted to revive her anyway, in case there was still a chance that she could survive.
After 40 minutes it was obvious that Rita was dead. Gone.
X
The next day in staff briefing Connie asked that Iain, Jez, and some other paramedics who she knew had been close to Rita, came into the staffroom at the end of the session so that she could announce some very important news.
"So, Mrs B, why are we 'ere?" Iain asked, after checking the cramped staffroom a few times for Rita.
"I have some bad news." Connie's eyes welled with tears of grief for her colleague, despite the fact that they hadn't always gotten along with each other. Charlie stood beside Connie for support, in case he needed to step in and say something. "Rita was found dead in her home last night. The post-mortem done last night revealed that she died from an overdose of painkillers."
"We are able to arrange support for anyone who feels as though they need to talk to someone following Rita's death, we know she was a valued member of the team." Charlie decided to finish off, knowing that Connie was struggling too much. "Our doors are always open; we will be hiring a new clinical nurse manager within the next few weeks, until then I am going to hold the role."
Despite recent events, most of the staff were crying, some of them were unable to react to the news.
X
Once the staff had all been dismissed, they left the room. All apart from Iain.
"Iain?" Charlie stepped towards the paramedic, who immediately broke down crying and fell to the floor, his legs unable to support his weight anymore.
Charlie managed to guide the paramedic over to the sofa, although it wasn't an easy task, before he sat down next to Iain and held him in a comforting embrace. Knowing that Iain was blaming himself, Charlie didn't know what to say – he knew that Rita's regret over her own actions would have been the most likely reason that she took her life, but Iain would always doubt that in his own mind.
X
Eventually Iain had been sent home, after crying for ages and blaming himself – not that either of these were likely to cease just because he wasn't at work. He was going to be alone, mainly because everyone else was working and because he didn't want to see anyone else – what was the point? Nobody could bring Rita back. She was gone.
This was inspired by a review on my story 'Breakdown', although I'm sure this probably wasn't what the reader wanted to see this. If you did decide to read this story (I forgot your username) then Hi *waves*
I'm hoping to update other fics pretty soon, and I've got notes for most of the stories so I just need to type them up.
Thank you for reading this, please leave a review.