So, this started out as a fic about Sam realising that Connie didn't get help after the accident, and sort of spiralled into over 4,000 words - sorry for that!
If there's one thing that Connie Beauchamp isn't good at, it's being weak.
Or, rather, showing any other living human being that she's capable of being anything less than stoically focused on looking strong. She knows it's only a façade of appearing strong – because the cracks are appearing bigger and longer than ever – but it's her armour, her one defence against the idea that somebody would see her weak.
She doesn't think that anyone other than Elliot Hope could see through the façade up on Darwin. Back then it was easier to be the Ice Queen, someone who made it appear that no words could ever, ever hurt her. They knew her…before.
Before everything. Before Grace's premature birth, before her father, before her struggle between what was right and what would benefit the hospital corporation…
Down here, though, she's certain that everyone knows she has one weakness: Grace. It's an obvious one, of course it is – or at least it should be. As a mother, your child should always be your weakness.
Motherhood never came easily to Connie Beauchamp, however, and it took losing her daughter to realise just how much she needs her.
.
It's four in the afternoon on a relatively quiet Monday afternoon in the Emergency Department of Holby City Hospital, and Connie sits in her office, ostensibly doing paperwork. At least, that's what it would look like to anyone taking a quick peek through the slightly slanted blinds.
In fact, she's actually sitting and staring at her computer screen, at Grace's social media page. It's littered with pictures of Grace and Sam smiling together, of statuses about yet another present that her dad's gotten her, and of the inherent implication that her life is better now that Connie isn't in it.
She hasn't deleted anything about her mum, though. Connie's scrolled down far enough to before the accident, hating herself more and more with every scroll of the mouse, and she can see the pictures Grace posted of the two of them together. They're happy – though it doesn't really matter anymore. These memories are long gone in Grace's mind; all she can see is the mother on a quest for vengeance, without really understanding her motivations.
Sometimes, Connie wonders what it would have been like, had she kept Grace with her rather than sending her to boarding school when her father's dementia hit the final stage. Maybe they'd be closer. But then, she always reflects, Grace would have seen the horrors of one of the most heartbreaking forms of death up close and personal at the age of six. Better that she resent Connie for sending her away for a few months, rather than have seen William Chase die – and have seen how broken her mother was afterwards.
She's jolted out of Grace's social media by a knock – well, more of a bang – on the glass pane of her office door. Reflexively, she minimises the webpage she's on as she looks up in the direction of the door to see Jacob waiting outside her office.
It's almost amusing, in a kind of melancholy way, to see him waiting there. Before he'd have barged in, regardless of what she was doing, and she would have pretended to be mad. But that was a long time ago, before he left her to the wolves with no real explanation, and didn't confess that he'd slept with another woman. Betrayal is something she can deal with. Illicit betrayal, which is deliberately masked, is something different.
Connie waves him into her office, already steeling her face into a neutrally hard expression, prepared for anything. He wants a war? He's got one.
As Jacob enters, he hovers near the door. Nervous, perhaps? Though that's a little preposterous; she doesn't know that she knows everything that he's been up to in the last six months. Not that she even really cares anymore: he is nothing but a memory from the past.
"There's a case coming in and you're needed, Connie," Jacob says. "Dylan's tied up with something and I think it's best that Ethan stays in cubicles."
She nods, standing up. "I'll be there in a moment, Staff Nurse Masters," Connie replies, enunciating every syllable of Jacob's clinical title. "And it's Mrs Beauchamp."
He doesn't reply as he walks out of the door.
Giving herself two seconds to gather her thoughts (and fully enable the best impression of a strong Ice Queen as possible), Connie picks up her stethoscope and slips her miniature torch into her trouser pocket before she heads out of the door. Only after she shuts the door does she realise that she didn't close down the internet browser, only minimised it. Then again, she reflects, it's unlikely anyone's going to use her office – and even if they did, they'd only see something they already know: Grace is Connie's weakness.
So she turns and walks the walk she does almost every day, to collect her patient – or patients, who knows. Jacob didn't exactly give her any information, did he?
.x.
As she's waiting by the reception desk, Connie notices Sam Strachan loitering, his eyes trained on her.
"Whatever it is, it'll have to wait," she says, her attention focused elsewhere. "I have a…well, I don't know what it is, but I'm required so it must be serious."
"Fine," Sam responds, though Connie can feel his gaze lingers on her. It's as if she can feel everything to do with Sam Strachan – and she hates it. "Find me when you're done."
She doesn't hear him, though, because she can see her patient – and she's almost a mirror image of Connie not even a year ago.
"Let me see my daughter," she's begging Iain, doing her best to sit up even as the trolley moves towards Connie and the rest of the receiving team. "I need to make sure she's okay. Tell me she's okay. Please."
Connie can't breathe; she can't move; she can't do anything but think of the worst day of her life. The day that she thought Grace had died, that she'd killed her, that her little girl wasn't going to wake up. And she can't stop herself reliving the moment that she was this patient.
Her hesitation is almost imperceptible; she's fairly confident that nobody will have noticed. It's happened before, of course, right after the accident. But she's always been good at putting a front on – vultures circle in the ED (and beyond), and it wouldn't be good for her to seem weak. Just like the gasp she utters is almost inaudible.
So she walks up to her patient and the paramedics, and listens to the details of the case, forcing herself to forget that day in August 2016.
Little does she know that Sam Strachan's still watching her, and he noticed exactly what she hoped nobody ever would.
.x.
Sam Strachan spends his days either avoiding Connie Beauchamp because she's irritated at his decisions, or seeking her out to subtly ask for her advice. After all, whilst they might not see eye to eye on almost anything, she's had experience in his role before.
He tries to keep their personal relationship out of their work one, though it's difficult most of the time. He's been insensitive in the past – bringing Grace to the shop here was a mistake, he's since realised – but he does his best to not cause any arguments. It's difficult, but he'd like to think that he's began to realise what she's gone through, all these years.
Grace's care is a lot more intense than he'd previously thought, and he's begun to appreciate the long hours he's stuck at work. Their daughter's more forgiving of his absences though – even though he spends the same amount of time at work as Connie, she never complains that he isn't there. Yet another double standard, he's well aware, but Grace is as stubborn as her mother, and probably won't change any time soon.
Yet he knows that he owes Connie a lot for the last ten years. It's just too embarrassing (and awkward, to be perfectly blunt) to admit.
There's just something about Connie Beauchamp that he can't forget. He thought America was the solution and, for a while, it was. But when Connie met Emma, and he was reminded just how formidable his former lover was, he couldn't continue the relationship. Just as he's never continued any relationship. The only one that's ever had any meaning was with Connie – and that's at least partially because Grace came from that.
He doesn't know that much about her life in the meantime, following his departure from Holby City Hospital the first time, but he knows that it's been difficult.
When he sees her in the ED reception, waiting for a patient, he realises that there's something he does need to talk to her about. He's been avoiding her for the last few days, because of the proposed Consultants' interviews, but he's willing to face her wrath for this. It's a tad ironic, he thinks, that he's her boss and yet he's scared of her. Budgets need signing off, though, and he needs to talk to her.
And yet she waves him away, and he can't take his eyes off of her. There's just something about her….
But then the patient arrives, and he sees a different Connie Beauchamp to one that everyone else does.
A scared Connie Beauchamp. A struggling mother, who's frightened. Who's not in control for the one of the first times ever, and doesn't know how to handle it. A Connie who's just been involved in a car accident, and nobody has helped.
And then she's gone, and it's back to the Connie Beauchamp everyone knows.
Even as Connie moves off to the patient, Sam stares at the spot where she was standing, deep in thought. When he had arrived back in England, Connie was by Grace's bedside – and then she was working, before the cycle repeated itself. He was pretty sure she'd been sleeping in the on-call room, too.
Just when had Connie actually sought help for her own trauma in the crash?
Sam's beginning to wonder if, maybe, she didn't bother – and if anyone actually noticed.
.x.
Forty-five minutes later, and Connie's heading back to her office, exhausted. The case seems relatively straightforward, but just the effort of focusing on the patient…it's more difficult than it should be.
But there's no one to relieve her, because Ethan's still grieving and Alicia's not ready for a case like this, and she doesn't want to ask Dylan.
She heads into her office for a brief breather before the test results are in, but before the door's closed, someone else is following her in. They shut the door and, though she continues walking to her desk, she's ready to lose her temper.
Then she turns and sees who it is.
Sam.
"Whatever it is, it can't be that urgent," Connie starts the conversation, resting her forehead against the tips of her fingers, her elbow resting on her chair. "I'll ring you later."
He ignores her – of course he does; he's Sam Strachan! – and instead, sits down in the chair opposite hers, unbuttoning his jacket as he does so. There's something…different about him. He's less confident than the normal Sam Strachan – and his face betrays an emotion that she usually associates with how he looks at Grace.
"After…after the accident," he begins, and Connie immediately tenses. How can he know? "After it all settled down a bit…did you see someone?"
She laughs, cold and bitter in a way that she can only be with Sam, and looks up, directly at him.
"Are you concerned for me?" Connie asks, her tone mocking. "Because last time I checked, Sam, you didn't care about anyone you're not related to."
He visibly recoils from her words, perhaps surprised at how viciously she's responded, but he's soon sitting up straight again. The concerned expression hasn't shifted from his face, and this is confusing her, clouding her judgement even further. Does he actually care? And if he does, why has it taken him nine months to express anything other than a scathing critique of her parenting skills?
"Of course I care," Sam replies. "I don't always show it – a little like you – but I care about you. Now let me ask you again: did you talk to anyone about the accident?"
She fidgets in her chair, turning away from Sam once again towards her computer. It's not a situation she ever expected herself to be in, talking about the accident from her perspective with Sam Strachan. In fact, she doesn't think he even asked exactly what happened in the first place; he sort of just glossed over it, in his rhetoric about how she was a bad mother.
(Or at least that's what she thinks he said.)
"Connie," Sam says, his tone firmer. "Anyone at all – though I don't mean Charlie. Please tell me you talked to someone."
She shakes the hair out of her face, before turning to look back at Sam again. "Look, if this is all you want, it can wait. I've got some paperwork I want to finish before my patient's test results come back."
Connie can't bring herself to answer the question, to admit that she didn't take the advice she gives so many patients: to resolve the feelings of guilt and fear before they consume you. Because doing that would mean admitting to the near constant nightmares about that day, but also the ones about the hypothetical things that could have happened. Sometimes she dies in that basement where she was trapped with Jacob; sometimes she watches her daughter die right in front of her over and over and over again; other times, she's just falling and falling, screaming as she spins closer to the ground, and nobody knows…or cares.
She's almost absorbed into her own little world again, and it takes her a few seconds to process that Sam's now standing up, both hands now firmly placed on her desk. He's leaning over it, towards her, and his expression's a strange mix of concern and irritation – befitting their relationship perfectly.
"I'll ask you one more time," he says through gritted teeth, "Did. You. Get. Help?"
His persistence both touches and infuriates her, for why is it now that he cares, and she finds herself standing and shouting into his face before she can stop herself.
"Of course I didn't!" She cries, and her face betrays pain and anguish and her constant irritation with Sam Strachan interfering in her life. "Because when would I have had time, Sam? I spent nearly every minute with our daughter, because I thought she was going to die!"
Tears drip slowly from the corners of her eyes, but she doesn't stop her outburst, because at least part of her is glad to be admitting that she's struggling.
(And an even bigger part of her is happy that she's admitting it to the one man she'd pretend to have never had feelings for.)
"She was in intensive care and having brain surgery, and she was the priority – I thought I was going to lose her!" Connie continues, stepping closer to the desk and thus closer to Sam. He tries to interrupt, but she doesn't let him. "And if I had walked away for one minute, we both know what you would have said: that I'm a bad mother, and I don't care about my daughter. Well, I do, and I've put her recovery first, always. So I cope with the nightmares, because it means that Grace is getting better."
Before Sam even has a hope of replying, she's sweeping out of the office, shaking with rage and fury and all of the emotions that Connie Beauchamp usually tries to pretend don't exist. And now he knows everything that she's feeling.
.x.
For the first time in a long time, home time can't come fast enough for Connie. She leaves behind the half-finished paperwork in her office and instead walks as fast as she can towards her car, hoping that Sam won't manage to find her before she gets home. She regrets the outburst, regrets letting him know that she didn't speak with anyone after the crash. More than anything, she wishes she hadn't mentioned the nightmares.
She grips her coat tightly around her chest, though it's not particularly cold today, as she walks through reception. Noel says something to her as she leaves, but she doesn't quite hear it (something about leaving early, perhaps?), though she nods and smiles on her way out.
So far, so good. No sign of Sam, no sign of a conversation that she wishes would never come.
Then she gets in her car and she drives away as fast as she can from Holby City Hospital, turning her phone off and shoving it in the glove compartment as she goes. The house is quiet when she gets home, so she turns on some soft music and opens a bottle of wine and spends the entire evening dreading going to bed.
(The nightmares are worse than ever that night.)
.x.
She arrives at work early the next day, before the sun's up. This is common, and nobody makes a comment, though part of her wishes they would.
Paperwork fills her morning, with occasional strays back to Grace's social media which is no different to how it was yesterday. No, maybe it is. She's sure that the picture of Grace and Sam – captioned 'NOBODY is better than my dad' – has gone. Or maybe she's just losing the plot – it wouldn't be surprising, after all. Who knows.
There's a soft knock at the door, and she's just looking up to see who it is when the door opens, revealing the one person she simultaneously wants to send away and also accept into her life unconditionally. Emotions are strange.
"I brought coffee," Sam says as a means of starting the conversation, showing the two cups in his hands. "Just the way you like it – skim, double shot with extra foam. And it's from Monty's. Best coffee in Holby."
His tone confuses her. Part of her expected him to be angry, and the other part expected a tirade of sorrow. This is neither of them; it's almost carefully neutral, as if they don't know one another.
She doesn't reply, so he simply sets her coffee down on her coffee mat before taking the same seat as yesterday. Today, she notices, he isn't wearing a jacket. Strange.
"I know you don't want to talk to me, because you don't do emotional outbursts, but I want to talk to you," Sam continues, taking a sip of his coffee before he sets it on her desk. He leans forwards, and his eyes are windows into his soul, betraying the unlimited empathy within.
Connie raises an eyebrow. "Talking usually requires words, Sam."
He clears his throat and smiles a little before it simply slides off of his lips. "There are no words to say how sorry I am for how I behaved after the accident," he begins, and immediately Connie tenses. She doesn't want to hear it; she doesn't need to hear it. "I came barging into a delicate situation and I didn't think…I didn't remember that you were in that car, too."
She can't deal with this; it isn't something she wants, even if she sort of needs it. "It's fine," she mutters, standing up suddenly. Though she doesn't leave the office, she moves into the corner, and pretends to look at some files even though she can't really read the words she's looking at. "Really, it's fine. Just leave it."
He follows her. She shouldn't be surprised, yet she is. He always manages to surprise her.
"No," Sam says, more emphatically, as he takes hold of Connie's arm and gently turns her to face him. It's almost nice, looking into his eyes and not seeing anger or judgement. "It isn't. I forgot that you were hurt, too, even if you wouldn't show it. And because I was a bit of an arsehole, I didn't think about the fact that you needed support as well as Grace. That you couldn't do everything, even though I always expect you to."
Somehow, she manages to find a smile, even though it's small and probably pathetic. "It isn't your job to look after me, Sam. I should be perfectly capable of doing that myself."
Looking into his eyes, it's like she's been sucked into a black hole; she can't escape, though really, she doesn't want to. For the first time in a long time, she feels almost at home. He's different to how he used to be – that's her fault, and she holds her hands up to that – but it's not necessarily a bad different, she's decided. Maybe the old, empathetic Sam Strachan who would risk his boss's wrath is still in there…
"I know," Sam says. "You're the most capable person I know, and I've known that since the day you hired me. But it's okay for you to need someone else, every now and then. It doesn't make you any less strong."
It's probably the nicest thing he's ever said about her (to her, at least), and she can't stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks. Crying is something that's become almost second nature to Connie Beauchamp over the past year, but this is the first time that she's felt comfortable crying in front of someone else.
"I just…" she doesn't know what to say, how to say anything, because is this a good idea? Even now, she's thinking about whether she should be opening up to Sam Strachan – someone who has the potential to be her strongest ally or worst enemy, even now.
He's here though, and that's more than literally anyone else in her life, because Elliot's across the globe in the Middle East, and Grace doesn't need to know her mother's problems even if they were talking, and those are her only two options.
"Hey," Sam murmurs, placing his free hand on Connie's shoulder, so that they're almost – but not quite – hugging. "Take it slowly, have a deep breath. You're in charge, alright?"
She laughs a little at his choice of words, though it's more watery than laughter should be, but she feels comforted. It's a sorry state of affairs that she's in, isn't it?
"I couldn't protect her and I still can't protect her," she whispers, and the tears fall faster now. She definitely shouldn't be saying this, and yet it feels natural. "I thought she had died, Sam, when that car blew up…I watched it burn and I thought she was in it. And then…then she was found and they were taking her back, and she was in another crash…it was like when she was born, with the ventilator situation, but a million times worse, because she wasn't just a little baby who I barely knew and loved. She was—is—everything. And I can't get the image of her out of my mind…when…in resus."
He's holding her close now, and she's breathing in the familiar scent of his favourite aftershave with rapid breaths, barely able to get enough oxygen into her body. It's as if no time's passed since the last time they hugged, back when he was still in her Cardiothoracic department, because he doesn't feel any different.
"It's going to be okay," he murmurs into her ear. "You're going to be fine. We'll…we'll sort it out."
It's the first time she thinks that he's ever referred to the two of them as 'we'.
She pulls back a little and looks into his eyes, though the view's a little distorted by the flow of tears from her own, and she sees it. She doesn't know what it is, but it's the thing that's haunted her for years – and it's entirely Sam Strachan.
(Little does she know that he sees it too, though the term is as elusive for him as it is for her.)
Before she knows it, they're kissing and it's almost like home is a place and a person, because she doesn't think that it would be right to kiss Sam Strachan for the first time in ten years anywhere other than Holby City Hospital.
It's different to before, because it feels like he's her equal rather than her subordinate, though it's not a bad different. It's confusing, though, and it makes her pull away earlier than she probably would like to.
He's smiling and she's smiling, despite herself, though she extracts herself from his grasp with stunning speed.
"I should…check on the patients," Connie mumbles something incoherent, wiping away the remaining tears before she walks towards the door.
"Connie," Sam calls after her, before she leaves the office.
She turns back, to see a mixture of happiness, pride, and Sam Strachan's inherent smugness, on his face. Unsurprising, and yet she can't blame him.
"Yes?"
"Things will get better," he replies, evidently lacking in motivational statements. "Just…promise me that you'll talk to Ben Harding soon. Today. You might as well start talking soon, right?"
She nods, and makes a small, sweet (one kiss and she's already being sweet? Shocking) smile at Sam before walking out of her office.
Life hasn't magically gotten better. But it's a start.
I take story requests so if you'd like one, please let me know.
If not, please just let me know what you thought of this fic!