Thank you to the anon on tumblr who gave me the prompt for this fic. It's Strachamp, allegedly, and it's more angst than anything else, so I hope you all enjoy!

It's still light as Connie Beauchamp leaves work on an otherwise dreary February evening, something which she counts as a win, no matter how small. There are many winters days – most days, to be honest – that she doesn't see sunlight, except for perhaps a brief glance out of the window on the way up to a Head of Department meeting. The return of sunlight to her life, no matter how fleeting, is a sign that things are on the up.

Or at least, she hopes, anyway. By and large, summers seem to be the height of her year: Grace was born in May, which she just about counts as summer, and she received practically all of her promotions in Holby City in the brightest months of the year. Perhaps sunlight is her good luck charm…

And even last year, things were good in the summer. It was only at the end that things went south. Before that, however, the world had been Connie Beauchamp's.

"Goodnight, Mrs B," Noel calls from across the car park, causing Connie to start slightly. She hadn't realised how long she's been standing next to her car, her leg poised to climb into the driver's seat, lost in memory lane. "See you tomorrow?"

Connie manages a half-smile, which she belatedly realises that Noel won't be able to see, before giving him a form of wave in parting as she climbs into her car. At least he's interrupted her thought process in summer, at the height of her happiness, not allowing her to descend into the darkness of winter once again.

But once she's alone, however, she can't stop it. The memories flow back as smoothly as liquid gold as she's powerless to stop them consuming her mind.

Giving Grace up.

The accident.

The court case.

"Let's be a family."

The empty flat.

The realisation that he never loved her, regardless of what he said, and that she's going to be alone forever. For no matter how hard she tries to love, Connie Beauchamp somehow manages to drive away every man who has ever come close to unlocking her heart.

~x~

That evening, nothing can distract Connie as she sits in her living room, lounging across the classy but almost too slippery cream leather sofa she purchased on a whim a few weeks before. After a Christmas Day shift, she decided to treat herself to a series of home renovations, starting with the living room. The downstairs of her home was tainted, after all, by the smug expressions and know-it-all smirks of one Mr Sam Strachan – it still is. Every time she breathes, she imagines the smell of his aftershave; every time she looks up too quickly in the kitchen, she swears that she can see Sam standing next to Grace, handing her that goddamn birthday present over and over again.

She needs a complete revamp of her life to remove any taints of the man she thought she could love.

On a whim, Connie grabs her phone and scrolls through the recent call history to find Grace. She's buried far too deeply – not because of the period of time since their last communication, but because of the sheer number of calls she's made to Henrik Hanssen and other members of the Board of Directors in the last couple of days. She thought that the Beauchamp name meant something – but apparently her funding has been redirected to neurosurgery. Not for much longer, anyway.

Hesitating for a moment, Connie presses down on Grace's name, a small smile slipping onto her lips at the sight of the series of different coloured hearts after her daughter's name, deciding at the last minute to go for a voice call rather than Facetime. It's too much effort to explain the change in décor to her daughter – plus, for once, she doesn't look pristine and perfect, as she likes to appear to her daughter. She's tired, eternally distraught at the loss of her family, and can't quite bring herself to care enough to do anything about it.

It's been far too long since she's seen her daughter – since early September, in fact. The long-lauded trip to Aspen didn't happen, not because Connie was too busy to make it but because Sam apparently had a 'work emergency'. The likelihood of that seemed a little too suspicious to Connie, but Grace, ever her father's greatest ally, insisted that it wasn't all that different to the numerous times that Connie cancelled, and they'd just have to do something in spring break instead.

(Unsurprisingly, of course, Sam had rebooked the Aspen lodge for the following week, during a week when he knew that no NHS leadership would be allowed annual leave, leaving Connie as the bad woman in Grace's eyes once again. Never had she resented her ex-lover more than she had during that phone call.)

As the phone rings, something in the back of Connie's mind tells her that there's something amiss. It takes one then two seconds for her to realise that there's something wrong with the dial tone.

It's not foreign.

Grace is in England.

And she hasn't told Connie.

Swiftly, Connie hangs up the phone and swiftly puts it onto do not disturb before throwing it across the room, hopefully never to be seen again.

~x~

One glass of wine swiftly follows another, clouding Connie's judgement slightly, though she welcomes the slightly foggy state of mind the alcohol brings. Her daughter is in England – again – without telling her. Neither Grace nor Sam nor any of her copious contacts at any of the goddamn hospitals in the entirety of goddamn New York City bothered to let her know.

So why should she bother?

It breaks every remaining segment of her heart to think about the question of why Grace is here, in England, without letting her know. So she decides to pretend as if she doesn't know – she can carry on with her life as if she didn't know that her only daughter has returned to her home without telling her mother.

She can pretend that it's just a bad dream – and perhaps some more wine will convince her that this is the case.

~x~

Awakening early the next morning, Connie rubs her eyes, slightly groggy. One bottle of wine followed another last night, though it certainly helped her sleep through the night without even thinking of the one name she wants to forget.

Though, in fairness, today it's two names.

A sudden burst of resolve striking, Connie gets up slowly and makes her bed in a fashion before getting ready. It's her day off and, normally, she'd head into the Emergency Department to catch up on some paperwork, or go shopping, or do something generally outside of the house with a purpose.

Today, however, she's decided to take a road trip. She has no idea where she'll go, only that it'll be outside of Holby and it'll be somewhere she's never been before. Somewhere with no negative connotations or chances to take her down memory lane to places she doesn't want to visit again. Somewhere where she can make new memories – even if it is just somewhere to make her new happy place.

Deciding to skip breakfast, Connie grabs a bottle of water from the fridge, her purse and car keys before heading towards the front door. Almost instinctively, she reaches into her pocket to check that she has her phone, before she remembers that it's still wherever it landed on the floor last night.

And, for the first time that she can remember, Connie leaves the house and decides to go without her mobile phone.

~x~

As Sam Strachan exits the conference room at the Orchid Suite in South-West Holby, he's unsurprised to be greeted by a frowning Grace Beauchamp-Strachan.

"You're so late," she comments, her hands on her hips in the best impression of her mother Sam thinks he's ever seen. Somehow, in the last few months, she's completed the transformation and has become the absolute spitting image of her mother – not that she'll admit to that, of course. "Like, literally, Dad, you said you'd be in there an hour tops. And it's been four hours!"

"So you've had lots of time to do all of your homework before we go and see your Mum, haven't you?" Sam tries to put a positive spin on it as he smiles at his daughter. It doesn't work, so he resorts to pleading in a way which reminds him far too much of his days as a registrar on Darwin. "Look, Gracie, I'm really sorry, okay? I thought I was just observing but then they saw me and they wanted my contributions and, well, I just couldn't leave. It would have been rude."

"Why wasn't Mum here?" Grace demands.

Sam sighs. "Because she's not a cardiothoracic surgeon anymore, sweetheart. She works in the ED, you remember that."

Rolling her eyes, Grace puts her phone back in her pocket. "I know that, duh. But she's still better at all that stuff than you are. She should be the expert giving the presentation, not you."

"Grace, that's not fair." Sam's tone is firmer now, in a parental way that he usually manages to avoid. Despite being Grace's main parent nowadays, he still manages to get away without really disciplining her, due to his ability to play on the fact that he's the 'fun' parent who she rarely saw. Today, apparently, is one of the days that Grace has decided that the roles are now reversed – and that Connie Beauchamp is nothing but an angel and a perfect mother. "You know perfectly well that she isn't an expert in this stuff anymore – and we're going to see her now anyway. Let's be reasonable."

"Being reasonable would have been coming a day earlier so that I could have stayed with Mum whilst you went to this stupid conference," Grace retorts. "And anyway, if you're so good, why are you coming to Holby to go to a conference? It's hardly the centre of cutting-edge science." And, under her breath, she mutters, "she's definitely still better than you."

"That's enough, Grace," once again, Sam's tone is firm. "We're going to see her now. Let's not ruin today, shall we?"

"You know how I know she's better than you?" Grace spits out, playing the perfect teenager far earlier than Sam had anticipated. "Because she publishes things about the heart and stuff all the time. Yeah, bet you didn't know that, did you?" Snorting, she continues before Sam can reply. "I'm going to get my stuff and then I'll wait for you at the car. Hurry up, I want to see Mum."

Grace disappears, leaving Sam in a daze. He's not sure what he should be the most concerned about – that Grace thinks that Connie is publishing in cardiothoracic circles (which he would certainly know about), or that she has replaced Sam at the top of her lofty pedestal.

Or, finally, whether he should be concerned about the fact that his daughter has become a teenager aged only twelve. Nah, he thinks, dismissing this. He should have known that Connie Beauchamp's daughter would be stubborn enough to cause him problems earlier than thirteen. Why did he expect otherwise?

~x~

After a particularly tense car ride, Sam and Grace pull up at Connie's house a little after twelve thirty.

"I hope she's in," Grace says, her mood suddenly buoyant. "I really want pancakes for lunch. We made some a while ago, did you know?"

Without waiting for Sam's response – or even for him to turn the engine off – Grace darts out of the car, rapping her hands rapidly on the glass panes of the front door.

However, less than ten seconds later, she turns back towards the car, frowning. As Sam gets out, she calls, "the alarm's on. She isn't home."

Suddenly dejected, Grace takes a step or two back towards the car, grabbing her phone. "She isn't answering either – it's just going straight to voicemail, like it did last night." Frowning, Grace takes a couple of seconds to think before she perks up. "She must be at work, Dad. We have to go to the hospital."

"Grace, I don't think—" Sam begins, before his headstrong daughter cuts him off.

"I'm going to the hospital even if it's without you, Dad," she says firmly, jumping back into the passenger seat. "Hurry up, I really want to see her!"

.

"Where is she?" Grace groans, her tone frustrated. "Charlie, are you sure she isn't here?"

"Grace, that isn't how you speak to Charlie," Sam interjects, his tone firm. "You need to be polite." It's his attempt at appearing to be a parent – after all, last time she was in the E.D, Grace had played an awful joke on David Hide. He has to appear to have calmed his daughter down.

"Sorry," Grace grumbles, making eye contact with Charlie. He's always so calm, she isn't sure what she should be like with him. He's certainly the opposite of both of her parents, anyway. "I just really want to see her, Charlie. It's been ages."

"Honestly, Grace, I'm sorry, I have no idea," Charlie replies honestly, holding his hands up. "She's definitely on day off today. Maybe you just missed her on your way from her house to here? She might have gone food shopping or something."

Sam snorts. "She'll have someone to do that for her."

Grace shoots him a sharp look. "Mum actually loves to go shopping," she replies, her tone haughty. "Not everyone gets people to buy food for them, Dad."

"Anyway, I really should get back out there," Charlie interrupts, allowing Sam a chance to not discipline his daughter. "Have you tried calling her?"

"Her phone's off," Sam explains, making an attempt at smiling at Charlie. It's more of a grimace, however. "Thanks anyway, Charlie. Good to see you."

"Can I have a quick word?" Charlie says suddenly, looking directly at Sam. "Outside?"

"What about me?" Grace demands, suddenly frustrated. She's certain that this is about her Mum's absence, and she hates the idea of being out of the loop.

"It'll just take a minute, Gracie," Sam replies. "Just wait here, I'll be back in a minute."

Swiftly, Sam follows Charlie out of the office, carefully closing the door behind him. His daughter is a genius at finding loopholes and ways to eavesdrop on conversations she should have no right hearing – often due to his inability to close a door properly.

"What are you doing here, Sam?" Charlie asks, his tone harsh. Harsher than Sam had expected.

"We're here to see Connie," he replies, keeping his tone neutral. "Which is exactly the same as I would have said in front of Grace."

"Why did you leave?" Charlie's tone remains harsh, and Sam flinches. "When you see her she won't admit it, but she was wrecked after you left, Sam. You toyed with her, made her let her guard down, and then that's when you attacked. That's brutal."

Sam grimaces. "That's what she told you, huh?"

"She didn't tell me anything – though I'm sure that's not a surprise to you," Charlie replies firmly. "It wasn't hard to work out. You broke her, and it's taken her months to put the pieces back together. Aspen didn't help, either."

"So what are you saying, Charlie?" Sam's lost interest in this conversation – admittedly primarily because of the fact that he's the one being criticised. It's a rare situation to be in.

"I'm saying that if you hurt her during this visit, you won't just have me to answer to," Charlie responds, a strange level of threat within his voice. A threat that Charlie doesn't think he's ever heard before. "We're her family, and we'll protect her. Especially from you."

~x~

She drives for three hours to get to a beach she's never been to before, and then she spends a further three hours walking up and down the shore, lost in the beauty of this cove. It's in the south of England, she knows that, but Connie's certain that she wouldn't be able to place it on a map. That doesn't matter though – it's her happy place, and no one can take it from her.

She eats fish and chips on the beach – a meal that she'll probably regret for the next week – and dips her toes in the sea briefly, before deciding that the prospect of frostbite is too great. She jogs up and down, always keeping the small settlement in sight as she rounds the corner, as it'd be a typical Connie Beauchamp to get caught on the beach as the tide comes in.

She waits until the sun sets in all its glory, a mixture of incandescent purples and dusky pinks which gradually fades to nothing. When she can't tell the difference between the sky and the sea, she decides it's time to go home, playing noughties music on full volume and singing along to it on her drive back along the country roads.

There's an unfamiliar car in her driveway as she pulls up, but she thinks nothing of it as she reaches in to grab her purse and now-empty bottle of water. It's probably the next door neighbour's – she told them that they're fine to park in her empty space, provided they keep the noise down.

What she doesn't expect, however, is to hear a voice which she hasn't heard properly in almost six months.

"Mum!"

~x~

It takes forty-five minutes for Connie to just about get over the initial shock of seeing Grace – and, unfortunately, Sam – in front of her, in person. In that time, she downs two glasses of wine (and the remnants of the bottle secretly in the kitchen as Dutch courage), spends as long as she possibly can talking about shades of cream and her house renovations, and talking about Grace's school.

She doesn't look at Sam once, and doesn't even acknowledge the three futile attempts he has at entering the conversation.

By eight, however, it's clear that Grace is tired from the jetlag, though she won't admit it.

"It's time for bed," Connie says firmly, albeit with a wide smile on her face. Although it still smarts that she wasn't foretold of Grace's return to England, now that she's here, she can't be anything but smitten with her only daughter. "Go on. You should go."

Grace's face falls for a moment, before she smiles. "Can't I stay here? Please? I saw that my room's ready and everything."

Connie's heart stops. "I don't think that that's a good idea," she says slowly, each word hurting to come out of her mouth. "I guess you'll be going back to the airport in the morning, now that the conference is over. You should get a good night's sleep."

"But…" Grace protests, before Sam interrupts.

"We're not going back tomorrow," he insists.

"What?" Grace demands. "You told me that we had to!"

"I've changed my mind," Sam replies, a smile in his voice though Connie deliberately continues to refuse to look at him. "We can stay as long as you want – or as long as you want us around, Connie."

"I always want Grace around." It's accidental, the implicit dig at Sam in her words, but Connie doesn't regret it. A brief look up – the first time she allows herself to look directly at Sam Strachan – sees that her words have gotten the reaction she wanted from him. "So if you want to stay, Gracie, of course you can. But you have to go to bed now."

"But I want to spend time with you," Grace replies, pouting a little despite the continued yawning.

"And we can do that tomorrow," Connie insists, pulling her daughter in for a hug. "But now, you need to sleep so that you're on top form for tomorrow. Okay?"

"Okay," Grace begrudgingly accepts. "Night Mum, love you loads. See you later, Dad." And she's off upstairs with barely a glance at her father, who suddenly appears more uncomfortable than Connie thinks she has ever seen him.

"Would you like a drink?" Connie asks, almost sarcastically. She doesn't expect him to say yes – he never has before, after all. And he left her before. Why would he want to spend time with her?

"I'd love one."

Shit.

He follows her through to the kitchen without a word, not commenting on the colour of wine nor the amount she pours into his glass in contrast to hers. Instead, she notes that he's taking into account the major décor changes since his last visit to her house – with not a single thing the same as before.

"You've redecorated?" Sam says, clearly making small talk.

"I've had a lot of time on my hands," Connie replies shortly, taking a huge gulp of her wine. Before heading back through to the living room, she tops her glass up with the dregs of the bottle, wondering briefly whether this is a good idea. She's always a lot more liberal with her tongue when she's had a drink – and there are many things she wants to say to Sam Strachan.

"Not working as much?" Sam continues the conversation, whether because he's a masochist or because he genuinely can't hear the implied message in her words, Connie has no idea.

"Oh I am," she responds through gritted teeth as she takes a seat on the end of her favourite sofa. She's going to have to redecorate again; she can already feel his personality etching onto this room. Maybe next time, she needs to go for some gaudy, awful colour which distracts her from even thinking about Sam's existence.

"Then how did you…?"

"Because Grace wasn't here," Connie shoots back, letting out a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding. "And I know it's hard for you to imagine, but I actually have quite a lot of time for my daughter."

"So…you decided to redecorate?" Sam's clearly confused, and for once Connie can tell that he's genuinely confused.

"Yes," she replies shortly, taking a deep sip of her drink. And then another – and another.

The glass is almost empty, but she still keeps drinking, hoping that, in the alcohol, Sam will fade away and never come back.

"Look, Connie, there's something I want to say," Sam begins, before pausing. Whether he pauses because he wants her to respond or because he doesn't know what he wants to say, Connie has no idea. It could be either. "Before, in the summer…"

"Autumn," Connie corrects. "It was Autumn."

Because she can't let her summers be tainted with Sam's words. She can't.

"Right, well, in the Autumn…I screwed up." It's strangely nice, hearing Sam admit that she wasn't wrong before, that they were going to be a family. "I left because I was scared and I didn't know what to do. I was so used to you rejecting me – and the idea of a family – that the fact you were open to it, well, it wrecked me a bit. I didn't know what to do. So I decided that the only thing I could do was run. Like you used to do."

"Excuse me?" Connie interrupts, her tone ice cold. "Like I used to? I never ran from my responsibilities, Sam. That was always your role."

"Except you ran from the idea of being a family," he corrects firmly, though his tone is far gentler than Connie can remember him using with her. "But anyway. I did it. And I made a huge mistake. Because…I love you, Connie, more than I think I've loved anyone. And I want us to be a family. So what do you say?"

Connie snorts. "You're joking, aren't you?"

"Why would I be joking?"

"Because, Sam, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but in the real world people's lives don't revolve around you," Connie spits back. "And what I wanted back in the Autumn is not what I want now."

Suddenly, she can't avoid looking at him, because he's on the floor in front of her, his eyes looking up at hers so earnestly, she wants to forgive him. She wants to let bygones be bygones, because she's never seen him looking so handsome, so open, so hers.

"Last time I failed you," Sam says firmly. He reaches out to take her hand and, surprisingly, she lets him. "Last time, I ran away because I wanted to have the power in our relationship. That was wrong. I won't do that again. I promise."

It takes a few attempts for her to swallow, and in this time, Connie realises that she can't break eye contact with him. It's like quicksand – she can't escape, no matter how much she wants to.

Until she forces herself to think of the last time she smelled this aftershave. She forces herself to think of all of the winters of her life – or at least the ones that Sam Strachan has been a part of. She remembers the pledge of solidarity, of being a family, and how he ripped that away from her without a moment's notice. She thinks of the pain and suffering he's caused her – how he made her want to be a better person, and then rejected her as though she was nothing.

And so, with a tear falling silently down her cheek, Connie rips her hand from Sam's grasp and takes a deep breath.

"That's lovely, Sam," she says, bringing as much ice into her tone as possible. "Truly lovely. It's just a shame that you tore me to pieces in your quest to be the one with the power, isn't it?" Standing abruptly, she pushes passed him on her way to the door, pausing briefly when she hears his voice.

"But, Connie…"

"There are no buts," Connie replies, her tone sad. "You managed to do the impossible, Sam, and I should applaud you for that. Not even Michael managed to destroy me in the way that you did – I'm surprised it worked, you know, your tactic. But it did. So leave me alone, please."

She walks out of the room and slams the door shut. Thankfully, Sam doesn't follow.

Thanks for reading - let me know what you think, and if you have any fic requests