So I have legitimately no idea where this came from, other than that I wanted to write a Happy!Connie oneshot after I got in from uni today, and I've written this.

It's Strachamp and vaguely AU: it's set in Summer 2018; the cupboard scene didn't happen; Grace lives with Connie. Other than that, most of the plot is vaguely the same.

From her vantage point in the sports stands at the other end of the school field, Connie Beauchamp can barely tell which of the twenty or so figures standing ready to start running is her daughter. Of course, later that day, she'll tell Grace that she could see the determination in her eyes – but for now, she doesn't have the foggiest clue which girl is the stubborn but loving one she'll be taking home later.

Her camera-phone is at the ready, however, waiting for the gunshot to mark the start of Grace's first sports day at secondary school – and Connie's determined for posterity not to miss a moment of the milestone. Whilst her daughter doesn't really care (and actually seems a little embarrassed that her mother has chosen this of all events to turn up to), Connie does. And, for once, she wants to be seen to attend something of Grace's.

Then the gun goes off, and the girls are running, and Grace isn't doing badly to be honest. It's certainly not like the sports day which sparked the entire series of events of the summer before last. This time, Grace can shine.

She comes fourth, and Connie couldn't be prouder.

…

"You did brilliantly, sweetheart!" Connie says into the top of Grace's head as her daughter approaches her at the end of the school day. Grace ended up winning a medal in the 300m race, and a commendable sixth in high jump – even more remarkable, given her medical history. "I'm so proud of you, you know that don't you?"

"I know," Grace replies, wrapping her arm around Connie's back. It's something that she wouldn't normally do in front of her friends – but now that it's the end of the day, she's decided that it's cool that her busy doctor mum managed to get the day off to come to the school sports day. Especially as Sam didn't – or couldn't. "Love you, Mum."

"Love you too, sweetheart," Connie whispers back, pulling her phone out of her pocket. "Now, do you want to watch the videos now, or should we wait until later? I thought I could maybe email them to Mr Rogers and he could put them on the school website—"

"Mum!" Grace says, laughing a little. "You're so embarrassing."

"Well if I can't send them to school, I'm going to print them and stick them all over my office, so that when anybody comes in, I can tell them that you're the best all-round sportsperson in your year," Connie counters, a glimmer in her eyes. She wouldn't actually do this, simply because she's not entirely sure how to print a video out, but Grace doesn't need to know this.

"Nah you won't," Grace replies simply, taking a sip of her water. "Your office is far too tidy for that. Now can we go for Chinese? I'm starving."

Maybe Grace knows her mum better than Connie thought.

…

As she lies in bed later that evening, Connie wonders idly about the future. About what will happen when Grace gets older, when she starts to spend more time out and about with her friends. About when she goes to uni – and the space that Connie has created in her life for her daughter is suddenly empty. What will she do?

It's been a year since Grace first returned to live at home with Connie after the disastrous post-trial period, and it's been the best year of their relationship to be honest. Co-parenting with Sam has been better – and easier – than Connie had ever dared to admit, and it's certainly taken the pressure off of her. Whilst it's strange not being the only disciplinarian now, it's also opened her relationship with Grace up so that one parent isn't the clear favourite for all the wrong reasons.

But it's also been a lonely year. Even though her life is happier and more fulfilling than ever, Connie finds herself thinking of the future more and more every day. About whether she's happy with her life – and, on the whole, she is. Yet she can't quite get rid of the niggling feeling that, unfortunately, there's something that's missing.

Little does she know that her daughter is perfectly aware of this whole in Connie's life, and is conspiring in Connie Beauchamp's love life for the first time.

…

"Grace, why do you have your mum's phone?" Anisha Arnott, Grace's best friend from school, whispers from the blow-up mattress on Grace's floor. After the sports day, it had been arranged that Grace – having the most spacious house – could have three friends over for the night.

There's a conspiratorial expression on Grace's face as she replies. "You don't need to whisper," Grace explains, "Mum's probably already asleep as she's up really early tomorrow. And anyway, the walls are all insulated because I used to play stupidly loud music to annoy her."

Her friends exchange glances, and as she catches sight of them, Grace remembers that not all of her friends are from as privileged a background as she is.

"Why do you have her phone though?" Jess Smailes replies, her tone curious. "Has she taken yours or something by accident?"

Grace produces her phone from her pyjama pocket and shakes her head. "Nah. I just have a plan to make Mum happy. It's my Beauchamp Babe Plan." She laughs a little at the operation name, and thankfully her friends join in, too.

"What are you going to do?" Her friends chorus in unison.

"I didn't realise she wasn't happy," Fran adds. "She always seems really nice. And she's a doctor."

"Why does being a doctor make her happy?" Anisha questions. "I thought that would make her more stressed than anything else."

"Well, because she's making people better!" Fran replies, her face frowning as she thinks harder about her initial comment. "That should make people happy, right? And she works with hearts, doesn't she, Grace?"

"She used to," Grace clarifies. "But anyway, she's happy with me, but I know that she wants to date someone. She used to date someone called Jacob who was really cool, but he was a…a dick to her." Her friends gasp at her deliberate, forced use of a swear word, but Grace decides that it was a perfectly justified use. "Really. He was awful to her. I used to hear her crying when she thought I was asleep."

"What are we doing then?" Jess asks.

"Well, I know that she likes my dad—" Grace begins.

"But you definitely told us that they argue all the time," Fran interrupts. "And that's definitely not a basis for a good relationship."

Grace fixes her best friend of the three with a look. "When did you become a relationship expert?" Grace asks curiously. "Anyway, I think it'll work. Dad's lonely too, and when he got drunk last week, I asked him if he still liked Mum and he said he did. He always tells the truth when he's drunk as well, so I know that it's the truth."

"So what are you planning on doing?"

"Well," Grace begins conspiratorially, a huge grin on her face. "It'll be easy to get Dad there. He wants to be with Mum, and he'll admit it easier. So I'm going to text him from her phone and ask him to go for food tomorrow night, and then I'll tell Mum that I want to go there for dinner, and then I'll just disappear and leave them to eat together."

"But what if he's busy?" Anisha, clearly the realist of the group, interjects. "And what if your Mum won't go out for dinner tomorrow? I mean, didn't you eat out today?"

"Tomorrow's, like, the anniversary of when we had the car crash," Grace says, her tone neutral. "And she wants me to forget about it, so I get to do whatever I want. And I want to do this."

"But what if he can't make it?" Anisha repeats.

There's a determined smile on Grace's face as she replies, "he definitely will. He always can for Mum."

…

It takes the girls until eleven thirty to make it downstairs the following morning. After they messaged Sam, it was a tense thirteen minute wait until he replied, agreeing – albeit cautiously – to the invitation of dinner. It took a couple more carefully crafted messages from Grace, mimicking Connie's tone to perfection, for him to be less suspicious, and Grace is confident that he'll be at Olive Garden at 7pm.

After setting up Grace's parents, the girls had ended up watching four films, played a lot of classic sleepover games, and eaten more sweets than any of them had previously thought possible. It had been around three in the morning by the time that they'd all retired, and not a single one stirred until a little after eleven.

"Morning girls," Connie says with a smile as the four pre-teens troop into the kitchen. "Did you sleep well?"

"Mum?" Grace says in confusion. "I thought you were at work and that Grandma was going to be here this morning?"

Connie purses her lips momentarily, the smile sliding off her lips before it returns full-force. "I went in this morning, darling. But I wanted to come home so that we could do something this afternoon. If you want to, that is." She tries to hide the fact that she wants to spend the full day with Grace on this horrible anniversary, but knows that she doesn't quite manage it. "Plus, your Grandma had other things that she wanted to do." Things she only decided on doing when Connie had made her feel suitably unwelcome, but that's a different matter altogether.

"Great!" Grace replies chirpily, sliding into her usual seat at the breakfast bar. "Can we have pancakes? Please?"

"Only because you all asked so nicely," Connie replies, before frowning slightly. "Oh, before I forget, you haven't seen my phone have you, girls? I could have sworn I left it in here last night…"

The girls exchange a wicked glance before Anisha pipes up, "I think I saw it in the bathroom, Mrs Beauchamp."

"Thanks Anisha," Connie says warmly before clapping her hands. "Right. Five portions of pancakes coming up!"

…

To say that he's surprised at receiving any form of text message from Connie Beauchamp – let alone a text asking him to dinner – would be an understatement. Even though the past year has been relatively pain-free, parenting Grace wise, their relationship has remained purely that of co-parents, regardless of the many efforts Sam's made to try and make things warmer between the pair of them.

Then again, Connie Beauchamp is nothing if not full of surprises – particularly with him.

"Someone seems happy," Jac Naylor comments with a grin as she steps into the Darwin consultants' office. It's surprising for two consultants to be working on a Saturday, but Henrik Hanssen decided that it was necessary, every now and then, to fit in with the Department of Health's misguided attempts to rejuvenate the NHS. "Got a hot date with Rebecca from IT?"

Sam simply fixes his colleague – and boss – with a stare. "It was Rachael," he corrects, regretting being so obvious with his latest short-term relationship. "And no, I don't actually. Not with Rachael."

"Oohh," Jac's eyebrows raise as she replies, "another woman already? I thought the womanising Sam Strachan had disappeared with the return to proper doctoring work. Clearly I was wrong."

Sam immediately regrets saying anything. In the six months since he returned to surgery, he's been careful to build a new image of himself for prospective employers in South-West England. The womanising, lothario of old isn't exactly the sort of person anyone wants to hire as a Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery, at least not in this country. But one thing led to another recently, and somehow he ended up in a colleague's bed.

At least this time, she doesn't work in the same department as him. And this time, Connie doesn't know.

"It did," Sam finds himself saying. "This time's different, Jac."

Snorting, Jac half-jumps into her desk-chair, setting her feet up on the windowsill behind her desk. "Connie Beauchamp finally decided to give you the time of day, Sam?" Then she laughs. "Nah, forget that. She's far out of your league."

…

"Can we go to Olive Garden tonight?" Grace asks, suppressing a yawn as she looks across the room at her mother. "Pleeeeasse, Mum? I really fancy a pizza…"

There's a semi-disapproving look on Connie's face, but it gradually softens into nothingness. There's no way that she can say no today – and she's fairly certain that Grace knows this. "Well, we did only have Chinese last night…" She trails off, before sighing. "But okay, we can go now if you want to?"

"No!" Grace half-shouts, sitting upright in shock. "No, we can't go now. I want to go at seven."

"Seven?" Connie repeats with a laugh. "You'll be asleep by then, sweetheart. What time did you go to bed last night?"

"It doesn't matter," Grace replies firmly. "I want to go at seven. And I want to go really dressy. As if it's my birthday or something."

Frowning, Connie takes a seat on the sofa next to Grace. "Are you alright, Gracie? We normally only go to Olive Garden in casual clothing. Your rule, remember?"

Sighing internally, Grace regrets being such a brat at almost all other points in her life. "Well, I've changed my mind – for today, anyway. I want to dress really nicely, I want you to look like a queen."

"I think I need a lot of makeup to do that, Gracie," Connie says with a laugh. "How about I braid your hair so you look like a princess, and I'm just your casually dressed mother?"

"You're going to look the best you've ever looked," Grace continues, completely ignoring her mother's statement. "Go and get a shower. I'll assess your wardrobe choices whilst you're gone."

On a normal day, Connie would be a little suspicious as to Grace's determination to make her look pretty – not to mention the specificity of the place and time that they have to go for food. But today, of all days, suspicion is not at the top of Connie Beauchamp's emotional agenda.

…

"You look incredible," Grace says proudly. "Mum, do a twirl. Please."

Holding up a phone – which happens to be Connie's, though her mother isn't aware of this – Grace records a swift video of Connie twirling as she holds her dress's skirt, laughing as she moves.

In all honesty, Connie hasn't felt this good in, well, a long time. The last time she felt this pretty…it's been more time than she's willing to admit. Her hair is twisted into a fishtail plait – something Grace assures her is all the rage – and her dress is one of the slightly ridiculous ones she agreed to buy with Grace as part of a local boutique's sale. Gold and cream with a netted skirt, the bodice is fitted and lacy, setting off her skin colour perfectly.

"So, Princess Grace, are we allowed to set off yet?" Connie asks, picking up her clutch bag. "And can I have my phone back please? Why do you have my phone?"

"One minute," Grace replies distractedly, her tongue slightly slipped out of her mouth as she concentrates on swiftly deleting the text messaging history. After all, it wouldn't do for Connie to see that Grace has sent a video of her mum twirling…especially not to Sam Strachan. "Actually…I have an idea," Grace continues, suddenly thinking of something.

"Go on…"

"Well, you receive loads of notifications so your phone is always on do not disturb," Grace comments, holding her mum's phone up in the air. "So why don't I just look after it for tonight? Then you don't have to answer anything – because you literally don't have your phone!"

It's actually more in case Sam replies back to the video, but Connie definitely doesn't need to know that.

"Okay, sweetheart, if that's what you want to do," Connie replies, smiling a little as she wraps an arm around her daughter's shoulders. She's pleased that she managed to persuade Grace to wear this dress: burgundy and gold, it matches her to perfection – and makes her look like the little princess Connie has always known she is. "Now, should we go? I don't want to make us late…"

"One minute," Grace says, digging her heels into the ground. "I want to take a picture of us two. Because we look great."

But we'd look even better if Dad was here too, is something she thinks, but doesn't quite bring herself to say.

…

Fifteen minutes later, they arrive at Olive Garden, and Grace spies her change to make her move. It's a little after ten past seven, which means that Sam will definitely be here.

"Mum, I just need a wee really badly," Grace mutters as they wait by the concierge stand. "But I rang up when you were in the loo earlier, and we're at table number sixteen so we can just go and sit down…"

Connie's growing more and more suspicious of the entire situation, but decides to give her daughter the benefit of the doubt. After all, the only person who she's ever dated as far as Grace is aware is Jacob Masters – and there's no way that her daughter would set anything up with him. On the rare occasions she's seen him since the trial, Grace has glared at him and refused to talk to him. So unless something has seriously changed, Connie's certain that Jacob isn't sitting at the table.

"Ah, Mrs Beauchamp," the concierge says, looking briefly at Grace before making eye contact with Connie. "Young Miss Beauchamp is correct – you're at table sixteen. Can I get you anything to drink?"

"A, er, lime and soda would be lovely," Connie says distractedly, looking away and towards Grace. "And a coke for Grace, please. Gracie, I thought you wanted the toilet?"

"Oh yeah," Grace mutters, a strangely cheeky grin on her face. "I'll see you in a bit, er. Bye. Love you."

Grace's strange behaviour is the focus of Connie's thoughts as she walks through the restaurant towards table sixteen, until suddenly, there's nothing in her mind.

Because there's somebody sitting at the table already. Somebody wearing a charcoal grey suit – which sets off his eyes to perfection – and complete with a chiselled jawline. Somebody Connie had thought she could continue to avoid – because seeing him reminds her of what could have been, and her poor life decisions.

But somebody who she can never quite manage to wholly get out of her mind.

Sam Strachan.

"Hey," he says with a smile, looking up as if he's sensed her approach. Then he frowns. "Are you okay?"

Sliding into the booth opposite him, Connie feels awkward. It suddenly all makes sense now: the specific time, Grace's decision to make her wear something over the top. The only question is why Sam went through Grace…

"I…What's going on?" As much as it pains her to admit ignorance, it makes absolutely no sense. "I'm completely lost."

The smile slips off of Sam's face. "What do you mean?"

It takes everything Connie has to not snap back. "Why are you at the table, Sam? I'm here for dinner with Grace." Her tone is perfectly neutral, but in the back of her mind she has more than a sneaking suspicion as to how this situation has come about.

"I…you invited me for dinner, Connie," Sam begins, reaching into his pocket for his phone. He scrolls through the text messages, turning it to face Connie so that she can read the messages – which appear to have been sent from her phone. "I mean, I thought it was weird that you messaged me, but…"

"I know what's happened," Connie admits, fiddling with her necklace. Is she nervous? She can't tell. "Grace has clearly had my phone – and she has it now, probably so that I couldn't look at the history – and…oh, Lord…" She too trails off, and they sit in silence for a moment.

"So…what do we do?" Sam broaches the subject, leaving the ball entirely in Connie's court. Which is fair, to be honest, and probably the most logical solution. If he suggested anything, she'd probably argue against it.

Which just means that she actually has to make a decision.

Taking one deep breath, and then another, Connie smiles and picks up the menu in front of her. "Well…you're here, and we're here. We might as well have something to eat." She bites her lip, and makes eye contact with Sam for the first time. "Unless you have something else you'd rather do, of course?"

She can tell that he makes himself pause before responding, and that itself almost makes her laugh. He's trying to appear less keen than he is – which is probably a good thing with her. Keen people make her run, and Sam Strachan has made her do that on more than one occasion over the years.

"Sounds good," Sam replies, picking up his own menu. "Though where is our illustrious daughter?"

Connie frowns. Not even Grace should take this long in the bathroom. "I…I'll go lo—oh, there she is." Her tone and expression turn disapproving as Grace approaches the table, a grin on her face. "Hello, young lady. Why didn't you tell me that you wanted your dad to come? We could have arranged it without the cloak and daggery."

Grace smiles, leaning in briefly to hug Sam before stepping back out again. "Because I didn't want to come to have a family meal – I'm actually eating with Anisha and her family. It's already arranged. We made plans last night."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Connie says, her tone revealing a slight wear to her patience. "But I don't understand what's going on. Can you please tell me what you've done – and can I have my phone back?"

Begrudgingly, Grace hands Connie her phone back.

"Well, don't be mad at me…but…I know that you like each other more than you'll ever tell anyone," Grace begins, alternating eye contact between each of her parents. "And you both always just say that 'too much has happened' but that was all in the past…and if you can move on from the other bad things that happen in your life, why can't you both just learn from what you did before and start afresh?"

Sam begins to say something – probably along the lines of 'you don't understand, sweetheart' – but Connie beats him to it.

"Thank you thinking of us both, Gracie," she begins, very honestly as she reaches out to take one of Grace's hands. All of the background setting dims and, to Connie, it feels as if there's nobody in the room other than her, Grace and Sam. "You're right that…the past is the past, so to speak. I very much disapprove of your methods but…for you, we'll have dinner together." As she speaks, Connie looks up and meets Sam's gaze, noting the resignation in his eyes change to surprise. Evidently, she can still surprise him, even now.

It's nice to know that the once-familiar flush of seeing that expression on Sam Strachan's face still affects her. Even if it does slightly surprise her how much it does affect her. She's spent so many years focusing on blocking out anything and everything to do with seeing Sam in a positive light; it's meant that, ultimately, she's ignored absolutely any signs or feelings which could bring ambiguity to their relationship.

"I agree, Gracie," Sam says, clearly attempting to be stern but failing miserably. There's just too much hope in his face for the attempt at discipline to be believable. "It's not right to trick people."

Rolling her eyes, Grace nods. "Alright, I promise never to try and make you both happy again," she says, but smiles as she speaks. "Okay, I'm going to eat with Anisha now, but I'll be back soon. Try not to kill each other – or be mad? Please?"

"I promise," Sam says, and this time, Connie can hear a note of truth in his voice. "Though we'll be having words later, young lady."

"Love you," Grace calls over her shoulder, already moving swiftly away.

Leaving her parents together, in a romantic setting, for the first time in thirteen years.

…

It's more than awkward – it's embarrassing.

Neither of them know what to say, or even what to do. Almost by some unspoken suggestion, both Connie and Sam pick up their menus and raise them to their faces, blocking even the slightest of views of the other.

Her head's a mess, to be frank. It's all well and good thinking about the prospect of maybe, in the future, dating someone – but it's certainly a different story to be thrown into it at the deep end with no warning. And worse still, it's with Sam Strachan, a person who infuriates and infatuates her in equal measure. A person who beds another woman practically every other week – but, admittedly, has never wavered in being genuinely interested in the prospect of something between them.

There's a quiet, suggestive voice in the back of her mind, the one that she's suppressed and ignored and belittled for as long as she can remember, that suggests: why fight it? Why resist the exploration of what they could be? It isn't as if things could get any worse than mutual attempts to undermine and belittle the other as a parent, after all. They literally have nothing to lose.

It's a hard question, and it's taking more energy than Connie would ever be willing to admit to stop her from walking out. Flight at the slightest hint of an uncomfortable situation has been her default response to stopping her heart being broken for decades now, and it's a hard habit to break.

But she promised her daughter, and if there's one thing that's sacred to her now, it's a promise that she makes to Grace Beauchamp-Strachan. She'll give it a go.

"I guess you haven't seen what Grace sent then?" Sam breaks the ice, and Connie sets down her menu to see that he's looking at her intently. How long for, she doesn't know. "She actually sounded like you, to be fair. We've definitely got a politician on our hands."

Connie smiles. "Do I want to know what she said?" Blushing a little, she realises that she has literally no idea what it could say. "Actually, no, I don't. Don't tell me."

"She sent a video, too," Sam continues, the lines around his eyes dancing as he smiles. "It honestly took my breath away, Connie. You look stunning."

He turns his phone to show her, and Connie sees what he means. It doesn't look like her; it looks like someone who's happy, who hasn't got a care in the world.

A queen of a castle – but, unlike hers, it isn't made of ice. It's made of love.

Biting the bullet, Connie speaks. "My head's a mess, Sam. This doesn't make sense. It shouldn't make sense. We shouldn't be sitting here, eating a meal together, dressed like this. Without Grace. I…I don't know."

Sam shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know either, Connie," Sam admits. "And I think, for once, that's a good thing for us both. You always need to have the answers, and I always need to make the smart comment. But let's be spontaneous, for once. What's the worst thing that can happen?"

That I fall for you and you break my heart, Connie thinks, but doesn't say. It's the statement that's stopped her being truly happy with any man –since Michael, anyway.

"True," she concedes, forcing herself to keep some distance between her head and her heart. She needs to be logical; she can't just fall head over heels for someone like Sam Strachan, when she has no need for him.

Unless that's the point.

"Look," Sam continues. "This clearly wasn't planned on either of our parts. You're stunned and so am I. So why don't we just have a meal, and get to know each other as people, rather than just the other parent of Grace? And then we can decide what to do."

"Sounds perfect."

In all honesty, I've never quite written anything like this before - at least for Casualty - so please let me know what you think!