A/N: This is the sequel to Learning Curve, and will be posted in two parts.
Cut of Conscience
Taking the lift up as far as it would go, Connie tried to assimilate everything she had been told, in the short time she had. Both Jess and Diane had painted a very clear picture of a man entirely dominated by his addiction, by a weakness that was well and truly beyond her personal comprehension. She had of course come into contact with addicts of various sorts during her career, but apart from the occasional leaning towards nicotine, which time and time again she would successfully give up, for sometimes years at a stretch, she had no idea what it was like to be so driven. Was Ric about to go through it all again? She simply didn't know.
When she stepped out onto the roof, she could see immediately why he liked to come up here. It was at least eight floors up, with nothing but the sky above, and with the streetlights piercing the air in the distance. There he was, standing a little way from her, leaning against the parapet and simply staring into space. He looked so miserable, so utterly dejected, that her immediate instinct was to rush over to him and put her arms round him. But knowing that he would probably feel entirely undeserving of such affection, she stood there, and waited for him to notice her presence, which didn't take him long. Ric hadn't heard her stealthily silent approach, but in standing a little down wind of her, he caught a waft of her subtle, sexy, now far too familiar perfume on the breeze. When he turned his face towards her, she moved closer to him, offering a tentative smile as she did so. "No peace for the wicked," He said to her, instantly regretting it when he saw the brief flicker in her eyes. "That's a nice welcome to your hiding place," She replied with mock offence, seeing it as just his need to protect his pride. He wanted to say he was sorry, but that would have meant beginning a whole host of apologies that he wasn't quite ready to give. Instead, he asked, "What are you doing here, Connie?" "I felt like a cuddle after a difficult day," She told him. "Is that all right?" "Sure," He said, putting his arms out to her. "But I don't know that I'm the best person to give it." "Would I be here if you weren't?" She asked, moving into his embrace, and wrapping her slender arms round his tall, muscular frame. Foregoing a reply, because he really didn't know what to say, he rested his cheek in her hair, briefly thinking that he wouldn't mind staying here forever. Her face lay against his neck, and as his fingers ran of their own accord through her hair, she took in the combined smell of his clothes, his aftershave, and the incredibly comforting aroma that she simply knew to be Ric. "I've learnt an awful lot about you in the last half hour," She said after a while, her face still buried in his neck. "Then why aren't you running for the hills?" He asked, his voice rumbling very close to her ear. "Run anywhere in my heels? You must be joking," She said with a soft smile. "Who've you been talking to?" He asked, with a certain amount of trepidation. "Diane, and your daughter," She told him, knowing he was afraid of what she might know. "Jess?" He said in surprise. "Oh, yes," Connie said almost proudly. "It's amazing the things I managed to get her to tell me, without hardly saying a single word myself. I really should have been a barrister. I had a somewhat bizarre little visit from her, because, and these were her words not mine, she seemed to think that there was the slightest possibility that I might care." "Jess said that?" He was astonished, whether more by her guts or her intuition he wasn't sure. "Your daughter certainly does possess your stubborn determination to succeed at all costs. I think that was one of the most enlightening conversations I've ever had in my life." After a moment's silence, Ric said, "Yesterday morning, I asked Jess why she hadn't told me about Zubin, and she said that it was because she didn't want me to start gambling again." "So, why did you?" Connie asked seriously, now getting round to the subject in hand. "What makes you assume I have?" He asked, as if trying to cling onto his pride for every possible second. "Well, admittedly I had to have it pointed out to me, which briefly made me feel pretty thick, I must say, but with the way you've been behaving all day, it does make a modicum of sense. Why, you're not going to tell me you didn't, are you?" "No," He said bitterly. "I might not have many scruples where gambling's concerned, but the one I do have is that I don't lie about it." "Well, I suppose that's a good start. Why couldn't you tell me?" "I didn't know how to," He admitted, feeling thoroughly stupid. "Because I don't want you to know that side of me." "Well, I think I'm beginning to know it, whether you like it or not. That's how friendship works, Ric, warts and all." "And maybe I don't want you to know that side of me," He said, holding her away from him. "Maybe I don't want you to know how weak I am, how much I crave that buzz of winning or losing, how the continual raising of the stakes makes me feel so alive, that it can become almost unbearable not to have it. That corrosive need is a part of me, Connie, no matter how much you might think you can cure it." "Oh, and hiding up here, and hoping it will all go away, that's dealing with it, is it?" She demanded scathingly. "Because as far as I can see, it's doing a pretty poor job of it." "I'm sorry," He said quietly, his hands still resting on her shoulders. "I know," She said a lot more gently, laying a cool hand against his cheek, and running her thumb backwards and forwards over the barely perceptible stubble. "Last week, you pulled me out when I was feeling about as bad as it gets. Is it so wrong, to want to return the favour?" "No," He said a little hoarsely. "I just want you to know what you're getting yourself into, that's all." "Do you know what Diane said to me? She told me not to assume I could succeed, just because everyone else had failed, and I don't, but that doesn't mean I don't want to try. So, whilst I might end up being as useless as anyone else, will you at least give me a chance?" "I don't know that I really deserve it," Ric told her quietly, still unsure as to why she was doing this. "Ric, we all deserve some support, no matter how bad things are," She said, leaning forward to lightly graze her lips over his. "Now, seeing as it frightened the life out of me when Diane was so blasé about you being up here, do you mind if we take this somewhere else? Michael is away for the entire weekend, which means I have the house to myself. So, are you coming home with me?"
When they were driving through the streets of Holby, Ric had to admit to a certain curiosity about seeing Connie's house, where she lived with a husband whom she no longer loved as much as she used to, if at all. "Slightly odd question," He began, "but does Michael know that you occasionally bring people home with you?" "Oh, sure," Connie said lightly. "The only rule we have, is that we don't bring people home when the other is in residence. Other than that, he has his bedroom and I have mine, which means we don't need to live in each other's pockets. You'd be surprised at just how well it works. Just because I sleep with other men, and he sleeps with other women, doesn't mean that part of me still isn't very fond of him, and vice versa." When they pulled into the wide sweep of gravel in front of her house, Ric's eyebrows soared. "It's called a lesson in how to invest money wisely," Connie told him as she led the way to the front door. The interior was subtly decorated, so as to provide a restful atmosphere after a hard day's work. Going into the stone flagged kitchen to pour them a glass of wine, Connie reflected that it really was nice to have the house to herself for a change. Michael hadn't been away much recently, which hadn't allowed her the necessary space to grieve after Will's death. It was very rare she showed her real feelings in front of Michael any more, because she could never be entirely sure just how he would react to them. Ric watched her as she moved about her house, opening a couple of windows to let in the spring evening air, and putting a soft CD of Dido on the stereo. She appeared at ease, as if entertaining men in her husband's absence was a fairly frequent occurrence, which he supposed it was. Trying to banish the thought of whether Mubbs had ever seen inside this house, he sat down on the sofa and took a sip of the wine, briefly thinking that drinking on an empty stomach really wasn't such a good idea.
Sitting down on the sofa next to him, Connie reached for her cigarettes and then stopped. "You see," She said with a slight smile. "You're not the only one who finds the process of giving up irritating." "I think that was one of the hardest things I've ever done," He said in contemplation. "Avoiding looking at the racing pages in the paper, walking home a different way so that I wouldn't have to go past the betting shop, and having Zubin watching over my every move." "Diane said that you sold him your car." "Yes, and I really miss that car. He thought it would be the end to all my problems, but it was only the tip of the iceberg. Precisely what else, did Diane and my daughter tell you about?" "Where do you want me to start," Connie said ruefully. "Once I'd persuaded Diane that my motives weren't in the least questionable, she told me an awful lot, about Sam Kennedy, about you betting on an operation, and about you using her credit card." "I really didn't mean to do that," Ric insisted, still feeling lower than the lowest for doing that to Diane. "Ric, I'm not sitting here as judge, jury or prison officer," Connie told him quietly. "So you don't need to justify yourself to me." "Funny," Ric said lightly. "Because I could just see you with handcuffs." "It has been known," Connie said with a smirk. "The point is, I'm not here to judge you, because I haven't exactly lived the life of a perfect angel by any means. I've been just as capable of hurting people as you have, and I haven't had the partial excuse of an addiction as a defence." "I feel, so, ashamed," He said slowly, the words appearing to be forcefully dragged from him. "Of giving into it after six months of staying away." "So what made you do it?" "Because of how I usually feel afterwards, it's often difficult to remember why," He said, taking a swig of his wine to give him courage. "But I think I wanted to feel good about something. The night after I hit Zubin, you gave me the most successful diversion I think I've ever had. You made me lose the anger, and walk away from all the negative feelings that made me want to head for the nearest casino. Yesterday, I was still angry, and I still felt betrayed, and useless, and a failure, but because of you, I'd managed to get past that initial need to follow my old calling. That's often the most difficult thing, to not give into that strong, initial pull that hits you when you're least capable of dealing with it. When Jess told me why she hadn't been able to tell me about Zubin, or about Leo's baby, that hurt, because it hammered home to me just what a useless father I've always been to her. Years of broken promises, and not being the support to my children that I'm supposed to be, aren't something I know how to put right. I'll always remember the worst argument I had with Jess. I was on top of the world because just for once I'd won, and she raided my wallet and cut up my credit cards, because she knew that winning wouldn't make me stop." "She did tell me about that," Connie interjected quietly, seeing all the years of pain and humiliation being resurrected before her eyes. "That wasn't how it was supposed to be," Ric said vehemently. "Jess was acting like the parent, when it ought to have been me doing that. It wouldn't have taken much yesterday to put me back on track for a bet, because I was still so wound up from the day before." "It was me, wasn't it," Connie said in dawning realisation. "It was what I said to you, the last time I saw you that day." "The thing is," Ric tried to explain to her. "Ordinarily, that wouldn't have mattered. Yes, it would have irked me a little that you'd known about that for so long, but in truth it really wasn't important. But yes, it was the one little thing that managed to reignite the urge." "I'm sorry," She said, moving towards him and putting her arms round him. "Connie, anything could have done that to me yesterday, really. This wasn't about you. What you said was just the lighting of the candle on a pretty rotten cake. I'm serious, an argument with Diane, or a row with Jess would probably have done exactly the same." "I just wish I'd known," She said, laying her hand caressingly on his left arm. As she did this, his whole body stiffened. Glancing up, Connie could see the barely perceptible wince in his face, the slight narrowing of the eyes that told her he was desperately trying not to reveal his pain. Now she came to think of it, something felt different, as though there was something covering his arm underneath the long sleeve of his shirt. As the horrific crawling of suspicion began prickling her senses, she reached to undo his cuff. "Don't," He told her, his tone almost angry with desperation that she wouldn't do it. Neither hearing nor heeding his words, Connie undid the cuff and rolled back his sleeve, to stare down at a plain surgical dressing covering part of his left arm. "No," She said, the suspicion growing ever stronger, as she gently held his arm still, and carefully drew back the dressing. There for all to see, was a very cleanly done gash, running the width of the hairy surface of his arm, mid way between elbow and wrist.
Connie stared down at his arm for what felt like an enormous amount of time, but was in fact only seconds. "How did you do this?" She asked, though in truth she already knew. Only one thing could cut so cleanly, leaving not a hint of an uneven edge. "Connie..." He began, and then faltered. How on earth did he begin to explain this to her. "I said," She replied, her voice slowly rising in volume. "How, did, you, do, this!" "With a scalpel," He told her quietly, feeling her grip on his left hand getting stronger and stronger. "How, could you?" She shouted at him, her right hand meeting his cheek with a crack, at the same time as she uttered the word could. There wasn't one, single thing he could say to her, because he could feel her anger scorching every part of him it could reach. Seeming to ignore the fact that he hadn't yet given her a reply, Connie got up from the sofa, and tugged him after her, leading the way towards the stairs. Without saying a word, he followed her, resisting the urge to tenderly massage the slowly reddening handprint on his left cheek.
Once in her bedroom, she gestured to him to remove his shoes and to sit up on the bed, while she retrieved what she wanted from the bathroom. She seemed almost incapable of speaking, her fear-fuelled rage removing her ability to talk. When she returned, and put various things down on the bedside table, he opened his mouth to speak to her. "Unless you're about to give me a perfectly good reason, as to why you felt it necessary to do this to yourself, I don't want to hear it." Closing his mouth in response, Ric stayed quiet as she perched on the edge of the bed beside him, and drew his left arm into her lap. She'd spread an old towel over her knees, presumably in case she got blood on it, and now began to examine the cut more closely. "I can't believe you've been walking round all day with this," She said, discarding the old dressing and unwrapping a sterile alcohol wipe to thoroughly clean it. "Oh, and what else was I supposed to do?" Ric asked disgustedly. "Casually drop into A And E, and say to Harry, oh, by the way, do you mind treating me for a spot of self-mutilation on the quiet?" "Shut up," Connie told him curtly, cleaning away the dried blood that had collected at the sight of the wound. "You could have told Diane, you could have told me," She insisted, as he sucked in a breath and tried to suppress a cry of pain, as the alcohol came into contact with his cut. "Even Tricia would have sorted you out in confidence. But no, you just couldn't do that, could you, you stupid, stupid man." "You're not seriously going to sew that up?" He asked, not refuting her assertion. "Yes," She told him firmly. "And I don't have any local in the house, so I can promise you that it's going to hurt. A rather fitting punishment, I'd say." She stayed quiet as she threaded the delicate needle, and he bit furiously down on his lip when she began making the tiny stitches in his skin. But when he felt a tear land on the back of his hand, he realised that she was crying. "Connie, don't cry," He said, feeling unbearably guilty for doing this to her. "What do you expect," She said very unsteadily as she continued to sew. "For me to rejoice in the fact that you chose to use your own knife on yourself? Why, Ric, why?" "I'm not sure I can explain it," He said quietly, her words cutting through him as the blade had done. "Well, you may as well start," She said, her voice a little shrill with emotion. "Because I am not putting you back together, just so you can do it again." When she'd tied off the stitches, and covered the resulting scar with a clean dressing, she removed all the detritus of her trade.
When she returned to the bedroom, she slipped off her own shoes, and slid onto the bed beside him, thinking that this was as good a place as any for the coming conversation. Ric was leaning against the pillows, and now he put his right arm out to Connie, so that she could cuddle up against him, and lean her head on his shoulder. "Are you going to tell me why you did this?" She asked, her tears having now dried, though the tracks were still visible on her cheeks. "When I got home last night," He began carefully. "I was so angry with myself for giving in. I couldn't believe I'd done it, and all because of Zubin. I felt so weak, and, pathetic," He hesitated over the word. "And I couldn't get away from the fact that I'd done precisely what Jess hadn't wanted me to do. Connie, I... I..." He stopped, the rising pressure in his throat not allowing him to continue. He couldn't believe it, on top of everything else, as well as every other humiliation of the last couple of days, he was now in serious danger of crying, not something he'd done in longer than he cared to remember. Connie could see this, and it made her heart clench with despair to see him so broken. "Did you want to die?" She asked, dreading the answer though knowing she had to ask. "I don't know," He admitted truthfully. "I don't think it was something I really thought about, but it was probably somewhere in the background." "Don't ever, ever, take a risk like that again," She said desperately, briefly clinging to him to make her point. "Because I really can't afford to lose someone else. I know how hard it's going to be, and I know how angry you might feel with yourself, with Zubin, possibly even with me from time to time, but doing something like this really isn't the way to deal with it." "It just, seemed the best way of letting it out," He said, turning his face away from her to avoid her gaze, soft though it may have been. Gently turning his face back towards her, Connie watched his pain-filled eyes. "I feel so stupid," He said, his voice slightly breaking, and his eyes filling with tears under her endless scrutiny. He couldn't believe she was seeing him cry, not Connie, not the woman who could pour so much scorn on anyone at the merest whim. "Ric, it doesn't make you weak to do this," She said softly, kissing away a tear as it ran down his cheek. "Of course it does," he said bitterly. "No, it doesn't," She said, the tears rising again to her own eyes and joining his. "It means you can feel, and it means that you bitterly regret giving in, which believe me is half the battle. But please, you must promise me, never to frighten me like that again. I couldn't bear to lose you as well, no matter how bad it gets. Okay?" Instead of verbally responding, he kissed her, their combined tears mingling as their lips furiously entwined. They both poured so much feeling into their embrace that it failed to surprise either of them when it progressed to the inevitable.
"Are you sure this is what you want?" Ric had the presence of mind to ask, as they fervently began removing each other's clothes, lying on top of her bed as they were. "I think I need this, just as much as you do," She said, as their clothes were cast aside and he began moving his hands over her, teasing at her nipples, his hand eventually sliding between her eagerly spread legs. There was nothing gentle about what they did, their feelings being far too raw for tenderness. There was no prolonging of their pleasure, no gradual inspiring of the senses. They needed each other swiftly, the ultimate joining of their bodies their only intended goal. Connie gasped as he finally slid inside her, wrapping as much of herself around him as possible, as if to keep him with her and therefore safe for ever more. Connie couldn't stop crying as he moved within her, all her barriers of need and desperation having been finally dismantled. "I'm sorry," Ric told her as he came, the regret of both the gambling and the cutting finally bursting out of him, making him cling to her as a shipwrecked sailor might cling onto the one, surviving rock that has stayed by his side. Connie didn't reach orgasm, but this didn't matter to her. The fact that she had him here with her, safe for the time being, was all that really mattered.