A/N: So here's the second chapter, and thank you for all your amazing reviews. You all really put a smile on my face during a horrible day!

Sarah x

Sandra was trying desperately to open her eyes, but she couldn't do it. She wasn't unconscious. She could hear Gerry trying to wake her and she could feel his hand grasping hers and him shaking her shoulder. She just couldn't respond in any way whatsoever. It was like she was paralysed.

"Sandra!" he shouted at her, and she felt his fingers on her wrist, taking her pulse. Her exceedingly high pulse. She felt light-headed, even flat on her back. She tried to force her eyes open, feeling a hand on her face, the back of Gerry's fingers stroking her forehead.

Then, suddenly, something changed, and she could open her eyes. She was worried, though; she couldn't move her right leg at all now. "Gerry," she groaned. His hand was on her cheek, trying to calm her. "Gerry, I'm fine," she told him, but it was a barefaced lie. She was not fine, not in the slightest. The light from the clear sky hurt her eyes, and everything seemed louder than usual. "Help me up, will you?"

He obliged, taking her hand and guiding her carefully to her feet and keeping an arm around her waist so she didn't fall over. She wanted to be fine, and she jerked herself away out of Gerry's grip. But the lack of balance took her by surprise and she fell onto the side of her car. "Sandra," he argued. "Sandra, you just collapsed, for God's sake. You need to go to hospital."

"No," she retorted. "I need to work." She put her head down, trying to breathe properly.

"Bloody hell!" he exclaimed, annoyed at her determination. She was gripping the car for dear life. Her leg wouldn't let her stand up. It would just buckle underneath her because there was no feeling in it. "Either you let me take you to A&E, or I call an ambulance," he threatened her.

"Are you threatening me?" she demanded.

"No," he replied. "I'm giving you a choice. One way or the other, you are bloody well seeing a doctor about this!" She felt his arm around her waist, taking her gently away from the car so he could open the door. She tried to stand on her own but had to give in. Se ended up leaning heavily on him, depending more on him than she ever thought she would have to. She heard her foot scraping the ground. She could only drag it from her pelvis. Any lower and there was no point.

She felt like her head was lighter than air, like she would fall over if Gerry let her go, which was probably what would happen. He placed her carefully in the car, and glanced at her questioningly when she couldn't put her legs in the car. "I can't feel my leg," she admitted, and she realised that she was actually scared.

He squeezed her leg gently, and asked her, "Can you feel that?" She shook her head, and there were frightened tears stinging her eyes. He smiled at her, trying to take her mind off it. "This ain't how I pictured you letting me feel your legs," he joked, a cocky grin spreading across his face.

She just glared at him, not in the mood for his jokes. She was too scared to laugh with him. He ever so gently lifted her right leg into the car and she moved her left on her own. She'd never been ill like this before. And she was ready to admit it: she was sick.

She thought on how horrible the past twenty-four hours had been. The end of a harrowing case of three murdered siblings. She went home late to a blazing row. She'd had a glass, a mug and a coffee pot drunkenly and clumsily thrown at her. She'd went to UCOS, uncomfortable in the silence of her home, to drink more wine than was sensible and, for the first time since she was a small child, she cried herself to sleep.

What a day.

The drive to the hospital was silent, and Sandra finally let the tears spill over onto her cheeks. She was ill. She was halfway paralysed, for crying out loud!

When Gerry took hold of her, she was surprised by how she was practically using him as a right leg. Her arm was around his neck, and it was still tingling, though she could feel the cold pain there again. They walked in and they were immediately taken to a cubicle when Gerry informed the nurse of the numbness in Sandra's limbs. It didn't take half as much time as she'd thought. Within two hours, and after two conversations – one with a nurse and one with a doctor – she was transferred to an Acute Admissions Unit for observation and an MRI.

The doctor had been confused and went for the Clinical Lead to aid him. And he told her, "This could be anything from a mini stroke to a panic attack, so I'm going to admit you to AAU for more tests." That was all they told her, and it only terrified her. The word "stroke" in particular scared her, after seeing what a stroke had done to her mum.

And all the while, Gerry held her hand tight. She felt weak, vulnerable in the hands of others. Before she knew it, she was lying on her back being told to stay still, in a hugely noisy MRI scanner. The seriousness of this hit her like a tonne of bricks. It was serious enough that the ED felt she had to be admitted to another ward. It was serious enough that she had asked Gerry to call Strickland to assure him that she wasn't in immediate danger but the doctor insisted she be kept for the night.

The pain in her arm was escalating slowly, and as she was wheeled back to the AAU, she could feel extreme frozen pain replace the numbness at the top of her leg. When she got back, she found Gerry sitting in a chair, and another man standing next to him. The man she didn't really want to see. The one who had drunkenly thrown her kitchen equipment at her.

"Jamie," she breathed. She wanted to reassure him that she was fine, but she couldn't help but feel he was partly responsible for this. "Jamie, I don't want you here, Do you even remember what you did last night?" He shook his head, saying nothing. Her temper rose, and she suddenly didn't care that Gerry and a ward full of doctors, nurses, patients and relatives could see and hear her. She heard the monitor beep faster at her side.

"Let me see," she snarled at him. "I came home after a particularly nasty day at work – you can ask Gerry how awful that case was – and you came over, drunk, and accused me of cheating!" she spat at him. "Then we got into a screaming match and you threw dirty dishes at me! Ring any bells?"

Her heart rate rose with her fury, and the monitor attached to her finger warned that her heart rate and gone above a hundred and ten. She knew that wouldn't have happened if she wasn't already in such a vulnerable position. A nurse rushed over, but realised temper was causing the sharp rise in her heart rate.

Just then, Gerry said to Jamie, her boyfriend of two months, in a low, threatening voice, "Get out of here. Now. Before I break your puny little neck."

"For the record, Jamie," she added to him before he left, "I never want to see or hear from you again."

He didn't argue; she knew he wouldn't cause a scene in the middle of a busy admissions ward full of sick people. The nurse guided Jamie out of the ward, and Gerry took her hand in his, rubbing his thumb on the back of it. She didn't cry. She was too angry to cry. And the pain descended gradually down her leg was distracting her.

The clock read two in the afternoon when she felt herself drifting off. Gerry was still holding her hand, and she was still scared silly, but she did feel slightly better in the knowledge Jamie was never going to throw another glass at her. She couldn't believe it when he turned up out of the blue, drunk and bloody paranoid, and did that.

As she finally managed to fall into some form of sleep, she felt fingers in her hair and a hand gripping hers tightly. She fell asleep wondering exactly what caused this. I couldn't a stroke? Could it? She'd never had a panic attack before. Those were the two options the doctor were leaning toward, after all.

All she knew was that she was scared, in pain and upset. And the person by her side was Gerry Standing, and not her boyfriend she was meant to trust. Bottom line: she trusted Gerry to stand by her.

Hope this is OK!
Please leave a review and tell me how I did!
Sarah x