First off, I just want to say a huge thank you to MirrorSparkles1234 for reviewing every chapter – it really means a lot! Thank you so much! :)
"Zosia!" Colette called, running down the corridor after the young doctor. "Zosia wait!" Once she had caught up with her, she took hold of her arm. "It's alright. It's going to be investigated."
"No it won't. You heard him in there." Zosia said tearfully, having lost the tiny scrap of hope that she was holding on to.
"Yes, I heard him but you walked out too soon to hear me! Trust me, we're not giving up just yet. Come on, I'll take you back to mine." She told her, putting an arm around her shoulders.
"Don't you need to go back to the hospital?" She quizzed.
"They can manage without me. I'm not quite God." She told her with a grin.
"They will all be thinking the same won't they? I have a reputation for my temper and my apparently non-existent heart…they will say I got what I deserved."
Colette stopped and turned to face Zosia.
"No they won't. Nobody deserves something as horrific as this to happen to them and they all know, as professionals, how serious this is. He made you the victim Zosia, you didn't do that to yourself."
Back at the hospital, Guy was in his office, disturbed and pondering over something he had heard in the canteen. His own daughter. Surely not? Fair enough her being angry with him but to lose her temper on the ward over a patient? With an annoyed sigh, he picked up his phone and dialled a number.
"It's my father!" Zosia panicked, after hearing her phone ring and fishing it out of her bag.
"Do you want me to take it?" Asked Colette.
"No. He can't find out." She said, her voice shaking.
"Then just leave it. For now."
"I don't want him to ever find out."
"He will find out Zosia. Whether that's in a week, a month or even a year. I did my best to make sure that the staff kept it to themselves but gossiping is second nature to some of those nurses." Zosia knew that, yet again, Colette was right. Guy Self's daughter a victim? Drugged and then violently assaulted? Of course it would reach him eventually.
Back at Colette's house, Zosia was reflecting on the events of the last twenty-four hours. It had changed everything. Just as she thought she was beginning to make a life for herself, it was all viciously snatched from her.
"I can't do my job anymore." She thought aloud, without meaning to.
"What?" Colette asked in surprise, for she too had been deep in thought about Guy. She knew how hard he had tried to reconcile with his daughter and now, this was going to be even harder, if not impossible. "You can't give up your career. You have worked so hard to be where you are and you can't let him take it all away, you can't let him win."
"Do you think I want to? All I ever wanted was to be a doctor, to help people but you saw me today and that little girl was eight years old. She couldn't hurt me but I was still frightened. If you hadn't have walked in who knows what would have happened?"
"You went back to work much too early, you clearly weren't ready and once you've had some time off, time to come to terms with what happened to you and then you will feel better and be able to try again." She told her. "This isn't like you at all, this is not the stubborn, determined Zosia I know."
"He took that Zosia away and she's never coming back! Instead he left me and I'm trapped and frightened in a world I don't know anymore." She said, in pieces. "It's not just doing my job that scares me it's the thought of having to face everyone now they all know."
"The old Zosia is in there somewhere, I know it. Don't think about anyone else, if people give you grief over it, send them my way and I'll sort them out." Just then, the doorbell rang. Colette got up and opened the door. It was Guy.
"Is Zosia here?" He asked.
"Yes. Go easy on her, please." She told him. Colette guessed that he must have heard about the incident on the ward but she didn't want to be the one to tell him the truth. She had just managed to get through to Zosia and she didn't want to break that trust now.
