*Thanks so much again for the fab reviews, you guys are amazing! So thrilled that you're still liking the storyline so far! I'm not sure how long I was intending this fic to be? Perhaps twenty chapters or so? I'm still pondering on that one! I know the whole pregnancy storyline is predictable and 99% of fanfics do involve it but it was the only key storyline that I could work other situations around, if that makes sense :) Regardless of that, hope everything else is still enjoyable! Please, please, review! The amount of reviews I received for the last chapter had me writing this one pretty much straight away, it's a nice long one too!*

He couldn't sit on it any longer, she was mid sentence, talking about her ex-husband making an unwelcome appearance and here he was about to tell her he'd popped up again. Word vomit was about to happen.

"He's here." They just sort blurted out, cutting her off suddenly. She looked stunned.

"Sorry?"

"Michael." His eyebrows knitted together, a worried expression tainting his face. "He's here." There was a gap in their flowing conversation as her thoughts raced.

"Get rid of him, I'll call security-"

"No, no I mean he's been admitted as a patient. He's in resus, they're working on him now."

There was nothing but silence between them. Her facial expression hadn't faltered once, there was no sign of worry or intrigue as to how he was or what'd happened to him. Sam was a little reluctant to open his mouth again, it must have been bad between them for her to have ordered that security be called. She looked down, placing her hands on her hips as she smoothed her tongue over her top lip.

"What's wrong with him?" She slightly hissed the words at him as she swiped a letter from her desk tray and began opening it violently. Performing a task or doing something when she was feeling uncomfortable helped to draw people's attention to her actions and away from her facial expression or body language. She was a master at disguising her emotions like that. She'd had a lot of practice.

"He's crashed his car. Drink-driving." He added. "And he has a piece of metal fencing lodged between his ribs." The room was quiet again, but he felt like he could hear her thinking.

"Make sure he's stable, remove the fencing and get him transferred to St James's."

"I'll get Dr Keogh on to it." He nodded, finalising her decision. There was no way he wanted to argue with her on this one, she looked harassed. She was almost like a cat in that sense, she had tell-tales signs that warned others of her shortening temper.

"I don't care who does it, just keep him the hell away from me and vice versa."

"What were you arguing about?" His voice was delicate in volume and tone, he was merely querying for her welfare but was unsure of how she'd react to his question.

"What?" She knew damn well what. That was just an easier way of acting aloof, she didn't want to discuss it. Ever. That was an extremely unrealistic wish but she'd never be ready to open up about that. Sitting down in her chair slowly, she tried to calm her stomach down. It was either morning sickness again or the unnerving feeling of knowing that he was in the same building as her.

"You said you and Michael had an argument that night, then you trashed your own kitchen. What was the argument about?" He raised his brows, asking silently for a response. He knew one thing, it must have been an extremely heated argument for Connie to have gone so ballistic with her plates and glassware.

"He was just being Michael." She shook her head, clenching her jaw. "Just raking old things up, causing an argument for the sake of it."

"I take it the feeling wasn't mutual then? You didn't want to give things another go with him?"

"Definitely not." She forced a small laugh and looked down. She was a laugh away from a tear at the moment and now she was struggling to keep rein of her emotions. "Not if he was the last man on Earth, God forbid that ever be the case. That he outlives all human life."

There was a knock on her office door, causing their concentration to be snatched away from the topic at hand. Connie breathed a silent thank you.

"Mr Strachan?" It was Charlie, his pink face peeping through the doorway, trying his hardest not to be interrupting anything. "The junior doctors are striking in an hour and we're still a doctor down."

"I know, they called me earlier this morning." The loud sigh at the end of his sentence indicated to Charlie and Connie his growing frustration. "I'll have to do it myself."

"You're not serious?" She leant forward, suddenly intrigued and relieved the focus was on him now. Undeniably she still felt absolutely and positively sick to the stomach with Michael laying only so many feet away from her but if she kept to the confines of her office until he was transferred there shouldn't be an issue with ignoring his presence for now.

"I haven't got a choice, Connie. The locum called in sick this morning."

"Sam, you're out of practice-"

"I did three years of Emergency Medicine in New York, in one of the busiest ER's in the entire city." He breathed slowly, he sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than her. She knew that and so did he. "I'm sure I can handle one day in the Holby City Emergency Department."

"Yes, but you haven't had to deal with such a high-pressure, and fast-paced working environment under these particular circumstances." She rose to her feet slowly. "We're severely understaffed, we'll be risking patient's lives."

"Connie's right." Charlie chimed in. "It's too risky, we'll be up to our ears in patients come five this afternoon and that's not even our busiest period. It's a Friday night, by nine we'll be overrun with drunken idiots and pissed up party animals. Excuse my language."

"I don't know what else you expect me to do?" He looked between the pair of them, awaiting their solutions but as expected they didn't have any.

"Okay." Connie nodded with a sigh. "But the minute I deem any of this unsafe or too risky for patient welfare, I'm diverting whether you like it or not." She took his silence as an agreement. "Right, well you'd better go and get scrubbed up then Mr Strachan."

/

Back over in resus, David was starting work on Michael's head, it was only a minor cut in need of some butterfly tape but his chest was another story. He'd regained consciousness but was pretty groggy and thankfully hadn't tried speaking or moving yet.

"How's it going?" Sam had entered the room quietly, now sporting some scrubs.

"Fine, I'm almost finished up here."

"What did X-Ray tell us?" He scanned over his notes again as David continued speaking.

"Exactly what we thought, nothing has being punctured or torn, the metal lies only four centimetres deep but it's positioning between the two rib bones is what'll make it difficult to remove. Essentially the bones are holding it in place."

"Might have to crack them to remove it." Sam confirmed ans bit his lip in thought as he finished up reading his notes, sitting them back at the end of the bed when he was done. A pained groan interrupted them, causing the two to exchange a glance.

"Mr Beauchamp?" David tried to get a more comprehendible noise out of him before Sam spoke up, attempting to do the same.

"Michael?"

"My wife.." He groaned out, his hand trying to find the throbbing area in his chest. "Where's my wife?"

"Does he mean Mrs Beauchamp?" David whispered lightly as Sam nodded in response.

"Michael, you've been in a car accident, okay? We need you to stay still for us." Sam spoke calmly, grabbing the man's flailing arm and laying it down by his side. "You have a large piece of metal embedded in your chest, we need to remove it."

"I want to speak to her." His words were breathy.

"She's a little busy right now."

"You." He locked eyes with Sam. "You're him, the one she had a child with. Grace."

"We need you to stay still and stop talking so much, Michael." He tried to shut him up, other staff members were starting to look on. "This metal in your chest is in a very dangerous place right now. We don't want it to dislodge and cause any further damage, do we?"

"I don't care anymore." The sentence was sighed out as he closed his eyes, breathing heavily. Sam looked at David and headed over to the corner of the room, inviting him to follow.

"I'm handing this one over to Dylan once he's available, as soon as the metal's removed we're transferring him over to St James at Connie's request. The police'll probably want to have a word with him too once he's sobered up a bit."

"And I'm assuming nobody is to know?" He looked at him innocently. "Of his identity and relation to Mrs Beauchamp I mean."

"Absolutely, the less people that know, the better." He put a hand on his shoulder supportively. "Welcome back by the way." Smiling encouragingly he pressed his lips together noticing the nervous laugh and smile he received in return.

"Talk about being thrown in at the deep on on my first day back."

"There's no other way to have it, David. It'll make the rest of your days seem breezy." Giving him a final nod he headed out in search of Dylan. The faster Michael was transferred the better, he needed all hands on deck for tonight. Little did he know things were about to get ridiculously out of hand within the next few hours.

/

It was chaos. Everywhere he looked there was chaos. Reception, cubicles, resus. Even the corridors were full of nuisance and far too many people. He was stood in a trance in the middle of reception. He wasn't ready for this at all. It was half past eight at night, almost the exact time Charlie had told him it would get crazy. His thoughts ceased immediately as two security members knocked past him in a rush. They were headed to resus.

"Michael." He whispered to himself, his face marked with realisation.

Michael still hadn't been transferred. The strike outside was causing a million and one problems, handovers between paramedics and doctors in the ED were taking far too long and the commotion collecting outside was interfering with staff coming in and out with gurneys and wheelchairs. Hence why Michael hadn't been escorted over to St James's yet. To top it off, Connie had damn well nearly chewed his head off about the Michael situation as she was desperately needed in resus and ultimately had to ignore her own personal issues and head in there regardless of whether Michael was present. Unfortunately he had no idea why she was reacting so badly to it. To make matters one hundred percent worse and a harsh situation one thousand times more intense and amplified, a gang of football rioters had been brought in with multiple injuries between them including two stab wounds and a bottled face, and now a notorious family of racist trouble-makers had piled into resus too. He could feel the sweat beading on his brow, quickly rushing through to resus behind security he brushed through the double doors, his jaw almost dropping at the sight before him.

"I suggest you roll your sleeves up and get stuck in!" Charlie yelled over heads angrily. He was dealing with the Ellison's who were arguing with Lily over the treatment of Roy.

"Where do you want me?" He asked, feeling like a trainee again, he had no initiative in him at this very moment. He got his answer when Charlie glanced over to Dylan who had handed over the job of restraining Michael to security. He'd sobered up a little at least and had the metal removed from his chest but he was bellowing across the room to Connie who was up to her elbows in blood attempting to stem a bleed on one of the stab wound victims, who was also drunk and acting out violently. She looked like she needed more help than Dylan.

"What've we got?" He sanitised and gloved up, awaiting her answer.

"Aside from a developing migraine?" She was annoyed at him, it was blatantly obvious to everyone, including the patient. "I'm trying to stem this bleed, regardless of what we do down here we'll have to send him up to Keller."

"Here, let me take over. You've got blood on your face."

"Yeah, well that's unavoidable when the patient you're trying to help from bleeding to death is doing his upmost to cause a fight." The comment was sparked by Sam but one hundred percent directed at her troublesome patient who, in his drunken state, had mistaken Michael's yells for Connie as an invitation to start a fight with him. Connie was more than half tempted to let him go and do his worst but she knew that wasn't the answer.

"Alright, that's enough." He glared at her but softened the harshness of it when he caught sight of her face properly. She looked broken. Her eyes didn't show anything, just emptiness. "Go and get cleaned up, I can manage here."

He didn't have to tell her twice. Ripping her gloves off angrily, she threw them in the bin, stealing a glance at her neurotic ex-husband on the way out. This was too much, she'd been sad about it and cried about it, now she was angry about it. Just knowing that she was carrying his child made her feel nauseous. Or perhaps she actually was nauseous? She could never fathom why it was called Morning sickness when it was hitting her at any time during the day. Her head was spinning as she entered the toilets and scrubbed at her bloodied arms furiously. As soon as she'd finished washing, the need to vomit was too hard to ignore. It was so quiet in there, compared to the buzz of resus, it made the act of throwing up sound so much louder than it actually was. She took a few moments to herself, gathering what little strength she had left before heading back out on to the front line. It was no less chaotic, in fact it may have even escalated. The Ellisons had finished bickering with staff and had now instead joined forces with the football rioters. Presented before her was now a divided room. Michael vs football hooligans and the Ellisons. Their colliding voices were echoing through her head, she'd finally had it.

"That is enough!" She barked ferociously at Michael, addressing him for the first time today. He silenced immediately, gathering some words together in his head.

"Connie, please?" He finally sat back in his bed, defeated as his yells had got him nowhere. "I'm your husband." As soon as the words left his mouth she felt every single pair of eyes in resus focus on her frame. The room fell silent.

"Get him out of here, now." She snarled.

"You can't do this!" He kicked up again whilst she tried to keep hold of her dignity. "We're married, Connie! Please, I just want to talk to you!"

The whole time this had been going on Sam felt the undying need to keep an eye on her. He didn't know why, he just felt like something was amiss.

"You okay?" He called out to her, shaking her from the stare she was locked into.

"Fine, no thanks to you." Grabbing a second pair of gloves she glared at Michael as he was wheeled out pleading and begging for her attention.

"Mrs Beauchamp, we have nowhere to put him. We'll have to hold him in the corridor until they're ready to take him to St James's."

"Do whatever you want with him, frankly, I don't really care right now." David knew her anger wasn't directed his way but still felt a little hard-done-by. It was his first day back and had to deal with this as well as feel partially to blame even though it was nothing to do with him.

That was one less pain in the arse filling the room, next on the list were the Ellisons. Before she could reach them, Jacob entered resus, he'd been in cubicles all day and was completely oblivious to the fact that the family from hell were occupying the room. His movements ceased, locking eyes with a stony-faced Denise.

"What the 'ell's he doin' in 'ere." Roy managed to croak out some hateful words, Lily was doing her best to silence them and was soon joined by Dylan. Jacob however was still motionless. His eyes flicked over to Connie, who was matching his lack of movement.

"Jacob." She stepped forward, instincts telling her to look out for him but he retreated.

"I can't be in here, sorry." It was more of a whisper than a strong, authoritative statement. He left the room, leaving Connie feeling helpless. Charlie and Duffy had somehow managed to escort the hooligans out, leaving one left in Sam's hands and then the Ellisons on the other side of the room. Things were starting to calm down, thank god.

"What was all that about?" Sam queried about Jacob as she rejoined him at the patient's bedside. He'd more or less finished up with the hooligan, he was just adding the last stitch before sending him upstairs. "That's none of your business." Her last snap pushed him over the edge.

"Look, Connie, I don't know what the hell has happened between you and Michael but none of that is my fault." He hissed angrily, it sounded more malicious due to the fact that he was trying to whisper now that resus had fallen close to silent again.

"Oh, yes." She smiled sarcastically. "Because nothing is ever Sam Strachan's fault, always hard done by, never treated fairly." Her sarcasm turned sour. "If it weren't for your job cuts and the junior doctors striking, none of this would have happened."

"Oh." He laughed, still whispering lowly as she had been doing also. "My job cuts? I wanted these cuts as much as you did, Connie!"

"A'ight man." The patient kissed his teeth and yelled up in between them irritably, stealing Charlie's attention. "I want some other doctors treatin' me, these two are having a domestic right over the top of my head, man! Get off me!" He shoved Sam's arm away, which turned out to be a huge mistake as he ripped out the delicate stitching he'd just spent twenty minutes doing up. He cried out, his flesh reddening with blood as he started bleeding profusely. Luckily Connie was on his right side, clamping her hands over the wound.

"I've got it." She reassured as Sam moved back in to assist.

"Sam, I think you should go get cleaned up." Charlie gave him a disapproving look before flashing Connie the same one. His face was as pink as a newborn baby but he calmed down a bit when Sam didn't react verbally and left in a slight strop.

"Same for you Connie, finish up that and take a breather. We've got enough to worry about in here without having a go at each other as well." She would have argued back but he was right. She needed some air anyway. The room felt like it was closing in on her.

It took her another twenty minutes or so to fix up the damage before sending the patient off upstairs. Good riddance she thought to herself before looking at Charlie, signalling to him that she was about to take that breather he'd ordered. On her way out she took a few deep breaths to realign herself and as soon as the outside air hit her she shivered at the shock of it. It was as if all of the hospital drama was left inside once she took a seat on the cold, damp bench. Out here she was burdened with other worries. She was so humiliated about the Michael situation, he'd really shown her up in there. But above all worries, the one literally laying within her was the biggest of them all but physically the smallest, how ironic. She crossed her arms over herself, attempting to keep warm. There was a decision to be made but she had no idea what to do. She'd been through an abortion before, with Michael. He hadn't even known that she'd been pregnant but she knew at the time their marriage was nose-diving, he'd been sleeping around and in return she'd started doing the same. It was definitely his baby though, she couldn't face having it because she knew it'd tie her to him forever and she didn't want that. After that awful experience and years of guilt she even still carried now, there was no way she could go through a termination again. It went against everything she worked for. She saved lives, she didn't end them. Her mind swirled with thoughts as that migraine she'd mentioned continued to make her head throb. Her mind stopped ticking when she heard a mass of footsteps running around the corner. It was the hooligans, their football scarves and hats flailing in the wind as they hotfooted it away down the street. Thank god they were gone too. So much for the concern they held for their friend laying upstairs in Keller.

She let her mind relax and wander for a good fifteen minutes before heading back inside, she'd half expected to be greeted with chaos again but to her pleasant surprise it was extremely calm and under control. And thank the heavens above, Michael had finally been taken to St James's. She felt a pang of guilt for the way she spoke to Sam earlier, it was in the heat of the moment and she knew she didn't mean it.

"Connie." Charlie's voice grabbed her attention. He looked frazzled.

"Charlie, what's the matter?" She placed her hand on his upper arm worriedly.

"It's Duffy, I'm taking her home."

"Why? What's happened?" Her voice was low, fearing the worst from the Ellisons.

"No, nothing, there was just a slight altercation with Jacob and their boy, Scott and Duffy being Duffy tried to separate them. She got struck in the head." He held his hands up reassuringly, noticing that she was about to start speaking over him. "Don't worry Jacob's fine, Duffy's fine. They're both fine. She's just a little shaken up and to be quite honest we've had enough of today."

"Well, Charlie, that's understandable. If I could erase today from ever existing, I would." She looked down and their roles reversed.

"You alright? Must have been a difficult day for you." He was referring to Michael.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. You know me." She whispered through a smile and squeezed his arm. "You two get yourselves home and away from this place."

"You don't have to tell me twice, she's in the car waiting. Oh and Sam called for a meeting in the staff room in five minutes time." He smiled and rubbed her hand as she pulled it away. He'd made a lucky escape.

Sighing deeply, she made her way into the staff room just as everyone was filing in miserably, they looked frustrated, annoyed and fed-up. She joined them and took a seat on one of the stools at the table. She felt slightly uncomfortable knowing that everyone had seen the scene Michael made in resus. They all knew he was her ex-husband. She kept quiet, throwing a sympathetic look at Jacob who was sat on the sofa looking as equally glum as she felt. For the first time in weeks, he offered her a small smile, she returned one back.

"He's late." Louise moaned in a monotone manner.

"You know what?" Cal stood up, grabbing his coat as he did so. "Screw him." He huffed. "I haven't protested all afternoon for nothing but a lecture from him at the end of the day blaming us for a manic day in here."

"Aye, I'm with you on that one, Cal." Alicia agreed, throwing her bag over her shoulder as she rose to her feet, following Cal's pursuit. Ethan stood to do the same, looking to Lily before he left.

"Lily?"

"I'm fine here thanks, Ethan." He knew she was upset at how the day had gone but each to their own. Ethan was glad he'd stood up for himself and the other junior doctors, and Lily was glad she'd stayed and helped save the lives she did today. Without her input any number of people could have died today. Miraculously nobody had.

Connie watched on as the department crumbled before her. Where the hell was Sam? As if by the power of thought, Cal bumped into him in the doorway. This they were not expecting. A bloodied up Sam stood before him, an extremely unamused expression written all over his face. He had a busted nose, lip and a large gash on his eyebrow.

"You happy now?" He said it calmly but there was a deep undertone of anger rooted in his words.

"Actually, yes, I am." Cal smiled smugly and brushed past him with slight force shaking his head, the others following in line. The room was abuzz with moans and angry grumbles being thrown his direction and Connie couldn't help but feel bad. She knew how it felt to be the villain for simply doing your job. She stayed seated, receiving a look from Jacob who was one of the last to leave the room. He never spoke a word, just looked at them both disappointedly before leaving them both alone in silence. Sam's head hung, a laugh with no humour escaped his mouth as he entered the room slowly.

"Hit me with it then, I know you're dying to." He walked past her, wiping at his nose as he opened the cupboard on the other side of the room looking for a first aid kit. Her silence made him continue. "C'mon Connie, I know you want to say it? You told me so?" He started dabbing at his lip and nose with an antiseptic wipe as she watched on painfully. When he got to his eyebrow she heard the sharp intake of air through his mouth as he hissed with pain.

"Sit down." She huffed and moved away from the chair, grabbing the kit from his hand.

"I can do it-"

"Just sit down, Sam." She raised her voice with frustration, finally getting him to do as she asked. Settling himself on the stool she'd previously been sat on he kept his gaze low as she stood before him, wiping his eyebrow gently. He looked like a little boy who'd been told off. "Who did this to you?"

"Hooligans." He murmured, still avoiding her gaze. She was being so gentle, she had the perfect opportunity to hurt him here but she was choosing not to and he was grateful.

"Sports fanatics, I steer clear of them." Her comment received a small chuckle from him before he winced as she moved over a tender area. "Sorry." Her eyes flickered from the wound to his eyes briefly, trying not to hurt him. "They've made a mess of you, haven't they?"

"Just like I did to their friend." He sighed and seized the opportunity to re-adjust his position as she grabbed a new wipe. "I deserved it. This is all my fault."

"You were just doing what you thought was right."

"Would you have done the same?"

"I don't know." She answered honestly. "I know what it's like being the bad guy." She smiled in between moving from his eyebrow to his nose. "Everyone hated me up on Darwin, except maybe Elliot."

"I didn't hate you." The deadpan look she gave him made him change his answer slightly. "Well, not all the time anyway."

"It's a lot different down here, Sam." She turned serious again. "Staff morale is so important, we all lean on each other, we need to be united not divided." He remained silent, agreeing with her without verbally doing so.

"I'm sorry."

"It's not me that needs to hear it-"

"No, I mean I'm sorry about the whole Michael situation today. Had the strike not being happening he'd have been transferred straight away." His apology wasn't acknowledged immediately, instead she remained quiet for a few moments.

"You put me in a really awful position today." The venom in her words was seeping out in just the right dosage to make him feel bad. Her voice was gravelly with emotion.

"He's hellbent on getting back together with you, isn't he?" He was prying now and wisely, she'd clicked on. "Why, all of a sudden, has he decided this now? Did something happen between you two?"

"Right, well that's all done." She tossed the wipes into the bin under the table. "You might want to get a plaster on that brow before it gets infected." She moved away from him suddenly. He'd spooked her again, but he couldn't let this slide. He'd finally put it all together in his head, almost as if the beating he'd just taken had knocked some sense into him. How had he not fathomed this earlier?

"No, connie wait." He stood, grabbing her arm gently, stopping her from walking away but she wouldn't turn to face him. "Stop running away from me." He pleaded before continuing."You saw him that night, didn't you?" There was no response, not even a movement. Her voice was caught in her throat, terror ripping through her body just knowing that'd he figured it out. He didn't even have to say it. She knew that he knew. "The night you went out? And the bruises?" He frowned as the words leaving his mouth actually hit his own ears and it all made horrible sense. She pulled her wrist from his grip carefully and kept her back to him. "He did that to you, didn't he?"

*Thanks so much for reading! I really hope you all like this chapter! I worked so hard on this one! I'm trying to keep it similar to the episodes in a way but add my storyline to it instead, I hope it's working out! Please, please, please review!*