I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update this - circumstances beyond my control stopped me from writing for a while, but now I'm back and will be updating regularly again. Thanks for the reviews, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 14 - No point

Adam moved to draw the curtain around them, to give Kirsty some privacy.

"No, Adam. Leave them open," she said dully, without looking at him. If Vincent had been spying on her when they went for drinks, she wouldn't put it past him to be in the department. She couldn't do anything that might make him tell Nita.

Adam hesitated. Then he shrugged slightly, pulled up a chair and sat next to her bed. He reached for her hand, but she moved her arm, pulling it across her stomach instead.

"Adam, I… I just can't. Please don't make me explain…" she started, her voice breaking on the word 'can't'.

"Kirst, what's going on? What happened to you?" Adam asked, with so much concern in his voice that Kirsty felt even guiltier about the lie she knew she had to tell.

"I got mugged… on the way home from the pub the other night," she tried to look him in the eye, knowing that if she didn't he'd know she was lying. Adam's hand moved through his hair again.

"Why didn't you come into the ED straight away? These are serious injuries, Kirsty," he berated the young nurse. She didn't respond. "Have you spoken to the police?"

"No, there's no point, I didn't see anything, and I couldn't give a description. Plus," she added, trying to throw some humour into the situation, "I think I've given the police enough paperwork for a while, they'd probably run a mile if they saw me coming."

Adam didn't smile. "No point? Kirsty, you've been severely assaulted. They might have CCTV footage, or someone might have seen something that might help the police. You can at least tell them where it happened, that'll help."

"Adam, I'm fine now. Just leave it, okay? I don't need to get myself involved in another police case." Kirsty snapped, leaning forward slightly, but the movement caused her pain and she flopped back onto the pillow, fighting hard not to let it show on her face. She didn't deceive him for a moment.

"Yeah, you're absolutely fine," Adam said sarcastically. "Kirsty, you've got to take this seriously!"

"What do you want me to do, burst into tears?" That was exactly what she felt like doing. But she'd had a lot of time to practice holding them back.

"No, of course I don't. But I do want you to realise that what this man did to you is wrong. What Warren did to you was wrong. You don't have to put up with violence, Kirst; you don't have to accept it like it's a part of everyday life. It isn't, or at least it shouldn't be."

Kirsty didn't reply. She knew it was wrong, she'd known it was wrong for all of the fifteen years she'd had to put up with it. She wasn't some weak, dependent woman who thought her husband could do nothing wrong, and that she deserved everything she got. Well, Kirsty knew that she had deserved several of the beatings, that time when she had promised she'd be home in time to take Nita swimming and take Warren out for a meal, but there'd been a serious train crash so she'd had to stay late at work to deal with the huge volume of casualties, and that time when she hadn't been watching where she was going and slipped on the stairs while holding Warren's favourite mug, which had shattered when it hit the floor. But she knew that there'd been times when Warren had just beaten her because he could, because he was paranoid and because he needed to feel that he was in control of some aspect of his life. It wasn't entirely his fault, but it was still wrong. She knew that. She wasn't a battered wife. She wasn't.

She stared up at the ceiling, suddenly remembering that Vincent could be watching, and she had to appear distant from Adam. They were colleagues, nothing more.

"Kirsty?" He prompted her, wanting a response.

"Just leave me alone, Adam." She responded in a monotone.

"Kirsty, I'm sorry-" he began.

"Just go, Adam."

Adam got up to leave, just as Tess re-entered.

"How are you feeling now?" She asked Kirsty, oblivious to the tension in the air.

"Much better, thanks," Kirsty smiled weakly at her. Adam raised his eyebrows and looked disbelieving.

"She's still struggling to move much without it hurting," he commented dryly.

"It's fine, Tess, honestly. If I could have some more pain relief, I'd be good to go," she said trying and failing to sit up.

"Kirsty, for goodness' sake, just stay where you are and let us look after you!" Tess told her with exasperation. "Look, Zoe told me that Nita needs collecting at four. If you're not fit enough to go by then, I'll pick her up and bring her here, and if it looks like you're staying the night she can either have a roll-out bed beside you, sleep in the on-call room or stay at mine, whichever you'd both prefer. So just focus on lying there and having a rest, alright?" She gazed at her nurse with a mixture of pity, admiration and exasperation in her eyes.

"Yes, boss," Kirsty replied with a hint of a smile. "Thanks, Tess," she added quietly and seriously.