When Connie awoke the next morning, Ric was still sleeping soundly beside her. It would do him good, she thought as she showered and dressed, to sleep for as long as possible. Sleep was the best cure for grief or depression of any kind. She made herself some toast and a mug of coffee, knowing that she had to go into work today. Connie wasn't stupid enough to think that Ric would now be all right, after his emotional release of the night before. She knew that there was far worse to come, but she didn't entirely know how she would deal with it when it came. As a precautionary measure, she went into her home office on the other side of the hall to the lounge, and scribbled a note that she then stuck to the monitor of the computer. "If you're thinking of using this computer to gamble, don't." She didn't like having to do this, but she knew that it certainly could be necessary. Even if he ignored her message, it would take him hours if not days to work out her password. She knew that if he discovered her precaution, she would likely be greeted with a furious argument when she came home, but she supposed this was the price of caring for someone just a little too much.
Making Ric a cup of tea, she went upstairs to let him know where she was going. Perching on the side of the bed, she gently shook his shoulder. Turning onto his back, Ric gradually surfaced up from the depths of sleep. "I just wanted to let you know that I've got to go into work," Connie told him when his eyes eventually focussed on her. "What time is it?" He said with a yawn. "Almost nine o'clock." Leaning down to put her arms round him, she asked, "Will you be all right today?" "I'll survive," Ric said dryly, breathing in the heady scent of the perfume she always wore. "I like that perfume," He told her, his deep, gravelly voice making her want to take off all her clothes and join him under the duvet. "Mmm, I know you do," She said with a smile, softly kissing his cheek. "I'll see you later."
All day as she moved from operation to ward round to endless meetings, Connie's thoughts kept straying back to Ric, and what he was doing, what he was thinking. She could feel his depression weighing almost as heavily on her as it was on him, because she could only guess at what would probably be the ultimate outcome. She had to continuously stop herself from phoning him just to check up on him, just to see if he was all right. She supposed he would spend some of the day with Jess and Zubin, and she found herself praying that this would take up all of the spare time he had until she returned home.
Ric slept for a good while longer after Connie had left, finally waking to feel thoroughly rested. He still felt lethargic and miserable, but he supposed this was entirely normal. He couldn't believe he'd cried so much last night, almost shrinking from the realisation that Connie hadn't said a single word, but had comforted him in the only way she knew how. He had revealed one of his weaknesses to her, and he wasn't sure how much he really approved of his having done something like that. She had cradled him against her, soothing away his torrent of grief in complete yet comforting silence. As he showered and made himself some coffee, he wondered what he should do with the day. Picking up the phone, he called Jess and Zubin. Jess answered, and told him that they had to go and choose a coffin that afternoon, and she added that she would quite like Ric to come with them. Thinking of nothing he would want to do less, Ric agreed, wanting to give his daughter as much support as she wanted.
This took most of the afternoon, as did other arrangements that needed to be put in place for the funeral. Both Jess and Zubin were trying their hardest to deal with things as best they could, but Ric knew that it was his presence that was currently keeping them going. When they eventually dropped him back at Connie's, he felt on edge, strung out, and badly in need of an outlet. Connie had given him a spare key to her house, so that he could come and go as he pleased. When he let himself in, it slightly comforted him that the house seemed to smell entirely of Connie. It was an aroma he was coming to know far too well, if such a thing was possible. Seeing that Connie had left her cigarettes on the coffee table in the lounge, he lit one. She might have done this so that she wouldn't be tempted to slip out for one at work, he thought with a smile, always wanting to keep her professional mask in place at all times. He tried to calm down as he smoked the cigarette, feeling the old rise of tension in him like a familiar cancer eating away at his insides. It was so corrosive, this need to do something dangerous, something stupid, all in an attempt to free his emotions from their current restraints. Stubbing the cigarette out, Ric went on a little tour of all the rooms he hadn't yet seen in this house, knowing he was looking for something in particular, but not yet willing to admit this even to himself.
When he opened the door of Connie's home office, and took note of the computer on the cherry-wood desk in the corner, his eyes gleamed. So, she did have a home computer. Well, he'd known she would, or he wouldn't have bothered looking for it, and not even Connie could do all her admin work at the hospital. She would go stark staring mad if she did. Walking over to sit in the comfortable chair before the desk, Ric was about to switch the computer on, when he caught sight of the note on a postit that Connie had stuck to the monitor. When he read the words written in that firm, implacable hand, he froze. She'd known, she'd known he would do this, known he would invade her space in order to fulfill his need. How she must despise that part of him, for her thoughts to be so accurate with regards to his addiction. "If you're thinking of using this computer to gamble, don't." He could hear her saying it, as though she were actually here, ordering him not to give into it. Furiously tearing the note from the screen, he scrunched it into a ball and hurled it in the direction of the waste paper basket. It made him feel angry to know that she had seen through him so spectacularly, and yet it also made him feel small, tiny, as though his very existence didn't matter. He had half a mind to switch on the computer, and to try and work out what her password was. He knew she would have one, because someone as worldly as Connie wouldn't not have one. But he didn't, he couldn't. Her having known precisely what he would do hurt him, hurt him more than anything of the sort ever had done before. It wasn't anything akin to the grief he felt over Paris, because that was an entirely different hurt altogether, but it still cut through him like one of her well-aimed scalpels.
When Connie arrived home at about six, she let herself in and called his name. "In here," Ric answered from the kitchen. Swiftly putting her head round the door of her office, Connie saw with a feeling of slight trepidation that her note of that morning was gone, meaning that Ric had been in here and that he'd seen it. Going into the kitchen, she found him chopping the vegetables for a Bolognese. His back was rigid, his posture stiff, with his whole being giving off a feeling of unresolved tension. Walking up to him, Connie kissed him in lieu of a greeting, knowing that the subject of her trust in him had to be raised at some point, but not knowing how to begin. "Would you like a glass of wine?" Ric asked, not verbally giving her any sign that he felt betrayed, angry and confused by her actions. "Yes please," She said, removing her jacket and hanging it over the back of a chair at the kitchen table. When he handed her the glass, she asked, "What did you do today?" As he told her, for the moment leaving out any hint of trying to use her computer, he continued chopping carrots and celery with a precision that spoke volumes of his inner turmoil.
When he had put all the vegetables into a large saucepan along with the ground beef, leaving it to simmer for an hour or more, he poured himself a glass of wine, and said, "You didn't trust me, did you?" This was a statement not a question, because they were both aware that she hadn't. "No," Connie told him simply. "And I think you know why I didn't." "Tell me," Ric invited. "Because this is definitely a reason I want to hear." "Ric," Connie replied, sounding mentally if not physically tired. "You are going through a very difficult time at the moment, and you need some sort of outlet for everything you are feeling. Now, I entirely understand that, and if I can possibly help you through it, then I will. What you must accept, however, is that your life-long leaning towards gambling, is only going to be made worse by your current situation." "Will you please not talk to me as though you're a psychiatrist and I'm your patient?" He asked her bitterly, feeling almost unbearably small. "Fine," Connie said just as abruptly. "You have a problem with the fact that I currently don't trust you anywhere near anything that can help you gamble, when I was absolutely right not to trust you. You can't exactly deny that, now can you. Ric, I can't help the fact that you don't like how much I am coming to know you, to be able to interpret things that you wouldn't dream of telling me, and I certainly will not apologise for trying to stop you from doing the one thing you would seriously regret." Ric was silent, because he knew that every word she had said was right, but that didn't mean he wanted to hear it. "Is this because of last night?" Connie demanded. "Is this because just for once, you revealed the true extent of your vulnerability to me?" Ric flinched as she said this, because he hadn't wanted her to raise this subject at all. "I don't like being made to feel small," He said quietly, not knowing how to describe how weak and tiny he had actually felt. "Oh, and you think I do, do you?" Connie responded, now utterly exasperated with him. "That's different," Ric said dismissively, the words 'You're a woman', getting as far as his teeth before he forced them back. "Don't be so bloody ridiculous," Connie threw back at him. "When you looked after me at Christmas, I hated nearly every minute of that, because I loathe having to need anyone, but I put up with it because I knew I needed it, and I knew I wouldn't survive without it. If you can't admit to yourself that you are in just as an emotionally vulnerable position, then I can't help you." Picking up her jacket from the back of the chair, she slung it around her shoulders and stalked purposefully into the hall. Grabbing her car keys from the hall table, she swept out of the front door, and roared away in the silver-grey Jaguar, to heaven knew where.