A/N: I love this chapter.

Puzzle Pieces

Part five

At just before seven in the morning, Joseph quietly tapped on Connie's office door, disturbing Ric from a light doze. When Ric opened the door to him, Joseph handed him an envelope.

"Connie's results," He told him quietly, wanting to adopt as much discretion as possible in this matter.

"Thank you," Ric replied, raising his hand to cover a yawn. When he closed the door and returned to where Connie was lying on the sofa, he saw that she was awake.

"How did you sleep?" He said, though not needing to ask.

"Badly," Connie replied in disgust. "Are those my results?"

"Yes," Ric told her, unsure if she wanted him to read them or if she wanted to read them for herself.

"Go on then," She invited with a shrug. "Confirm my suspicions." Opening the envelope, Ric removed the small slip of paper.

"Yes, it was Rohypnol," he said, "Though that isn't much of a surprise."

"As feeble as it sounds," Connie said, standing up and stretching her arms, which resulted in a wince from her stiffened shoulders, "I really don't feel up to a day in theatre."

"If you've got any sense," Ric replied candidly. "You won't even think about it. What I suggest, is that you allow me to drive you home, so that you can spend the rest of the day sleeping it off. Who is looking after Grace today?"

"Sam is," Connie said in clear relief. "He had fortunately taken a few days off from today to spend some time with her."

"Good," Ric said with a smile. "Now, I also suggest that we make a quick retreat before the usual gossip mongers turn up."

When they were sitting in Ric's car and driving slowly out of the hospital car park, Connie broke the silence with,

"I'm sorry I kept blacking out on you last night."

"That's unfortunately what that drug does to you," Ric replied, as they waited as a red light. "Connie, you might continue to have flashbacks of what happened for quite a while, especially when you sleep."

"Yes, I know," She said dismally. "Which is why I'm incredibly glad that Sam can take Grace for a while."

"And are you still serious about not going official about this?"

"Of course I am," Connie insisted. "Ric, I haven't got the faintest shred of evidence, and I don't know who did it, so what would be the point?"

"You might have evidence if only you'd let me look for it," Ric replied, though instantly wishing he hadn't said that by the immediate bringing down of all Connie's barriers. After a few moments' silence, when the lights had turned green and they were moving through traffic again, Connie said,

"Do you know why I wouldn't let you go looking for evidence that could either be photographed or collected by swabs?"

"I can probably guess," Ric told her, keeping his eyes on the road so that she wouldn't be forced to meet his gaze.

"It's not the reason you think," She told him quietly. "That day I first started working at Holby, that day you have either tried your hardest to forget or have completely forgotten, was the only time you have ever seen my body in its unclothed entirety. That one occasion was so pleasurable, so incredibly satisfying, that I have absolutely no intention of defacing its memory, by allowing you to touch me in a circumstance such as this." Ric turned and stared, so utterly gobsmacked at her for so long, that she had to remind him to keep looking at the road. After navigating a roundabout, Ric said,

"I always thought that you wished that had never happened, no matter how incredible it was."

"Well, I didn't know you then, did I," She told him with a slight smile.

When they finally reached Connie's house, Ric drew up in the driveway, getting out and following her as she opened the front door. It was nearing a quarter to eight, and as they walked into the hall, there was a shout from the kitchen, and the eighteen months old Grace ran up to them shouting,

"Mummy!" As Connie bent to pick her up, Ric could see that it hurt Connie's shoulders to do so.

"You're very lively this morning," Connie told her daughter, cuddling her and kissing her cheek. While Connie held and talked to her daughter, Ric went into the kitchen to speak to Sam.

"Is Connie all right?" Sam asked as he prepared Grace's breakfast of her favourite cereal and a banana.

"No, not really," Ric told him regretfully. "She's got a couple of injuries that she won't talk about, and probably even more that she won't let me have a look at, and yes, it was Rohypnol, so she keeps having flashbacks, or at least she was last night, and she'll probably continue to have them for some time."

"So it's probably a good thing that I've got Grace for a few days," Sam concluded.

"Yes, and Sam, I must ask you not to blame her for this. As much as it might be easier to think it was, this was not Connie's fault."

"I know," Sam agreed with him. "But you can't exactly say that Connie's usual behaviour makes this type of occurrence unlikely, now can you."

"If that's your way of saying she asked for it, that's way below the belt, even for yours and Connie's usual arguments," Ric told him coldly. "And don't even think of saying anything of the sort to her, because I'm certain that she already thinks it."

"I'm not quite that brutal," Sam said quietly.

"I hope not," Ric replied, knowing that he was being very overprotective of Connie, but being somehow unable to prevent himself.

"Well, at least her bedroom no longer looks like the set of her worst nightmare," Sam told him, gesturing to where the sheets from Connie's bed and the clothes she had been wearing last night were whizzing round in the washing machine. Acknowledging that this had been very thoughtful on Sam's part, he said,

"What she really needs to do is sleep."

When Ric had gone, telling Connie that he would check on her later, Connie carried Grace into the kitchen and sat her in her highchair.

"Thank you for staying with her," She said to Sam, now feeling very unsure of the reception she would get from him, after last night's accusations.

"How do you feel?" He asked, feeding Grace spoonfuls of cereal.

"Rough," Connie said succinctly. "Actually, I could really kill for a cigarette."

"Well, far be it from me to tell you not to do it in your own house," Sam replied, raising an eyebrow at her over Grace's head.

"I wouldn't do it in front of Grace," Connie reassured him. Reaching into the pocket of his jacket that was hanging over a chair at the kitchen table, Sam threw a pack of Benson's at her, which she caught in surprise.

"It's a habit I picked up again when the cancer drugs kept making me feel as sick as a dog, and no, I don't do it in front of Grace either." Giving him a smile, Connie rummaged in a drawer full of odds and ends until she found a lighter, flicking it to make sure it worked, and then heading out of the back door.

"Your Mummy's not a happy lady," Sam commented, as he scraped the last bit of cereal from the bowl.

"Mummy hurting," Grace told him matter-of-factly.

"Probably," Sam replied, peeling the banana and handing it to her.

When Connie came in from the garden, the aroma of cigarette smoke clung to her clothes.

"Feel better?" Sam asked, giving her a sardonic smile.

"A bit," Connie conceded, putting his cigarettes back on the table.

"So, if I take Grace for a walk, later on this morning, would you like me to get you some?"

"Taking up that habit again is the last thing I should do," Connie told him disgustedly.

"I'd far rather you used Nicotine to get you through the next few days, rather than alcohol or something even more destructive," Sam told her honestly.

"We'll see," Connie replied, walking towards the hall. "I'm going to have a hot bath, and then, if I'm lucky, a lot more sleep."

"Would you like a cup of tea?" Sam called after her.

"Yes please," She replied as she walked up the stairs.

Standing on the threshold of her bedroom, Connie took her first look into the place where she had been raped. When she thought that particularly vile word, raped, it echoed around her skull like the clanging of a symbol. But, on moving into the room, Connie saw that her bed had been made up with different bedding, and that her discarded clothes of last night were gone. Sinking weakly down onto the edge of the bed, she reflected that it was just like Sam to do this, to be nice to her with actions rather than words. When she was lying in the steaming scented bath, she tried to take a physical inventory of her body. Her head still felt relatively muzzy, and she knew that this was partly the drug still wearing off and extreme mental and physical tiredness. Her shoulders and arms were fairly bruised, both from being tied up and quite clearly held down at some point. Her breasts contained one or two of what looked like bite marks, but the rest of her torso appeared to be undamaged. The rope burns on her wrists were still obviously sore, and she desperately hoped that Sam didn't see them, or she knew he would start asking questions. The tops of her thighs were tender with bruises, and the entrance to her vagina was also sore. Someone therefore, had held her down, even tied her up at some point, and had forced his way inside her, clearly having made no effort to arouse her beforehand. As she heard Sam's footsteps coming up the stairs, Connie sank further down in the water, so that the bubbles covered her breasts. She certainly didn't want him seeing anything of what she had gone through.

"Thank you, for changing the bed," She said quietly, as he put the mug of tea down on the corner of the bath.

"Oh, that's okay," He said, trying to avoid looking at her because he knew that she wouldn't like it. "Grace says you're hurting, her words not mine," He told Connie, sitting down on the closed lid of the toilet and regarding her thoughtfully.

"She's not wrong," Connie replied, doing her best to avoid his scrutiny. "But it'll heal." Then, taking the plunge that she hadn't been aware she was going to take, she said, "there's, erm, there's something I want to talk to you about."

"I'm listening," He said, not having any idea as to what was coming.

"Where's Grace?" Connie asked, almost trying to put off the inevitable, though she knew she couldn't.

"She's downstairs, watching the fish in the fish tank." Desperately wanting her cup of tea, Connie inched her hand forward along the bath, whilst trying to keep as much of her body submerged under the bubbles as possible. "Sam, please stop looking at me," She finally said, and he immediately switched his gaze to the towels hanging on the radiator.

"Sorry," he said, inwardly angry at her lack of self-confidence.

"I want to ask you something," She continued, after taking a swig of her tea. "And I want you to give me a straight answer. How would you feel, about having Grace full time?" Sam sat in absolute shock. No, she couldn't be saying what he thought she was saying, because never in a million years would Connie allow him to have full custody of Grace, never.

"Are you serious?" He asked after a few moments' silence.

"Very," Connie told him. "Sam, when she fell down the stairs all those months ago, you told me that I was a terrible mother, and that I didn't deserve to be a mother."

"I really wish I hadn't said that," He told her regretfully.

"But you were right," Connie insisted quietly. "You were absolutely right. I feel so guilty, so utterly unbearably guilty when I think of what could have happened to her, all because of who I let into this house."

"Connie, you mustn't do this now," He told her sombrely. "You mustn't allow something that happened to you, something more terrible than I can probably ever imagine, to push you into making such a major decision. If you still feel like this in a few days, or a few weeks, then we'll talk about it again."

"Will you at least tell me if you would be prepared to have her full time?" Connie asked, suddenly needing an answer to that question, needing to know that Grace would be safe and cared for, no matter what happened to her.

"Yes," Sam said with the broad smile that he simply couldn't contain. "It would be my idea of heaven. She wouldn't be living in a place like this, because I simply can't afford it, but I'd be delighted to give her a full time home."

"Good," Connie replied, feeling some of the weight being taken off her shoulders. When Sam went back downstairs to play with Grace, Connie got out of the bath, dried herself and slid under the clean covers of her bed, dreading falling asleep, but knowing that this was what she needed above everything else.