A/N: Thank you all so much for the reviews! :D
With any luck, this chapter will be up by Monday... And chapter fourteen will be up by Saturday at the latest. I kind of want to spread them out. (:
Enjoy this, I hope it's all right. It probably won't be a very long chapter, but hopefully the next one will.
Let me know what you think!

Tess
"So how is she?" I asked, trying to juggle both my phone and a couple of saucepans at the same time. It had been a long day, and unsurprisingly the majority of my thoughts were on Kirsty. We had never really seen eye to eye on things, but now I had a reason for her sometimes unusual and erratic behaviour a lot of things were explained.
I had realised why she was often late, why she sometimes seemed disorganised, and why she pushed so hard to get patients with possible abuse cases to speak up. My mind flew back to the night when she had come back into the ED with a head injury. She told me she'd been mugged, but was reluctant to go to the police or admit that anything had been taken. As the mystery slowly unravelled in my mind, I became even more glad that I had treated her kindly that night. I could have chosen to assign her to another staff member, but fortunately my maternal side took over and I was the one to comfort her.
"Not good." Adam replied, not having to ask who I was referring to. I had called primarily to check up on both of them, hoping that I would find them both in good states of mind. "Nita went to stay with a friend for a while. She accused Kirsty of lying to the police and making it all up so that she could leave Warren." I sighed. I myself knew how difficult teenagers could be, and I could hardly pretend to know how it felt to be in Nita's situation.
"Well, hopefully she'll come around. How's Kirsty been since then?" There was a momentary pause, and I envisioned Adam running a worried hand through his hair.
"She can't sleep, she won't eat. I'm worried she's becoming depressed. She hasn't even taken any pain medication. It's... It's as if she feels she should suffer." I bit my lip, trying to think of a solution.
"Have you tried talking to her about it?"
"Of course I have! I'm worried I might make it worse..."
"What would make you think that?"
"I..." He trailed off.
"Adam, what's wrong? What happened?" I heard him sigh on the other end of the line.
"I scared her the other day. I didn't mean to, I was just a little frustrated. She wanted to tell the police she made it all up..."
"And did she?"
"No, but-"
"Then maybe scaring her was for the best in the end? I know you probably won't agree, but you and I both know that false allegations of rape is against the law. She could have walked herself straight in to prison for the sake of a confused teenager. Now how would that have helped?" He sighed again.
"I pinned her down on the bed, Tess. She was actually scared of me..."
"Adam, stop worrying! She's strong, you know that! Maybe right now that wasn't the best thing to do, but deep down she knows it's for the best. I'm sure she wants Warren gone from her life as much as we both do."
"Yeah... You're probably right."
"Good! Okay, well I need to go now. Will you be okay?"
"I hope so, Tess. Bur right now I'm not so sure."

I fiddled around making spaghetti bolognese for dinner for a few more minutes, before sighing and turning the hob off.
I knew what I had to do, so I grabbed my coat and walked out, grabbing my car keys on the way.

Adam
It was about eight in the evening when the doorbell rang. I had been trying in vain to cajole an exhausted and fed up Kirsty to eat some, food, but after an hour the food had gone cold and both of us had gone hungry.
"Fine." I had said when the doorbell rang. "I guess neither of us will eat tonight. She turned away from me, a flash of guilt wallowing in her eyes as I got up to answer the door.
"Tess!" She gave me a hasty smile. "What are you doing here?"
"You sounded like you could use a hand. Where's Kirsty?" I moved to let her through into the hallway.
"In the living room... Why?"
"I just want to talk to her. See if I can get anything out of her. I thought that maybe a woman's touch would do her some good?" I smiled gratefully, and motioned down the hall.
"Thanks... That's very kind of you. Do you want me to stay upstairs?" She nodded, and I made my way upstairs, hoping with all my might that Tess could be the one to talk Kirsty out of her self imprisonment.

Kirsty
I wasn't trying to upset or annoy Adam. I wasn't trying to starve myself, either. I just felt like I couldn't, shouldn't eat if I didn't know what my own daughter was having for dinner- If anything. I'd tried to get in touch with her, unbeknownst to Adam, but she refused to answer my calls or my many texts.
I can't say I was surprised when Tess appeared at the door to the living room. I'd figured that Adam was desperate for me to return to the land of normality and start to eat and sleep properly, and he would eventually confide in someone who would in tun attempt to talk me out of my misery.
I was scrunched up at the corner of the sofa in the hopes that I would somehow blend into the upholstery and turn into a piece of furniture, and she walked over and motioned towards the empty space beside me.
"May I?" I shrugged, and she took a seat next to me. For a couple of minutes, we remained in silence, causing me to shift uncomfortably. "So how are you feeling?" She glanced at my cast and the various patterns of slightly faded bruises that decorated most of the regions of my body- hence the reason all I had worn recently were long sleeved shirts and baggy trousers.
"I'm fine, Tess. How are you?" She raised an eyebrow sceptically.
"I'm all right, thank you. Adam said that you and Nita had an argument." I bit my tongue for a moment, torn between the pain of being reminded of my resenting daughter and frustration at Adam for telling Tess about it.
"I wouldn't call it an argument... But yeah, she's upset at me."
"Are you upset at her?" I shifted again. Her questions made me feel as if I was in a counsellor's office, not Adam's lounge with a colleague.
"No... No, of course not."
"Then how are you feeling?"
"I told you, I'm fine." Tess put her head on one side.
"Then why won't you eat anything?" I sighed exasperatedly.
"I'm not hungry." As if on cue, my stomach rumbled. Of course I was hungry; I just didn't feel like eating. But I didn't think that Tess would like that answer very much.
"Right. Of course you're not." She sighed. "Why are you doing this to yourself?"
"I'm not doing-"
"Kirsty, look at me." After a few seconds, I complied. "You," she continued. "Can't do this to yourself. Nita wouldn't want to see you like-" I cut her off mid sentence.
"Nita doesn't care!" I burst out, tears immediately springing to my eyes. "All this time, I thought that if she found out she would be on my side, but she blames me! It's as if she's forgotten all the things I've ever done for her, every reassuring hug, every tear I've wiped away and everything I've given up for her while her precious dad was out playing a hero! And now she's gone because she presumes that if either of us were in the wrong, it would be me!" She sat back, looking a little shocked.
"Kirsty..." She placed her hand on my shoulder, and turned me round to look at her properly. "Listen to me. Do you remember being Nita's age?" I flinched slightly. I'd had what some might call a 'colourful' childhood, and my teenage years had hardly been similar to Nita's- or had they?
"Yeah, I guess..."
"Then surely you remember being brash, and not understanding everything you do now? Come on Kirsty, you're a mental health nurse! You of all people know what it's like to be in denial, don't you?" I shrugged awkwardly.
"So, now what? I should just hope Nita comes round and comes home?" She smiled reassuringly at me.
"Yes! That's exactly what you should do! Look, she will come back to you. You must know that?" I paused, thinking hard about it. Deep down, I did know that she would come around. What I was scared about as not knowing when she would, and whether I could hold on to nothing but hope until that time.
"But for now," Tess continued, "Please eat something Kirsty. Me and Adam are worried about you, and look at you! You're nothing but skin and bones!" I pulled my hoodie further around my neck, trying to hide my protruding collarbone.
"Okay... Fine." She smiled broadly at me, and leaned forward, pulling me into a hug. To be honest, that surprised me a little. After she'd patched up my head wound one time at the hospital, we'd gotten along a lot better, but we were still hardly what you would call 'friends'.
"Good girl. Come on then, let's get you something to eat."

I don't know what it was that made what Tess said to me any different from what Adam said to me. The words were basically the same, the tone was the same, the sympathetic look painted on both their faces was practically identical.
Maybe it was how I felt that someone other then Adam cared about me.
Maybe that's what's important.

A/N: Uh... Yeah. Crappy ending, but I like to think that the rest of it was okay? Never mind, at least the chapter was longer then I'd thought it would be.

I hope you enjoyed it, let me know what you thought, and have a good week! :D
Oh, and the drama's coming soon... I promise!