"So you were with him that night. When I went to Grandma's." These weren't questions, they were calculated statements.

"Yes." Connie looked at Grace before turning her eyes back to the road, her chest feeling tight.

"You had sex." Grace turned to face her mother, whose mouth opened and then closed, after deciding that a response wasn't really required.

Grace turned to face the window, and Connie became aware of how hard she was gripping the steering wheel. "Did you..." Grace paused, thinking again about what she was going to say before continuing, her voice quiet. "Did you do it because you were sad or because you love him?" She knew Jacob was in love with her mum, as did Mia. But Connie had never told Grace how she felt, unlike Jacob had done, on many an occasion, with Mia.

Connie was stunned. And angry. How dare Grace suggest that she slept with Jacob but didn't love him? How dare she put them through what she had, forcing her to end her relationship with Jacob so that she wouldn't leave to go and live with Sam, and turn it back in her face?

"You have no idea."

"Do you love him?"

"OF COURSE I LOVE HIM." Her sudden outburst shocked herself, as well as her daughter. But now she had started, she found she couldn't stop. "You left. You went to live with your dad, and I was on my own, Grace. So many bad things happened when you were gone, but you know what, none of that matters now. Because when Jacob arrived, he helped me to get through it. He helped me when no-one else was either around to, or wanted to. He helped me to get you back, and I thought that after that, everything was going to be perfect."

She expected something back from her daughter, then. Tears or yelling, she wasn't sure, but the silence she was met with was worse. It took them another half an hour to get to Holby, and the drive was done in painfully loud silence. When Connie pulled into her usual space, Grace climbed from the car with her bag, not making eye contact with her mother, before she followed her into the building.

Having left Mia to get to know Rita who had met them on the way in, Jacob was waiting out the front of the hospital, but his smile of greeting fell when he saw the expression on both their faces. "What's-" He attempted, but Connie just shook her head and walked straight past him, worried she might cry if she was to stop.

Grace slowed and came to a stop next to Jacob as he watched her mother stalk into the building. "I'm sorry about your brother."

Jacob turned to her and tried to read the expression on her face. Connie must have told her she'd been with him. "Thank you." They too then stood in silence until Jacob cleared her throat. "We'd better get inside, Mia asked me to escort you to her room as soon as you got here."

"Wait." Grace grabbed his arm then with force. "I can't go in."

"Why not?" Jacob frowned. When nothing was forthcoming, he asked, "What happened in the car?"

Grace's eyes suddenly filled with tears then and her breathing began to quicken. "I think she hates me."

"Your mother? She doesn't hate you Grace, she loves you more than anything in the world, and she just...struggles to talk about things like that. She wouldn't have fought for you to stay, and she wouldn't have ended it with me if she didn't love you a whole lot." Jacob tried to soothe her, but Grace shook her head.

"But she loves you. She really loves you, and I made her give that up."

"Just come inside and talk to-"

"I can't talk to her! We don't talk! We argue or we have fun, we don't do proper talking!" Grace replied in a yell, getting looks as he shoulder's started to rise with the effort it took to breathe.

"Hey, hey it's okay, firecracker." He pulled Grace towards him in a hug, and rubbed her back, soothing her as she began to relax. "How about I talk to your Mum once Mia's gone to theatre?"

"Thanks, J-dog." He laughed before letting her go, and walked behind her into the ED; they'd agreed to take her there as an emergency case due to the level of infection, before her theatre slot.