"I can't lea-" Connie went to tell Rita she couldn't leave Grace or Mia, or Jacob for that matter, but Grace was suddenly at her elbow.
"It's okay, mum. You hate waiting anyway, and it's a mess down there." Grace didn't meet her mother's eye, but spoke with determination.
Connie glanced at Jacob, who offered a smile, before she looked down at Grace. "I'll sort out some more staff and then I will be right back, okay?" When Grace nodded, to both Rita and Grace's surprise, she suddenly pulled her daughter into a tight hug and dropped a kiss to her hair. "I love you, Gracie."
"I love you, too." Grace replied, her voice muffled by Connie's top but it was heard loud and clear by her mother.
"We'll let you know when Mia gets out if you're not back." Jacob offered as they finally separated. He put a hand on Grace's shoulder, and the last thing Connie saw as the lift doors shut was Grace cuddling into his side as they grinned at one another.
"That was-" Rita began, but jumped when Connie snapped her reply.
"I thought you said you could cope. Why did you say you could cope if you can't." As Rita opened her mouth to defend herself Connie shook her head. "I don't want to hear your excuses. I'll be in my office trying to sort out your mess. Get someone to bring me in a list of what needs to be done."
It was almost as if they had wanted her out of the way. She couldn't deny that she was angry, for it had been her to have had Mia transferred, and had fought for her to have this operation here, at Holby. The absolute last thing she wanted to be doing was sorting out what others should be capable of doing.
"Connie, I'm sorry-"
"Stop apologising. I don't want to hear it, I'm here now." Connie held out her hand and Rita quickly came to the desk and gave her several pieces of paper and a list of agency numbers. She then left, closing the door behind her, and hurried off to cubicles in the direction of the several young children she could hear screaming.
"No, I want them here now! Why would I be calling you, telling you we're very near to declaring a black alert, if I want staff in three hours' time?" She pushed her fringe up into her hands, glancing every so often at the window where she could see the stairs, but neither Jacob or Grace had come down in the last hour. "You know what, don't bother." She slammed the phone down, and scanned the list Rita had given her.
The situation was completely out of control. She would have to go to Hanssen for the second time that day, and forcibly make him realise that the department was being driven rapidly into the ground. Some doctors had been working the equivalent of triple shifts, with meagre breaks in between influxes of patients, and the lack of room was creating hazards that they simply could not afford to bypass any longer.
Her phone vibrated under a pile of sheets, just as she was about to reach for it, the man she had been considering going to shout at moments earlier entered her office. He surveyed the scene before him: the Clinical Lead who had barely slept, was awaiting personal news from a theatre upstairs, and was fraught with stress, before opening his mouth to speak.
"I-"
"You can stop right there."
"I beg your pardon?" Hansen stared at the woman who pushed herself from her chair and squared herself against him.
"I have been gone for less than forty eight hours. My staff have repeatedly asked you to sort out more bodies, but all you seem concerned with is dealing with the mess this chaos is causing upstairs. Has it never occurred to you that their mess is going to continue to grow as long as it's like this down here? We're on the verge of closing our doors, and I will not have my staff run into the ground just to make your budget work! We need more staff NOW!"