She seemed to be forgetting things. Simple everyday things which she would usually remember without even having to pay them a second thought.

Her stethoscope for example. She had spent most of her day looking for it. She had lost patients notes in the most unlikeliest of places, and when when she had paused in her day to go in search of her 3PM coffee, she had ordered tea by mistake.

She had told herself that it was just her hormones, or lack of sleep, or perhaps she was coming down with a cold. She wouldn't acknowledge the fact that her thoughts strayed more often than not, or that she had read the same page of a patients notes three times before realising she was repeating herself.

But some thing's are true no matter how hard one might try to block them out, and a lie is always a lie, no matter how prettily told, and it was becoming clearer by the second that this wasn't just some momentary glitch in her usual professionalism. This was something much worse than hormones, and something much more severe than a cold.

This was Rita.

She sighed and pushed her fingers into the bridge of her nose, allowing her eyes to close as she sat at her desk, motionless.

There was no point in opening her eyes. It was as though she was walking about in a fog, she couldn't concentrate, she couldn't see what was right in front of her, when usually she was the first one to spot it. Now she seemed to have lost the whole world. Everything she knew was still here, but she couldn't see them.

When she'd passed by the nurses station earlier she hadn't seen the wary looks of the nursing staff, or Robyn gossiping when she should have been working. Instead she'd noticed the way Rita's nose crinkled as she frowned down at the computer screen, oblivious to Connie's presence.

She hadn't noticed the leaking chest drain in RESUS, or the lighter that slipped out of Max's pocket and clattered onto the floor when he leant to help a patient onto a bed. Instead she had smiled at how Rita touched her tongue to her teeth when she was concentrating, and how her uniform perfectly curved at her waist.

She drew in a breath and opened her eyes.

Everything seemed to have evaporated, leaving her empty of everything except the startling blue static of her own wants and needs. Her own lust... She had never been a person to question herself; now, however, she questioned everything, just to check she hadn't forgotten anything, or overlooked an important development in a patients symptoms, just because Rita had happened to pass by.

It made her helpless, because that's what love did. There was no way around it, she realised, and no way to fight it. Now if she lost, she lost everything. Helplessness wasn't something she was comfortable with. She knew all too well that she was powerless when it came to Rita, and she found herself reaching for the compact mirror she kept in her top drawer, needing to know whether the mask she wore was slipping.

She unclipped the compact and held it before her. She could see it, plain as day. This love she carried within her seemed to weigh her down and age her, just as much as it filled her so full of elation that she felt she may float away. She tried so hard to focus on what she saw before her. She was still beautiful, but she looked very far away. Her eyes had a glazed look about them as though she were dreaming and couldn't wake up, and no matter how wise or clever she was, she looked like a woman who hadn't truly believed how much love there was in the world. Not until this moment.

A gentle tap at the door roused her from her thoughts. She cleared her throat and called for whomever it was to 'come'. Her voice sounding lost in the small room.

Rita.

Connie let out a breath and leant back in her chair as the nurse entered. Her blonde hair was wind-swept, her cheeks pink from the cold and her eyes were dark and so full of everything that Connie found she had to glance down at her desk for a moment to gather herself.

"I bought you these. Silly I know, but..."

Connie looked up to see Rita's hand held out before her, offering her a bouquet of purple bearded iris's. The grass she had walked on to collect them had been new and freshly cut, and a sweet smell clung to her uniform. There was blue dye on her hands from the flowers – the colour of the sky, a shade that when placed upon her skin couldn't be replicated, just as heaven could never be seen from the confines of Earth, and she realised, all at once, just how beautiful a woman could be.

Hello everyone, just a quick update! I hope you're all still enjoying it and that it's going where you all want it to go?!

I'd like to ask, before I continue, would you like me to skip a few days so that we are nearer to Grace's visit, or would you like me to creep up to it gradually? I will do whatever the majority prefer, so please let me know!

Thank you in advance :)

Also, if any of you are Tumblr whizz's, and fancy telling me how to work it, please send me a PM as it's driving me mad... xxx