"Fuuuck."

The word was long and drawn out, a breath that she all but staggered back on. She pushed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets and stood there for a moment, still as the air before a storm.

"Fuck."

She said it again, quicker this time, a snap of a word that made Rita jump and her body shuddered. Connie didn't swear.

"Connie-"

She tried to touch her, but Connie retreated, slowly, until she was backed against the wall. She was looking without seeing, she didn't see the concern that laced Rita's dark eyes, or the way that it took everything within her being not to reach out to her again.

"I can't breathe..."

She whispered, though the revelation didn't seem to worry her. The air was too thin, the panic was thin as cellophane, something her fingers could pierce holes in. In another minute the panic was a deluge of ice water surrounding every limb, creeping higher until it passed her mouth and nose filling and clogging every orifice.

There was a distance in her eyes as she placed the palms of her hands against the wall at her back. She couldn't feel the cold of it against her fingers. Her head rolled forward, eyes glazed. She had a look in her eye that Rita had never seen before. It was the wild look in a horses eye before they are broken, not even knowing what people are. It was a look that didn't belong on her face and it scared Rita so that she could do nothing but watch, mute.

Connie was the one who always knew what to do.

Then she bent over double, hands on her knees and her voice came out thin and distant, though try as she might Rita couldn't understand what she was saying. She was breathing all wrong, beginning to gasp like there was not enough oxygen in the air.

"Mummy?"

Grace was at the door and still Connie didn't react.

"Mummy?!"

The terror in Grace's voice cast a hush on every voice in the house. A hush that only lasted for the briefest of moments, and then there was the scrape of chairs, the squeak of shoes and the hallway was suddenly full of people.

Rita watched as though she were trapped between panels of glass with no escape. She watched as though she were held prisoner within a body that had been turned to stone. Alistair was on the floor by Connie, he was pushing the hair back from her face, touching her skin – how it gleamed a clammy white and how her eyes seemed to roll back in her head as she leant against him.

Rita's mother was by her side, her hand was on her shoulder though she didn't feel it, and she could feel the breath of her words at her ear though she didn't hear them.

"Rita..."

Her eyes widened.

"Rita?"

It was Alistair, she realised, his arms were about Connie – her Connie. His voice was strained as he lifted her, her body cradled against his.

"Bedroom?"

He seemed to be repeating himself.

Rita shook her head, though she wasn't really sure why.

"I'll take her..."

Alistair paused at the foot of the stairs, looking back at her, Connie's dark head in the crook of his neck against his shoulder, her long legs limp over his arm – had she fainted? She didn't know, everything was so blurred all of a sudden.

"Grace needs you."

He spoke quietly, and finally she heard him, she realised all of a sudden that Grace DID need her, that this was the role she would have to play, she was, after all, the second parent in this relationship...

"Come and get me."

She whispered, and Ali nodded, before making his way up the stairs to the bedroom.

Once on the landing he glanced around at the array of closed doors, and then, before making his way to the nearest. He used the toe of his shoe to push the door open, surveying what looked like a spare room before making his way in, being careful not to bump any part of Connie against the door frame before closing the door softly behind them.

He laid her on the bed, and for a moment she was still, her eyes were closed and her consciousness seemed to drift about above her before finally, finally floating back down into herself with every slowing breath.

"Shh...slowly..."

She felt a hand against her cheek, her hair being pushed away from her face and tucked behind her ear. She opened her eyes, taking a moment to realise where she was.

"There you are."

He spoke softly, and he smiled at her, a gentle smile that just twitched the corners of his lips.

She opened her mouth to speak but no words came. She cleared her throat and tried again.

"I've made a fool of myself."

She whispered.

He looked at her, the smile disappearing from his lips. He inhaled slowly, just looking at her there, lying on the bed, each limb flaccid as though every bit of her had just given up one after the other.

"No. Audrey made a fool of herself. You just look like the concerned mother that you are..."

Connie let her head fall to one side, the painful spike of tears prickled at the corners of her eyes and she drew in a staggered breath.

"I can't-"

She began. Though he didn't find out what it was that she was about to say, because the words clogged in her throat and instead, a low moan crawled from her very soul, and out through her mouth.

"Hey..."

He leant closer to her and placed a hand on her thigh, a touch that was meant to soothe, but which only caused her to balk, she flinched so alarmingly that she frightened herself - not since that night had a man touched her so intimately.

"Sorry..."

She whispered, the hand that had been against her thigh was paused in mid-air, but when she looked up at his face she saw that look – the look that she had seen all those weeks on Charlie's face when she had flinched away from him. He had known in that moment what she couldn't tell him, and now she saw the darkness behind Ali's eyes too.

She pressed her lips together though she couldn't look away. He let his hand fall ever so slowly until it rested in his own lap.

"Talk to me."

He whispered, and she told him everything.

-.-

Hello everyone, hope you all enjoyed the update. Don't worry there will be more fluff, sex and Charlie in the upcoming chapters (not all in the same scene I hasten to add). There will also be more Cal, and a mystery noise in Connie's office...xxx