The air was still and slightly cold. When she swallowed her mouth was dry, and she could feel pin pricks of pain in the side of her wrist that made her whole arm ache.

It was dark still, and for a moment she thought that was strange, because she could hear people moving about, the dimness of a sound she recognised but couldn't place. And then it was rushing up on her, getting louder and louder, the rumble of trolleys down a corridor, the beeping of machinery, the squeak of rubber soled shoes. The hospital! The hospital...

All of a sudden she realised that it was dark because she hadn't opened her eyes.

She kept them closed. She remembered what had happened. She remembered the cold and the wet, the heaviness of Elliot's blood sodden body and the men...she remembered sleeping with Elliot, his kisses, how he had filled her. And then Rita filled her mind, blooming in her minds eye like a flower turning to face the sun. If she opened her eyes, would Rita be sitting beside her? Patient, kind Rita, with her smile that made her heart ache. Was she there now? Looking down on her, desperate to know the answers to so many questions that she felt so unready to answer?

"Connie?"

A quiet tentative voice broke into her thoughts and a hand touched her gently on the forearm, just above where the pain seemed to be emanating from.

"Connie?"

Rita's voice was thin below the murmur of the ward.

She opened her eyes slowly, taking a moment to adjust to the bright lights before looking at Rita. Her blonde hair was loose and unwashed, beneath her eyes were hollow dark circles, her cheeks were flushed and her lips were chapped from where she had been chewing on them.

"Rita..."

She exhaled her name and made to grasp her hand, but a sharp pain shot from her wrist to her arm and she winced as Rita lowered her arm back down to the bed.

"Zoe had to check your blood gasses."

Rita glanced down to the white square plaster over where Zoe had pushed a needle into Connie's artery.

There was a pause between them. Nothing but silence, and then, with a drawing in of a breath, she looked back up at Rita waiting next to her...her forehead creased with worry, her brown eyes wide.

"I'm so sorry."

She whispered, choking on the words as she spoke them, struggling not to cry, not now, when she had so much to say.

Rita looked down to wear her hand rested upon Connie's arm. She blinked quickly, her mouth pinched and drawn into a line.

"I thought they'd-"

Her voice cut out and she shook her head and cleared her throat.

"I thought they'd...raped you again. Or worse."

Her eyebrows were drawn up in the middle, her eyes so full of tears that they glittered in the light and her chin dimpled and wobbled as she sucked in an uneven breath.

"They tried."

Connie said quietly.

"But I'm alright. They didn't."

It seemed so few words to sum up something so massive.

Rita nodded slowly. What she wanted to ask seemed to stick in her throat, a great ball of it, lodged there, as though it were glued in place by fear.

"Who is Elliot?"

She asked finally.

For a moment Connie didn't speak. The thought of telling the truth was already breaking her heart, but there were so many more thoughts inside her head. Was he ok? Was he still alive? What if he had died whilst she had been unconscious? Did his family know? She would have to speak to them, try to explain that their son had saved her from something terrible. That he was brave and loving and none of this had been his fault. It was her, it was all her fault.

"I met him at a bar."

She began, her voice flat.

"We were drunk, he sat with me and we talked. He-"

"Did you sleep with him?"

Rita cut her off, unable to hear any more, too desperate to know the truth.

Connie met her eyes for the first time since she had begun speaking about him. She contemplated lying. She knew that she could. She was a good liar, she could fabricate some sort of believable reason why she had gone back with him...

"I'm so sorry."

She whispered, watching as Rita's hand slipped from where it lay upon her arm.

"That's all I wanted to know."

She said, turning her back upon Connie and walking to the door.

-.-

I promise it will get cheerier soon. Reviews welcome as always. xxx