Have No Emotion, Show No Weakness

Apologies

The next morning rolled around and true to her word she made Jacob feel awful.  "I'd appreciate it if you could actually get up and not make me any later than I'm already going to be Staff Nurse Masters."

She didn't look at him but carried on putting things into her bag before picking up her black leather jacket and pulling it on.  She wore a pair of tight black trousers with a white blouse with her black heels.  Jacob kept looking at her whenever she looked away, she was beautiful and he couldn't help but stare.

"SERIOUSLY JACOB IF YOU DON'T GET UP AND OUT OF MY HOUSE NOW YOU WON'T HAVE A JOB TO BE GETTING TO!"  He looked up at her before she picked up some folders and stormed from the room.  A matter of minutes later and Jacob was leaving her house.  She lent against the front door for a moment steadying herself before re-opening it and driving to work.

Immediately after getting to the ED Connie went inside in search of one person.  "Morning Mrs Beauchamp, here's all your post this morning..."  Connie took it nodding but looked about the department eagerly.  "Noel is Charlie in yet today?"  He nodded and checked his desk for something before speaking up.  "Ah, he should have just got back-" "Thank you."  Connie nodded and left the receptionist to the queues of people.

Again she looked around the department unable to find him, that was until someone walked into her causing the files she'd been holding to scatter across the floor.  Connie pushed the hair from her face before bending to pick everything up as someone else joined her.

"Are you okay?"  Charlie's hand rested on her arm as she forced a smile and picked everything up.  She turned around to see Lofty standing there, of course it had to be.  "Mrs Beauchamp I-I-I'm-" "Spit it out Nurse Chiltern."  Connie looked across at the other nurse who seemed to be cowering more than she'd ever witnessed.  Do people really hate me this much?

"I'm sorry, I didn't see you past all this-" she looked to the trolley stacked with various equipment she was sure a porter should be finding, not a nurse.  "It's fine, just be more careful in the future that could have been a patient."  Lofty nodded before departing Connie and Charlie who was shocked she reacted in that way.

"Well I'll leave you to it-" "Actually I wanted to talk to you."  They stepped to one side as people passed them due to the ED beginning to get busy.  "About last week, I wanted to-" "It's alright, I'm just glad you're okay Connie."  She briefly smiled at him as he rest a hand on her arm once again.

The smile on her face, although weak showed Charlie he had understood where she was trying to go with the conversation.  "I'll let you get sorted, you'll be needed soon no doubt!"  Charlie walked away as Connie let herself into her office and put everything down sighing at the mountain of paperwork.

Not even ten minutes had gone by before Connie was needed on the floor.  "Right what have we got?"  Stats were reeled off to Connie as she stepped into resus with her patient.  "Okay..." she faltered as she noticed the nurse standing the other side of the bed. 

It had to be him, out of all the bloody people in this department it had to be you.

Connie internally grimaced before carrying on as she was.  "I need two units cross matched and order a neck and spinal CT... Gemma can you hear me?"  Connie lent over the patient and checked her pupils.  "Left pupils gone, we need to get her down now..."

They lowered the bed and Jacob began compression's as the machines around them burst into life.  "It's no good, we're getting nothing-" "Then we keep trying!"  Connie moved around the bed and took over from where Jacob had been standing.  "Come on, come on you're not giving up that easy."

After almost another half an hour there was still nothing.  Jacob was standing at the end of the bed watching when Charlie stopped beside him.  "Charlie she won't listen to anyone, this isn't going anywhere..."  Charlie nodded and stepped to the bed opposite Connie.

"27, 28, 29, 30-" "Connie-" "Pulse check..." She looked across at him pleading as he sighed and moved his fingers to the space between the collar boards.  His eyes widened a little before frowning and seeming to concentrate even more.  Jacob watched on, he'd never seen Connie get so hung up on a patient before.

"There's a faint pulse."  Before anything else could be said Connie was moving about and getting her up to theatre.  Once the bed was out of resus she pulled the gloves off and put them on the side.  "Sorry for not trusting your judgement on that one..."  Connie unsuspectingly smiled at Charlie before turning on Jacob.

"Staff Nurse Masters I'd appreciate it if in future you didn't think you could tell me what to do-" "I wasn't trying to-" "DO NOT THINK THAT BECAUSE I SLEPT WITH YOU IT SOMEHOW MEANS YOU CAN DO WHAT THE HELL YOU LIKE HERE.  Now get out of here!"  He looked across at her before she glared at him again and he surrendered leaving the room.

It was only then she noticed all eyes on her.  Charlie reached for her but she just shook him off and walked out in search of her office.  A short while later Charlie knocked on her office door before wandering in and sitting beside the clinical lead on the sofa.

"Everything alright?"  Connie nodded quickly.  "Why wouldn't it be?"  Charlie sat back and looked towards the wall as she was.  "Because it's not like you to sit in your office staring into the distance... Or let me come in without you answering."  She smiled slightly before turning to face Charlie.  "I-" "You deserve to be happy you know."

"But what if being with him doesn't make me happy Charlie?"  "Well that's something you'll have to find out for yourself, but you'l never know unless you try."  Once again Charlie left her alone as she walked around her office until her eyes fell on him through the window.  He was standing with Rita and Cal laughing, something she always admired about him was the ability to laugh even when you felt like curling up and disappearing for a while.