Some Scars run deep...

Scars That Run Deep...

Stella Kidd stood next to Adrianna at Chicago Med her heart breaking for the young girl. Her face and her eye were shockingly battered with cuts and bruises from the accident. Her right arm in a cast. Her vulnerability was acute in the hospital gown.

Stella vainly tried not to let Adrianna know that she had seen the bruises around her neck. Her insides twisted and she blinked away the sudden tears of compassion in her own eyes. Tentatively she tried to get her to open up about how she had got the bruises but Adrianna clammed up and Stella didnt want to push her so left her to rest.

Later back at 51 she wanted to get Kelly's take on it. She told him that there was something off with what Adrianna had told the police about the car crash, and she definately knew something about the ATM receipt that Stella had found but wouldnt give anything away.

"There was this bruise.."
She was pointing to her own neck showing him where it had been.

But Kelly wasn't entirely convinced that the bruise on Adrianna's neck was sinister. It could have been caused by anything he told her.

"No it couldn't! ..that's the kind of bruise you get when you......." she faltered....... And then finishing her sentence with what sounded like first hand knowledge. "When someone tries to choke you out."

Kelly searched her face, not missing the intensity of her rebuttal or the way she had hesitated before saying it. She abruptly stopped speaking, realising she had given away more than she had intended.

Finding herself disconcerted she floundered for a moment, but knew she had to tell him now.

"Yeah... I uh ..err...." finding it difficult to meet his probing eyes she looked away, but he was still waiting for her to finish so she had to turn back to him.

" My ex."

The admission was awkward.

Kelly's face paled as understanding dawned, aware of Stella's acute discomfort.

It was something that was brutally hard for her to even think about let alone admit to him had happened to her. She cleared her throat, her eyes misting involuntarily, looking like a deer caught in headlights.

There was an uncomfortably charged silence as Kelly struggled to respond.
Grant was a subject that they didn't talk about and he didn't want to open up old wounds. But he felt the heat of molten anger rise in his blood as he learnt some of the true extent of what Stella's ex had put her through.
But he was wary of pushing her to say more so he stamped down on his own angst.

'"Maybe its time you took that receipt to P.D" he grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder.

" Yeah thats what I was thinking,"
Stella gratefully led them out of his quarters relieved to get away from the suddenly claustrophobic office.

At P.D, Hedrick had welcomed Stella's input, admitting they needed a break in the case and the ATM receipt may give them a clue even though both Kelly and Stella were somewhat economical with the truth about how it had come to be in Stella's possession.

Stella tried another visit to Adrianna. She couldn't stop thinking about her and was convinced that the young girl was very likely in a relationship that pointed to control and abuse. Even though Stella had walled up parts of her own previous life in her brain, deep down there was this hollow that threatened to suck her in if she allowed herself to give in to the omnipresent fear that she was never entirely going to be free of her ex. It was this that drove her to to try and help Adrianna. It had taken Stella years before she had been strong enough to free herself of the chains that Grant had around her emotionally. She had to stop Adrianna going through the same.