Charlie had been in the room, and was thankful to see Connie, and for her, it was a surprise to see the patient relaxed, not tossing and turning and fighting away the doctors. However, this was due to the sedative, which was making him incredibly drowsy, as Connie was informed.
"Got yourself a little fan in this one, Connie," Charlie began, and the patient's head jerked up just at the mention of her name.
"Connie," he said, smiling to himself. "Is that Mrs Beauchamp?" He muttered to himself wearily, and Connie chuckled.
"He began by calling for you," Charlie explained, while Connie walked over and took the young patients hand in hers. He inhaled deeply at the contact, and Connie couldn't help but feel protective of this young boy, who clearly admired her so much. She wondered briefly if this boy was looking to get into surgery, and had heard about her work in other countries and seen her picture in the paper or something. She wondered if she had inspired him, and if he had wanted to be treated by her so that he could meet his inspiration. It would explain why he seemed so star struck when Connie had walked into the room, and why he had a photograph of her, and why he seemed to rake his eyes over her as if he had a crush.
"He demanded to be treated by you, and you only, but then he had a break and said that he would like to be treated by his mother." Connie was a little surprised - thus far, he hadn't mentioned anything about his own family.
"I'll talk to him when he comes round," Connie smiled, combing her hand through the boy's soft, fuzzy brown hair. He had light brown skin and beautiful blue eyes, with plump lips and quite a large nose. His eyebrows were dark to match his hair, and his jawline was quite sharp. Anyone would have to admit that this youngster was quite attractive, and was also quite muscular, which reminded her of Jacob as a teenage boy again. He was obviously physically fit, but probably didn't work out much. Connie was studying the young man, looking down at him fondly, and then she began to speak to him softly to comfort him.
"Hey there, you," she whispered, and he smiled at the sound of her voice. He tried to mumble but she placed a finger on his lips and ushered him to be quiet. She got the equipment that she needed ready to fix up his face, and continued talking to him to keep him calm, whilst Charlie just watched on, smiling.
"Alright Chris, you're going to have to sit still for me, okay? I'm here, it's okay."
"You're here," he repeated, sleepily lifting his hand up to rest on Connie's cheek softly. She took his hand off her slowly and placed it back down in the bed, tucking it beneath the cover, and resuming to stitch up a cut above his eyebrow.
"Yeah, that's it. I'm here," she replied, and he continued to mumble to himself whilst he allowed Connie to fix him up. Charlie was still watching on, and when Connie had finished and went to place her gloves in the bin, he approached her quietly.
"You did well with that lad. You have quite a motherly approach with him, and I think he appreciates it." Connie nodded, smiling, and made her way back over to Chris whilst Charlie made his way outside. She wanted to speak to Chris, but she wanted to let him rest too, as he'd finally drifted off to sleep, and so she just sat beside him and held his hand. He woke up about twenty minutes later, and was still a little drowsy from the sedative, but the effects were wearing away. He relaxed instantly as he saw Connie and she smiled fondly over at him.
"You're all fixed up, okay Chris?" Connie smiled, and he nodded, wincing a little in pain. "Is there anyone I can call for you? You asked for your mother before."
"Did I tell you her name?" He asked, and Connie shook her head.
"No, you said that you wanted to be treated by her though. Is she a nurse? Can I call her?" Connie was speaking softly, and it was clearly a great comfort to Chris.
"Nah, my real ma's a surgeon," he smiled, proudly, and Connie smiled, raising her eyebrows to show her interest. "She didn't want me though, so she passed me on to someone else. The woman I know as my mam was a nurse though. She's not anymore - gave it up to look after me when I was eleven so I could get a good education."
"So when you said you wanted your mum to treat you?" Connie asked, prompting a response.
"Yeah, I meant my real mam. But that was just the sedative talking." The pair of them chuckled together, and after a while, Connie asked him about his father, as he hadn't mentioned anything about a father on the scene.
"Nope. My adoptive mam never got married because it got in the way of her work, and she told me that my real mam had left my real dad before he could find out she was pregnant. Mam said it was either that, or that my real mam just didn't know which fella I belonged to. Apparently she was with a lot of different lads when my adoptive mam met her. Apparently, she was only in town for a night and she'd had a go with three of the locals." Connie and Chris continued to talk about each of their families, until he began to come around properly from the sedative.
"So, you said your adoptive mother was nurse? Would I know her?" Since he didn't seem to be asking many questions about being a surgeon, or about her work abroad, Connie disregarded the idea of him idolising her, and so she had to ask him a couple more questions. Connie just wanted to know how she was connected to this stranger of a man, who had a photo of her, and with whom she had shared her life story to just hours after she'd met him. She thought that perhaps she knew his mother, and perhaps she recognised him a little from when he was a youngster, so it was worth a shot. He seemed to get a little awkward, and Connie didn't know if she's touched a nerve by asking about her.
"Well, erm, you probably will know her actually." He spent a little bit more time 'umm'ing and 'ahh'ing before proceeding: "You'd know her as Nurse Daniels."
Connie's heart stopped. She'd only ever known one Nurse Daniels in her life and that was a very, very long time ago. Besides, that was a very popular surname. Anya Daniels had been the woman that had delivered Connie's first child. The child that Jacob fathered. Because it wasn't in her nature to be able to terminate a pregnancy, she knew that she could never have an abortion and kill a wonderful gift that her lover had blessed her with, regardless of whether she was capable of caring for it or not. She had explained this to Derek so many years ago, and he had arranged for her to have the baby whilst she was abroad, and since she wasn't ready to be a mother, she chose to give up the baby to Anya, since she had always wanted a child and was unable to have her own. Connie didn't accept a thing in return, but giving away that child was the single most heartbreaking thing she had ever done in her life, and it still haunted her to this day. But that couldn't be the same Nurse Daniels. After all, Anya was living in Wellington, in New Zealand, last time Connie had seen her, and that was on the other side of the world. It was practically as far away as Connie could get from Holby, which was the point.
"How old did you say you were?" Connie asked, thinking over everything that this young man had told her, trying to find a way to convince herself that she was being completely ridiculous. This man was not her son. He couldn't be. She had given her baby away when she was too unstable and she had asked for Anya's word that the boy would never learn the truth.
"Nineteen," he said, hoping that Connie had realised what he had known all along.
"Your mother... Your adoptive mother," Connie stuttered. "She's Anya Daniels, isn't she?" Tears were forming in the corner of her eyes, and Chris wasn't in a much better situation. He nodded, and Connie opened her mouth, clasping her hands across it in shock.
"I'm so sorry," she sobbed, shaking uncontrollably. "My god, I'm so so sorry." The tears had began to stream properly down her cheeks now, and she had to stand up in order to get some air in her lungs. She thought back to what Charlie had said only minutes ago: "You have quite a motherly approach with him." Connie had been mothering the boy since he was admitted, because deep down in her heart she knew. She knew from the very first second she looked in his eyes that he was someone she had met before. She knew it then and she had recognised him. She had told herself that she could see a likeness to Jacob in him, and now she knew why - it wasn't just a likeness at all; it was in his genetics.
"Mum," he sobbed, reaching his hand out and Connie rushed up, grasping it quickly.
"Son," she breathed, stroking his cheek lightly. "I'm so happy you found me."
"I always knew who you were," he admitted, and asked her if she could pass him his bag. She did, and he pulled out his wallet, which contained two photos - the only photo that Connie had ever had taken with her young son in her arms, and the second was just a photo of Connie that his mum had had. Connie pulled out her purse, and with shaking hands, she pulled out the same photo of herself and her little baby boy, that she kept inside her purse to remind her always.
"I didn't want to do it, I promise you. I didn't want to give you up. I was only twenty-eight myself. It sounds old enough, but trust me, I still had so many years of education that I wanted to go through to get here, and I was suffering from a break up with your father when I had you. I couldn't do it on my own and I didn't have anyone else. Anya was desperate for a child, and she promised that she would take care of you. I kept her number with me all these years," Connie explained, stopping there to turn over the photograph in her hands, which had Anya's number written across the back. "It will have changed now, but I never had the courage to call it anyway. I didn't want to know how you were doing because I was too selfish. I didn't want to know what I was missing out on."
"You told me that you didn't have any other kids. You told me when I asked you, you said you had a thirteen year old daughter, but no one else." Connie shook her head apologetically, begging him to forgive her, and she explained to him, with tears falling down her cheeks.
"I've never talked about it to anyone. I was so ashamed of what I'd done that I just couldn't deal with people knowing and offering me sympathy. I hated myself for what I did to you, though I knew that Anya would give you a much better life than I ever could. Nobody knew I was even pregnant other than myself, and a very close friend of mine, Derek Brown, who helped me deal with the break up and with the pregnancy."
"I was always told that Uncle Derek was a friend of Anya's. He visited us in Wellington quite often when I was a kid. Got me loads of presents." Connie's heart melted, as she was so glad that Derek had been looking out for her son whilst she couldn't.
"What about my dad?" He asked afterwards, and Connie honestly had no idea what to say regarding Jacob.
"You should probably know now that things between your father and I were never easy back then. We were in a secret relationship, and there were many reasons for the two of us to break up." Connie didn't know how to tell this young man that he was the result of an unprotected act of passion between a student and a teacher, so she just took a deep breath.
"Did he hurt you?" Chris asked, and Connie shook her head frantically, as he had the complete wrong end of the stick.
"No love, we loved each other. We really did. But the problem was that he was my student. I used to be his teacher, at his medical school, and the relationship between us escalated pretty quickly. We were found out two weeks before I discovered I was pregnant, by your Uncle Derek, who happened to be the Chairman of Education, and he told me to break things off with your father and spend a year on the other side of the country so your dad was allowed to finish his studies. When I discovered I was expecting, gosh, you couldn't possibly imagine all the pain I went through giving you up. Childbirth was easy compared to the pain of letting you go. But I knew it was the right thing to do by all three of us."
"So when you told Anya that your partner didn't even know I existed, that was true?" Connie nodded, clasping her sons hands together and stroking his soft skin. "Does he know now? Do you even know where he is?"
"He doesn't know I was pregnant, no. But I know of his whereabouts. Do you want to get to know him?" Connie was petrified, as she didn't want to have to tell Jacob that she'd been lying to him for twenty, long years, and she knew that he would hate her for making him miss out on so much of his sons life.
"I'd like that," Chris smiled, and Connie managed to force a smile back. "But we can do that another day." Right at that moment, the door to resus opened, and in came Jacob, carrying a cup of steaming coffee. Connie looked to Chris, and one glance at his mother's face told him everything he needed to know. This man was his father.