Hey everyone! This is my first Casualty story so I'm not sure how well this will go and if I'll continue writing other stories. But here we go. This story is about Ethan and how he is struggling with life following the crash. Also this is going to be a Ethan/Lily romance :) Enjoy!

Chapter one

The ED was quiet, weirdly quiet! It had been 3 months since the car crash which claimed the life of Jeff, and some of the staff were still feeling the effect of it, especially Ethan. Ethan struggled sleeping, lack of sleep was mainly due to event that occurred, but a couple of weeks ago he started to struggle with meals.

Ethan got home from work late, he had just had the nightmare shift. He sighed deeply when he remembered Cal was on the late shift with him the next day. He made his way up to bed as he hadn't gotten much sleep for the past few days and he was running on caffeine drinks.

Ethan was very restless that night. He was having another nightmare but this time he couldn't get out of it.

"No, Lily! Help!" Ethan shouted in his sleep. Ethan shot up, wide-eyed and gasping for breath. After a while, he realised he couldn't get his breathing under control and went into a full-blown panic attack. He managed to knock his lamp off his bedside table which smashed on the floor. He was hoping Cal could help him. Suddenly, Cal ran into Ethan's bedroom.

"Hey, Ethan? calm down little bro. Take deep breaths in and out." Cal started rubbing small circles on Ethan's back to calm him down. After a couple of minutes, Ethan's breathing started to get under control.

"You okay?" Cal asked. Ethan nodded faintly and looked at Cal.

"Did you have a nightmare?" Ethan nodded and laid back on his bed. "Do you want to talk about it?" Ethan shook his head.

"I just want to go back to sleep. We're doing the late shift again so I want to be awake" Cal nodded and smiled before leaving to go back to his own room.

The next day Ethan woke at 2pm, Cal was in the kitchen eating lunch. Ethan slowly walked out of his bedroom, past Cal's bedroom, where he thought he was, and towards the kitchen. As he got to the door of the kitchen, Cal noticed him but his happy face soon went from happy to worried as he saw Ethan, very-pale faced and staggering to get to the table.

"Are you okay?" Cal said getting up to assist Ethan to the table.

"I'm fine!" Ethan shot back.

"Okay I was just asking. By the way Connie has asked us to come in early." Ethan groaned. "Something to do with staffing issues." Ethan nodded got himself a glass of water.

"What time do we have to be in for?"

"4 pm, she said we can leave earlier as we are going in early" Cal smiled at Ethan. "Are you going to eat anything?"

"No, I'm not feeling hungry" Cal smiled and went straight into teasing mode.

"aw, you going to lose a bit of fat so you can be like me?" Ethan smiled and nodded. He walked back into his room and got changed for work.

Cal and Ethan arrived at the ED at 3.45 pm. They entered reception and Cal started talking to Noel, Louise, Rita and Robyn whilst Ethan walked straight to the staff room, ignoring everyone around him.

"What's wrong with Ethan?" Rita asked.

"I don't know. He woke up due to a nightmare and he hasn't eaten yet. Can you keep an eye on him please, Rita?" Rita nodded and walked off towards the staff room. Rita spotted Ethan hunched over the counter.

"Ethan, sweetheart? Are you okay?" Ethan jumped a mile in the air.

"Yes, I'm fine. Thank you." Ethan smiled at Rita and went off to find his first patient. Rita stood there, she knew something was wrong with Ethan but she didn't know what but she was going to find out though.

Hope you enjoyed the first chapter everyone! I will post the next chapter in a couple of days..