"So you felt...a lump?" said the doctor, patting his hands in the towel and side-glaring at her. She was beautiful, really beautiful - not that he was considering the thing under this light for the first time, he knew her from years now and he had gradually learnt to appreciate her... If he had to be honest, the perspective of another lump, the scenario of her going through such a state of preoccupation again was enough to tighten his throat. How could she bear another scare like that, and in less than a year... No, he can't stand the thought.
"I'm not sure," she answered, and he can't help to notice that her eyes were somewhere on the floor, while her cheeks suddenly flushed like she was ashamed. But why should Mrs. Hughes be ashamed of such a conversation with him? Surely it wasn't the first. "I'm not sure, that's why I'm here. If you could..."
She gestured briefly, and he understood what she was meaning. Probably her flush was due to his inspection, he thought, and in that very moment he seemed to realize that he, too, was a little embarrassed himself. She was so beautiful at the moment, and without Mrs. Patmore on her side she looked so alone and frail... He felt the urge - a highly improper urge - to take her hand and drive her in his arms, softly, tenderly, like surely no one has done in all those years but like she, more than anyone other, deserved. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to suppress that image.
"Of course I can. Here, Mrs. Hughes, please make yourself comfortable."
She slowly unfastened the buttons of her dress with shaking hands, Dr. Clarkson thinking it was for she was scared about facing again that nightmare; when she was ready, she gave him a brief smile as a sort of encouragement. Not that he needed it, of course, but that smile had become quite a habit, and they're both fond of that little secret of them.
First she trembled when his fingers pressed on the soft flesh of her breast; he muttered an apology and rubbed his hands one against the other in order to warm them up, then proceeded, trying to be as delicate as he could but very accurate at the same time.
"Good news," he said, keeping on examining her, "I can't feel any lump, so apparently..." Clarkson hadn't remove his hand yet, and it was when he tried to that he realized the true reason of her looking so ashamed - her hand was now on his, lightly, uncertain like uncertain was the glaze in her blue eyes.
"You don't have to, you know," she breathed, and despite of her apparent frailness he knew, without any doubt, she was serious.
His touch ceased to be the clinic touch of a medician and became gentler, hotter.
"Are you sure, Mrs. Hughes?"
She smiled.
And he knew he was lost.
