Zoe slid her heels off as she entered the house. After a double shift, all she wanted to do was curl up on the couch with a glass of wine, but when she reached the couch she found it covered in unfamiliar clothing. As she opened her mouth to call out to Max, Robyn appeared with a smile. "Sorry! Just trying to organise all my things and wash everything that smells of smoke."

"Smoke?"

"...Max didn't tell you, did he?"

"Of course he did, sorry I'd just forgotten. Been a busy day, I'm sure you know the days I'm on about." Zoe explained, trying to hide the fact that she had no idea what was currently going on.

"Good, I was worrying that it was going to be awkward if he hadn't told you that we're staying for a while."

"Where is Lofty?" Zoe asked, cottoning on to the fact that Robyn wasn't alone in staying.

"At the washing machine, Max had no idea how to work it so he's trying to figure it out."

Zoe looked around, unsure of where to place herself in her own house. Her grip on her wine glass tightened as she looked around the room and silently cursed herself for not having realised that there was items laying all around that belonged to neither her nor Max. "Where is Max?" Zoe asked Robyn, who was folding her clothes.

"Upstairs."

Zoe made her way upstairs and paused in the bedroom doorway to look at Max, who was currently lying face first on the bed.

"Were you actually planning on telling me, or were you just hoping I wouldn't notice?"

Max gave a groan and rolled over, rubbing his face tiredly. "I thought you might have heard elsewhere about what a hero I was so I wouldn't have to explain."

"You're a hero?"

"He is!" Robyn offered as she passed the main bedroom on the way to the spare. "Our house was on fire and he rushed in to save Lofty's precious bloody computer."

"You risked your life to save a computer?!" Zoe whispered angrily after checking to see that Robyn had gone, and shutting the main bedroom door.

"Like I said, I'm a hero." Max told her, sitting up on the bed and moving over slightly so that Zoe could sit down beside him. "You look stressed." Max commented as Zoe sat down on the bed and placed her untouched glass of wine on the bedside cabinet.

"Well wouldn't you be if you'd just worked a double shift, lost a woman in their 20s and had to deal with several hours of paperwork. The only thing that got me through was the thought of chilling out with you and a bottle of wine when I got back, instead I come home to find your sister and best mate have moved in."

"I'll run you a bath."

"I don't want a bloody bath. Couldn't they have gone to a hotel?"

"Probably. Like that time you went to live on Dylan's boat- you could have stayed in a hotel then, but luckily for you someone cared enough to stop that happening. I'm sorry you had a bad day, but I haven't had the best one myself, and I was just trying to do some friends a favour. I'm going to run you a bath."

Before Zoe could reply, Max disappeared out the door.

...

"Do you think Zoe will mind if I have some of her wine?" Robyn asked Lofty as they sat in the kitchen.

"Probably."

"I'll just have one glass, then."

"One for me too, please!"

Two glasses soon turned to a bottle as the two friends sat in front of the TV.

"Have you ever seen a TV so big?" Robyn asked, before letting the last of the wine in the glass slip down her throat.

"I think we're out of wine Robyn." Lofty commented as he went to refill her glass, only to find that the bottle was empty.

"Zoe is going to kill us."

...

"What's wrong?" Zoe asked as she lay in the bath, while Max sat on the edge.

"What?" Max hadn't been listening, he'd been in a world of his own.

"What's wrong? You said you'd had a bad day and now you're distracted, and not by me."

"It's nothing Zo', just relax. Anyway, aren't you angry with me?"

"I haven't got the energy to be angry with you right now, I'll get to that later. Why were you over at Robyn's earlier, it's the other side of Holby?"

Max gave a slight shrug. "Just visiting another friend and I happened to drive past."

"Which friend?" Zoe rested further back into the bath, studying Max's face.

"I'm going to go downstairs and sort something out for dinner." Max bent forward and dropped a kiss to Zoe's forehead before leaving the room.