Hey,

Sorry to anyone who was reading my other fic, to cut a long story short my laptop got stolen before I backed it up. Since I had 50 odd pages I really couldn't bring myself to restart it right now (still vaguely hope my laptop will magically return) so I started this. Its a random idea, nice and angsty. I would like to thank the lovely Miss Toughie for being my beta and helping me out and for the title idea, you're a star! Also I do have several chapters of this safe in my dropbox and email account so no losing all my work this time in case anyone is worried. I hope you enjoy.

Many thanks for reading

4ftM

Chapter One

Mina stood in front of the small bathroom mirror, studying her reflection carefully. Her usually pale skin had an almost gray tinge to it and the colour from her cheeks had faded. The cool water she had used to try and perk herself up had only succeeded in pasting stray stands of hair to her forehead. And five nights of precious little sleep tossing and turning had left angry mauve half moons under her icy blue eyes. In short, she looked as rough as she felt and there was no hiding it, questions were going to be asked.

The sound of knuckles rapping against the wooden door broke her train of thought. "You ok?" the overly concerned voice of her roommate called out from behind the bathroom door.

"Yeah… I'm good, just brushing my teeth." She didn't want to lie to her friend, but the bile was still bitter in her mouth and her head was spinning. The last thing she needed was probing questions from the other doctor. After all her symptoms were textbook, it would be less than five minutes before she got shocked and pitying stares from Lily. Then the inevitable questions would start. Questions she wasn't sure she even had the answers to herself.

Logically she knew everything had a failure rate, but it didn't stop her feeling angry about being the one to find it. It had taken so much effort, on both hers and Fuller's part, over the past few weeks to move past the awkwardness of their drunken fling. Their friendship had almost got back to where it was before their drunken romp in Zee's garden. Now she had no idea what would happen. But this wasn't the situation friends usually found themselves in, that was for sure.

Tipping her head back she drained the last mouthful of water from the plastic bottle, swishing it around her mouth in an attempt to rinse out the remaining bitterness before forcefully spitting it out into the cracked porcelain sink. The thought of going into the clinic caused fresh round of tears to well up in her eyes, but she refused again to give in to them as she used Lily's overly cheerful beach towel to dry her face with far more vigor than was actually needed. Looking up into the mirror again she cast one last lingering look at her now red face before taking a deep breath opening the bathroom door to face Lily and the jungle again.

"There you are" Lily said, worry evident in her gaze as she rushed to keep up with Mina who had already strode her way out to the veranda to start their walk to the clinic. "I am sorry for rushing you, I just didn't want to be late again, not with both Keeton and Clark being away. Anyway, we don't want Zee to be snarky the rest of the day either. Well any more so than usual." Lily smirked at her own joke, turning to look at her friend hoping that her moment of cattiness had lifted her spirits slightly. She didn't like what she saw as she looked at the blonde doctor, not one bit.

Lily was used to Mina's lack of animation, but this was something different. This last week her friend had been wandering around in some sort of daze. Even her usually meticulous practice was suffering. Twice yesterday Lily had found her staring blankly at the medicines in the small storeroom, completely oblivious to what was going on around her. When Lily shouted her name to pull her out of the daze she was in Mina simply smiled the smallest of grins, grabbed the medicine and disappeared out the door without a word. Lily had no idea what was bothering her friend, but something was and she was determined to find out what as she turned sharply towards the other woman grabbing her arm bringing them both to a sudden halt. Swinging her body around quickly so she was standing in front of her friend, physically blocking her from walking away from her before she could start her questioning.

"Mina, what's going on? Something is wrong, this isn't like you." Lily questioned ignoring the exasperated glare the other woman shot in her direction.

"Nothing's going on Lil. We are just running late this morning that's all," Mina said with a nervous laugh as she attempted to defuse the situation, raising the corners of her mouth into a grimacing smile. This was the last thing Mina wanted or needed this morning, her head was already a mess with jumbled emotions and thoughts. She seriously could not deal with this questioning no matter how well intentioned Lily was. Right now all she wanted to do was go treat patients that barely spoke enough English to answer her questions let alone ask her any in return. Failing that she would even relish a six hour surgery with Zee right now, their theatre conversations consisted of nothing more than 'pass me the…'. Yeah, that Mina could deal with.

Lily stared into her friends eyes, noticing the dark circles that stood out so starkly against her pale skin. "That isn't it and you know it. So please, Mina tell me so I can help." She said trying to stop Mina from walking away. "Mina!" She exclaimed as her friend wriggled free of her grasp and carried on striding towards the clinic.

Mina felt a wave of guilt as she shrugged herself out of Lily's grip, it wasn't that she didn't like the other doctor. Far from it, she had become Mina's surrogate family. Actually, Lily was more of a family member than any real one she had ever known when she thought about it. It was that her mind was so muddled, she didn't know if she started talking right now that she would be able to stop. Plus, Lily was also friends with Fuller, she knew that Lily would tell her to talk to him immediately and right now that was the last thing on earth she wanted to do.

She carried on walking for a few seconds before she realized that Lily wasn't following. Sighing deeply she stopped walking, but didn't turn around. "I am fine Lily, I just need time to work it over in my mind before I can talk about it to anyone else okay?" She said hoping that her friend would take the hint and drop it. Relief flooded her when she heard Lily's foot steps behind her.

Lily didn't want to drop it, she was beyond worried now. Something was going on with Mina, a woman who had swiftly become not only her friend, but the one of the best friends she had, in the jungle and beyond. She honestly wanted to help her, but pushing Mina into telling her something she didn't want to wasn't going to help any. "Ok Mina, I will drop it for now but I'm still worried. You look really ill and I know something is bothering you." Lily watched as Mina's shoulders tensed at her words but the other woman didn't turn around, so she continued. "But I am here for you, day or night. You can trust me okay?"

Mina stared into the distance the green foliage blurring with yet more tears. She couldn't turn around and show Lily she was crying, she wouldn't drop it then. Blinking hard she nodded her head. "Okay, Lily." she replied as she continued to the short walk to the clinic hoping that her tears would dry before she got there as she really couldn't take anymore questioning from anyone, especially not him.

-/-/-/-/-

To say Mina's morning had gone badly would be one hell of an understatement. First it was Lily's twenty questions and worried looks all the way to the clinic, now it was a drunken miner who kept trying to pinch her ass. Today was not her day, but any day that started with vomiting was never going to end well she mused. Foolishly, she had believed at the beginning of her shift that her luck was starting to look up when she had three easy patients in a row. Not one of them had been at all talkative and all completely fixable; it had made a very welcome change. Even the concerned stares cast in her general direction had stopped as Lily had been called straight into theatre to assist Otis and even better for her, Fuller had been placed on cleaning duty somewhere with Charlie. She honestly couldn't believe how much her luck had changed, even going so far to send a whispered prayer to God for cutting her a break.

She realized soon after she shouldn't have wasted her breath when the next chart she picked up was without a doubt a plastic's case. To make matters worse, the patient was drunk, leery and had a collection of English phrases that would make even the most hardened sailor blush. His so-called 'friends' were no better either. The one with a better grasp of 'English', if you could call it that, had explained through fits of absolutely hysterical laughter that the ultra leery one in the corner, who licked his lips suggestively as she gazed over to him, dared the literal pain in her ass twenty dollars that he couldn't crush a beer bottle in his hand… She hoped the twenty dollars was worth it as she excavated another piece of brown broken glass out one of the deeper lacerations in his palm. Any hopes of being able to stitch it back together herself fading rapidly as she saw the exposed and severed tendons. He was going to require Tommy's skills and there was no doubt about it, well if he wanted to use his hand again that was. She had then wondered if it would be that much of a loss.

Grudgingly she had found herself accepting that her only course of action was to get Tommy to fix the massive tendon and nerve damage and resigned herself to the fact her day was going to take a swift nosedive. Then just as she was about to finish cleaning the wound she suddenly leapt up from the surgical stool she was sitting on like she had been burnt. The final glass fragment she had been holding skittering across the floor as she dropped it in fright. "Oi! Keep your filthy hand to yourself; otherwise, you'll lose the other one! Comprende?" Mina shouted whilst glowering at him. She had been so engrossed on the wounded palm she had failed to notice his other hand snaking behind her towards her bottom, for the third time. Until he had pinched her ass hard that was. Continuing to scowl at the three perverts who were now openly gawking at her, she unceremoniously dropped the surgical tweezers into the steel kidney bowl and ripped the bloody latex gloves off, tossing them down. "Stay here, I need to get another doctor," she told the patient jabbing her index finger in his direction with every word for emphasis. She needn't have bothered saying anything she realized when her only response was three identical blank looks back. Shaking her head in despair at the lack of comprehension, she grabbed the chart and pushed the curtains out of her way as she went to get their resident plastics expert.

She was still fuming she stalked down the clinic corridor looking for the absolutely last person she wanted to see right now and she couldn't help but mutter to herself about using Zee's machete to cut both the drunken ass grabber's hands off. Then she wouldn't need to be walking down the clinic she mused, as she was sure she could fix two stumps well enough without Tommy's help. It would be poetic justice for the grubby pervert she mentally reasoned, as she continued her search for the plastic surgeon.

When she finally heard his voice for the first time that day her heart froze and her stomach felt like it had dropped several feet though the floor. She couldn't help but stop and lean against the wall as she tried to pull herself back together. Taking some deep breaths, she mentally tried to convince herself she could do this. She needed his help as a doctor and colleague. All she had to get though was a quick five minute handover with him before he would be stuck in theatre for several hours and she would have time to think. Free from any disruption so she could sort her thoughts long enough to work out what she was going to do, she silently hoped. Happy with her plan of action, she finally pulled herself away from the wall and walked towards the theatre one doorway and his voice.

"Fuller, have you got…" Mina let the sentence trail off as she watched the scene in front of her in shock. Both Fuller and Charlie were on the surgical stools scooting them around the empty theatre each brandishing a crutch they were using to hit a very grubby looking roll of bandage across the floor. Anger bubbled within her uncontrollably and all thoughts of the grabby miner flew right out of her head. Here she was pregnant and he was playing some warped hockey game like a child. Stupid man-child, she fumed to herself, she was pregnant by a guy who had the mental capacity lower than the average five year old. The very thought made her feel nauseous.

By the time Fuller noticed she was standing at the doorway she was beyond angry. "Hey Dr. Minard! How can we help you?" He called out barely taking his eyes off the game he was playing with Charlie, flashing her what he hoped was his best cheeky grin. It was something he would later regret, because if he had looked he wouldn't have missed the clearly pissed off expression on her face.

"How. Can. You. Help. Me." She kept her voice slow and deliberate, pausing after each word as she mocked him. "You know what, I was going to ask you if you could treat someone. You know as a doctor, but it looks like you are really busy with other much more pressing engagements. So don't let me keep you." There was so much anger and disdain in her tone, that she hardly recognized the voice as her own. It made her feel strangely detached from her actions and it didn't help that her rant had caused her vision to sway and increased her nausea to the point she was honestly worried that she was going to physically vomit right there and then. But despite this, the uncontrollable rage she felt wouldn't let her leave it at that.

She slammed the chart she was holding onto the stainless steel surgical trolley next to her, sending several surgical catheters flying. The sudden noise stopping both boys dead in their tracks as two very worried and sheepish pairs of eyes started to nervously track her every move. "Actually do you know what Dr. Fuller? No… No you cannot help me. In fact just stay the hell away from me." she said her voice escalating to a full on shout before she stormed out of the clinic past the confused looks of the patients in the waiting area.

The theatre was silent for an entire minute before Charlie dared to speak. "Whoa, amigo. What did you do to Dr. Minard?" Charlie quizzed his companion in confused amusement. "Not been playing more board games with her have you?"

Fuller might have missed the wink Charlie added to the end of his jibe as he was staring at Mina's back, but he certainly didn't miss the undertone as he rushed to correct him. "Hell no Charlie. Me and Mina, I mean Dr. Minard, are just friends, nothing more. The… board games were a one off mistake." Fuller said as he stood up to retrieve the chart the angry blonde had slammed down just seconds before.

"Yeah, because that looks so friendly to me gringo!" Charlie snorted in response watching as the older guy stood there his confusion clear on his face as he looked towards the door. Fuller collected his thoughts quicker than Charlie expected and he started to follow Mina before Charlie got any real jibes in.

"Just remember, no more board games!" Charlie called out after the retreating doctor unable to let the opportunity of getting in one last dig pass him by. Earning himself a quick glare and an order to clean the mess up from a now angry Fuller who was quickly running in the direction Minard had taken off in. Charlie sat alone in the now empty room for a few minutes before he reluctantly got up from the stool. " Its not like it was even my idea in the first place" Charlie muttered to no one as he started to clean up the mess he and Tommy had made. Sometimes he thought, his life sucked.

-/-/-/-/-

Mina couldn't remember the last time she had raised her voice, let alone been so angry. She wasn't even sure why, but Fuller's childish behavior had really riled her. It was like a red flag to a bull. Her anger was short lived though. Now all she felt was drained and tearful and the overwhelming dizziness and nausea had forced her to stop running. She had crouched down at bush level bracing her hand on her knee while taking some deep breaths as she attempted to relieve the nausea and stop the dry wrenching. It was too late though as she started to empty what little was in her stomach into the long grass.

She had been there less than five minutes when she felt Tommy's hand rubbing her back and scraping the hair from her face. Thankfully for her, he didn't say anything, just kneeling wordlessly down next to her. Not that she was at all surprised by his presence, as she knew Tommy would follow her. How could he not after the scene she had made? But even though she expected him, it didn't make her dread seeing him any less. She was so worried that he might ask the right questions and everything would come spilling out her mouth.

"You know, you could have just said you felt unwell. I would have helped you with the patients if I had known," he said softly rubbing her back.

She didn't know what to say. Irrationally she was worried that he just knew, but he didn't look frightened enough. It took her several attempts before she managed to break the silence again. "It's just a stomach-bug." It was a lie, a massive, huge lie and she didn't need to see his face to know that he was about to quiz her further especially after her outburst. Realizing that she couldn't let him think too much about it as he had gone to medical school after all, well just enough to get his license anyway. She knew he would figure it out himself if she wasn't careful, so she took another deep breath determined to throw him off the scent.

"The nausea, it came on so suddenly, you remember there was that D and V case I had yesterday. I must have caught it. I was feeling just fine this morning." She rambled on ignoring the little voice in her head that was calling her a liar. "I will be fine, I just need fluids and rest. But please you have to go treat the miner with the hand laceration there are exposed tendon sheaths on his index and ring fingers which will need treated in the next hour otherwise there will be permanent damage."

Tommy studied her carefully while he listened to her ramble away. She really did look unwell, but illness alone failed to explain her outburst at him and Charlie earlier. Sure they were being childish, but her reaction was completely out of character for Mina, it was like she had channeled Zee. There was far more to the whole situation than she was letting on. Of that he was certain and it worried him. It really worried him, as did the depth of feeling he had developed towards his blonde housemate as it was beyond anything he had ever felt towards any woman before. He was literally fighting the overwhelming desire to pick her up and carry her back to her bed, not in a sexual way either, but just to monitor her and make sure she was okay. It took a lot to push the urge down and not give into it. So instead he stared at her quizzically knowing Mina well enough to understand that was more likely to get her to talk if he didn't push her into it.

His silent stare unnerved her, she liked it better when people asked her questions so she could flat out avoid them, but the prolonged silence was making her want to tell him everything just to break the silence. Then she noticed the slightly skeptical look on his face and realized that her convincing so far had not had the desired effect, forcing her to change tack. "He kept pinching my butt." She said, relieved when she saw a look of amusement on his face. It spurred her on. "He was drunk with two other just as drunk miners. And they kept gawking at me and their language, it was awful. Literally it was turning the air blue." She stopped briefly to wipe her mouth and stand up in the hope that she would prove to him that she was okay before continuing. "So I was trying to treat him and he kept pinching my butt. Then I had to go and get you because I couldn't fix it as surgery in general has never been my thing. I found you playing hockey, by this point I was already feeling sick and I was so angry. It just tipped me right over the edge and I snapped. Sorry."

He watched as she flushed red as she admitted what had happened and he felt awful. It wasn't that he had wanted to leave her alone, but their working relationship had started to get visibly strained again this past week prompting Cole's warning for him not to go near Mina while he was in theatre with Brenner. Then Charlie had looked so bored cleaning, he had to cheer him up. He hadn't meant for Mina to be alone in the clinic with drunk people molesting her. Rage flashed though him when he realized that someone had touched her without her permission. He seriously wanted to hack the guys hands off and not even try to help him, but he knew it was too late for that. The only thing he could do now was check Mina was okay and beg for forgiveness later.

"No Mina, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left you alone. It was stupid of me." He said as he put his arm around her. "I'll walk you back home, then I'll go fix the hand and tell the others that you won't be in for the next few days."

He proceeded to walked her all the way back to their shared house making sure she had fluids and any of the medicines she might need. But all his fussing didn't stop the concerns that were developing about how quiet and withdrawn she had gotten again. He could swear that there was something far more to this than what she was saying. Things just were not adding up in his head. He almost went to ask before he left, pausing ready at the door, but stopped himself. He knew that if he did so now that he was risking having her stop talking to him completely outside of the clinic and that wasn't what he wanted, so he kept on walking back towards the clinic.

Mina felt such relief when Tommy finally left her and went back to the clinic to treat the miner, she could swear it was almost palpable. She had been sure for a minute at the end he was going to push her further for some reason to her actions and she wasn't ready for that. Even though she was more than acutely aware that time was ticking away quickly for her to make a decision and that to do that properly she technically should tell him as soon as possible. Yet, when it came down to it she was a coward, because as far as she was concerned right now any parental rights Tommy may have, paled almost into insignificance when compared to the complete and utter blinding maternal fear she herself felt right now.

-/-/-/-/-