Hello! I have never written for Holby City before- but I have written for Casualty. They aren't that different! Anyway, I started watching Holby City on and off, and then started watching it religiously for quite some time now. I've watched most of the series and I have fallen in love with it. Especially Arthur Digby. He's so similar to Ethan Hardy in Casualty, it's no wonder I love both of their characters! Anyway, I decided to try this out and see if it does okay. Fingers crossed it will!

Can you please review? Just so I know if people are enjoying it and would like me to carry on. Thank you, and I shall let you read on.

Disquietude: Prologue

Disquietude: A state of uneasiness or anxiety.

Arthur Digby didn't know what was happening to him. He seemed to fall apart at every hurdle, break at every challenge, fail himself on every patient. Was he a good doctor? That was the one question that kept coming back to him. Digby thought long and hard about that, day in, day out. He lost he cool with relatives and patients alike, he had misdiagnosed a couple of cases, and he'd made the wrong choice, twice, causing the patients in question to die.

Arthur finally concluded that he wasn't a good doctor, he wasn't even a bad one. He was an absolutely awful one, a disgrace to the medical community. Why he still had a job was a mystery to him. Arthur guessed it was the pure fact that he knew how to put on a brave face and make his way through it. But, slowly, that mask he put in place was breaking, falling apart, and Arthur couldn't stop it.

The doctor didn't realise how weird it felt being on AAU. When he worked on Keller he had the direct support of Dom and Zosia- now he was on AAU and Zosia was on Darwin. Of course he had the people on AAU, including the new doctor, but it wasn't the same. He didn't have the people he lived with, the people who knew him. He couldn't just walk to them in the middle of a shift- unless he was dropping off or collecting collecting a patient. It seemed he was all alone in this...except for the new person who arrived not long ago.

Morven seemed intent on impressing him, something which Arthur found very unnerving. Not only did he have to perform well in front of Raf, and indeed perform well for himself, he also had to make sure he didn't make any errors in front of the girl who seemed to have an obsession with Shakespeare.

He realised he wasn't coping. He was trapped in limbo. In a constant state of anxiety, a constant state of disquietude, and it was tearing him apart from the inside out. He had the panic attack when Morven first arrived, and that was when alarm bells inside of Digby's head started to ring out.

The second attack he suffered, he found every noise seemed to amplify. Every sound would echo inside of his mind, and, in a state of sheer panic, he stumbled his way over to the medicine trolley, picked up a blister packet that contained diazepam, and swallowed one. The relief was amazing, it truly was. Arthur had found a new way to cope with onsets of panic. It was simple. If he ever felt worried, uneasy, scared, or he was just anxious, he would unscrew the bottle of diazepam he had stolen, empty one onto his hand, and swallow it swiftly. No one needed to ever know he was struggling, and he could get on with life as normal. At least, he thought.

Disquietude: Chapter 1

"Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools." - Napoleon Bonaparte

"Arthur!" Morven called across AAU to him. His gaze slowly drew to the young female who was rushing towards him, a look of panic set on her face. "We have a young, unidentified male sent up from the ED. Head injury that hasn't been decided as minor or major yet-" Anything else she was going to say died on her lips as she caught Dr Digby staring straight past her, seemingly into space. He looked worried, frightened almost. The colour had drained from his face, and he was making no attempt to move from where he was seated to help the boy. "Arthur?" She called, now more worried for her mentor rather than the patient, who seemed to be in the very capable hands of Raf, instead of Arthur.

"I have to..." Digby trailed off, stumbling from his chair, making his way towards the bathroom. He could feel his legs trembling as he walked. He hadn't even met the patient but he already knew he wasn't going to be able to handle such a complex case. It was a head injury- he'd treated many in his time- but his work with Guy Self taught him that he was useless when dealing with any aspect of the human brain- including, Digby felt, the head and scalp.

Digby wondered what he wasn't useless at. Everything he did seemed to fail miserably. He turned the tap on, allowing the sink to fill with water as he put his glasses on the side. He watched it gradually, wondering why being a doctor wasn't as simple as stitching the patient up and going. He turned the tap off, watching the last few drops enter the basin, then splashed his face and hair with the cool water. It didn't give the sense of relief that the doctor was hoping for. Arthur did it twice, thrice even. Still nothing.

He could feel his breathing quicken, catch in his throat even. He could feel his legs growing weak beneath him as he tried to fight off the feeling of ever growing panic. He looked at his own hands through his blurred no-glasses vision. Pale and clammy. He could feel beads of sweat make their way down his face. He knew this feeling. He stepped slowly away from the basin and slipped down the wall. He tried to hold his breath in a vain attempt to slow down his breathing. He felt around in his pocket. He never went anywhere without the tablets now. Arthur shakily unscrewed the lid and let a couple of tablets fall into his hand. He quickly threw them into his mouth, swallowing almost instantly. He let his head fall back against the wall as he shut his eyes, letting a sense of calm wash over him. The feeling after the fall.

All Arthur could think was at least he found a way to control himself. At least he found a way to get through everything life threw at him.