A/N For the purpose of this story, the kiss between Lilah and Ric never happened. Hope you enjoy.
As the last glimmers of sunlight faded away, Ric Griffin struggles to keep the demons, which have haunted him for years, at bay. He fights to close off all the doors and forget. No one must know how he is still scarred. No one must know why. Only a handful of the current doctors at Holby know what happened in the past, Jac and Elliot are the two that spring to mind, and he is determined to keep it that way.
He is broken but he likes to pretend he isn't. Everyone who is, or was, of importance to him, left him or… well, she was the exception that proved the rule. She left him, but in a more permanent way than the rest. He has spent the past five years with the guilt. The guilt that he drove her to suicide.
It was his fault. He isolated her, pretended he didn't care when in fact he cared about her more than he did for anyone else. He just…he just. And that's where it all falls down. He doesn't know why he pushed her away, and all the 'what if?' scenarios run though his head. What if he hadn't done that, what if he had done that instead? Nothing can change what happened though.
He has become so good at pretending, sometimes he can convince himself that is doesn't matter, not anymore. It's been five years, for god's sake. He needs to move on. But lying to himself only works for a few seconds and then everything comes back, the guilt, the pain, everything. And there is nothing he can do to stop it.
He closes the file that is lying on his desk, and takes his glasses of his head and lays them on the desk. He sighs. Then the door swings open and for a second, but only a second, it is her standing in the doorway. Then he blinks and he realises his mistake. It isn't Diane at the door, it is Lilah. "Hello, Lilah. What can I do for you?" He asks, politely, trying not to sound as tired and broken as he is. Thinking about her always makes him feel tired. "I'm going to head home, now. Mr Malick told me to tell you." The Australian is full of life and Ric can't help but be cynical. This girl doesn't know how hard life is.
"That's fine." Ric answers, after a while. As Lilah walks to the door, she turns back and smiles.
"I told my mum about you. She asked me to give you this. Said you go way back." Lilah told him, in her usual tone; enthusiasm. She walks back to his desk and places an envelope on it. Ric nods and the CT1 leaves. Ric spends the next five minutes staring at the envelope, wondering who Lilah's mother is, and how he knows her. Then he turns it over, and it is if a bucket of cold water has been poured over him, or a gale has started up in his office. He shivers and inspects the writing closely. It is just a coincidence or it is his mind making him see things, because the writing on the envelope looks identical to Diane's, but it can't. He opens it and pulls the sheet of paper out of the envelope. He starts reading:
Dearest Ric,
I know that it's been a long time, and you'll have probably forgotten who I am. Or maybe you haven't, maybe I've stuck in your memory like you've stuck in mine. I'm so sorry, Ric, that it had to happen all those years ago. It was the best to thing to do at the time. I didn't want to hurt you, but it had to happen. There are not enough words in the world to say sorry. So I'll say sorry and we'll both know it's not enough.
She doesn't look like you at all or me for that matter. She was twenty-three in June, June 14th to be precise, 14th June 1989. Don't get me wrong; I wanted to tell you about her, but well…things got in the way, didn't they? The past also got in the way a little. She likes quite a lot of the same things as you, which is strange as you'd never met until three weeks ago. I'm not sure why I called her Lilah, but I'm glad that the adopted family called her that too. That's another thing too, all those years ago I gave her up for adoption, well was pressured into it. I should have been stronger, I know but I should have been a lot of things in the past and I wasn't.
She doesn't know that you're her father. She doesn't know about the past. When I found out she was coming to Holby, I hoped you'd still be here. We need to talk.
My biggest regret in life, Ric? Saying no all those summer ago, when we were young and in love. Well, we're not young anymore, but I'm still in love. You can be whatever you want; angry or you could just feel nothing. I'd say it doesn't matter, but it does. I've spent the past five years on my own; and I don't want to spend the next five alone too.
It's too hard to write down what happened five years ago, and why I'm not dead like you think I should be. I don't want write down how it came about you have a twenty-three year old daughter, either.
I'll have to tell you those things. Explain, try and make things right again. I live at 2 Swallow Drive, SG23 54V, or just ask Lilah to show you. I'm not dead, Ric. Please, Ric?
Diane
It takes Ric along time to digest the contents of the letter and what this means for his future, but what surprises him most is that he believes ever single word of it. He stands up, sending his chair flying backwards. Lilah is his daughter, that itself it big enough of a shock but the identity of her mother shocks him even more.
He races out of his office and out onto the ward, hoping in vain that she's still here. She isn't, and what he is faced with instead, is the echo of memories floating back to him. He shakes his head, and glances down at the address on the letter again. He sets off, walking down the corridor like a man possessed. If someone was to come down the corridor at this moment he wouldn't notice them, that's how focused he is own finding them.
…
He gets to the door in twenty minutes. It feels too soon, as he has been caught up in many memories walking along. It takes him a long time to build the courage to knock on the door, but when he does it doesn't take long for it to be opened. Lilah stands in the doorway, casual clothes on and bewildered at Ric's appearance. "Why are you here?" She asks, slowly after a while. She is still confused when Ric answers her.
"Is your mother in?" He asks, cautiously. Lilah nods. "Can I talk to her please?" he inquires, and he is ready to beg the CT1 for access if needs be, when a figure appears behind her. At this, Ric's head begins to spin. "Diane." Is all he can get out.
"Ric." He hears her voice catch, and idly wonders if his voice did the same: probably. Mother and daughter part to let him enter. His head has stopped spinning and he is starting to accept the fact that she isn't dead. Lilah sits down in an armchair and Diane sits on the sofa. Ric joins her.
"So…" A still bewildered Lilah asks. Her mother takes charge.
"We'll start with the first thing, then? Lilah?" Diane's voice is soft and just as Ric remembers it. He nods and Diane speaks again.
"When you asked me to marry you, I said no because I was scared. My dad said that he'd kill the both of us if I went near you again, so for both our sakes I said no. He thought you were a bad influence. I argued with him a lot over that." She nods, caught up in the past. "Then I found out I was pregnant, Ric. Imagine how Dad felt about that? Mum had to physically stop him for going out there and killing you. I gave birth and they made me give her up, they scared me and told me I would never make it as a doctor with a young child, so I let them bully me into it." She wistfully shakes her head. "When we met at Holby for the first time, I was going to tell but you were so cold, so distant I never had a chance. I nearly told you when we were in Ghana, nearly but not quite. I didn't want to rake up the past." She breaks off to gauge the reaction of the others in the room to her admissions.
"So, he's my dad?" Lilah asks, slowly, as the truth dawns on her. Diane nods, and Ric studies the girl, his daughter, carefully. Lilah gives him a little half smile, still in shock.
"When I found out I was pregnant the next time, I was in a bad place and we know what happened there. Then the next time, it brought all the memories back. Then I lost it, and it broke me and made me all the more determined to find my one and only child. Your child. I knew she wouldn't be able to find me until she was eighteen, but still I hoped. Before the 'accident' I had received a letter from her. She'd turned eighteen and she wanted to meet her real mum. Me. Our daughter was in Australia, I later found out, and had lived there for most of her life. Mixed up nationalities, I guess. Half English, half Ghanaian and with an Australian accent and way of life." She pauses again, glancing at Ric out of the corner of her eye.
Ric shakes his head slowly, struggling to cope with the information that is flowing his way. "I have another child." He mutters under his breath. It is then he feels his phone buzz in his pocket.
"It's fine." Diane tells him. He slides the phone out of his pocket and stares at the message on the screen.
'Where the hell are you? Malick.' Is the message on the screen. "It's Malick. He's wondering why I've run out on him." Lilah nods at the mention of Malick. He quickly sends off a reply, profusely apologising but making sure Malick knows he's not coming back anytime soon.
"I'll go in. Help him." Lilah says, standing up. Ric goes to stop her but cuts him off before he can speak. "No. I can see you need some peace and quiet. You have too much past." She speaks softly but clearly, before turning and fetching a coat and leaving. They pair hear the door slam a few seconds later.
Diane reaches over and places a hand over Ric's. "I know it's a shock but when Lilah mentioned you were working together, I couldn't stop myself. I knew when I came back here there was a risk of seeing you again, but maybe I wanted to see you again." She hesitates. "Yes, I did." She confirms, a few second later.
Ric has to fight the tears off, and he can see that Diane is too. "Why?" He whispers into the night. "That's what's haunted me all these years." He hesitates. "Why I let you go. Why I didn't let you back in. Why I was so cold. Why I hurt you. Why I drove you to commit…" He breaks off, emotion making his voice break.
"You didn't drive me commit suicide. I didn't commit suicide. God knows I wanted to. That's where I was going, to end it all." She pauses and blinks, a stray tear falling down her delicate cheek and all Ric wants to do is wipe it away, wipe the pain away. "I'm not going to lie, Ric, to make it easier. I have to tell you the truth." She swallows. "You had broken me, all the way down to the heart. Not just the surface, I felt as if I was breaking in two that night." She pauses, again. "You broke me with your coldness, you didn't care, you never cared!" Though she doesn't shout, Ric can tell she is angry.
"I have always cared." Ric admits. "I'm sorry."
"You were hiding it pretty damn well!" Diane is still angry. "You made me want to end it all." She shakes her head, blinking hard. "So I went to the tracks." She hesitates. "There were these men there, all in a group. I went to look closer. They were attacking this poor defenceless woman. That's when they turned on me. I didn't really care what they did with me, just that they'd stopped attacking the other woman. I had gone up there to die." Ric can see the scene in his mind's eye, and in his head it isn't pretty. "They didn't kill me, turns out. They just scattered, after a while. I managed to start treating the other woman while I waited for the police to come. The police arrived soon after. They cleaned me up, I just had bruises. The other woman was much worse, broken limbs and such. I had managed to make her comfortable, before the ambulance came." She pauses again, hoping Ric is keeping up.
"They took me to station. Turns out it was a gang that attacked us. They had a man on the inside, who told the police that one of members of the gang had recognised me, and that they were coming for me. Tying up loose ends. The other woman didn't want to be a witness against them in a trial, said they would sooner kill her than let her testify." She hesitates, again. "That's when the officer told me there was another option. They were trialling a witness protection scheme. Pack me off to a country as far away as possible, with a new identity and fake a death back here. I suggested suicide; because I had been in the right frame of mind no one would suspect anything else. So they packed me off, I asked for them to send me Australia, so I could meet Lilah. Reconnect." She turns to look at him. "Diane Lloyd became Danielle Griffin." Ric hears his voice catch.
"You took my name." He watches carefully as she nods.
"It was closest I was ever going to get, so…" She trailed off. "I came back with Lilah, after discussing the case with the police; they told me that they had managed, after five years, to convince the other woman to testify. Turns out her reluctance to testify was down to the fact she was married to one of them. After that they got the whole gang for multiple charges. They all went down for five years or more." Ric nods and smiles.
"Then I could come home." Diane adds. "I told Lilah the truth when the gang was put away. My parents know I'm alive but I haven't seen them since…" She trails off again.
"I always knew you dad hated me. Now I know why." Ric tells her, slowly. "You know, he punched me at your funeral." Ric adds, as an afterthought.
"He punched you? Why?" Diane asks, confusion in her tone.
"I connected the dots, told everyone you committed suicide, and that it was my fault." Ric shakes his head at the memory.
"Did you marry Thandie?" Diane asks, trying to hide the hurt in her tone when she mentions the other woman. Ric looks at her and sighs.
"Not then but later. She ended it after you died." He hesitates, a battle raging in his mind on whether to tell her why Thandie ended things between them. "When I admitted that I was in love with you." He admits, and holds his breath – waiting for Diane's reaction.
"You admitted it?" Diane asks, surprise in her voice. "I thought you were too much of a coward to do that." She states, and it hurts Ric to know her view is not unfounded. He was a coward. Not anymore.
"The moment you died…" He pauses. "I realised what and idiot, amongst other things, I had been. I was in love with you and I couldn't admit it, not even to myself. I'll say sorry – and to steal your words from the letter – we'll both know it's not enough. I'm sorry, Diane, for everything…everything." He honestly apologises. It's the first thing to come from the heart for a long time.
"I had cancer." He doesn't know were the words are coming from. Diane looks at him, really looks. "Asymptomatic. I was all ready to die, because I thought I'd be going to you. I'd finally get to amend my past mistakes; I finally get to admit that I love you. But I didn't die, and it looks like a good thing – as you're not dead either." Neither says a thing after Ric speaks.
"Ric, I didn't know." Diane breathes. Ric shakes his head.
"How could you?" His voice is quiet. "I accepted that I was going to die. I felt as if it was my comeuppance for letting you die…"
That's when the phone rings. Diane reaches for it and pulls it towards her. Ric takes the break to study her. She doesn't look a day older. He does, he knows. "Hello, Diane Lloyd, how can I help you?...Yes…What's wrong?" He tunes out of the one sided phone call, and looks around the house that Diane and his daughter share. He is going to have to get used to that. His daughter. That's when he snaps out of his day dream when Diane addresses him. "Ric, Ric, Ric!" She shouts, and that's when he notices the tears and the panic.
Satisfied that she has his attention, she starts speaking. "It's Lilah. She just collapsed at work. We need to go in to consent for surgery." Noticing the look on Ric's face she speaks again. "I don't care if someone recognises me. I am free again. She's going to be fine." She reassures him.
…
They are standing in silence in the lift, waiting as it takes them up to Darwin, where Lilah is, where my daughter is, he repeats in his head. The doors ping open and they walk out on to the polished floor. Diane smiles and looks around, drinking in the sites that had been so familiar to her five years previously. She had worked on Keller but it doesn't matter, it is enough. Then they see Lilah, she is in the HDU. She is lying on a bed, tubes and all matter of things sticking out of her. Diane rushes over to the door and swings it open. Ric follows suit a few seconds later.
They sit by her bed and Diane holds her hand. Ric looks down at Lilah, so vulnerable lying on the bed, and he suddenly realises why he has taken such an interest in her. She's my daughter, he thinks.
The doors to the high dependency unit are swung open, and Ric hears footsteps, but then they stop and Ric looks up. Elliot and Jac are standing in the doorway, trying their hardest not to make goldfish expressions. He turns his attention back to Diane, and watches as a smile creeps on to her face, and in turn, his. "Diane…" The strangled word is the only to escape Elliot's mouth. His head turns and he looks Jac in the eye.
"I thought I was dreaming too." Ric tells them.
"Why are you here, Ric?" Jac addresses him, sharply. He nods his head towards the woman lying in the bed, and knows he doesn't want to leave his daughter's side.
"I'm here for my daughter." They both have to stop themselves doing goldfish expressions again. Then the door opens again and Malick walks in. He stops in the doorway, as well. He doesn't recognise Diane, why should he, but he recognises his boss.
"Ric?" He asks, curiously. "Anyone going to tell me what's going on?" Malick asks.
"You're dead." Jac addresses Diane.
"Always were blunt, weren't you, Jac?" Diane counters. "Working on Darwin, finally consultant?" Diane inquires. The red head nods.
She knows it doesn't explain how she's not dead. "She's not dead. That's obvious. There doesn't need to be anymore explaining, okay?" Ric states.
Jac speaks up. "Expect for the fact that the CT1 is your daughter, and I'm guessing Diane's too?" Malick nearly doubles over in shock.
"Ric? Ric?" Malick asks, his voice laced with confusion.
"I didn't know she was my daughter till tonight." Ric explains. "She didn't either." He adds. "Malick meet Diane Lloyd, a former colleague, close friend and Lilah's mother. Diane Lloyd meet Antoine Malick, registrar on Keller." Ric introduces Malick to Diane.
"Now can you tell us what's up with Lilah?" Diane asks, and Ric can hear the panic rising in her voice.
"Lilah had a TIA, a mini stroke, which was cause by an ASD, an atrial septal defect." Elliot starts to explain before Ric cuts in.
"We're both doctors, Elliot; just tell me if she's going to be all right…please?" Everyone in the room can hear the panic, fear and terror in Ric's voice.
"We'll have to operate and fix the hole. After that we'll have to keep her in for obs, for a while. Then she should be fine. You should be glad she was here, the TIA could have turned into a full blown stroke." Jac has taken over from Elliot. "Do you have any questions?" She asks, and waits for any reply. "Great. We'll be back with the consent forms in a few minutes." She says as she turns to leave, Elliot following.
"Lilah is your daughter?" Malick speaking breaks the comfortable silence they have lapsed into after the departure of the two consultants. "And why did you say she's not dead, I mean isn't it obvious that she's alive?" Malick is full of questions.
"Lilah is my daughter." Ric confirms. "And it's too complicated to explain, at least at the moment. Go ask Elliot or Jac, I'm sure they'll explain it for you much better." Ric tells the registrar. Malick nods, just as his pager goes off.
"Sorry." He says, before hurrying through the doors and away. Ric turns to face Diane and looks her in the eye. He moves closer to her and then whispers.
"I love you."
There are so many words unsaid between the pair and 'l love you' is the most neglected phrase of them all. After saying it so much all those summers ago when they were young, it has been overlooked badly. Then Diane lean close and whispers a reply.
"I love you too."
Ric stares at her and a smile creeps onto his face. After five years of regret and pain, he is finally at peace with himself. He has finally made sense of his life.
"I have always loved you. I'm always going to love you, whatever happens." Ric whispers to her.
"I have always loved you. I never stopped, not for a second." She replies. Then she leans forward and their lips meet. Ric breaks away, and without a word slips his hand into hers. They turn to admire their daughter.
They know, when morning comes there with be much to talk about, much to discuss, but at the moment they are content holding hands, watching their daughter sleep.
A/N Okay, I haven't written a story for Ric and Diane before so I hope this good. I might have messed with the age of Diane a bit, though I have never heard it mentioned on screen. For the purposes of this story she is 44 or thereabouts. Also I don't know when Ric proposed to Diane so I said it was when they were young. If anyone knows any better feel free to tell me and I will try and amend it. Thanks, Emmel.