Hello again! I haven't written much fic for ages, because I haven't had any ideas I thought I could run with. But I'm back, with (hopefully) a decent idea in tow! This story is a full-length third part to the duology that was The Power of Love and Demons, where I'm going to explore the fallout of Cal's murder for Lily, Ethan and Dylan.
If you haven't read the other two, I'm not particularly good at brief summaries but I'll try, in order to get you up to speed. Lily and Ethan are a couple, and in the first story, an accident when they were both on a trauma call led to Lily's left foot being amputated. Dylan was the third doctor called when things went wrong, and his guilt (essentially it should have been him on the trauma team and not Lily) led to a battle with anxiety in my second story (along similar lines to his struggle with OCD in the show. Coincidence brought Lily and Dylan together when he was ina dark place, and they became very close friends. I think that just about summarises the story so far; I really hope this story is as well received as those two were!
Please leave me a review and let me know what you think of this chapter :D (oh, and a quick apology to theverystuffoflife - my amazing sounding board, beta and best online friend - because you'll probably recognise most of this chapter!)
Even before she opened her eyes, the first thing that Lily was aware of was a constant beeping sound. Monitoring equipment. Gaining consciousness gradually, she realised it had to be hers: the beeps seemed to match with the blood rushing in her ears. Next, her awareness settled on pain, just about everywhere, and then on the fact that she wasn't alone. This was reassuring – she knew that when she eventually opened her eyes she would have to experience a lot more pain than she was currently, not to mention that she would have to try and piece together what had happened to her. Fragments of memories were surfacing, but it didn't make much sense.
She was lucky; the lights had been turned down so she wasn't greeted by harsh fluorescent bulbs.
"Ouch," she said groggily, her eyes coming into focus to see Dylan sitting next to the bed. His elbows were rested tensely on his knees, his lips just touching his knuckles. He looked uneasy, anxious perhaps. Where was Ethan? Lily was immediately a little concerned, but soothed herself with the thought that Ethan was probably lending a hand in resus: she wouldn't want him to not help a patient on her account, and he knew this.
"I think 'ouch' might be a bit of an understatement," Dylan replied calmly. "I can up your morphine, if you need it."
"Please." She let out a tense breath as the mild sensation of the drug rippled through her bruised body. "What time is it?" She knew that it was better for her to remember what had brought her here, rather than have anyone tell her. She tried to gather a few memories together, none of them very pleasant, as Dylan checked his watch.
"Ten to twelve. Midnight," he added as an afterthought. Taking the accident into account, context clues were probably quite useful to her. "It's still Saturday, just."
Lily couldn't be certain, what with still feeling a little sleepy, but Dylan might have been stumbling over his words due to more than tiredness. And was that blood, tainting the cotton of his white shirt?
"Where's Ethan?" If it was nearly midnight, her accident – the car impact, she could remember that much – was hours ago. Hadn't she left the E.D originally at about seven thirty? Wait – Ethan hadn't been involved too, had he? "I can't remember, I can't remember! I shouldn't have asked for that morphine so soon, I can't even think straight!" Lily tried to sit up; in her haste and worry, she didn't stop to think about the pain this would cause. It felt like every muscle in her body was on fire, although the flames were somewhat dulled by the painkillers in her system. Flopping back on her pillow in defeat only seemed to exacerbate everything. She tried to breathe through the pain but there was no escape. She screwed her eyes shut and even her face protested with discomfort. "I wish you would just put me back under," she said hoarsely, her jaw set.
"You know I wouldn't do that," Dylan said. Lily concentrated on his voice, and then she felt his hand on her forearm. She focused on that, a beacon of stability. "How about don't try and do that again, for a little while at least? You're going to be all right, but just – just take care, okay?"
Lily hummed in agreement. She took a breath, testing the water. It was uncomfortable but tolerable. "What about Will, and Lizzie? Please tell me they're both okay!" Her breath hitched in her throat; she couldn't place her children in her sketchy memory of what had happened. Will, now four and a half, and Lizzie, who was almost a year old, had spent the day with their father while Lily had been at work, and she dreaded to think that her mind might have blocked out any thought of them coming to any harm.
"They're absolutely fine. They came in with Ethan when you were admitted, none of them was involved in your accident at all."
"I was hit by a car, is that right?" She looked up at the blank ceiling, relieved at least that her family was all right. "Was it Gem? She's not in any trouble, is she? It was an accident, I only wanted to help her." It was a snowball effect: one thought tumbled into the next, and the next.
"Don't – try not to panic." Dylan altered his choice of words because he knew how much they mattered. "It was Gemma, yes. She – um – she made Iain take her to the police station. She wanted to hand herself in, I believe, once she'd been patched her up herself."
Lily lifted her left arm painfully, to cover her mouth with her hand. "Oh my," she whispered. "Was she okay?"
"Superficial injuries, really, and the airbag irritated her eye rather a lot. It was you we were all worried about. Please try and break the habit of ending up in resus, I don't want to have to watch you arrest, ever again. I don't imagine Ethan was particularly happy either. Three broken ribs and a cracked sternum. You narrowly avoided a collarbone fracture, bruised your neck and back, although they were cleared at the scene, and your face isn't looking quite as it should."
If it wasn't so late, and she wasn't so tired, and she wasn't so shocked that she'd arrested in resus, Lily might have found Dylan's frank assessment of her face mildly entertaining. She tried her right arm – it wasn't as sore as her left – and clumsily tried to feel her face to assess the damage for herself. Immediately, Dylan pulled her hands away.
"Don't. Don't try and guess. You're bruised all up the right-hand side, and you need a second x-ray on that eye socket."
"Do you think it's broken?" Lily asked, frowning a little.
"I – I haven't read your notes – I don't know."
Lily couldn't shake the feeling in her stomach that something wasn't right with Dylan. She could hear the anxiety in his voice. There was something that he was keeping from her. "Will you check my eyes?" She didn't want to wait until morning to find out the fate of her possibly-broken eye socket, but this wasn't the reason she was asking him. She trusted his judgement implicitly, tired or not, but there was still a more important reason. This small act of deception might allow her to gauge (in part) what was going on in his head. When he nodded in agreement, Lily watched his hands intently. She saw them quiver as he checked her vision, and she wished she could change his thoughts. Using his thumbs, he silently felt around Lily's right eyes. This focus was also part of her plan – to try and get him thinking about something else. She winced as one of his thumbs brushed against a tender spot at the corner of her eye.
"Sorry."
"Don't be, it's fine. Verdict?"
He sat back in the chair, putting his hands together and intertwining his fingers. His attempt not to fidget was largely unsuccessful. "I would say that it's most likely not broken. But I feel obligated to remind you not to trust me, as I've been awake for about nineteen hours."
"And I am equally obligated to remind you that I trust you anyway." There was a moment's pause. "Give me a number?" Lily knew he was keeping his anxiety level a secret from her, which was why she had to revert to what they used to do. They hadn't done numbers in ages, but things were not as they should have been.
"Seven."
Lily hoped that her being a patient, rather than a colleague, didn't have anything to do with this. She hated the fact that in all likelihood, it was. She wanted to ask what was going on, but the morphine was snaking tendrils around her senses, and she couldn't think of a way to put it kindly. "Help me sit up, please," she said, instead.
At first, she didn't know why he was being so careful, helping her into a more upright position as if she was a doll. It wasn't until she became aware of the sting of road rash, as her skin rubbed against her pyjamas, that she was grateful for it. So many nerve endings exposed, this was a kind of rawness that painkillers couldn't do much about.
"What happened to my prosthetic?" she asked, the thought suddenly striking her that she wasn't wearing it, and she hadn't seen it in the room. Dylan leant down and picked it up from the floor. It was in a sorry state: skidding across tarmac was no better for plastic and metal than it was for skin. "Probably the only time in my life I was better off with only one foot, if this road rash is anything to judge by." As he set the damaged foot back on the floor, Lily got a decent look at his shirt. There was no denying it. It was stained stickily with blood, not just on the front but around the edges of his rolled-up sleeves too. "Dylan?"
He raised one eyebrow to show he was listening.
She fiddled with her wedding band, rotating it slightly on her finger. "That's not… that's not my blood, on your shirt, is it?"
He breathed out through his nose. "It's not yours, no."
A barrage of thoughts rushed to the front of Lily's mind. Dylan was wearing someone's blood and Ethan wasn't here. She truly could not remember whether he had been involved in the accident or not, but if he hadn't been, surely he would have at least looked in to see if she was okay by now? Dylan could easily have lied when he said that Ethan was unhurt.
"Dylan, where is Ethan?" There was no levity in her voice at all – she could feel her heartbeat heavy in her chest and she knew it would not slow down until she knew what was happening. Her face suddenly dropped in fear. "Is that Ethan's blood on your shirt?" Dylan didn't answer for a moment. He bit his lip, and Lily felt sick. "Dylan!"
"It's Cal's blood, Lily. Ethan's downstairs in the E.D, I didn't know how to tell you. The thing is, he's – Cal's… he's dead."
Lily's stomach clenched so tightly that for a moment she thought she really would be sick. This wasn't happening, it simply could not be true. She couldn't believe it, and she didn't want to. But she had to. Dylan wouldn't lie, not about something like this. She knew she should be upset, but she couldn't feel anything at all, not even the pain that had been driving her to distraction a few moments ago. Numb, she wished she could have a rush of emotion just to remind her that she was alive. Ethan had lost his brother, and she hadn't been there for him.
"When?" she asked, her voice quivering as at last her feelings began to filter through.
Dylan looked down at his hands. "About an hour ago. I was going home – I should have really gone home earlier than that, but then you were brought in, and there was some dreadful business with the Ellissons."
"What happened?" A tear escaped from her right eye and slid down her bruised face.
He sighed. "Um, we don't know, exactly. He was stabbed. By the time I found him he was nearly gone, but we got him into resus and we did everything we could –"
"That goes without saying, don't try and think of things you should have done. Stab wounds are unpredictable at best, the internal bleeding can be massive and you'd just never know." This wasn't new information to either of them, but it had to be said. He needed that reminder. "Stupid question, but are you all right?" She knew that this would be traumatic for anyone, coming across a colleague like that, but Dylan wasn't just anyone.
"It doesn't matter."
"It does," Lily persisted. This was where that 'seven' had come from.
"No, it doesn't, because I did everything I could and he still died. Internal heart massage, the works, I had him opened up in resus when he'd already been through enough – " Dylan pulled himself up short, frowning and shaking his head. "No, you don't need to hear that, not now." His expression slipped a little from his neutral mask, allowing Lily to see a little of how he was feeling. He was so deeply upset by his perceived failure that if Lily had been able, she would have been up out of the bed and giving him a hug. They didn't have that kind of friendship, they didn't do touchy-feely, but this was different.
"You did everything you could, you said it yourself. Cal –" Her voice trembled a little as she struggled to say his name. "He would not have asked for more than that, and neither would anyone else in this building." Lily could tell that although Dylan was nodding, he didn't agree with her. He wouldn't meet her gaze. "This is bound to be difficult, anyone would find it hard to deal with, but… you being you, and… I know how bad it could get, if you let it…" She wasn't doing a very good job of getting the words out that she wanted to. She was referencing Dylan's mental health: the anxiety that had been crushing after he believed he'd made mistakes with her care, the day she lost her left foot, and with the care of a patient who had died on his watch shortly afterwards.
"I'm fine," he insisted.
"You're just saying that because you don't want to worry me. I won't sit here and watch you beat the living daylights out of yourself, for something that was out of your control!" She had started softly, but her voice was rising with conviction. "Don't let history repeat itself!"
She hadn't intended to be so sharp; she half expected him to look hurt. But instead, he nodded in concession. "I'll try."
A few minutes later, out of the blue, Lily's eyes filled with hope. "I need your help," she said lightly. Her expression made Dylan reluctant to put a stopper in her plan, but he really had to.
"I can't, no way."
"I haven't even told you what I was thinking, yet!"
Dylan rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the pressure of the evening's events weighing on him heavily. "I don't have to, I know you: you want me to help you get down to the E.D. In the state you're in, I won't risk moving you. It hurt you enough just to sit up, I don't want to hurt you more."
"But Cal… My brother-in-law has been…" She paused. 'Murder' was such an ugly word, even worse when it had to be spoken aloud. "Cal's been murdered, Ethan needs me."
"Not like this, he doesn't." Although the primary reason for not wanting to move Lily had already been admitted, Dylan couldn't deny that he didn't want to face Ethan right now. It was easy to take on the role of concerned friend and use this as a cover for his own cowardice, as much as he truly did care about Lily, especially in her emotionally and physically vulnerable current state. "Ethan watched you nearly die, this evening, so I don't think he really wants to see you set back your recovery, just on his account." That was probably too harsh, but Dylan didn't care. There was a tight knot of nerves forming in his stomach, threatening to erupt at any second, and he felt safe here, away from the E.D., where it had all gone wrong, again.
The sting of Lily's skin against her sheets was a reminder that this hadn't been her best idea: she was defeated. It hadn't really been fair to drag Dylan into her escape plan, not when he was feeling fragile like this. "Am I allowed to go back to sleep, then? Tired," she mumbled, embarrassed.
"Allowed?" Dylan almost laughed, despite his deep-seated malaise. "You're a patient, not a child!"
Lily might have been disappointed that Dylan hadn't consented to help her get down to the E.D., but she wasn't refusing to play a little with his sarcastic streak. "You know exactly what I meant. Are you supposed to be keeping me awake? Did I hit my head?"
"Well, yes, but not hard enough for us to be keeping strict tabs on you. If you're tired, sleep is probably the best thing you can do." He stood up in order to help her lie down and inhaled sharply when she winced in pain. He looked at her sympathetically before making a move towards the door. "Do you need any more pain relief, before I go?"
She shook her head. "Will you –"
"Send Ethan up, when he's ready?" He finished her question for her, and she allowed herself to relax more deeply, smiling a little. "Course I will, don't be daft. Now just try and get some sleep."
Dylan knew full well that Lily would be asleep before he'd even made it back to the E.D. Walking along the hospital's brightly lit corridors, he didn't notice that he'd begun subconsciously wringing his hands as he approached the problem of answering police questions about the sudden murder of Caleb Knight, and the bigger problem of looking Ethan in the eye, as the brother left behind. He tried to tell himself that it was just another shift, another patient, albeit one whom he should have been able to save. He tried to compartmentalise, move one, pretend it hadn't happened. Pretend that his lies weren't going to catch up with him sooner rather than later.