This is a story of Ethan, post-Cal's death, and the department helping him through.
It might become a multichap, of various people and Ethan, though that depends if I've got the staying power to achieve that.
He can't sleep, because when he sleeps, he thinks of Cal.
He can't sit in the flat, because he thinks of Cal.
Most nights, he just wanders the streets of the Holby Estate, an area that he probably (definitely) would never have set foot in before…before it happened. Before he was in a pub when his brother was less than five minutes away, dying without his brother. But now, he doesn't care; maybe he'll bump into an Ellison: maybe he'll end this, once and for all. Maybe he'll just meet someone who doesn't give a damn about who he is, and hurt him, the way he should be hurt.
But every night he walks, and every night, nobody goes near him. Sometimes it rains and sometimes it's cold, but he doesn't wear anything over his shirt. Cal died in a shirt, in the rain, alone.
Then he goes to work, and he's a robot, barely looking at the patient as he works out what's wrong with them. He turns up late, responds sharply if someone asks him a question, and walks out as soon as his shift is officially over, regardless of what the patient situation is like.
He sees his colleagues looking at him, then at each other, though they don't tend to say anything. They don't know what to say. He knows that. They haven't lost a brother, only a colleague. They've moved on; it's almost as if his brother had never existed. Sam Strachan's interviewing consultants for their jobs, and still talking of sacking someone. His brother's sacrifice didn't count for anything.
"Ethan." He hears Alicia calling his name, but he ignores her. He's got one more patient in cubicles to assess before he's heading off for lunch. It's Chinese today, he thinks. That's Cal's favourite hangover food…or, rather, it was. Nothing is Cal's anymore, because Cal isn't here. He's dead. "Ethan."
Ethan turns around, his expression hard. He almost feels the need to push his glasses up his nose, before he remembers that he isn't wearing them anymore.
"What do you want?"
She flinches at his tone, but he doesn't care. They could have been something, but everything's tainted by Cal. If he hadn't gone after his brother's girlfriend (or whatever they were), wouldn't he still be alive?
"You shouldn't be alone all the time," Alicia replies, her voice gentle. "I came round last night after work, but you'd gone."
He shrugs, but doesn't say anything. He doesn't know what to say. He's not sorry; he doesn't care if he's hurt her feelings. He doesn't care about anything, so what's the point in pretending?
"You can talk to me, you know, if you need to," Alicia continues. This is where the old Ethan would have jumped in and made sure that she knew that he was okay, and that he knew he could talk to her.
He's not alright though, so why pretend?
"I know…" he just about manages to force himself to say. "Look, I've got to go. Patients to see."
He turns suddenly, before Alicia can say anything else, and immediately starts walking towards the cubicle on the side of the room closest to him. All he wants to do is escape the questions of are you okay and can we help you at all, because that's not what he needs.
That's not going to bring Cal back, is it?
.x.
She watches him walk away with a frown on her face, a tear silently sliding down her cheek. She wipes it away subconsciously, her eyes still focused on where Ethan walked away from just seconds ago.
He's different now. She knows that that's normal; he's lost a brother, after all, the only family he had left. But he's different, too, not just because Cal's gone. He doesn't want anyone's help; it's as if he wants to almost join Cal.
She's gone to his house every night after work and waited at least an hour or two before leaving. She's called, though his phone generally goes straight to voicemail outside of working hours. She's tried to work with him, but he's insisted that he needs to work alone.
And nobody seems to be doing anything to change this.
Mrs Beauchamp says that she's keeping an eye on him, though Alicia thinks she's more concerned with flirting with Sam Strachan than keeping an eye on her staff. Charlie's told everyone to give Ethan some space, that he's grieving – which is true, but he's a danger to himself. Dylan doesn't seem to register that other people actually experience emotions, and neither Max nor Noel know exactly what to say to the junior doctor.
Nobody seems to care, and she's sick of it.
On the spur of the moment, she turns on her heel in the direction of Mrs Beauchamp's office. She shouldn't do this, at least not like this, but when has Alicia Munroe exerted any form of control?
She peers inside to see Connie sitting, with Sam standing very close – much closer than anyone would normally dare to get to the Clinical Lead. The whole thing with Sam was a ridiculous thing that she regrets more than anything else, though she would never have thought that he would be Connie Beauchamp's type. Though, in all honesty, she knows that Connie's definitely his: he likes someone in power.
Rashly, she doesn't bother knocking as she pulls the door open, stepping inside and shutting the door with a bang.
Both Connie and Sam jump slightly, and Sam immediately takes five steps – almost jumps – backwards. Not that there's much point; there's a departmental sweepstake on how long it'll take for them to start a relationship, or whatever Sam's capable of doing.
Immediately, Connie's expression rearranges into something somewhat stern. "Doctor Munroe, you do understand that there is a policy of knocking before entering? What do you want?"
Without even looking in Sam's direction, Alicia takes a step forwards.
"I think you should be doing more to help Ethan," she says, her tone sharp. As she speaks, she notices Connie's expression almost becoming…dangerous? She's too used to being unchallenged. "His brother's dead and you've just let him come back to work without even supervising him? He's not coping, and someone should do something about it."
Connie's eyebrow raises slightly – a danger sign, Alicia's well aware – and she exchanges a short glance with Sam before she responds.
"I appreciate your concern for a colleague, but questioning my judgement is not the way to go, Doctor Munroe. Do you understand?" She waits for Alicia to nod before continuing. "I will speak to Doctor Hardy shortly – I had plans to anyway, though I'm not sure why I should justify my decisions to a junior doctor."
Alicia bites her tongue, just about ready to challenge Mrs Beauchamp though just about manages to restrain herself. Losing her job wouldn't help anyone, would it?
"I just think that he's…too much like y-" Alicia doesn't mean to say it, but it comes out anyway.
Now both of Connie's eyebrows are raised, and her mouth has fallen open in astonishment. It's rare to see the Clinical Lead shocked, but Alicia's managed it. Though it's not what she was hoping for, the first time she sees Connie Beauchamp laugh.
"Too much like me?" Connie finishes what Alicia couldn't, and laughs bitterly. "Well, this is a surprise. I think it's time that you get out of my office before you say anything that could get you fired."
.x.
"Can you believe her?" Connie mutters, as Alicia closes the door to her office. "I mean, I've had insubordinate registrars," she says, looking directly at Sam, "but I've never had an F2 have the audacity to insult me to my face."
Sam smiles a little. "Well, I mean, she has a point," he says, causing Connie to look at him in confusion. "You should probably keep a closer eye on him. He's going to kill someone at this rate."
Connie slaps his arm, though probably not hard enough to actually hurt him. "Don't say something like that! I've analysed his cases so far, and he's not been given anything particularly difficult. He needs to be here. It's the only way that he knows how to get through the day." Her voice is wistful, and she hopes that Sam doesn't press this further.
He doesn't; he knows her too well to bother.
"So what are you going to do?" Sam presses, taking a seat on Connie's side of the desk again. His leg brushes against her arm, and it distracts her for a millisecond. It's almost as if she's a teenager again; it's ridiculous. "After all, I am Medical Director, I should really know about these things."
Connie rolls her eyes, and leans back so that she can look at him directly. "I'm going to look after my team, as I've always done, Mr Strachan." Forget being a teenager, she feels like she's the Clinical Lead on Darwin again. "It's time for you to leave. People will be getting suspicious."
"See you tonight?"
Connie ignores Sam and his question as he walks out, though she can't help but smile at the almost goofy expression on his face as he walks out the door. It's probably going to be the last time that she smiles for the next few hours.
.x.
He spends lunchtime outside, nursing a cup of coffee that he doesn't really want to drink. He got it for Cal – he's never been a coffee fan, except for those nights when he really had to get work done at university. But Cal's not here anymore, and he's not going to be able to drink it.
The memorial for his brother remains pretty well kempt. He hasn't gone near it since his first day back, though he can see it relatively clearly from here. He gets a strange, stupid desire to put the coffee down there, so that his brother can drink it. But that would be stupid. Cal's gone and he isn't coming back.
It's probably time for him to go back in, but he doesn't really want to. None of his patients are going to die from sitting in cubicles for ten minutes longer than they should do. Nor is he going to exactly tax himself mentally if he goes back in. Mrs Beauchamp won't give him any cases more complex than an upset stomach, though he knows why she's done it. He's a potential liability. If he was her, he'd do exactly the same.
Doesn't help him now though.
Somewhere within his pocket, he hears his bleeper go off, but he ignores it.
Then it goes off again.
And again.
And again.
Finally, he picks it up to find a message for him to go to Mrs Beauchamp's office, immediately. Normally, this would cause him to start sweating, worried that he'd done something wrong, that he'd made a mistake that he can't fix.
Now, he just shrugs and stands up, dropping the coffee in the rubbish bin nearest to the entrance. It plops in, and the coffee splashes up against the side.
If only Cal was here to have drank it.
Almost in a daze, Ethan reenters the department and heads to Mrs Beauchamp's office, not bothering to knock as he enters. She's expecting him, though he doubts that she bleeped him personally. Mrs Beauchamp's got enough minions to do that for her.
"You wanted to see me, Mrs Beauchamp." He says it as a fact, as though he's telling her that the sky is blue today, no emotion in his voice.
Her face flickers, and that should be a warning sign, but it isn't. Nothing is anymore.
"Shut the door and take a seat, Doctor…Ethan. I'd like to have a chat with you."
Here it is. The pastoral chat that he had half-hoped would never appear, because when has Connie Beauchamp given a damn about anyone other than her daughter?
(Deep down, he knows this is bollocks, but that doesn't mean that he's going to challenge himself over it now.)
"So…I'd like an honest answer as to how you are doing," Connie begins, after a short silence. Ethan isn't willing to start a conversation; he doesn't even really want to be here.
"I'm fine." Short, snappy, to the point. There's nothing else to say.
She raises a brow, and he can sense that she's not satisfied. Why couldn't she just be like his old Clinical Lead, back on his final F2 rotation, who took "I'm fine" and rolled with it? Why does she have to care?
"You may not know this, but I lost my father shortly before I returned to Holby," she begins, and immediately Ethan tenses. Is she going to try and compare her loss to his? "It's what inspired me to move to the Emergency Department, because he died too soon and in a terrible situation."
"I'm sorry," Ethan begins, not sorry at all. His tone is sharp and harsh, the opposite of everything Ethan Hardy normally is. "But are you really trying to compare losing your father to the death of my brother? The murder of my brother, which happened right outside of these doors, and that nobody apparently saw coming? Because if you are, don't bother. I don't care."
He expects her to get angry. She doesn't.
Instead, she reaches out and places a box of tissues on the top of her desk. Strange. Connie Beauchamp can cry?
"I'm not trying to compete with you, Ethan," Connie says, her voice gentle in a way that he's never heard before. "I'm just telling you that I know what it's like to lose someone in the worst way possible. And I'd like to see some progress in you dealing with your grief, because I'm worried about you. We all are."
He hadn't ever thought about Connie's life outside of Holby. He still doesn't really care, but he can just about bring himself to admit that she's got a point. Not a very good one, but it's a point – and it's one that he has to pass to continue to distract himself with work.
"I'm fine," he repeats, though with a little less aggression in his voice. "Okay," he continues, when he looks at her face and sees that she's unwilling to accept this. "It's hard. Really hard. I can't sleep because he should be there. I can't eat because everything tastes like food that he made – burnt and oily. I can't breathe sometimes because I remember seeing him lying there, dead, and I couldn't do anything to stop it, to say anything to him, that I love him, that I wish it was me and not him because he didn't do anything other than trying to protect his little, stupid brother, and I can't stop that and…and…" he stops, because he can't speak anymore. He's gasping, and suddenly he's crying, and the tears that he didn't want to let out have been let out.
It's an avalanche of emotion and pain and suffering, and he doesn't know exactly when, but Connie's suddenly on the other side of the desk and by his side, her arm around his shoulders. It shouldn't be comforting but, strangely, it is. This is the one person he never expected to give a damn about his well-being, and yet here she is.
"I'm not going to tell you it's going to be okay, because it isn't, not yet anyway," she says quietly, and he values her honesty. "But shutting yourself away isn't going to help you, Ethan. You need your friends around you. Tell them to be quiet, to do nothing, or tell them to keep talking constantly about anything so that you're never alone with your thoughts. Just keep them close. Don't shut yourself off, because it won't help."
He's talking suddenly, through the tears, of him and Cal. Stories from their past, stories that he's told friends, but never dreamed of telling Connie Beauchamp. When he spiked Cal's cake with salt rather than sugar and got him grounded. When Cal applied for medical school and made Ethan pretend to be three examiners at once, but couldn't stop laughing long enough to answer the questions when Ethan appeared in their mother's dress and pearls. Where the 'nibbles' nickname came from. Why they kept their different surnames – and not just because they were working in the same hospital. Why Ethan hates the dark and why Cal could never quite bring himself to taunt his little brother over it.
Why they loved each other and hated each other, and could never imagine life without the other.
She listens to every word he says, responding appropriately, and doesn't try and rush him. She doesn't try and tell him that this is irrelevant, because maybe, this is something that helps. He doesn't know yet. All he knows is that the grief is raw, and he doesn't know whether it was a good or a bad thing that she forced him to start thinking about Cal…and the fact that he's actually gone, and he isn't coming back.
Ethan glances up at the clock to see that it's been over two hours since he first entered the office. Maybe she does actually care, he thinks to himself: normally, the average time someone spends in this office is three minutes and forty-two seconds. Cal tended to time it, of course.
"I'm sorry," he mutters, but she shakes her head.
"Don't be ridiculous," she responds, reaching out and grabbing a bottle of unopened water from the side of the office. "Here, you need to keep hydrated."
"Remember that my door is always open," Connie says, and Ethan actually believes it. "I'm here whenever you need to talk, or just have somewhere to sit in silence. I don't want you to rush into anything you feel uncomfortable with, nor do I want you to be here if you decide you don't want to be. We can do without you, for as long as you need. Just…remember to communicate, Ethan. We're all here for you, no matter what the voices in your head might think."
She gets it, he can tell. The voices that nobody really cares about your loss, that they're just doing it to be nice…they're there, most of the time.
"Thank you," he mutters, and makes to stand up.
"Take your time," Connie urges, though she does stand up. "I've spoken to Charlie, and he's arranged for a few of your friends to shorten their shifts so that they finish when you're ready to leave."
He makes to protest, then realises there's no point. He shouldn't alienate himself. She's right…probably.
"Thanks."
.x.
He's not alright. He's nowhere near alright. He still doesn't care if anything happens to him, and if he sees Scott Ellison, he'll kill him.
But it helps, knowing that at least one person in the Emergency Department cares.
I'd be incredibly grateful if you could leave some feedback, if you've read to the end! Thank you :)