I got steadily more and more drunk while writing this. You have been warned- read at your own risk.
The overhead lights in the car park flooded the garden with a harsh white light, highlighting Isaac's sunken eyes and firm stance. Dom was stood opposite him, slightly smaller and a lot less aggressive, more like a terrier than a pit bull. Over Isaac's shoulder, he could see Ange. She was stood by the trees with her hands in her pockets, eyes focused on him, but not intervening. He couldn't read her expression properly, he was too drunk for that, but she looked worried.
"Don't go." Dom whimpered, a pleading look in his eyes as he stared at Isaac. Isaac held eye contact for a few moments more, before sighing, turning, and walking off. At that moment, Dom felt something inside him crumble. Not in the sense of a wall crumbling, or a tower crashing to the ground, but in the sense of the last-person-he-could-possibly-confide-in-just-walked-away-from-him. That kind of crumbling. He felt tears from the debris start to leak down his cheeks, but his brain was oddly numb. Probably the alcohol, he thought to himself. All that was left in the garden was he and Ange, Dom's eyes fixed ashamedly on the floor, Ange watching on in sympathy. He stared after Isaac until he noticed she had come closer.
"He's gone." Dom said forlornly to no-one in particular, sounding lost.
"I watched." Ange nodded, taking another step forwards.
"Not just him. Lofty left. He said we were done." Sadly, Dom recounted the evening's events.
"Oh, Dom. I'm so sorry." Ange reached out a hand to his arm but he flinched away. Sudden memories of all the other times he's flinched away from touch come flooding back into his head, and he backs away from Ange. She must have realised why he looked like a deer in he headlights, and she retracted her hands immediately. His breathing was becoming shallow and his face was wracked with fear. Her heart broke, seeing her baby so terrified of her, so terrified that someone might hurt him again.
"I don't know what to do." He looked up slowly, meeting her eyes. He was suddenly so young, so vulnerable, Ange couldn't help herself.
"Come here." She stepped forward, collecting him into her arms. He stiffened initially but finally crumpled, allowing himself to be pressed against her. He hugged her tightly, and she bent her head in towards his neck.
"I don't know what to do." He repeated, the tears choking his speech, his chest beginning to heave. Ange remained silent. She didn't have the answer to his statement.
"I have nobody." He sobbed, feeling Ange run her fingers through his hair.
"You have me. You'll always have me." She tried to assure him.
"You left. You'll leave again, how do I know you wont leave again? You dont want me, you said it yourself. You dont want this. I'm a mess." He shook himself from her grasp, backing away slightly.
"Oh, Dom, sweetheart. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry." Ange's voice broke. This was all her fault.
"What happened to your nose?" She remembered suddenly. There was a bruise covering his nose and mouth, dried blood on his lips. Dom rolled his eyes, Ange reprimanding him silently with her eyes.
"What happened? Was that him? Did Isaac do it?" The realisation dawned on her face, and with it, anger.
"It was Lofty." Dom shook his head.
"What?" Surprised, Ange glanced back towards the hospital, as if she was tempted to go in there and find him.
"I dont think he meant to. I accidentally hit him when I was turning around, he just lashed out." Dom explained.
"It's still bleeding. Pinch your nose, I'm taking you home." Ange sighed, resting her hand on his elbow and leading him towards her car.
"You've been drinking." He said in surprise.
"It was virgin, I haven't drunk in years. Come on."
"I think I'm going to be sick." Dom stopped suddenly, turning around towards the bushes.
"Course you are." Ange sighed again under her breath. She followed Dom to the edge of the bushes, where he bent over and re-met his drunken mistakes.
"Alright. There we go." Ange winced at the smell of alcohol as she held him by the shoulders.
"Done?" She asked, daring to brush his now-floppy hair from his forehead as he moved to stand up. He nodded, accepting her offer of a tissue and wiped his mouth grimly. He let her lead him to her car and climbed into the passenger side, immediately noticing the collection of crumpled tissues next to the clutch. She realised what he was looking at and brushed them towards the backseat, cursing herself in her head.
Jesus Christ, that woman cries a lot, Dom thought.
"Where are we going?" He asked as Ange pulled out of her parking spot, flicking on the headlights and turning onto the main road.
"My house." She answered. He didn't know where she lived, or if she lived with anyone, which he probably should have asked but was too tired and drunk to force the words out.
"I'm sorry for what I said, earlier. About you and Fletch." Dom apologised.
"I was going to wait until you've sobered up to yell at you for that. I want you to remember it." Ange said, a steely expression on her face, eyes fixed on the road. Dom glanced at her in alarm, before realising that she was now smiling.
"Joking." She clarified.
"But seriously, I'm sorry." Dom said genuinely. They were now driving along the suburb streets of Holby, rows of nice-looking terraced houses rushing past either window.
"It's fine. Chloe's drank a hell of a lot more and said a hell of a lot worse." Ange said with a smile. Dom scoffed, finding it hard to believe that Chloe, sharp as she was, would ever say something spiteful to her mother. Before he had a chance to reply, the car pulled up on the kerb of a quiet street.
"Here we are. Come on then, let's sort your nose out. I don't think it's broken but you never know." Ange pulled the keys out of ignition, leading him through the (slightly wild) front garden of a house, almost identical to every other one on the street. Dom made a mental reminder to offer to mow the grass when he was less drunk.
There was a basket of flowers hanging next to the door, slightly overgrown but pretty all the same, and there was the soft glow of a lamp from the front window. Ange opened the front door without a key, meaning that someone else must be home. He knew Chloe was staying with Evan, and this didn't look like a flat-convert, so she must have a partner.
He stepped hesitantly into the hallway, which was dark, but there were blue reflections from the television on the wall in the first room, which was blocked by the partially closed door. Ange opened it to reveal an empty living room, decorated in a homely way, with wooden frames on the mantepiece and a childish painting of a house on a hill framed above the sofa.
"Sit there. Let me grab the first aid kit." Ange said, shrugging her coat off onto the sofa and dropping her backpack by the door. Dom sat in the middle of the L shaped sofa, taking this opportunity to gaze around the room, finally focusing on the finger painting. It looked a fair few years old but well-preserved. However, in the corner where he expected to read 'Chloe', there was instead a messy but clear print of 'Grace'. Dom wrinkled his eyebrows in confusion but was quickly distracted by the sound of feet padding down the carpeted staircase and pause outside the door.
"You're back late, sweetheart, busy day?- oh!" Dom recognised the voice immediately, as none other than Connie Beauchamp. She had pushed the door open, obviously expecting Ange, and was met by a man with a bloodied nose sitting on her sofa. Dom's eyes widened as he processed what this must mean, but Connie didn't seem too surprised. She must have known about him.
"What happened to you? Looks nasty." She smiled sympathetically from the door frame.
"Accident. Sorry, am I dreaming this, or-" Dom started before Connie interrupted him.
"Oh. Sorry. Connie. I think we've met before, I work in the ED." She introduced herself, sitting in the checked armchair opposite the sofa.
"No, I know who you are, but what are you doing in my mother's house?" Dom questioned, wanting to clarify his thinking.
"You don't know? You'd think she was ashamed of me." Connie laughed. Ange had never been forward about their relationship, but then again, neither was she.
"Scaring the horses?" Ange's voice surprised both of them. She was stood in the doorway with her eyebrows raised, holding the first aid kit.
"I'll go put the kettle on, leave you two to it." As Connie stood up to leave, she smiled bracingly at Ange, wishing her luck, and then pressing her lips to her cheek on her way out of the room. Dom's eyebrows raised too as he finally put two and two together.
"You didn't tell me you were gay." He said accusingly as she kneeled on the floor in front of him, unpacking the first aid kit.
"Sorry, it's kind of been on the back burner since, you know." She trailer off.
"I found out you were my mother." Dom finished her sentance and Ange nodded in agreement.
"So, Connie Beauchamp?"
"That was the first thing Chloe said as well. We started seeing each other when she was a teenager, and you can imagine how that went down." Ange laughed.
"Oh right, so you were together before you came to Holby?" Dom asked, genuinely curious. He would never have guessed Ange was gay. Maybe it ran in the genes?
"Who do you think got me and TCG the job? I mean, there probably weren't a huge amount of applicants, given Holby's recent reputation, but still. The YAU is partially down to Connie's influence over Hanssen." Dom nodded in understanding.
"Ow!" He squealed suddenly, as Ange tried to clean up his face.
"Sorry!" Ange jumped back immediately, searching his face for any sign of pain. Meeting his eyes, she realised that he was laughing, and allowed herself to laugh too.
"You okay?" She checked, before finishing the job and sitting next to him. Ange folded her legs under herself, her knees resting on top of Dom's thighs.
"So. What happened with Lofty, then? Is there anyone else I need to threaten?"
Dom shook his head, before collecting himself. He needed to tell her.
"He cheated on me, while he was in America." He revealed, twisting his hands around each other. It still felt surreal to say.
"Oh my God." She looked at him in shock. No wonder he had been searching for someone to hang on to.
"Yep. Apparently I was being distant."
Ange's lips pursed in realisation that Dom had been being distant because of her own actions.
"I'm sorry." She said, bowing her head.
"Don't be. It's shown me what kind of person he really is. I'm glad I know, now." Dom told her honestly.
"Are you going to forgive him?" She asked.
"I'm not sure. I don't know if I can." Ange reached out to squeeze his hand in consolation, truly sorry for any part she might have played in their break up.
Later that evening, Connie cautiously peered around the living room door, having not heard talking for quite some time, and more than a little bit nervous that one of them had ended up killing the other and then jumping out the window. However, she was met with the sight of mother and son curled up, both asleep on the sofa while a gardening programme finished on the telly. Smiling to herself, she unfolded a blanket and draped it over the two of them, flicking off the light on her way up to bed.