Zoe looked at the clock in her office that seemed to be moving obnoxiously slowly today, she still had 8 hours left on shift and the ED was annoyingly and strangely quiet. Usually she would go and find Max on days like these to pass time but she couldn't even do that today since she had been avoiding him ever since she had stormed out of their apartment leaving him to find his own way to work. It all started about 10 minutes before they were due to leave for work and Max had sprung on her that his mother was in town and they were going out for dinner with her later. To say she was fuming was an understatement and after an argument of how she refused to go Zoe stormed out of the apartment and left for work.

She was interrupted from her thoughts when her bleeper went off signalling she was needed downstairs; sighing Zoe got herself up and headed downstairs.

Zoe arrived just in time to see her case coming through the ED doors and she rushed over to where Dixie and Iain were. When she got there she realised who the patient was. The person who was the cause of her argument this morning. Max's mum.

She quickly jumped into action trying her best to save this woman's life despite the injuries that a larger part of her was screaming to her that they were too serious to survive. And despite her best efforts 25 minutes later she was dead even though she tried hard, harder than she would for most to save the woman who meant so much to Max. To be truly honest when she came through the door deep down Zoe knew she wasn't going to make it but she tried anyway and only stopped when Charlie dragged her away from performing CPR.

Before she left the room Zoe turned to Charlie "Can you find Max for me and send him to my office, I think this news needs to come from me"

"Sure, are you okay Zoe?" Charlie asked concerned for the person who he saw as a daughter.

"I'm fine, I just need some air" Zoe replied as she walked out of the room.

A short while later Zoe arrived at her office and saw Max through the window pacing back and forth in the small room. She took and deep breath and then entered.

"Zoe" Max exclaimed as she entered the room rushing over to her "what happened? is she ok? Are you okay you look like you've been crying?" he rambled on.

"Max stop, let's sit down yeah?" Zoe said while pulling him over to sit on the sofa with her "I'm really sorry Max I tried everything but we lost her" Zoe told him and watched him breakdown.

She pulled him into her and let him cry for a long time until he picked his head up to look at her "what happened?" he managed to croak out.

Zoe took a deep breath "she got hit by a bus, there really was nothing we could do Max she had multiple internal bleeds and a brain injury, I'm so sorry"

They sat there together for hours, him crying and her trying to comfort him. When Zoe tried to get up to go to the toilet a while later he held her even tighter than he was before restricting her from leaving.

"Please don't leave me, I can't lose you as well Zoe please don't go" Max broke down sobbing onto her shoulder making her heart break into a million pieces their argument this morning completely forgotten by both.

"I'll never leave you Max, not again, no matter how much you infuriate me sometimes you aren't going to lose me because I love you far too much for that. I promise" Zoe started, looking into his eyes "Max some may leave you because that's the way hat life works, people will leave whether they want to or not but I promise that I will stay with you until I breathe my last breath. Saying goodbye is hard I know, especially when you're not ready but you will get through this and I will help you. Okay?"

Max nodded "Okay" he replied and then kissed her touched by the speech she just gave him.

Hi guy this is just something I thought of that didn't really fit into my other story. I'm not really sure what I think of it but I thought I'd post it anyway. Please leave your opinions xx