I watched the bomb storyline on Holby City this week and my thoughts naturally turned to the people who worked in the ED, who would presumably also be evacuated (unless it's a completely separate building, but for the purposes of this story, the ED will be evacuated). This story will feature most, if not all the main characters, but as time goes on, it's likely I'll focus on Cal, Ethan and Lily because I won't be able to help myself.

This story will explore the working relationships between Connie and Rita, and Dylan and Lofty, but there won't be any romance. Though you can always imagine it if you want to.

I'm sorry to mention Taylor again, but I don't think any of Cal's other girlfriends were around long enough to have a name.

I'll try to update every day to help make up for being deprived of Casualty.

Ethan wished he knew what was going on. Honey kept insisting everything was fine, but only on the rare occasions when he managed to get hold of her. Her phone always seemed to go to voicemail and his many texts went unanswered. He didn't even see her much at work anymore as she was working fewer shifts. He'd thought about trying to find out why, but it didn't seem right to go checking up on his own girlfriend.

Besides, Honey would hate it and Ethan didn't want that.

Honey spent far too much time hating everything he did already.

Ethan's phone vibrated as a text arrived.

He'd been longing for a text all day, but now it had arrived, he was scared of looking at it.

He sighed at his own stupidity. He didn't even know if it was from Honey. It might be from Cal saying they'd run out of milk again. Cal was always sending texts like that. Anyone would think he didn't know you could walk into a supermarket and buy some more. Did he think Ethan went up to the farm and milked one of the cows or something?

You'd think Cal would enjoy squeezing a cow's udders. Some of his girlfriends had been cows, after all.

There was no point in getting worked up over a text that might be from Cal.

Ethan counted to three and looked to see who the text was from.

It was from Honey.

Rita smiled as kindly at the patient as she could, but inside, she was seething. It wasn't the first complaint of this nature and it also wasn't the first to have been levelled against Louise.

But the thing that worried Rita most was the fact that the woman wasn't making a complaint at this moment. She was letting Rita know that she'd already made it.

"I am sorry you felt the need to make a complaint," she said. "I can assure you, that kind of thing is unusual in our hospital, but Nurse Tyler is very new to the job." She paused, knowing she had no real right to ask the next question, but forewarned was forearmed. "Can I ask who you made the complaint to?"

"A very nice lady called Mrs Beauchamp," said the woman.

Zoe walked out of Resus and leaned against the wall for a moment, massaging her temples. It was fair to say she was having a difficult day.

A difficult, noisy day.

"Zoe? Are you all right?" said Dylan.

Zoe jumped. "Dylan, I didn't see you there. You nearly gave me a heart attack."

"Heart attacks are caused by a blockage in the supply of blood to the heart," said Dylan. "I highly doubt I could be responsible for one of those."

Zoe sighed. "You know what I mean, Dylan. It's just a saying."

Dylan looked at her for a moment. "You're not all right, are you?"

"Oh, I'm fine," said Zoe with another sigh. "I've just got a splitting headache and all those machines beeping away don't help. It's odd: most of the time I don't even notice them, I'm so used to them, but today I'm hearing every single beep and shriek and howl and moan..."

Dylan looked concerned. Not everyone would recognise that look as a concerned look, but Zoe did, every time.

"I could lend you my noise-reducing headphones," he said.

"You know what? That actually sounds perfect," said Zoe. "I don't suppose it reduces the patients too?"

Cal was slinking off for a slightly early break. All his patients had been discharged and it seemed silly to go and call some more patients, only to leave them in cubicles for twenty minutes while he had a coffee and got some fresh air. He heard the emergency phone ringing and moved away from it as quickly as he could: he hadn't gone to bed quite as early as he should have done last night and he needed caffeine urgently.

"Dr Knight," said Connie's voice.

Cal froze. Then he decided to pretend he hadn't heard and started walking again.

"Dr Knight, I know you heard me. Believe me, you wouldn't be my first choice to assist me, but Dr Chao is with a patient; Dr Hanna has gone for her break; Dr Keogh is not yet back from his; and I have no idea where Dr Hardy is."

Cal had a feeling Ethan was probably staring despondently at his mobile phone and willing Honey to call him, but he decided not to tell Connie about that. He turned and gave Connie a weak smile. "So what's the problem, Mrs Beauchamp?"

"An incident at the women's prison. One prisoner attacked the other. She's on her way in now."

"Right," said Cal a bit faintly. "That's fine. I'll help you."

There were a lot of women in that prison after all. The chances of its being someone he knew were very small.

Connie gave him a look that made him feel significantly smaller. "Dr Knight, it wasn't a request."

"Okay," said Robyn. "Let's try it again."

She was trying to stay cheerful, but her patience was beginning to fray at the edges. She didn't want to be unkind, but she was finding it a bit difficult to believe that Louise had worked as a nurse before. She had almost no bedside manner; very little interest in the patients, and she could never remember anything she was told.

"So let's say I'm a patient," said Robyn. "You have to give me a blood test and I'm really scared of needles."

"Everyone's scared of needles," said Louise dismissively. "Why should some people get more attention just because they're making a fuss?"

"Because not everyone is equally scared," said Robyn.

Louise sighed. "But they can't seriously believe any trained nurse would actually want to stab them."

"Well, in the first place, fear makes you have irrational thoughts so they're not going to be capable of that kind of logic," said Robyn. "Secondly, needlestick injuries can happen by accident and the patients are probably aware of this."

"But it's not common, is it?" said Louise. "And if it does, it's their fault, not ours."

Robyn thought it would be a bit unkind to wish someone else was Louise's mentor. Even if it was a secret wish right inside her head that she wasn't even going to tell Lofty.

But she did wonder if she was the right person for the job.

Lily liked to think that she was good at dealing with difficult patients. She never tried to be friendly towards them like Cal did or over-kind like Ethan, but she usually managed to get her point across and even the most unco-operative of patients generally wilted in the face of the newly-qualified registrar.

Unfortunately, she now found herself treating one of the few exceptions.

"But you need to have this scan, Melissa," said Lily. "You could have a very serious head injury which needs treatment, but before we can do that, we need to confirm it."

Melissa was sobbing. "No, I can't. I can't!"

"Why not?" said Lily. She had asked this before, more than once, but she had not been satisfied with the answer.

"Because it comes right down over your head!" wailed Melissa. "It feels like I'm going to die! I can't do it. I can't."

"Of course it comes down over your head," said Lily. "It needs to do that in order to scan your head. Please be sensible."

"I am being sensible!" cried Melissa. "No-one with any sense would go in there and I've got sense so I'm not doing it."

Lily tried again. "If you don't have the scan, we won't know if you have a serious head injury. If you do have a serious head injury, you could die."

"I'll die if I go in that scanner!" sobbed Melissa. "So I might as well go home and die. I'm not going to do it and you can't make me!"

Charlie watched, resigned, as Louis stormed out of his hospital room. It had happened almost every time Louis had visited, but he tried to console himself with the thought that Louis' visits were gradually becoming longer and longer. This time, he'd stayed for almost twenty minutes before his frustration and emotion had overwhelmed him.

Jacob sent him a sympathetic smile. "You need me to go after him?"

Charlie smiled back, grateful for his kindness. "No, it's all right. It's difficult for him. It's better to leave him alone now."

A lot of nurses would have gone after Louis anyway, but Jacob nodded before returning his attention to the young patient beside Charlie. Jacob always listened to what Charlie said and accepted that he knew his own mind – and his own son.

Jacob finished with his patient and came to Charlie's side. "How are you doing then, Nurse? I heard you might be out of here soon."

"The sooner I'm out, the sooner I'll be back," said Charlie.

Jacob laughed. "How did I know you were going to say that? Now what I'm supposed to say now is 'one step at a time' and 'let's not go getting ahead of ourselves', but if there's anyone who already knows that, it's you. Besides, you're probably now strong enough to hit me over the head with that drip if I start talking in clichés."

"Stronger every day," said Charlie.

"I can see you are," said Jacob. "And it's good to see, Charlie. I've seen a lot of good things since I came here. Lives saved. Crises averted. Mrs Beauchamp's sweet cheeks. But the thing that makes me happiest is you getting better and I don't think there's one person in this hospital who's going to disagree with me."