Hello! I was originally not going to write a chapter two, but I got so many lovely reviews that I kinda felt inspired. There might also be a chapter three in me, but it might take a while :') Again, please be kind!


Day Seven

Choking on oxygen, the ventilators uttered orchestral groans, shuddering under the harsh anbaric light. Nurses snapped and strangled the fluid bags, wringing their necks and adjusting their valves, liquid dribbling down the spindly, translucent tubes in shaky compliance. The clock on the wall ticked away, tutting meekly at the two unconscious surgeons and their inability to rise.

Gently, almost tentatively, the door found itself pushed open.

Sacha Levy entered the silent space of intensive care, side-stepping the first bed he met in guilty favour of the other. Lifelines snaked around the waxen figure swallowed by the chaste, chalk covers, and his eyes chased the vines of machine support tucked into her skin. Caged by metal and plastic and oblivion, Jac Naylor had never seemed so small.

She was his best friend. This brilliant woman was his best friend. He did not muse on that impossibility often enough. His knuckles grew white as they gripped the cold, metallic bedframe, all the guilt and all the pain channelled into the strength of his grasp around the caging cylinder and the stretch of his fattened and curling fingertips.

She was supposed to be the strong one. His constant in the changing tide of hospital comings and goings. Now look at her. Poked and prodded, dull and defunct, twitching face and animated breath the only signs of the life he knew she still had within her.

Sacha tried to swallow away his guilt until the beep of the pager clipped to his pocket tore him away from the solace of quiet contemplation. It was in that moment, as the sadness tugged at his heart, that he decided.

He'd conjure up enough strength for the both of them.

Day Eight

The door clattered against the wall, its handle pressed into the slight dent in the brick. Sacha nudged through, hands too busy with an amethyst tin to bother saving the plaster. Carefully, he balanced the snack upon her sheathed shins, scanning her face for any notion of protest. When her eyebrow quivered in some unspoken mirth, he could almost convince himself of her consciousness.

"Don't give me that look. Would you buy it if I said the diet starts tomorrow?" He relaxed into the seat next to her, consuming a crater in the crinkled material. Frowning, he scratched at the orange stain rubbed carelessly into her once-white sheets.

He could only pretend she had answered him. "I thought not." Sacha shrugged apologetically. "Anyway, you know how impossible it is to resist the sickly-sweet allure of the Darwin biscuit tin. Elliot always knew how to keep it well stocked. It seems you follow in his footsteps more than you'd have us believe."

Before today, it had been over a week since he had set foot on her ward, unable to even entertain the thought. Indeed, it was the emptiness that struck him most of all when he found himself pilfering her office in a desperate grab at normality. Some small part of him had believed she would saunter through the old doors, raise a neat eyebrow, and scold the mainstay of his diet. And that would be enough to set the universe right again.

It had been difficult not to be disappointed when only his stomach grumbled at him.

Prising open the lid, he sifted through the splendid mess of mottled crumbs and sticky jam until he felt the soft undulation of raisons within oblong dough. Not giving it much thought, he rescued the gorgeous treat from the crumpled remains of his brothers.

"Garibaldis are my favourite, but I'm sure you know that, judging by the volume that have mysteriously disappeared over the years." He shook his head and let out a grievous sigh. "My biggest mistake was making Dominic biscuit monitor. He has totalitarian ideas and a penchant for pink wafers. He could be three floors away and I can still feel his eyes on the back of my head when I dip into his secret stash."

He knew how to use meaningless conversation to fill a sad silence.

"You never said anything about my habit, though," Sacha recollected, twisting the biscuit in restless hands, "It sounds stupid, but I'd give these up in a heartbeat if you were to wake up right now."

Words falling on deaf ears, the machine lifted her chest in a sluggish inhale. Sacha's heart sank, and he patted her knee, soothing and sombre. "Guess you like me cuddly."

Day Nine

Crimpled box swamped in his arms, Sacha dimpled the wall upon entry into the ITU once again. Shivering, almost skidding as icy shoes met cleaned floor, he neared the bed and released his gift, using her legs as a makeshift table.

"Maybe you're past weather reports, but it's snowing. And that means I nearly broke my neck carrying this over for you, so you better be on top form, Naylor." Sacha unfolded the plastic counter, swinging it around her small figure, and unpacked the grubby chess set, blowing a cloud of dust from the chequered panel.

Setting it down softly, he began to slowly assemble the familiar formation piece by piece, in case Jac sprang up in time to participate.

She did not.

Still, he played defence, and she played attack. They continued at it for a while, the soft tap of intercepting pawns the only sound to permeate the sunken air.

Soon, Sacha paused to stare at her pensively. "You used to ridicule me over my board game addiction. 'It's in the name,' you'd say, and then get riled up over some silly title you'd never heard of." He almost chuckled at the memory. "It used to make me laugh… until I realised that it was all a front, and you really didn't know. No one had ever taught you." The wispy smile on his lips melted away as he rolled a captured knight between stodgy fingers.

"Do you remember our first chess game?" His navy eyes twinkled. "You took to it like you take to everything - with ease. Sure, I won, but my years of experience could barely outplay your natural flair." He paused, pondering her. "How do you do that, eh? Be so ridiculously talented?"

The ventilator huffed at him.

Sacha sighed, growing serious. "You're our Wonder Woman, Jac Naylor, and you'll get better. Don't let yourself forget that."

True to form, it took only a couple of moments before his white king bounced against the ageing wood in defeat. "Checkmate," he muttered half-blithely. Her black-hearted queen stood proud and stoic, a far cry from the crumbling woman that lay on the bed.

Cradling the piece in his bear-like palm, sweet optimism tumbled from his face, replaced by rich, glorious guilt. "We stopped, didn't we? Playing games. Why did we do that?"

He reached out and gripped her limp hand with his spare, as if trying to prise her from the dark and turbulent depths of oblivion. All he wanted was to hear her sharp wit once more, or feel her laser-like glare trepan into his head. He would give anything to see her smile, so rare and beautiful and kind that it was.

"You know, if you wake up today, I'll teach you some more – Scrabble, Cluedo, Monopoly, just so long as you promise not to buy out all of Boardwalk."

Tears scored wet lines down his rosy cheeks.

"That's a special Levy guarantee."

Day Ten

Sometimes Sacha found himself sitting in silence, contemplating wistfully and watching her fake breathing. Other times he could not bear being left alone with his thoughts for fear of the pain they would bring. Today, with the way her face seemed paler against the rose of her lips and the whisperings of sepsis from desolate nurses, he had to fill the quiet, if only for temporary solace.

"Nurse Fletcher should be along later, bearing gifts I imagine. God knows what you've done to that man, but he's doing everything in his power to help you." He blinked, eyes wet and glistening. "I'm just sorry I couldn't do the same. I should have seen how much you needed my support, Jac."

Sacha cursed himself for letting her down. He would beg for her forgiveness if it came to it. "I'm your best friend, goddamn it. I should have been there. I should have been your shoulder to cry on." Again, he sought for the feeling of her hand in his, grounding him against the unforgiving tempest of grief and solitude. "I will be forever grateful that Fletch saw you through whatever it was you couldn't show me."

He moved then, plonked himself right by her side as if making up for lost time. "Now, I promise you, when you wake up, I will always make the effort to check in."

There was no room for ifs in Sacha Levy's world.

"I want to know what's going on with you, and, even if you can't tell me, I just need to know that you're alright. That you're coping. And, if you're not, then that's okay, Jac. That's okay. We'll talk about it over a glass of red and a therapy cheesecake, the diet be damned."

He couldn't help it - he just had to make her laugh again.

She did not.


How was it? I actually found Sacha more difficult to write than Fletch. The last time I wrote Sacha must have been five/six years ago, and he has changed since then. I'm actually more used to writing Jac's dialogue than any of the other character's so this is quite the change. I love hearing what people think, so if you enjoyed then please let me know! Thank you very much for getting this far! ;)