Sorry for the lengthy hiatus, I've been trying to balance writing with college work, and things in college have been a bit sketchy of late. Hopefully this (admittedly very long) chapter will make up for the wait :)
Sitting at the breakfast table, Ethan poured milk onto his cereal and sprinkled sugar over the cornflakes in his bowl. He stirred a tiny amount of milk into his cup of tea. Tuning the radio into a classical station, he forced himself to concentrate on the music rather than what he was eating. This was his attempt to achieve two objectives in one go. He wasn't thinking about the cereal, so it was much easier to get something into his stomach to set him up for the day, and trying to focus in so tightly on the music meant that he could almost control the wave of anxiety permeating through every fibre of his body. Almost.
Driving to work, his heart sank as the petrol light lit up on the dashboard. He drove into the nearest garage and pulled up next to the nearest pump, and was dismayed to find that he's stupidly selected one that didn't have the option to pay at the pump, so as to avoid going into the shop. The forecourt was completely empty, but Ethan was not about to reverse his car into a different pump. Steeling himself, he filled the tank and walked into the shop, trying his utmost to look nonchalant. There was a very slight tremble in his hands as his picked up a bar of chocolate from beside the counter, and he silently berated himself for almost dropping it onto the counter in front of him as he spoke to the attendant.
"Um." He quickly glanced out of the window, feeling extremely stupid as he realised he wouldn't have to give the number of the pump. His was the only car on the forecourt. "Number four, please," he said. He'd started the sentence, so it was only right to finish it.
The attendant didn't bat an eyelid: it was early in the morning and the young man (dressed very smartly for this time of day, she had to note) looked a little tired. She told him the price and wondered why it took him two attempts to slot his debit card into the reader. He looked nervous. Judging by his suit, he looked as though he had an important meeting to attend.
"Have a good day," she said airily, as he picked up his chocolate, folded his receipt neatly into his pocket and left the shop.
"Thank you. I – um – you too," Ethan said quietly.
He parked in the car park of Holby ED in the same spot as he always used. It was a little way from the front door, and the main thoroughfare of the staff who walked to work, which meant it was far less likely that anyone would see him trying to park his car. In reality, Ethan's parking skills were immaculate, but he was so self-critical that he couldn't allow himself to see his strengths, even when they were as minor as faultless parallel parking.
"Morning Ethan," Zoe said brightly, as the young registrar crossed the department, heading for the locker room. "You're looking very smart this morning," she went on, referencing his shirt and jacket. She'd tried to drop little boosts into conversation with him since he'd first returned to the department, in the hope that it might up his shattered confidence a little. He ducked his head a little, nearly unnoticeably, not knowing how to accept the compliment. Zoe bit her lip, but was immediately distracted by Max placing a cardboard cup of coffee on the front desk, directly in front of her.
"Caramel latte, with double shots of coffee, before you ask," he said, leaving a quick kiss on the side of her neck before heading off into the department.
"You're a life saver!" she called to him, while keeping an eye on Ethan's retreating form. His hands were in his pockets, from what she could see, and his shoulders were ever so slightly rounded. He didn't stand up nearly as straight as he used to. Zoe frowned into her coffee.
Lily Chao dismounted her moped in the car park and removed her helmet. Running a hand across her tousled hair, she resolved to re-plait it once she was in her scrubs. She walked into the department with her shoulders back, carrying an air of confidence that Zoe wished she could split between the two young doctors. Lily's confidence was impressive, if a little in-your-face, and she got the job done exceptionally well. It was just a matter of her not bonding with the other members of the team as well as they'd like her to. And she had a rather irritating habit of rubbing people up the wrong way. In the last few weeks in particular, Zoe had noticed Lily's obvious impatience with Ethan, as his confidence began to deteriorate. It wasn't bad enough to merit any kind of warning, or even a mention to the Clinical Lead, but it didn't sit well with the consultant, not when she could see Ethan's face fall every time Lily left him with cutting remarks and a stern glare.
"Good morning Dr Hanna," Lily said calmly. That was another stark difference between the two younger doctors – Ethan rarely initiated conversation with his superiors unless it was over a patient.
"Good morning Lily," Zoe returned, her mind still firmly on Ethan. "Ready for the day?"
"I'm always ready," Lily said with a smile. "A new day means something new to learn, and more patients depending on me. It's what I live for." No-one could doubt Lily's passion for medicine, but then, everyone in the ED lived from the buzz which followed saving a life.
"I'm glad to hear it," Zoe said. "I'll see you in resus shortly, no doubt, we've got an RTC heading our way, with multiple casualties."
"I'll be there, you'll need all hands on deck." Lily's didn't waste words; she was highly efficient and there was no arguing that this was a required skill in an A&E department. But there was something almost cold about her attitude sometimes. Zoe's first thought when she heard about the RTC had been along the lines of "there's a family involved, we need to make sure those children have parents at the end of the day, and vice versa." The consultant couldn't help herself thinking that Lily's first thought had been that these were simply new cases – sometimes they all wondered whether Lily saw the bigger picture at all.
Both Lily and Ethan ended up working on the casualties from the RTC, as more arrived than Zoe had anticipated. She and Connie took a pregnant woman, Dylan took her husband and Lily and Ethan were assigned to the couple's young daughter. She looked about eight but was barely responsive. Ethan protectively held the girl's hand while Lily made the initial checks, which earned him one of Lily's signature disapproving looks. In the name of efficiency, however, she didn't question him. She continued with her work and issued sharp statements about the girl's condition, which Ethan immediately took heed of and reluctantly let go of her small, cool hand.
"Do we know her name yet?" he asked as he hung up a bag of saline on a drip stand.
"Her name is irrelevant in resolving her medical issues, Ethan." The blonde doctor blushed, and he broke eye contact with Lily to continue with his work.
"I know," he said quietly, "I just thought that maybe she'd be more comforted if we were using her name, rather than just calling her our patient."
"But she is our patient," Lily persisted. Ethan didn't keep up the argument, it wasn't worth it and it wasn't helping the little girl before them for her doctors to be bickering. He allowed Lily to take the lead and complete the most important task at hand: securing the girl's airway, but once she was stable he gently cleaned the cuts on her face, a hand under her chin to keep her completely still. Zoe looked over and felt proud of the registrar for taking such care with his patient. Knowing she shouldn't have favourites in the department, she mentally praised Lily's accuracy in removing the shards of glass from her patient's legs. Zoe's heart dropped and her attention snapped back to her own patient when the monitors around the bed started beeping worryingly. It was an impossible choice: a mother or a baby. A momentarily lapsed concentration had allowed her heart to cloud her mind.
"Connie, I don't know what to do," she said, hopelessly lost and fighting to keep her emotions out of the situation. She was relieved, she could always rely on the clinical lead to keep a cool head and maintain rationality in the toughest of situations.
"We have to fight to save the mother first," Connie said plainly. "It's extremely unlikely that a baby at this period of gestation will survive to the same level as the mother, if we act now. We can't save them both."
"No, I appreciate that. I'll phone up to theatre then." Connie nodded gravely, for a millisecond showing that she did have a heart and she wasn't just a medical machine.
The woman's husband overheard this from his resus bay, and tears began to tumble down his cheeks. Dylan, having stabilised the man but having enough heart left in him to allow his patient to hear the fate of his family, rather awkwardly offered him a tissue, which was gratefully accepted although made little difference.
"My daughter, the one being treated over there," he began between uneven breaths, "I heard the young bloke ask her name, and I think it's wonderful that he cares so much. It's Emilia, if you wouldn't mind telling him, please." Dylan nodded, pleased to have a reason not to stay and be confronted with tears that he didn't know how to solve.
"Ethan, Lily, the girl's name is Emilia, her father just told me and was honoured that you thought to ask," he said. Ethan smiled a little, but Lily didn't respond.
"She's almost stable, but she'll need to remain intubated until we can bring her round in a few hours," she said, as though she hadn't heard Dylan at all. "Her name makes no difference, it's not me who wanted to know."
"Thank you, Dr Keogh," Ethan said, trying to resist the shake in his voice. "Did you hear that, Emilia? Your dad's been asking about you, and we're going to wake you up very soon." Lily rolled her eyes. The girl couldn't have been more than eight years old, she wouldn't understand most of what had happened since her arrival, even if she could hear them. In Ethan's mind, however, whether she could understand or not didn't matter. It was a case of caring that she was a vulnerable child in a scary situation – if she could hear them, he was sure she'd rather hear people call her by name.
As the three cases drew to a close, the doctors prepared themselves to move on to their next tasks of the day. Lily moved on to cubicles with barely a thought of what had gone before. Ethan admired her for this: he knew that however much he concentrated on other patients today, the look of fear on that father's face would remain at the back of his mind. He admired Lily full stop. She was happy working with people all day, she lived from the satisfaction of getting things right. Ethan was confused, even his thoughts weren't coming out clearly. Of course he lived from the satisfaction of success, it was just the working with people that tended to cause an issue of late.
Connie retreated to her office to return to her usual self – she hated that she'd had to be the one to call time on the her patient's unborn child, but it was that or lose them both. Zoe was equally distraught, but wore her emotions on her sleeve far more than the Clinical Lead. She wiped her eyes as she left resus with Dylan, and let out a frustrated sigh to see streaks of mascara along her thumbs.
"You know that there was nothing more you could have done, don't you?" Dylan checked, aware of exactly why this case was hurting his best friend so much.
"Yeah, and I'm fine, I'm okay, don't worry. I just..." She didn't know how to finish her sentence, she couldn't describe the feelings bubbling inside her. Luckily, with Dylan, she didn't have to.
"Look, I'll cover for you if Connie has a go about it, just take five minutes and get your head together, all right? I understand why it's hard for you."
"Thank you, but I'm really okay." She paused for a moment. "On second thoughts, would you mind covering for Ethan as well?" Dylan raised his eyebrows questioningly, but decided Zoe wouldn't ask if it wasn't necessary. He nodded.
Zoe went in search of the registrar, and it wasn't long before she found him. As she entered the locker room, she tapped on the door to alert him of her presence, but despite this, Ethan jumped in surprise and looked up with a momentary expression of fear that Zoe would have missed, had she not been looking for it. He looked down at once, embarrassed by his reaction.
"Ethan, would you mind coming down to my office for a few minutes, please?" she asked gently. Ethan opened his mouth with the intention to speak, and for a few seconds no words came out at all. He sighed in frustration and shot Zoe a look of combined apology and cry out for help. "It's okay, take your time." He gathered himself together before replying.
"Yes. I mean – no, I wouldn't mind." He silently berated himself again. This wasn't a difficult exchange, why couldn't he just function like everybody else?
