The boy had been taken to St James'; Iain and Dixie only took a few minor injuries with them; the ED was packed to the brim as it was. The second they stepped into the department they were whisked away to cubicles for assessment and to Iain's dismay Dylan was assigned to him to check over his hands. Dixie was in the bed next to him but her injuries were just superficial so she was getting checked by Rita.

They all sat in silence for several minutes before Iain decided to speak. "Hey Dylan." The doctor grunted in reply. "I'm really sorry about Sam." This statement was so clearly nothing at all like what Dylan was expecting to hear. He paused his inspection of Iain's hands and actually looked him in the eye. He grunted again; Iain took that as an acceptance of his apology.

"Rita when you've finished can you dress his burns; there doesn't seem to be any nerve damage." Dylan walked off; his job done.

"What was that about?" Dixie looked at Iain confused. "Is that why you've been acting funny this afternoon, because you've been missing Sam? Because that was ages ago now, I thought you'd've been over her by now."

Iain looked over at her. "Eh? No, I've just realised that I'd never really apologised. You know it can't have been nice for him, you know, losing her and that, and it is partly my fault."

"Partly?" Dixie scoffed at him. "Okay then, have you finished now?" She spoke to Rita; Rita hadn't realised that she had stopped checking Dixie over, she had been too engrossed in the conversations.

"Oh, er, yeah"

"Great, I'm gonna go to the loo." Dixie left the cubicle.

Iain went to speak but Rita beat him to it.

"You can't do that you know." She glared at him. "You can't just go and put your life at risk; you can't just go and try and get yourself killed, are you crazy, are you insane." She had started at a whisper level but she was almost shouting now. "What the actual fuck were you thinking?" Her eyes had filled with tears but when she looked at Iain, so were his.

Rita took a breath and reduced her volume to a more normal level "If you'd, if you died that would've been, our last conversation that would've been me ending it. That would've been the last conversation and then you'd've been dead and." She could feel the tears starting to fall down her face. Iain's were too. He stood off his bed and pulled her close to him; not caring how much it hurt his hands. "You just can't do that to me." She buried her forehead into his chest and he rested his chin on her head.

He would've stayed like that forever but Rita extracted herself. Her face was miraculously devoid of any evidence that she had been crying. She was fully composed.

"Right lets dress these then." She guided him back to the bed and Nurse Rita was back. She avoided his eye contact throughout the dressing and when she was finished she left the cubicle without even a glance back. Iain was confused; it was almost as if their exchange hadn't happened. But it had, so he wasn't going to give up hope yet.