Another HUGE thanks for all the reviews! You guys are completely amazing :D I hope you all know how much it means to me to read all you lovely thoughts on this, and how much they inspire me to keep going…

Ok, fluffy speech over…on with the story.

Chapter 4

I visit Effy during the hours Emily can't stay with me. I usually wheel myself to her, because she isn't allowed to leave her ward. Come to think of it, I'm probably not either but fuck it, I get bored. I enjoy the quiet serenity of the corridors up here anyway, it's peaceful.

I don't bother to knock on the door, because she knows it's me. She told me I was her only visitor other than her mum and…I freeze in the doorway. Apparently I'm not her only visitor today.

Effy is lying on her bed. That seems innocent enough except that there is a bloke lying on top of her, thrusting away for all he's worth. I hope I can wheel myself out of the room before either of them notice I'm here but no! My back wheel bangs against the wall, ah fuck, and the pair freeze. Slowly both their heads turn my direction, taking in my scarlet stained cheeks and lowered eyes. I briefly wonder if I close my eyes and stick my hands in my ears and scream for a bit, maybe when I open them again I'll be back in my own room. Alas, that is not to be and I raise my eyes towards them again, towards the dark haired man's derrière, which he has yet to put away.

"Do they know you two are doing that in here?" I question, quirking an eyebrow and focusing on making my voice even.

"Naomi," Effy begins, her usual stoic features revealing slight worry and embarrassment. I guess that's a 'NO' then. They only flash across it for a moment, but I know the emotion is there. She smirks again though, stoic again. Emotionless.

"Naomi, are you done checking out my boyfriend's arse?"

"Oh Jesus," I mutter, averting my gaze while he pulls his trousers up. Still, I decide to give Effy a run for her money, see if I can extract even a little more emotion from her. I plaster a smirk on my face.

"You caught me," I add a wink in the direction of Effy's boyfriend, raking my eyes up and down him for extra effect. He was tall, his dark floppy hair falling across his eyes, his baggy jeans and t-shirt making his seem skinnier than he was. I assume he used to be a skater in his younger days, or maybe he still is…

I return my gaze to Effy, whose jaw has become a little hardened. It's subtle but I notice it. Her expression doesn't change throughout our silent staring, and I get uncomfortable.

"I'm joking Eff, I'm g-…I'm not a boyfriend stealer," I add what I hope is a little stronger than a weak smile but really my brain is whirring away inside my head. Was I just about to tell her I was GAY? What the fuck?

I lift my gaze again, finding her smirking at me with a knowing look in her eye. I squirm beneath her gaze. She knows something.

"So Naomi," she begins, drawing out the words and causing me to flinch a little. Her eyes are still boring into me and she raises an eyebrow before pulling her gaze to the dark haired bloke, with the nice ass I must add, or must I? Anyway she gestures towards him.

"This is Freddie, my boyfriend," Freddie holds out a hand, I'm not sure I want to shake it but I decide to be polite and grip it gingerly.

"Freddie," I nod.

"He was just leaving, weren't you babe?" she adds.

"Um, oh…yeah just about to go here, busy and all you know?" he leaves the room hesitantly, blowing a kiss to Effy from the doorway.

"Yeah he looked like he was just about to leave," I mumble sarcastically. I'm sure Effy heard but I don't care.

"That's the first time he's visited," Effy states quietly. "I told him not to, because I didn't want him to see me like this," she gestures to her bandaged wrists, "but he came anyway."

I giggle at the end of that sentence. "Oh he came alright…"

Effy playfully slaps me across my uninjured arm. "Shut up."

Later that day, I'm back in my room; having successfully learnt to navigate my way through the hospital. My face is contorted into a frown and I'm chewing away on my bottom lip. Lost in thought, that's where I am. Honestly, if I got a penny for each strange or disturbing thought I'd had whilst being here I'd be a millionaire. Well…a thousand-aire probably; I've only been here what…2 weeks?

I groan in frustration as I adjust my position in my bed. Why the hell did I nearly tell Effy I was gay? I mean, seriously I've never even given a girl a second thought before so why suddenly am I coming out to mental ward patients? I sigh heavily.

Freddie was cute right? Yes, I know he's Effy's, but he was hot yes? He had a nice backside, God knows I had the best view of it. It was a nice bum and he was a boy. A small thought niggled at the back of my brain. Emily has a nice bum too, you know. And she's a girl. My face drops. Like I can actually feel it drop off my head and slide under the door away from me. Well…

But I'm pretty sure I've never looked at Emily's bum. Certain I've never seen it naked like I saw Freddie's. Maybe glimpsed it as she left the room, when the top of her uniform, which drowns her in the most adorable manner by the way, scoots up a little and…wait, what? Adorable? Emily is adorable? For Christ sakes it's a uniform. But an annoying little voice comments in the back of my head; "Mmm, a woman in a uniform," in a perverted little voice, perhaps throwing a wink in there too. I promptly tell it to shut the fuck up.

Emily enters on her break, carrying a paper cup full of coffee and shooting me a heart-warming smile. Obviously it doesn't warm my heart, because I'm not gay but it is a lovely smile, she's a lovely girl. In a very 'not-gay' sense of course, because I'm not. I notice her face fall when she realises I haven't responded to her greeting, and I hastily push the thoughts to the back of my brain for now. I shoot her a strained smile.

"What's up?" she asks, sitting in her chair and I see concern flashing across her eyes.

"Oh, nothing, just a bit bored that's all," I reply, smiling a little more genuinely this time. Because she cares and I like it.

She flashes another quick smile, but it doesn't reach her eyes. And I realise that there is something missing from her chocolate orbs, something that entranced me completely before. No sparkle. There is no sparkle. Something must be bothering her, so I decide to pay her back for caring about me and care for her in return.

"Ems? Is everything alright?"

She sighs as she looks away from me, scanning her eyes around the room.

"It's stupid…" she begins.

"Tell me," I urge, unsure as to why I feel so protective of her suddenly. Why I want to make her happy. Why I want her sparkly eyes to come back.

"I…got in a fight with my mum," she says quietly, eyes flashing to the door and back, "and I need to study but I can't with her shouting all the time."

I get a sudden, unnerving urge to thump Emily's mother across the head, but push it down inside of me again. Violence doesn't solve anything. I learned that when my mum tied herself to a tree. Instead I try to lighten the mood.

"Study? Already? How long have I been in here, it's still September right?" My half-hearted laugh comes out choked at the pitiful look on her face.

"Naomi, I've got four years of learning to know for this exam, that's a shitload of stuff."

"Well you can revise here," the words spill out of my mouth. Not for the first time in Emily's presence, I think I'm going to build a dam around my voice box or something.

"Really?" Oh god she looks hopeful.

"Sure," I squeak back. This could be disastrous. My confusingly disturbing thoughts about Emily erupt into my mind again, and I forcefully tell them to shut up. Mentally, of course. I don't want to end up on Effy's ward.

She smiles again, one that begins to reach her eyes. And I smile in return because it's fucking contagious.

"Thanks Naomi," she leans over and hugs me, my heart does a small summersault and my heart monitor gives a loud beep. I blush as Emily's eyes shoot to it, her face frowned in concentration. Or is that confusion? I don't care, it's gone now.

"So you enjoying you're chair?" she says brightly, eyeing my wheelchair parked expertly beside my bed. I'm getting better at…'driving'?' Wheeling'…wheeling it around, parking it perfectly beside my bed so that I can wiggle my way out of it and onto the white sheets without anyone's help. Yes, I'm independent, so sue me.

"Yes," I state firmly, "I do. Gives me something to do you know?"

She smiles softly.

"So have you made any friends?" her voice is teasing.

"I have actually," I state nonchalantly, watching her face fall in shock, her mouth creating a perfect 'O' shape.

"Who?" she giggles excitedly, as if this were a piece of juicy gossip that should be printed in a magazine beside a picture of Cheryl Cole. I laugh at her childishness.

"Her name's Effy," I say, because Emily's a friend right? And she won't rat me out for sneaking around other wards will she?

"Elizabeth Stonem?" she asks, frowning.

"Umm…" Ok, so I don't know Effy's full name, she's just 'Effy' to me.

"On the mental ward?" she sounds dumbfounded.

"Shouldn't you have a more professional term for that ward?" I interject.

"But she's like…she doesn't let anyone in. She's a nightmare for her psychiatrist."

"She's cool," I say defensively, I don't want Emily to ruin my friend's image for me, if Effy wants to ruin that, she can do it herself. But she's the only other person I get along with in this god forsaken hospital and I enjoy her company, even if she is a little creepy.

"Ok, ok, fine. You've cracked her," Emily laughs a little.

"She is a funny girl," I concede. She is a little strange…

"Why else would she be on the funny ward?" Emily replies, and I laugh.

"Emily, that's horrible!" I playful slap her arm. "I meant she makes me laugh a bit." She doesn't, I guess I can understand why she is in hospital. Truth is, Effy is company, and I've never appreciated that before. "She's nice," I mumble a little unsurely.

"Sure," Emily mumbles, taking a sip of her coffee. I'm sure I wasn't supposed to hear that but I did, and I shoot her a small scowl before we fall into light hearted, easy conversation.

I visit Effy again that evening, mainly out of boredom, partly because I am intrigued about what Emily said about her earlier. I can see a bit of myself in her in that sense; not letting anyone in. I don't because they fuck off and let you down, like my dad did to my mum, but I'm curious as to her reasons for it.

We are ambling aimlessly down the corridors, well she ambles and I push the wheels of my chair, a comfortable silence descending between us. A silence which I slyly decide to break.

"So, Elizabeth…"

I see her eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

"Don't call me that," her voice has a certain coolness to it, which only furthers my curiosity. "He calls me that. And I don't like it."

"He?" I question.

"Doctor Foster," she explains. "He's my psychiatrist. He's fucking mental."

I laugh a little. "Are you in the position to really call someone that?"

She laughs too. "I mean he just has these whacky methods. Like, he just tells me to act as if nothing's ever happened. But…you can't change the past. I wish you could but you just…can't."

It's the most I've heard her speak since I met her, and I'm rather shocked. She does seem like a pretty sane person, just a sane person with issues according to her wrists. I guess the issues are what Dr. Foster is for.

"He's also a little inappropriate," she adds after a minute of silence.

"How so?"

"He just…he cups my face and shit, touches my hands. Fucking perv." I would be worried if she didn't start laughing.

"Jesus," I laugh too, because this situation is so ridiculous it needs laughter. "Why don't you tell anyone?"

"Because I'm mental remember? No one listens to a loon."

She does have a point there, sadly. We continue walking, turning down a corridor entitled ENT.

"How did you find out?"

I stare at her questioningly, unsure what she is asking.

"My name, how'd you know?"

"Me and Emily were…" I trail off because I don't know what me and Emily were doing. Gossiping? Discussing? Effy only raises an amused eyebrow.

"She asked me where I disappear off to on my wheelchair," I explain, indicating to the chair I'm sitting in.

"Ah," she says wisely. "This the same Emily you're g-"

"I'm not," I cut in, knowing where this is going. "I'm not gay. She's a friend, she's my age, we're friends, we sit and chat. Like friends." It's rushed; word vomit spilling from my mouth and splattering all over her. She knows. I know from the knowing twinkle in her eye that I wish would go away.

"Oh, ok sure. You're friends."

We continue our 'stroll' down the hallways and the subject is not brought up again. But while this serious mood has settled between us I decide to fish about a bit, because Effy is somewhat a mystery to me.

"Why did you…you know?" I nod towards her wrists, hoping she doesn't get too offended by me nosiness.

"Life got a bit shit," she replies quietly. I know she has more to say, even though she is a woman of few words.

"I messed around with Freddie see," ah here we go, "before we got together. Him and his mate Cook, who I didn't love."

"But, you love Freddie?"

"Yes, but it scared me, so I fucked someone who I didn't love to make it go away. It didn't work. Instead Cook fell for me, I ran away with him and broke Freddie's heart, Freddie came to find me and I broke Cook's heart, and it all gets a bit messy from there on."

"You mean that's the tidy part? Jesus."

"I was young and scared. Anyway I've been with Freddie a while now. And me and Cook are friends."

"Glad you got that sorted."

She laughs and I'm a little surprised that she opened up to me so easily.

"You're different," She says, in answer to my internal statement. "You're a friend."

I smile.

I return to my room after 6, because the nurse who caught us roaming sent us back to our wards, boring bastard. I ease myself back onto my bed, getting a little tangled in the blankets as I try to manoeuvre my cast-covered leg under them, and nearly falling out again.

"Watch it," I hear Emily's husky voice from the doorway, and her strong little arms steady my. Christ she is strong. CHRIST her arms are around me.

You see? This is why I'm nervous about tonight; my internal monologue is driving me nuts. It just doesn't know when to shut the hell up.

Emily settles me into my pillows, fluffing them slightly to which I am very grateful, and pulling the blankets back over me. Gently, she tucks me in and electricity shoots through me as our hands brush again. Still more electricity, as her hand brushes the length of my arm when she pulls the blankets up to my chin. I shoot her a grateful smile as she settles into her armchair. Yes, it's her armchair because no one else sits in it but her. My mother usually occupies the one beside it.

She dumps her bag on the floor beside her, extracting a few pens and file pads to make notes on, before pulling out this huge book.

"Christ, what is that? The fucking bible?"

"I guess you could call it that," she contemplates, before turning the cover. "Basically it's just a huge textbook for medicine."

"Ah. Good luck learning that." I say honestly, because I couldn't learn it.

She laughs before flicking through the first few pages and obediently making notes. I lift the book my mum was reading, which she left on my side-table, and go about reading it for the next hour. Well, reading is probably an exaggeration. I'm flicking through the pages slowly, not one word processing in my mind but I keep at it because it makes me look as though I'm not watching her study.

But it is addictive, seeing all her little habits. Like how she bites her nails and frowns as the words from the pages process in her mind, or how she nibbles on the end of her pen as she thinks of what to write, or how she twirls her red locks through her fingers as…OK STOP! This is bound to be considered perving.

I lower my eyes to the book clutched in my hands, eyes flicking from one side of the page to the other in a convincing charade of reading that I would be proud of if my heart wasn't thumping so loudly. I'm afraid of it showing up on my monitor, or Emily actually hearing it.

After another little while, Emily's nervous voice breaks the silence.

"Naomi?"

"Yes?"

"I need a favour."

"Oh?"

"I need to practise a few things."

I'm at a loss.

"I need you to pretend to be dead," she states quietly, eyes resting on the floor and a faint blush making its way across her cheeks.

"I can do that." I can help her, can't I? Friends help each other out.

I lie down flat on my bed, take a deep breath and close my eyes as I hear her chair scrape against the floor as she gets up.

"This won't hurt," I hear her say.

Her small hands run up and down my sides, resting just above my fractured ribs and applying a little pressure. I can feel a small, tiny twinge from the injured bones, but nothing that actually hurts.

"Does that hurt?"

"No."

"Okay, relax."

So I do. I feel her hands applying pressure to my chest in a steady rhythm. Then her hands are gone and are resting on my face. I feel my body stiffen as she pinches my nose with one hand and parts my mouth with the other.

Before I can process it, her mouth is on mine, her breath inflating my lungs and tasting ever so sweet in my mouth. 3 letters: CPR. My eyes shoot open.

I should have known. We'd had a lesson in it while I was in college, randomly. Everyone had been there; it was a sort of trial thing the ambulance service had done. Showing people how to give CPR. I never ever thought I'd be on the receiving end of it, less still while I was conscious.

Her mouth is removed from mine and returns to my chest, pumping a steady rhythm again. And I'm glad because I think I'm having heart failure and if she wasn't breathing for me I wouldn't be breathing at all.

Once again her mouth returns to mine and I can taste the sweetness of her breath; a mixture of strawberries, coffee and a tiny hint of cigarette smoke. If I wasn't so worried about the electricity pulsing through my body I'd find it sexy.

Sexy?

And then it hits me, square in the chest and knocks the breath out of me: I, through no fault of my own, have a bit of a crush on my doctor…intern…who is currently giving me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Oh my God, I have a crush on Emily.

Thoughts? Opinions? REVIEW! (because, 1. It's lovely to hear from you and, 2. You're ideas help me with the next chapter :D.)

Some Naomily angst/avoidance next chapter perhaps? You know, the clichéd chapter where Naomi avoids her at all costs. I'm thinking of bringing in another member of the gang, votes for who that could be? I'm here to please you after all…

I hope you enjoy this one guys, please let me know if you do, or if you don't, that's cool. Either way your opinions mean a lot to me!