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Chapter 10

Wednesday 11th July 2018

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Beth had been discharged from hospital the day before, but Andy was still there. He was still in the incubator, but he seemed to be getting stronger by the day. She was sat on the sofa, watching the T.V. BBC news was on, but she wasn't really paying much attention. Her thoughts were consumed by her son. She wanted to stay by his side twenty-four-seven but the doctors hadn't wanted her to stay overnight and possibly make herself ill. She was under strict instructions not to return to the hospital until morning.

She was just about to go through to the kitchen to make herself another coffee, when she heard a knock on the door. She went through to the kitchen, put her mug down on the side, but as she did so, the knocking got louder and more insistent. "Alright, alright, I'm coming." Her body was still stiff from her weeklong stay in hospital, and as a result she couldn't walk very fast. She got to the door and opened it swiftly. The difference in light from the doorway of her house to the street outside meant that for a few seconds she was slightly disorientated.

Then her eyes came into focus and she blinked, wondering if what she was seeing was a hallucination. Lucy was standing on her doorstep, anger plain to see on her face. Her heart dropped a few feet, there was only reason Lucy would be here at this time at night. She must know. "Oh, Lucy. Would you like to come in?" Beth feigned ignorance. There must be another reason. How could she know, there was no way that Neil had told her. Beth moved to the side as Lucy entered her home.

They walked in silence to the living room. Beth sat in the arm chair and Lucy perched on the sofa. Beth could almost see the strain on her face, the anger that was nearly bursting through her façade. "Would you like a drink? Tea, coffee, a cold drink?" She asked, politely. She was too tired to be sucked into a fight, especially at this time of night.

"Let's do away with the pleasantries, and the lies, Beth." Lucy voice was cold and icy. "You and I both know why I am here."

"I'm not quite sure what you mean, Lucy." Beth kept up the cheerful, polite tone she had used when asking about drinks. She did not want to be sucked into this, but maybe it was her punishment for her wrongs. She had thought that Neil's behaviour was punishment enough.

"Neil." She said the name with a cold indifference, which reminded Beth of how Neil had said her name when he had first turned up at Holby. She was certain, if she hadn't been before, that Lucy knew. "My husband." She paused again, looking at Beth for the first time. "Your lover." She said the words with a venom that Beth hadn't heard since Neil had used it to tell her to get out of his house the day he had found out about her affair with Alex.

"It wasn't like that." Beth protested. "We weren't lovers."

"So how do you explain the fact that you have given birth to his son?" The coldness was back, replacing the venom.

"We slept together, once. Only once." She let the admission hang in the air. "I am so sorry, Lucy." Beth said, sincerely.

"What good does it do now?" She said, tipping her head back and laughing. "My whole marriage had been a lie. Sorry won't help, Beth." Silence descended on them. "You know I should have realised sooner. I feel such a fool." She paused, looking at straight at Beth. "He used to shout out your name in the middle of the night. Ellie, Ellie, Ellie!" The shouts echoed around the room. "I didn't even think that when he shouted for Ellie, he was calling for you-" Before Lucy could continue, Beth spoke.

"He wasn't calling for me. He was cursing me." Confusion rippled over her visitor's face.

"What do you mean?"

"So he didn't tell you? About his ex-wife who slept with his brother, with Alex?" Beth asked, her voice still calm, and in check, no emotion entering it. "Wait, he wouldn't need to. You must have heard the rumours."

"Yes, but what's it got to…" She trailed off when the truth finally dawned on her.

"He was cursing me because I hurt him. He's such a hypocrite, you know. He knows exactly how it feels to be in your shoes." She paused for a second. "I guess this is his way to hurt me back."

"What do you mean, hurt you back?"

"I hurt him badly when I slept with Alex." If Lucy hadn't realised that she was his ex-wife, she would now. "And he slept with me, and then he left me and went away to his fiancé – you…you weren't married at the time." Beth's eyes flicked up, taking in Lucy's reaction to her confession. Her face was set in a stony stare. "I've felt so stupid in my life. I let myself open up to him and what did he do? He just through it back in my face." Beth closed her eyes, trying not breakdown. As it was, her calm voice was cracking and wavering. "I am sorry. I know you don't believe me. If I could go back in time and change what I did I would do it in a heartbeat, and even that feels selfish because I wouldn't be changing it for you, I'd be doing it for me. So I wouldn't have to go through what… I wouldn't have to go through the hurt he inflicted on me." Beth said, her hands curling into fists.

"You love him?" Surprise filled her tone, but when she next spoke, it was gone. "I can't believe you could do that. I can't believe that he slept with you." Lucy said, her voice still cold.

"I know nothing can excuse what happened, but I want to explain. We were together for nine years, before I had my affair with Alex." The wavering was gone, replaced with a coldness, similar to Lucy's. "I know I hurt him. But the strange thing was, Lucy, even after I hurt him so awfully, I still loved him. Imagine how that feels." Her voice cracked again, and she spent a few seconds regaining her composure. "I managed to turn all the love he felt for me into hate. That was the worst of all. I made him hate me. Then I ran away. We worked at the same hospital still, even as our marriage imploded from within. I couldn't cope with it, so I ran. I ended up here after four years. So did he. I saw the look in his eyes the first day he was here. I lost him completely. We both changed beyond recognition." She paused, taking a deep breath in. "Then there was the incident in Hanssen's office. I knew that it was because of me, but I knew that he was only doing it because he hated Alex even more than me. Alex was worse than me. I was just his wife, we could get divorced. But Alex was his brother, they shared the same blood. He couldn't get rid of the link between them quite so easily. Then Hanssen made us go on that stupid course. When we were there, an old work colleague was there too. She didn't know that we were divorced so we had to tell her. It was after that, in the car on the way home, that I explained to him why I had slept with Alex. For some reason, he decided that the best thing to do was to sleep with me." She laughed, but there was no humour in it. "Of course it wasn't, and he realised that pretty quickly. After we were finished I think the weight of what we'd done finally hit him. He ran. Then he tried to act like it never happened." Beth looked up at Lucy again, and then she spoke.

"That was the night of the engagement party. He slept with you on the night of our engagement." Lucy said, disgust filling her tone. "That was why he acted strange when you turned up." Beth nodded.

"He ignored me. Then I found out I was pregnant and that it was his. I told him and… he told me that there was no way he was going to be a father to my child. He told me to have an abortion. I couldn't. The only good thing that has come out of this is Andy. I had one more civil conversation with him. I asked him if he wanted to come to the twelve week scan. It was then I knew that he was trying to pour all the blame on me. And he wanted nothing to do with me. I was in a place in my life when I needed all the help I could get and he just walked away. I can't forgive him for that." Beth said shaking her head. "But believe me, Lucy, he loves you. He loves you more than he ever loved me, more than he had ever loved anyone in the past. He was scared of losing you and that was why he didn't tell you." Lucy started shaking her head. "Why would I lie about this?"

"I don't think your lying. I just think that you and him are being very stupid. He doesn't love me. It's you. It's always you. It's you." Lucy let her words sink in. "He calls out your name in his sleep because he still loves you." She said, standing. "I'm going to leave now." She stopped, looking down on Beth. "I don't like you, Beth, but I love Neil, so I'm doing this for him. Stop being stupid." Lucy said, and then she left.

Lucy's words took a long while to sink in. For some reason, Lucy thought that Neil was still in love with her. How stupid could she be? Neil hated her, everyone knew that. But still, even as she tried to convince herself that Lucy was mad, a part of her almost knew that what she had said had some truth. She still loved him. She had never stopped.

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Thursday 12th July 2018

It was like the whole world had turned grey. The trees were no longer green; the sky was no longer blue, the pavement no longer black. Grey. Grey. Grey. It felt as if the world was falling apart, piece by piece. It felt as if she was standing on the edge of the world, and all she needed was a little push to go over the edge and when she did, there would be no coming back. She turned around slowly. Grey. Everything was grey. Pain ran through her veins, not blood. All the colour was leeched out of the things around. Nothing was ever going to be colourful again. Nothing was ever going to be the same again.

She heard noises and turned her gaze. Tom and Jac were walking towards her. Even when her world was falling apart, she noted how nice a couple they would make, but then there was that man, the one from Jac's picture, and Amy. She guessed that if Jac and Tom ever did have a relationship, it wouldn't be based in love. They were both in love with other people.

"Are you alright?" Tom asked, and Beth laughed.

"Alright? How can anything ever be alright again?" Jac went to speak but Beth cut her off. "Andy's dead." It was a short sentence, two words, but it was enough to destroy her. When she had told Lucy that Andy was the only good thing to come out of the mess, she had been speaking the truth, but now he was dead and nothing else mattered. "He's dead." She repeated. "He's dead and I couldn't save him!" She almost screamed. The pain was too much; it burned her from the inside out. It was nearly killing her.

"He's lungs weren't strong enough, he went in to respiratory arrest. There was nothing you could-" Tom said, coming towards her, his arms outstretched.

"There was everything I could have done!" She screamed. "But I did nothing! Nothing. And now he's dead and every thing's gone." The first tear fell down her face, trickling like a broken fountain, rapidly followed by more. Soon she couldn't see because of them. She felt arms close around her. She wanted to cry herself to oblivion.

…

Wednesday 9th August 2018

Colour had slowly started bleeding back into her life, but no joy. Joy was like a historical fact, something that had been lost and could never be found again. Anger was still there, and she felt it in spades. Anger at herself, anger at Neil. She had to blame someone else or it would all be too much for her. As she realised that it had stopped raining, and closed her umbrella, she saw Holby City Hospital for the first time in four weeks. That was how long Hanssen had given her off on personal leave – she had been surprised that he had given her so long. She shook her umbrella, removing the droplets of water that clung to its surface. She passed through the doors and into the hospital. Everything looked new, like she was seeing it for the first time – maybe for the first time with different eyes.

There was a queue for the café, but she didn't join it. She stood in front of the lift, waiting for it to arrive, wanting to get to Darwin without having to talk to anyone. She guessed she was the talk of the hospital. The doors pinged and thankfully the lift was empty. She climbed in and waited for the doors to shut, and for the lift to start moving. They had just started slowly shutting when a foot stuck in the door opened it. Gemma was standing the other side, a green coat on and a pile of book clutched in her arms. Beth smiled at Gemma, as the other woman stood next to her. She braced herself for the onslaught of condolences.

"I would say sorry, but I know that it's pointless." Gemma said, quietly. "My brother died when I was eighteen, just before I found out I was pregnant. I remember quite clearly that everyone kept telling me they were sorry. Sorry for what? There was nothing they could have done to stop it. I just found it a little silly to say sorry. But you do have my deepest sympathies for your loss." Beth was glad that someone was treating her like a human being with feelings, and not just a thing that something had happened to. "I can't say I completely understand how you're feeling, but I can create a guess. It can't be nice. When Harry – my brother – when he died I think all the hope in the world went out. I spent days wondering why. It never did any good." She stopped, glancing at Beth. "I'm rambling again. You probably don't want to hear about my past." Gemma said, slightly blushing.

"No, it helps me take my mind off it."

"One thing you must remember, Beth, is that it does get better. I know it doesn't feel like it will, but it does. One day the hope will come back." Just as Gemma finished speaking the doors pinged and Beth saw Darwin. She told Gemma that it was her stop and they said their goodbyes. Gemma was a good person at heart.

She left the lift, wishing that she had collected a coffee before she had come up. She could have done with the caffeine fix. She froze, and she saw Neil standing on the other side of the ward. He looked fine, considering his son had died less than two months ago. She wondered if he had even grieved at all. Then she saw his left hand and saw that he wasn't wearing his wedding ring. Divorce papers had probably already been served and if not, they would be soon – even so, it was obvious that the marriage had broken down. Beth wondered if she would be dragged into it. For some reason, she doubted it.

She felt a hand on her back, and she swivelled around to see Jac behind her. "You okay?" She asked. Beth nodded, trying to shake her thoughts of Neil from her head. "Hanssen thinks that you should just do paper work and other clerical duties for a couple of days, just to ease you back in to things. " Jac looked as if she expected Beth to argue, but she didn't. "Alright, there is a mound of paperwork on my desk. You can complete it in there so you can be alone." Beth nodded and walked off in the direction of her office. She swung the door open and walked slowly over to the desk. She sat in the chair, and picked a pen up off the wood. She had only just glanced at the first page of the sheaf, when the door opened. She stopped dead, dropping the pen nosily on to the table. She heard the door slam, but he was still standing there, his eyes fixed on hers. She felt a sadness almost overwhelm her. Andy had had his father's eyes. It was the first time that she and Neil had been alone since Andy's death. Neil had come to the funeral - but whether that was out of a sense of duty or not, Beth didn't know – but he had left after the service and before Beth could get him alone to talk to him.

"Ellie." He said, softly, and Beth wondered why he was using his old nickname for her. "Is it this bad for you?" The question came completely out of the blue, and Beth stared at him for a few seconds, wondering what he meant. "Does it feel like your heart's been ripped out?" Neil asked. "I can't believe he's dead." He added, shaking his head.

"It hurts, doesn't it?" Beth shocked herself with how cold her voice sounded. She wasn't going to let Neil back in now, not after what he had done. "It hurts even more for me, because I actually loved him." Her words were a low blow and they both knew it.

"I loved him." Beth snorted.

"You did a great job of showing it." She said, sarcastically.

"I was his father!" Neil exclaimed.

"And that didn't make much difference when I told you that the day he was born, did it? You just told me that it was just a biological link, nothing more, nothing less." Her words were making him angry and she saw him gulp. "Lucy came to see me, you know. After she had found out that you slept with me and that your marriage was based in lies." Beth said, calmly. "She never did tell me how she found out. You didn't tell her, you're too much of a coward."

"Liam told her."

"Liam? Liam Andrews?" Confusion filled her tone.

"Yes. I told him when I found out you were pregnant. Only God knows why he left it that long to tell her. But it doesn't matter. He told her and she left me. I lost my wife because of you!" He shouted.

Beth laughed, loudly, but there was no trace of humour in it. "You lost your wife all by yourself. It was your decision to sleep with me, remember." Beth said, her voice as cold as ice.

She watched as Neil curled his fists and prepared to say something else. Before he could, the door opened and Jac stood there, eyeing the couple. After a couple of seconds, Neil stormed angrily out. "You going to tell me what that was about?"

"He hates me, remember." Even as Beth said the words, she knew they were true. Lucy had been mad when she had said that Neil loved her. He hated her, pure and simple.

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