Minnie4114, thank you for the review! I'm glad you're still enjoying it.

I hope everyone else is enjoying it too.

"I can imagine Cal defending a girl he likes, but that doesn't mean he'd lie for her," said Zoe. "Lily, I agree with you that some of Sophie's behaviour is a cause for concern – but it's exactly the same with my student. He's new to the ED; he's a little bit over-confident, so he makes mistakes. He sometimes needs me to bring him gently back into line."

Gently. Lily lowered her eyes. She'd tried to be gentle with Sophie, but she knew that her idea of gentle didn't always tally with everyone else's.

"Sophie might also be suffering from over-confidence – I don't know, though it sounds to me like it's more likely to be the opposite," said Zoe. "But it's actually not Sophie's behaviour that concerns me the most."

Lily's head jerked upwards and she met Zoe's gaze. The older doctor looked unhappy. Lily knew she hated things like this. She couldn't just get on with it like Connie – or like Lily herself.

"Lily, you've told me that you feel Sophie has no future as a doctor. That's your opinion and to be fair, I did ask for your opinion. But Cal tells me you've also expressed this view to Sophie. Is this correct?"

Lily never lied. She wasn't going to lie now. But she felt shaky as she looked Zoe in the eye and gave her answer. "Yes, Zoe. That's correct."

"But why?" said Zoe. "I know you've had problems getting along with her, but why would you want to hurt her? Even if it was your call to make, this is someone's dream you're destroying, Lily."

"But if she's clearly not capable…"

"Then it's up to her professors to make that call. Or the examiners. Or Sophie herself. You've known her for two days, Lily!" Zoe's voice rose as her frustration spilled out. "And if you've been speaking to her with so little empathy and compassion for those two days, is it any wonder she's making mistakes?"

"She's not a patient," argued Lily. "She doesn't need my empathy and compassion. She needs to do her job."

"Lily, she's a human being: of course she needs empathy and compassion," said Zoe. "That's what I've been trying to show to you. I asked you for your side of the story. I've sympathised with your situation and my sympathy is genuine because I know students can be difficult to work with. I knew you'd find the task difficult; I had a feeling you might need support. But I thought it would be good for you. I believed it would help to develop your skills and abilities as well as Sophie's." She sobered. "And that means I've made a very big mistake too."

"No. No, it wasn't a mistake," said Lily, but she was speaking almost at random, overwhelmed by the emotions in Zoe's words. The incredulity. The disappointment. And the anger, which even now she was trying to suppress.

"Isn't it? But look what it's led to, Lily. A student was sent to our department in good faith and with our assurances that we'd do her best for her and now she's decided to end the placement early and forfeit a large portion of her grade because she's been so unhappy here. You might say that if she wanted it badly enough, she would come back. But the fact is this happened after you told her not to bother coming back. So what is she supposed to do, Lily? What would you do if someone had said that to you?"

Lily honestly thought she wouldn't have let it bother her. She'd have known that was a matter of opinion and been very keen to prove them wrong.

But sometimes harsh words did bother her. Like the words Zoe was saying to her now.

Lily was only a junior doctor, after all. She had only seen a tiny example of Sophie's work in one particular hospital department. Sophie's knowledge had been lacking, but perhaps it had simply been nerves. It wasn't unnatural to feel nervous when you came to work in a hospital, especially in a department when there were likely to be emergencies. And when you were nervous, sometimes you did forget things.

And sometimes you told stupid jokes.

"Lily, I'm sure you genuinely believed you were doing Sophie a favour," said Zoe more gently. "You can be… perhaps sometimes you say things that are better left unsaid. Or you say things with too much force. But I don't think you're ever deliberately cruel."

"No, I'm not," said Lily. Tears filled her eyes. "I promise you, Zoe. It wasn't like that."

"But even so, the result is that Sophie is very upset and doesn't want to come back to our hospital," said Zoe. "I'm hoping she'll change her mind. Cal and Ethan are working on it. But if she does come back, Lily, she can't work with you. You can see that, can't you?"

Lily nodded just slightly. She couldn't trust herself to speak.

"Is there anything else you'd like to say?"

"No," said Lily. "Just – thank you. For being kind. And I'm sorry."

Zoe could have said that everyone appreciated kindness. Perhaps it was kindness that prevented her from saying it. But maybe she knew she didn't need to.

"Oh yes, walking holidays can be incredibly dangerous," said Ethan.

"Like when you fall down a hole and die," said Sophie.

Ethan smiled. "I have to say that's never happened to me."

"So I'm not sharing my bed with a corpse?" said Sophie. "That's always good to know." She moved slightly. "Um… when I say sharing my bed…"

"It's all right. I know what you mean," said Ethan. They were on the same bed at the same time, after all. And they were lying down and they were very close together and… actually it might be better not to think about that too much at the present moment. Quickly, he continued: "But there are so many things that can go wrong. I've left my tent on the train about three times – and I usually stay in youth hostels."

"Me too," said Sophie. "Ever since I had my tent stolen. When I was in it."

Ethan turned to her anxiously. "You mean you were kidnapped?"

"No, they left me behind," said Sophie. "Only sensible really. They didn't know where I'd been. They took the tent, the groundsheet, the guy ropes, the tent pegs - they left me my sleeping bag and my other belongings, but believe me, I was not a happy camper."

"So what did you…" Ethan stopped. "Is that my phone?"

Sophie laughed. "Well, it's not mine. So either it's yours or one of us is a phone thief. So it better had be yours because I don't want to share my bed with a phone thief either."

Ethan looked around and picked up his phone from Sophie's bedside table. "Hi Caleb."

"Where are you?" Cal sounded annoyed.

"In Sophie's hotel room," said Ethan, slightly surprised. He was sure that was where Cal had told them to go.

"Where? What are you doing?" Cal's voice rose slightly.

His reaction made no sense to Ethan. "Just lying on Sophie's bed having fun."

"WHAT?"

Ethan winced as he felt his eardrum vibrate. Beside him, Sophie began to laugh uncontrollably. "Oh Ethan. Oh Ethan."

Ethan suddenly realised what he'd said. "Oh, I didn't mean… I don't mean we're… we were talking about walking holidays."

Apparently this was the wrong answer too. "Ethan! You're probably boring the poor girl to death!" said Cal.

"Well, probably," admitted Ethan. "Her stories are much funnier than mine."

"Why are you doing that lying down anyway?" demanded Cal.

Ethan had to admit it was a reasonable question. He also had to admit that he rather enjoyed hearing Cal sound so jealous. "Sophie said she was tired so I told her to lie down, but then I wanted to show her some pictures of when I went to the Peak District, so I lay down next to her so we could both see. Where are you?"

"At home," said Cal. "I thought you'd take Sophie there. I never thought she'd let you into her hotel room." This last came out with grudging admiration.

Ethan gathered from this that Cal hadn't been quite so lucky, but he didn't doubt it would happen. Sophie wouldn't hold out forever. Not many girls did. "How did it go?"

"Pretty well, I think," said Cal. "I'll tell you when I get there." His voice darkened. "As long I won't be in the way."

"No, of course not," said Ethan. He knew he would be the one in the way. "Hold on for a minute, will you? Sophie, do you mind if Cal comes here?"

"Not if you stay," said Sophie. "For… for chaperone purposes, I mean."

Ethan had to turn away from her so she wouldn't see him blush. He knew Sophie only wanted him to stay to ensure that Cal didn't get any ideas, but it was still nice that she wanted his company. "That's fine, Cal. Phone me again when you get here and I'll come down and find you." He turned back to Sophie. "He'll probably be about ten minutes. So you've got time to tell me the rest of your camping story." He smiled. "I'm on tenterhooks."

Cal didn't know why he was so anxious. Sophie really liked him, after all. She would never cheat on him with anyone. As for Ethan, he would hardly steal his own brother's girlfriend. Even if he did, he wouldn't know what to do with her.

But all that business of getting Sophie to lie down because she was tired and then conveniently thinking of an excuse to lie down next to her… it was impossible not to be suspicious of that. Cal had used that line on lots of girls more than once, and he'd always had an ulterior motive.

Instead of phoning Ethan, he asked for Sophie's room number at the desk. To his annoyance, they refused to give it to him. "Oh, come on! You know me! I've booked rooms in this hotel loads of times."

"We can put a call through to Miss Matthews' room if you'd like me to, sir."

"She's my girlfriend," said Cal. "I want to surprise her."

"That's very… romantic, but I'm afraid we have very strict rules, sir. Particularly with our female guests. Would you like me to make the call?"

"Don't bother. I'll do it myself. I do know my own girlfriend's phone number," said Cal sulkily. He decided to phone Sophie rather than Ethan this time. He didn't know why he hadn't done it before. Why would he phone his brother when he could have phoned his girlfriend?

Sophie sounded suspiciously breathless. "Hi Cal, are you here?"

"Why are you out of breath?" said Cal. "What have you been doing?"

"Ethan," said Sophie.

Cal forgot he was in the middle of the hotel. "What do you mean you've been 'doing' Ethan?" he shouted.

"Oh no, I didn't mean that!" gasped Sophie. "No. Not at all. Of course not. I'm out of breath because he made me laugh. He was telling me about this time he went on a walking holiday and…" She stopped and went off into another peal of laughter. "…and he ran out of tea bags and he said he was really teed off and that he recommended always taking twice as much tea as you thought you'd need and then I said thanks for the PG tip and then he said just be sure to take the Lyons share and then I said I'll take Bettys and Taylors share too and then he said tea is obviously a Premier Food for me and then I said I'd be sure to give him a Ringtons if I wanted any more advice on tea and then he said-"

"Did either of you mention Horniman's Tea?" asked Cal, even though he was worried about the answer.

"No, I forgot about it!" said Sophie. "I'll tell him I don't like every brand because the last thing you need when you're alone in the middle of nowhere is a Horniman! Aw Ethan! He's blushing, bless him!"

Cal decided that not even Horniman's Tea could be that much of an aphrodisiac where Ethan was concerned. "What's your room number?"

Sophie stopped laughing. "I'll send Ethan down to show you. You'll never find my room on your own. The room numbers are really weird."

"No, that's okay," said Cal. "I know how the room numbers work. I've been here loads of times."

"For business meetings, of course," said Sophie.

"That's right, for business meetings," said Cal. He laughed awkwardly. "Why else would I go to a hotel? I only live ten minutes away."