A/N: Thanks to all readers out there. Sorry, it took a little longer with the update. Hope you'll like it. May I introduce Duncan… the groom to be and Hardy's oldest friend.

CHAPTER 10

Hardy had a bitter taste in his mouth. He would have liked to blame it on the pills, but he knew better than that. What Tess had said about him was true. He never had been very good at taking care of himself or – God help him – at opening up to people around him. Regardless, it felt like betraying her not to confess all his worries and the very tangible fear that there was something seriously wrong with his heart.

He quickly pushed away the thought of his own mortality. Losing one's bodily and mental capabilities to illness was something he was truly scared of. He had been forced to stand by helplessly and watch his father slowly deteriorate, in the end passing away a mere shadow of his former proud self. His father had despised weakness and dependency his whole life, maybe more so than was healthy. It certainly had not encouraged his understanding of his wife's fragile state.

His thoughts lingered on his mother for a very brief moment. He could hear the heart monitor pick up the pace. Not a good idea to confront those painful memories now. He took in a deep breath, but was quickly reminded that a broken rib is not in favor of such action. He was feeling increasingly restless. He itched to get up and go for a walk, but knew that that was out of the question.

'Nothing reckless', she had said. Fine, he didn't want to lose her as his doctor.

He grabbed the phone. There were two texts – one from Baxter asking how Daisy was and to his surprise one from Duncan's fiancée. About the wedding. He slowly spun the phone around in his hands. Suppose, he should give Duncan a call and give him a heads up that his best man might not be able to make it. He pressed his lips together. He couldn't decide if he wanted to talk to his old friend. Duncan for sure would make him face reality as soon as he figured out what was going on and he wouldn't take any bull shit answers, especially not from Hardy. He knew him too well. And he could smell him lying from miles away.

He scrolled through his contacts until he found the number. There was really nothing else for him to do, he told himself, it was all just distraction.

Ya, right.

Who was he kidding? The situation was threatening to overwhelm him. Usually, it would have been Tess to pull him away from his compulsive brooding, but not his time. The fact that he didn't want to talk to Tess was making it even more painfully obvious that there was a need to confide in someone else. And it couldn't be Baxter.

Before he could lose courage, he pressed the button. It was ringing for a while and he was feeling relieved – almost.

"Hold on, Hardy." Duncan barked into the phone, his Scottish accent thicker than he remembered. There was a lot of noise in the background, and then a sound of something shattering on the ground.

"Bloody hell, James, get back here now and help cleaning up the mess you made."

Duncan's voice was full of exasperation. Hardy heard the muffled response of Duncan's youngest son, clearly refusing to come back. A flurry of colorful language followed. Hardy leaned back on his pillow and found the family banter oddly relaxing.

"Sorry, mate. The little shit is driving me bonkers. He's just lucky, it was me who was around and not his mother."

Duncan was in rare form and talking a mile a minute. Tess' theory why they were such good friends was that, ultimately, they were extremely compatible – Duncan would just talk for the two of them, while Hardy would sit back and observe, something that Duncan apparently wasn't good at. Mouth and eyes as Tess liked to say. In Hardy's opinion this was a rather one dimensional way to describe their relationship, but admittedly not entirely untrue. For many years it was Duncan who steered him through the treacherous waters of human interaction, while Hardy made sure that his friend didn't get himself into too much trouble.

"So, did ya get Geena's message? She's been bugging me about that suit of yours. You really need to get that fitted. Just do it for me, mate. If I have to listen to her one more time about, how unreliable all my friends are and how all her friends are all set already, I think I might just lose it. And what about Daisy, did she get a dress? I had to mail those cloth color thingees so that she could go shopping. God, this whole wedding is driving me mad, don't even know why we're doing this. It's not like we haven't been like married forever. Why the formalities? Nothing wrong with living in sin, ey?"

Duncan finally paused. Hardy opened his mouth but couldn't get anything out.

"Hardy, what's going on? Out with it. You're even more tight-lipped than usual."

He took in a deep breath. "We might not be able to come to the wedding."

"What? Is it Tess? I'm going to…"

Hardy promptly interrupted him. "No, it's not that. Daisy…" He swallowed and mustered the courage to say it out loud.

"Daisy's in the hospital. It's serious. She's got appendicitis and it got bad. She's in the ICU." He broke up.

"Oh God, I'm sorry Hardy. But she's going to be alright, yes?"

"She stopped breathing, Duncan." The image of the doctors shoving the breathing tube down her throat was as vivid in front of him as it had been that morning. Hardy felt his throat closing up. He forced himself to go on.

"I watched them put the breathing tube in. She had to have emergency surgery."

Hardy's breathing was getting heavier. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to make the image go away. Instead he tried to focus on the feeling of her hand squeezing his. It helped.

"They said she's getting better now. Tess says she looks better." His voice was trembling.

Duncan was quiet on the other side, a sure sign that he was rather shocked. There wasn't much that would shut him up. Then he caught on to something.

"What do you mean, Tess says she looks better? You're not there with her?"

Hardy cursed himself. Tess was wrong about her assessment that Hardy was the observant one. Duncan had a canny ability of picking up on undertones, on the things that were not said, especially when it came to his oldest friend. Hardy got tense, struggling with the inevitable. He squirmed in the bed, his heart rate picking up with the anxious feelings. The monitor sound was starting to annoy him, a constant reminder of his malfunctioning body.

"Hardy, what's that noise? Sounds like you're in a hospital. But you're not with Daisy." Hardy knew Duncan so well that he could see him sitting up on the other end, pulling up his left eye brow and arriving at the logical conclusion.

"Are you in a fucking hospital yourself?" Duncan's concern was obvious. So was his impatience. He didn't wait for Hardy to come up with a story.

"Don't lie to me, you know you can't." He was at the verge of getting angry when Hardy still didn't reply.

"Out with it, now!" He growled the last word.

Hardy cleared his throat. "Aye, I'm in hospital myself. Looks like I couldn't handle the stress of seeing my daughter get sick."

Maybe he would buy it, Hardy doubted it though. And in a way he didn't want him too. He needed Duncan to make him say it, as he couldn't have done so of his own accord.

"Bullshit. Sounds like you're hocked up to some kind of heart monitor. For God' sake, what's going on with you? I know you, even you wouldn't be this squirmy if it wasn't something bad."

Duncan's voice grating at his nerves was the last bit of nudging he needed. His hand with the IV was loosely draped over his eyes and the other hand was clutching the phone tightly, knuckles turning white.

With a barely audible voice, he admitted more to himself than to his friend, "I almost died."

There was dead silence on the other side. Hardy could hear his friend sucking in a few breaths. Oddly, he himself felt calm, a weight being lifted. And to his own surprise he was able to continue with a steady voice.

"I collapsed in Daisy's room, right before they took her to surgery. They had to do chest compressions – they broke my bloody rib, hurts like shit. They did that thing they do on TV, you know, shock you with the paddles. Twice, before they got my back."

He paused to give his friend time to process. And maybe also himself.

"Are you telling me that your bloody heart stopped?" Duncan was clearly having a hard time with the information. His voice sounded shaky.

"Aye, sorta. I'm not sure I quite understood what the doctor told me, but that was basically it."

"Why?" Duncan was short, but not with him. Hardy knew his friend well enough. Duncan was trying to compose himself. He tended to only say the absolutely needed then, so unlike his usual self.

Hardy sighed. "Don't know yet. I have some more tests to do today and then I'll meet with the cardiologist later in the afternoon."

"Alec, what are you not telling? I need to know." Duncan never used his first name, unless he was dead serious.

Hardy didn't answer at first. It was hard to get his thoughts straight. He was still clinging on to the hope that it might have been something temporary, but if he was honest with himself, now that he had an idea what the symptoms were, they had been there for quite some time.

The tremble was back in his voice. "There's a possibility that there's something wrong… with my heart. Might have been there for bit already."

"What do you mean, something's wrong with your heart?" He sounded confused and Hardy felt himself reminded of his own reaction only a day ago, when Dr. Abbott told him his heart had given out on him.

Hardy was exhausted. His voice sounded weary and old to him. "It's not beating normally. They're not sure yet, or maybe they are and haven't told me. As I said I'm meeting with the cardiologist today, after a few more tests."

Duncan picked up on something else. "And what do you mean by, it's been there for a bit? You never mentioned anything." He sounded angry. Hardy knew where that could lead to.

"Please, Duncan. Go easy on me. I really didn't know. I thought I was out of shape and tired. I would have never thought that there was something serious…" He trailed off. Neither of them said anything for a while.

When Duncan finally spoke again, his voice was soft and caring. "Listen, whatever it is, you'll deal with it. They'll fix you up and you're going to be back to your usual wanker self in no time. You're not alone. I'm here if you need anything. And then Tess…"

Having finally confronted the situation, Hardy was already on shaky emotional ground, some silent tears running down his cheeks. Mentioning Tess pushed him over the edge and a stifled sob escaped his throat.

Duncan paused. "Oh, you haven't told her yet."

His voice was weak. "No. Not yet. Wanted to wait for what they have to say. Not stress her out more. I already left her alone with Daisy. She has every right to be mad, with me…"

"Bullshit!" Duncan cut him off, this time properly angry. "She has absolutely no right to be mad at you. You died, Alec, for all practical purposes. Your stupid heart stopped and if you weren't the stubborn arse that you are, who knows what would have happened. If she should ever make a comment in front of me along the lines of you leaving her because your heart gave out on you, I will not hold back anymore. It won't be pretty, I swear." His breathing was heavy on the other end.

When Duncan had calmed down he added, "God, Alec. Your fucking guilt complex will do you in some day. You didn't do anything wrong, you've been ill. Don't let her do that to you."

And he used the ultimate weapon to disarm Alec Hardy. "Daisy would tell you the same thing, and you know it."

Hardy pressed on his eye balls. "Leave Daisy out of it. I know you don't like Tess, but…"

"This is not about liking her or not. It's not about her hitting on me, it's not about all the times she should have been there for you and wasn't. For the small things."

Duncan took in a big breath.

"This is about what you vow when you get married, this is about being there not only in the good times, but in the bad times as well. Especially when the bad times are a real shit storm. For Tess, it's always about her, never about anyone else. It's utterly selfish, and quite frankly rather ludicrous, to blame you for getting ill and leaving her alone. You didn't leave her alone, she left you alone."

Hardy's response was meek. " 'S not like that. She does care, you know. About me." He was starting to feel light-headed again and his breathing became heavier.

"I'm really sorry, Alec. I can tell I'm upsetting you and I really shouldn't be doing that right now. I haven't said anything about Tess and how I see some things that you might not, because I respect you as a friend. But I also care about you, a lot. I can't stand by idly and watch how she's treating you, especially not now with all this going on. You need support, you need someone who will make you do the right things, because you're shit at taking care of yourself. And I do wonder if Tess it the best person for that. Not because she doesn't care about you, but because of the person she is."

Hardy was struggling with keeping up what his friend was saying. By now, light-headedness had turned into vision gone all blurry and that empty feeling in his chest was growing stronger. He was trying to catch his breath.

"Alec? Are you alright?" Duncan was yelling at him through the phone.

Hardy couldn't answer. He was trying to find the call bell. Somewhere inside his foggy mind he was wondering why the damn monitor wasn't going off, only to realize that it actually was.

Duncan was still yelling at him through the phone and Hardy was clutching it like a life line, when the nurse and Dr. Abbott came into the room. They tried to make him swallow those awful pills, but he just couldn't.

Dr. Abbott put her hand on his arm, trying to get his attention.

"Mr. Hardy, try to take the pills. I need to see you do it, so I know you can do this on your own once you're out of here. You do want to get out of here, don't you?"

In his state, it took Hardy a moment to process. Sufficiently motivated, he did his best at getting the pills down and succeeded. He slumped back on his pillow, struggling to breathe.

"Well done. Now focus on breathing until the medication kicks in. We're here with you."

She pried the phone out of his hand and at the edge of consciousness he realized she was talking to Duncan. She was watching him intently, her eyes darting between the monitor and him, taking his pulse at his wrist. And all the while she was talking – no, not that – but actually listening to Duncan.

After a few agonizingly long minutes, his heart beat returned to normal and it became easier to breathe.

Dr. Abbott smiled. "There you go. Better now?" He nodded.

"Your friend wants to tell you something. I think you scared him."

Hardy scoffed, "I think I scared myself."

She chuckled. "Ah, welcome back, Mr. Hardy."

She handed him the phone and excused herself. "I'll see you this afternoon, when we meet with Dr. Hamilton, the cardiologist. We have a lot to talk about."

Hardy took the phone. "You're still there? 'M sorry, if I scared you."

"Ach, Alec. Quit it. If anyone should be sorry, it's me. I shouldn't have said what I said, at least not right now. I spoke to your doctor, seems like a nice person. She didn't tell me much, patient confidentiality. Anyways, I did get something out of her though. I told her about the wedding in a couple of weeks, I asked her if she thinks you wouldn't be able to go. She feels very confident that there shouldn't be a reason why not."

Hardy's nerves being frayed as they were, he lost it.

"Really? The wedding? You worried you need to find a new best man? Maybe this time someone who'll get the damn suit fitted" Sarcasm was dripping of his words and his pitch had shifted up an octave.

Duncan let out a sigh. "Please, Alec, don't get annoyed. Let me talk. If you can't be the best man, then I just won't have anyone. But that's not it. I know how much Daisy and you both were looking forward to this. Use that. Hold on to that desire of spending that time with her. Hold on to the idea that this is going to be something that you and she will share, and just the two of you. Nobody else. It's going to get you through the next days and weeks until things get better. Listen to me and don't be stubborn about it. Please."

Hardy didn't quite know how to respond. He pressed his lips to a thin line and looked out the window, sun filtering in. And slowly the words of his friend sunk in and became meaningful.

Sincerely, he finally replied, "Thank you, Duncan. I will, I promise."

"You're welcome." There was relief in his voice. "Oh, and you better get that suit fitted. A heart condition buys you only that much time with bridezilla."

Hardy snorted. " 'S not a condition."

Duncan laughed. "It sure sounds like one to me. Seriously though, l want to know what they have to say. You don't have to be alone in this." There was another loud crash in the back ground and Duncan cursed.

"I'm sorry mate, but I have to go. Otherwise these kids will tear the place down. Call me, yes?"

"I will. Thanks again for..." And as usual Hardy had trouble putting his feelings in words. "… for everything."

Duncan scoffed. "I would say don't mentioned it, but as you barely can get anything out that remotely resembles an expression of emotion, I'm not going to. I'll talk to you soon. Bye, Hardy." And he was gone.

Hardy stared at the phone, mind wondering, until they came to pick him up to go for a battery of tests. He was trying to recall what the exact things were that Duncan had said about Tess, but it was all a little fuzzy. One thing though did stick with him – 'You didn't leave her alone, she left you alone'. He didn't agree with Duncan. He had left Tess alone, but not because he fell ill, but because of not being in the moment with her anymore. Like all those times he came home, but wasn't really present. Like when he stayed late in the police station to obsess over a case. Like when he was distanced at work out of an exaggerated need to stay professional.

And while they were wheeling him through the hospital, he made a decision. He was going to change things. He was going to take care of himself, his health, and he was going to take better care of their relationship. He loved Tess and the thought of them growing apart made his heart ache in a way that no pills could treat.