Hi everyone, I hope you like this chapter. The next few chapters (I'm not sure yet how many exactly) will leave where the one before left off, because all of their events happen in the same shift, which is important to the plot, but if they were in one chapter you'd be looking at over 10,000 words! So I hope you'll enjoy the first installment, please leave a review and let me know what you think!
"Lily, Connie and I need a word with you, as soon as, please," Zoe said, when she met Lily on her way into work the next morning. Lily checked her watch, and gestured for Ethan to go on ahead of her.
"Um, is nine o'clock okay? I need to change, and..." She didn't want to say that she had to check on Dylan, but that was what would delay her the most this morning.
"That's fine. I'll see you later," Zoe replied, heading to Connie's office straight away,
Lily's watch ticked past nine o'clock, and she hadn't found Dylan. Once she'd changed into her scrubs, she checked everywhere: the staffroom, reception, triage, resus. She even tried the on-call room, just in case, but it was empty. She tried not to worry too much, it wasn't her responsibility to watch him for every minute of the day. But it certainly unsettled her to remember that Dylan was never late for anything without a good reason. Especially not work. Making her way to Connie's office, she scanned the department one last time, before timidly knocking on the door.
"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Mrs Beauchamp," Lily said shyly. " I was, um, Ethan asked where I was going," she lied.
"It's okay Lily," Connie said quietly. Lily tried to conceal her confusion: the clinical lead was usually the worst stickler for timekeeping. Zoe gestured to the space next to her on the sofa, and Lily took it, wondering why on earth she was here. Connie usually called people to her office about their performance, but Zoe was never there too, and besides, she didn't think she'd been doing that badly lately. Zoe observed Lily's expression and guessed what she was thinking.
"This isn't about your performance, don't panic," she said, smiling.
"Although if it puts you at ease, I think you've been doing excellently since you returned to the department," Connie added.
"Thank you," Lily said. She fidgeted with the catch on her watch. Zoe looked at Connie, having expected her to take the lead here. Connie returned an agonising look, completely at a loss over how to start this conversation. Zoe sighed.
"Um, Lily, this is going to sound crazy," she said, "But we actually wanted to speak to you about Dylan."
Lily's eyes widened and she sincerely hoped that Connie and Zoe would interpret this as surprise and confusion, rather than fear. She knew she couldn't give Dylan the help he needed. Just talking, and giving her a number when she remembered to ask, was not a long-term solution. Maybe Zoe or Connie could help him, or find someone who could do it better than her. She couldn't tell them the problems he had, not without telling him that's what she was going to do. It wouldn't be right. He trusted her, even if he had only originally told her because he was in the grip of a panic attack and frankly scared of what was happening to him. She couldn't break that trust, it wasn't fair on him. He needed her, if he didn't have anyone to talk to, he'd be in a far worse place than he was now. And Lily couldn't deny that to some degree she needed him too. There wasn't anyone else who understood where she was coming from, about the accident, as well as Dylan did (no matter how hard Ethan tried.)
She couldn't do it.
It would be nothing short of betrayal.
She nodded to Zoe, to show she was listening, but was already promising herself to stay quiet.
"I've noticed that you've worked with him a lot lately, and I need your help." Lily's cheeks burned at the thought of turning down Zoe's plea. Zoe knew the pinkening of Lily's cheeks was a sign. She persevered. "I want to help him, Lily, I know there's something wrong and I think I think you know what it is." Lily wrung her hands in her lap. Connie could see that the junior doctor felt uncomfortable, and she didn't want her to feel like she had to speak out. She cleared her throat.
"Lily," she began. "I don't want you to worry that we're going to sit her until you tell us everything. We both just wanted to get you here to tell you that we'll listen if you can't cope."
"I'm coping just fine, thank you, I don't know what you're talking about," Lily said defensively, before sitting bolt upright in shock that she'd just answered back so rudely. "I'm sorry!" she said quickly. "I didn't mean to say that, Mrs Beauchamp, I'm sorry." Connie shook her head to show that it didn't matter.
"I promise that I'm not trying to question your performance or your professionalism, or your judgement in this admittedly very difficult situation. I just know that it can really take its toll, keeping everything bottle up like I think you are. I don't want to interrogate you until you tell me what's wrong with Dylan. We're not blind, we can see it too. It's just that we need to know if he needs help, and he's not speaking to Zoe that much, and obviously he wouldn't come to me." Connie's tone was almost soothing, nearly convincing Lily to spill it all. But something was stopping her. It wasn't her shyness, her still-crippling fear of public embarrassment that often seemed to pin her lips together. It was the way Dylan would immediately take back control of a resus case, the second Connie or Zoe entered the room. The air of defeat when he'd asked her to take over treatment of Paige Reading (the little girl in cubicles with dreams of being a doctor.) The look on his face, of total humiliation when he stammered so badly he couldn't get a sentence out. He didn't want them to know, so what right did she have to take that choice away from him?
"I have a duty of care to all my doctors, Lily. If Dylan needs help then that's one thing. If keeping his secrets is becoming too much for you, then I need to know, for my own peace of mind as much as anyone else's, that you'd come to one of us and let off some steam before it starts affecting your work as well as his."
Lily was well and truly cornered. Zoe knew that she knew exactly what was happening: the day of Dylan's major panic attack, she'd more or less told the consultant that she knew it all but was simply choosing not to tell her. Connie was picking her words very carefully indeed. Lily couldn't accept that she was struggling to keep quiet, without telling them everything. And she couldn't tell them to stop worrying, she was coping fine, because that was the same as telling them she did know everything. Not thinking of the other two women in the room, Lily put her head in her hands. She couldn't think through all the solutions when all the time she could feel two pairs of eyes boring into her. She wanted to escape, to run and not have to do this at all.
"I understand that this is difficult for you Lily," Zoe said softly. "I know that he trusts you. We're not saying that you have to tell us now, but if either of you are struggling, we need to know, okay?" Lily bit her lip so hard she could taste blood on her tongue. Connie thought she was ready to speak, but there was a very awkward silence in the room. After a few seconds, Lily leant down to retie her shoelaces, then looked at Zoe.
"Could I come and talk later?" she whispered. Zoe nodded, trying to put her at ease when clearly she'd rather be anywhere else.
"Whenever you need to talk, one of us will be ready."
When Lily left the office, Zoe sighed.
"She knows all of it," she said.
"You think so?" Connie asked, not quite as perceptive as the consultant in front of her.
"She knows every single little detail, but if I know her like I think I do, she won't break his trust." Zoe tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and pinched the bridge of her nose, stressed.
"She got a point though."
"Excuse me?" Zoe said, not believing what she was hearing.
"If she does tell us, then he's going to close off and push everyone away."
"But if she doesn't, how are we going to help him?" They were quiet for a moment. "You did well though, I thought she would say something once you'd mentioned keeping everything bottled up."
"Thank you," Connie said. "But I was completely lost, you got the ball rolling. Let me know if she comes to talk to you later."
It was nearly ten o'clock when Lily noticed Dylan in the department for the first time. She was exceptionally pleased of having stayed quiet in Connie's office: he didn't look good at all.
Dylan was tired, despite having slept all night. That nightmare was still at the foreground in his mind and there was a tight knot in his stomach. He hadn't eaten any breakfast. His heart was beating faster than usual and it was only the start of the day. He'd never been more relieved to see Lily in his life, if only to try and erase the part of the nightmare where Connie had announced her death. But Lily looked anxious too. Dylan jammed his hands in his pockets, to hide the shake that he no longer had to check to know was there. She headed over to him.
"Are you okay?" he asked at once.
"You're asking me if I'm okay? You look awful – sorry, that came out wrong, you look as though you shouldn't be here."
"I – um – didn't sleep t-too well last night," he stammered. It was easier to lie than to admit he'd had a nightmare like that. "But what's happened to you?" he said, more confident now he could direct attention away from himself.
"Zoe and Connie asked me about you." Lily decided she might as well come clean. Watching Dylan's face fall faster than a rollercoaster, she added quickly, "It's okay, I didn't tell them anything."
"Thank you."
"But I think Zoe knows already. She can tell that I know," she said worriedly.
"She's always been annoyingly good at reading minds."
He didn't say anything more about it, but Lily couldn't shake it from her mind. It weighed down on her as they took their first case together in resus. It wouldn't be long before the secret broke, and when it did, it would come down on them both like a ton of bricks. But she had to focus, because Dylan was missing things. She saw the shake in his hands and pulled the intubation equipment from between his fingers before any of the nurses saw. Dylan's heart was still pounding, and he was glad that Lily couldn't notice that. He checked a CT scan and compulsively tapped his thigh, not even conscious of doing it any more. Tap-tap-tap-tap. Pause. Tap-tap-tap-tap. Lily looked over the bed at him. She couldn't see him tapping, but she could see his wrist twitching. She'd never felt so conflicted.
"You look like it's been a rough morning," Ethan said when Lily sat down next to him in the staffroom at lunchtime.
"You could say that," she said, intertwining her fingers in his. Ethan smiled, rubbing his thumb on the silky smooth side of her hand.
"I've been thinking, normal couples -"
"What makes you think we're one of those?" Lily laughed, kissing his cheek.
"I have absolutely no idea," Ethan said, returning her warm smile. "But normal couples go on holiday together, right?"
"Right..."
"So where shall we go?"
"I have absolutely no idea," Lily said, copying his words and tone exactly.
