Hi, hope you enjoy the chapter tonight :) It'll be a week or so before I upload again, but the story is almost done now, so I'm definitely not abandoning ship x
"You understand why I'm reluctant to trust you, don't you, Lily?" Connie asked, standing in the cubicle Lily had been confined to since her scare with an acute stress incident, ninety minutes ago.
Lily was trying to convince the Clinical Lead to allow her back on shift. Embarrassed, she knew that Connie wasn't being deliberately difficult. She tried to mentally total up the number of times she'd bent the truth about her health in order to continue to work. Too many. She nodded meekly. "I know. I just want to help."
"Your commitment to this department is commendable."
"If it wasn't for this department, I probably wouldn't be alive. I think it owe it quite a lot."
"Yes, but you owe it your best self." Connie knew that Lily was trying to get back out there to try and partially fill the gap left by Dylan, who would be out of the picture for a few days at least. "I'll make you a deal, okay? You take one more hour, in the staff room so you don't feel guilty about taking up space, because I know that you would." She looked at Lily knowingly. "In that hour, you will make sure to drink plenty and have something to eat, and after that hour you can return to work, if you stick with Ethan, so he can keep an eye on you. Does that sound like something you'd be amenable to?"
Lily nodded, smiling. "Yes, I think I'll manage that quite well. Thank you," she said gratefully, swinging her legs off the side of the bed and following Connie out of the cubicle.
This was not how Zoe had imagined her return to the UK. She'd imagined coming back to surprise everyone, maybe next February for Dylan's birthday, or at the end of this year, for Christmas and New Year's Eve. Maybe she would have brought Nick too, she would have liked to see him meet and possibly clash with Connie, over what constituted good running of Holby E.D. She had wanted to feel like coming home to Holby was a highlight of her year, re-opening a book that she loved to read and falling back into a team who felt like family.
She had not envisaged wading into a department in the throes of a civil war, to rescue Dylan, who still would not consent to taking his prescription of benzodiazepines. This despite still being high on adrenaline and anxiety, and freely admitting that he felt as though he was being screamed at by his brain. The box of pills sat in her handbag, because she knew that there would come a point in the evening where he would take the pill quietly, without fuss or attention. That was just how he worked, and she was glad of not being away long enough to forget that.
She drove him home, in his truck, once she was satisfied that there would not be anyone waiting for him to leave, ready to rip into him again.
"What made you come back?" Dylan asked, looking straight ahead. That was the beauty of conversations held during car journeys: eye-contact wasn't an unnegotiable necessity and, on the whole, people tended to be more honest as a result of that. It was a strange truth.
"Pass, next question please," Zoe said awkwardly.
But Dylan stayed quiet, empowered by the social rules of talking in the car. Even the most difficult questions were easier to answer when you weren't compelled to look at the person asking. This was a something he needed to know the answer to.
Zoe sighed, well-aware that she was being played like a violin, a slave to social conventions. It was the first time she'd really considered the question, since she had instinctively and impulsively booked a flight from Michigan to Heathrow, then navigated the joys of the British rail system until finally getting a cab and stepping out onto that oh-so-familiar car park outside the front of Holby City Hospital. A traffic light ahead of them turned red, and she smoothly stopped the truck. She ran a hand through her hair.
"Lily left me a message, two days ago," she said at last, still looking straight ahead. "It was pretty clear that she needed me here." Zoe paused. "And I was worried about you."
Dylan fidgeted uncomfortably. "I always thought talking in the car was so much easier. I didn't bank on it not being me, hearing things I didn't want to."
The light turned green, and Zoe pulled away from the crossing, but not before she'd looked across and noticed that Dylan was tapping each of his fingers in turn on the thumb of his right hand. He was looking out of the passenger-sidewindow, and was completely unaware.
Dylan let Zoe into the boat; he saw it through her eyes for the first time, and was appalled at the unintentional mess he had allowed himself to sink into. Dirty cups and plates balanced themselves precariously by the sink – this was almost the worst part, because when they had lived here together, he'd been the boring one who had always insisted on doing the washing up the second it materialised. A pile of post sat on the coffee table, undisturbed except for the obvious dark stain of a coffee cup ring on the top envelope. If Zoe investigated further, she would find similar marks at regular intervals down the pile: the heap had been growing for over a fortnight.
Even the air in here seemed neglected. Zoe didn't want to impose and yet she knew Dylan needed her to take charge. Tactfully, she opened the kitchen window before flicking the kettle on, grateful that there were two clean mugs left in the cupboard. She would tackle the washing up later.
"How are your hands?" she asked, turning around and leaning against the sink.
Dylan, sitting on the sofa, didn't answer. His hands stung, but he didn't deserve any help to fix them. It was his own stupidity which had led to him scrubbing them 'clean' and doing more harm than good. The satisfaction of getting rid of the last trace of black ink had been short-lived, replaced with embarrassment at the sight of his pink, raw skin. Fine cracks were visible on his knuckles, tiny beads of blood having escaped. He didn't want Zoe to look at what he'd done to himself.
Zoe wished it was easier to convince Dylan to swallow that pill. He was tearing himself up again. His elbows rested on his knees, and he looked down at the floor, his hands linked behind his neck. His legs were twitching, almost bouncing in their effort to release some of his mounting anxiety.
The kettle clicked off, and Zoe made two cups of coffee.
"What happened to Lily?" Dylan asked, still in his tense, hunched position. "Today, I mean. This afternoon."
Zoe sat down next to him, putting one of the two mugs on the table. "The pair of you never cease to amaze me. Doesn't matter what's going on, you always care about other people first." She took a sip of her drink.
"Because it's infinitely easier than caring about ourselves, probably."
Zoe's shoulders sagged. Dylan's habit of telling the truth was not always easy to take. "Lily's fine," she said eventually. "She had an acute stress reaction, but I promise you it was way more to do with Sam bloody Strachan than it was to do with you. She is completely alright now," she reiterated, needing him to not feel bad about that, on top of everything else.
Zoe began to make right the situation inside the boat. It was early evening; while running the tap to fill the washing-up bowl, she searched the cupboards to find something to cook. She put spaghetti in a pan with boiling water, and set it on the hob. Checking the use-by date on a jar of pasta sauce, she decided it would definitely do just fine.
Dylan, watching her with mild fascination, wondered aloud why she wasn't tired, after travelling so far.
"The time difference isn't all that bad, really," Zoe replied calmly. "I slept on the flight anyway, and that makes the jet-lag easier, so I was told. I guess I have to believe now, too." She returned to the washing up.
"I find it hard to believe that you spent thirteen hours on a flight and a further three on unreliable British public transport, just to do my washing up."
She turned around and made sure she had her friend's full attention. "I know it's not much, but it needs doing, and –"
"–Yes, alright, tidy boat equates to tidy mind. Although whoever decided that the cleanliness of my kitchen would dictate my mental health was sadly mistaken. I can categorically say that the correlation goes the opposite way."
When Lily and Ethan finished their shifts, Ethan drove Lily home, picking up Will and Lizzie on their way. There was none of the difficult silence or tense atmosphere between them, that had been omnipresent of late.
Ethan stopped the car, and was about to get out to go and collect Will from pre-school, when Lily put out her hand, brushing against his shoulder to stop him.
"Just wait, just a minute longer," she said. "Please."
"Whatever for?" Ethan asked curiously.
"Because I've missed this. I've missed us. I've missed feeling the way I do right now, knowing that everything is okay between us, completely comfortable with the way things are."
"I've missed us too," he admitted.
Lily turned in her seat and leaned over to her husband. She kissed his cheek, then sat back in her seat, looking down at her lap. She linked her hands tightly. "In case I haven't made it abundantly clear, because I do mean to, I take back what I said about not liking you. I still like you very much, and I'm sorry for what I said. That was a really low blow."
"Don't feel bad about things that have already happened. The past is the past, okay? you have to live in the present. And that goes for me too, okay? I can't be stuck with what happened and forget to concentrate on what's still happening."
Not quite believing what she was hearing, Lily looked up and into Ethan's eyes. There was raw emotion clear on his face, he wasn't uttering meaningless platitudes. She turned back to him, put one finger under his chin, and kissed his lips. She really had missed this.
Later, at home, Lily felt herself truly appreciating what she had. Sitting on the back doorstep, cautiously sipping a cup of tea, she had half an eye on Lizzie and half an eye on Ethan and Will playing a heatedly competitive game of football. Ethan might insist he was nothing like his brother, but the gleam in his eyes, of pride and excitement, meant it felt as though Cal was playing football with them too. She gripped her cup of tea tighter, looking up to the sky.
Suddenly, Will was standing in front of her. "Will you join in, Mummy?"
She looked from his expectant face, to Lizzie, who was still avidly watching the lawn from her bouncy chair, in case all the excitement started again. Then she looked at Ethan, who was clearly trying to work out what she was going to do.
"I'm not a chess piece, Ethan, you don't have to look at me with such confusion," she said lucidly. Putting her cup of tea down on the floor beside the back door, she allowed Will to take her by the hand and drag her up to join the game.
Before she knew it, she had somehow kicked the ball through the flowerpot goalposts, and Will was running a victory lap around the garden in her honour. Slightly giddy, she was taken by surprise when Ethan caught her by the waist and lifted her into the air before spinning her around, almost making her fall in the grass. She squealed with laughter and she could hear both of her children giggling away too.
The kitchen timer rang from inside.
"Saved by the bell," she said breathlessly. "Dinner's ready."
Will went running into the house, and Lily made her way over to get Lizzie from her bouncy chair.
"Hold on," Ethan said. "One last thing."
She turned around to face him. He hugged her, lifting her up off the ground again and kissing her.
After Zoe and Dylan had eaten, Zoe did the final bit of washing up, then picked up Alice's lead.
"You don't have to do everything," Dylan said quickly. "I know you like taking up this role of mother hen, but –"
"But nothing. You were worried about me being tired, but what about you? Panicking expends way too much energy. Tomorrow, you can get back on the horse and do everything yourself, just the way you like it. But tonight, I'm going to take care of you, and you're going to let me. Because I will just continue to do it anyway, and you know that. Okay?"
"Okay."
Zoe had been back inside for less than thirty seconds when Dylan informed her matter-of-factly that he had, at long last, taken the dose of benzodiazepine. She couldn't disguise her relief.
"How are you feeling?" she asked gently. She took back her space on the sofa, and tried not to look like she was trying to give him a visual once-over.
Dylan looked at her as though he was still trying to decide how he felt, exactly. "Like my head has been packed out with cotton wool. I can't feel anything. Don't smile, I haven't decided whether I hate it or not, yet."
"You don't have to hate it. You could just accept that that's how it is."
"Ah, but that wouldn't be particularly in-keeping with my obstinate personality, now, would it?"
Dylan might not be able to feel anything in particular, but Zoe knew that the one thing she was feeling was a reprieve of all the worry she'd had about him over the last thirty-six hours. There was no longer an exclusion zone of nervous energy around him. He wasn't agitated or upset, and after the state he'd been in this afternoon, it was nice to see him somewhat closer to normal.
Now that he was calmer, and numbed to what had gone before, it was much easier to ask: "Dylan, is there anything I can do that will make all of your anxiety easier? I don't want to offer you a truckload of stereotypes and little things that might get you through the next five minutes, the next hour, but not make a real difference."
"At this point, Zoe, I think that I'm so grateful that you're here and so drugged to high heaven that I probably won't even notice you pumping me full of clichés."
"I've missed you, so much. There's no-one else on this earth like you, no-one comes close."
"I should hope not," Dylan replied, with all of his usual dry humour. "It's not easy to keep up this image while completely falling apart."
Zoe had to bite back her initial response to this deadpan self-deprecation. "Dylan –"
"The things that I want to say, to try and explain what's going on – I have this awful feeling that they'll sound like I don't want you to care. And I do, I think, even though my every instinct is telling me to just hush up and deal with this by myself."
"You don't have to do that, you know that you don't. Fight back, you don't have to listen to those thoughts."
Dylan sighed, his shoulders sagging visibly. "You try so hard to understand, but you still don't get it. I can't admit that I am drowning in those thoughts that I know I'm not meant to listen to. I can't say that I thought I was better, that I'd ended the chapter of my life that was dictated by all this fear, but then Lily was nearly killed and Cal was stabbed and I now I'm worse than I was before! I'm supposed to be able to deal with this sort of thing – for goodness' sake I'm a doctor, I'm meant to deal with death and near-death and then just carry on like nothing has happened."
"Right, Dylan, you need to listen to me." Zoe made sure she was looking exactly into his eyes, and that he was paying attention to her. She had been taken aback by his frank and unmoving delivery of such dark thoughts that she didn't know he was capable of. She wished he wasn't capable of all that. "You have had a horrible time, worse than most people ever have to deal with, even doctors who are 'supposed' to get on with things. It's okay to not be okay. You are allowed to admit that you might need help. And it's totally fine for that to be a frightening thing for you to say. I promise that you are going to be all right in the end. You are having a god-awful time of it at the moment, but you are not the first and you will not be the last. You're not alone in this." She hugged him tightly, and was unsurprised when he sat stiffly and didn't react. She wondered whether she was hugging him to hold him together or to keep herself in one piece.
But then she felt him lift his arms and hug her back. She relaxed, resting her head on his shoulder. Despite all the circumstances around it, she was back in Holby with her best friend. He might be having a dreadful time but he was still here, and she was here, and for tonight at least, it was the two of them against the world.
That night, bedtime stories happened all together, on Lily and Ethan's bed. Lily held the book, "Melrose and Croc Find a Smile" while Ethan sat on her right-hand side with a very sleepy Lizzie against his chest. Will sat cross-legged between them, thrilled with the way his family was all back to normal. Will excitedly pointed at words he thought he could recognise.
"That says Melrose!" he said eagerly. "It's got a 'm' at the start, hasn't it!"
Lily shushed him, keen that Lizzie should stay in her almost-asleep state. "Yes, it does, good boy, William."
"When I go to school, I'll be able to read books all by myself," he said proudly.
Lily felt Ethan's hand on her shoulder, and she knew his heart was also swelling with pride at their son's enthusiasm to start school in September.
William was still excited about going to school when Lily tucked him into bed. She supposed that she shouldn't quell his passion: it would be a whole lot harder to get him into his uniform on that first day if he didn't want to go. But she soothed him expertly, reminding him that that there was plenty of time to be excited tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.
She was almost ready to leave him and go downstairs, when he opened his arms for one last hug.
"I think you and Daddy found your smiles, like Melrose in the story. You're happy."
"You know what, William? I think we have found our smiles. Now, you go to sleep like a good boy, and I will see you in the morning."
She kissed his warm little forehead, brushing his curly hair back from his face.