Chapter 37

"Mammy? Mammy?"

Alicia groans, pulled abruptly from sleep, blinks, struggles to focus in the darkness. Her eyelids feel swollen, heavy, and she's so half asleep at first that it takes her a moment to remember that after that awful phone call with Ethan, she cried herself to sleep.

She's reluctant to fully wake up at first, exhausted, and then she registers the sobbing, the obvious distress, and then maternal instinct kicks in and she's wide awake, can't not react, not when her baby girl is so obviously upset.

"Oh, it's okay. It's okay, Chakka, come here." Instinctively, she shuffles over, kicks back the covers and holds out her arms, waits for Chakra to curl up beside her, reaches out to brush her thumb gently against her cheek, wet, tear stained. "Hey, hey, don't cry. Don't cry, it's okay. You're okay, sweetheart. Do you want to tell me what's wrong?"

Chakra shakes her head, hiccups, still on the brink of a sobbing meltdown.

"No? No, alright. Come here, then. I love you so much." Alicia hugs her tightly, wraps the duvet around her, still a little paranoid almost a week on. "Have you been sick?"

"No, but I thought I was going to be."

"Okay. Okay, so, bad dream? No? You upset about something? Or are you just feeling sad?"

Chakra falls silent for a moment, wriggles, clings onto Alicia as though afraid she's going to walk away and leave her to it.

"Just sad," she says at last.

"Well, that's no good, is it? Have you been awake for a while? Yeah? I think you'd feel better if you went back to sleep, don't you? I think you're just overtired, that's all, it won't seem so bad in the morning. Do you want to stay with me?"

"Please?"

There's something about the way she says it, quiet, shaky, clingy, that almost seems to suggest she thinks there's a chance her mother will say no.

Alicia doesn't know what to do with her when she's like this.

Is it her fault? Is her daughter being like this because she hasn't made it clear enough to her that she loves her? Or has she done something else, has she been getting something catastrophically wrong ever since she was born and that's what's caused all this, has she damaged her…

"Of course you can. When have I ever made you go back to your own bed when you're upset, hey? You can stay here if you want to."

"You don't mind?"

"When have I ever minded? Of course I don't mind, you're obviously upset, you can sleep in here if you want. And anyway, you give the best hugs ever, don't you, darling? And you aren't going to want hugs with your mam when you're a teenager, are you, so I'm going to have to make the most of it."

"I will."

"You will? You're sweet, aren't you? I'm going to hold you to that, then. Listen to me, Chakka." Alicia kisses the top of her head carefully, wonders how almost eight years could have gone by so quickly. "You," tells her gently, firmly, needs her to believe it, "Are the most important thing in my life. And nothing will ever change that. Okay? Absolutely nothing. I love you ever so much. If I could make it all better, I would, you know that, right? I really would."

"Did you… want me?" Chakra asks tiredly, plays with Alicia's hair like a small child.

"What? Of course I did, sweetheart. Shall I tell you a secret? I've never wanted anythingas much as I wanted you. I've told you that I had to wait a couple of months to find out if you were healthy enough to… enough to survive, haven't I? Those few weeks were honestly the longest few weeks of my entire life, because I was so scared I wasn't going to be able to be your mammy. I wouldn't be without you for anything, and if… if I've ever made you think otherwise, then I am so, so sorry…"

"But did you want me?" Chakra asks, clings tighter. "That isn't an answer."

"I'm not quite sure I know what you mean, then, darling..."

"Like… did you want… like… a normal daughter? More like you? Less… weird?"

"Where on earth has this come from? You're not weird. We've talked about this, haven't we, children your age can be really, really nasty to each other sometimes, you just have to try and ignore it..."

"Sophia kept saying I was weird again, on Tuesday," Chakra admits quietly. "And… and Evie told everyone when we were doing Literacy that she thinks you look normal, and you…"

"And I what?"

"And you… you probably…" She's sobbing again now, breath coming in hiccups. "You… probably… wish you… had… a more… normal… daughter… like… popular… and…"

How can kids be so bloody cruel? Months of problems with Sophia, months and all of a sudden, even half asleep and desperately upset, she's starting to wonder if Evie, whoever Evie is, is just as bad.

"No, no, no, no, no, listen to me. Chakra? Chakra, listen. You're normal. Of course you're normal, anyone saying you aren't is talking complete and utter rubbish, alright? I really, really mean that." She feels as though her heart is breaking, because this is all her fault, it must be- this part of it all, at least, this sudden burst of questions. Evidently, she hasn't made her feel secure enough, somewhere along the line she's gone horribly wrong, and even if she hasn't caused the rest of her problems, even if there isn't a genetic link at all, she's responsible for this current escalation.

She should have seen this coming a long time ago, realised what she was getting herself into, Alicia curses, because hindsight is a wonderfully cruel thing. Chakra is Ethan's daughter, after all; how did it take her until now, until she found him again, to realise how alike they are, how alike they always have been? Ethan has never exactly been full of self-confidence socially, after all…

It's easy to forget. In some ways, she's nothing like Ethan at all, character-wise, not if their shared ability to spend hours at a time completely captivated by topics anyone else would consider painfully boring is disregarded. Perhaps it would be different had she grown up with both her parents around until now, but as it is, Alicia can see more of her own character traits in her, even now, and perhaps that's nurture rather than nature; she doesn't know.

Either way, she should have seen it coming. She should have done something about it sooner, she should have taken action long, long before this, should have made absolutely certain that her daughter never bought into the whole 'weird' mentality, should have remembered Cal and Ethan's dynamic, how Cal had enjoyed teasing him and putting him down to big himself up at times and how every now and then it would get to him, properly get to him, lead to the explosive arguments that made her so wary of coming between them, what now feels like both yesterday and a lifetime ago.

This is just so Ethan. It's not something Alicia would ever have worried about in her own childhood, wouldn't have even entered her head, but it's so, so Ethan.

"I wouldn't change you for anything, Chakra," Alicia promises. "I love you exactly as you are, I wouldn't ever want you to be any different. Okay? I couldn't possibly love you any more than I already do, you're already perfect. I don't want you to be like me, or any of the other kids in your class, or anyone else. I'd quite like it if you give at least a few of the stupid things I did as a teenager a miss, to be honest, I did some seriously stupid things in school. And medical school. And… you know what, I don't think I stopped doing stupid things until I had you, you're a pretty good influence. But I just want you to be you. Nothing's ever going to change that. Okay, so if you do something really, really bad, then I can't promise I won't be angry, or disappointed. But nothing you do or don't do will ever make me love you any less, and do you know why? Because I carried you for… well, I managed seven months of the whole pregnancy thing. I gave birth to you, I've been your mam for eight years, more or less. You're my baby, and do you know what that means? It means I think you're perfect no matter what, because you're mine. That is the last thing you ever, ever need to worry about, sweetheart, okay? I will always, always love you, even if you make me listen to weird music and drag me to every English Heritage site in existence."

"I love you, too."

"You're adorable, aren't you? Can you stop wriggling though, please, if you're going to cuddle up like this. Your feet are freezing."

"Sorry."

"Hey, it's okay. Are you going to go back to sleep, then? Hang on," Alicia realises, thoughts operating in slow motion, far too tired to be thinking clearly and she's missed it until now. "Hang on… so you and Sophia are still on the same table for Literacy?"

"Mrs Davies says I have to learn to work with other people, even when I don't want to."

"Oh, she does, does she? Well, we'll add it to my list of complaints to make when I email your school, then. Not that you need to worry about that, because I'm never sending you back there. Do you have anything else to add?" Alicia tries. "Chak? Because I need to email them anyway, so if anything else happened at school that upset you last week, or if anyone said anything, or anything that happened before, for that matter, anything at all, you can tell me. You know that, right?"

"I know." Chakra blinks sleepily, presses up against Alicia. "Are you crying?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Your cheeks are all wet."

"Are they?" Alicia feigns obliviousness. "I think I had a weird dream, that's all. Nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart, okay? Oh my goodness, you're clingy tonight. It's alright, Chakka," she sighs, squeezes, half-hoping she might be able to somehow take away all the pain and anguish that's so clearly going on inside her head. "You don't need to worry about anything, you just need to go back to sleep. Chakra?" she says softly. "Chakra, you know that you are always, always going to be my first priority, don't you? No matter what. Even if Ethan and I get back together, you always come first, that won't ever change. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, you know that? You really, really are. Me having a boyfriend wouldn't change that, I promise."

"Are you and Ethan going to get back together?" Chakra asks sleepily.

"I don't know," Alicia tells her, fights to keep her voice level, disguise the doubt and the hurt and the upset and the fear that she's going to lose him all over again. "I don't know, darling, that isn't really the point. What I mean is that just because we've been spending more time with Ethan, that doesn't mean I'm going to start spending less time with you, okay? You're stuck with me for life, no one's ever going to be more important to me than you. So if you're worried I'm going to start neglecting you, there's absolutely no reason to, I…"

"I know." Chakra goes still at last, finally relaxed, apparently completely unfazed, and as much as Alicia is relieved, can cross that particular worry safely off of her list of potential causes of Chakra's recent decline before her private psych assessment and all the horrors she's afraid will come with it, she's despairing a little too because she really does believe her, and it means she's still none the wiser.

"Okay. Okay, let's get some sleep, then," Alicia sighs softly, arm already going a little numb trapped underneath Chakra's still form but she doesn't care, doesn't want to let go of her, not while she's like this; because yes, she's calm now, but just a few minutes ago it was a completely different story.

It's going to get better, Alicia tells herself.

It has to get better, she has to believe it's going to get better.

The trouble is, sometimes she just can't quite see how.

"Right, so you're going drink that, and then you're going to write your name on here at the top, and then while I'm making your breakfast I'm going to give you words, and you're going to spell them, okay?" Alicia instructs the next morning, trying to deal with a thousand different things at once, rummages amongst the chaos on the kitchen counter. "Like a spelling test, except it's not a test, it's a… practice. Look, you can have a sparkly orange pen and everything, what more could you possibly want? Are you ready? Island."

"Like, Ireland like where Auntie Bea and Great Nana are from, or island like an island?" Chakra asks, glances across the kitchen worriedly. "Are we leaving Guinevere and Morgana by themselves tonight?"

"Island as an island, but I'll give you a bonus point if you can spell Ireland as in the place as well," Alicia tells her, tries to decide if spinach and strawberries in the same smoothie is a terrible idea. "And yes, we are, but Nana's going to drop by and feed them tonight and tomorrow morning, they'll be fine."

Chakra nods, silent for a moment, writes slowly, meticulously. "Why do I have to do spellings?"

"Because I have to go and see Mrs Gainham on Thursday, and I'm going to tell her I'm not sending you back to that school, given I clearly can't trust them to look after you properly," Alicia tells her. "And I was going through your school folder this morning, this is the spelling homework you got when you went in last Tuesday, do you remember? We didn't get round to looking at these, did we, what with everything that happened after that. So, I figured if you do it now, I can take it with me on Thursday with all the other stuff you've been doing for me, and we can get your teacher to mark it all. Given, you know, I pay my taxes and everything so you can go to school. Least they can do, really."

"What are taxes?"

"Why are you so good at distracting me? Taxes are money that grown-ups have to pay to the government, and then the government spends the money on things like schools and hospitals, so they're free for everyone to use. Except sometimes they take the taxes and put them into pointless things we don't really need, not the things we really do need them for like the NHS, and then I have to work stupid hours with faulty equipment and all my patients have to wait on trolleys in the corridor because I don't have enough beds for them all. Occasionally. That's your next spelling word, not how often I have to leave patients on trolleys in the corridors. I wish that only happened occasionally."

"Why do the government not give you and all the other doctors more money so you can buy enough beds for all your patients?"

"That's a really good question, and I wish I knew the answer. Nature."

"Is that a silent k word?"

"I'm not helping you, you're going to have to think about it really, really carefully, okay? I'll tell you when you've finished. Spell it the way you think, and then have a look at it and see if it looks right. You done? Possible."

"Why do you have to go to my school to see Mrs Gainham if I don't have to go back there?" Chakra asks anxiously.

"It's just… grown-up admin stuff," Alicia covers quickly. "Absolutely nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart, I promise. Century."

"Like, the Roman army soldiers who conquered Britain and wouldn't let the Celts be in charge anymore, or a hundred years?"

"When did you get so clever? Century like a hundred years," Alicia tells her, closes her eyes for a moment, blinks, tries to remember whatever it was she used to use on them back in medical school when she'd been out until five am, partied too hard and drunk too much, broken up with her latest boyfriend in a grim alleyway outside a club and cried too many tears over someone she'd barely been with for five minutes. There had been something she'd used to reduce the puffiness around her eyes, tell-tale sign she'd been crying, in time for her nine am lectures, she just can't remember what it was now and Chakra might have accepted her appearance this morning unquestioningly, but Bea certainly won't, and the child psych won't either.

"How many more?"

"Five more, we're doing all of them. Question."

Should she text him? Alicia wonders. Is that going to make it all better or worse? She can't decide. He's probably furious with her, and rightly so, if she texts him now she might only aggravate him even further.

But then she desperately wants to seek his forgiveness, can't bear the thought of losing him now when she's only just found him again…"

"Mammy?"

"Sorry, sorry. Describe."

"Have you muddled up the order?"

"Yep. They're all in alphabetical order on your spelling sheet, but we can't have you learning the sequence not the actual words, can we? That's how I failed my French GCSE. Thought I knew everything on the vocabulary sheet, really I just knew the order."

"You failed?"

"Yep, I failed. Got a D. Thankfully, you don't need French to be a doctor. Knowledge."

"Did you fail anything else?"

"Nope, that was enough. Sorted out my revision techniques after that. I nearly failed History, to be fair, but I just about scraped a C for that one. Particular."

"Mrs Davies said you have to have the best grades in everything if you want to be a doctor, when we talked about grown up jobs at school."

"You don't if you went to a failing, underfunded Gateshead secondary with a GCSE pass rate of about twenty percent. But you're much more intelligent than I ever was and you're not going to a secondary school like that if I have my way, so you will be absolutely fine, you can do anything you want to. Right, last one. Experiment. You done? Yeah? Can I have a look?"

"I think I got nature wrong."

"Nope. Nope, you got it right in the end, didn't you, you've crossed out the k you put at the beginning, right? It might be better to rewrite it next time though, okay, just so it's really, really clear. So that means you've got all of them right, how amazing are you? And we didn't even practice these or anything, did we? I'm so proud of you. So are you going to eat your breakfast for me?"

"I'm not very hungry."

"No? That's fine, but I really need you to try, sweetheart, okay? I know it's hard. Look, I'm going to come and sit down with you, and…"

She trails off, interrupted by the doorbell. "I'm going to get that, are you going to start to eat that for me? Or try, at least? Yeah? I'm coming right back."

"Is it Auntie Bea?" Chakra asks, plays with her food resentfully.

"No, it's not Auntie Bea, we're picking up Auntie Bea on our way to London," Alicia calls back over her shoulder as she heads down the hallway, frowns, not expecting anyone, definitely not in the mood for cold callers. "Eat your breakfast!"

She fumbles with the front door, double bolted, safety chain, turns the key in the lock, still a little more paranoid than she would like to admit.

She pulls open the door, comes face-to-face with a strange man on the doorstep, holding out a bouquet of brightly-coloured gerberas.

"Delivery for Alicia Munroe?" the man on the doorstep asks, sounds out her name 'Alissia,' only adds to her confusion.

"Oh, yes…" She's about to point out that she wasn't expecting anything, stops herself in time as she realises that's possibly the point, accepts them, turns back into the house in almost a strange state of shock as she rummages for a card, it's been such a long time since anyone sent her flowers apart from her mam on her birthday.

I'm so sorry. Sorry you had to go through it all by yourself, and sorry I reacted so badly. I love you. I don't blame you, not for any of it. Ethan x

He doesn't hate her. He doesn't hate her after all, she's spent the last twelve hours panicking that his radio silence was a sign that he couldn't forgive her, when in fact he's been worrying exactly the same thing…

He doesn't hate her. He doesn't hate her, they're okay, everything's okay.

Maybe not everything, Alicia considers, heads back along the hallway to re-join her daughter- their daughter. But suddenly it doesn't all feel so hopeless, suddenly she feels as though maybe, just maybe, it might all be alright in the end.

"Who are the flowers from?" Chakra asks curiously, as Alicia reappears in the kitchen, searches through the cupboard at the end of the kitchen for a vase. "They're pretty."

"They are, aren't they?" Alicia agrees. They're from Ethan."

"Why?"

"Does he need a reason to send me flowers?" Alicia teases. "No reason, I guess I've just got him really well-trained, that's all," she lies. "Okay, I'll do these in a minute, shall I, I'll come and eat with you first…"

She stops in her tracks as she approaches the kitchen table again, turns back to her daughter, sees the very thing she's been hoping she won't progress towards, all these months hoped it won't come to because it makes it all the scarier, somehow, takes it all into territory she never wanted to enter, not ever, but certainly not with her seven-year-old daughter.

"Have you just transferred half your breakfast out of your bowl and into mine while I wasn't looking?"

Chakra shifts guiltily, can't meet her eyes.

"Chakra?"

Her daughter fixes her gaze firmly on the kitchen table, refuses to look up, pretends not to hear her.

"Chakra, I'm not angry with you," Alicia tries carefully, sits down next to her, squeezes her hand in a bid to offer her some reassurance. "I'm really, really not, I promise, but I need you to tell me the truth, sweetheart. Am I right?"

Slowly, ever-so-slightly, Chakra nods.

"Okay. Okay, come here," Alicia sighs, scoops her up, sits her on her lap. "We haven't talked about this as much as we should have, have we? I'm sorry. That's my fault, I'm so sorry, but if you listen to me now, I'm going to explain it all to you properly, okay? Yeah? Good girl. So, you know what calories are, right?"

Chakra shrugs, curls into Alicia's chest.

"They're like energy, okay, we need food because we need the calories to give us energy. Have you heard people talk about calories in, calories out? Probably me, and if you've picked this up from me, if I've made you feel like you need to eat less, if you've been watching me doing stupid crash diets then I am really, really sorry, sweetheart. It just means if you're taking in as many calories as you're burning as energy, then your weight is going to stay exactly the same. Or it's going to naturally increase for you, because you're still only little, aren't you, you've got a lot of growing to do yet. And it means that if you aren't eating as many calories as you're using for energy, you're going to lose weight. And you absolutely did not and do not need to lose any weight, you were perfectly healthy and completely beautiful just as you were. And you're still just as beautiful. But being underweight isn't healthy, it's going to make you really ill if we don't get you better soon, and the calories in calories out thing goes both ways."

"So…" Chakra blinks, hesitates, shakes her head.

"I think you've worked out what I mean, haven't you? So we really need you to eat more than you normally would need to, if you're going to get back up to a healthy weight. So yes, I keep giving you more food than I normally would, and I know it's not fair, and I'm sorry, I wouldn't do it if it wasn't completely necessary. It's called refeeding, and it's completely shit, I know it is, but it's temporary, okay? That's a bad word though, and you're not to use it. I don't ever want to her you using that word, please. But it is, it's horrible, I know it's horrible, especially when your brain's giving you mixed signals about food as it is. But I really need you to be eating properly, so your body can heal, and the better you can do that, the sooner this bit will be over, okay? And I'm going to take you to see Mrs Beauchamp's friend I told you about in London today, remember, and she's going to help us find someone in Holby you can go and work with to fix everything that's going on in your head. It won't feel like this forever. It's going to get better, we just need to make sure we're getting you proper help, don't we?"

"Did you have to talk to someone?" Chakra asks quietly.

"I… yes. Yes, I did. And I didn't really want to, at first, I… I suppose it was a bit different, really, because I was pregnant with you, I knew I had to try and get better because I was going to start making you ill too if I didn't. But I didn't want to… I guess I didn't want to go because I didn't want to get better, I… I needed to unlearn the whole mentality thing, I guess, and I did know that, but I didn't, at the same time. I… I've lost you, haven't I?" Alicia sighs, wonders how on earth she's supposed to explain it all to her daughter when she still can't quite make sense of it all herself, all these years on.

"This is… look, this is really hard to explain," she tries. "Do you feel like that, too, sometimes? Yeah? I guess… I did know it was… oh, screw it, we need to stop being so afraid of calling it what it is, don't we? Both of us. Eating disorder. I knew it was an eating disorder, but… because it was an eating disorder, because it was affecting how I thought I looked, how I thought I should look, how I thought about food, everything… I didn't want to get better at first. I was completely terrified of it, I thought everyone trying to help me was just going to make it all worse, because it was an eating disorder, and I was completely convinced I was… fat. But it gets better. You have to try and remember that, okay? It does get better, you aren't going to feel like that forever. I don't feel like that anymore. You've just got to get through this next bit, and then we're going to get you some proper help, and you won't feel like this anymore. I promise. It's like having a broken ankle, or something, it's just instead it's something that's wrong inside your head. But we can fix it, alright? You have absolutely nothing to worry about, sweetheart, because we're going to fix it. I promise."

"What if it isn't all something that's wrong in my head, though?" Chakra asks, voice wobbles, fingers tangled in Alicia's hair. "What if I really am…" she shakes her head, falters, doesn't want to say it.

"Listen. I'm your mam, and I'm a doctor, and I specialise in children's medicine, so that basically means I'm the expert, okay? And I promise you are notfat. Alright? You never have been. And if you don't believe me, that's fine, I've been there, I get it. But I really need you to try to. I wouldn't lie to you about this, Chakka, I promise I wouldn't. I just need you to trust me, okay? You're my baby, I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you. So are you going to go and sit back down for me, then? Good girl." She reaches for Chakra's breakfast, redistributes, can't decide which way this is going to go at all and desperately hoping it's not going to be the total disaster she fears it might be. "We're going to eat, and then we'll finish packing and we'll go and pick up Auntie Bea. And then we'll get going. Is that alright?"

Chakra frowns at her breakfast, bites her lip. "Will the psy… psychana…"

"Psychiatrist?" Alicia offers.

"Will the psychiatrist make me go to stay in a special hospital where children who have ana… ana…"

"Anorexia?" Even uttering that word still feels so completely, devastatingly wrong. "I think you mean an inpatient unit. Who told you about those?"

"Mrs Davies. She said if I don't eat, I'll have to go to live in an… inpatient unit until I do."

"Oh, she did, did she? I'm glad you told me, Chakra, I'll add it to the list. She shouldn't have said that to you, saying that kind of thing is completely unhelpful, isn't it? But no. No, you won't, I've already looked into this. I have to give permission for you to go into one of those, they haven't caught onto the vegan movement yet and they'd make you eat meat and dairy, and we're not doing that. Not unless you want to eat those things, anyway, if you do that's totally fine."

"I don't."

"There you go, then, you're not going into an inpatient unit. Problem solved. That's the last thing you need to worry about, darling, it's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen, I promise. Are you going to eat some of that? Please?"

Chakra nods, picks up her spoon, raises it to her mouth and Alicia lets out a breath she hadn't even realised she was holding in.

It always seems to go like this.

It's yet another thing that doesn't quite add up, yet another reason she's so sure there has to be more to it than anyone has realised, but she just can't place it, no matter how hard she tries. It's the inconsistency, the reluctance to the point of distress on one occasion and the lack of an issue the next, there has to be a pattern…

"So we just need to get your appointment out of the way, and then you get to spend the whole of tonight and tomorrow morning with Auntie Bea in London, remember?" Alicia tries, desperate to distract her for long enough that she keeps eating.

"Will I see you though?"

"Well, you're staying with me until we're done with the psychiatrist. And then we'll take it from there, okay? Auntie Bea's taking you somewhere really exciting tonight and you're going to absolutely love it, but I can hang around for as long as you want me to. And then I'm going to go and see Ethan tonight while you're having an amazing time with Auntie Bea, we talked about that, didn't we? So you'll see me again tomorrow morning, after that. But you can phone me whenever you want, you know that, don't you, you only have to ask Auntie Bea."

"And you're definitely coming back tomorrow?"

"I'm definitely coming back tomorrow." Alicia frowns, curses herself for not realising it before. "Are you worried I'll stay in Glastonbury with Ethan?"

"No."

"Okay. Okay, but you know that I'd never, ever do that, right? I'd miss you far too much, one night's fine as long as I know you're safe, but I wouldn't ever want to be away from you for longer. Not until you're older and you want to be away from me for longer, anyway, that's different. You remember what I told you about this last night? You come first, okay? Always."

"Mrs Davies said last week that we all have to go on a… a… resida…. Residential trip, at the end of year three."

How is it, Alicia wonders, that the adults supposedly responsible for her daughter somehow managed to pack so many things she's apparently been worrying about ever since into the brief period she actually spent in school last week?

"Did she? Well, you don't have to if you don't want to. I loved that kind of thing, when I was at school, but I don't think I ever did it at… well, you'd be eight by then, wouldn't you? Eight's still really little, I'm not going to make you do anything like that if you don't want to."

Chakra nods, seemingly satisfied. "Mammy, I've finished."

"Good girl. You did really well with that, didn't you? Can you go and brush your teeth then, please? And then we need to finish packing, and we'll go and see Auntie Bea."

"Where am I going with Auntie Bea later?"

"I couldn't possibly tell you, Auntie Bea's sworn me to secrecy."

"You don't know, do you?"

"I do! She told me when she arranged it, that's how I know you're going to love it," Alicia tells her, waits until her daughter has disappeared up the stairs before she reaches for her phone, contemplates for a moment, decides she won't risk phoning, not now, not when Chakra is like this, not when she would be risking her coming down the stairs at exactly the wrong moment, listening in.

Warning you now, Chak is SERIOUSLY clingy today, she types out to Bea, heart twisting, struggling to work out what on earth she's supposed to do for the best. Hoping she'll calm down before child psych. I still think you should take her later, I know she'll be fine with you, just don't be offended if she's a bit quiet. She's beyond excited already really, promise X

She crosses the kitchen, takes a photo of the flowers on the counter,

Thank you 3 You didn't have to. I can't call just now, don't want C to know we've been arguing. But I'm sorry too, I completely overreacted. Are we okay? We can talk properly tonight? X

I love you too, and I'm so sorry I didn't tell you before, Alicia adds after a momentary pause, still a little paranoid, because it all seems too good to be true that he's the one apologising to her when she's the one who failed their daughter, glances back across to the flowers, decides she really needs to do something with them if she wants them to survive until she's back home.

She's halfway through cutting the stems when he phone vibrates softly, Ethan's name appearing on her lock screen.

Of course we are. See you later X

"We'll leave it there for today, then," Ethan tells his first student of the morning, hands shaking awkwardly as he checks the time on his phone. "So if you could send me your draft chapter before our next meeting, that would be great. We can start thinking about your conference paper after that…"

"Is that your daughter?" his student asks, glances over at the background on his phone screen.

"Yes. Yes… she… she lives in Holby with her mum, they came down to visit a couple of weeks ago," Ethan stammers hurriedly, taken aback, first time he's ever been asked this question and well and truly out of his depth.

"She looks like you."

"Do you think? I think she's the spitting image of her mum."

"She does. I can't really put my finger on what it is, but she definitely reminds me of you. Do you get to see her often?" his student asks, packs away her laptop.

"Well, I… yes," Ethan manages at last. "Yes, I've been very fortunate recently, her mum's brought her down here every couple of weeks or so."

"It must be hard. Being so far away, I mean."

"Yes… it… it hasn't been easy," Ethan manages at last, decides confessing the truth to his new PhD probably isn't the best idea, not this soon in their professional relationship. "But I've… well… Hopefully I'm going to be able to be a bit more involved with her, in the future. If I can win her mum over, that is."

Once again, I am so sorry for the delay! I've had an exceptionally busy few weeks and just haven't had as much time to work on this, I promise I won't make you wait so long next time. I know I promised you lots of Ethan in this chapter and I'm sorry it didn't quite work out like that- I've had to split this chapter in half because it got too long and convoluted, and you would have been waiting even longer. BUT I promise the next chapter will be from Ethan's perspective, so there is definitely, definitely lots of Ethan coming up next!

Thank you as ever 20BlueRoses, guest (and thank you, yes, you cheered me up massively!), Katharine, Katie and Lewisek18 for your reviews, I have had the worst couple of weeks and your feedback is honestly the best.

Katharine- I think you mean Chakra's medical condition? Exomphalos is basically an umbilical hernia that forms in utero, and usually contains the intestines and/or parts of the bowel, liver etc. It's usually corrected with surgery within the first couple of weeks after the baby is born. There is a clue here as to what Alicia might not have pieced together re Chakra's problems in the present storyline just yet...

Reviews would be wonderful as ever, and I promise I will try not to leave you waiting so long next time. And I hope you haven't all given up on me!

-IseultLaBelle x