What If?

By: sz3ianne

This is my story of Doc Martin & Louisa altered to include the real hidden DM. Under the armour, the side that only comes out to play in private. To include background leading into Season 4; What If?

Doc Martin and all of its characters, themes and plotlines are the property of Buffalo Pictures. This work of fiction written for purely entertainment purposes, the work of my imagination. No infringement of any legal rights intended or implied.

Chapter 1

It's been nearly a month now since Louisa left without a word. My mind is wondering, as it did most days, while I wait for my computer to boot up. 'How is Louisa doing?' I miss her so much that my heart aches for her. This past month, my wish is to catch a glimpse of her again.* I ask myself over again, 'is she taking care of herself; her acute anemia could return. I wonder if her new GP is adequate to keep Louisa healthy. Closing my eyes, I remember her touch; her kiss, how she made me feel wanted, loved. A loud bang of the front door announcing Pauline's late arrival brings me from my thoughts.

"You're late," I yell as I walk out of my consulting room.

"No, I'm right on time and we are going to be busy by the look of the villagers heading up the hill."

"What do you mean? Are you overbooking my surgery again?"

"You get grouchy if I don't keep your mind off Louisa. We have lost quite a few patients since she left. Figured if I kept you busy you wouldn't have time to brood."

I stare at her 'what does she mean?' I hold out my hand, "just give me the schedule for today."

Pauline hands me the copy along with the stack of the morning appointments.

"When the first patient comes, just send them straight in." I turn, walking back to my consulting room and closing the door behind me. I sit at my desk, pulling up my diary on the computer. This week I will be in Truro for the monthly PCT meeting, 'maybe have lunch with Chris'. A knock at the door interrupts my thoughts, and so the day begins for Doctor Ellingham.

xXxXx

Doctor Chris Parsons calls the meeting to order; he goes over all the new NHS changes to implement, and then introduces the guest speaker for their lecture today. "Let me introduce Doctor Isaac Hayes."

"Good morning, I am Doctor Isaac Hayes, Psychiatrist with my specialty in Phobia's."

My mind immediately shuts off when I hear Psychiatrist. I sit through the first 30 minutes without any acknowledgement of the lecture. My ears and mind perk up when my brain registers what the Doctor has said.

"Most phobias can be traced back to a childhood incident." My mind searches back to my own childhood, not pleasant, or normal, as I have learned, remembering a conversation with Aunt Ruth when my haemophobia made it impossible to perform surgery. In my mind, I just needed rest, a month or so and I would be fine. That was not to be; Aunt Ruth tried to persuade me to go to therapy, but I, Martin Ellingham would not hear it. 'Martin I can remember you at four years of age, happy, communicative and again at six when you all but shut down. Martin, you need help.'

Doctor Hayes is rambling on about "the types of phobias as identified in three different categories; social, agora and specific; women are more likely to suffer a phobia than men are. The typical symptoms can include nausea, trembling, rapid heartbeat, feelings of unreality, and being preoccupied with the fear object. Phobias can have a serious impact on an individual's life. Most specific phobias fall into one of four major categories: fears of the natural environment, those can include astraphobia, hydrophobia and dendrophobia. The second is fears related to animals and they include batrachophobia, cynophobia, and equinophobia. Third category is fear related to medical treatments or issues, some phobias are trypanophobia, dentophobia and haemophobia. The last category is fears related to specific situations, these phobias include claustrophobia, glossophobia and aerophobia. One more important thing to remember is that virtually any object can become a fear object."

My mind is swirling, I feel my chest tighten, and Palmer sweating breaking out; I realize I am having a panic attack. Quickly getting up out of the chair, I head for the exit. In the hallway, leaning against the wall, I am slowly calming down when Chris steps out of the room and walks towards me.

"Mart, are you alright?"

I raise my hand to gesture I am fine, but Chris can see the panic in my eyes. Taking me by the arm, Chris escorts me into a side room. Pulling out a bottle of water from the cooler in the room, he hands it to me, "here drink this."

I am leaning, with my hand on a chair to maintain my balance; my face is pale and sweaty. Grabbing the water bottle, I gulp down half the bottle. The feeling in my chest slackens and I start to feel better.

"Mart, what happened?"

"I don't know, listening to him," pointing towards the other room, "remembering my problem, the room just started spinning."

"Stay put. When you feel better, come by my office and we can go to lunch or just talk."

"No I need to head back to Portwenn; I have some research to finish. I will talk to you later if that is alright?"

"Sure, Mart. Talk to you later."

xXxXx

Months have passed since the non-wedding. I have spent these five months in therapy with Doctor Hayes, at first weekly in his office, working on my haemophobia. Now the weekly session is by Skype and I can see results happening. Doctor Hayes wants me to dig deeper into my childhood. 'That is where we will find your problem,' he says. I hate going back into my past, but if it will help, I will try. A breakthrough happened last week; as I explained an incident with my father, 'I can remember running into my father's study. I had caught a rare butterfly in our garden. I forgot to knock and rushed in. My father got very angry, and using the back of his hand, he swung, hitting me across the side of my head. I don't remember anything again until I awoke in my room. I was on the floor, blood covered most of my clothes, and my head hurt, as did my arm. I could taste dried blood near my mouth. Father entered through the door a few minutes later with his doctor's bag. He took me into the bath, cleaned my bloody face and sutured my forehead, put a splint on my arm and sent me to bed. I remember my arm hurting. Later that evening he took me to a doctor's office and the man there set and put a cast on my arm.' Doctor Hayes asks for more detail, which I provide. Doctor Hayes continually asks about Louisa; I tell him what he needs to know to help me, nothing more than necessary. He explains, 'if you want to get her back you will need to open up to her. Talk about yourself.'

I try to consider his advice. Louisa in London, me here spending my days cooking, for one, with lonely nights having a bed all to myself. Never thought much of sleeping alone before, the bed was a place for body and mind to regenerate and I always said I would never want to share my bedroom with others again after so many years of boarding school. Sleeping, showering, dressing, with others making fun of my bedwetting or, my gangly body, or I was just being bullied. I miss my nights with Louisa, her warm body next to mine, and her head on my shoulder, the feel of her waist under my arm. I replay each night, as Louisa summons me to our times in bed together. Why couldn't we have had more of those moments alone together, where I could express my true feelings to her, realizing that all I wanted was love and to share that love with Louisa. Only with her had I felt safe to feel these things, only in private, not out in public. Something needs to change. I am tired of only dreaming of Louisa, I want her here with me. I need to call her. I just need to hear her voice, hear that Cornish accent with the hard "t" when she says my name; oh, how I loved the way she said my name. I miss her chattering away about everything. I pull out my phone, all I need to do is hit my speed dial button and I can hear her lovely voice, but I can't. What would I say? What if she is happy in London; what if she has moved on wanting nothing more to do with Portwenn or me? I put my phone back in my pocket, despondently, tomorrow I will call. I had better get back to making my lonely meal for one.

Scaling and filleting the sea bass, cutting the new potatoes and carrots my mind wanders back to earlier today with a satisfied smirk. Putting Edith in her place with the correct diagnoses felt so good. Meeting her earlier this week in the A&E brought back memories I did not want to deal with. At least that dog whisperer woman will not have to have unnecessary surgery.

Knocking at the surgery front door brings me out of my reverie. Who would be bothering me at this hour of the evening? It had better be a medical emergency.

Opening the door, I am surprised by who it is. I thought my problem ended with her earlier today when I corrected her misdiagnosis. I hadn't seen Edith in more than twenty years, and I really didn't want to discuss anything with her now.

"Edith"

The smug looking ginger hair woman stands at the door waiting.

"I accept your apology," Martin points out.

He stands aside to allow Edith to enter, escorting her to the kitchen through the lounge before turning around to acknowledge her. In medical school, Edith was always overbearing, taking credit when others did all the work. Intellectually in medicine, she was my equal, but she always had to be controlling, even when wrong, as she was today.

"Ellingham, you were rude to me today in front of my colleagues."

"You diagnosed the woman with abdominal pain resulting from a cyst, jumping to surgery without having a CT scan to verify your diagnosis; I had a duty of care and needed to step in which is why I took Mrs. Cook for a CT scan. My diagnosis of diverticulitis was correct and with antibiotics she will get better without surgery."

Edith continues to stand there without saying a word. 'God, this man!'

"Don't be like that, Ellingham. You haven't changed; your patient is Collingsworth not Cook."

"What do you want? I need to get back to preparing my dinner."

Edith sits down at the table and simply smiles. I stand there staring and wondering what she wants. I offer her glass of water, pulling a glass off the shelf and filling it.

"How is the hand?" she inquires.

"I haven't looked."

"What happened?"

"Some moron" he started to utter….

"Another one" Edith waves requesting my hand to see how my hand is healing. Inspecting my hand, she continues, "I always thought you'd end up somewhere else?"

Scowling, Martin turns away.

Edith makes a disparaging sound.

I feel now is a good time to tell her how much it hurt when she left, and that I don't want her coming here again. Before I can say anything, there is a knock at the kitchen door. 'Can't the idiots come during surgery time instead of bothering me now?' I pull my hand from Edith to get up from the table. Looking at the frosted glass window on the kitchen door, I see the silhouette of the woman I see in my dreams, around corners, and in the school. 'No it is my imagination playing tricks on me again.'

xXxXx

For the past six months, Louisa now lives and works in London since her move from Portwenn. However, is she happy?

Earlier that same week I am sitting in my London bedsit, now six months pregnant, requested to leave my position at Holly's school. 'Pregnant, an unmarried woman is not good for the uppity parents or the reputation of my school', Holly had said. As I sit, wondering, 'now what will I do?' I pull out my phone, looking up Sally Chadwick's number, placing the call. Sally and I have kept in bi-weekly contact since leaving for London. During this friendly conversation, Sally mentions that the new head had let Iona Castle go and the position is open. I admit to Sally what happened with my job today, and we agree to set up an appointment with the new head for this position. I have two days to packed and travel back to Portwenn; getting this job or not, I don't plan on coming back to London.

In the morning, a day later with luggage in hand, I enter Paddington Station for my train to Bodmin Station. During the four plus hours train trip, I focus my thoughts on Martin. 'How will he take the pregnancy? I should have called him when I found out. Should I call up to the surgery first and try to explain? I have missed him so much, life is not happier without him,' my mind is firing off so many questions.

Slumbering awhile, with the train rocking motion helps me to relax. My dreams are of Martin, the recurring dream of me lying in his strong arms, his eyes softening as he looks at me. He kisses the top of my head and snuggles into the nape of my neck. I love this Martin, why couldn't there have been more moments like this. Slowly opening my eyes, I know, I made the right decision not marrying him. If, only dreams could come true. 'I will decide what is right when I get to the village', I tell myself regarding the question on telling Martin first thing upon my return.

At Bodmin Station, departing the train, I grab a taxi to take me to the village. The taxi driver jabbers on about everything and anything trying to get this beautiful woman to talk. I remain quiet contemplating what I should do when we reach Portwenn.

"Please go to the Platt in the village" is all I say.

When we reach Portwenn the taxi slowly moves through the lanes down to the village center and stops. I spot Martin's Lexus in its parking spot and request the driver to take me up Roscarrock Hill to the surgery. As I climb the steps, the taxi driver pulls the luggage from the boot and deposits them on the landing by the front door. I stand scanning the village and breathing in the Cornish sea air. I notice a black Audi parked next to Martin's Lexus, now not sure I made the right decision. Worrying my bottom lip, I walk to the back door of the house. The lights are on in the kitchen, it is now or never I decide and knocks on the door.

End of Chapter

xXxXx

Definitions of the phobias Doctor Hayes provided in his lecture: provided by Kendra Cherry in "Very Well Minds – Phobias A to Z"

Astraphobia fear of thunder and lighting

Hydrophobia fear of water

Dendrophobia fear of trees

Batrachophobia fear of amphibians

Cynophobia fear of dogs

Equinophobia fear of horses

Trypanophobia fear of needles/injections

Dentophobia fear of dentists

Haemophobia fear of blood

Claustrophobia fear of confined spaces

Glossophobia fear of speaking in public

Aerophobia fear of flying

Throughout my story, I will be honoring some Fan Fiction authors. Their writing has allowed my imagination to have vision. My first honor goes to ke0212 for "Just a Glimpse". DM just wanted to catch a glimpse of Louisa.

Ke0212 is providing my editing, helping a non-writer. Any mistakes are my own.