The Hospital
Amber held her hand out one last time and passed the needle and suture to the surgeon working alongside her. She glanced at the theatre clock. 10:30 pm. If she was lucky, she might be in bed in an hour's time.
This operation had taken four hours. The man on the table had arrested three times, but each time they had brought him back. Now, there was just the faintest hope that he might make it.
Concentrating on the task in hand, the team of surgeons and nurses had thought no further than the next procedure. Now, just briefly, Amber let her thoughts drift to her own needs. Sleep and food.
Unsolicited, the flash of a dark-haired, high-cheekboned, slim young man pushed his way to the forefront of her brain. Chief. The need was there, outcompeting those most basic necessities.
With a humph, Amber dismissed the vision and concentrated on her work.
Half an hour later, the young nurse stripped off her scrubs and washed away the residue of the surgery. She glanced at herself in the tiny, spotted mirror. The face that stared back reflected the exhaustion that she felt.
Finally, Amber headed for the nurse's accommodation. A bowl of soup and a lump of stale bread had gone some way to assuaging physical hunger. Sleep beckoned.
She stopped in astonishment. There, curled on the floor adjacent to the outer doors lay Chief. Someone must have given him a blanket to lie on, but otherwise he was as he'd been when he left the Abbey that morning.
The tapping of shoes on the corridor made her look around. Approaching from behind was her surgeon, Mr Morrison. Now dressed in a tweed suit, white shirt and bow tie, topped with a khaki raincoat and highly polished chestnut leather shoes, he was the epitome of sophistication.
He ground to a halt at Amber's side and looked down at the sleeping form.
"So, this must be the young man that's distracted you all day."
Amber glanced round in anger, then caught the soft smile on the older man's lips.
She couldn't help but smile in return. There was nothing nasty in his words.
It was rare for Chief to sleep deeply and let his guard down. It was testament to his exhaustion that this was one of those occasions. Still, something finally pierced his consciousness, and he flicked open his eyes, confused for a moment as to where he was. He took in Amber's bare legs, alongside a pair of tweed bags. He scrambled to his feet, pressing his back against the wall, and feeling for his knife... but the knife was still in Gloucestershire. Limply he let his hand drop to his side, with a shrug.
"Take her home," the surgeon prescribed, looking at the two exhausted young people. "I don't want her back until she can string two words together in a meaningful way." He pushed his way through the doors and out into the night air. He was no less tired than the two people he'd just left behind, and despite his advice he knew he'd be back in theatre early the next morning.
Chief picked up the blanket he'd been lying on and draped it around Amber's shoulders. "I came to apologise," he said quietly.
Amber put her hand gently on his arm. She had been angry, that was true, but the anger had faded as the days had gone by - and then speaking to her aunt had brought everything into focus. 'They were kidnapped', Molly'd said. The details she would find out soon enough.
"It wasn't your fault, I know," the nurse replied softly. "Let's go home, you can tell me all about it when we've had some sleep."
