"Diane?" Zubin knocked quietly on the door of Ric's office and pushed it open.
Diane looked up from the paperwork that she had been trying to do, and smiled faintly in greeting. "Hey Zube." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and hoped that she looked vaguely presentable. She had spent the past hour trying in vain to tidy Ric's desk and finish some admissions forms that he should have done the previous week. For a few moments at a time, she'd been able to immerse herself in filling in the mind-numbingly boring forms, and forget about her problems. But then, once she had put the form to one side, they'd come flooding back into her mind, taking over every part of her brain until she was almost screaming.
"Are you alright?" he asked, placing his hands on the desk and smiling down at her, looking concerned.
She bit her lip and forced herself to smile more brightly. "Fine thanks."
"You don't look it," he told her, sitting himself on the desk. "And if you're fine, how come both you and Ric seem to have been crying?"
She recoiled in her chair as though he had hit her. "Ric was crying?" she repeated quietly, shocked. Ric, no, not Ric. Not her Ric, he never cried… was he crying over her? Had she made him feel that bad? Was it wrong to offload onto him?
Zubin looked at her seriously. "What's wrong, Diane?" He was concerned, worried. Ric had appeared in theatre and just told him to go to Diane, before walking out of the room briskly, his eyes red and tearful. Neither of them cried easily, not Ric nor Diane, for something to make them both cry… it must be serious.
She shook her head, biting her lip for a moment. "Was Ric very upset? Zube, have I upset him? I shouldn't have said anything, I didn't realise it would…"
Zubin cut her off, crossing around to her side of the desk and putting an arm across her shoulders. "Diane, calm down. Ric's fine, you know Ric, he'll never let on if he's upset." He allowed himself a smile in spite of his concern, hoping that his attitude would infect her and she would relax.
"Zubin, please, tell me, what did he say?" She was almost hysterical, staring down at her hands and not trusting herself to look up. "I never meant to upset him, truly I didn't, Zubin… I promise I didn't…"
Zubin stroked her hair gently. "Diane, I never thought for a moment that you would ever intentionally upset him. What's the matter with you two? Have you argued or something?"
She blinked several times, horrified to discover that her eyes were full of tears: not again. Not again, she couldn't cry again. She blinked hurriedly to rid herself of the tears, and looked up at Zubin, hoping that he wouldn't notice the brightness of her eyes, or the wetness of the lashes. "No, no… we've not argued." She looked down in defeat, feeling more tears pricking at the back of her eyes.
He nodded, unsure of whether to push the issue and ask her again what the matter was. "Are you alright?" he settled for asking, watching her shoulders shake as she tried to contain the sobs that were fighting to get out.
Slowly, reluctantly, she allowed him to extract the details of her earlier conversation with Ric, and within twenty minutes, she had told him everything. When he had heard it all, she stared down at her hands, feeling relieved that the tears had stopped falling. She felt nothing any more. She just felt numb, numb with the knowledge of what might be happening to her, numb with fear at the consequences, numb with guilt that she had made Ric cry, numb. Just numb.
Zubin found himself standing up and looking at her, stunned. No, she couldn't… she couldn't have. It wasn't exactly that he thought she was invincible; he had enough sense to know that no one was. But she was Diane, she was so young. He felt dimly that she was expecting him to say something, so he stammered out the first thing that came into his mind. "No… Diane, you're so young…"
"I'm thirty next week." She didn't look up, her entire attention apparently focussed on a broken nail, but there was a tense note in her voice. "Zubin, you know as well as I do that age doesn't matter. It just means that it's not as likely, not that it's impossible."
He nodded. "I know that, Diane. But it's true, it's not as likely, you need to remember that there's a chance it's not – what you think it is," he finished, unable to say the word cancer. He wouldn't, he couldn't, say it to her. He couldn't let the word pass his lips, because saying it made it real – not only to her, but also to him. And discovering Diane's immortality, the chance that she might be so ill, meant that there was even more of a chance that bad things could happen to anyone. If Diane wasn't safe, then no one was.
She appreciated his efforts, even though she could tell that he didn't even really believe it himself. And if he didn't, then there was no way that he could convince her. She smiled falsely. "Zube, I don't want to have any false hopes here." She looked up at him, and was shocked to see how upset he looked.
"Well, I can certainly see why Ric was crying," he told her, trying to laugh off the tears that were forming in his eyes.
She giggled nervously, feeling the tears pricking at her own eyes again. She allowed him to pull her into a hug, and smiled up at him.
After a few moments, he pulled away, holding out a hand to help her up. "I'm taking you home," he told her, as he passed her her jacket.
She shook her head, a sudden fear of being alone overwhelming her. "Please, Zubin, please, I don't want to go home by myself, I'm fine here…" She sat down again and picked up her pen. "I've got paperwork to do…"
He smiled. "You haven't, that's Ric's… and he probably wouldn't be too pleased if he knew you could forge his signature," he added, smirking as he looked at the last line of the form.
She laughed. "I didn't, he'd signed that one before." She bit her lip. "But Zubin, I don't want to be alone, I'm fine here, really I am."
"Diane, I'm not going to abandon you," he reassured her. "I just don't think that you should be here, not today."
She nodded slightly. "Okay, fine. Just don't leave me alone with daytime TV, please," she added, trying to joke. She allowed herself to follow him out of the door, to get into his car, to be driven home, to let him into her flat, to sit in front of the television and make mindless small talk for hours. She let his comments wash over her, let herself drown in his friendship, and let herself try to immerse herself in anything but her problems.
She watched the clock, unsure of what she was waiting for, only knowing that she was waiting for something. He talked and she looked just past him, staring intently at the clock in the corner. Watching, waiting for anything to release her from the nightmare that she had found herself in. Why couldn't she wake up? Why couldn't she wake up a few months ago, with someone by her side to sing lullabies to her so that she fell asleep happily once more?
She jumped up as though she had been scalded when the doorbell rang. Almost tripping over herself in her haste to get out of the room, out of the nightmare, she rushed to the door, fumbling with the lock in her hurry. She managed to wrench the door open, and bit her lip as she saw Ric standing there. "Ric…"
"Are you alright?" he asked her, producing a bunch of crimson roses from behind his back. "For you."
She smiled slightly. "Thanks. I'm fine… well, not fine, obviously… but okay."
He smiled back at her. "I want you to know that I'm going to be here with you every step of the way," he told her, watching her face closely, and praying with every ounce of his strength that she would let him. He hugged her, wrapping his arms around her tightly and feeling her lay her head on his shoulder. She felt comforted, being in his arms. She forced herself to move as close to him as she could, staring all the time at the blood-red roses.