The next thing Eddie knew, it was pitch black. He found himself sitting up beside Rachel on her bed. He groaned as he rubbed his aching neck. He felt a movement beside him and realised he had woken Rachel. "Sorry," he whispered, "go back to sleep."

"What time is it," she asked.

He checked his watch, surprised to find it was one o'clock in the morning. For a moment he panicked about their missed dinner, the work he had intended to do that evening, the fact it was the middle of the night, and he was beginning to notice that he felt hungry. "I was going to make a nice lasagne," he whined.

Confused, Rachel sat herself up beside him. Realising she was not going to get a sensible answer out of him, she took his wrist and looked at his watch herself. "Oh," she said, realising the time, and then laughed.

"I got all the ingredients," he continued, "I thought after so long in hospital, you'd like a nice homemade lasagne."

Rachel saw the disappointment on his face and realised how exhausted he must have been the past few weeks. Apart from the usual preparations for the upcoming term, which Eddie had been left to do alone, he had been overseeing major building works to repair the school after the fire, defending her in a vote of no confidence, spending time with his son, and visiting her every day in the hospital. She felt guilty for being so absorbed in her own situation, and her frustration at the slowness of her recovery and the amount of sleep she still needed. She found such comfort in his visits but had not stopped to think about the impact on him, that had caused him to fall asleep at 6pm after finally getting her home from the hospital. And despite all this, he had wanted to cook her a homemade lasagne.

"I can't wait to eat it tomorrow," she said, wanting him to know how much she appreciated the gesture. "But shall we just make do with toast for now?"

Rachel made her way downstairs and set the first two slices of bread in the toaster. Eddie soon joined her in the kitchen, trying to persuade her to sit down. "I don't want to sit down," she snapped, "I've spent the past six weeks in bed, I'm perfectly capable of making toast."

Eddie knew from experience that he had to let her do what she could. She had had to relinquish control of her own body to the doctors for so long, and allow Eddie to take over her beloved school, albeit temporarily, and she was still not even allowed to live at home by herself. She was still a long way from fully recovered, and it would be a while before she regained the control she had always protected so fiercely. He sat down and gratefully accepted the toast.