Chapter 2

"Alright. Yes, of course, understood." She places the phone down carefully, controlled, takes a moment to breathe, allow this latest revelation to sink in before she'll have to deal with the fallout of it all. She knows Ethan will corner her the moment she steps away from the phone, badgering her for news, knows he's not yet forgiven her for refusing to allow him to attend the scene and most likely won't until Alicia is back here, safe, recovering.

She made the right call. She couldn't have had him attend, it would have been completely inappropriate, he would have made a beeline for Alicia the moment he stepped out of the ambulance and never mind assessing the scene, prioritising, he would have been by her side and straight back in the ambulance with her, personally escorting her back to the ED and rendering the paramedics glorified taxi drivers, and then what would be the point of sending a doctor out to assist at the scene in the first place?

Connie Beauchamp knows full well it was the right decision, but she also knows better than to expect Ethan to go along with it willingly.

"Was that an update?" Predictably, Ethan is on her heels immediately as she sweeps away from the phone station, searching, intent. "Was that from the scene, do we know…?"

"Dr Hardy, when I have an update I can assure you you'll be the first to know."

"Then…"

"If you want to do something useful, you can find Charlie for me, and then you can start clearing cubicles and shifting patients upstairs, we're going to need space."

"No, no I can't do that, Alicia…"

"You won't be treating Dr Munroe, you've made it quite clear your professionalism would be compromised."

"Mrs Beauchamp…" She can hear the protest in his voice already, knows he would be accepting her decision without a fight but her mind is made up and she won't be explaining to him her reasoning.

This isn't about Ethan. It's about Alicia's privacy, and well-intentioned or not, Connie is not prepared to stand by and allow Ethan to blunder his way in and add to her distress.

"You're going to clear cubicles, Dr Hardy, I won't tell you again. Now, please."

He glares at her, pointed, frustrated, but he obliges, rushes off towards cubicles just as she concludes her search.

"Charlie!" Connie beckons him over, shoots a stare at Robyn and the huddle of off-duty nurses by the admin desk, intends to make it absolutely clear that they are to stay well away from this conversation. "Charlie, I've just had a call from the police, I need a forensic nurse on standby, please. And preferably someone from the rape crisis team, can you arrange that?"

She trusts he'll know where she's going with this, infer enough to understand.

"Of course." Charlie frowns at her. "The police called from the RTC?"

"What? No, no, no update from the RTC yet. No, I've had a call from the police station. Dr McAllister broke the conditions of his bail this evening. We're still waiting for word from the RTC but all things considered, I want Dr Gardner with me in resus. Dr Hardy can take whatever else comes in first. And I need female nurses, please. As a precaution."

She doesn't bother to wait for him to put two and two together, to pick up on her suspicions as to the circumstances of Alicia's 999 call, before she's back down the corridor towards resus, calm exterior, inside the adrenaline kicking in, prepared for war as the emergency radio in her hand buzzes with an update.

"3004 to Control, leaving the scene now. Twenty-eight-year-old female, involved in RTC en route to Holby ED with massive blood loss following a fall through a window. ETA 10 minutes, over."

Too late, Connie notices Ethan frozen ahead of her in the corridor.

"Was… was that…?"

"You know as much as I do, Dr Hardy, we don't have time for this."

"Please, I need to be in resus, I need to…"

"Dr Gardner will be taking Alicia, and that is final. You can wait for the second crew, take Dr Masum with you, this isn't up for debate. Dr Garner." Elle emerges from the staffroom, finally, as she turns the corner. "Dr Gardner I need you in resus now, I want you to take this first one, please. Patient had been picked up by an ambulance crew prior to the RTC, massive blood loss reported at original scene so let's prep for…"

"Alicia." Ethan's tone is growing increasingly panicked. "It's Alicia."

Elle's expression softens.

"We don't know that yet," Connie tries, but Ethan shakes his head. "You said Iain and Ruby were bringing in Alicia, what are the chances of two ambulances being involved in the RTC? Please, let me treat her…"

"3007 to Control, departing the scene now. We've got a young woman fallen from a height, facial fracture, breathing compromised, full trauma team required on standby, over."

"Surely it makes more sense for me to take the facial fracture, Connie?" Elle suggests, and Connie groans internally because of course she doesn't know, she's been on leave, how could she know?

She's blissfully unaware of her well-intended sabotage of Connie's carefully crafted plan to ensure her a female doctor, just in case.

"She's right, she's more experienced," Ethan pipes up. He's desperately latching onto this, this new opportunity to change Connie's mind, as he sees it, and she knows it only too well, knows this isn't going to be a fight she will win now it's become clear the second patient en route is a facial fracture. "Elle's specialised in this, I know the theory, but with a severe case surely it's more appropriate if…"

She hasn't got time to argue with them about this.

She hasn't the time, and deep down, she knows Elle and Ethan are right.

Regardless of her suspicions, of the possibility that the worst happened earlier this evening when Eddie broke his bail and turned up on Alicia's doorstep and her determination to ensure she has a female doctor upon arrival in resus, Connie can't deny that allocating to Elle the facial fracture is the only logical decision.

Ethan has got his way.

"Alright. Alright, I want you in resus now, Dr Hardy. Let's not keep them waiting."

"Thank you." There's visible relief in Ethan's eyes at her decision; fear, panic, concern, yes, but considerable relief alongside it. "Thank you…"

"Don't thank me, just get down to resus. Now, please. And at the slightest hint it's too personal, you're out, you understand? I mean it, Dr Hardy."

He doesn't realise he's shaking until the ambulance pulls up outside resus.

It's just another patient. That's what Ethan tries to tell himself. Just another patient; this is his job, this is what he does, day in, day out. This is what he's trained for, and most of the time he makes a difference, most of the time patients arrive in resus and he manages to fix them, or stabilise them to the point that they are fit enough to be transferred to another department that can. This is his job, and he's good at it, has the years of medical school and the experience and the consultancy exams to show for it. There's no reason to think that this time, it's going to be any different.

Except this time, it's Alicia.

And, knowing that, there's a distinct feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach before the paramedics have even opened up the back door of the ambulance.

Alicia is in there.

Alicia is in there, and Ethan knows so little.

That isn't exactly unusual- far from it, in fact. It's far from unusual to have limited information regarding the condition of a patient prior to their arrival in the ED, but somehow this feels different.

It's Alicia. It's different because it's Alicia, not just any patient. Alicia's life in his hands, Alicia caught up in the devastation of an RTC, Alicia… how? How did it happen? Alicia fallen through a window, it makes no sense. She hasn't been herself for weeks now, of course; something has been going on with her, something that Ethan had hoped she would work through herself each time lately he had tried to get her to open up and screwed up with her and she had pushed him away, and each time she's come into work the next day looking even worse than before and the whole sorry cycle has begun all over again.

Perhaps Mrs Beauchamp was right. He's too close to this. How could he have ever thought any different? It's Alicia, it's Alicia… even now, as the paramedics open the doors, he can't get his head around it. Alicia, Alicia injured, Alicia all of a sudden signed off work with a mysterious illness Mrs Beauchamp won't talk about, Alicia being brought into the ED after a fall through a window he can't get his head around, can't come up with a rational explanation for try as he might, Alicia caught up in an RTC as if she didn't already have enough to cope with. And then there's her strange behaviour of the last few months, the zoning out, the jumpiness, the violent moods…

She hasn't been right for weeks. He's been trying to cast his mind back ever since Mrs Beauchamp revealed she had sent her home sick, trying to remember when it started, how it started, those first warning signs something was wrong before this out-of-control downward spiral that's so, so unlike Alicia began in full force.

That cold, rainy May morning, over two months ago now, that's when he first noticed it. The day of the coach crash, the day after he had turned her down for Leigh-Ann (yet another of his stupid, careless mistakes with Alicia), the day she had slipped out of the ED to attend behind Mrs Beauchamp's back and returned with all the symptoms of hyperthermia minus the temperature, the day he had thought he had put his foot in it well and truly with Alicia and Eddie, before Alicia's behaviour with Eddie had become so hostile, so completely, explosively erratic.

Ever since then it's been as though she's on self-destruct and the defensive and highly paranoid all at once, and try as he might, Ethan just can't get his head around it.

And then the trolley is out of the ambulance, and Ethan dives to help the paramedics wheel her in through to resus, medical instinct kicking in, gets her halfway down the corridor before he's able to process that it's Alicia, his Alicia, and then it hits him like a ton of bricks and for a moment, just a moment, his chest tightens and his breath is gone.

It's Alicia.

Except she doesn't look like Alicia at all.

He misses the initial transfer from the paramedics. He's there, physically at least, stands alongside Mrs Beauchamp and Rash as the paramedics report on her condition, but his mind is somewhere else entirely, struggling to take it in.

She's covered in blood. Blood doesn't bother Ethan, of course it doesn't, not in his profession. He knows that appearances can be deceiving when it comes to patients at the ED, knows that the quantity of blood isn't necessarily an indicator of doom, that emergency medicine is far more complex than that. Blood doesn't faze him, not like this; assess first, primary survey, then make judgements like that.

And yet all that goes out the window entirely in those first few moments, because it's Alicia, and Alicia is different.

Alicia means too much to him for Ethan to allow the rational, professional part of his mind to take charge here.

All he can see is Alicia's blood, Alicia strapped to a spinal board, Alicia, still save for the rapid heaving of her chest. Her eyes are closed, face twisted into something in between agony and utter exhaustion, resignation, and if she realises she's here, that she's back in safe hands, she makes no attempt to acknowledge it.

The blood, there's so much blood…

And then he's gripping the side of Alicia's trolley, assisting the paramedics in wheeling her through to resus before he's quite realised what's happening.

"Alicia Munroe, 28." Even Mrs Beauchamp sounds rattled; by her usual cold, professional standards, at least. "She was involved in an RTC roughly an hour ago. Suspected head injury, severe laceration to the brachial artery on the right side, dislocated elbow on the left side, reduced at the scene without analgesia."

It's the brachial artery, it must be. It looks worse than it is, there's so much blood because it's the brachial artery. That's what Ethan's training tells him. Brachial artery would be bad enough, but add to that the best part of an hour trapped in the back of an ambulance… she could well have been forced to try to treat this herself, he doesn't know the details, doesn't know who was with her, who else is injured. That explanation accounts for the blood stains decorating her tracksuit, her arms, her legs, her chest, her trainers, her hair but it doesn't account for the cuts on the face, the scrapes he knows will turn to bruises come tomorrow, because she's fallen through a window, shit… Her left arm- the reduction, the reduction carried out without pain relief- rests across her chest. It's as though she didn't place it herself, as though someone has had to get her onto the spinal board, positioned her arm across her chest in the absence of proper support- or as though she's staggered onto the board and collapsed down holding her arm awkwardly, injured, pained, still unable to straighten it out.

"Okay, on my count," Ethan finds himself saying, operating on autopilot now, medical training taking over. "One, two, three."

Together, he, Rash and the nursing team lift her, transfer her across onto the resus bed, and it's only as he grabs his stethoscope from around his neck, forces himself into action, that all of a sudden, he becomes aware of the sound she's making.

It's like a cry. Close to a cry, but that description isn't quite right, doesn't entirely to justice to the strangled, heart-breaking edge to it, the despair, the pain, the panic, and a whole load of shock.

It's as though she can't quite get her head around the fact that this has happened to her, that this is real, and now she's on the brink of an emotional meltdown trying to process it all.

She sounds like a frightened, wounded animal, and she's breaking Ethan's heart.

"Tachycardic at 110, BP 90 over 60. She had a GCS of 12 falling from 15 en route. She's had one gram of TXA, fluids running."

GCS 12… oh god, oh god…

He needs to focus. He isn't doing Alicia any favours like this.

She's helpless, horribly so, and it's so out of character that it's hard to accept this is really Alicia, that she's so broken, that she's crashing, that unless he sorts his head out now he's going to be no use to her at all as her doctor and that's what she needs from him right now, she needs him to keep this professional, put her back together.

"I want cool heads, okay, no heroics, do you understand?" Mrs Beauchamp says firmly, Ethan distracted, pulling on his gloves, peering over at Alicia. Her eyes are closed, still no signs of acknowledgement from her that she realises she's been brought in, that they're going to fix her up, just that awful pained whimpering, distressed, desperate.

"Okay," Ethan manages at last. He trusts Rash and the nurses to start removing her from the spinal board, begins his primary assessment, does his best to ignore the thousand thoughts running through his mind. It's Alicia… it's Alicia, but he has to be calm, has to treat her as though she's any other patient if he's going to stand a chance of getting them both through this.

"Airway's clear, resps high at 28," he reports, doing his best to keep his tone level, steady. It's partly for Alicia's benefit- although Ethan knows he might be kidding himself there, with a GCS of 12 and her current reaction to being brought in to be treated by her colleagues in her place of work, or lack of, there's no guarantee she's making sense of her surroundings anyway, no guarantee she's aware of his tone at all.

It's mostly because he knows the moment Mrs Beauchamp suspects he's struggling to hold himself together, she will have him out.

"Alicia, you need to stay still for us, please," Rash tries, and Ethan doesn't need to turn around to know that she's fighting against the nurses removing the straps, doesn't need to because her back arches and her face twists in pain and for a moment he thinks she's retching and they're going to have to suction her, but at least she's moving, at least she isn't showing signs of paralysis, he has to be positive…

"Just want to sleep," Alicia moans desperately, incoherent, defeated.

She can't sleep. They can't let her sleep, not with a suspected head injury.

The nurses are reaching over her now, pulling down her t shirt at the neck, taking her bloodied hand, and a few moments later the resus bay comes to life with the bleeping of monitors, a little fast for Ethan's liking but there, present, proof that she's still here with him, that maybe, just maybe, part of her still wants to fight.

"Right, once you've finished primary survey I want to get her straight to CT," Mrs Beauchamp frowns.

It's perfectly clear from the look on her face, broken through her usual façade of control and clinical distance, that she's worried.

Ethan just nods, pulls on his stethoscope, begins pulse checks. He needs to check her circulation, then they can repair her brachial artery and get her to CT. There's no point worrying now, not when there's still work to be done to stabilise her. They'll know more after CT, there's no sense in worrying until he can rush her through to CT.

"Okay, let's get another large line in," he orders. "Get some O-neg, and we need Us and Es, clotting, and group and save, please." Her pulse is there- weak, not weak enough for him to be desperately worried about her circulation, but the blood loss is significant, she's most likely going to need a transfusion by the time they're stabilised her.

"How did this happen?" Rash asks desperately.

"We don't have the full details yet," Ethan explains. There isn't time for this, as soon as he's finished checking Alicia's circulation they need to start on the artery repair, need to get her moved, in the CT queue fast, before the rest of the casualties from the RTC arrive. He wants her through quickly, wants her stable, wants her upstairs in recovery before the night shift is over.

But Rash shakes his head, troubled. "I was questioned by the police earlier," he admits, and Ethan turns to him in confusion. "You don't think Eddie had something to do with this, do you?"

Ethan freezes.

"Dr Masum, may I remind you my resus is no place for gossip!" Mrs Beauchamp snaps.

All three of them fall silent, the only sound the bleeping of the monitors and Alicia's pained whimpers.

"Get a move on."

It's only as Mrs Beauchamp issues he latest order that Ethan realises he's still staring, still stopped in his tracks, stethoscope ready to listen to Alicia's lungs but his mind in another place altogether.

Eddie.

Eddie, he had thought she was with Eddie at first, that night he had visited her new house to check on her after the coach crash and only ended up upsetting her, he had thought she was trying to tell him she was with Eddie now and he had left her to it, embarrassed, and when the next week she had started acting so strangely around her former mentee he assumed she had simply broken up with him, assumed, if he's completely honest with himself now, that her treatment of Eddie was yet another element of her strange behaviour lately but now, faced with this new information from Rash that's so little to go on, that could be nothing and yet feels like quite the opposite, feels completely wrong… Eddie off work helping the police with an investigation, Alicia off sick, Mrs Beauchamp refusing to talk about either as though there's some enormous secret she can't possibly share with him…

"Dr Hardy, do I need to remind you of our earlier conversation? "Mrs Beauchamp begins, pulling Ethan back to reality. "If you feel your professional judgement is compromised here…"

"What? No, no, I can treat her…" He turns back to Alicia, forces himself to block this latest revelation out, to focus. "Okay. Okay, only significant bleed is the laceration to the brachial artery, priority is to get that repaired and then we'll move her to CT. Cutters, please, we need to get this off her." He gestures to her hoodie, begins inspecting the damage. The bleeding has stopped, but the paramedics have used tourniquets- one ambulance-issued, one makeshift out of what looks like a trouser cord.

The bleeding has evidently been significant.

"Okay," he says at last, a little shakier than he would have liked. "The line's in, yes? Get a move on with the O-neg, please, chase bloods if you have to." He knows that's unfair, knows far longer is going to be needed to group and save but it's Alicia, don't they know it's Alicia? "Let's give her another two of morphine."

"Resps risen to 30," Mrs Beauchamp comments. "She's tachycardic at 116 now, I want her on a nasal cannula before you start on the brachial artery, and let's assess her GCS again."

Ethan groans, closes his eyes for the briefest moment in search of the faintest shred of proper focus whilst the nurses busy themselves with the nasal cannula and Rash proceeds with the assessment. "Alicia, can you hear me? Alicia?"

"Hurts," Alicia, complains, eyes remaining closed, though she flinches away when Ethan reaches for her right hand.

"GCS down to 10," he concludes grimly. "There's glass… glass in her hands, presumably from the fall. We'll need to remove before we take her up to CT, but let's focus on the artery repair for now. It's alright, Alicia," he murmurs softly, reaching for the scalpel. "Just stay still for us. It's going to be alright."

Before I finish, I just want to say a massive, heartfelt thankyou to everyone who has favourited/followed this story, and particularly to my wonderful reviewers, my two guests (thank you so, so much, I'm so glad you want me to continue) and casfics (I am a HUGE fan of your writing, oh my goodness it means so much to hear you enjoyed mine!). This is one of many attempts to get back into writing after I had a really awful year last year, but it's the one that feels the most natural to me so far and gives me the most hope I might actually remember how to write and enjoy it, and so it means the world to get such lovely feedback.

I'm planning this to be a series of missing moments, at the moment covering the first episode and then moving on from that. I have a plan of where I'm going with this although I'm aiming to tie it into the episodes as they air, but please do let me know if you have any requests of missing moments from last week's episode you would like me to write. And please do keep the reviews coming, you are all awesome, awesome people.

-IseultLaBelle