Tanith Panic, I love that Christmas song too. I wish Lofty had been singing it though! The text moment was really good - it was actually only a few scenes, but it was memorable! Thank you for your review.
Gillian Kearney Fan, yes, this is the saucy text moment! Thank you for your review.
LudoJudo, I would like to bash their heads together! Followed by their mouths. I'm really happy you like my writing of the characters. The suturing scene was in the episode, but I tried to put my own spin on it and I'm so glad it worked! Thank you for your review.
I'm very annoyed with myself for making a mistake in the last chapter - Louise mentions Rita and Iain, but no-one knows yet. I've tried to get round it, but I might have done better to change the last chapter!
Robyn could barely speak for horror, but she could see Louise was looking at her impatiently so she did her best to choke out something. "Iain!" she managed at last.
Louise checked her watch. "Robyn, are you going to tell me or not? Because there's only ten minutes of my break left and I really wanted to-"
Robyn pulled out her phone, reluctantly reopened the text from Iain and shoved it at Louise. "There. Read that!"
Louise read it. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. She looked at first like she might be sick, but then she started to look slightly turned-on.
"What am I going to do?" wailed Robyn.
"Well, you could always… do what he suggests," said Louise.
"No!" gasped Robyn. "I don't fancy Iain!"
"Oh, come on. He's a good-looking lad!" Louise nudged Robyn. "Looks like you might be getting your Christmas romance after all!"
"I don't want a Christmas romance with Iain!" said Robyn. "This Christmas is all about Dylan." She sighed. "Or it was supposed to be."
"But it's not Christmas yet," said Louise naughtily. "So why not have a bit of fun?"
Robyn almost screamed in frustration – and not the kind of frustration Iain was feeling. "Because I don't want to have fun with Iain! I thought he was being weird with me today. He came up and asked me if me and him were okay. I had no idea what he meant, but I thought maybe he'd shouted at me when he was bringing a patient in and he felt bad about it. But it was obviously a pick-up line!"
"I wish he'd pick me up," said Louise.
"You can have him!" wailed Robyn. "Please, have him! As many times as you like! Anything to stop him sending those… oh my God."
She'd seen someone coming towards her. Someone she definitely didn't want to see.
Dylan was glad when he reached a point where he could go and have a break. He never used to be that bothered about breaks, though of course that had all changed when he'd had someone to share his breaks with.
Now, once more, he was spending his breaks alone (and he couldn't help thinking that being alone could only be an improvement on his disastrous attempt to buy Ben lunch), but he really felt as though he needed a break. Today was tough and not just because of Ben. He had a difficult case to deal with today, and, as was so often the case at this hospital, there was so much more than physical wounds that needed to be healed.
A man who used to be nice but had suddenly turned horrible. A boy who was confused about it and was asking Dylan for information about him. Dylan had worked out that the man had lost his family in an accident and didn't want to live without them, but that wasn't the kind of thing you could explain to someone who wasn't a relative. Dylan wouldn't usually have let it get to him, but he had and now all he wanted was to tell Ben all about it and ask what he should do.
He went to the staff room and was both relieved and disappointed to find it empty. He sat at the table and rested his head in his hands, trying to focus on his patient's situation but finding his thoughts more often than not drifting to Ben.
He heard footsteps, then Ethan's voice. "Dylan, you haven't seen Cal, have you?"
"I think he went somewhere with Charlie," said Dylan. "Highly inconvenient."
"But he's on shift!" said Ethan. "He is finishing early, but not this early!"
Dylan sighed impatiently. "I would assume they've been called out somewhere. Unless you're suggesting they're both out seeing their girlfriends."
Ethan looked slightly embarrassed. "I don't think Charlie would see his girlfriend during a shift. But Cal's been behaving so oddly lately. I really don't know what to think."
"He's lost his daughter!" said Dylan, more harshly than he'd intended. "Losing someone you care about is difficult. As I thought you'd know, as she was your niece."
To his horror, Ethan's eyes filled with tears. "I do miss her. I miss her every day."
Again, Dylan wished Ben was here. He would know what to do. He would give Ethan a hug (not that Dylan wanted Ben hugging Ethan) and find some well-chosen words to comfort him. Ben always knew what to say.
"Can I… get someone?" said Dylan, as Ethan pressed his hands against the table, his head lowered as he fought back tears. Maybe Ethan would ask for Ben, then Dylan could go and fetch him and he would get to spend a little bit more time with him.
There was so much he wanted to say to Ben, but he couldn't say it here.
Ethan shook his head mutely.
"I didn't mean to…" said Dylan helplessly.
"I know," whispered Ethan. "It's okay."
Dylan placed an awkward hand on Ethan's arm. He wouldn't normally have done it, but in some strange way, he felt on the same wavelength as Ethan. They both missed someone.
Ethan jumped but gave a small smile.
"I'm… sorry," said Dylan. "For what I said. I shouldn't have said it."
Dylan heard a small gasp behind him, then footsteps hurrying away.
"Ben!" shouted Dylan. He hurried to the door, but Ben was nowhere to be seen.
Robyn tried to move away from Iain, but he followed her.
"Please, Robyn. I just want to talk to you."
After reading the text message, Robyn was inclined to doubt that was all he wanted. "I don't think I can even look you in the face anymore!" she said as she arrived at the nurse's station with Iain right behind her.
"Listen: it wasn't meant for you," said Iain.
For some reason, that made Robyn feel even more upset. Not that she wanted Iain, but why couldn't be the kind of girl guys wanted to send texts like that to? "Well, who was it meant for, then?"
"Just… some lass I've been knocking about with," said Iain.
"Well, that's lovely!" said Robyn.
"No, she's nice and that," said Iain quickly. "Really nice. Not just some random bird. But she started these stupid saucy texts."
"Sexts," nodded Robyn.
"Yeah. That," said Iain. "And then you texted me about the Secret Santa… you know the rest."
"If I'm honest, I'm quite relieved," said Robyn, still not looking him in the face.
There was a pause. "Oh, yeah? Why's that then?" said Iain. He sounded slightly offended.
Robyn tried not to smile. "I don't think I'm that supple…"
They heard laughter behind them and turned to see Rita. As soon as Robyn and Iain turned to look at him, she stopped smiling.
Iain gave her an alarmed look and almost ran from the nurse's station.
Robyn stared after him, then turned to Rita, who made a similarly fast exit.
Something clicked in Robyn's mind.
At first, she was horrified. You didn't want to think about your boss… doing that.
Then she began to smile.
She ran off to find Louise. Louise was on her way into a cubicle, but never mind. "Oh my God, Louise! You'll never guess what! Rita and Iain!"
Louise looked unimpressed. "Babe, we saw them together. Last week. On that pub crawl."
"You know I don't remember anything about that pub crawl," said Robyn.
"But I must have mentioned it since then."
Robyn thought. "Yeah, you did mention it actually. But I thought you just meant he liked her."
Ben knew he was being stupid.
He knew Dylan wasn't interested in Ethan; he knew Dylan would never use Ethan to make Ben jealous; and he was fairly sure Ethan wasn't bi-sexual anyway.
The moment between Dylan and Ethan had been a moment of comfort. Ben had seen the tears in Ethan's eyes. The fact Dylan didn't usually comfort anyone but Ben didn't matter. Everyone made an exception sometimes. Either Dylan had seen that Ethan needed comfort very badly or he particularly empathised with him for some reason.
There was nothing going on and Ben had no reason to be jealous – but he was.
Not because Dylan had comforted Ethan. Because he'd apologised to him. It was quite likely he'd said something pretty bad as Ethan had been nearly crying, but he'd seen he'd really hurt him and tried to sort it out.
Why couldn't Dylan see how much he'd hurt Ben?
"Ben?"
That voice could only belong to one person. The same person that Ben's heart belonged to. "Dylan."
"Ben… listen."
Ben thought about inventing a patient he needed to see urgently, but he didn't want to lie and he couldn't avoid Dylan forever. Slowly, he turned to face him.
"I was just comforting him," said Dylan.
"I know," said Ben. "It's fine. I hope Ethan's okay."
Dylan stared at him. A hint of hurt came into his eyes, but it was gone so quickly, Ben might have imagined it. "I'm not sure he's okay, though he's in a better state than that brother of his, but he's gone back to work."
"Good," said Ben. "I'm glad."
"I think we need to…. have a discussion," said Dylan.
Ben almost smiled at the way Dylan had taken such care to avoid a cliché. "I think you're right, Dylan. I'm sorry I broke your plate. I should have been more careful."
He waited.
"Right, well, that's… good," said Dylan. "Would you like to come back to the boat after your shift?"
Ben stared at him in disbelief. That was it? No apology?
He was tempted to say yes, he had to admit. He loved Dylan's boat. He loved Dylan. And even if they couldn't spend Christmas together, there was always tonight.
He also didn't want to be one of those annoying boyfriends who insisted on an apology for everything. Sometimes it was better to let things go. Apologies could be difficult to make and it wasn't really the words themselves that mattered but the fact the person to apologise showed they were sorry and they'd learned from their mistake.
But Dylan had really hurt him – and Ben had apologised to Dylan.
"I think I'm going to commiserate with Robyn," said Ben shortly.
"If that's what you want," said Dylan.
"Of course that's not what I want!" burst out Ben.
Dylan's voice was soft. "Don't you?"
"No," said Ben.
But then he controlled himself. He wasn't going to beg Dylan to take him back.
"I want to be celebrating with Robyn," said Ben. "You know. Christmas. Not being at work."
Dylan turned away. "Well, it's hardly my fault you can't."