Hey guys, thanks for the reviews, keep going - it's great to hear what you think!

So this is where the A/B action starts to kick in, I hope you enjoy!

(btw - I am spell checking, but every now and then sp mistakes and punctuation ones are getting through - so sorry about that!

Anna leant against the counter stirring her coffee; barely listening to Ethyl's prattling, she looked up sharply to see Jane walk into the staff room. Jane was nice enough – a good nurse, and always committed to her work, or she had been until this last week.

"Jane – where did you go?"

"Just upstairs to see … that young man from the factory last week – Mr Crawley."

"Why – you didn't work on him did you?" asked Ethyl, her attention aroused by Jane's deviation from her normal behavior. Anna frowned, Jane was private, but she was never secretive about her self. Something was up

"Jane?"

"I just thought that it would be nice for him to get a visitor … he doesn't get many – his cousin …"

Ethyl shot Anna a glance, she had already decided that Jane was in the midst of a hot and steamy affair with that lawyers cousin. Ethyl was not like Jane, morals and immorality at loggerheads.

"Was he there today?" Asked Ethyl, her interest piqued,

"No – no just a colleague." Ethyl's interest in Jane's love life quickly waned and she sauntered out, waving a copy of Heat in her hand as way of a good bye. Anna's interest however picked up at the mention of a colleague, it could be him … it was unlikely to be him. Could it be him? Ever since she had watched John Bates walk away into his minicab, she had thought about telephoning the factory at least a dozen times, just to hear his voice. Anna gave herself a little shake, downing a mouthful of coffee, she didn't have the time to be behaving like this. Anna Smith was the reliable, sensible one, she had worked hard to become a nurse, she had kept her self to her self, she had never gotten involved with amorous doctors at Christmas parties, and yet something about that man had got to her.

A knock at the door aroused her from her reverie, Jane answered the door, Anna couldn't see the figure on the other side, but she recognized the voice.

"Good morning, is Anna Smith in here?"

"Yes … Anna?" Jane stepped to one side allowing in Mr Bates, Anna swallowed hard, her stomach in knots curling up inside her.

"Anna Smith, hello I'm not sure if you remember me … John-"

"Bates, Mr Bates I remember you …" Just shut up, she thought to herself, shut up Anna before you say something properly stupid.

"I'm glad. Mr Crawley, Robert, asked me to bring in these flowers, to say thank you to you all." He produced a bunch of flowers, garish and bright, but the A&E department rarely got gifts and so they were grateful for anything they could get their hands on.

"They're beautiful, I'll go and see if we've got a vase." Said Jane, slipping out the door back into the bustle of the main department. Mr Bates stepped further into the staff room towards Anna.

"Alone at last …" he said, with a sly grin that crept across his face, like a open fire that seemed to warm her up as she stood there. " I wanted to thank you too though, personally for all you did for Mathew, he's a good man."

"It's my job – it was nothing really … but thank you."

"I wondered if you might … if you wanted to go for a meal or a drink … or a meal and a drink. Just to say thank you – don't feel obliged or anything."

"Pity – I was looking forward to being obliged!" he brain froze – what had she just said? A more obvious bit of flirting had yet to be seen this side of the Atlantic. But he laughed, a loud laugh that made Anna blush and grin.

"I have to go, I'm sorry, I'm just on a break … why don't you take my number? Here … " she handed him a crumpled receipt from her purse, with her number scrawled across the back in biro.

Back in the department, holding a paper bucket of vomit, carrying it to the biohazard sink she thought about him, John Bates, she thought about his face. The subtle panic in his eyes as he asked her out, the look of relief when she accepted. Unlike most of the men she met he didn't seem to be full of bravado and ego, which made a change. Rinsing her hands she realised that apart from the stomach churching she got when she saw him, a feeling she had felt before, to varying degrees, she also got a new feeling, of safeness and security. Christ, she thought, this is all very odd.

Shit, thought Anna, "bugger bugger bugger!" she hissed out loud, she scanned her eyes around her flat, looking for where to start. There was the washing up, the pile of dirty washing that needed to go in the machine and the pile of clean knickers sitting on the sofa, from where she'd been sorting through that morning. She knew that she had maybe 40 seconds at best before he was at her front door, and so she had 40 seconds to make her flat look less like it had been inhabited by a group of students, and more like it belonged to a 27 year old., professional woman, as her Mam always called her – although she tried to discourage it, it made her sound like a high end prostitute. She jammed the clothes, clean and dirty in the washing machine, before adding the dirty plates and mugs to her sink and covering them with her bowl.

Why was he here early? Maybe he was here to break off the evening, maybe he had the wrong time, perhaps she did … the knock on the door came, firm, but hesitant. She could almost hear him calculating the right number of knocks on the door, too few and he might sound flippant, too many sounds impatient.

"Mr Bates, John. Come in – you're early, or am I late … come in." He followed her into the flat, resting her stick against her radiator, he continued into the flat, she motioned to the sofa.

"I came early," he said sitting himself down and unbuttoning his coat, "to give you a chance to retract your reply, to my offer of a meal."

"You don't want to see me tonight do you?"

"No no, I do really I do, but I though perhaps you might … in retrospect, have changed your mind."

"Well I haven't changed my mind, you're a lovely man John. And unless it's all a show, I'd love to spend the evening with a lovely man. Now, where are we off? I'll need to get dressed." As she said this, Anna was suddenly conscious of the fact she was just out of the shower, wrapped in a towel with sopping wet hair.

"MiaBella – in town. Do you eat Italian?"

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I'll be putting more chapters up soon!