Henrik firmly closed the door of his office behind him and slumping down in his chair he cast his glasses to one side. His hands were trembling and his breathing was uneven as he fought to keep the fear under control. He thought he had left all of them behind him only to find one of them turn up at his hospital. Sahira's CTU had always caused him trouble but the unit had really excelled itself this time. Now he would have to duck, dive, lie, hide and pretend everything was hunky dory when frankly it was far from it. Worst of all he already had Sahira breathing down his neck. She knew him better than anyone else, all those years, all those 'getting to know your mentor hours', yet she still had never learnt that with him, it was best not to ask. He had already let her in too far. It was one of the things he loved about her, her tenacity, like a dog with a bone, always digging about, always wanting to get to the bottom of things. The problem with that is that sometimes she could dig too far.
Thinking back to the patient on Darwin he scowled. The patient had his hair and though the patient was slightly smaller, and always had been, their body shape was nearly exactly the same. However it was the eyes that defined them. Henrik took pride that his were a soft brown and the patient's were a harsher pale blue. No one could know the connection between them, no one could know of his past.
It was 4:30 when Hanssen and Sahira scrubbed in together. He was unusually silent, his gaze fixed ahead as he washed his hands with much more vigour than he usually did. "Scrub any harder and you'll need a new layer of skin." She joked trying to lighten the atmosphere though it was obvious that there was serious concern in her voice too.
"Hmm?" He said, coming out of his cloud of thoughts. "Oh yes, quite." The attempt at a smile failed, and instead he looked pained and oddly preoccupied. They put on their operating scrubs and made their way over to the table. Sahira always did like Henrik more in theatre than anywhere else. The mask covered most of his face so all that could be seen was those deep brown eyes behind the glasses; they could tell her more than words ever could. It was also the confined space of theatre, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. They stood opposite each other as Henrik made the first incision.
"The CTU patient is still stable but not conscious just yet." She said, trying to cut through the suffocating and uncomfortable silence. She knew that this certainly was not right for Henrik.
"Oh, that's nice." The sarcasm was far fiercer than usual and his eyes shot her a warning look not to continue. She chose to ignore it.
"When he comes round we'll have to operate obviously." Hanssen just ignored her. The one thing Sahira hated was being ignored. She leant down so her face was parallel with his and looked him straight in the eye. "Ok, who is he?"
"Who is who?" The attempt to disguise the importance of the case completely failed.
Sahira sighed, why was he being like this? "You know fine well who." When he just looked at her with his best innocent face he could conjure she came close to losing it. "The CTU patient!" She clarified.
"I've never seen him before." His tone was flat, showing no emotion at all, it scared her a little. Knowing that his actions were hurting her like he feared, he forced himself to relax. "Sahira trust me. You have far too many things to worry about without adding me to that list. I'm a big boy, I can look after myself."
She knew it wasn't the whole truth and was going to chase it up before the bleed alert sounded. "We have a bleed." And that was the end of that matter. Sahira didn't bring it up again, instead waiting for the end of the operation to corner him. The chance never arose. As soon as Hanssen had scrubbed out, he was off down the corridor like he couldn't get away fast enough. Sahira watched him as he walked, his pace was still a walk to look like he was in full control but she noticed it was quicker than usual. Something was wrong, very wrong.
Back on the ward Sahira entered HDU to look in on her CTU patient, he looked like someone she knew but, try though she might, she just couldn't put her finger on it. The man's eyes began to flicker open as he entered the world of the awake. "Var fan är jag?" He murmured wearily.
Sahira was taken a bit off guard by the sudden foreign language. "You were in a car crash and you're in Holby City hospital. Do you understand me?" She asked in her softest bedside manner voice. The patient nodded his head wearily. "Is there anyone we can call?"
"My wife, she should be at home by now." Definitely not British but the accent pointed to a Scandinavian country. "Did my car survive?"
A nurse to the side of Sahira could barely contain her shock; the man seemed more worried about a car than his health. "No I'm afraid it was a pretty bad collision, while we were there it looked a bit of a write-off."
The patient smiled bitterly. "And doctor, tell me am I a write-off?"
"You have a tear in the pancreas that needs fixing and a problem with a valve in your heart. Now our General surgeon consultant Mr Han..." She didn't even get time to finish the name; the thing about patients is they can be bloody rude.
"Where is my wallet?" Patient no name intercepted, looking around him.
"It's been put in a secure storage location. You won't be needing it here, I assure you." She looked at him puzzled.
He confidently returned her look, but smiled caringly. "There are two pictures of my family in it. One of them is of my father, pictures like that can't be replaced." Again Sahira gave him the same confused look. "He died when I was young. Even a grown man misses his father sometimes."
"Oh, I'm sorry." The awkwardness was tangible in the room. "Do you have a name?"
Now it was the patient giving her the confused look. "That is not a question I hear asked often." He laughed. "My name is Kristian, Kristian Hanssen."
