In Your Eyes Chapter Thirty, a casualty fanfic

Title: In Your Eyes

Authors: Raven Shadowrose/BeethovenRIP

Rating: M

Pairing: ?/?

Summary: A joint FanFic by Raven Shadowrose and BeethovenRIP based on Dixie and Jeff's conversation at the end of Series 26 Episode 36. We have rated it M as future chapters will contain adult themes. Dixie wants to be a mother and Jeff is all too willing to oblige, but, does their conversation in the ED have an unexpected effect on their relationship?

Disclaimer: The authors do not know or own any characters or content from Casualty, any original characters and the story are ours and we do not give permission for anyone to use the story or reproduce it.

Author's Note: Thank you to chan. nelson4444, olivia. c. king1 and Carlykinz for your reviews and comments, enjoy the chapter, we hope you don't cry too much.

Chapter Thirty.

Norman was very worried about Dixie now, he had noticed that as the weeks passed and Jeff showed no sign of calling or getting in touch with Dixie that she had begun to lose more and more weight. She had ordered new uniform twice as she got smaller, he had tried to talk to her about it but she insisted that she was fine and he wasn't to worry about her. Norman couldn't help but worry, Dixie wasn't herself at all now, she still did her job and took care of patients but she was quiet with them and only talked to them to get the necessary details. Dixie was working by herself on rapid response a lot of the time, she insisted that it was because she had to keep up with her paperwork but she had always managed it before when she was working on the crew properly. Whenever Norman saw her it always struck him how sad she looked, he had tried talking to her and including her in any plans that the team made to go out for a drink but she always refused. Norman was at a loss what to do, he thought about calling Jeff but something stopped him. Jeff had asked him to keep it away from Dixie that he had called and asked about her but Dixie wasn't coping, no matter how many times she insisted that she was fine.

It had been noticed by many people in the department that Dixie had changed a lot since Jeff left and not for the better. Her smile hadn't been seen for a very long time and her usual banter and jokes with the staff had disappeared a long time ago. She simply handed over patients and then left once they were with the doctors. Those that took the time to look noticed that the new Dixie they were left with was one that was filled with sadness and heartbreak. Tess shared Norman's worries about Dixie, he'd talked to her one day when he couldn't keep it to himself any more and she had promised to try and help. Tess was at a loss of how to help Dixie, she'd tried inviting her out for a drink and even around for dinner but all of the invites were refused. She'd gone out with the paramedics one day in an attempt to get Dixie to talk but she refused to talk about anything that had happened or why she had suddenly started losing weight so rapidly. Tess was very willing to bet that it was because she was hurting over losing Jeff, she knew that Dixie still loved him, even if she said she didn't.

Dixie didn't understand why people were so interested in her life, she wanted them to back off and leave her alone. She didn't want to spend time with them or go out for drinks, what was the point? The only person she really talked to was Polly, it was hard to refuse the young woman when she had questions. Dixie knew that she was still the boss and she would do her job no matter what was going on in her personal life, such as it was. She was finding it hard but there was no way that she would tell anyone else that. It was as if she couldn't function properly without Jeff around, she had scoffed at the idea of people being incomplete without someone in their life but now she was beginning to realise what they meant. There were still times when she would start to call Jeff's name and she would have to stop herself because she'd realised that he was no longer there. Night after night she sat in the lounge writing letters to Jeff telling him how much she missed him and how she wanted him to come home. She never sent them, they all ended up shredded and in the bin as she didn't want anyone reading her words.

Norman was still thinking how to help Dixie, she was having to work with him today as Stevie was taking a few days off. It was all quiet in the cab of the ambulance as they waited for a shout to come. He noticed that Dixie was still pulling up Jeff's number on her phone and then closing the phone book again. Sometimes she would write messages and then delete them after she had finished. Norman wondered what she was writing but he didn't want to get close and have a look as he thought it was private. Sometimes he would catch Dixie closing her eyes and breathing deeply, it looked as if she had remembered something painful and was trying to work her way through it without crying. The fact that Dixie no longer cried worried Norman too, she was keeping her pain inside. Crying relieves pain and helps people feel better, by refusing to cry Dixie was only making her pain last longer. Norman really was at a loss for how to help her.

Dixie fidgeted in her seat, why did it have to be a quiet day? She wanted it to be busy so that she could take her mind off the mess she had made of her life. She thought of her dad, he would be disappointed in her, even more than he already was when he died. What had she done to make him proud of her? She had one chance to make him happy and she had blown it, Jeff had gone and he wasn't coming back. The familiar stab of pain at the thought of it ripped through her again. Dixie wondered again how long it would take for the divorce to come through, had Jeff started it? Was he talking to a lawyer right now? He hadn't called or sent her a message since he went to London, he obviously didn't want anything to do with her now. She wondered what he was up to; was he working, was he out with a new woman on his arm? Dixie shuddered at the thought and stared out of the window, he was her Jeffrey and he always would be in her mind.

She hadn't touched his room, she hadn't been in there since the day that she went around the house and made notes on the changes she wanted to make in the house. Dixie knew that she should probably go in there and do some cleaning, but, she just couldn't. Every time she went to go in there she stopped herself, the room was full of memories and she wasn't strong enough to face them. She cleaned the rest of the house whenever she had the time, it was hard as she was working long shifts and most of the time all she had the energy for was falling into bed at the end of the day. Dixie still walked Little Abs, but, she avoided the field where she had walked him with Jeff. Painful memories lived there and she was avoiding them just as she was the ones in Jeff's bedroom.

Dixie still held onto Jeff's shirt at night, it had lost all of his scent but she still felt the need to keep hold of it as she slept. She had taken to letting Little Abs in her bedroom with her at night for company and warmth, he was all she had left of the man she loves. Dixie sighed, her days off were coming up again, in a week she would be at home and totally at a loss for what to do with them. Most of the time she watched mindless television to stop her thinking about Jeff, though most of the time it didn't work as she saw something that he would like or something that he would laugh at and it brought back all the familiar feelings of pain and anguish that she thought she had been able to banish. Who was she kidding? This would be her life now, the feelings of being incomplete and lost, without her Jeffrey she was doomed to be half a person forever. He had taken the most important part of her with him when he left, he had taken her heart.

Dixie was still having dreams of Jeff and she would wake up thinking that he had come home to her, but, he was never there, she was always alone and she wished that she could stop dreaming of him. Waking up after one of the dreams was always painful, her pillow was always wet where the tears had soaked into it. Dixie was determined not to cry during the day, she would make people think that she okay if it was the last thing that she did. She didn't want them fussing around or making sympathetic faces at her, she was fed up of it.

She wasn't sure how much weight she had lost but she was two sizes smaller than she used to be and looked thinner. She'd taken her rings off as they kept twisting around her finger but she had put them onto a chain around her neck and kept them there instead. Dixie was still paying close attention to what she ate and drank, she didn't want to start putting the weight back on again. If she did that then all of the hard work that she had put in would be lost and it would have all been for nothing. Dixie was determined that she wouldn't be fat ever again and nobody would call her names or be able to say things to her like Jeff did.

Dixie got herself changed after her shift, the paperwork was done and she just wanted to go home, she'd waited until those that were going out for a drink had left so they wouldn't ask her and then she left to go home. She barely noticed the steps that she took until they brought her to the front door of her house. She let Little Abs out in the garden, she didn't really have the energy to walk him tonight, she was tired and feeling irritable after the quiet day. She put a weight watchers meal in the microwave and ate it without really tasting it, eating food had become a chore rather than pleasurable and she just wanted to get it out of the way.

Dixie looked at herself in the mirror as she cleaned her teeth and washed her face, her cheekbones were more defined now and she had lost the weight in her face that made her look fat. She picked up her hairbrush and brushed out her hair, it had grown longer and needed dyeing again but she couldn't get up the enthusiasm to do it. It needed time and effort and with the way she was feeling right now it just wasn't an option. Dixie got herself dressed in her pyjamas, she went around the house and made sure that every door and window was locked securely and then checked them again, now that Jeff wasn't here she didn't feel as safe in the house at night. She let Little Abs out in the garden again and then locked the back door too. She closed all the doors and then put the alarm on, waiting until it had finished and checking that it was working before she went upstairs, turned off the light and climbed into bed. Little Abs lay next to her and she tried to take comfort from him being there with her.

Dixie stared at the space Jeff would have occupied as she held his shirt against her chest. 'Godnight Jeffrey, are you safe? Do you still think of me at all? Are you missing me? I love you, I've tried to stop but I don't know how. Please come home.' Dixie rubbed her eyes and blinked to hold back the tears that were threatening to fall. 'I miss you Jeffrey,' Dixie whispered into the room in the hope that he would hear her in London and come back to her. The tears that she didn't cry any more flowed down Dixie's cheeks until she eventually fell asleep still holding Jeff's shirt in her arms.