"Have you got a minute?" Robyn asked a short time later, sticking her head around the office door.

"As long as it's not about the patient in cubicle 2, because she's doing my head in."

Robyn smiled and slipped inside. "It's about Max. Do you think he's okay?"

Zoe frowned, finally looking up from the paperwork she'd been planning to do all shift. "…He seemed to be last time I saw him."

"How long ago was that, exactly?"

Her frown deepening, Zoe glanced at her watch. "About 20 minutes ago, why?"

Robyn hesitated, but didn't reply, instead asking. "Do you know where he might have gone?"

"Have you checked the store room?"

"I've looked there, the roof… his car. I've even paged him, but he-"

Before his sister could continue, Max walked through the door with a grin that only faded a little as he looked between the two women "What?"

"Are you okay, Max? I've been looking for you for ages because I saw-"

Max interrupted Robyn. "I've been on a break. I had to go and buy myself some more chocolate, since some unknown person broke into my office and ate my stash."

"My office." Zoe supplied.

"But you love me enough to think that what's yours is mine."

"Does that mean the chocolate was 'ours'?"

As max hesitated, Robyn gave a sigh. "But are you ok? Because I saw-"

"Is that the time? We should get back, Robyn. Dylan is on the warpath again."

With a frown that mirrored Robyns, Zoe watched Max lead his sister from the office.

…

"I heard you were after a drink?" Max held up a can of coke and received a grateful smile from the patient in cubicle 2. Handing her the can, Max sat on the edge of the bed. "I'm hiding from my boss. When she gets this certain look on her face, I know I'm in trouble, even though I haven't done anything. Well, most of the time I haven't done anything."

The teenage girl in the bed gave a smile and spoke for the first time since she'd been brought in. "Same for me at school. No matter what I do, whatever goes wrong is my fault. Even the doctor here thinks I've done something wrong."

Max pretended to glance at her file and drew in a sharp breath. "You've got Dr Hanna. Has she done that left eyebrow raise that makes you think it's just going to keep going up until it gets lost in her hair?"

Giggling, the girl nodded. "Twice. My mum does it, too."

"You don't want us to call your mum and tell her you're here? We could take a bet on whose eyebrow can go the highest?"

"…She's at work, she will be too busy."

"How about you tell me her number and I'll pretend to be from a call centre and annoy the hell out of her, then I'll get Dr Hanna to call her back and she'll be so relieved it's not someone trying to sell her something she'll come straight away?"

After a moment's thought, she wrote down the number and handed it hesitantly to Max. "Will you come back once she gets here?"

"Try and keep me away!"

…

"I believe this is what you wanted." Max slipped the piece of paper into the pocket of Zoe's scrubs. "You can thank me later."

"How did you get that?! I've been trying for hours and she's said nothing."

"Surely you of all people know how persuasive I can be."

As Zoe went to reply, she saw Max's focus shift to someone entering the E.D. Turning, she saw nothing out of the ordinary and was about to ask him what had caught his attention when he turned back to her with a smile. "Best be off, beds to push, people to charm the pants off. I'll see you in a bit."