Thank you for all your reviews, they never cease to make me smile! To all of you who guessed that something might be going amiss with Lily, you'd be absolutely right. However, you'll have to wait a few more chapters to find out exactly what's going on!
Looking across the ED, Ethan could see his girlfriend leaving a cubicle and pulling the curtain closed behind her. There was a crease between her eyebrows, but something told him it wasn't her usual expression of concentration. He had a niggling feeling of concern, although he thought that mentioning it outright wouldn't go down to well with Lily. He sighed with relief when she made eye contact with him and headed across the department. She looked pale, but only when he looked closely, so he decided it would be best to put his mind at ease. He led Lily away from listening ears at reception.
"Don't bite my head off, but you honestly look awful," he said carefully.
"I wouldn't dream of it," she said, slipping her hand into his. "And I know, but I had hoped I was managing to hide it better than this."
"You are, don't worry. I only noticed because I was looking." Realising that he sounded very weird, Ethan stared at the ground, while Lily laughed at him.
"Because that didn't sound stalker-ish at all! I've been a bit off all morning, but I'll be okay." She had no desire whatsoever to describe the waves of intense stomach cramps she'd been experiencing. Ethan may well have been an impartial doctor, but now he was her boyfriend first so she didn't want to start describing her symptoms.
"Sure?" Ethan didn't think Lily quite met his eye when she nodded. She just wanted to finish the shift, by counting the hours until she could take another dose of painkillers. They barely took the edge off the pain but keeping an eye on the time was something of a distraction for Lily's organised mind – she thrived on keeping things in order, so counting was just another way of clearing her mind and keeping focused. She was swooping around the ED, keeping herself as busy as possible. Ethan was convinced there was more to it, but appreciated Lily's need to stay quiet. They didn't have more time to chat: Dixie and Jeff burst through the doors, almost at a run, pushing a woman on a stretcher.
"This is Betty Cook, 87 years old. She took a tumble in her sheltered accommodation, KO'd at the scene but we arrived shortly afterwards. Heavy bruising across her body, queried fracture of left wrist," Jeff recited as Ethan froze. "BP very low, resps low, sats 95%. She's had breathing difficulties since we set off, GCS of 6. You all right buddy?" he said, glancing up at Ethan, who gripped the sides of the bed so hard his knuckles were white. Lily shot him a sideways look, sensing his discomfort. He was panicking, as since the afternoon with Hilda James, Zoe had done a spectacular job of putting other doctors in his place on cases with elderly patients. Whilst he was grateful for being spared any embarrassment, he hadn't yet been eased back in so hadn't treated anyone over sixty for some time. His theoretical knowledge was still exceptional, equally it wasn't that he was out of practice (he'd spent plenty of time treating patients of every other age.) His confidence had taken a massive blow and he was afraid of doing a bad job. It suddenly clicked into place for Lily.
"Not a problem, thank you Jeff, Dixie," she said. "We're okay." When the two paramedics had gone, she started basic checks but kept her attention on Ethan. "If you don't think you're ready, I won't have a go, just go and swap with someone."
"There's no-one to swap with," Ethan said, sighing. "Zoe's out with the trauma team, Dylan's busy in cubicles." He refused to consider his brother.
"What about Mrs Beauchamp?" Lily asked, inspecting Betty's airway.
"In a meeting with Mr Self. I'll do it, and I'll do my utmost to do it well." Anticipating Lily's response, he went on. "I promise if I think I'm putting Mrs Cook in any danger I'll go and find Cal. I'm determined that that will not be necessary." Lily nodded.
"Okay, but drop back and let me take control."
To Lily's surprise, Ethan took a very short time to dust off his original fear and dissolve back into the competent young doctor she'd fallen in love with for his quiet confidence. His thirst to prove himself cause him to push any memories of his mother aside, and come to an accurate diagnosis far faster than he had done for other patients in recent weeks. In fact, after fifteen minutes in resus Lily allowed herself to discreetly fall back, letting Ethan smoothly and automatically take the reins. Connie stepped into resus after her meeting and caught Lily's eye straight away. Ethan had fallen back into his stride easily and didn't notice Connie observing him, until Max arrived to wheel Betty to a ward and Connie cleared her throat.
"Oh! Sorry, Mrs Beauchamp, I didn't see you come in," he stammered. "I should have let you check on the patients while she was here, I'm sorry," he apologised again, but Connie cut in to stop his nervous chatter.
"You should have done no such thing. Congratulations Dr Hardy, that was excellent work, I'm glad to see you back on fine form," she said, flashing him a rare smile.
"Thank you very much. But wait, you knew... about all that?" Ethan shuffled on his feet, embarrassed.
"As Clinical Lead, I have a duty of care to my staff, especially to my junior doctors. I should have made more of an effort after your loss, to ensure something like this did not happen. For that I would like to sincerely apologise." She paused as though wondering whether it would be acceptable to speak her mind. She tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear. "If it's not too... if it's all right for me to say, I think your mother would be extremely proud to see you now. The way you've come back from this is admirable, and I know I'm proud to have a doctor such as yourself on my team." Ethan sniffed and rubbed his eyes quickly. "If you'll both excuse me," she said, before leaving the room with an elegant flick of her thick, dark hair. There was a slight pink tinge in her cheeks. Ethan turned to look at Lily.
"What on earth just happened?" he said, smiling though there were tears on his cheeks.
"I think we just experienced some of Mrs Beauchamp's compassion, that we heard rumours of from cardiothoracics! Don't complain, you might never see that again," she said, pulling him in a hug to shield his tears from Zoe, who had come into resus with a new patient. She nodded discretely when Zoe mouthed 'Everything okay?" in their direction.