Sorry for the delay in uploading, I ran out of prewritten chapters a few days ago and I stopped keeping up with my rhythm of writing, editing and uploading in a day. It probably doesn't help matters that I like to write things longhand first, but that's just me!
This is quite a long chapter, I think my longest so far, but there didn't seem any decent place to split it, and you probably would have hated me for leaving you in the dark for another day or so. I hope you enjoy, please review as I love to know what you think!
The thought of Lily lying in the rubble of the destroyed building, needing some serious medical attention, was enough to bring Ethan to his senses. He pulled his phone from the inside pocket of his jumpsuit, his hands shaking. After four attempts, he eventually managed to dial a number he prayed wasn't busy. He waited, hardly daring to breathe.
"Hi, you've reached Zoe Hanna. Unfortunately I can't get to the phone right now, please leave a message or try again." Ethan sighed in frustration and tried again, only to be greeted by the same chirpy answer-phone message.
"Oh come on Zoe!" he said loudly, rubbing his right shoulder with his left hand. Suddenly, he remembered there was a number in his phone he'd thought he would never need.
"Hello, Mrs Beauchamp speaking," Connie said, calm and measured. Ethan could have cried with relief.
"Mrs Beauchamp, it's Ethan and I don't know what to do. It's Lily, there's something wrong with her and I don't know what it is, she wouldn't tell me anything, and the roof came in on her. She was in the middle of treating a patient, but now she's trapped, and -"
"Ethan, stop!" Connie said, suppressing her own panic expertly.
"I need another trauma doctor here now, Lily needs help," he said, trying to remain calm and not shout.
"I'll send someone over as soon as I can. You're not hurt yourself are you?" she said, whilst motioning for Dylan to come in. Conveniently he was passing the office and caught Connie's eye. She told him to drop everything and get ready to leave, while she listened to Ethan cough a little from the dust.
"No, no, I'm fine, please just get someone here quickly."
"I will, I promise. Try and remain calm, I'll see you shortly I hope," she said before ending the call.
Dylan, standing in the office, raised his eyebrows and put his hands on his hips. Connie suddenly lost her temper.
"Dr Keogh, you are currently the only doctor in this department who is able to drop what they're doing. So get ready to go, because Dr Chao is trapped and it appears that her recent issues have come to a head." Dylan's face dropped when he heard Lily was in danger.
"Sorry," he muttered. "I'll go as quickly as I can." Although he couldn't say, by any stretch, that he and Lily were friends, he respected her as an extremely competent member of the team. So yes, although he'd never admit it, he did care and would hate for anything to happen to her.
At the trauma site, fire crews were battling to extract Lily and her patient from the rubble of the building. They pulled Anna out first, and the paramedic team from St James' took her to one side immediately. She had no pulse.
As Dylan arrived on the scene, Ethan heard the triumphant sounds which meant the paramedics had brought Anna back.
"Ethan, what's happening?" Dylan said, finally getting his name right, first time. "And I'd like the facts, not the story, if you can," he added, with none of his usual sarcasm. Ethan recalled everything he knew of the day's events, trying hard to be factual rather than emotional, something he found difficult when he kept imagining Lily, alone and in pain under a pile of rubble. Then, the fire crew emerged from the building, carrying a stretcher with a petite Asian woman in an emerald green jumpsuit.
"Lily!" Ethan cried, rubbing tears from his eyes as he and Dylan rushed over to her. He started a few basic checks but Dylan put his hand over Ethan's to stop him.
"Ethan, not this time, okay. I know you care about her a lot, so I know you wouldn't want your feelings to cause any mistakes on your part." He took over, leaving Ethan to kneel at Lily's side, holding one of her hands with both of his, stroking it with his thumbs. "Lily, can you hear me? It's Dylan, you've been in an accident, can you remember where you are?" Lily was unresponsive and Dylan frowned. Turning to Ethan, he said, more to himself than anyone else, "I don't understand. She's sustained substantial injuries to her legs and chest. I don't doubt she's broken a few ribs. But there's nothing above her neck, why is she unconscious?"
Ethan pulled all the pieces of the puzzle together, at least, all the pieces that he had.
"She's been in pain, on and off, for weeks," he said at last. "She wouldn't tell me a thing but I guessed it's something to do with her stomach. Charlie caught me this morning and said he'd found her vomiting, but she refused to say anything to him either." Ethan paused, recounting her screams in the moments before the whistle was blown. "Before the roof came in, I tried to stop her going in there, but she was adamant she could treat the patient and get her out. She wouldn't be told. She suddenly stopped and there was this truly awful scream of pain. She couldn't even tell me what was wrong, before..." And then he broke down again, thinking that surely there was something he could have done to stop this happening.
Dylan had a hunch, but her knew he would have to be quick. And there was an unpleasant question he would have to ask Ethan first.
"This is as uncomfortable for you as it is for me, believe me, but you know that I have to ask. Is there any chance Lily could be pregnant?" Ethan almost jumped out his skin, his ears turning deep pink.
"None at all, I can assure you," he said, embarrassed.
"Right, that's good. I think – no, there's no time. Lily, if you can hear me, I'm very sorry about this." Dylan took out a pair of scissors and cut away Lily's dirty and torn jumpsuit. Ethan watched as he examined her stomach, pressing gently until he stopped and quickly pulled his radio from his pocket.
"3006 this is Dylan Keogh at the collapsed building site. Get here now, Dr Lily Chao needs urgent transfer to the ED for surgery." They waited a few seconds before Jeff's voice crackled back to them.
"3006 received, we're on our way."
Dylan looked at the rest of Lily's injuries, now he could be sure they could get her to hospital. She was losing a lot of blood from her legs, they'd been badly crushed. He passed dressing pads to Ethan and they both pressed them to the visible wounds. When he had dressed the cuts as best he could, he started administering strong painkillers: if his hunch was right, Lily wouldn't want to wake up without any.
"Dylan, what's going on? I should have been able to spot something, I'm a doctor for God's sake, what did I miss?"
"Don't beat yourself up, it won't help. I don't even know how she was still standing today, I'm almost sure it's appendicitis, and advanced at that. She will have been in serious pain for weeks, if I'm right."
"And she tried so hard to convince us all that nothing was wrong. How did she even keep going?" Ethan said, pressing down on the bandages with one hand while holding her hand with the other. He intertwined her fingers with his, trying desperately to ignore the feeling of blood seeping through the bandage onto his finger.
They both breathed a sigh of relief when they noticed Dixie and Jeff returning in the ambulance. Ethan dropped Lily's hand and ran over to meet them, tripping and falling in his haste. He swore as Jeff put out a hand to help him up.
"Hey, calm down buddy!" he joked, having never heard mild-mannered Ethan swear before. "You're going to need that looking at," he said, pointing out the deep graze along his right forearm.
"Look, not now, go and help Lily!" he said, making his way to the ambulance. Dixie passed him a pack of antiseptic wipes for his arm.
"You all right kid?" she asked softly. "I'll make sure someone dresses that properly when we get back."
"I'm fine, honestly, it's Lily we need to worry about. Please just make sure she gets back in one piece," he said, tears falling down his cheeks.
"It'll be okay, Ethan. You know Dylan will have guessed right, and you know the team back at the ED will do a fantastic job. It won't help her at all if she wakes up and you're in pieces though." She squeezed his shoulder comfortingly before pressing a few tissues into his hand. "Where are you going?" she called as he jumped from the back of the ambulance. He wanted to stay behind, there were plenty of other patients here who needed him to stay. No matter how much his heart told him to follow her into the ambulance, his head reasoned that he had to stay, his knowledge and medical kit were still needed.
"You're joking," Dylan said when Ethan broke this to him. "You're no use to any patient if you're thinking about her. And you will be, even though you say you won't." Although it pained him to say something so clichéd, he went on. "She needs you."
"Are you – are you being nice to me?" he said in disbelief.
"It's not totally beyond me. But don't make me do it again, it'll take at least an hour to get the taste out of my mouth." Ethan almost smiled.
"You should go too," an unfamiliar voice said. It was one of the paramedics from St James'. "We can handle it from here, half of these will be able to drive themselves home once we sort out some bandages. She's one of your own, you'll be kicking yourself if you stay." Dylan hardly thought this was true but he couldn't shake the feeling that maybe he should be going, and he didn't want to start an argument here. There was plenty of time for that back in the ED. He and Ethan sat in the back of the ambulance, Ethan on the verge of tears again and Dylan only hoping that he'd done enough.