ROLE CHANGE CHAPTER THREE
Dylan, Robyn and Max sat in the pub, their faces like the proverbial wet weekends.
"Poor Ethan won't be working again for a long time, Cal I can understand, but Ben? He just jacked in his job, told us he was moving out, maybe for good, and won't tell us where he's going."
Dylan wanted to snap at Robyn to shut up; he didn't want to think about Ben's departure. Mainly because the more he thought about it, the more the whole thing seemed incongruous with the Ben he knew and, if he were being honest, loved like a brother. Dylan was uneasy.
"He even sneaked off without letting us have a leaving do for him."
Max had been looking forward to an excuse to get seriously drunk. His split with Zoe still dominated life for him, although he was reluctant to build bridges in case he was hurt again.
"Do you think Ben's in some kind of trouble?" he asked, making Dylan want to stab him.
"Looks as if we'll never find out. But we'll not have a chance to brood about it tomorrow. Two doctors and a nurse gone; Connie will be making everybody jump through hoops until we get replacements." Robyn, for once, was being the realist.
"Maybe we should have a leaving do for them tonight anyway" Max suggested hopefully, but the glare from Dylan shut him up immediately.
"You've booked Dervla into Doggie Day Care till the day after next, haven't you?" Robyn began.
"Robyn, I feel more like doing the naked tango with Donald Trump than going on a stupid pub crawl and ending up feeling like a spare part in a nightclub" Dylan quashed the 'leaving do' suggestion once and for all. He grabbed his coat and walked out.
"Work's going to be fun tomorrow" Max snapped, but didn't get up straight away. The last thing he or Robyn wanted was for Dylan to think they were stalking him home.
"Cal, I'm scared" Ethan blurted out as Cal was driving him to the hospital. Ethan was to have surgery there the following day and needed to be admitted that night.
"I'm not surprised! Eight whole hours without food, how will you cope?" teased his elder brother.
"Sleep as much as possible overnight!"
Cal was relieved that Ethan would be observed by the staff overnight; he trusted Ethan, who, even though he loved his food, had been meticulously careful not to do anything that might jeopardise his success rate, but knew the staff could help boost his brother's morale.
"I'm glad you're okay to go through with this" Cal observed.
"Well of course I'm going through with it! I've already given them a load of my blood in advance; they can damn well finish the job! And are you going to do what you promised?"
"When the time's right" shrugged Cal.
"Caleb! If I come out of this surgery with good results, are you going to think about getting a part-time job?"
"I'm not up for discussing that until you're at least on the road to recovery."
Cal pulled a face that, if he hadn't been so handsome, could have been compared to that of a mule. Ethan was forced to laugh.
"Seriously, though, I've stolen enough of your life…"
"Do you want me to stop this bloody car and drive you home again? Because if you come out with bull like that, I might just! You did NOT steal my life. I wanted to help you and as you've reminded me, there might be work for me in the future. Now are you going to shut up or am I going to do what I did last time you were in hospital?"
Ethan shuddered as he remembered. He'd gone into Holby with a minor fracture and had been dreading the injection. As the nurse asked Ethan if he was all right, Cal had cut in smoothly:
"Well he's sulking because we've forgotten to bring his fluffy rabbit for him to cuddle…"
Ethan had not been amused.
"I will never forget or forgive what you did to my street cred that day."
Cal sniggered.
Ben, meanwhile, already felt like a prisoner. He'd hoped to fly to Corvaine himself but Karl and David had insisted that this could be unwise,
and had arranged for him to fly in their private plane. They were changing him already; he'd been taken to an exclusive hair stylist in London
who had cut quite a bit off his hair; he still had the curls but they were no longer tumbling over his forehead. Soon he'd be learning the
dubious joys of elocution, etiquette and dance lessons. Thank goodness English was spoken in Corvaine; he would never have mastered a
foreign language. As he sat now behind Karl and David, sipping the coffee the assistant had brought for him, he pondered the last few days.
It hadn't been the promise of the singing lessons, or knowing he would live in relative luxury for over a year that had finally made him agree to
this insane plan. It had been the nightmare he'd had about war. A baby, screaming in terror, trapped in a bed in a burning room, with nobody
to help it any more. He'd awoken with tears running down his face, every detail of the baby's features locked in his mind.
"Do something amazing today; prevent a war" he thought to himself ironically and almost began to laugh.
A view of Karl's sour face prevented him.
"Mr Knight."
The consultant was walking towards Cal, who was haggard from lack of sleep.
"Yes?"
"Mainly good news; the operation seems to have been successful and Ethan's responded well. However there are likely to be side effects. He
will lose a lot of his sense of balance for a long period which in turn will very likely leave him with depression. He'll need to stay in here a while
longer – we're looking at up to a week – and will need to learn new ways of sitting, standing and moving. The drain that was placed in the
incision site has to draw fluids and will have to remain there for a few days. He might not be able to eat solid foods for some time. If there
were any issues with the operation, it could be months before they become apparent. He will have to wear the back brace again, for about six weeks. But apart from that, he should be fully mobile again in time."
Cal gave a deep sigh of relief. He'd do whatever it took to help Ethan get his life back. All he hoped for now was that Ethan would be willing
to fight to become better.
Just a note about Lofty's haircut; his hair in this story is more likely to look as it did when Lofty first joined the ED but nothing more severe than that.