"Wasn't expecting to see you here today."

Zoe caught her off guard as she entered the ED, the wind whistling behind her as the doors closed. A smile of understanding passed between them.

"Admin."

Connie gestured with the papers she was holding. She could smell the cigarette smoke in the air between them and she turned away slightly as they walked in step with one another to the ward.

"On a Saturday?! Must be important."

Zoe cast her a sideways glance, her dark eyes sparkling, one eyebrow raised in amusement.

"Oh, you know me..."

She left the sentence unfinished as she caught sight of Charlie disappearing into the hallway ahead of them.

Nowhere was the chronic underfunding more evident than in the corridors, Connie realised. The odd patient backed up and waiting on a trolley, sitting up eating something from the vending machine whilst the eyes of their relatives followed the backs of any member of staff that was too busy to make eye contact.

Their elbows bumped together as they paused at yet another set of double doors, with their scuffed plastic band midway and their dull chrome handles. Connie glanced up from the highly polished linoleum floor to catch a glimpse of the ward beyond...her ward, cut into tiny squares by the thin wire in the window panels.

Without pause Zoe pushed the doors so that they swung open soundlessly. A puff of warm, bleach tainted air welcomed them, the naked fluorescent tubes of light flickered overhead, and Connie saw for the first time how the walls were deeply scored by the metal framed trolleys, the drywall showing though like white scars. The cheap prints on the walls are insipid, so lacking in vibrancy that they appeared sun-bleached in the windowless ward.

"This wouldn't have anything to do with your visit to Rita's parents today would it?"

"Hmm?"

She looked back at Zoe, the consultant was watching her with amusement, one hand on her hip. She had assumed their conversation had finished.

"Oh! No...how did you know about that?"

She asked, but as she spoke Charlie approached and all thoughts of conversation with Zoe dissipated.

"Charlie, could I have a quick word?"

"Could it wait, Connie? I've got-"

But Connie never found out what it was that he was doing, for even as he was speaking, a call buzzer alerted him to yet another patient in need.

"I'll be with you in ten minutes. Your office?"

He asked, walking backwards for a few steps, waiting for her nod before turning.

"Honestly, you take time off and the department falls apart."

She felt Zoe's weight against her arm and caught the laughter behind her eyes as she glanced at her.

"It would appear so..."

"Listen, are you alright? Because you seem a bit..."

She waved a hand to point out Connie's far away vagueness.

"Fine, I'm fine.

She was so tired of being asked.

"I must just-"

She tilted her head in the direction of her office.

Zoe pressed a warm hand against her upper arm, leaving her to make her way to her office.

She closed the door behind her and leant back against it, her hand still resting on the handle.

There was something about the office that made her able to breathe again. It was her space, away from the corridors and buzzers and the clattering of trolleys. She exhaled and looked about her. The floor was slate grey and the walls dove. She tilted her head back further. Above her the ceiling was made from white polystyrene squares laid on a grid-like frame. The light was bright and made her head throb behind her eyes. She cleared her throat and stepped away from the door. Her eyes caught the glint of a pot plant on the side near the sofa. She paused, looking at it. A round black pot which seemed to be overfilled with white cyclamen, their daintiness spoiled by how many of them there were.

Ignoring this new addition to her space she made her way over to her desk and sat down. It was a relief somehow to be sitting here with the computer turned off, with no sound but the occasional murmur from the ward.

She clasped her hands on the desk top and leant forwards. She tried to think, she tried to run over the day so far to try to order it in her mind. Grace had been sad to leave, at least she could be glad of that. She shifted in her seat, there was a ringing in her ears and she pushed her hands to them to try to stop it, but the moment she took them away the noise was still there, an ever present high pitched humming noise that now she had noticed she couldn't seem to ignore.

A knock at the door came as relief from the noise and she cleared her throat and let her hands fall, palms down to the desk.

"Come."

Max opened the door and leaned into the room.

"Charlie asked me to let you know that he'll be a bit longer than expected..."

She exhaled slowly and leant back in her chair, her fingers sliding from the table to her lap.

"Thank you."

She murmured. The noise distracting her again, it seemed to grow ever so slightly louder whenever she moved.

Max gave a nod of his head and made to leave, but Connie raised a hand to stop him.

"Can you hear that?"

She asked, exasperated. It was as though a mosquito were in the room, though it was hardly the weather for one.

"Er..."

Max paused awkwardly, caught between the ward and the office.

"Never mind."

She sighed, and she waved a hand, silently giving him permission to leave, but before the door had a chance to close Zoe caught it, letting her hand brush against Max's as they passed one another.

"Connie, sorry, can I just-"

"What IS that noise?!"

Connie cut in, the noise had grown louder again when Zoe had entered the room. All she could hear was the high pitched drone of it, like the faraway whir of machinery, or the murmur of flies in summer...

Zoe paused in her steps to the desk, momentarily startled.

"I can't hear anything..."

It was there all the time, familiar somehow...again she caught sight of the cyclamen out of the corner of her eye.

"Where did they come from?"

She asked suddenly. They were so crowded, their little white petals pushed up against one another.

"Dr Knight bought them in for you."

She paused, noting the rise of Connie's eyebrows.

"I know, I can't say I wasn't surprised. Some sort of apology for the way he behaved over the photo of you and Rita..."

She paused again as Connie stood up, the legs of her chair catching and grating on the floor. Quickly she made her way to the flowers, and with her fingers she parted the petals, and the fleshy stalks to reveal a thin black stick with a tiny blinking red light just on the front above a lens the size of her littlest fingernail.

"Dr Knight didn't buy me flowers to apologise, he was trying to catch Rita and I..."

-.-

It all goes downhill in the next chapter...xxx