In Search of Trust

I'm back, writing fic again! This is a new one on me though, I've not written like this before. Let me know what you think, and tell me if I'm doing it wrong!

In terms of the parts set in the 'present' ED, I've taken a few liberties with the timelines of certain characters for the purpose of my story - forgive me :)

Catterick Garrison, June 2009

It was 3.14am. Dylan knew this because he had looked at the digital display of his watch every twenty minutes or so since getting into bed shortly after eleven. He had realised at about one o'clock that he probably wouldn't sleep tonight. If he thought reasonably about this, then it was a logical response to the fact that this was his last night with his wife for nine whole months.

Sam, who was sleeping soundly on the side of the bed furthest from the door despite her bedside light still being on, would be leaving for Brize Norton at six thirty, to fly to Afghanistan for the first time.

Dylan preferred to keep his blind terror of this fact to himself. It seemed acceptable for army wives to worry about the fate of their significant others (although they kept a lid on it very well, at least in the company of others) but as one of the very few army husbands, Dylan did not know the precedent for his reaction to Sam's deployment. He knew even less where he fitted with the dynamic of the wives and girlfriends who would remain in the UK with each deployment. They all seemed to have their friends, and in any case, he was not one for inane chatter or even the small talk required to get to know strangers. Sam found it amusing; he knew she was not worried in the slightest about his solitude. She knew, or thought she knew, that he would relish it as soon as she was gone. Nothing but General Practice, books, long walks and the sheep who sometimes broke into the back garden. It was true that he would enjoy the peace, but at what cost did this peace come? Was it worth it, when he was sending his wife out to war? Sometimes he still looked at her and saw the talented, attractive medical student with whom he had first fallen in love. She was still the impossibly slim, impossibly beautiful Sam Nicholls she'd always been (her married name appeared everywhere except army life.) But the edges of her had sharpened as her first taste of a war zone had drawn closer. She was, of course, physically stronger, but equally her emotions were not the same as they had been while Dylan had been her mentor. She could still be soft, but there were flashes of harshness too. And he supposed that it was a good thing - there was no point in sending someone to war who wasn't at least a little hardened to it.

Her residual softness paired with her new harshness was the reason why he couldn't tell her, why he'd never been able to tell her, about the mess inside his head. If she knew, she would either scoff in disgust and tell him to 'man up' or postpone her deployment by any means necessary. Dylan's inability to tell which path his wife would follow kept him silent.

He gave up on staring at the ceiling, and instead turned to face Sam, taking his opportunity for this last look and drinking in the sight of her blonde hair, splayed out over her pillow and encroaching into his side of the bed. Her soft pyjama top had slipped off one shoulder, exposing her warm skin, pale now in comparison to how it would be soon-browned by the unrelenting Afghan sun.

And there it was - a sudden, inexplicable, undeniable need to do something to make sure that Sam returned to England safely. Dylan knew he was being stupid - his uncontrollable mind tended to be - but in a matter of seconds, he was gripped by a sense of doom that would only be dashed if he could tap the stack of books on Sam's bedside table without waking her. If he could just do that, then she would survive the tour and come home to him.

Dylan knew that what was going on in his mind was Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It wasn't new.

He carefully propped himself up on one hand and reached over to Sam's side of the bed. He tapped the stack of books once; when this had no effect on the itching in his brain, he did it a few more times, until the feeling had passed and he could lie back down, relieved for now. The relief was momentary, because a few seconds later, Sam stirred and rolled towards her husband, her eyes opening sluggishly.

Shit, Dylan thought. But then, you didn't do that. She would have woken anyway, wouldn't she? He was not entirely convinced, but at this moment at least, his desire to keep his condition hidden was stronger than his OCD.

It took Sam all of three seconds to know that Dylan hadn't slept at all yet.

"Anyone would think it was you deploying, not me," she mumbled, rubbing her eyes. Waking up a little more, she smiled. "Are you nervous?"

Dylan's face fell abruptly. Was it so obvious?

"I am," Sam admitted. "But it's only nine months, and I'll be home at Christmas for sure, plus whatever else I can get. You know I will."

"I know." Dylan relaxed a little. "This will teach me to drink coffee before bed. I'm not nervous, just caffeinated."

Sam saw straight through her husband's lie but didn't let on. She turned away from him, but lay back against his body until she could feel his heart beating against her back. She felt each of his breaths, and consciously slowed her own, knowing that this always used to work to calm him down. Dylan's breaths slowed too, until they were almost synchronised. One of his arms held her close, and his other hand was loose in her hair. It was cooler now than it had been earlier; she pulled the duvet up around them and appreciated this moment, knowing that it was her last one for a long time.

It terrified Dylan that Sam was hours from flying into a war zone, but he couldn't quench the pride that he felt when he thought of her dressing in her uniform later, preparing to do a sterling job out there. And she would, because she always had.

Holby City Hospital, September 2017

The ED had become a lonely, distrusting place. The 'team' as it used to be seemed to have folded, disappeared, evaporated, especially in the wake of Calais. It had just been one disaster after another (although the extent to which this was a recent issue was hotly disputed) and right now, things felt broken.

Perhaps this was particularly pertinent for Dylan, because his loneliness led to increased perceptiveness of the seemingly easy relationships happening around him.

A small group of weary but perfectly happy nurses passed him as he entered the hospital, chatting amicably on their way out of a night shift, ready to have breakfast together. Their conversation was all irrelevant to Dylan, small talk and plain chatter, but he could not deny that he missed the way he used to be party to these conversations with Zoe. Although she was not present to exacerbate how he was feeling (being happily settled in Michigan) Dylan was suddenly painfully aware of her absence. This feeling was intermittent; he was not a stranger to it. At that moment, it was as though Zoe and Max had followed the gaggle of nurses, conversing equally aimlessly and purposefully about their weekends and future plans. A slew of inside jokes would have flown over Dylan's head had this situation not been imaginary, but the isolation of this was all too real. It was loneliness that caused Dylan to look upon his memory of Zoe with bitterness, while at the time he had merely rolled his eyes and dropped in a few sarcastic comments for approval.

"Morning, Dylan," Charlie said, pulling Dylan out of his head and back into the real world. The consultant simply nodded in return, desperate to look away from the senior nurse. It was impossible to escape from the growing madness of isolation when the very person offering a polite greeting also happened to have their wife's caring hand resting on their shoulder. Dylan knew too well that he could have had that comforting presence, that easy-going unconditional care and affection. If only Sam hadn't cheated, and if only he had been the owner of a brain other than his own.

The only person almost as alone as Dylan was Ethan. The position of Clinical Lead had not been kind to him; he was making himself more unpopular by the day, through little fault of his own. Drowning in bureaucracy did not suit him in the least. But while Dr Keogh was painfully alone, Ethan had a single friend.

Lily walked into the ambulance station, her hand encapsulated tightly by Iain's. In the quiet of the office, Lily checked her watch.

"How long have we got?" Iain asked, pulling her closer to him by her hips. He was sitting on the end of the desk, looking hopeful.

"Fifteen minutes," Lily replied, having instantaneously calculated how much time she needed to make it to the ED with time to spare before the start of her shift, in relation to Iain starting his shift and saving face if they were going to start kissing in here. "Less, even, if you've got a new paramedic due any minute."

Instead of responding straight away, Iain jumped up from the desk and started to kiss his girlfriend, an act which was reciprocated immediately. Both of their hearts sped up, rushing their emotions faster through their bloodstreams. Lily was wearing dark pink lipstick; it looked incredible, so good he wanted to kiss her until it was gone completely. The only problem with this was the inevitable transfer of pigment to his own face. Embarrassing, and blatantly obvious if left unchecked. But Iain didn't care, at that precise moment.

Having been turned fully around until she was leaning against the desk, Lily pushed herself reluctantly away. "I mean it," she said unevenly. "I don't want us to be…"

"You can't even say it, you're so prim and proper," Iain teased, kissing Lily's neck where it met her left ear.

Lily's cheeks warmed and she squeezed Iain's hand. She bit her lip. "If your new paramedic just strolls in here while we're doing… this… You've got to work with them! And I'll have to see them every day too!"

"Are you embarrassed about me?" Iain said, falsely, melodramatically offended. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Immediately unsure of how much Iain was playing around with her, Lily was quick to insist that this wasn't the case. "Don't be silly," she chastised gently. Not embarrassed, just intensely insecure. People like Iain didn't love people like her - not that they had exchanged that all-important work excessively. It was a new addition to their relationship, one which still had the power to make Lily weak at the knees if it caught her off guard. If they were the stars of a classic American high school flick, then their relationship would be about as likely as one between the quarterback and the vice-captain of the mathletes.

"If you're not embarrassed, then maybe I'm not trying hard enough," Iain retorted. He whirled Lily around before dipping her down almost to the ground, her bodyweight supported by his strong frame as easily as if she was a mere shadow. One hand between her shoulder blades, he looked down at her flushed face as she let out an excited sound of surprise. "How about now?"

"Iain!" Lily said breathlessly. "If Josh walks in and sees this!"

Iain held her suspended for a few more seconds, looking up at the door with feigned anxiety, pretending he'd heard something outside.

"Iain Dean!"

His face relaxed as he met Lily's sparkling eyes. "Relax, Lily Chao," he said calmly, smiling. "Josh already told me, he's bringing my new partner in crime at eleven thirty."

Lily sighed. As Iain pulled her back upright, she smoothed her skirt, ran a hand carefully over her hair and checked her blouse for a single square inch of fabric out of place. Then she looked at Iain's grinning face. There was a smudge of her lipstick under his bottom lip. "Not a good look for you," she remarked, wiping it away with a feather-light touch of a fingertip. "I'm off, okay? Be nice to your new paramedic."

"Nice? Me? I'm always nice," Iain replied, smiling cheekily and twitching his eyebrows.

"Of course you are. I'll see you, I expect."

"You will," Iain confirmed. "Lots of sick people to deliver to your chamber of healing," he added, putting on a posh voice and bowing ostentatiously.

"Shut up," Lily said, letting out a single syllable of laughter. It was here that she might have said 'I love you' if she hadn't been so afraid to.

When she said "you're an idiot," Iain knew that what she really meant to say was that she loved him, so he replied by calling across the ambulance station, "I love you too, Dr Chao!"

From her brief glance into the Clinical Lead's office, as she passed it, Lily could see that all was not well for its occupant. She doubled back, and tapped lightly on the open door.

"Alright?" she asked in a quietly commanding voice. The moment the word escaped her lips, she knew that she'd only said it so naturally because of how much time she had been spending with Iain. She was catching some of his linguistic habits, although, in her clipped voice, it often sounded out of place and made Iain laugh.

Ethan looked up immediately, and relaxed slightly on seeing that it was Lily at his door. He couldn't bring himself to smile to her in the way that he normally would have done.

"You look stressed," Lily said, pulling on the strap of her bag and watching her friend intently. "You know, if there's anything I can do to help you out, you only have to say the word. Ask me to jump and I'll ask you how high, if it'll make it all go away."

Ethan took his glasses off and rested them on the desk. He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. "There's nothing you can do, Lily. I'm fine, only adjusting. Big shoes to fill, and all that."

"Maybe you don't have to fill any shoes, Ethan," Lily said directly. "Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken, especially Mrs Beauchamp, who will be back down here and telling us all what to do before we know it."

"Quoting Oscar Wilde is commendable but not overly helpful," Ethan replied, hating how easy it was to be cold and distant from his best friend. Lily had made a valid point, which already weighed heavy on his mind. But there was no escaping the greater weight of expectation, that he (with his precisely zero experience) must run the department as well as Connie herself.

"Perhaps not," conceded Lily, "but you know where I am, if you need anything at all." She was unperturbed by his sharpness, and excused herself from the office to begin her shift. Before starting work, she stood in front of the mirror in the toilets and re-applied her lipstick.

Dylan strode out of resus at half past one, covered in someone else's vomit. Recoiling slightly from the disgusting addition to his clothing, he would have been forgiven for not noticing that Sam Nicholls stood a few feet away from him. But he looked up at the last moment, and recognised the blonde ponytail cascading down her back at once, even though the paramedic uniform threatened to throw his assumption off completely. Sam turned around, and managed to control her body's impulse to widen her eyes and take a gasp of surprise. She looked unflappable, unreactive to all of this, which irritated Dylan at once. Everything that he had ever felt towards Sam exploded inside his brain, every minute emotion combining into one, crashing around chaotically. But outwardly, he controlled the panic he might have liked to have shown through his face, and scowled instead.

"What the hell are you doing here?"