Prompt: Cal and Ethan see to a young patient, who reminds them of Matilda, with a heart-breaking story. They do their best to save her before it's too late.

Ethan- Current Age

Cal- Current Age

(As of the time in the series when Matilda was in Cal's care.)

Ethan peeked around the corner near cubicles, scanning the area for the hawk-like eye of Connie, whom he was quite certain would not be impressed to see one of her most promising junior doctors juggling a cheese sandwich, a cup of tea, and a fairly large stuffed bear instead of healing the sick.

"Sh-," Ethan whispered, stopping himself from swearing as he nearly spilled his tea, sneaking down the corridor as quickly and carefully as he could. Not quickly and carefully enough, he found out.

"Dr. Hardy?" Came a familiar voice from behind him.

Ethan stopped, scared stiff as he slowly turned around, looking sheepishly at the annoyed expression on Connie's face as she stared at him.

"Would you care to explain what's going on here?" She asked, raising an eyebrow, which only served to make Ethan even more nervous.

"I-I, um, this is for a p-patient..." He stammered, awaiting Connie's response.

"Shouldn't you be busy treating them instead of showering them in stuffed animals?" She questioned.

"W-well, um, you see..." He began, but was interrupted as childish giggles came from behind the cubicle curtains.

Him and Connie turned, slightly confused, and drew back the curtains to see Cal and Emily blowing raspberries in a bid to make each other laugh. Ethan smiled softly but soon paled when he saw Mrs. Beauchamp looking utterly disgusted.

"Dr. Knight, if you would care to discontinue this immature and unhygienic behaviour and actually start to treat your patient..." She said coldly, glaring at him and Ethan before turning around, the clicking of her high-heels echoing down the corridor.

Ethan and Cal both looked at each other with a mixture of grimace and relief, having finally escaped Connie's unnecessarily harsh criticism.

"Well then, clearly she's never heard of the concept of having fun..." Ethan said, chuckling softly to lighten the mood. "I brought you the tea and a sandwich, and I found this guy in the toy-box down in the crèche." He said, smiling as he handed the bear over to Emily.

A large grin spread across her face as she hugged it, thanking Ethan profusely as she began to eagerly eat her sandwich.

"Any news from x-Ray?" Ethan asked Cal.

"Yeah, small, distal radial fracture, she's been to orthopaedics," gesturing to the bright white cast on her left arm. He added with a whisper. "Did you give social a call?"

Ethan nodded and turned to Emily, smiling when he saw the colour return to her cheeks a little as she sipped the tea. "I see you've got your cast on," he tapped it thrice, making her giggle.

"Do you want to sign it?" She asked, offering him a purple felt-tip the orthopaedic nurse had given her. Ethan chuckled, kneeling down and carefully signing his name as "Dr. Hardy", drawing a bespectacled stick-doctor with fluffy hair and a smiley face next to it.

"There we go." He said, smiling and giving her back the pen.

Emily laughed when she saw, offering the pen to Cal as well, whom kneeled in Ethan's place and began to draw.

"Also..." Ethan turned to Cal and bit his lip. His brother nodded, prompting him to speak. "...We're going to have a little chat to some people about mum. They might want to speak to you as well..."

Emily swallowed, looking up nervously. "Who? Why?" She asked.

"A lady from social services is coming in, because... Well... We're a bit, um... Worried, about you," Ethan admitted. "As a child you deserve to have a safe home and guardians who care for you, and it doesn't seem like that's the case for you..."

"... I don't want them to get cross with me..." She said, looking down and fiddling with the blanket.

"They won't be able to get cross with you ever again, we promise, they'll be gone." Cal said, finishing the drawing. "And I don't know about you, Nibbles, but I'd say I'm the more artistic sibling here." He said, pointing at his signature and stick-figure drawing, which served to lighten he mood for a second or two as Ethan chuckled and Emily smiled weakly, frowning again soon after.

"B-but..." She began sniffling, eye tearing up. "I l-love them, they d-don't mean to hurt us, they always say s-sorry..."

Ethan could only squeeze her hand sympathetically, struggling to find the words to explain that her parents didn't truly love her back.

Both boys cared for Matilda greatly, and wouldn't let anything happen to her- and she loved them back, unconditionally. He wished the same could be said for Emily...

As a doctor, he wasn't supposed to get emotionally attached to patients where he could help it, but he felt himself tearing up a bit. All sadness was pushed aside when a shrill voice came crying from the corridor.

"Where's Emily? Oi, nurse, can you hear me? I said I want to see my daughter!"

Emily gasped, hands clamped over her mouth. Cal and Ethan felt their hearts racing as they stood up, peeking behind the curtains to see a young-ish woman; average height, with an shifty expression in her eyes, and a forceful, fake smile stretching her thin lips tightly. She dragged a young boy with her, whom seemed eerily similar to Emily not only in looks, but also in his quiet, fearful demeanour and reluctancy to look up. Both boys paled slightly as they saw the faint lines of healing bruises coupled with fresh ones scattered down the boys arm, concluding that this was almost certainly Emily's "family".

"D-don't let her see me..." Emily whispered, looking more fearful than ever.

"We won't, we won't,-" Ethan said, frantically pacing in circles as he tried to think of a plan, the increasingly loudening clicking of high-heels along the hospital floor not aiding as he tried to clear his head. He looked desperately to his brother, and, without wasting another second, Cal quickly dashed out just in time, smiling a little too widely as he was faced with the woman he and his brother had guessed was Emily's mother and younger brother, as well as poor Lofty, whom was currently trying his best to be assertive towards her but failing horribly.

"Hello, are you Emily's mother?" Cal asked, trying his best to remain calm and collected when really his legs were turning to jelly with nerves.

"Yes, I am, where is she?" The woman demanded.

"She's currently up in the orthopaedic clinic, she's suffered from a small fracture in her wrist, and will require a cast for four to six weeks..." He explained. Her mother huffed, looking away, but not quickly enough for Cal to miss the anger flash in her eyes.

"Daft girl, always having accidents," She said, laughing nervously. "Isn't that right, Benny?" She turned to her son and tugged on his wrist a little bit, making him wince before nodding. She glared at him as she heard the cry passed his lips, looking back up to Cal with a sheepish smile. Cal looked up from the younger boy and to his "parent", raising his eyebrows.

"If you'd like to let Lofty here show you to the relatives room, I'll call you back when Emily is down." He said, tightening his lips, clenching his fists behind his back to avoid punching her right then and there.

"Fine then," she turned to Lofty, pulling on Ben's arm again. "Hurry up, Benny, I'm dying for the loo."

"I can look after him whilst you go, if you want?" Lofty offered, holding out his hand for Ben. The mother glared at him and Cal, reluctantly letting to of her son's hand, looking somewhat nervous as she marched down the corridor.

Lofty smiled down at Ben, turning to Cal as he saw the junior doctor approach him.

"The police are due down here any moment now, social too," Cal muttered. "It's pretty obvious that it's going on, but suspected child abuse. I know it's difficult, but we need to keep her away from these kids as long as you can..."

Lofty nodded, kneeling down to Ben's level. "Okay, Ben, Dr. Knight is going to take you to see your sister whilst Mum goes for a talk with a few people, yeah?" He said, handing him over to Cal, whom smiled warmly and gently picked him up, nodding at Lofty as he set off down the corridor to face their mother when she returned from the bathroom.

Cal was just about to step behind the curtains when he was interrupted by Dylan.

"Caleb, is it?" He asked. "Yes, I don't suppose you've seen Nathan anywhere, I'd like his second opinion on a patient."

"Oh, Ethan? Well, he's a bit tied up at the moment," Cal explained. "But I'm free, I can go if you want?"

"No, no, totally inappropriate, I need Nathan..." Dylan said, pulling back the curtains and returning with Ethan, beginning to explain his case to the younger, slightly flustered doctor.

Cal huffed, smiling at Ben and taking him to see Emily, whom greeted him warmly and pulled him towards her chest, holding him in a tight hug. Ben immediately sank into his sister's embrace, smiling, and for the first time since they had arrived, both siblings looked truly happy. It warmed Cal's heart.

He trusted her so much, she was his everything, the one who was always there for him and would always love him...

"I'll be back in a minute, okay?" He said, stepping out and dashing over to the computer area, flicking through notes in files to ensure that everything had been taken down and that the police were due to arrive soon. He took a moment to rest, realising that he literally hadn't stopped moving for three hours since the case began. Allowing his head to fall forward into his hands, he closed his eyes and let himself drift off for a second, looking back up when he heard a raspy voice call his name.

"Cal? Social are here..." Lofty panted, sounding out of breath.

"Good, good," Cal said, frowning in confusion. "You okay? You look like you've just ran a marathon..."

"It's, um..." Lofty stuttered, eyes widening as realisation came over him. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I looked away for literally a second because a patient fell in the corridor, a-and she m-must've..."

"Lofty? What are you talking about?" Cal asked, beginning to panic.

"Th-the mother, she's gone, she wasn't there when I checked in the toilets, I had to run all around the hospital trying to find her, and I-," Lofty stopped to let out a shaky breath. "I'm really, really sorry, Cal..."

"Hey, hey, it's okay, it's not your fault," Cal said, putting his hands on his shoulders. "She can't have gone far, she'll only be around here somewhere, and besides, I've only been out here for a minute or two, so I'm sure Emily and Ben are fine..." Cal paused, doubt lacing his words as his ears perked up, unable to hear the quiet giggled that were emitting from the curtains just minutes before.

"Oh no..." Lofty said, drawing the curtains to reveal an empty bed, the blankets crumpled and damp with spilled, lukewarm tea; an abandoned teddy bear laying on the floor, his paws pointing towards black high-heel marks that stained the tiles.

"Ethan, Ethan!" Cal cried, bursting into the room where his brother and Dylan were busy.

"Cal? What's the matter?" Ethan asked concernedly, looking up from his and Dylan's patient.

"It's Emily and Ben, she's taken them from cubicles and we can't find them, and-." Cal rushed.

"Oh god, okay, call security, inform Mrs. Beauchamp, and social and the police need to know..." Ethan said, abandoning the patient and running over to Cal.

"Nathan? Nathan!" Dylan called, sighing and turning back to the man on the bed. "I'm sorry sir, please continue, you were in Greggs when what happened?"

Both brothers burst out of Resus, Cal rushing towards the police and Ethan hunting for Connie, their hearts pounding in their chests as they ran all over the place in a desperate bid to find out where Emily's mother had taken her children.

"Mrs. Beauchamp?" Ethan asked, knocking on the already ajar door, stepping in before Connie could respond. "We've got a serious case of almost-certain child abuse on our hands, the mother's ran off with both her son and daughter and they're hiding somewhere in here..." He stopped for a moment, taking a quick puff of his inhaler to calm down.

"Child abuse? How can you be so sure?" Connie asked, calling for security on her phone.

"Classic symptoms; fear and anxiety around the abuser, a medical history jam-packed with "accidents", birth of them looking absolutely starving, I-," Ethan took another puff, trying to slow his breathing.

"Okay, you need to sit down, Ethan." Connie said, holding the phone to her ear and gesturing to the chair opposite her desk, but Ethan shook his head, there was no time for him to sit and relax.

"Right, security are closing as many main entrances as they can, and I suppose you and Cal are planning on hunting her down?" She said, walking quickly to the main reception area with Ethan.

"Yes, but we need everybody to keep a look out for them,-" Ethan said, interrupted as he saw his older brother dashing down the corridor.

"Ethan, Ethan, have you seen them? Anywhere?" He asked, paling.

"No, but security are closing all the main entrances so they can't get ou-... Are you okay?"

Cal trembled slightly, his hands shaking as his words stumbled all over the place. "Wh-what if she's near the crèche? I-I, M-Matilda..."

Ethan's eyes widened, both of them running off in the general direction of the crèche, though they couldn't be too sure, they were too preoccupied with the thoughts of what could happen to Matilda; sweet, innocent Matilda...

"Oh my god, I am so sorry about all of this, Cal, none of this would be happening if I had just,- hey!" Ethan was caught off guard as Cal pulled him back by the shoulders, twisting him around and pressing a finger to his lips.

Both boys listened quietly, and after a few seconds they were able to hear a soft, muted thumping on the door to the cleaners cupboard. Not wasting a second, Cal reached forward and pulled at the handle, jiggling it back and forth.

"Locked from the inside..." He sighed.

Ethan gave him a somewhat smug look and brandished a pound coin's change from his earlier purchases in the hospital café, jamming it into the lock and twisting it, successfully opening the door.

"I knew this would come in handy." He said, smirking. Cal stuck his tongue out at him and hesitantly peeked into the dark room.

"Hello?" Both boys called. They were, once again, met by that same muted thump.

"It's too dark, we can't see properly..." Ethan mumbled, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his medical torch. "I guess this will have to do..."

"I'll keep an eye out for her in the corridor, just in case she's got out..." Cal said, remaining where he was.

Ethan rolled his eyes and peered around the room, shining the torch across the walls. It was a mess; toilet rolls and empty bleach bottles littered across the stretch of the polished tile floor. A shelf in the far corner had collapsed, leaving a large pile of rubble beneath it.

"Hello?" Ethan said. "Is anybody in here? I'm a doctor..." He said, trying hard not to let the unfamiliar environment and lack of light faze him.

The latter of he problems was fixed as he heard his brother "Ah !" And flick on the light switch from the entrance. Ethan grumbled something about his brother under his breath, jumping slightly as a quiet voice came from beneath the rubble.

"Dr. Hardy?"

"Emily?" He asked, shoving away cardboard tubes and pieces of splintered shelf to find the young girl curled around her little brother.

"Please, you've got to help him, he's hurt!" She whimpered, gesturing to the dripping, crimson gash that sliced the boys pale, clammy skin. Ethan paled himself as he pondered how long they had been in here whilst they were searching for them.

"Don't worry, we'll have you out of here in no time," Ethan said, looking around for something to help the cut on Ben's head start to clot. He had to make do with a scrap of toilet paper, folding it up and holding it to his head, calling for Cal. "Cal! Go and get Connie!"

"Have you found them?" He called.

"Yes, but I can't see the mother, I think she's gone." Ethan replied. Cal turned and ran down the corridor to go and find Mrs. Beauchamp. Ethan smiled down at the pair.

"Right, let's get you out from under here..." He said, trying to scoop up Ben, gasping as he heard the shelving unit next to them make a terrifying creaking sound, the middle shelf snapping and tumbling even more cleaning supplies onto the floor, blocking Ethan's path to the entrance. Emily whimpered in fear.

"Hey, hey, sh, sh, sh," He said, "It's okay, we're getting out of here now..." He heard Cal return, talking to whom sounded like the Police and Connie.

"Cal, a hand in here please!" He called, struggling to stem the flow of blood and protect them from any other rubble that could fall onto them.

His stomach turned slightly as he heard the second shelf begin to creak, knowing he had to act fast. Cal ran in and, as quickly as he could, Ethan scooped up Ben, handing him to Cal. "Keep pressure on his wound!" He said, turning to grab Emily.

He froze in panic as he saw the shelf give way in slow motion, causing the entire unit to topple forward. He just about managed to grab Emily in time for Cal to take her in his other arm, before he felt the unit come into contact with the back of his head and knock him forward.

"Ethan!"

"Caleb, I really don't see what all of this fuss is about..."

"Are you kidding me?" Cal said. "You were knocked out by a falling shelving unit, Nibbles! You're not leaving this hospital til I say so."

Ethan grumbled and sat up in his bed, allowing Cal to examine the cut on the back of his head.

"So, did they find her?" He asked, wincing as Cal poked around the gash.

"Sorry," Cal said. "And yeah, she tried to run off but they caught her and arrested her. Both kids are up in the wards for tonight but they'll be going into temporary foster care tomorrow."

"That's good..." Ethan said, smiling softly. "I must say, I don't think I've ever had a case quite like today before..."

"Me neither... They're kind of scary," Cal admitted. "But, it's all part of the job, I'm afraid. And they're both safe now. You did good, little brother." He said, dressing the wound and squeezing Ethan's shoulder. "You'll probably want some morphine for the headache too..." He said, fixing a syringe up and administering it via the IV in Ethan's pale hand.

Ethan offered him a half-hearted smile, sitting back in his bed and closing his eyes as the medicine took effect, yawning. "I'm exhausted..."

"You're not the only one, believe me..." Cal said, also yawning and taking a moment to sit on the end of Ethan's bed, watching the form of his resting brother and smiling to himself. He had always found it oddly soothing to watch Ethan sleep.

"Stop watching me sleep, Caleb..." Came a mumble from his drowsy, younger brother.

"Calm down, I'm just observing you, I am your doctor, after all..." Cal joked. "Hold on, actually, I need to go and get someone..."

Ethan's brow creased in confusion, but he was too sleepy from the morphine to comprehend it much and instead decided to carry on sleeping.

Minutes later, Cal returned, now changed out of his work scrubs, and a small bundle of pink and white blankets gurgling in his arms.

"She's missed Uncle Ethan." Cal chuckled, sitting on the chair next to Ethan's bed as the younger's eyes fluttered open to see his niece. He smiled warmly and reached out, holding her tiny hand and running his thumb over her palm.

"Hello gorgeous..." He said, smiling even wider at her happy babbling in response.

"We've missed you today, toad..." Cal said fondly, stroking her wisps of pale brown hair and gazing lovingly into her sky-blue eyes.

Ethan smiled at the pair, yawning softly as he felt sleep begin to cloud his thoughts.

"Shall we say goodnight to Uncle Ethan?" Cal asked her, gently leaning her forward for Ethan to press a kiss to her forehead.

"Night-night, princess..." Ethan chuckled.

"Well I'm kind of accustomed to Cal now, but I guess 'princess' could work too." Cal said, smiling at Ethan's drowsy eye-roll. "Robyn and Rita said they'd take care of her whilst I stay the night with you..."

Ethan peeked an eye open. "You don't have to do that, Cal... Go home, look after her."

"Don't worry about it, honestly." Cal said, flushing sheepishly. "I just want to make sure you're okay..."

Ethan smiled softly, closing his eyes. "Alright then."

Cal smiled and pressed a kiss to Ethan's forehead himself, before stepping out to find Rita and Robyn.

"All ready for a girls night in, I see." Robyn giggled, taking Matilda in her carrier as both girls cooed over her in her little bear onesie.

"Thanks for offering to take care of her, it's just, what with all that's gone on today, I wanted to spend a bit of time with Ethan by himself. Y'know, give him some attention for once..." Cal said, smiling down at Matilda.

"Oh no, it's fine, we don't mind at all; she's lovely." Rita said, pulling a funny face at her and laughing at her giggles.

Cal chuckled and gave them both a quick hug, blowing a kiss to Matilda before turning back to Ethan's cubicle to find him sound asleep, glasses still perched on his nose.

He tsked and chuckled fondly, gently removing them and placing them in his bedside cabinet. "Don't want to break these again, do we?"

Ethan stirred a little, his expression looking relaxed for the first time today. Cal smiled and reached out, stroking his hair back from his forehead.

He may love Matilda dearly, but Ethan would always be his little brother.

Yay! The beast hath been slain!

I'm glad that I finally finished this one ahhh :')

I feel like it's quite rambly in some places, but nonetheless I'm quite happy with it. I don't know if I'm too fond of the overall prompt though lol.

Please do r&r and f&f!

Until next time, goodbye!