Author's Note: Well, sorry about the delay! I kinda struggled with this chapter, if I'm honest - then I ran into a weird glitch when trying to post, so it's taken longer than expected to get it out. Thanks to those still reading and, as always, any feedback is much appreciated!

Thirteen

Heading back to the lab after being left frustrated by the lack of cooperation from a bunch of surly teenagers, Ruby stopped in her tracks, her attention caught by a faint sound coming from nearby that seemed like crying. Moving closer, she called out quietly, not wanting to scare whoever it was.

"Hello? Is someone there?" she tried. "Are you hurt? I'm a paramedic – I just want to help. Hello?"

Crossing the hallway to open the door of the classroom the noise had apparently drifted from, Ruby peeked inside and, at first, thought the place was deserted. But, as she went to withdraw, a muffled whimper of pain came from behind the door and pulled her back into the room.

"Oh, hi. I'm Ruby," she said, treading cautiously as she realised she was probably dealing with someone right at the heart of the acid incident and didn't want to inadvertently make things any worse. The young paramedic could feel indignant that someone would inflict such awful injuries on other people, but she knew that her priority had to be treating anyone who needed her help. It wasn't for her to judge who deserved that help.

Besides, the girl huddled in the corner with her hands cradled against her chest, her long dark hair hanging over her face, made for a pitiful sight. Even without being able to get a good look at her face, Ruby could tell she was pale and in pain, the almost violent trembling and ragged breathing making her fear shock had set in.

"Okay, can you tell me your name?" Ruby said, reaching for her radio to contact Sam and update her. "Zara? Okay, Zara, we need to get your hands rinsed off right away. Do you know where the nearest bathroom or any room with a sink is?"

But the teenager – abandoned by her friends and having sobbed out her name as trying to withhold it had seemed pointless, cornered as she was - was too distraught to make much sense, even as the radio crackled to life and Sam's voice came through clearly.

"Sounds like your patient's condition is more serious than Amelia here's … I'm sending Rocker to you, Rubes. Back-up's five minutes out. Let's get her ready to move."

Ruby took a deep breath, already trying to remember all the protocols for such an incident, feeling strangely self-conscious at the thought of having to work alone with the cocky HART member who was no doubt much more used to dealing with hazardous substances and all the pitfalls that came with them.

"You can do this …" she silently told herself, before confirming to Sam that she understood and then turning her attention back to Zara, only to find the girl slumped against the wall unconscious. "Zara? Zara!"

"Right then, Ruby-Roo," Rocker declared breezily, dropping one of their grab bags of equipment down beside her and crouching himself by the side of their latest patient. "Budge over and let the expert take a look, love."

"It's just Ruby," she corrected him, with a little frown. "And I'm supposed to be learning from you – not just getting pushed aside."

"Oh-ho, miaow," the more senior paramedic chuckled. "She's rubbing off on you, is our Samantha. All right, all right, tell me where we're at."

"This is Zara," Ruby began, after a pause and an unsure little frown, not knowing quite how to handle her colleague's brash approach. "Significant suspected acid burns to both hands and forearms, plus a deep laceration to the right palm. No sign of any attempt to irrigate. She's just passed out, probably through pain and shock – pulse is weak and thready, breathing laboured … We need to flush any remaining acid off her skin as quickly as possible …"

"Looks like we've found ourselves a prime suspect for what went down back there," Rocker suggested, already in the process of digging packs of saline solution out of the bag he'd brought. "Girls, huh? Right little wildcats when you want. Proper vicious. Shocked, are ya, little Ruby-Roo?"

But, despite grimacing at the unwanted new nickname cropping up again, Ruby simply shook her head. "I went to an all-girls school," she admitted. "Nothing about teenage girls shocks me, believe me."

"Now that sounds like a story I'd like to hear …" Rocker grinned, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively and laughing when she glared at him. "Easy, tiger!"

"I'm glad you called."

Ethan managed a weak smile for the redhead, still feeling a little guilty for uprooting her, but infinitely grateful that she would effectively drop everything to be there for her friend. Because as much as he would like to think his support could be enough for Alicia, he knew it wasn't. That she was holding back from fully opening up to him. He hardly dared think there might be some semblance of a silver lining to be inferred from that reluctance and felt like a terrible person for even letting the thought flit across his mind.

It had occurred to him though that it was not entirely inconceivable that Alicia might feel self-conscious around him if she still harboured some kind of feelings towards him. But that was entirely secondary to the fact that he truly did just want to help her get through everything she had been forced to deal with. The thought of her hurting in that way, in any way, was almost unbearable. Until a quiet little voice in his head told him to pull himself together. That any upset caused to him paled in comparison with what she had endured.

"I was going to say I'm sorry for pulling you away from Paris," he told Bea ruefully. "But, if I'm being entirely honest, I'm not sorry. Not if you being here helps and I know it does. It means the world to Alicia."

"Ethan, don't worry yourself - I understand," Bea said, reaching out to pat his arm. "And I meant what I said. I'd have been furious if you'd not called. I wasn't even going to leave when I did, only Alicia practically pushed me out the door. Said she needed to handle it herself. And she was. Handling it, I mean. She was so strong and I was so proud of her, you know? But for him to do this to her, on top of everything else … I could kill him myself, I really could."

"Well, I can't really fault the sentiment, but let's hope it doesn't come to that," Ethan sighed. "How long are you here for?"

"As long as I'm needed. Family emergency's the official line. What? Sure it's as good as true! Anyway, tell me, what happens now?"

Ethan wiped a hand over his face wearily and shrugged. "I'm not honestly sure. As far as I can see, we're stuck in limbo until the police can find Eddie."

"But he's at least been … I dunno … struck off? Suspended?"

"Officially? Suspended," Ethan confirmed. "Mrs Beauchamp left him in little doubt regarding his future here at Holby and that was before the whole knife situation. But I would assume escalating that is just a formality."

"At least that's something," Bea mused. "He needs to be behind bars though. The man's clearly a danger."

"Well, his mother has apparently given in and provided police with a list of possible contacts he might reach out to. Whether she's lying to them to cover for him, or whether she actually just wants him brought in without anyone else getting hurt … We're not sure. But fingers crossed they find him soon."

Gripping the steering wheel of the cramped little car he'd borrowed from a university friend he'd actually grown up with, Eddie's knuckles turned white and he gritted his teeth in frustration.

He'd been thwarted at every turn. He knew he needed to either get away or find somewhere to keep his head down, but he couldn't go home or back to his parents. He'd already driven past his apartment three times, but there were police outside the building every time. And without going home, he had nothing – no fresh clothes, no money other than what he had on him, and crucially no passport. Without his passport, any hope of getting far enough away was doomed from the get-go.

He just wanted this whole mess to go away. He still found it incredible to think how rapidly his life had turned on its head and then fallen apart. And all, in his mind, over nothing. Nothing worth all this. Nothing worth destroying his life.

He still wanted to believe it was all one horrible misunderstanding. That Alicia would come to her senses. Maybe that was still the only way.

Making her see.

Grim-faced, Eddie swung the car around without warning, risking the wrath of the taxi driver he cut up and ignoring the blare of his horn as he turned onto the main road towards Holby City General. He knew it could be every bit as risky as going home, but he was running out of options.

And desperate men took risks.

They had no choice.

"Zara, if someone made you do this …"

Rocker snorted at that, even as he pushed the trolley the young girl was lying on towards resus. "Leave it out, Rubes. Don't go handing her an easy way out, letting her try to pin this mess on her mates."

"Mates?" Ruby exclaimed. "Mates don't leave you in that state!"

"What would you know?" the teenager bit out, turning suddenly vicious in the face of having her friendships questioned. "Got many mates, do you?"

Startled by the flash of aggression, as well as feeling more self-conscious than she would have liked about how near the knuckle the dig was, Ruby floundered for an answer before giving up and focusing on helping to get their patient where she needed to be.

"What happened back there … You could have blinded someone," she said finally, her voice quiet in the brief moment available before Elle hurried over to assess the situation. "You may have scarred them for life. You could be scarred for life. Was it worth it?"

But, still biting back on the pain she was obviously suffering, Zara simply turned away in mutinous silence – only to be confronted by the sight of her teacher being lifted from a gurney onto a bed, clearly in a bad way.

"Old Bill are gonna want a word when she's ready," Rocker said loudly, sending a flash of alarm across the teenager's face.

"Well, they'll just have to wait – she's in no fit state right now," Elle interjected. "Now, little bit of room here, please …"

"Hey …"

Looking up from the car magazine he'd been half-heartedly flicking through, Iain smiled to see Sam in the doorway of his room, still in her uniform and clearly on duty. "Hi."

"You'll be getting sick of the sight of me," she grinned sheepishly, only half joking.

"Don't talk soft," he protested. "Come in. How's work going?"

"Oh, you know," she shrugged, perching on the edge of his bed again. "Same old, same old. How's your day?"

"Wall-to-wall action here, love," Iain grinned, with an exaggerated roll of his eyes that gave away his growing impatience with hospital life as a patient. "Even got to walk to the little boys' room. Unsupervised."

"Very rock 'n' roll," Sam played along.

"Alicia did come visit," he added, visibly brightening. "That was good. Well, apart from the obvious. She got lucky with that arm – could have been a helluva lot worse. Poor kid though. It's not right, that bastard maybe getting away with what he's done to her. Surely they'll see he can't be innocent of any of it, not after doing a runner? Not exactly the actions of a guy with nothing to hide."

"It's hard to say," Sam sighed, reaching out absently to let her fingers toy with his, before seeming to realise she was finding excuses just to touch him, as if to reassure herself he was really still there, and casually pulling back. "He could say he was driven to it – it would be a terrible thing to be accused of …"

"It was a terrible thing he did!" Iain insisted.

"Hey, I know that," she soothed. "I'm just saying, he'll try anything to spin things in his favour. Although, they still have to find him before we even start worrying about that."

"Ugh," Iain practically growled in frustration. "I hate being cooped up in here!"

"Well, tough," Sam said simply. "You need to be here and there's no way I'm letting you check out early in your condition. There's nothing you could do anyway. The police will find him – we just have to … wait."

"I know, I know," he groused, not sounding any happier about it, despite her reassurance. "Listen, I'm fine - you should head off. Don't want Jan on the war-path."

"Trying to get rid of me, Dean?" she teased, even as she made to go.

"You know I'm not," he replied, gently tugging her to sit back down on the edge of his bed, her hand caught in his. "Sam … What are we doing here?"

She paused and then half frowned, half smiled as if confused by the question coupled with the intensity of his gaze. "Dunno what you mean – you're supposed to be recovering and-"

"You and me," he said, looking down at their fingers laced together again, deciding to take the plunge before he could talk himself out of it. "You kissed me …"

"I … I was worried. You could have died, Iain."

"You haven't kissed me like that since Tom-"

"Don't. Don't remind me."

"I don't remember hearing you complain," he said, unsure whether or not he should be offended by how that sounded.

"I meant don't remind me of my mistakes," Sam sighed, clearly not enjoying a wander down the memory lane that led to yet another instance of her essentially cheating on someone with the former soldier by her side. "I wasn't fair to either of you back then."

"And now?"

"Iain …"

"I mean, it's okay," he said quickly. "If it was just … heat of the moment, or whatever. I get it. I just …"

The crackle of Sam's radio interrupted them and something between an apology and relief crossed her face as she pulled away. "I have to go," she told him gently.

"Sam …"

"You know I have to. We … We can talk later."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she said, reluctantly at first and then more firmly. "Yeah. I promise."