Before you read: I urge urge urge you to get up youtube, and put in 'Celtic Woman Dulaman Emerald.' It must be specifically the Emerald version.

The prose at the beginning of this story is the first verse of a beautiful Irish folk song called A chailin aluinn (the beautiful girl), and the first minute of the version of Dulaman from Celtic Woman's Emerald tour is actually the first and last verses of A chailin aluinn, in the original Irish. Lisa Lambe who sings it for Emerald has an absolutely gorgeous voice, and captures the mood I am aiming for here far, far better than I ever could.

'Oh, beautiful girl, to whom I gave my love.

She alone has more beauty than the fair roses,

Without her, I am sorrowful.

Oh, beautiful girl, you are the cause of my sadness.'

-A Chailin Aluinn

Chapter 1

It's two in the morning, and already he's given up on sleep.

He lies awake instead, bedside light on full power, pours over a medical journal rescued from the staffroom recycling bin, ignores the nagging voice at the back of his mind that reminds him he's on a twelve-hour shift in the morning, that by giving up on sleep now, he's resigning himself to struggling through tomorrow on excessive quantities of caffeine, half-asleep, just a little disorientated.

He should try to sleep at least.

Rationally, he does know that.

But it's not exactly a secret that he's a lifelong insomniac, and the situation has been a little worse than usual, as of late.

Ever since she went away.

His bedroom feels strangely empty, without her.

It's not even so much her presence, because yes, he feels lonely without her, the other side of the bed a little too cold for his liking, but it's not as if she was spending every night of the week here, even towards the end.

It's her possessions, more than anything else. He's never done much with the décor of his place; it was his and Cal's originally, of course, rather limited his self-expression when it came to interior design. Perhaps he could have done more with his own room, his own personal space, but somehow, he never quite got around to it, too wrapped up in work and then Cal was gone, wrenched away from him and he didn't see it coming, and then it felt wrong to.

Wrenched away from him without warning, just like her.

He's barely heard from Alicia, since she left for Manchester.

It was only to be expected, really. He's a fool for hoping for anything else, after the way she left.

Rationally, Ethan knows that, curses himself for all those moments in which he's allowed himself to cling to false hope.

She needs this.

She made that perfectly, painfully clear.

She needs a fresh start, she needs to spread her wings the way he would never have quite allowed her too, not really, fly off into the sunset and one day he'll see her name on the front page of one of the medical journals he turns to when insomnia strikes again, because she'll have achieved something brilliant, with this fellowship. He knows she will.

Something brilliant, now she's free of him.

She didn't have to say it, but Ethan knows it's true.

He held her back. That's the truth of it. She was right, she was spot on, those last two days. He treated her like the F2 who first arrived in the ED, pink hair and panda eyes and just a little bit flaky, so much potential and no idea how to utilise it, not back then.

But she worked out how, somewhere along the line. She never quite started believing in herself, not until the very end, but that potential began to blossom out of her, and even then, he couldn't quite see it.

Perhaps he wanted to protect her. Perhaps it was after the ambulance crash, after Eddie, perhaps he was just so determined to protect her that he couldn't see the wood for the trees, couldn't see that she was growing, changing, no longer fresh out of med school and rabbit in the headlights but determined, highly capable, brilliant, ready to lead for herself, carve her own path.

It was all there, those last few months, and still he didn't see it.

Even though everyone else around them did.

He's such an idiot.

He's messed things up with her once again, but there's no going back this time.

This is something he won't ever be able to fix.

She's moved on with her life. She's survived the unimaginable in Holby, and she's recovered, she's thrived, and now she's moved on, off to be more incredibly amazing than she could ever be with him holding her back. That's it. It's over.

She's probably dating someone from the Paeds ED at Manchester City already, probably stumbling home from an inner-city club right now, as he lies awake, in the arms of some dashing, successful, Huntington's freepaeds consultant, she'll barely remember him give it a few years. He'll be just another notch on her bedpost, just another face she'll have left behind, insignificant, buried in the past, forgotten…

His mobile vibrates softly against the bedside table.

"Hello?"

He's so lost in his thoughts that Ethan doesn't think to check the caller ID.

"Ethan? Ethan, it's Ruby. Ruby from the ED, Alicia's… well, tenant, now. I think. I thought."

"Hi… hi Ruby." He might not be able to sleep, but he's far from wide awake, head fuzzy, brain operating in slow motion, doesn't quite take in her words, the ominous message they hold they he won't de-code until later. "Is there… is there anything I can do for you? Only, it's rather late, I'm on shift in a few hours…"

"Ethan, you need to get over here now." There's a panic, an urgency, in Ruby's voice that he's missed until now, disguised beneath her awkwardness speaking on the phone. "You really, really need to get over here now. It's… it's Alicia," she tells him shakily, and everything stops. "I don't know what to do… I can't… you need to get here now, Ethan. Alicia needs you here now."

I wrote this in two twenty minute sessions, ie not a lot of time at all and I know it's awful, but I wanted to get some kind of a first chapter up after that episode tore my heart out. Please feel free to send me your complaints, and if I continue with this I will sort them out later!

If you read my other stories, this is designed to slot in between Atoms and Avalon- although equally designed to be read as a stand-alone story. I have finally, finally sorted out what I want to do with Atoms, and this comes in after it, and is obviously set a few weeks after Alicia's exit. I've been thinking this story through for a couple of weeks now, but after that episode I just had to try to do something with it to work through my mess of emotions.

As ever, please do let me know what you thought of this, and if you would like me to keep writing it, I promise I will fix Alicia and Ethan's ending.

-IseultLaBelle x