I wrote this a little while ago, in response to that tiny shot we saw of Dylan being a patient the ED with COVID-19. I wanted to write about lockdown, try to get it out of my system a bit, but once I got going with Dylan and Sam, the words flowed and I'm sure there will be multiple chapters of this. I've taken a few small liberties with the timeline of events last year, just the timing of the first peak of infection and hospitalisation, to coincide with what I wanted to happen in this story.


Three days before lockdown, Friday 19th March 2020

The world was ending, she was sure of it. Pandemics were glossed over at medical school, as a given that it wouldn't happen. Even more so since she had re-entered the NHS as a paramedic: any talk of anything resembling mass infection was laughed off. It just couldn't happen, not a chance.

And then people started dying in their hundreds, their thousands, of an infection it seemed no-one could predict or control. British nationals were evacuated from the epicentre on a specially chartered flight. Schools were closed, something that seemed more akin to a disaster film than real life. The deaths were continuous, she couldn't escape the news. It threatened to swallow her whole.

There was even talk of a full lockdown, and she just couldn't take it.

"Pick up, pick up, pick up," she mumbled as the dialling tones went on and on. "Come on, Dylan."

It was more than a small sigh of relief that escaped when he finally answered her call.

"Your timing is quite something, Samantha," he said drily.

"Why?" She wasn't in the mood to keep up with his remarks.

"I'm outside your building."

"WHAT?!"

He hoped she was more pleasantly surprised than she sounded. "There was… something in your eyes, today. I thought you might not want to be alone. I do pay attention sometimes – Sam?"

She'd ended the call, which could have rubbed him right up the wrong way until he looked up to the stairwell behind the glass door, and saw her bounding down the stairs, face streaked with tears. She practically flew at him, as though he was her lifebelt in a stormy sea. That old safe harbour. It was desperately sad when she pulled herself up short and held herself back a few paces before she reached him. The rules were so blurred, no-one knew who they should stay away from. I love you might occasionally, impulsively, fall from their mouths these days, but somehow they weren't a couple.


Up in her first-floor flat, she paced the floor.

"Hundreds of people are dying, Dylan. They're not even counting the deceased in the community, so it's so much higher than we're hearing. I'm so scared," she said, stopping and looking at him where he dried his hands after washing them at the kitchen sink. "It's everywhere. How long before it's someone we know, testing positive, or… or…" She let out a strangled sob.

Dylan took one look at her wild eyes, strode across the room to her and pulled her into a tight hug. To hell with social distancing. God only knew the last time they'd been permitted affectionate contact. She still fit against him like a missing jigsaw piece.

"There's talk of a lockdown," she said into his jumper. "They're already planning pandemic morgues because the hospitals will overflow. I saw somewhere that the schools won't re-open until September. It's all – I can't –"

He bowed his head down over hers. He'd heard whispers of a lockdown too and there was no denying it made him uneasy: everyone had seen those photographs and videos of Italy under lockdown and it had been haunting to realise the UK was headed the same way. He stroked her hair, something that never failed to soothe her.

"You really need to stop watching the news," he said gently. "Sit down. I'll make a drink, and we will sort this."

A few minutes later, he returned with two mugs of hot chocolate. Satisfying her sweet tooth was another tried and tested path to resolution.

"I mentioned, didn't I, the article I saw about the Italians who moved in together for lockdown?" He knew he had, but he would start slowly.

"Mm," Sam replied, running her tongue over her top lip thoughtfully. "I didn't think you were serious about us doing that though –"

He cut her off. "Samantha, I couldn't bear it if I knew you always had to come home to a dark flat, on your own. I'd move heaven and earth before I let that happen at a time like this."

"Would you even – but your boat, you love your peace and quiet," she said.

She'd always been dreadful at reading the subtext in the heat of the moment. I love you more, can't you see it?! He frowned and reached for her hand. "I… I love you more."

Those words hung in the air between them and for a moment, Dylan wondered if he'd made a terrible mistake in saying them.

He wasn't the only one with great skill in missing the subtextual clues when emotions were charged, which was why he was so surprised to find her kissing him.

When they pulled apart, he supposed that the deal was sealed. In any case, they appeared to have cancelled any further notion of social distancing between them.


Lockdown, May 2020

"Thirty-eight point four." Connie's tone said it all – a fever was all-but confirmation of coronavirus, when the department was so full of it, day in, day out.

Dylan's face, already pale, fell. Behind his mask, he murmured, "Shit."

"Quite," Connie replied. Losing another member of staff to self-isolation had not been high on the day's list of priorities, especially not a consultant. "You know the spiel by now, but you know I still have to give it to you. You can take a test before you leave, and then you will need to isolate either until you receive a negative result or fourteen days have elapsed, in the case of a positive test. It's not the news you wanted, I'm sure, but it's what you need to do now."

Dylan nodded, not bothering to dispute her suggestion of possibility around a positive test. They both knew the odds were heavily stacked against them in the ED. He took a deep breath to sigh, but it agitated something deep in his throat, making him cough against the tightness in his chest.

Though she stepped a little further back, Connie frowned sympathetically. "I'll get the test sent over here, and I will sign you out – so that you won't have to touch anything."

"Thank you."

The Clinical Lead hovered for a moment. "I'm sorry, Dylan." He was the third from the ED to become symptomatic; she wished she had been able to do more to protect them all. Logically, she knew it wasn't her fault, but there was an unshakeable sense of responsibility that lingered for longer than was comfortable.

Dylan shook his head. "You did what you had to do, we all did. You did everything you could, with what little you had."


When Connie was gone, and he was left waiting for that familiar swab to arrive, he pulled his phone from his pocket. This was worse than the logistical pickles he and Sam had found themselves in earlier in the lockdown, or even way back when she was a student. There had been no legalities of bubbles, households and self-isolations, back then. Secrets were nothing new to them, of course, but the pandemic had added a whole new dimension of difficulty.

Sam, temp is 38.4 and I'm coughing. Connie has ordered test but I need to go home. You need to go home.

Less than thirty seconds after he had pressed 'send', his phone lit up with her name.

"What do we do?" she said, her voice hushed although Dylan could hear her anxiety rising.

"Don't panic," he said levelly. "It's hardly the first time – we can do this." He heard a long, hard intake of breath. "Test and Trace. When they call, you have to do as they say, don't you? Including isolate."


Though she felt guilty afterwards, it was surprisingly easy for Sam to spin the yarn about Test and Trace. It wasn't long before she was back in her flat, lamenting the fact she wouldn't even be able to leave it for a run for the next fortnight. She berated herself for having this though when she thought of Dylan, travelling home from work incubating a virus he'd already seen kill people younger and fitter than him.

It was a relief to hear his keys in the door a short while later; she met him in the hall just as his keys made that familiar clink of being put on the hook. She couldn't hold back her shock though, at seeing him look so different to the way she had seen him that same morning.

"You look awful," she remarked.

"Thanks," he replied drily, ripping off the mask he'd worn between the car and the inside of the flat to protect the other residents of the building. "I doused my hands in antibac gel before I touched anything out there, don't worry."

"I'm more worried about you. What can I do?"

Dylan shook his head. "If it's all the same to you, I'm going to bed. I've got a blinding headache."

"As if I'd try and stop you," Sam said, raising an eyebrow. She stepped towards him.

He stepped back smartly. "Sam, what are you doing?"

"Give over! We live in each other's pockets when we're not in work, and when we are, we're both surrounded by it anyway. If it's going to happen to me, it'll happen whether I banish you to the spare room or not."

"I don't have the energy to dispute how flawed that logic is," he said in a low voice. He did not, however, argue when she closed the space between them and hugged him. And it was undeniably nicer to rest in his own bed (or rather, his side of Sam's bed.)


That evening, they watched a film in bed, Sam's laptop balanced between them on the duvet and the volume turned low enough for Dylan's headache to tolerate. Neither of them was concentrating on the film: it was something to fill the silence, which was already punctuated with violent fits of coughing, disgruntled moans and quiet reassurances.

"You'll be alright, you know?" Sam said, at last calling time and pausing the film. "You've got nothing underlying, you're fit enough for your age –"

"Watch it," Dylan retorted, rolling his eyes. "Doesn't this virus afford me a small reprieve from the general derision aimed in my direction?"

Sam paused a moment. "I wouldn't have thought so," she said, leaning against his shoulder gently.

Dylan sighed, all levity from the moment was gone. "It came on so fast… I was fine, I was running resus, for Christ's sake! And then the next thing I know, I'm practically passed out with a fever and I feel like I've been hit by a train."

"If it came on so fast, it will probably go just as quickly," Sam said, though she wasn't sure of what she was saying. It was easier for neither of them to acknowledge aloud, quite how frightening it had all become.

"But… If that's how it was for me… and I'm supposedly fit enough, then god help those who aren't. We – the NHS, I mean… the whole country, even – We haven't got a clue what's coming towards us."


The next day, the headache remained, the cough was worse and after barely touching his breakfast, Dylan went back to bed.

The day after that, he didn't get out of bed at all. To Dylan's mild amusement, this flicked a switch in Sam, who suddenly returned to full medical mode.

"Have you got me on hourly obs, Dr Nicholls?" he asked facetiously, before falling foul of another bout of vicious coughing that forced him upright in a fight for breath.

Sam resisted the urge to swear at him. He couldn't see how poorly he looked: she had never seen him like this and with what little knowledge she had of the virus, she was beginning to worry. "Yes," she admitted, "but until you're not spiking an ungodly fever, I won't hear you arguing against it." She cleared her throat against an unwelcome tightness.

Hearing her cough, Dylan, who had laid back on his pillows, turned rapidly to look at her. His movement was too quick though, agitating his chest again. He wrestled the cough under control with some difficulty. "Sam," he said weakly, "I don't want you to get sick too."

Sam shook her head. "I was only clearing my throat," she lied. "I'm fine. You get some more rest, you look exhausted." That was the kindest way of putting it.

"Hm, exhausted by remaining horizontal," he responded drily, though her instruction wasn't one he planned to fight.


It was a losing battle, only a matter of time, Sam knew. She lay down beside him and for a moment, just listened to him breathe.

"Have you checked your own temperature, lately?" Dylan asked quietly.

"No." She reached for his hand. "I've been a little pre-occupied with yours."

Silence, and then: "Sam?"

"What?" she said irritably, her mind already ten steps ahead to a place she didn't like the look of.

Dylan shifted to a more comfortable position, lying on his side. He stroked her hair gently. "Sam, check it. Please."