I've deliberated hard over even writing this chapter, never mind posting it! It's AU from my AU (and initially I wondered if I even could do that!) However, since this is all fic anyway, who's to say what I can and can't write?

This chapter disregards my previous one titled 'Hospital Lights' which was set when Hattie was six days old. I wanted to explore the idea that it was Sam, not Hattie, that went medically downhill – and I was desperate to write Nick Jordan into this whole situation, even briefly, despite the fact I completely wrote him out at the end of 'In Search of Trust'. I've also changed the timeline a little, moving when Dylan told Zoe about the miscarriage.


Look After You – Aron Wright

6 days old

Sam was discharged from Maternity three days after Hattie was born. So many things had gone wrong from the idyllic early days she and Dylan had expected – the fact that their baby was around eight weeks premature being only the beginning. The added complication of postpartum haemorrhage had only served to further remove the couple from their expectations of early parenthood.

The first three nights, Dylan had returned home with neither his fiancée nor his daughter, a surreal experience.

On the fourth day, he finally brought a very pale Sam home. She was sore and tired, still slightly shell-shocked from it all.

"All right?" Dylan said, looking over to her in the passenger seat of the truck as he pulled up outside the house. He couldn't help his face falling into an expression of sympathy: she looked so unlike herself and so unlike the self she'd become as her pregnancy had advanced and she'd begun to morph into a mother.

Sam sat stiffly, half-bracing herself against the back of the seat. She'd been warned that the haemorrhage would have battered her iron levels, and the resulting fatigue could cause her some pain, but she hadn't anticipated feeling a level of bone-tired that every movement, planned or otherwise, made her want to cry. Although, she reflected, the tears weren't entirely linked to her pain threshold. Partly she was harrowed by seeing her baby, so unready for the world with all her wires and tubes. Partly she hated that she hadn't been able to keep Hattie safe inside for long enough. And partly she hated that her hormones were so far all over the show that she barely knew which way was up, much less what might be an appropriate stimulus for crying or not, which only made the whole thing worse.

She didn't look at Dylan, instead looking out of her window towards the front door. "Yes. No. I don't know," she said in a small voice. "Of course not, obviously not, everything's wrong. She should be with us, I can't bear the thought of stepping through that door, knowing that she's so poorly and can't even come home." She pressed her lips together tightly, blinking hard to stem another torrential flow that threatened without her permission.

Dylan slipped his hand around hers and squeezed it gently. "I know," he murmured. "It's been all wrong without you here, too." Silence. He leaned over, placing a tiny kiss on her head before opening his door. "I'll get the front door, and your things." It was unspoken, his leaving her in the car so that he could come back and help her inside. She was prone to getting so dizzy with her iron being so low, he didn't want her getting out and fainting without him there.

It wasn't entirely surprising when he turned around from the front door to see that her fierce independence had kicked in and she had already opened the passenger door and turned in her seat.

"Please wait," he said, coming back down the little path.

"I know," Sam replied. "I wasn't going to try, I just wanted to do this much."

Dylan softened. "Okay. Ready?"

Sam nodded, trying to relax into the strong arm he put around her. It was so unnatural, allowing him to support her so much, but she was practically seeing stars the moment she was upright: she'd never have made it to the door of her own accord. A head injury from faceplanting the pavement would hardly be a good addition to the week.

Over the threshold and behind the safety of the closed door, Sam froze, confronted by her empty arms and the lack of bringing home a baby. The house was in no way ready, not even said baby was ready to come home, but this still was not the way things were meant to be. Birth – baby – home. Except not for them. And she knew they weren't the only ones, not even the only ones in this town, but it remained a strange, lonely feeling.

It pained her to do so, but she admitted defeat. "Please help me upstairs, I just want to go to bed." One step at a time was an abysmal pace compared to Sam's usual dash up the thirteen stairs.

Dylan was glad he had closed the door on Hattie's barely half-finished bedroom.

She didn't need that reminder now.


Sam slept fitfully despite her tiredness. Every small sound roused her: in her dream state, every sound was a phone call with terrible news. With a thundering heart every time, it took a while to settle down and return to sleep. She didn't want to wake Dylan, but the third time she jolted awake, she couldn't stop herself reaching for him, gently pressing her fingertips into his shoulder.

Dylan awoke almost immediately, rolling to face Sam with bleary eyes. "Okay?" he checked, his voice slurred by sleep. He rubbed a clumsy hand over his face and blinked a few times.

Sam dropped her gaze, embarrassed. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't want to wake you, only… I couldn't sleep. Thinking about…"

When her words ran out, Dylan let out a long, sympathetic breath. "It's alright." He propped himself up on one elbow, and caressed her face gently with his other hand. "I don't care if you wake me up a thousand times." He paused. "Well, a thousand times might be a bit much..."

Cautiously, Sam rolled onto her back and smiled softly at the ceiling.

Her tiny smile didn't go unnoticed by Dylan. He picked up her hand closest to him and brought it to his lips. "I know it's awful," he murmured, her fingertips still close to his mouth after he'd kissed them, "but it won't be forever. We will get through this – Hattie will get through this."

Sam nodded minutely, her smile fading. There was no knowing, he couldn't possibly know that. But she had to trust his small-hours wisdom.

"In the meantime, she needs her mummy to get some sleep if there's going to be any chance of a visit in the morning."

"Hmm," Sam agreed. Easier said than done.

"C'mere," Dylan said, motioning for the empty space between them to be filled. Sam carefully manoeuvred herself into the space, and seemed to relax into him. She was so warm – how did she always manage that?


They spent the next day, or as much of it as possible, in the SCBU, hardly leaving their baby's side for the duration. Dylan drew the line at four o'clock: Sam's eyes were trying to close despite her protests that she was fine, and he suspected she was headachey too, from the amount of water she was drinking. It might have been warm in the unit, but she was putting away enough to raise his suspicions.

"I'm sure she wouldn't mind," he said cautiously while driving home, "if you didn't try to put on so much of a front for her. She's five days old, you don't have to -"

"Stop it," Sam cut in tensely. "Stop it! She's my baby, our baby, I'm her mother, I have to be okay!"

Dylan regretted bringing it up. Sam was in no fit state to argue, whether she saw it for herself or not. She might deny it to the ends of the earth, but they had stayed too long today, she was overtired and not taking her own recovery seriously enough. "And I want you to be okay, of course I do," he went on, his voice gentler still. "But I want you to look after yourself, too." They stopped at a set of traffic lights and he turned to look at her. "Be honest with me, are you still in as much pain as yesterday?"

Sam's cheeks, already a little flushed, darkened. "It's not any better," she admitted. "Every joint feels wrong, and my head is pounding. Green light, Dylan, go."

He didn't have chance to investigate further until they arrived home: she remained a practised expert in deflecting the inevitable.


When Zoe heard a knock at the door of her flat, her heart lifted somewhat from the mires it had occupied the last few days. It wasn't the return she had expected or that he had planned, but it was wonderful nonetheless to see Nick Jordan standing outside her door.

"God, it's good to see you again," she said in place of 'hello'.

Nick dropped the handle of his case at once and opened his arms.

Zoe kissed his cheek and hugged him tightly, breathing in that familiar scent of expensive aftershave and American laundry powder. It was a scent that meant one thing to her: safe. "I half-expected you to cancel, all things considered," she said.

Nick shook his head, still holding Zoe firmly in his arms. "No chance of that. I wish I could have come sooner – I think they might appreciate a friendly face at a time like this."

Zoe stepped back at last, raising one eyebrow in mock discontent. "What about me?!" She wasn't really serious, and he knew it.

He let out a chuckle and hugged her briefly again. "Seeing you again was always going to be the icing on the cake, don't act like you don't know it."


"I'm fine, stop fussing," Sam said, her voice hushed so as not to aggravate the relentless pounding in her head. "It's a headache, not the end of the world. All I want is two paracetamol and a nap."

Dylan wasn't sure this was a good idea, but he couldn't argue with her steely determination. In any case, a dose of paracetamol wouldn't make things worse – if anything, it would ease her discomfort and might help her get some decent rest. He relented, and helped her upstairs as he had done the previous afternoon. This time, however, he lingered longer than Sam would probably think necessary, getting her pyjamas from the drawer, helping her change and then adjusting her pillows before tucking her into bed.

"I'm not a child, Dylan," she said as he leaned down to kiss her. "I could have sorted myself out, you know."

He sighed. "Of course I know. I wanted to help you, because you don't have to do everything on your own. I love you, ergo sometimes I do nice things for you."

"Thank you," she conceded. "What do you mean, only sometimes?" Sam said cheekily. She relaxed into the blankets and pillows around her and looked up at him with tired eyes.

"As in, sometimes you push your luck and I change my mind!" Dylan replied. He kissed her temple, noting she was perhaps warmer than usual. "I'll wake you in a couple of hours with something to eat, okay?"

Sam nodded. "What if the phone rings and it's –"

"Then I will wake you regardless of how much time has passed, obviously!" He rolled his eyes a little. "Don't worry, just try and get some rest."


"I saw Dylan for a little while, the day after," Zoe said, cradling a large cup of coffee in her hands. "That was, what… five days ago? I haven't seen either of them since, or their little one, although that's not much of a shock. Poor thing is up in SCBU fighting for every breath."

Nick shook his head sadly. Drinking coffee with Zoe on a trip back to the UK should have been a pleasure, not a download of awful news. "They don't deserve this," he remarked.

Does anyone? Zoe thought momentarily, before realising that Nick meant no malice. "No, they really don't." She was thinking of what Dylan had confided in her that afternoon in Connie's office. A miscarriage, ten years ago, before he and Sam had parted ways the first time. The pair of them would have seen this as their second chance, never expecting to be blind-sided by such an early baby. "I know Sam's been discharged at last, yesterday. They had to keep her in – as if having a preemie wasn't enough, poor woman haemorrhaged too."

Nick winced. The image of Sam Nicholls in his mind did not assimilate well with his experience of postpartum haemorrhage and new mothers recovering from such. It had been enough of a surprise to hear that Sam was expecting at all, all those months ago through the grapevine and eventually from source too. But Zoe's call, in the late afternoon of the third… He didn't think he'd forget her wounded tone in a hurry.


When Sam woke up a little while later, she couldn't lay her finger on it, but something was wrong. She'd hardly been in peak condition to begin with, but something had shifted. She shivered under her blankets, but flinched when she touched a hand to her face and noticed a stark difference in their temperature.

Ignoring the headache that had barely been touched by the paracetamol, she forced herself up and out of bed. She was running a fever, she was sure of it, but that didn't stop her teeth chattering. She clumsily rummaged in her wardrobe for a warm cardigan and pulled it tightly around her. The soft green wool did little to make her feel better.


"Dylan?" she said, leaning on the kitchen door frame unsteadily.

He'd been at the kitchen table with a book, but on hearing her, he stood up at once and he looked at her with concern. Her face was ashen and there was a definitely note of panic in her voice.

"Something's wrong," she said. "I'm too hot and too cold, I feel sick, and that headache..." She closed her eyes for a second, her eyebrows creasing in pain and worry.

"It's alright," Dylan said calmly, coming over to and holding her in a hug. "I'm here, okay?" He cursed internally when her face touched his: she was burning up. He felt her knees buckle and a jolt of panic rushed through him as he realised he was the only thing holding her upright.

So many split-second decisions rushed around his brain, it was hard to grab one for long enough to see it through. As much as it pained him to do so, he had to imagine she was an ordinary patient, so that he didn't completely lose it, here and now on the kitchen floor. Lower her to the ground. Legs up slightly, keep talking to her. Obvious checks, then into the car and to the ED. It wasn't easy, when the unconscious face before him was that of his beautiful Sam, but it had to be done.


Zoe's phone buzzed on the coffee table. She might have ordinarily ignored it – spending time with an old friend didn't need interrupting with a likely pointless social media update – but the context of Dylan, Sam and their premature baby put paid to anything done in 'ordinary times'. It was a good thing she did check it, because the text that flashed up on her screen made her swear under her breath and abandon the remnants of her coffee.

"What is it?" Nick asked at once, aware of a definite shift in the room's atmosphere.

She turned the screen to show him.

Taking Sam to the ED. Burning fever, infection probably. Should have spotted it sooner. Will call later.

"You've had a long day of travelling, you're welcome to stay here, but I need to go. I know I can't do anything, but –"

"Zoe, you forget who you're talking to. You don't have to explain. Of course you're going."

She let out a soft sigh, eyes darting to her phone, keys, coat. She raised an eyebrow though, when Nick stood up and made for his coat and scarf too.

"What, you didn't think I was going to sit around here and wait for news, did you?" He squeezed her hand. "It might be… good God, ten years since we all worked together, but regardless, we stick together."

Zoe threw her arms around his neck. "That we do, Mr Jordan."


For a few seconds, Connie stood in stunned silence when Dylan came through the doors of the ED carrying a barely-conscious Sam. It took very little time, however, for her to snap out of her shock and do what was needed.

"Resus 2 is free, Dylan, if you're good to keep carrying her?"

He nodded tightly; he wasn't capable of surplus talking beyond the necessary. He'd carry Sam to the ends of the earth in his arms if it would fix her.

Connie blazed a path through the department, parting people like Moses and the Red Sea. It was like clockwork, she'd done this a million times before. Not often for a colleague, but she tried to push that connection away. Sam was just another patient, Dylan was the same any other relative. Except, they weren't, and everyone knew it.

"Ethan," she said, still walking, her volume reflecting the distance growing between them. "Call up to Obs and Gynae, get Sam's notes sent down please." She didn't wait to see the consultant's concerned expression and obedient nod of assent. "David! Resus 2, please. Now."

David, who had been heading towards cubicles, seemed a little dazed by this sudden change of plans, until he realised what was happening. "What? Um – oh." His focus turned pinpoint as he followed Connie and Dylan into resus.

"Right, what can you tell me, Dylan?" Connie asked, looking over Sam briefly as she began to prepare the area. She listened intently to Dylan's 'handover', intermittently muttering mental notes to herself or quick instructions to David.

"Um," he ran his tongue around his dry mouth and looked up at the ceiling. He squeezed Sam's hand and was relieved by the slight squeeze in return. "Sorry, I can do this – she's five days postpartum, after a PPH where she lost about 1400ml. She's been fatigued and achy since she was discharged yesterday afternoon, but that's been a lot worse today – we spent the day up in the unit, uh, came home about four o'clock when she went to bed with two paracetamol. As far as I know she slept for a couple of hours, then came down and collapsed. She was a bit warm when she went to bed, but I didn't think to check..." He was tortured by guilt, but Connie was having none of it.

"This isn't your fault, Dylan. You couldn't have stopped this, even if you had checked. I think it's been brewing a while, looks like a massive infection that's finally reared its ugly head." She looked down at Sam's pale face. "Sam, can you hear me? Good, that's good. It's going to be alright. We'll get you sorted, hm?" She gave the younger woman's shoulder a quick rub, before asking David to take bloods and then turning back to Dylan. "Relatives' room, go. Or staffroom, I'm not fussy. Out," she said firmly, but maintaining a kind warmth.

"But –"

"No buts, I'm afraid. You're not her doctor, you know the drill. Out, please."

He nodded in agreement. He looked down at Sam. Her expression was one of sadness and discomfort. Letting go of her hand, he kissed her temple softly before taking his leave.


He stood outside resus feeling a little lost. He put his hands behind his neck and tilted his head back. How much more could possibly go wrong? He cursed himself for introducing the thought, though unusually, he didn't have the strange feeling of his OCD latching onto a dark thought and running with it. Something in having both Sam and his daughter so unwell seemed to have (perhaps temporarily) overridden the worry.

"Dylan!"

He turned quickly in the direction of the shout, blinking as if not quite believing his eyes. It was surprising enough that Zoe was coming towards him, but more so was the person beside her. A memory from weeks ago surfaced – flights were booked, he and Sam had been looking forward to seeing him again.

"I'd forgotten you were coming," he said honestly, scrubbing one hand through his hair.

Nick cracked a small smile. "I think I'll forgive you, given the circumstances," he replied. "I would have asked how you're holding up, but..." He glanced momentarily in the direction of resus.

"Best not," Dylan said. "Not sure I can be trusted to keep it together, all things considered, and I'd never live that one down."

Nick put one hand on Dylan's upper arm, then thought better of it and hugged him instead. "Despite it all, it's good to see you, Dylan."

Dylan surprised himself with the ease of returning the hug. "Likewise," was all he could manage to say.

"I think this calls for coffee," Zoe said, leading them both off in the direction of the staffroom, and better coffee than the poor imitation than came out of the machine in the relatives' room.


There was one flaw in Zoe's plan to soothe the stress of the evening. With Dylan now absent from the daily running of the ED, no-one had restocked the decaffeinated coffee in the staffroom, and caffeine was very much not helpful to the situation.

"This was a mistake," he said, frowning into his half-empty mug.

"Sorry," Zoe said guiltily. "I wasn't thinking."

"It's hardly your fault I can't tolerate caffeine anymore!" he said, forcing out a long breath and wondering how much explaining he owed to his old friend Nick. "I haven't gone senile," he remarked to him, quick and brash to minimise the issue as far as possible. "OCD just doesn't mix particularly well with unnecessary nervous energy. Especially not with..." He raised his eyebrows, gesturing out of the staffroom to mean both Sam and Hattie. "I mean… I'm fine, obviously, I'm not mad –"

"Dylan, I didn't think for one moment that you were. Certainly not any madder than you'd need to be to choose to work in A&E, anyway." Nick's tone was plain and accepting.

Dylan relaxed slightly, though with a central nervous system stimulant coursing through his veins the effect was negligible really. That said, it was good to know one of his oldest friends didn't seem to see him any differently for knowing he had a slightly broken brain.

He breathed, deliberately making each breath slow and even. Just because it was a reasonable scenario to be anxious about, did not make said anxiety any easier to sit with.

"What can I do?" Zoe said quietly, breaking the silence. "I know you hate the question, but I have to ask it."

Dylan's shoulders dropped. "I don't know!" He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. "I don't know where to be – tell me where to be, maybe? I can't split myself in two, and yet I'm about to have Sam in one ward and Hattie in another. How am I supposed to choose?"

"Oh Dylan, I don't know. It's an awful situation, I wish I could fix it."

The three of them sat in silence for a few minutes, Dylan grateful for not being alone and the other two only too aware of the importance of their presence.

When David stuck his head into the staffroom, they stood up as one.

"Mrs Beauchamp would have come down, but there was another resus admission," he explained. "Sam's going up to HDU now – as suspected it's an infection that's taken hold, and her blood count is through the floor so they're sending a cross-matched unit to meet her in the ward. She'll be on IV antibiotics and fluids for a day at least." He nodded at Dylan to signal there was no more to tell.

"Thanks, David," said Dylan quietly. This news did little to quell his worries about where to be.

The nurse left, and Dylan sat back down heavily, head in his hands. Zoe took her loyal place at his side, an arm around his shoulders. Nick remained standing, his expression pensive.

"I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do," Dylan murmured. This was the worst kind of puzzle, one with no good answers.

"I might have a solution," Nick said quietly.

Dylan looked up hopefully.

"It's not perfect, but it might do. You go to SCBU, be with your little one. Zoe and I will go with Sam to HDU – at first she'll just be sleeping it off so we can call you as soon as anything changes."

Dylan let out a shaky breath. "You'd do that? She could be out for hours, and I hardly think you flew halfway across the world from one hospital just to sit in another."

Nick looked at Dylan with a firm expression. "I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it, Dylan. Zoe's in work early tomorrow but I have nowhere to be. I'll stay as long as I'm needed so she's not on her own, and you know she'll be okay.


And so it was that four hours later, Nick was there in HDU when a very groggy Sam began to open her eyes. She frowned, rubbing her eyes in confusion.

"What? How did you…?" she said sleepily, trying to sit up but catching the cannula in the back of her hand in the blanket that had been tucked around her with care and kindness, hours earlier.

"Careful," he said, getting up quickly from the chair to disentangle her. "Can't be having you causing any more trouble, tonight." He smiled down at her sympathetically and gave her uncannulated hand a friendly squeeze. "Welcome back to the land of the living."

Sam was still half-asleep, and more than half-confused. "You're supposed to be in Michigan – why are you here? When…? How…?"

"Funny thing, plane tickets," Nick said airily. "The airlines never seem to be too amicable to changes or cancellations, so it's usually worth sticking to your original plans."

A fuzzy memory of a visit planned months ago began to reform in Sam's brain. "Not exactly what you planned, is it? Sitting in a hospital waiting for me, of all people, to come round!"

Nick smiled. "You're more than worth the time, Sam. Dylan's in SCBU, so I offered to wait here with your good self until you woke up. Didn't want you by yourself, feeling poorly. Speaking of which, how are you feeling?" His eyes darted briefly to her monitors. Good sats, much better pulse. Temperature was lower at the last check too. Things were on the up.

Sam groaned. "Rough."

"I'm not surprised. Your blood count was appalling, and it'll take a while to feel the effects of everything they're pumping into you." He nodded at the blood bag on the drip stand. "You've already had one of those and your numbers were still too low."

"Bloody hell."

"Quite," Nick replied. "You gave Dylan quite a scare. Not that Zoe or I were thrilled to hear you'd gone downhill either!"

Sam averted her gaze for a moment. "What about Hattie?" she asked, silently cross with herself for not asking sooner.

"As far as I know, no change. You'll be able to go and see her when you're not fighting a raging infection, I should think. Patience. Which I don't remember being your strong suit..." He raised one eyebrow mockingly.

She rolled her eyes. "No comment."

They laughed, until Sam winced. Sore head, sore everything. She wriggled against her pillow, trying to find a more comfortable position. It surprised her when Nick sprung into action again, this time ably helping her sit up slightly, propping her so gently on an extra pillow before retucking her blankets.

"Thank you," she said, "Even though I feel like a child now."

He resisted the urge to remark that she seemed so childlike too, swamped by her bed and fragile as her baby daughter. "Better?"

"Much better." Without the distraction of discomfort, her thoughts could wander again, and her face creased in sadness. The reappearance of a friendly face, one whom she'd looked forward to sharing her healthy, full-term baby with one day, one whom she'd secretly wanted to be proud of her for making it as a mother, was a step too far. A tear slipped down her cheek, and that was it. She was gone, fat droplets rolling down her cheeks and every breath catching in her throat. "This isn't how it was supposed to be!"

Nick sighed. He broke his own rule and sat on the bed to be closer to her because she needed human comfort. She was so vulnerable, so unlike the Sam Nicholls of old, that he felt compelled to protect her. He held her hands and passed her tissues and tried to say the right thing, though there was nothing to say.

"It's not how it was meant to be, perhaps, but it is what it is, Sam. It is what it is. By all accounts you have a beautiful little girl, and she's trying so hard. She's a fighter like her mother, I'm sure of it. And if she's anything as stubborn as her father, then perhaps we should all be taking cover already, no matter how little she is."

Sam let out a snuffly syllable of laughter. "God help us," she said shakily. "Thank you for being here, Nick. I know you said all that before, but you really didn't have to stay. Thank you."

He brushed a strand of hair out of her face that had stuck itself in a glistening tear-track and hugged her. "I was needed, so I am here. Simple as that."


Please do leave a review and let me know what you think - I'll try not to leave it so long before updating next time, but I can't make any promises! x