It had been a week and half since Nick had dropped Adie off at the airport and a week and a half since he had also packed a bag and caught his own flight. He couldn’t go back to that big empty house that was full of reminders of not only her but their preparation for Molly’s arrival. His destination had been any easy choice, he knew he needed to be by the water, he needed some familiarity and the Keys provided all of that.

He had spent long hours sat out on the balcony that led from the master suite and overlooked the calm and tranquil beach in front of him. He had found himself disappointed on more then one occasion that week because the sea air and the sound of the lapping waves hadn’t settled him in the ways it had previously done. In fact all it had done was make Nick think of Adie more, about how she had loved the beach the last time they were there, about how she had woken him on more then one occasion so that they could watch the sunrise together. That then led him to thinking about Molly.

There was no doubt about it, he would have made sure she was a water baby. He had had so many visions of taking her out in the pool, getting her confident with the water, then introducing her to the sea. He knew that the Keys would have been one of her favourite vacationing spots and he could see them all spending all of her summer vacation down here. That was never going to happen now, and it hurt like hell to know that he would never get to see her smile, never get to hear her squeal of delights, never get to watch her grow up and start her own family. That was the thought that led him to where he currently was.

It had taken him almost seven days to build up the courage, he had actually already made the journey twice but bottled out just before he made the last turning. Today, for some reason, had been different, maybe it was because he knew that tomorrow he would be leaving to join back up with the tour in Reading, Pennsylvania. This was his last chance, well for a while anyway, and he knew he had to do this. He had to make this right because he still had the chance.

He switched off the engine and peered at the house and then back down to the scribbled address of the piece of paper, they both matched number 1123. He pushed the car door open and pulled himself from the car before he closed and locked it.

It took him a good minute before his legs began to move but he eventually found himself standing in front of the large door and he quickly forced himself to press the doorbell. His could feel his heart pumping madly in his chest when he heard the footsteps approaching, the sick feeling in his stomach intensifying when the door creaked as it was opened.

She couldn’t hide the look of shock on her face when she realised it was him.

“Nicky?”

“Hi Momma.”

***

Adie looked at the three sealed envelopes in her hand, one was addressed to her sister, one to her parents and the last one was to Nick. She had left so suddenly, so unplanned that the only way her parents and her sister currently knew where she was, was due to Nick. She had tried to send her parents a text message when she had arrived but obviously her cell phone didn’t work in Nepal and she didn’t want to face talking to them on the phone. She had always been better at writing down her feelings, at explaining things properly in letter form because letters didn’t argue back straight away, she didn’t have to come up with a retaliation quickly, she could think about what she wanted to say for a while before she sent a reply back.

She tore her eyes away from the envelopes in her hand as she handed two to Raj so he could send them when he went into town that afternoon.

“What about that one?” he asked when she didn’t hand him all three.

“I’ll send it later, I forgot to write something in there,” She lied, holding the letter addressed to Mr N Carter back. He smiled at her and carried on out of the door. Why hadn’t she just sent it? There was nothing else she could write, no other words she could use to try and make this separation seem easier and it was the least she could do to let him know she was doing semi okay because every time he had tried to call her at the hospital she had been too busy to talk and every time she had attempted to call him back she had chickened out before the call connected. She wasn’t sure why, maybe it was due to the fact that travelling to Nepal hadn’t given her the epiphany she seemed to be looking for, it hadn’t really helped her to gain any closure and she didn’t want to admit that to him.

She couldn’t dwell on that though because the doors that led from the OR opened and Sean, an anaesthetist she had met up with on her connecting flight, wheeled her patient back into the bed space that he had been occupying for an hour previously. She quickly donned an apron and a pair of gloves before she helped him connect Topkay, the two day old boy, back up to the monitoring equipment and ventilator.

“Okay. Uneventful surgery, removed the narrowed tissue and anatomised the site. Bypass time of one hour, cross clamp time twenty minutes. Hasn’t needed any blood products in the OR. ET tube is the same, central line is the same, arterial line is the same. He’s on five of dopamine for a labile blood pressure, he dropped his mean to thirty nine, we are aiming for a mean pressure of forty five so hopefully you’ll be able to wean that over the day. We’re going to keep him intubated overnight with a plan to extubate first thing in the morning,” He told her.

“Nil by mouth from six am?” She asked an he nodded, “There’s coffee at the desk and these.”

“You know the way to my heart Adie,” He laughed when she handed him a packet of Oreos.

“It’s all about a happy work environment,” she told him with a smile as she watched him leave. She busied herself with settling Topkay back in, making sure that his vital signs were appropriate, she then moved him onto his left side and covered him with blankets to make him look more presentable, more like a baby, so that his Mother would not be too distressed when she was allowed back in.

“You need any help?” Lou asked when she came back from her break.

“I think I’m set actually,” Adie smiled.

“Thanks for the coffee and cookies Adie,” Sean called as he wheeled his next patient into the OR.

“Welcome,” she called back, asking, “What?” When Lou started to giggle.

“Some things never change, your still as much as a flirt as what you always were.”

Adie looked away quickly a frown forming on her face, “I wasn’t flirting.”

“Oh so what was that little wink? You are so busted Aid,” she laughed but Adie’s discomfort did not go unnoticed. “There’s no harm in flirting you know.”

“I’m with Nick,” she reminded as she jotted down another set of vitals.

“I know that. Is everything okay between you guys? Did something happen?” Lou asked concerned.

“Everything’s fine,” Adie lied not knowing why she hadn’t disclosed everything to Lou. She didn’t know that Adie had been expecting a baby and so she certainly didn’t know that Molly had been still born only three weeks previously. She had told Nick that she was going to Nepal for closure, to work through everything yet once again her personal life, her personal problems had taken a backseat to everyone else’s.

“Really?” Lou asked suspiciously.

“Yeah, why are you asking?”

“You just called me up out of the blue and the next day your on a flight. You’re here for four months Aid, over Christmas and New Year,” Lou reminded.

“So are you,” Adie pointed out.

“I’m single.”

“Everything’s fine Lou, we’ve just been through a bit of a rough patch, he’s touring at the moment and I wanted to do something for me.”

“Okay. You know where I am if you want to talk though,” she said before she walked off.

***

Nick sat outside and looked across the array of flowers that his Mother had planted, gardening had always been a passion of hers and every one of their houses had always had beautiful gardens. Well until he and Aaron would trample the roses with the basket ball, the thought of that made him smile, she would get so mad, send them both to their rooms and then the next day she would have the pair of them out in the back yard repairing the damage they had caused.

That all felt like such a long time ago, when he had turned up on her front porch that morning it had felt like a million years since he had seen her last. Ever since he had decided to leave for the first time, ever since he had told her that he was moving in with Mandy their relationship had been volatile and he had half expected her to slam the door in his face. When she didn’t, when she grabbed him into a tight hug, it made him realise actually how much he had missed her.

They had talked for a long time, both apologising for their behaviour but they both explained why they had acted like they had. Conversation had then drifted logically to the things that they had both missed out on whilst they hadn’t been speaking. Nick had filled Jane in on the new album, the tour, how the rest of the guys were and in turn Jane had told Nick all about Greg and about her new business. Not once did the topic of Adie or Molly come up and Nick wasn’t sure how he felt about that. On one hand it was the catalyst for him turning up at her door but on the other it felt good to not focus on it, even if it was just for a few hours.

Nick looked to his left when he heard the back door open, a smiled a thanks when Jane handed him the cup off coffee. He stopped rocking the porch swing back anf forth so she could sit comfortably before he started the slow motion again.

“Are we going to talk about why you’re really here Nick?” Jane asked.

“What do you mean?” Nick asked trying to play it down.

Jane turned her head to him before speaking again, “You haven’t mentioned Adrianna or Molly once.”

Nick stared straight ahead, “It’s Adie.”

“What?” Jane asked, slightly confused at his words.

“She hates Adrianna, it’s Adie,” He told her.

“To be apart from you, to not get to talk to you or see you was awful so I can’t imagine how you must feel about Molly. Nobody should ever have to go through that. If you don’t want to talk about it that’s fine but I am here if you want me to listen,” Jane told him as she squeezed his knee in support.

“I’m sorry I didn’t speak to you for as long as I did,” He said.

“You told me that earlier,” she reminded.

“I miss all the stuff that I thought we were going to get to do as a family. I miss her waking me up at stupid o’clock in the morning because she had to get up to pee and it wasn’t fair that I got uninterrupted sleep, I miss how crabby she was because her back was aching or because she was tired. I miss her Mom, I miss her so god damned much,” He said as a few tears escaped.

“Are you not together anymore?” She asked after she took his hand in hers.

“I don’t know,” He shrugged. “She…it’s been a really crap year for us. She left in June, we’d been falling apart long before that, we were both hiding stuff from each other…then she found out she was pregnant.”

“Is that why you got back together?” Jane asked.

“I didn’t want her to leave in the first place and she didn’t come back right away. But when she did things started getting good again, we started talking, we started being honest with each other but since Molly died, she’s shut off again,” he said as he wiped his eyes with the back of his free hand.

“So where is she?” Jane asked.

“She’s in Nepal. She’s working out there.”

“How do you feel about that?” Jane asked.

“I’m pissed off about it, I’m angry at her for just leaving, I even more angry at myself for letting her leave as easily as I did,” he admitted.

“So why did you?”

“She’s really stubborn. Letting her go, knowing she was going was easier then having to deal with coming home to find that she had left again. She told me that she needed to do it, she needed to find herself but I know she’s not. She’s not out there dealing with her emotions of her feelings about what’s happened, she’s out there supporting other peoples through their problems. It’s what she does and at first it was one of the things I loved about her,” Nick said as he finally looked at his Mother.

“But not now?” She questioned.

He shook his head as he answered, “No not now, it’s one of her traits I hate. Rachel, her sister, once told me that she was special, that she has a gift when it comes to helping people and she does, she’s amazing, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. She would quite easily go up to someone who was crying in the street and wrap her arms around them and help them figure something out but she closes off from her own problems. I know I can’t really say much because I know I do it but I did start opening up to her, I at least tried.”

“Have you told her this?” Jane asked as she took a sip of her coffee.

“I’m scared if I push her too much I’m going to loose her but I’m scared that if I leave her to do her own thing I’m going to loose her too. I think I may have already lost her. I just don’t know what to do Mom, I don’t whether to just leave her and let her get on with it but I don’t want her to think that I don’t care about her. I just don’t know what to do,” He told her helplessly hoping that she would have the aswer.

“I can’t tell you what do to Nick. If you love her as much as you seem to I think you need to fight for her but I think you also need to tell her how angry you are at her. Grief and stress effect people differently and I think problem your having is that you deal with it in the same way,” Jane said.

Nick frowned at her comment, “What? I’m not running away from it, I didn’t run away from her.”

“So she knows how upset you are at her? You cried every time you were sad in front of her?” The way he diverted his eyes downward was answer enough. “You were hiding it too.”

Nick quickly defended his actions, “I was doing it to protect her. She didn’t need to deal with my pain too, she didn’t need to be strong for me. I didn’t have to carry Molly around for seven months, I didn’t have to give birth to a still born.”

“No you didn’t but you still lost a child, you still had to watch her go through that. You hid your emotions from her, and yeah you were trying to protect her but you were focused solely on her pain, on her grief so that may be all she was focused on. I’m not defending her but may be that was why she left because in her own way she may have been trying to protect you from her grief,” Jane tried to explain.

“But I know she’s not working through it like she said she was going to do.”

“Have you worked through it?” Jane asked.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be completely over it, it still hurts like hell every time I think about it but I want to be with her. I want to grow old with her and try and have more babies. I don’t want anybody else,” He admitted as he tried to fight back a few more tears.

“Then you need to tell her that but I think you need to be completely honest with her, I think you need to tell her exactly how it is, exactly how she made you feel. Keeping things secret doesn’t work, it just makes you resentful in the end,” Jane told him.

***

Adie smiled warmly at Topkay’s Mother, for a women of a poverish background, her English was near on perfect and her strength was outstanding. Six children in seven years, two jobs to support her large family and still the women was smiling and thanking Adie as if she was her saviour.

“He’s being a very good boy. Do you want to get him out for a cuddle?” Adie offered.

“Is he well enough to do that?” She asked.

“Yeah,” Adie nodded enthusiastically, “He’s doing very well, I think he deserves a cuddle.”

It still amazed Adie how quickly children could rally round. It had only been two days since his open heart surgery but Topkay had been successfully extubated, was not needing any oxygen therapy, and he was defiantly making it known when he was hungry. With the rate he was going he would be going home within the next few days and it made Adie feel warm inside, because if people didn’t volunteer for causes like this, then there was no way that little boy would have survived.

She eased the baby gently into his Mother’s arms and then she walked away to give them some privacy. She could still view Topkays and his monitoring from the desk and when she sat down she felt something dig into the side from her scrubs pocket. She fished it out, finding the letter she had written to Nick. She still hadn’t found the strength to send it, she eyeballed it for a few moments before placing it back where she had found it.

Another day wouldn’t make much difference.