Lucas’s gaze flipped to the pressure gauge at the side of the door. In order to eliminate the spread of airborne particles containing mycobacterium tuberculosis, the room should be kept under negative pressure.
It was. The whole place seemed to exude a smug pride, telling him he could look as hard as he liked, everything was being done by the book. Quiet and efficient, even if the masks and aprons of the nursing staff did lend an impersonal touch.
And then there was Thea. She approached the man in the bed, who was coughing painfully and being supported in a sitting position by a nurse. Lucas could hear the scrape of lungs that couldn’t do their job properly screaming for air.
‘Hey, there, Derek.’ Despite the mask, Lucas could see her smile. It leaked out of her, in her posture, the way she touched the back of his hand with her gloved fingertips. Her eyes. It struck Lucas that if the last thing he ever saw was her eyes, warm and full of compassion, then he’d be a happy man.
‘Not so good today, I see.’ Derek was fighting for breath and so Thea voiced both sides of the conversation. ‘Okay, let’s have a listen to your chest.’
She nodded to the nurse, who helped her pull the gown away from Derek’s back. A careful, thorough examination seemed to confirm what was already obvious. Overnight, Derek’s condition had deteriorated, and the fluid on his lungs was now making it painful and difficult to breathe.
‘Good. You’re doing great.’ Thea helped the nurse settle Derek back onto the pillows. ‘I think that we can make you more comfortable, though.’
That smile again. And suddenly, in response, Derek’s face seemed to throw off the anonymity of pain. He was no longer just a patient, defined by what treatment the hospital could give. He was a man in his thirties, sandy hair, blue eyes. Who had a wife and a job and a life outside these walls.
And a sense of humour. Thea made a joke, the nurse laughed, and Derek’s eyes suddenly lit up. She patted his hand and gave him a wave, before sweeping out of the room, leaving Lucas to follow her.
Outside, she was all business. Standing by the glazed wall of the isolation room so that Derek could see she was still there, she looked up at Lucas, her gaze serious.
‘I was hoping that the pleural effusion would stay stable.’
‘We need to do a thoracentesis.’ Lucas provided the obvious answer. ‘You have a mobile ultrasound unit available?’
‘Yes. I’ll get it up here.’
‘The sooner the better. I think we should consider a drain as well.’
She nodded.
‘He has no blood coagulation issues?’
‘No. And he understands what’s happening and is co-operative. We can keep him calm while we do the procedure.’
Lucas nodded, removing his jacket. ‘I’ll need to take a look at the notes.’
They’d fallen so easily into the familiar pattern. Lucas in the lead, studying Derek’s notes and issuing instructions. Thea liaising with the ward sister and overseeing preparations. With two years’ seniority to her, that had always been the way of it.
That had been the way of it seven years ago. Now this was her hospital. Her patient.
‘You’ll be sitting in on this one, then?’ She murmured the question quietly.
For a moment he seemed lost for an answer. ‘You’ve done this procedure before?’
What did he think she’d been doing for the last seven years? Lucas badly needed to catch up. ‘Yes, many times.’ She kept her voice low and professional, the barb in her words and not her tone. ‘Some of them in conditions you could barely imagine.’
She might just as well have slapped him. The sting hit home and for a moment she saw hurt in his eyes. ‘This is not about scoring points, Thea. It’s about patient welfare.’
‘So you’re in the habit of questioning the competence of the doctors you work with?’ Seven years ago she would have screamed the words at him. Now they were uttered quietly, between clenched teeth.
‘Okay, I get it. This is your hospital …’ His lip curled slightly.
‘What the hell happened to you, Lucas?’ Thea flushed red as she whispered the words. It might be inappropriate, but so what? The question had been on her mind ever since she’d first laid eyes on him yesterday.
‘I got real.’ He almost spat the words at her and then the consummate professional took over. ‘I will sit in if that’s okay with you.’
‘Of course.’ She turned on her heel and made her way back to Derek’s room to take a breath and oversee the preparations. Anger had no place here, and neither did personal issues between doctors. What mattered was the patient, and that her hand was sure and steady.
A nurse helped Derek into position, leaning forward, and offering encouragement and a hand to hold. Thea concentrated on her job, the precise insertion of a needle into Derek’s back in the spot indicated by the ultrasound scan. Fluid bubbled out from the pleural cavity, draining into a bag.
When it was done, a restrained burst of activity got Derek back comfortably into bed, and the room was cleared of the evidence of the procedure. Thea risked a glance in Lucas’s direction, and he gave her a small nod of approval. She shouldn’t need his acknowledgement, she knew for herself that everything had gone well. Maybe she’d just wanted it.
They were both treading on eggshells. Outwardly professional and confident but engaged in a private battle that had nothing to do with now and everything to do with their shared past. Lucas quirked his lips downwards. It wasn’t really the shared past that was the problem. It was the things they hadn’t shared, in the long years since he’d left her, that seemed to be the issue.
They were ready to leave the ward when a woman arrived. She looked tired, her dark hair scraped into a lank ponytail at the back of her head. Thea smiled, beckoning Lucas to follow her over.
‘Anna. This is Dr West, he’s working with me on Derek’s case.’
Anna gave Lucas a cursory nod. ‘How is Derek?’
‘He’s looking forward to seeing you. We did a procedure to drain the fluid from around his lungs this morning, and he should be much more comfortable now. Can we have a quick word with you?’
Somehow she managed to intimate that Lucas should follow them into the small area set aside for patients’ families, without actually looking at him. He wondered whether he should offer to fetch coffee and decided against it. As Thea was so keen that this was her hospital, she would be the one to know where the coffee machine was.
‘How’s it going, Anna? Did you get some sleep last night?’ Thea had sat down next to Anna and Lucas found a chair opposite them.
‘A bit. Actually, it’s almost a relief to know what’s wrong with him after all this time. I know it’s going to be difficult, but …’
‘You’ll have plenty of support, for as long as you need it.’ Thea turned her lovely eyes onto him and suddenly everything else melted away. ‘That’s
