Page 43 of Prognosis So Done

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - 2200 HOURS

Actually, Harriet feltbetter after her quick trip to the loo. The pain was still there but with the nausea gone, her teeth brushed and a quick splash of water on her face, she was considerably revived. She’d only been gone ten minutes

so she doubted she’d been missed.

‘Here you are,’ said Gill, rounding the corner and virtually running straight into her, his hands slipping onto her elbows to prevent a collision.

‘Here I am,’ she said, injecting a note of cheer into her

voice as she slipped out of his hold and kept going.

‘Wait.’ He put a staying hand on her shoulder. ‘How are you feeling? Are you OK? You look a little pale. I looked for you but you’d gone.’

Harriet shrugged off his hand, refusing to look into his beautiful grey eyes. She had a night of surgery to get through and if she admitted feeling unwell he would demand she withdraw. And although the thought of it sounded quite inviting right now, she couldn’t let the team down.

It was their last day. She’d already had two days out at the beginning of their rotation due to her gastro illness and they’d had to operate one person down. They were on the homeward stretch — she would cope with the pain and when it was all over she could skive off.

‘Harriet,’ he said. ‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’

She sighed, still refusing to look at him. If she did that

right at this moment, when she was feeling so vulnerable, she

was going to cry again. ‘It’s fine,’ she dismissed.

He turned her around and lifted her chin so she had no choice but to look at him. ‘Talk to me,’ he implored, softly.

She sighed again. ‘It’s sore.’

‘Worse than when you had it drained that time?’

‘No.’

Harriet shook her head, remembering that vividly. Gill had taken her to the emergency department of the nearest London

hospital, doubled up with pain. They’d done an ultrasound and found the large ovarian cyst, and a gynaecologist had done an

ultrasonic-guided needle aspiration sucking off forty mils

of fluid.

The instant pain relief had been wonderful but short-lived as he’d decided to check out the state of her other ovary and had had to deliver the news about her unusual anatomy. It had been a double whammy on a particularly awful day.

Gill had been great, so wonderful and sympathetic for a

while, but as the full implications had dawned on Harriet and her biological clock had roared to life, that’s when the

arguments had begun.

‘Absolutely not,’ she assured. ‘It’s just a constant ache, more annoying than anything.’ She decided not to tell him about the nausea. ‘I’ll take a couple of more painkillers. That really knocked it on the head last time.’

She turned to go again but he stopped her short with his next statement.

‘I really am sorry, you know. About the tube, about the whole...baby thing. I swear to you, Harry, if I wanted a baby, I would want one with you.’

Harriet could see the genuine sentiment written all over his gorgeous face. ‘I know, Gill. I know.’

What was the point in leaving things bitter and twisted? She knew he meant it. She knew he was genuinely sorry about the way things had turned out between them.

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