Ill Conceived Plans

Ten Days

Life moved fast and slow for Sarah after that night.

He'd not come back.

Not when she was awake.

But she'd heard talk, the staff gossiped, he was big news, she was lucky to have someone like him as her friend, family, they were like brother and sister – it was so sweet how he checked on her.

So he had been there just not when she'd been awake. It was a comfort to know that he cared and was checking on them but in the back of her mind she continued to think that it was more about Bean than for her. He had continually called it "my baby" not theirs or even hers. And while they had always been close, they had never actually become a couple before and now there was a baby they had.

Albeit briefly.

She was doing the right thing then.

Bean would be happy and well cared for and she and Dane could get on with their lives, it made sense, it made perfect sense. It was the best thing for all of them.

She was Dane's best friend and he was hers, the person she turned too when her life turned to shite and she was his voice of reason – usually – but now she was the source of his biggest dramas and it had to stop.

It didn't mean her heart hadn't broken.

But it was the right thing to do.

He'd flown out on the Friday morning, headed for Hollywood, headed for his first Academy Awards, headed for the next stage of his career. Sabine had messaged her that he had arrived safely but was a little angry and distant - obviously missing his family, the young French girl had surmised. Sarah didn't put her straight but she heard very little from the man himself.

It was for the best.

She had wanted to ignore the Academy Awards, sure she wanted him to win but somehow they symbolised something for her, the reasons that they couldn't be together. Sarah wanted to pretend they didn't exist. But everyone else had other ideas, of course no-one else knew, no-one had even suspected that they weren't a couple, they had given each other up to save a friendship, that things were no longer messy, that they'd taken it back to simple. Sarah liked simple.

Relationships were complicated.

Except nothing was ever simple, they still shared a sibling, one they both adored. It wasn't in Sarah's nature to break Thena's heart so when her little sister had come in, smuggling junk food and popcorn to watch the Academy Awards, she couldn't say no. And then it escalated. Her still tucked up in her hospital bed with Thena sitting up beside her, nursing staff coming in to check on the progress even though it was late into the night by then and they'd had to keep the noise right down. By the time it came time for his awards, there had been a gaggle of nurses on the late shift in with them.

He hadn't won but he'd been there, he'd finally made his mark.

She sent him a text saying how proud she was of him.

He'd thanked her.

Both had been one line of type, short and succinct.

It was for the best.

They were both adjusting again, adjusting to the new reality that they were living with, they weren't a couple, they weren't going to be a family.

But it all made sense.

And yet she couldn't bring herself to talk to Boyd and Dmitri about it.

She was being stupid and sentimental, she needed to do the right thing but she was going stir crazy in the hospital and driving the doctor crazy. She had to get out and get on with her life; it would be easier to get on with her life if she wasn't trusted up like a turkey in a hospital bed.