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One week. It had been a week. Two days after what they (the press) were calling a tragic incident she had gone back to work. Back to nuclear arms and world leaders, back to men in suits fighting over this and that.
She visited him every night. She wasn't supposed to be there of course but the night nurses let her. She would stay and sit by his bedside holding his hand in her's and reading him James Bond. She read from his copies of course, the one with the pictures of her and him as the book marks and her little comments written in scrawny handwriting in the margin. She would fall asleep at around midnight and would be gone by six the next morning. If it was the younger ward sister on duty she would often find herself with a blanket over her when she awoke and her shoes taken off and placed on the floor beside her bed, like he used to. And when she left each morning she would leave a note of thanks never speaking to her directly. She didn't know why it just seemed obscure to do such a thing.
Sometimes she swore she could feel him squeeze her hand. But it was probably only her imagination or at least that is what she told herself.
It was two weeks after the event, the night he woke up. His eyes flickered open slowly. She didn't notice at first her head was immersed in the book. He waited for a bit before he spoke. "Where are your glasses Moneypenny?" He said trying to smile. Through his sliced lips and stitched face. She dropped the book and called for the nurse. He could only stay awake for ten minutes that first night before the pain got too much and the painkillers took effect and, that was how it was the next week and a half each night he would stay awake longer and hear more and more of the story.
A month after he first woke they started letting him be taken out for short walks in his wheelchair around the park near by, the doctor told her fresh air would be good for him.
She would push his chair and every now and again he would make her stop so he could pick her a flower. They didn't talk about what happened the night he left nothing about the kiss or the letter or his beating. They were living in a divided world a world in which they both acted like everything was sublime, but it was clear to anyone who vaguely knew them that they were curled up in the corner forced out of the way by the elephant in the room.
He spent days sitting in hospital beds waiting for broken bones to heal talking to the people in his ward. Them telling him about their lives him telling them about his. Most of them were old, had seen what they were meant to have, have done what they were meant to have done. He never let himself get to attached to them through because he couldn't cope with anymore pain.
She brings him the three newspapers every day she circles the important stories for him. The ones they're doing pieces on, the ones she knows he would want to write about.
Eventually he gets to go home, home with Bel. She wouldn't let him sleep on the floor in his damp flat. So without a discussion when he is signed out they drive straight to her flat. The steps are a bit challenging but with Hector on one side and her on the other they practically carry him up the stairs with Lix trailing behind carrying his chair. The doors a bit of a problem they carefully put him back in the chair and she struggles to open it. He yells at her "lift and shove" like she once used to.
That evening they celebrate, with mugs of whatever Lix brought and milky cigaret smoke dancing in the air. He tells the story of when Lix beat him at poker and Bel and Lix interrupt every now and again telling him how he got it completely wrong. They all smile and laugh and act like it's all ok, because really it is.
When Hector and Lix leave, Hector saying Marnie wants him home for a diner party and Lix saying that someone needs to be there incase ITV try to steal a story or another important member of the team, "I can't leave Isaac unprotected" being her exact words.
"I'm sorry." He says, once the door closing behind Lix.
"Freddie Lyon, sorry." She replies smiling through gritted teeth pretending she doesn't quite believe it.
"No listen to me, I sorry that I left and ran off, I'm sorry for all the pain, all the times you cried over me, I'm sorry for everything I did to you."
"Don't be." She replies her eyes big and clear with honesty. "Because even through you are stupid and... and I hate you. You are also the most infuriatingly exquisite person I have ever met and that's why... I love you Freddie Lyon."