Chapter 12: The Doctor's Arrival
The smell of wet wool and fry-up grease still lingered in the Snug the next afternoon, a comforting permanence beneath the nervous flutter in Freya’s chest. She was perched on a barstool, painstakingly painting Lily’s thumbnail a shocking, glittery blue.A tiny pool of polish dripped onto the newspaper spread across the worn wood.
“Oops,” Freya said.“It’s okay! It looks like a tear,” Lily decided, studying the smudge with artistic approval.
Emily watched from a nearby booth, pretending to read a book, her skepticism a quiet hum in the room. Aidan was in the back helping his father with a keg delivery, the thumps and muttered curses a familiar soundtrack.
The front door swung open, slicing through the dim light with a blast of damp, chill air. A young woman stood silhouetted for a moment, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, a stethoscope loose around her neck. She had Aidan’s sharp, intelligent eyes, but softened by exhaustion and a warmth he kept more guarded.Sarah.
She dropped her bag with a thud, her gaze sweeping the room and landing first on Lily’s uplifted, polish-covered hands, then on the woman holding them. Her professional composure—the one earned in A&E wards and late-night study sessions—dissolved instantly. Her mouth fell open.
“Oh my god,” she breathed, the sound almost lost under Bill’s clattering from the back.Then her voice found volume, aimed like a dart.“Aidan! You absolute bastard!”
Aidan emerged from the back, wiping his hands on a rag. “What now?”
“You didn’t tell me you were bringing Freya Vance!”
The pub, previously quiet, seemed to inhale.Emily looked up from her book, her feigned disinterest gone. Lily froze, her finger outstretched. Maureen appeared in the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on her apron.Freya set the polish brush down carefully. She remembered Aidan’s words in the muddy lane.You just are. She slid off the stool and stood, feeling taller than usual in the low-ceilinged room.She extended a hand toward Sarah, who was still gaping.
“Hi.I’m Freya.Aidan’s told me so much about you. I love your scrubs—are those custom? The color is fantastic.”
Sarah stared at the offered hand, then took it, her own grip firm and clinical.“What?No.God, no. They’re standard-issue NHS morgue-green. You… you know who I am?”
“Of course.The future heart surgeon. He says you’re the only one in the family with any common sense.”
A snort came from Emily’s booth. Sarah blinked, then her face broke into a wide, awestruck grin.The tension shattered. Laughter bubbled from Maureen, a rich, warm sound.Bill muttered something about “daft lass” and disappeared again.
Sarah pulled Freya into a quick, impulsive hug.“Sorry.I’m so sorry. I’m Sarah.I just… you’re here. In the Snug.”
“I am,” Freya said, laughing softly as she pulled back. “And I’ve been learning important things. Like the fact that British sausages are a completely different species, and that your brother used to get his head stuck between these exact banister rails.”
They talked for an hour, anchored at the bar. Sarah, initially star-struck, quickly shifted into sharp-witted medic mode, grilling Freya about the physical toll of the runway, the insane hours, the backstage chaos. Freya answered honestly, describing the surreal disconnect of being simultaneously idolized and treated as industrial machinery.
“It sounds brutal,” Sarah said, sipping a pint of bitter.“Sometimes. But so is a sixty-hour shift in A&E, I’d imagine.”
“Fair point.” Sarah grinned. “Different kind of gore.”
Later, as the pale afternoon light began to fail, Sarah’s confidence faltered.She twirled her phone on the bar. “This is so stupid, but… would you mind?A selfie? My friends will literally never believe me.”
Freya saw the genuine shyness in her eyes.“Only if we take three. And we have to pull a silly face in each one.It’s a rule.”
They leaned together, cheek to cheek. Freya crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue. Sarah, after a second of surprise, mimicked her.The flash went off. They tried a duck face, then a dramatic, horror-movie scream. By the third, they were both laughing too hard to pose properly, the sound echoing off the old stone walls. Freya felt a simple, unadulterated joy, a commodity rarer than any magazine cover.
That night, the old house settled into its nocturnal symphony of creaks and sighs.Freya lay against Aidan’s chest, their legs tangled under the thick duvet. Rain pattered a gentle rhythm against the windowpane.
“Your sister is amazing,” she whispered into the dark.“She’s going to be a brilliant doctor. She has this… this steady kindness. It’s fierce.”
Aidan’s hand slid from her shoulder down the curve of her hip, his touch a familiar brand.“You made her whole year. You made her feel seen. Not just as my sister, or as ‘Freya Vance’s fan.’ As Sarah.”
“She saw me, too.”
He shifted, rolling her gently onto her back. The old bed frame groaned softly. In the deep grey light from the window, she could just make out the planes of his face, the serious set of his mouth now softened. He didn’t kiss her immediately. He just looked, his fingers tracing the line of her jaw, her collarbone, as if memorizing a topography uncharted by cameras.He made love to her slowly, a wordless conversation. There was no frantic hunger, no performance.It was a reclaiming, a reaffirmation. His mouth moved over her skin with a reverent patience, finding the pulse points at her wrists, the hollow of her throat, the inside of her knee.Each touch was a sentence: You are here. This is real.
When he finally entered her, it was with a deep, deliberate glide that drew a shuddering sigh from her lungs. She wrapped her legs around him, anchoring herself to the solid reality of him, to the worn cotton sheets and the scent of him mixed with the damp Yorkshire air. The world narrowed to this creaking bed, to the sound of their breathing, to the gathering, coiling tension in her core.He moved with a rhythm that felt ancient, fundamental. One of his hands cradled the side of her face, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. The other braced beside her head, his forearm corded with tension. Their eyes stayed open, locked in the dim light.No shields.No guards.
The release, when it came, was not a sharp explosion but a slow, warm unraveling, spreading from where they were joined out to her fingertips, her toes, melting the last remnants of frost deep inside her. He followed, his body tensing, a low groan buried in the curve of her neck as he spilled into her, his hips stuttering against hers until he was still, spent.
For a long time, they stayed like that, skin slick, hearts hammering a slowing syncopation against each other. The rain intensified, drumming a steady beat on the roof.
He shifted his weight but didn’t pull away, his lips brushing the damp hair at her temple.“Thank you,” he whispered, the words meant for her skin alone.
“For what?”
“For being you.”
It wasn’t the ‘you’ of billboards or runways. It was the ‘you’ who painted messy nails, who pulled silly faces, who talked hospitals and heartache with his sister in a dim pub. The ‘you’ who was, against all odds, here. She turned her face into his neck, hiding the sudden, fierce prickling in her eyes.The vulnerability wasn’t terrifying anymore.It felt like coming home.
Downstairs, a floorboard creaked. A murmur of voices—Sarah and Emily, probably making tea—drifted faintly up the stairs.This time, Freya didn’t stiffen. She listened to the sounds of the house, of the family, and let them weave into the rhythm of Aidan’s breathing.Here, in the dark, she was no longer a fantasy. She was a fact. And for the first time in as long as she could remember, that was enough.