Rhapsody on a Theme (19 page)

“I’m a crime scene examiner.”

“So what does DS stand for in the police?”

“Detective Sergeant.”

Dr. Morris switched her penlight off and nodded. “Can you sit forward for me, please, pet? I want to have a look at your head.”

Darren was coming back to himself and frowned blearily. His voice was still raspy, but steady. “I’m not going to hospital.”

“I won’t send you unnecessarily, but I do need to make an assessment.”

“I’m not going!”

His voice rose, and his chest heaved twice; Jayden made a hushing sound and dropped his arm around Darren’s shoulders, pulling him forward from the cupboard door. “You won’t have to,” he promised rashly. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

The doctor said nothing, shifting to kneel beside Darren instead of opposite him, and beginning to part his wet curls with her gloved fingers. The blood was stark on the white latex, brilliant and gleaming, and she probed and felt around the crown of his scalp with deft and firm touches. Darren grimaced, pushing his face into his knees, and clutching Jayden’s offered hand tightly.

“All right,” she said eventually. “You’re going to have a headache for a couple of days, pet, but you haven’t damaged your skull, and you’re not concussed. I
would
recommend a couple of stitches to help this cut heal…”

“No.”

“…but it’s not
strictly
needed,” she finished, ignoring the vehement interruption. “Can I see the medication box, please? I need to know what he’s been taking.”

Jayden gingerly let go; when Darren simply leaned against the cupboard and closed his eyes, fists clenching and unclenching on his bent knees, Jayden quickly unlocked the cupboard and retrieved the prescription bag, handing it to Dr. Morris before sitting back down and sliding an arm around Darren’s waist again. Darren twitched, but didn’t respond. He appeared to be doing some breathing exercise or other.

“Yes,” Dr. Morris murmured, unfolding the leaflet from the box and scanning it. “And this has been taken for six weeks?”

“Seven,” Darren croaked hoarsely. Jayden squeezed his hand. His skin wasn’t so clammy now.

“All right. Now I am concerned about the damage that could have happened, so I will write a recommendation to Dr. Zielinski that the medication appears to be unsuitable, particularly if you have no history of panic attacks, pet. I’m also a little worried that you’re still very tense at the moment, and you might be at risk of a cycle of attacks for the rest of the night.”

“I’m not going to hospital,” Darren hissed through gritted teeth. He was noticeably tensing again, his chest beginning to move a fraction faster and his face tightening.

“A hospital wouldn’t help you, given that you are anxious about going in the first place, pet,” Dr. Morris soothed. “I’m going to give you a mild anti-anxiety medication that is compatible with your antidepressants. It will feel a little like being sedated, and hopefully you’ll be able to sleep for the rest of the night without further disturbances. I would recommend seeing your doctor as a matter of urgency in the morning.”

“I’ll call,” Jayden said, squeezing Darren. “I’ll call you in sick too.”

Darren nodded faintly; the doctor stripped her gloves off and rummaged in her bag, producing a blister packet.

“Orange juice?” Jayden prompted, but Darren shook his head.

“Water,” he said. “Feel sick.”

“That’s perfectly normal,” Dr. Morris said. “Your body is experiencing a form of shock. Have this.” She pressed a blue pill into Darren’s lax palm. “Take that, and get yourself back to bed.”

“What can I do?” Jayden asked, handing the glass to Darren and biting his lip.

“Keep him warm, keep him as calm as possible,” the doctor said simply. “If he’s been suffering from nausea, keep an eye on him for the next hour to make sure he doesn’t try to vomit the pill back up. Give him his antidepressant in the morning, as it’s never a good idea to come immediately off antidepressants, but no painkillers for his headache, no alcohol, no caffeine, no narcotics, and no over-the-counter medications of any kind. I would recommend extreme rest and relaxation until you can get him back to Dr. Zielinski, but panic attacks are often exhausting, so I doubt he’ll fight you on that front tonight.”

Jayden swallowed, still petting Darren’s hair softly. “All right,” he murmured as Darren knocked back the pill. “Darren? Come on, let’s go back to bed?”

It took the doctor and Jayden to make him stand, but he was fairly steady on his feet when he did, and Rachel reappeared like a spectre to show the doctor out whilst Jayden hustled Darren up both flights of stairs into the attic room. He put a towel over Darren’s pillow to keep off the drying blood, too rattled to consider letting him wash it off first, and by the time Rachel knocked at the bedroom door at the bottom of the attic stairs, Darren was buried in the duvet, fresh pyjamas and a sleeping shirt, and towelled pillows, and more than halfway to being asleep.

“You both okay?” she asked, when Jayden beckoned her up.

“Rattled,” he said, scrubbing both hands over his face. “Really fucking rattled. Like…I just…” He felt stressed, in truth. Incredibly stressed, and very strained, and very
worried
, just worried all the time now because the pills weren’t
helping
, they were making everything
worse
, they were turning Darren into a panicky, twitchy
mess
that was capable of
anything
, and he couldn’t put Darren on bloody suicide watch because he couldn’t be there every minute of every day, but if he wasn’t…

Rachel enfolded him in a tight, bony hug that was sorely needed. They stood at the top of the stairs, locked around each other, and Darren slept in a light, drug-aided doze—and Jayden clung both to Rachel, and to the fading hope that this was all going to work out for the best.

The very next morning, Dr. Zielinski paid a home visit, issued a six-week prescription for half the current dose of fluoxetine, and then complete cessation after that.

“Fluoxetine should not be causing panic attacks,” he said firmly. “It is a very rare side effect and one I am not happy about.” But Darren didn’t seem to care, was still exhausted from the last forty-eight hours, and once the doctor had left, went straight back to sleep. Jayden let him.

Jayden had to go to work, though: the blog deadline was looming, and Rachel—in the midst of the February half-term—had agreed to cancel her date with Tony and stay in.

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” she said cheerfully, and set up camp on Jayden’s half of the bed with Pog and a pile of the
Game of Thrones
novels that she was attempting to work her way through. Jayden had been reluctant to go, hovering over Darren until the very last possible second, and making Rachel promise to text every half hour with updates once he was finally persuaded to leave.

Unsurprisingly, he had been fairly late to work, and had walked straight into Stephanie grilling Gina on his whereabouts. “I’m so sorry,” he blurted out, dropping his bag in his chair and running both of his hands through his hair. He hadn’t even styled it, he’d been that rushed and that…
distracted
. “I just…Darren had a really—
really—
bad night, and I had to call the doctor this morning, and…”

Stephanie softened fractionally and nodded. “All right. Come on, dear,” she said, turning him around by the shoulder. “My office. Gina, a cup of tea for him, hmm?”

Gina jumped to it; Jayden let himself be led into the little office and slumped into the visitor’s chair, feeling sick and shaky himself all of a sudden.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, and Stephanie waved him off.

“You’re a hard worker, Jayden,” she said. “When you’re late, I know there’s a reason, and you haven’t turned in a thing overdue yet.”

Jayden fidgeted. “I…”

“Do you need to be at home today?” Stephanie asked gently, sitting down across the desk from him and leaning her elbows on it, studying him. She had a kindly face, covered in understanding, and Jayden began to relax.

“My housemate is keeping an eye on him,” he said slowly.

“What happened?”

Jayden licked his lips. Gina plonked a mug of tea on the desk, squeezed his shoulder, and retreated, closing the office door behind her and muting the chatter and clatter of keys out on the main floor. “He, um…” He swallowed. “The doctor put him on antidepressants. Prozac, you know, fluoxetine.” Stephanie nodded. “He started that about six or seven weeks ago, and he got…he got worse, much worse, and they never started making him better, and then yesterday he lashed out and destroyed the kitchen and he seemed really…I don’t know, he seemed panicky, and he was saying he needed air and he couldn’t breathe, and then last night…well, this morning, about two or three, I woke up and I found him in the kitchen having a massive panic attack, like, banging his head on the cupboard and bleeding and hyperventilating…”

Stephanie pushed the tea a little closer towards him. “Drink it, dear,” she encouraged in her most motherly of tones.

Jayden took it, wrapping his hands around it, but didn’t drink. “He’s never had panic attacks before,” he whispered.

“Forget about him for the moment,” Stephanie said gently, and Jayden started. “You’re wound very tight, dear. You know Gina’s been clearing half your emails before you get in every morning? You’re under a lot of pressure and I’d offer a week or two compassionate leave, but I’m worried that it won’t help if you’re not getting any relief at home.”

Jayden flared up, slamming the mug down. How
dare
she imply that Darren was being unsupportive? He couldn’t
help
it, he was in no fit state to be looking out for
himself
, never mind
Jayden
. “It’s not Darren’s
fault
!” he snapped furiously. “He can’t help being…”

“I didn’t say it was, dear,” Stephanie said calmly, fishing a tissue out of the packet on her desk and popping it under the cup of slopped tea. “I’m saying you aren’t getting a great deal of support yourself—which is wholly understandable, your boyfriend isn’t in any kind of a state to offer it and that’s nobody’s fault—but you need to look after yourself too, not just focus on him constantly.”

Jayden subsided guiltily and chewed on his lip. “I can’t just…I don’t know, go and visit my parents or something,” he said eventually. “He needs me right now.” He did. He needed more than Jayden knew how to offer, and that was the problem.

“Is the doctor persisting with the Prozac?”

“No, he’s going to take him off them.”

“Then now is the time to relax, dear,” Stephanie prompted. “He’ll start to feel better as the drugs wear off, and if your housemate is watching him today, then take today. Go out with Gina at lunchtime and leave your phone in the office. Go to your theatre group tonight. Gina said you’ve not been in weeks.”

Jayden flushed. “Darren needed me,” he repeated weakly.

“And you’re not going to be able to help him for the next treatment plan if you’re so stressed you’re losing sleep and irritable with everyone,” Stephanie said, and Jayden graduated from a gentle pink to a heady red. “Have the day for yourself, for once. He’s in good hands for the next eight hours, isn’t he, now you take some time for yourself.”

Jayden clutched the mug again and nodded slowly. “Can I…?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Can I go out with Rod?” he asked, referring to the paper’s main photographer, a friendly self-described Welshman who was actually about as Welsh as Jayden was Muslim. “He’s going to get some pictures of the new building work at Portsmouth harbour, and I like going out with him and getting away from the blog every now and then. You know, a breath of fresh air and some new experience and stuff and…I want to do something. I…I want to be busy for a bit.”

“Then you do that,” Stephanie said simply, and the tension between Jayden’s shoulder blades released fractionally. “I’ll take Becky off the report. You can have your first front-page piece, how’s that?”

Jayden smiled, sipping at the tea. “Thanks, Stephanie,” he said lowly.

“I know what you’re going through, dear,” she replied serenely. “My first husband had depression. In the end, I couldn’t take the strain of it and we divorced.”

Jayden paused, and didn’t
want
to ask, and yet…did. Wanted to
know
. “What happened to him?” he whispered.

“Last I heard, he was living in Dublin with his new wife and a couple of kids,” Stephanie said. “People do get better, dear. They might not fully recover, but they do get better. Once the doctor finds the right treatment plan for Darren, he’ll be the man you fell for again.”

Jayden sighed heavily. “It’s like I don’t even recognise him at the minute,” he confessed lowly. “It’s like he’s someone else.”

“He’ll come out of it,” she reassured him and patted his hand. “Just give the doctor some time to get him all worked out, and things will look up in the end.”

“You got divorced.”

“I also didn’t know my husband suffered before I married him,” she explained gently. “From what I gather, you’ve known since the beginning. It makes a difference, dear, if you go in with a certain amount of knowledge and acceptance. Now go on. Clean out your inbox and I’ll send you over the background to what Rod’s up to. He’s going out at twelve, so you’ll need to catch him by eleven-thirty to discuss it.”

Jayden stood up, taking the mug of tea with him. Gina waved when he emerged from the office, and he smiled, raising the mug before heading to the kitchenette to refill it. When he came back, she came around the desk to hug him, and offered a share in her daily chocolate stash. Jayden decided to hold off on that, and maybe get lunch when he was out with Rod.

And decided to go to the am-drams tonight.

* * * *

Jayden let himself into the house at half past seven, all set for whispering and tiptoeing around and a sort-of suicide watch, only to find the TV blaring some action film, Rachel watching in rapt attention, and Darren bundled up on the sofa in a duvet and a thousand cushions, looking drowsy, but actually awake.