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Gold became aware of a presence regarding him from the doorway of his laboratory, and he looked up from the microscope to see Belle standing there, watching him with a small smile on her face and her hands hidden behind her back. He returned her smile and quirked an eyebrow.
“Is there a reason why you’re just standing there? I know I have been accused of erecting a mental forcefield to stop unwanted visitors coming in and disturbing me at night on more than one occasion, but you’re hardly an unwelcome visitor.”
Belle just laughed and entered the room fully.
“I was just waiting for the right moment,” she said, nodding to the clock on the wall behind him. On cue, the numbers and date flicked over to read 00:00, 25/12. “Merry Christmas, love.”
She moved her hands to show him what she had been concealing, and he gave a snort on seeing the tray of blood samples.
“Thank you,” he said dryly as she put them down on the desk beside him. “It’s a wonderful gift; I shall treasure it always.”
“I’m glad you like it. Now, I’ve got to get back, Jefferson will be worrying where I’ve got to.”
“You were abducted by Santa so that he could stuff you in my stocking,” Gold replied and Belle laughed.
“I’m already wearing your stockings.” She showed him her ankles below the hem of her scrub trousers; encased in thick socks he recognised as his own.
“Those weren’t the kind I had in mind when I envisaged unwrapping you later,” Gold growled. It was incredibly tempting to grab her by the waist and pull her down onto his lap for a preview of what they would hopefully be doing later, once they had finished working and could begin a private Christmas celebration in the comfort of their own home, but Belle was right; she had to get back to her ward and Gold had a lot of work to do.
“How are things up there?” he asked. Pathology was on the opposite side of the hospital building to Acute Medical Care, and down here, with no patients around, everything was calm and quiet apart from the whirring of the diagnostic equipment.
Belle wrinkled her nose. “We’re not too bad, but Ruby says she’s never seen Accident and Emergency so busy on Christmas Eve, you’d never believe it. The nurse-in-charge of Resus today said she’s not doing too much better; a lot of their staff are off sick. And obviously, half of the people in A&E will end up in our ward before the night is over.” She sighed and perched on the edge of Rum’s desk. “Still, not long to go now. Six hours, then sleep. Then presents. Then sleep again.”
“Is there any chance that there’ll be some not-sleeping in among all that?” Gold asked hopefully, pulling one glove off and dancing his fingertips up her thigh.
Belle raised one eyebrow as she slipped off the desk and made her way towards the door.
“I’m sure I could fit some not-sleeping into my busy schedule,” she said, and blew him a kiss from the door. “See you later, sexy.”
Gold smiled and returned his attention to his microscope.
X
By the time six o’clock rolled around, Belle was perfectly ready to sleep for a week and forgo all not-sleeping related activities. Changing out of her scrubs in the locker room, she stretched the crick out of her neck and wondered. Normally when they were on the same shift, Gold tended to clock off a couple of minutes early and come up to her ward to collect her, but this morning he had not done so, and she wondered what could have been keeping him. Popping her lanyard back round her neck, she grabbed her bag and made her way down to the Pathology lab.
Gold’s room was empty, and she wondered if they had perhaps missed each other like ships in the night, and she popped her head around the partition to the next room.
“Mulan?”
Her friend looked up from the x-rays she was analysing.
“Hi Belle. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas. Do you know where Gold is?”
Mulan shook her head. “Nope. Ella Furrier paged him up to Resus half an hour ago and he hasn’t been back.”
Belle quirked an eyebrow.
“If they’re so short-staffed they’re calling in Gold’s help then they must be desperate,” she said. “His bedside manner is non-existent.”
“Yes, there’s a reason he went into a branch of medicine which doesn’t generally require talking to people.” Mulan furrowed her brow. “It’s not unheard of for us to have to go to Resus.” She shrugged. “Still, that’s where he went.”
“I’m here.”
Belle heard Gold’s uneven step coming down the corridor towards them, and he handed a couple of tubes of blood to Mulan. “Suspected heart attack. Merry Christmas.”
Mulan rolled her eyes, moving away to read the patient information on the tubes and get to work.
“Have you been actually interacting with patients, Dr Gold?” Belle asked with mock horror.
“Indeed I have, Nurse French.”
“Who on Earth thought it was a good idea for you to do that?”
“Ella needed me for a second opinion on something and decided that since I was there, I might as well get the blood I needed for the tests myself.” He sighed. “I thought I’d do her a favour and help out. The patient was Ursula’s dad; Ella was going spare.”
“Is he going to be all right?” Belle asked, a cold feeling of dread building in the pit of her stomach. Ursula was Ella’s partner of six years and Belle couldn’t imagine what it must be like to see a close friend or relative come into the hospital in need of care.
Gold nodded. “He’s stable at the moment, but Mulan will find out more.” He slipped past Belle into the room and hung up his lab coat. “Come on. Let’s go home and start Christmas.”
Belle nodded. The drive back to the house was a somewhat sombre one, the news of Ursula’s dad hanging heavy in the air, and once they were in the driveway, looking at the switched-off Christmas lights, Belle’s mood was hardly improved.
“It’ll be all right,” Gold said, taking her hand where it rested limply between them. “Come on, let’s go in.”
Elvira and Bae were still asleep, but they would be up soon, to begin the Christmas celebration before Belle and Gold went to bed for a while; and they would eat together and finish opening presents in the evening. Belle went straight upstairs to the bathroom whilst Gold finished locking up; as tired as she was she wanted to take a shower before she collapsed completely. She’d just got under the spray and smoothed shampoo through her hair when she felt a pair of arms come around her and a kiss pressed to her shoulder, and she smiled.
“Despite what I said, I am way too tired for not-sleeping right now,” she said.
“Despite what I said, I am as well,” Gold muttered from her shoulder. “But Dr Gold’s diagnosis is that you sounded like you needed a cuddle so I’ve come to provide the necessary medication.”
Belle twisted in his embrace and sighed.
“Not quite the traditional Christmas morning,” she said. “Not like last year.”
Last year they had spent the majority of Christmas morning celebrating their engagement between the sheets, until Aunt Elvira had hammered on the door to tell them that lunch would be ready in half an hour and if they didn’t make an appearance at the table, she would bloody well storm their bedroom and drag them down the stairs, their state of undress be damned.
“There’ll be plenty of time later,” Gold said. Presently Belle felt his hands rub soap up and down her back, and she looked up at him.
“I don’t think you’re as grumpy as you make out, you know,” she said. Gold raised an eyebrow at her and squeezed her bottom by way of response. “I think you’d be quite good with patients.”
“We’ve been in a relationship for two years and you still haven’t learned that I’m the world’s worst doctor?”
Belle gave a huff of laughter. “I know you did ward rotations as part of your training.”
“Yes, that was almost thirty years ago, and the experience was so frightful for both me and the patients that I vowed never again and specialised in pathology. Far easier to deal with illnesses once they’ve been taken out of people. You, on the other hand, are absolutely wonderful with patients.”
Belle leaned up to kiss him before twisting out of his arms so that he could wash himself.
“You’re good with me and Bae and Elvira when we’re sick,” she said, rinsing her hair.
“That’s different. I’m good with you three because I love you,” he pointed out.
“And we all love you too, which is why we put up with you being the worst patient ever.”
“Doctors make terrible patients, everyone knows that.”
Belle just smiled and slipped past him out of the tub, patting his arse on the way past and enjoying the way he jumped.
“Turn about’s fair play.”
“Minx,” Gold growled, but the word was swallowed in a yawn.
Back in the bedroom, Belle flopped forward onto the covers with a groan, closing her eyes. Night shifts always took it out of her, and by the time her body got used to being nocturnal, her shift pattern had changed and she was back on days.
“You’re not going to be very comfortable if you have a nap in a wet towel,” Gold observed, coming out of the bathroom. Belle hooked her towel off, dropped it unceremoniously on the floor and curled up again, naked.
“Can we opt out of Christmas this year and do it in a couple of days once I’m awake?” she mumbled.
“Possibly.” She felt the mattress dip as Gold sat beside her. “Aren’t you cold with no clothes on and no blankets?”
“That’s what I have you for.” Belle felt around for her fiancé and grabbed him, pulling him in closer and promptly divesting him of his own towel. “You’re my human hot water bottle.”
Gold gave a non-commital grunt of acquiescence and shifted around until he was holding her, and Belle pressed up against his warm chest.
“Let’s just hide in here,” she said. “Let Elvira and Bae have Christmas without us.”
Their cuddle was cut short by a little knock on the door.
“Merry Christmas!” Aunt Elvira called through the wood.
Gold rolled his eyes.
“Merry Christm- don’t-you-dare-come-in!” he squawked on hearing the door handle begin to turn.
“All right, all right, I won’t interrupt your festive frolicking.”
“Some chance of that,” Belle murmured.
“I’m going to start breakfast now,” Elvira called. “Enjoy your private celebrations whilst you can.”
Gold sighed and buried his face in the pillows. Belle just giggled.
“You love her really.”
“I do, that’s the whole prob…”
He didn’t get to finish the word, as they were interrupted by an almighty tumbling crash and a torrent of Scottish profanity from the bottom of the stairs, shortly followed by the thundering of Bae’s footsteps along the landing. Gold sprung up off the bed and grabbed for their towels, but the bedroom door crashed open before either of them had the chance to cover up, and Belle rolled off the bed with a scream.
“Aunt Elvira’s fallen down the stairs JESUS put some pants on!”
Bae left the room as quickly as he had entered it and Belle peeped up above the bed as Gold pulled on his dressing gown and left the room, turning the air blue with curses as he did.
She got up, pulling the nearest available clothes out of the closet and getting dressed as quickly as possible.
It was certainly shaping up to be an interesting Christmas morning.
X
When Ella Furrier, nurse-in-charge of Resus on 25th December and longtime friend of a certain grumpy pathologist, saw said grumpy pathologist coming into Resus less than four hours after he had left it earlier in the morning, she had to raise a perfectly painted eyebrow. Since Ursula’s dad had been stabilised and moved to a ward for observation, she was feeling much happier in herself and her usual humour had returned.
“Back so soon, Dr Gold?” she quipped.
Gold scowled at her, narrow-eyed and thoroughly exhausted.
“Don’t even ask,” he growled darkly.
Ella held her hands up in a gesture of surrender.
“I shall leave you to it. Oh, one thing, Gold?”
“Yes?”
“Merry Christmas.”