Well, this was inspired by a lovely day that I spent fishing with two friends. The idea just popped into my head, along with a lot of the dialogue – all I had to do was write it down!

*~*~*

Ric groaned as his phone rang shrilly. He rolled over in bed, already having an idea of who might have rung… there were two suspects, he decided. Jess, his demanding daughter, or Diane, his equally demanding best friend. He glanced at the phone’s display screen – “Diane mobile”. It also informed him that it was seven in the morning.

“Oh God…” he mumbled. It was his day off, the one day that he didn’t have to listen to Diane talking about Tom, and she had to call him. Probably she wanted to talk about her date from the previous day. Ric sighed… it would be so easy to ignore the incessant ringing, to just go back to sleep… But then, what if Diane needed to talk about something else? He accepted the call.

“Hello, Diane.”

“Ric, thank God you picked up, I thought you’d be asleep, but I didn’t know who else to call.” Diane sounded frantic.

“I was asleep, thank you very much.” Ric tried to stifle a yawn. He wasn’t letting Diane get away with this.

“Sorry. But I need your help.” Diane sounded utterly unapologetic.

“With what?” Ric queried, interestedly. He sat up in bed, and contemplated getting up. He dismissed the thought almost instantly.

“I’m lost,” Diane replied, sweetly.

“Lost? What the hell do you mean?” Against his better judgement, Ric hauled himself out of bed, and pulled on his dressing gown. If he was awake, he may as well make the most of it.

“I left Tom’s house and I don’t know where I am.”

Ric laughed. “Diane, surely you know your way from Tom’s house to your house?”

“Yes. Of course I do.” Diane sounded indignant.

“Then why are you lost?” he asked, exasperated.

“It’s a long story, Ric, but can you come and find me?”

“How the hell am I meant to do that, Diane?” he demanded. “If you don’t know where you are…”

“I sort of do, though,” she retorted. “And I’d be able to get myself home if I wasn’t out of petrol.”

“This just gets worse and worse,” Ric sighed. “Diane, tell me where you think you are, then, and I’ll come and find you.”

She hesitated, obviously thinking. “Well, I’m about ten miles out of Holby… it’s a long story, I’ll explain later. I’m by a field, there’s a river, and – and trees. And a little church.”

“I’ll be half-an-hour,” Ric replied, and hung up. He was confident that he could find the spot where Diane was.

*~*~*

After nearly forty-five minutes, he saw a familiar battered-looking car, parked next to a river. Diane was sitting on the bank, wearing yesterday’s clothes, her feet dangling in the water.

“Having fun?” The voice cut through the silence and stillness, and Diane turned around abruptly. Ric could see traces of tears on her face.

“Not really.” She looked up as he came and sat by her. “Sorry to drag you all the way out here.”

“That’s alright.” He gestured towards the parked car. “Is that your car?”

“Not exactly.” She looked away. “It’s Tom’s.” He was obviously expecting more of an explanation, so she continued. “Well, mine was at Holby City. I didn’t have a car and I wasn’t going to walk, was I?”

“Did he say that you could take his car?” Ric knew how protective Tom was of his car.

Diane didn’t reply for a moment, but simply leant back against Ric. Then she spoke. “No.”

“Diane, don’t tell me that you stole Tom Campbell Gore’s car!” Ric begged.

She shrugged. “Fine. I won’t.” She paused. “He dumped me, you know.”

Ric put his arm around her. “I’m sorry.”

Head still on his shoulder, she tilted her head to look up at him. “You’re not. You haven’t exactly been supportive of me going out with him, have you? You’d probably have preferred it if I went out with Jess.”

Ric allowed himself a chuckle. “Hmm. We’ll not think about that.” He looked down at her. “I am sorry for you, though. What happened?”

“Long story.” Diane began to pull away, but Ric caught her.

“I’ve got all day. Talk to me, Diane.” He hugged her. “Why did he dump you?”

“Anything and everything. Alex, basically.”

“Alex Adams?” he queried. “Oh, Diane, you haven’t…”

“No, I haven’t! What do you think I am?” she demanded, heatedly. “No, Alex just rang me when Tom and I were… well, you can imagine…” Ric grimaced, and Diane pushed him playfully. “Well, anyway, Alex rang, and I answered the phone and said ‘Hi honey’, and… Tom is surprisingly insecure.”

“Well, can you blame him?” Ric asked. “You spend all your time with Alex, you keep secrets for him, you apparently think his phone calls are more important than sex with Tom, you have pet names for him…”

Diane nodded. “You have a point. But Tom spent our entire date last night talking to Anita… you know, that psychiatrist woman? He actually invited her to sit at our table and paid for her food.” She made a face. “After that, he has no business in judging me.”

“So you stole his car?” Ric prompted.

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” she replied. “Tom ended up yelling at me about Alex, and it got to the stage where he was obviously yelling at me as my boss, he wasn’t thinking of me as his girlfriend. And I got annoyed… it was nice to clear the air, I suppose. But then he told me to get out, and I didn’t have a car, so I took his keys, and drove off in his car. I ended up driving around for about three hours, I just wanted to calm down a bit.”

“Does he know that you’ve got his car?”

“Well, unless he’s suddenly developed amnesia… which I’m sure that Anita will be glad to help him with,” she spat. “He saw me take it. Also saw me drive it into that stupid bay tree thing that he’s so proud of.”

“You ran over his tree?” Ric spluttered, trying to keep a straight face. “Diane, I can’t tell you how glad I am that you didn’t hate me when we split up.”

“Ah, I could never hate you, Ric.” She glanced at Tom’s car. “I ran over the tree – damn thing’s dead now.”

Ric followed Diane’s glance. “Is that long scratch anything to do with you?”

“I may have scraped the keys along the side,” she replied, with an innocent look on her face.

“And the dent in the back bumper?”

“The tree did that.” She leant against Ric’s shoulder comfortably.

“You’re very vindictive,” he commented.

“Yeah, well, he deserved it. Making me out to be some sort of slut…” She absent-mindedly began picking grass, and started shredding it in her fingers.

“You’re too good for him anyway,” Ric assured her, seeing that her eyes were filling with tears. He hugged her to him for a moment, glancing into the water. “Aren’t your feet cold?”

“Nah… you get used to it after a while.” She idly kicked with her feet for a moment, and stopped suddenly, shuddering. “I think that there’s fish in there.”

“Probably.” Ric looked into the water. “I think there are – minnows, probably.”

Diane snatched her feet up, unintentionally spattering herself and Ric with water. “Sorry.” She shook some stray drops of water off her feet, and wobbled hopelessly.

“You’re going to fall in,” Ric remarked. Diane paid no attention, and continued to try and dry her feet. She teetered on the edge of the riverbank, and Ric put his arms around her waist instinctively. The next moment, they were both sitting in the shallow water, laughing.

“It’s cold,” Diane commented. Ric bit back a sarcastic comment, and simply laughed, helping Diane up.

“Well, that certainly woke us up.”

Diane sighed slightly. “I didn’t sleep.”

“Too much information, Diane.” Ric turned away to hide his jealousy.

She grimaced. “No. I was arguing with Tom and driving around all night. We never got around to… that.”

“Thank goodness,” Ric replied.

Diane glared at him. “What, you want me to be celibate now?”

“That’s not what I said.” Ric made his way to the car.

“As I recall, you never used to complain about the fact that I’m not celibate,” Diane shot at him, annoyed.

“That’s out of order,” Ric shot back.

“So were you!”

“Diane, I wasn’t trying to start a fight…”

She shook her head. “Sorry, I – I just…”

He nodded. “I know.”

She flopped down on the grass. “You know what?”

He sat down next to her. “What?”

“I miss this.” She looked up at him, and leant back against him.

“Am I your chair all of a sudden?” he queried. “What do you mean, this?”

“You know, us, not being at work, just… well, I miss you, I suppose.”

“You see me every day,” Ric replied, keeping his voice light. As Diane opened her mouth again, to tell him that that wasn’t what she’d meant, that she was being stupid, to forget it all, he put a finger on her lips. “Wait a minute. I know what you mean.”

She pushed his finger away. “You do? How…?”

“If you mean that you miss being… well…” He stalled, suddenly afraid that he’d got the wrong end of the stick. “Together,” he eventually finished. “Then, well, I…”

“Feel the same,” she finished. Ric paused, wondering what to do next. Diane didn’t give him long to think, she leaned over and kissed him gently.

After a few minutes, they were sitting by the river, in much the same stance as they had been before. Diane spoke. “When…?”

Ric smiled. “Since the moment I saw you sitting in my chair.”

She laughed. “You know, you could have told me. Would have saved a whole year, Ric.” She put her head on his shoulder. “This is comfy.”

“Thanks,” he laughed. And, against his better judgement, he stood up. “We should go. We’ve been here nearly two hours.”

“Two wonderful hours,” she corrected him.

As they began to drive away, Ric paused. “What about Tom’s car?”

Diane glanced back at it. “Forget it. Water under the bridge, Ric.”