A/N: The hospital Jamie is in is Guy’s and St. Thomas’s in London, because I may need to use the location again and I have considerable personal experience of it. However, I have no idea if it has a children’s leukaemia ward. Set approximately a year after If You Go Down To The Woods Today. Please read and review!

The ward was greyish, as hospital wards often are. A boy sat in his bed, absorbed by computer solitaire, and looked up quickly and set the laptop aside as firm footsteps approached and smiled broadly. “Liz!”

“Hi, Jamie.” Liz smiled back and abstracted a chair from the bedside of Jamie’s neighbour so she could sit down, hoisting her backpack onto her lap. “Hanging in there?”

“Yeah.” He put more cheerfulness into the smile for her, although they both knew there wasn’t too much to smile about; after a solid two and a half years in remission, Jamie Burke-Lester’s acute lymphoblastic leukaemia had returned, and now he was back in chemotherapy, which he detested. It made his hair fall out, and it made him throw up.

“Good. I brought the things you asked for. Plus extras.” Liz opened the rucksack and started to pull things out.

“Ooh. Extras?” Jamie sat up straight, watching as a pile developed on his bed; a new A4 sketchbook, a tin of drawing pencils, a packet of mechanical pencils, a fresh rubber, as well as a set of brightly coloured felt-tipped pens and a memory stick.

“Yup, extras. The pens are from me, the memory stick is from Dad; he says it might not be as good as drawing from life, but drawing from photos is better than drawing from memory. Where’s your laptop?”

“Bedside thingy.” Jamie gestured vaguely, absorbed in the new equipment. “Liz, you’re officially the best big sister ever. I finished the old sketchbook yesterday morning and I’ve been bored as hell ever since.”

Liz laughed, and hugged him. “You’re officially the best little brother ever. Can I see the old sketchbook?”

“Sure.”

His sister picked up the old book and flipped through it. Jamie had inherited his dark hair and eyes from his mother, his talent for drawing from his father, and his liking for compromise from neither –hence the double-barrelled name; after Sir James Lester and Kathy Burke had divorced, Liz had chosen to stick with Lester, the youngest, Nicky, had changed his surname to Burke, but Jamie had stayed neutral and picked Burke-Lester- but right now, only the talent for drawing concerned Liz. Here, a detail from the cover of his latest favourite book, here, a cartoon of a nurse who had failed to befriend him, here a page of hand sketches for practise. Liz whistled appreciatively. “You’re damned good.”

“I know,” said Jamie smugly, and he grinned and ducked as she swiped at him. “You know, I love how you and Dad don’t treat me like I’m fragile now.”

“You are fragile,” Liz said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, but less of the tread-softly-round-the-invalid from Mum and Nicky would be cool.”

“Should I mention it?”

“What!” Jamie squawked. “Hell, no! You’ll start a feud, I know you!”

“That’s me,” Liz agreed mildly. “Speaking of Dad, can I take this home to show him?” She brandished the sketchbook she’d been looking through.

“’Course.” Jamie looked up from writing his name and three addresses (his mother’s, his father’s, and the leukaemia ward’s) in the front of the new sketchbook, which would take him less time if he weren’t using red and black for alternate letters. “Get him to write me a nice long email about which ones he likes and why and what I’ve done wrong and all that.”

“I can do better than that. I’ll send him to see you,” Liz said, feeling slightly guilty that she knew why Lester had had to miss his last appointment to see Jamie and Jamie didn’t. Entelodonts in Glasgow added up to an incident that required his personal attendance, and although Lester had been cross about it he hadn’t been able to do anything about it other than warn Liz she’d be on her own in the flat for a couple of days; Liz understood well enough the demands of her father’s job, but she’d been unhappy about it for Jamie’s sake.

“Can you?” Jamie said, sounding highly pleased. “I know he’s really busy and his job’s-“

“I can,” Liz said firmly. “Look, Jamie, he didn’t want to miss seeing you, he was so pissed off about it, but the j-“

“I know,” Jamie interrupted. There was a pause, then he said: “We never did find out what his job was, did we? Unless he told you.”

“No,” Liz lied, feeling even guiltier; she had, in fact, known for nearly the past year what Lester did for a living, ever since she’d found herself and her friends on the lunch menu of a rogue deinonychus, but she knew she couldn’t tell Jamie about the ARC. “I just know it’s highly secret and Home-Officey and the hours are crap, and we knew that anyway. Look, Jamie, I can’t stay long, this is my lunch-break at school, but do you want me to read to you for a bit?”

“Please!” Jamie, successfully diverted, retrieved the sixth Harry Potter from his bedside table and passed it to Liz, who opened it to the right page and drew breath to speak- and then her phone bleeped, Liz leapt a foot in the air and dropped the book, and Jamie burst out laughing.

A nurse hurried over and frowned at them. “We’ll hush,” Jamie promised, and then added, “Liz, what is it?”

Liz was staring at her phone and looking very puzzled. The text message was short and to the point: where r u? fire skl. teachers frantic.

“Who’s it from?” Jamie asked nosily, craning his neck to try and see.

“Juliet,” Liz said absently.

“Your girlfriend? The one you went on D of E with last year?”

“Yeah, only she wasn’t my girlfriend then.” Liz got up. “Jamie, I’m sorry, I’m going to have to go, there’s been a fire at school.” She hugged her brother. “See you soon. Have fun with the sketchbook and stuff. Love you.”

“Bye, Liz.”

Liz walked quickly away, turning at the end of the ward before she pushed open the door to raise a hand to Jamie, who waved in return. Then she left, marched down the corridor and called the lift. Once inside, she phoned Juliet. “Hi Jules?”

“Liz! Where are you?” Juliet sounded excited.

“Hospital. Visiting Jamie. I did tell you.”

“Oh yeah, I remember... just let me tell Miss Vandermeer...” There was a brief silence while Juliet explained Liz’s whereabouts to the irascible Physics teacher. “How’s Jamie?”

“No better, no worse. Look, what happened? What fire?” Liz left the lift and turned the corner, heading for the main glass doors to the outside.

“Dunno. Just a fire. We all got evacuated, and the firefighters came, and they’re still in there so we’re being sent home.”

“Crap, are we? I haven’t got my keys. They’re in my jacket in my locker.” Liz leant against a wall; no point going anywhere till she knew where she was going.

“Yeah, I haven’t even got my Oystercard ’cause the whole lot was in my bag. Except my phone, obviously.”

“Lucky, that. D’you want me to come and pick you up and we can catch a movie or something?” Liz suggested, making plans in her head. She couldn’t go home, not without her keys, and the concierge loathed her and wasn’t likely to lend her the spare set of keys. So, if she killed time in the city, a movie or something- that would be okay- but she’d have to phone Dad to find out when he was getting home- or could she get the keys from Dad herself? Would he mind her turning up at the ARC?

“I’d love to, but I have Maths tutoring,” Juliet said regretfully. “Calculus is evil and only strange people like you can understand it.”

“What, even when the school’s on fire?” Liz wanted to know, surprised.

“Yeah. According to Ed, Maths tutoring stops for no man, beast or d- disaster.”

Liz sighed. “What did he really say? Man, beast or-?”

“Man, beast or dinosaur, actually.” Juliet hesitated. “You know what he’s like.”

“I certainly bloody do,” Liz said grimly. “Damn him, if he doesn’t shut up about it I’ll...”

“Disembowel him?” Juliet suggested.

The other teenager laughed. “That’d be a good start. God, I wish he’d just get over it. Anyway, good luck with the tutoring.”

“Thanks. I’ll need it.”

“You’re not as bad at Maths as you think you are. See you tomorrow, then- oh, wait, are you still coming round after school tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“Great. See you then. Bye!”

“Bye!” Juliet ended the call, and Liz tucked her phone away, smiling slightly. Juliet always made her feel more cheerful and nicer towards people in general, even Ed Mackenzie on a dinosaur rampage.

Ed Mackenzie. The smile vanished as she looked around to get her bearings. The boy was six months older than her, and like Juliet, Liz and two of Liz’s friends, had been on the Duke of Edinburgh expedition that had been crashed by a deinonychus. Unlike Mark, Amandeep, or Juliet, Ed had not been willing to believe or at least pretend to believe that it hadn’t been a homicidal dinosaur but a rare kind of carnivorous lizard escaped from a conservation centre. He knew a predatory dinosaur when he saw one, apparently, and he just wouldn’t shut up about it. He was convinced –and he was right- that there was a government conspiracy involved. Of course, he wouldn’t shout from the rooftops that he’d been chased by a prehistoric creature; he wasn’t stupid enough to think he’d be believed, and anyway, he’d signed the Official Secrets Act. But he would hint and throw the word dinosaur into any casual conversation with the others, looking for someone else who thought as he did or trying to inspire them to think as he did, highly irritating Liz until three months ago she’d lost her temper with him. They’d had a row of cataclysmic proportions, both of them yelling themselves hoarse. Luckily, they hadn’t been at school, and Juliet had managed to calm them down, but ever since then Ed had avoided Liz.

It wasn’t as if Liz minded. He had been less and less her friend, ever since the failed D of E expedition.

She glanced around. She was now facing Westminster Bridge, the Houses of Parliament on the opposite side of the Thames to her; since it was a sunny day, the place was heaving with tourists, and Liz sidestepped a large and chattering Japanese party with cameras at the ready and dodged a jovial American family almost on automatic before deciding on her route. If she went right along the waterfront, she would reach the ARC with little fuss and no need to work out bus or Tube routes. It would be a bit of a way, but she liked walking, and it wasn’t as if she was in a hurry: it would give her time to call her father and check turning up at the ARC to filch his keys was all right with him.

Liz elbowed her way through the crowd and found her way down to the waterfront, where she got out her mobile phone again and texted her father. fire skl haven’t got keys can come borrow yours? She sent the text, then stuffed the phone back into her rucksack and started to walk briskly along the pavement.

Sir James Lester did not, on the whole, enjoy budget meetings. They were a necessary evil, and as such he preferred not to have them interrupted, as interruptions usually meant they would be prolonged. Therefore, he was not best pleased when his BlackBerry rang towards the end of one, just when he’d been beginning to tentatively look forward to escaping. Connor Temple ground to a halt in the middle of explaining the latest addition to the anomaly detector, and stared at him.

Lester cursed to himself and retrieved the personal organiser from his jacket pocket, glaring at it. Liz Lester has sent you a text message at 13:24. He opened and read it, then rose. “Excuse me,” he said briefly, and went out into the corridor, closing the door gently behind him; a gentle swell of conversation rose as he left.

He stood looking out of the window as Liz’s phone rang and she picked it up. “Hello, Liz. What’s this about a fire at school?... Are you all right? Oh yes, you were with Jamie. Yes, of course I’ll visit him this evening. So who told you about the fire?... I see. As for the keys- yes, you can come to the ARC. Where are you?... All right. Call me when you reach the front of the ARC. Yes, I have a meeting to go back to... no, don’t worry about it; I was bored anyway. See you then. Bye.”

He put the BlackBerry away, but stood looking out of the window for a moment more. Of course, there was no reason why Liz should not come to the ARC. She already knew about it, after all, and she did need the keys. Nor was she one to chatter about it; he could testify to that. Liz had only once brought up the subject herself, and that had been to ask if the ARC had been part of the reason he and her mother had divorced, because he couldn’t tell her about it.

Lester shrugged. It would be all right.

Then, with a sigh, he turned and went back into the meeting.

Half an hour later, Liz reached the glass behemoth of modern architecture and looked at it with some trepidation. She wasn’t totally sure she was welcome here.

Swallowing her doubts, she took out her phone and speed-dialled her father.

He didn’t answer. She tried again. Still, there was no answer.

She waited a few more minutes and tried once more, but Lester still did not pick up the phone.

Then, eventually, she headed for the ARC, entered, and went up to the receptionist. “Excuse me. I’m Liz Lester, I’m here to see my father, Sir James Lester. He works here.”

“Why?” the receptionist asked suspiciously, looking at her. The woman had a nose like a hatchet, and reminded Liz very much of the concierge at the block of flats she lived in, who detested her.

“Because I need to borrow his set of keys, I’ve lost mine. I called him and he agreed I could come and get his, and he said to call him as soon as I reached the front of the ARC, but I have and he’s not responding,” Liz said politely.

“You need an appointment to see Sir James,” the receptionist informed her.

“I really don’t think I do. Not given that I’m his own daughter.” Liz chewed on the inside of her cheek, trying to disguise her worry and irritation. “If you wouldn’t mind calling up to his office, I’m sure he’d confirm what I’ve said.”

“Sir James is not available.”

“I don’t believe that,” Liz said flatly. “I think he’s just got his phone turned off. S’not the same thing. Please call up to his office.”

With a sniff, the receptionist did so. A secretary answered it, saying that Sir James was not in, and the receptionist smiled at Liz, more than a hint of triumph in her expression. “Fine,” Liz said, annoyed. “I’ll wait here for him, then.”

The receptionist did not stop smiling, but it lost its genuine edge. “I’m afraid-“

“I’m afraid that I have no intention of leaving without either seeing my father or receiving a phone call from him telling me what to do,” Liz told her through gritted teeth, trying to keep a hold on her temper. “I see there are some chairs over there. I’ll go and sit down.”

A woman in a short skirt and admirably high heels hurried past, looking occupied. “Miss Lewis!” the receptionist exclaimed with undisguised relief, causing the woman to execute a sharp about-face. “This young woman claims to be Sir James’s daughter and wishes to see him.”

“Miss Lewis?” Liz enquired hopefully. She thought she remembered a Miss Lewis, battering Ed into temporary submission with cold logic and public relations half-truths not long after the encounter with the deinonychus. “I think we met before. There was an accident involving a dinosaur and a Duke of Edinburgh group, and I was in the Duke of Edinburgh group.”

Recognition bloomed on the woman’s face. “Oh yes. Elizabeth, isn’t it?”

“Liz,” Liz corrected.

“-Liz, then. Yes, I remember. I’m afraid Sir James is not here at the moment, he’s in a meeting with the Ministry of Defence. Is there a problem? It will need to be quick, I’m in rather a hurry-”

“I need to borrow his keys to get home,” Liz said quickly. “There was a fire at school and I haven’t got my keys. He might have said, I did phone him, he said he was in a budget meeting.”

Understanding and memory joined the recognition. “Yes, he did say. He asked if I could give you the keys if you appeared, but that was just before he had to leave for the Ministry of Defence and he never gave me the keys... I don’t think he anticipated this.”

“What’s this?” Liz asked, realising that this was a situation with which she could cope. Frantic adult? No problem. Liz was used to frantic adults, or at least extremely busy ones.

“Well-“ Jenny looked doubtful.

“Miss Lewis, d’you remember what happened in that accident last year? I hit a dinosaur over the head with a stick. Since then, nothing surprises me.” This was not entirely true, but it was a convenient white lie, and Liz was not against convenient white lies.

“There’s a pack of troodontids in Salisbury,” Jenny Lewis said; perhaps, at another time, when she was in less of a hurry, she would not have answered Liz’s question, but that was academic. “The military are having knickerfits, and so are a bunch of hippies who may have lost a colleague to them.” She looked hard at Liz. “How good are you at keeping quiet and doing what you’re told?”

“Very. CCF saw to that.” Liz had gone, again, for the convenient white lie; Cadet Sergeants in the Combined Cadet Force, such as herself, did markedly less doing what they were told than ordinary Cadets.

“CCF?.. Tell me later. I think you’d better come with me.” Miss Lewis glanced at her watch and cursed. “Now.”

As Liz followed Jenny down to the car park at a brisk trot, she reflected that it was really quite amazing how fast the woman could run in those horrendous heels.