WHO: Lyra & Avery, then Patrick WHEN/WHAT: St Patrick's day, the aftermath WHERE: A hospital WARNINGS: excessive alcohol consumption
As Avery briskly walked in through the hospital doors, he tried not to fret too much about what on earth Lyra had got herself into. Patrick's message was sparse on detail, and he'd been lucky to see it, tucked away in his DMs when he was checking again to see if Lyra had replied to one of his messages, wondering where she was.
He'd left work early as promised, and had been just stepping off the bus to head into the throng when he'd been called back to go and report on some politician and their St Patrick's Day commemoration thing. That had meant going home for a change of clothes and going out again in a shirt and blazer over his good jeans. That job done, he'd gone back to searching for Lyra, impossible in the crowd of fake red and green wigs. Until, eventually, long after he'd given up and gone home again to see if she'd ended up there, the message from Patrick.
And so, Avery had looped out the door once again, this time to the hospital to check on his intoxicated wife.
"Lyra?" A receptionist had pointed him to the right ward, and he jogged up, sticking his head in through doors, looking for the right person. "Lyra!"
At last, that riot of red curls on a stark hospital pillow and a whey-coloured face beneath it, and a relieved and jiggling Patrick ducking out to find a bathroom. Avery paused in the doorway, looking Lyra over.