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happened to poor Jason?'
    Hannah, her registrar, pulled a face. She drew a dramatic finger across her throat. 'Ditched,' she pronounced. '"Too clingy", Daisy decided. There's been one in between, but if you ask me this latest one's the best yet. He's a football player. A real, professional one. And it seems serious. Daisy met him at that fund-raising telethon a couple of months ago. I saw him last night and I can understand the attraction. He's got a body you would not believe.'
    Annabel smiled. 'Trust Daisy,' she said lightly. Despite struggling with a heart condition that would have kept most people housebound, Daisy, a gorgeous and lively young woman, threw every tiny ounce of energy she could muster into maintaining her busy social life and fund-raising for one of the charities supporting research into heart disease. 'Well, considering she was too breathless to talk yesterday, let alone walk, if she's well enough this morning to be wanting to go out to movies we've done some good. Let's go and see her.'
    Daisy did look better. The day before her skin had been grey and bloated but this morning some of her colour was back and most of her swelling had resolved.
    'And it's very important, Dr Stuart.' Daisy sent her a beseeching look when Annabel lifted her head from examining her neck and heart and listening to the back of her chest. 'I've been looking forward to it for ages. It's a premiere. There'll be movie stars there and everything. And it's only in Leicester Square. If I get sick or anything it'll only take me fifteen minutes or so to get back here in a cab.'
    'I don't see that it'll do any harm,' said Annabel slowly. Daisy had improved overnight, and even if that improvement was, as they all knew, temporary, a few hours away would be a good test before she considered discharging her again. She smiled at her patient's delighted shriek. 'Promise me you won't do anything silly, or is that asking too much?'
    'Silly?' Daisy, still grinning, rolled her eyes dramatically. 'It's only a movie.'
    Annabel sent her juniors a dry look. 'Apparently your date has a body I would not believe.'
    Daisy flicked her blonde curls back behind her shoulders with a giggle. 'I promise not to exhaust myself,' she vowed. 'I'll be back by midnight.'
    'Make it eleven.' Annabel flicked through the folder containing the ward's drug charts until she came to Daisy's prescription chart. She crossed off the intravenous diuretic she'd added to the regime the day before and replaced it with the oral version. 'I'll have a chat with Mr Grant and let him know you're here.' Tony Grant was the transplant surgeon directly involved in Daisy's care. 'Any news on that front?'
    'Got my bleeper,' Daisy said cheerfully, indicating the small device on the bedside table beside her.
    Daisy's heart, despite her brightness, was severely damaged, functioning poorly and in urgent need of replacement. She was near the top of the recipient list for a transplant at the hospital and she carried the bleeper so the transplant team could reach her any time a suitably matched organ became available. 'It never leaves my side.' Her face stilled momentarily.
    'Mr Grant says things have been a bit quiet lately. It's funny the way that makes you feel, isn't it? I mean lately, now that I'm hoping it might not be too long before I have the surgery, and no matter how much I want the operation, I still feel a bit relieved there aren't any spare hearts because it means that other people aren't suffering too much.'
    'That's a common feeling,' murmured Annabel. Waiting for a donor heart was never easy because hoping for one meant there was always an element of guilt about the fact that another person had first to die. The transplant team included specialist counsellors who were skilled at helping recipients explore such issues and she felt it was a sign of their good work that Daisy felt able to voice her confusion so fluently. 'Want me to ask one of the team to pop up and chat with you?'
    Daisy