Sean turned off the engine and glanced at his beautiful wife, not sure he could do this. He looked into her piercing blue eyes as the moonlight radiated off her blonde hair and he just wanted to stay here together, forever and never have to go out and face the crowds.
“I can’t do this Lara.” He whispered sadly, his eyes glancing away from her judging expression.
“Sean!” She exclaimed. “We’ve had this invitation for almost a year now and you’ve never had any doubts. When it was me who didn’t want to come you said that I had to come, that we had to show them all how strong we were. What’s changed all of a sudden?”
“It’s Tina. I just can’t face her after all these years.”
“But I can face Patrick?” She spat. “Why is it any different?”
“You weren’t the one who was having an affair, you weren’t the one who left his wife and child, were you?”
“No. Patrick was the one who cheated on me, left me to bring up his child but I can manage to face him and if Tina’s anything like me-“
“But she’s not!” He interrupted. “Tina is nothing like you, in fact she’s the opposite of everything you are. She wont be able to cope seeing me again.”
“Are you sure that it’s not you that can’t cope seeing her? Maybe you think that if you see her again after all this time you’ll realise what a mistake you made leaving her and coming with me.”
“Lara! Please, don’t be stupid. I love you and you know that. I have never regretted anything we’ve done but it’s just… It’s been ten years for god’s sake!” Lara sighed loudly and shook her head in his general direction. She looked down at the shimmering silver dress that she had run many miles, hidden many stretch marks and avoided many mince pies to squeeze into. She thought about how much she longed to walk in there and wow all her old colleagues with what she had done with her life and how she now looked even better than when she was last in Holby, all those years ago. She had been planning their entrance for months: the way they would walk in arm in arm and everyone would turn and stare. All the old crew who had agreed to meet up for one last time, seeing as it was Christmas and all. It was quite funny, for Lara at least, to picture them all in there trying to make small talk and be polite. She could imagine Colette and Simon gossiping in a corner as Josh and Penny gave them death stares from across the room. It must have been what, eleven years ago when Colette and Simon had shared that first fateful kiss and no one had batted an eyelid when Her and Josh later split up and then later when Josh and Penny had got together. They knew it was going to happen; it was just a question of when.
She knew that Patrick would be sitting there with her, the bitch that broke up her marriage. Now that one had people gossiping, unlike Colette and Josh people had really thought that Lara and Patrick were in it for the long run, and when she had re appeared no one had ever thought anything would happen. But now it’s many years later and they are together. Lara knows that she should be grateful to Holly for stealing Patrick off her because if she had never ruined her marriage to Patrick then she would never have gone over to stay in Australia and never would have got together with Sean but there was something holing her back from ever forgiving her…
“I’m going in, even if you’re not.” Lara snapped as she opened the car door as gracefully swung her legs out of the car. Sean sat there for a moment, watching her, before he too stepped out of the car.
“Wait Lara!” He called as he ran to catch up with her, the gravel scattering from beneath his feet as he did. Lara smiled victoriously as she swivelled around on one of her ridiculously high heeled shoes and opened her arms to him. They hugged for the briefest of moments before walking inside.
Inside it was like being a child’s party. Food was laid out along a narrow wooden table at one end of the hall and along the other side was a small bar where most of the staff were clustered. It was strange to see them all again, all the people who had ever worked there, by the memory of Charlie, had been invited to celebrate their time at Holby, for one last Christmas before the hospital was finally closed, like they had been threatening to do since 1986. Lara looked around in amazement at the people she had once known so well but were now little more than strangers passing on the street. There had to be hundreds of people here, all linked only by Charlie and the hospital they had all once worked in. Lara’s eyes skimmed the crowd of people, looking for only one man but seeing many familiar faces. She saw Anna, Nikki and Roxy all throwing back shots of something or another as they shuddered from the affect of the last one, Lara laughed when she thought that they might have grown up, no such luck. She saw her old friend Tina clinging to her new partner as if her life depended on it, she felt Sean’s eyes stray to his old love so she tightened her grip on his hand to remind him that she was here. Tony and Dillon were all over each other, which surprised no one, despite the fact that they both denied their feelings for years and Dillon broke Anna’s heart when he called of their sham of a relationship to follow his heart. Comfort and Finn were firing glances that could boil ice at each other from opposite ends of the room, obviously in the middle of one of their numerous rows that seemed to be a constant part of their marriage. Lara was just about to go and talk to Comfort when something, someone, caught her eye. The one couple that were sitting still amongst the mayhem of movement that was going on around them…
“Patrick, it feels like everyone is staring at me. Like they are all expecting me to fall at any moment.” Holly sighed as she looked nervously around at the people surrounding her. Patrick looked at her and, seeing the fear that was painted on her face, he realised just how much it was asking of her just to be in Holby again and to face all those fears that she’d buried deep inside and tried to forget for many years. He smiled gently and squeezed her hand reassuringly.
“Hol, don’t worry- I doubt anyone has even noticed that we exist. Look at them: they’re all too busy with their own problems, everyone watching someone else or drinking themselves into a coma.” Holly smiled back warmly, glad that he understood her insecurities. She opened her mouth to thank him but before she could speak she felt a hand on her shoulder and jumped out of her chair in surprise.
“Hey Hol! Calm down, it’s just me.” Tina said as she walked into Holly’s vision. Holly breathed a sigh of relief and grinned at Tina as she sat back down.
“Teen, you gave me a bit of a shock then!” She laughed nervously.
“Oh yeh, sorry… Have you seen them?” She asked as she glanced around nervously, sounding more and more paranoid by the second.
“Who?”
“Sean and stone face.” Tina said, adopting Simon’s catch fraze.
“You mean me?” Lara asked and it was Tina’s turn to jump in fright.
“Yes I mean you.” She said as she regained her composure. “Have you been avoiding me?”
“If I was avoiding you would I be standing here right now?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
“Point taken, why are you here?”
“To try and make it up, I want us to be friends- the way we were once. Agree?” Lara held out her hand but Tina just laughed.
“Friends? What ever gave you that idea? I still hate you!”
“But why? It’s been ten years for god’s sake.” Lara shouted, causing all the people in the room to fall silent, the ones that knew the history gossiped behind their hands and the ones who didn’t watched open-mouthed as the drama unfolded before their eyes.
“Are you honestly saying that after going through the same thing you can forgive Holly and become friends?”
“Hey! Don’t get me involved in this!” Holly yelled defensively as she jumped up to face them.
“You got yourself involved the second you kissed my husband.” Lara spat.
“Ex husband.” She corrected her. “And you’re hardly one to judge now are you?” Holly laughed.
“What are you on about?”
“Sean. Tina. Remember? If I’m a home wrecker then so are you!”
“Well at least Tina didn’t have a kid. I didn’t split up a happy family like you did.”
“I was pregnant, or did you erase that little fact from your memory? I had to go through nine months of hell on my own, immense pain on my own and then bring up my little girl all by myself. While all the time you were living it up with my husband!”
“And as for being a happy family, that’s a laugh! Do you really think he would have come running back to me if you were so happy?” Holly said, uncharacteristically nastily as Lara gasped. There was a silence that filled the room for no more than a second but Charlie saw his opportunity to regain control of the situation. He bashed a spoon against the side of his wine glass so hard that it threatened to break.
“Hello.” He called to the crowd. “Remember me? Person in charge?” Everyone turned guiltily back towards Charlie as they remembered why they were here. “I have been asked by them in charge to make a speech, so here goes. I want to thank you all for coming here tonight and giving up a few hours of your Christmas: it means a lot to me that we can all meet like this one more time before the hospital is torn down to make room for a new…” He faltered, barely able to spit the words out. “For a new… shopping centre!” There was collective booing as soon as the words escaped his mouth. “I know how hard it was for some of you to come back to this place. Some of you have had to forget great suffering that has happened here.” He looked at Holly, then Sam and finally Tony and Nikki who had all had to fight with their pasts to come here. “And there is the fact that almost all of you have had to put up with great heart ache and confronted lovers, husbands and wives who you haven’t seen in some cases for months, others years.” He gazed down the hall where there were two lines of people who refused to stand anywhere near each other, all exs who had eyes for only one person in the room. Charlie looked hopefully at Baz before carrying on. “I will now tell you some of the pitiful excuses that your colleagues have given for not attending. Chloe, for example, still refuses to set foot in the country because she believes that the police are after her. Someone really ought to tell her that they caught the guy and that they don’t care any more. Max and George’s flight from Canada was delayed so they wont be here until tomorrow. Kuba has somehow managed to get lost on his way here and umm… let me think…” Charlie shuffled through his notes. “That just leaves Sunny and Amy who had to stay and look after their newly born granddaughter.” There was a loud ‘ahh’ from the audience. “And now I come to the final and saddest part of my speech. I want to remind you of all the people who can’t be here tonight all though I’m sure they would want to be. Let’s remember Ewart who started this all, Sandra, Andrew and everyone else who lost their life in the hospital. Then there is Jack who was in an accident just a few months ago and none of us can quite believe is gone, Adam who lost his battle with Aids just last year, Megan and of course Duffy who I know wanted to be here more than anything else but she just couldn’t hold on any longer…Lastly I must make a toast. Here is to Holby City General hospital, the night shift that started it all, to casualty, to the tangled web that is our lives and most importantly: merry Christmas!” Charlie paused, stared around him and saw one joint hand lift their glasses and one voice reply.
“Merry Christmas Charlie!” They shouted as the music once again began and they looked to one another and felt ashamed at the fact that they never realised how lucky they were to be able to stand in this hall and hurl insults at the person they loved or hated most. Only now did they understand that they were lucky to feel their hearts break because at least it meant they could feel, it meant they were alive. And, right now, they couldn’t ask for any more than to be alive at Christmas. Just then the doors sprang open and a funny looking man walked into the hall.
“Sorry I’m late, what have I missed?” Kuba announced.