you're never gone forever
She wasn't sure if anyone she knew other than Charlie would still be here, it'd been that long she didn't even recognise the surrounding area that well, it had changed a lot since she'd last been here to visit Charlie, about eight years ago. It had been over fifteen years since she'd lived here, worked at the hospital. Yet now she was back. And this time she didn't just have herself to think about.
'Mum, get him to give it back, it's not fair, it's mine'
She sighs as she listens to her two youngest children bicker and squabble from the back of the car. 'Thomas, Alice, for god's sake stop fighting will you?' She tells them. They both begin to explain themselves, ready to pose their sides of the argument but she prevents them from doing so with a firm. 'No, I don't want to hear it, sort it out between yourselves' she says calmly yet authoritatively. They continue to squabble, but they make sure to keep their voices down as they do so as they try to avoid getting into trouble. Their mum never really got angry but you could always tell when she was upset or disappointed in you, even when she tried her best to hide it.
'How long until we get there?'
Her middle daughter chirps up. Emma's also sat in the back of the car and from what she can see in the wing mirror has spent almost the whole journey with a battered copy of 'David Copperfield' glued to her hands.
'Not long now, Em, we should be there by six' she says and she notices Emma lean over her sister (who's been squashed in the middle) to look at the car clock. It says four forty-six but it's an hour slow, she'd never worked out how to change it and they'd all just become accustomed to having to count an hour forwards.
'So only about ten minutes then?' Emma asks and she nods in response. Emma then resumes her position, David Copperfield wedged between her hands and eyes fixated on the page. Alice and Tom continue to argue for the rest of the journey while Poppy, her eldest daughter who's in the coveted front-seat position sits with her iPod jammed in her ears and occasionally makes small adjustments to the drawing on the open page of her sketch pad. Poppy's drawing a fairy, some sort of evil gothic fairy highlighted with dark shading and spooky candles in the surrounding scene. The fairy has piercings, streaked hair and doc martens. And a facial expression that's frighteningly cold, unfeeling. Even catching just the odd glimpse of the drawing makes her shiver; she wonders where her daughter's creative visions come from sometimes, why most of Poppy's drawings are the scariest she's ever encountered.
She notices now that they're on the road of their destination and she calls out to the rest of the car to 'look out for house numbers, we're looking for number 63'. The children call out random numbers as they spot them (41, 18, 27) until Emma finally sees 'number 63' and shouts for everyone to stop.
They pile out of the car, Alice and Tom still fighting; Poppy snapping her sketchbook shut and shoving it along with her iPod into her backpack and Emma keeping hold of her book, placing a small piece of purple ribbon in between the pages so she remembers the point she's at. They don't bother to retrieve their main bags from the boot yet; she just grabs hold of Alice and Tom's hands and hurries to the door, releasing Tom to push the doorbell before taking his hand hostage once more. 'Em, Pops, come on' she calls to her two oldest children, who are stood by the car. Poppy, being six years senior takes Emma's hand in a manner similar to how her mother took Thomas and Alice's hands and drags Emma to the door, hunching her shoulders slightly and dragging her feet a little with the reluctance of a true teenager. Emma skips behind her, role of annoying younger sister evident just from looking at them.
The door opens and there stands Charlie with a toddler wrapped around his legs. She's so delighted to see him again that, for a moment she just stands there, stock still. Then it hits her. She's really back in holby.
notes- who is 'she'? it's probably rather obvious but hey, feel free to guess! please review (you can tell me who you've guessed) and if you like it enough to favourite or follow that'd really make my day! sorry for any mistakes, tell me if you spot some.