This fic was inspired by Payphone by Maroon 5.
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Payphone
"Beep, beep, the owner of this phone is unavailable at the moment. Please leave a message after the tone." Diane sighs and sets the phone back on the hook, the mechanic drone of the automated answer machine still ringing in her ears. She pulls her purse out of her handbag, which is balanced on the top of the payphone. Diane counts her coins, wondering if she has enough to call again. She leans back on the glass wall of the phone booth. To be honest, Diane thought that payphones didn't exist anymore, having being put out of business by the mobile phone. However, she has managed to stumble across one in a garage in the back streets of Holby on a Tuesday evening; on the day she left her phone at home and desperately needed to make a phone call. She would call herself lucky, except for the fact that this is the only vaguely lucky thing that has happened to her in years.
She wonders where Ric is, and why he isn't answering his phone. He's probably in theatre right now, wasn't that where he was going when she left the hospital? Diane can't remember, and maybe she's just narrowing it down to the obvious, because she really doesn't know. She and Ric don't really talk anymore, at least not at all like they used to. Diane wonders how they've managed to get here, how they have managed to damage their friendship to this extent. It's all wrong, how they act in each other's company now, all stilted conversation and false platitudes, and even when they talk it usually ends in angry recriminations. Where have the plans, they made all those years ago when they were young and in love, gone? They've have been lost in the echoes of time, trapped in the past, forgotten and neglected, probably never to be revisited and fulfilled.
She wonders what has happened to them. Even just after she met him for the first time, friendship had been something that had come easily to them - natural, it had seemed. Now, they can hardly string more than three words together in each other's presence, and Diane isn't sure why. It's been a long time since they were together, and she had prided herself on the fact that even though they split up, they remained friends. A little while ago, Diane would have called Ric her best friend, if they weren't far too old to have such things as best friends. Now, things are different, he has a fiancé who he seems to love – though Diane is pretty sure he doesn't, not really. It's what he tends to do when he's lonely or confused, find a woman and propose, and usually, for some reason or another, they say yes.
Not her though. Diane didn't say yes, so many moons ago. She knows it's hard for him to remember the times they were happy together, for it's hard for her too, to recall what they had and how they lost it. Over the past few days, she's found herself trying to remember the person she used to be – the person who didn't cry over men and lost chances, the woman who was strong, the woman who had Ric's back even if he didn't ask her to, and the woman who Ric backed up, even when she was in a tight corner and there seemed to be no way out. That person, that Diane, is gone, and she can hardly remember who she used to be.
It's even harder for her to remember the person Ric used to be. The man who cared about her, not the man who he is now – the one who lets her down time and time again, the one who is no longer her shoulder to cry on, no longer the person who she could always depend on. It hurts her that Ric is so different now to who he used to be. He seems so distant to her now, when he used to be so near, and Diane sometimes sits there and tries to work out what went so wrong with them, but without him beside her, it's far too difficult to even start, because she can barely reconcile who they are now to who they were then. That hurts too.
Diane glances out of the dirty glass booth, sighing again. Elliot's wife's car is sitting on the garage forecourt, like it has been for the past half hour, waiting for her to return. She slips more coins into the phone and dials his number, learned by heart a long time ago now. Everything seems to have happened a long time ago, in relation to Ric and her. Nothing seems to have happened between them for some time, and yet the whole focus of their relationship has shifted from close friendship to a sort of casual acquaintance. "Beep, beep, the owner of this phone is unavailable at the moment. Please leave a message after the tone." She puts the phone down again. He must still be in theatre.
She remembers the words he uttered yesterday, three words she never thought could break her heart. Never did she ever imagine the words 'it's another country', could ever tear her apart like they did, spilling from his mouth as she wept. She had been pretty angry when she had entered his office, angry and upset. Diane can't understand why the hell Thandie would ask her to be her bridesmaid, at her wedding to Ric. Thandie knows that her and Ric have a history, it's obvious – or well, it was obvious once upon a time that they had been more than friends at some point in the past – so why open up the wounds that had only just healed, wounds that were caused by Ric's revelation that he was engaged again.
She's had to sit through one of his weddings in the past. It wasn't that long after they had finished, no more than a year, when he had married another doctor at the hospital they had both worked at, the hospital they had met at. Diane remembers that the woman had been a friend of hers, so she had garnered an invitation, and then nearly cried when she had seen Ric at the altar, looking so handsome in his suit. It was ironic really, that they had only broken up because she hadn't wanted to be the woman walking up the aisle to him, because it cut her up, watching him marry someone else. Diane wonders if that's how Ric felt when he attended her wedding to Owen.
Owen. Her ex-husband's name doesn't hurt her like it used to. To be truthful, the damage that Owen inflicted on her healed quickly, and she moved on sooner than she had expected. Her only other long term relationship that she had – with Ric - ever had ended in tears, just like it had with Owen, but the pain is still there, even now, even when so much time has passed. It must be the people. It's simple, now looking back on it, that she cares so much more for Ric than she ever did for Owen, and always did. She must have been blind not to have seen it: blind and stupid. Now it's far too late, because Ric is now the one in a serious relationship.
Diane wonders if they are destined always to do this. To pretend that nothing ever happened between them, then for one of them to realise that they are still in love with the other, but for the other party to be with someone else. She remembers this has happened before, not just now, but with the roles reversed. Ric had tried to make her see that he still cared a long time ago now, but she had been in the early days of her relationship with Owen, so it never could have worked out, she told herself at the time. Then had come Ghana, when they had both finally realised that they loved each other, and yet she had just married Owen. So she had come home, the truth weighing her down, and she had patched up her marriage with Owen and they had forgotten about it. They didn't talk about it for ages, Ric out of respect for her marriage to Owen, and Diane because she was trying to forget that it ever happened in the first place – even though she knew, in the back of her head, that she never would. She just used Owen as an excuse, because they were never right for each other. He loved Chrissie and she loved Ric – it was never going to end well. Ric had asked her if they had had a future together, once, just after she and Owen split up, but she had turned her back on the possibility of a tomorrow for them, because she had forgotten their history, just like Ric is doing now.
The timing is just never quite right for them.
She told him that in Ghana they had had something special, had handed him a lifeline for them, yesterday, and he had just ignored her. She had given him her love, and he had just given it away, shrugging it off like it wasn't his responsibly, just like she has done to him in the past. She isn't blameless in this mess; she would be the first to admit. But if happy ever after did exist, she and Ric would be married by now, possibly with kids, a proper little family. The fairy tales she was told when she was kid, full of their happy ever afters are complete rubbish. Diane has experienced enough to know that no one ends up with their happy ending. Maybe you strike lucky, but nine times out of ten, you settle for second best just because you don't want to be lonely anymore.
Diane isn't sure why Ric expects her to be fine, but then again, she doesn't expect him to care – not anymore. Over the years, they seem to have burnt all of their bridges and now, there seems to be none left. She seems to be the only one who can remember what they had, and she seems to be stuck there, forever revisiting the happy times they shared. She's wasted so many nights, alone, paralysed with what might have been, because it her decision all those years ago that has led to all this heartache. She could have changed the outcome, but she didn't and now she's just left alone with her dreams.
But even in dreams, the sun can set. There's nothing left for her now, except bitterness and regrets, and an obligation to attend a wedding where the man she loves more than the whole world will marry someone else. No, there's not much left for her anymore.
She slips the last of her coins into phone, all of her change spent on Ric. She dials his number, hoping against hope. "Beep, beep, the owner of this phone is unavailable at the moment. Please leave a message after the tone." Diane sighs, putting the phone down and heading back to Elliot's car. Ric's gone now.
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Thanks for reading my story and I hope you liked it. Ric/Diane are my favourite Holby pairing, except maybe Jac/Joe, and even though Diane was in it ages ago now, I thought I'd write this because I loved her character and I always wondered what went through her head before she died. Please review, it'll make my day!