A/N (Feel free to skip it if you wish)
Okay, this is a little one-shot for you all.
Random fact – you eat when you are bored. And I don't just mean 'I bored of this, what do I do now' bored I mean 'stuck at the channel tunnel for five hours' bored, the type of bored when you go to the loo or go to sleep for something to do. Don't know why you needed to know that but hey!
She knows that sooner or later that someone would find her, but for the moment she is relishing the peace and quiet of the empty operating theatre. She hasn't come here quite by accident, if she is completely honest with herself. She isn't sure why she has come here because she has been trying to escape the past and she has wandered right into the place that held the most memories for her. She isn't quite sure how long she has been sitting, slumped on the floor here for but she knows she will soon be missed from the ward.
The ward. She doesn't want to go back and accept that that woman is there, and what this means for her future. She has just about coped for these years by banishing all thoughts of the past from her head, but with her on the ward, every second was consumed with memories. This is going to tip her off the edge. The frostiness from her was to be expected, after all she had done. She snaps her head up at the sound of the door swinging open.
"You know, this was going to be the last place I looked. And hey presto, here you are." The Scottish tones floated towards her from the door. She breaks the eye contact and her head slumps down, in almost a gesture of defeat. She doesn't want him to see the tear tracks, which are mingled with mascara, that are making patterns on her pale cheeks. He walks, cautiously, towards her – like a zoo keeper approaching a hungry lion – and leans down so his head is level with hers. "Come back to the ward." His fingers are under her chin so she is forced to look at him. She nods and stands up, quite un-lady like as her limbs have seemingly forgotten how to work.
She takes him hand, an act which he is rather surprised about, but she needs all the support she can get. The walk, slowly, back to the ward and, for Jac, back to the past.
He doesn't know, he is blissfully unaware, why she is so scared of the patient in bed three, and why that particular patient hates her so. She is the most eligible doctor in the place to treat that patient and so she knows she must, a decision both aren't happy about.
They arrive on the ward and her heart drops to somewhere beneath her feet. He is standing by the nurses' station, his blue eyes searching round the room. Her eyes suddenly fix on to the floor. Then she suddenly feels an urge to show the man with the blue eyes that he means nothing to her. She removes her eyes from the ground and purposefully strides over to bed three. The woman in the bed turns her head away from her in distaste and Jac busies herself with obs. One thing that the woman in the bed noticed before she turned her head away was the tear tracks.
He comes over a couple of seconds later. She makes sure that she is entirely focused on completing the task at hand. He starts to talk when she turns her head so that he can see her face, see the tear tracks, and both realise what they mean. He starts towards her, his left arm outstretched; wanting to hold her close to him and tell her everything was going to be alright. She knows this but does nothing about it.
All the while, Lady Byrne is watching the interaction between her son and the bane of her life, in horrified confusion. She doesn't know that he forgave her before he left. She horrified by the fact that her son has the wrong body language, leaving questions in her head whether he still hates her.
"Jac…"His voice is tight and almost strangled, but it still has an effect on her that no one else saying her name can create. His eyes are pleading with her and she has to cling to her last reserves of energy not to jump into his arms or do anything he wants. She slightly shakes her head, and his face falls. Both are oblivious to the woman in the bed.
"Does he still look like Churchill?" Her voice is low and sad, but she tries to sound happy. He shakes he head, and instantly she realises that it wasn't the best thing to say as they are both now remembering the past and how it was then.
Then the conversation they are having through body language and eye contact is shattered when Jonny walks in. "So Lady Byrne, how are you feeling?" He asks, jollily.
When she speaks her eyes are fixed on her son and Jac, something Jonny notices. "I'm fine." Finally Jonny realises that he has stumbled onto something that he knows and understands nothing of. "Joseph?" Lady Byrne addresses her son in a sharp tone. Joseph tears his eyes from the love of his life and looks at his mother for the first time. "What's going on?" She asks and her voice is angry. Joseph glances back at Jac.
"Nothing." He says, but to Jac it means so much more. She closes her eyes for a second and takes a deep breath, trying to get her body back under her control. She shaking slightly and Lady Byrne realises this, when Jac leans down to check her pulse. Anne-Marie realises that the woman in front of her is broken, and instead of feeling pleased – because the woman who captured her husband and her son's hearts is finally feeling pain – she just feels pity for the red headed doctor. Then she wonders if it is somehow linked to her son's presence.
Jac is silently cursing the fact that she is shaking. She has decided that she will not look at him again, for that would set the tears off again. She is coming to the end of the obs but she is determined to stay here for as long as possible, to show him…but to show him what? That she doesn't care anymore? Because they both know that people like Jac don't fall in love easily and definitely don't fall out of love, and they both know that Jac is in love with him. She swivels her head so she is looking at Jonny, Jonny who has a puzzled look on his face as he doesn't understand what he is witnessing. Out of the blue, Jac feels a hand on her elbow. She gulps and turns to face the arm that is holding hers.
Joseph isn't smiling but the warmth is still in his eyes. She flicks her eyes shut so she doesn't have to torture herself with his face for any longer. She moves her elbow so his hand is dislodged. She pushes, forcefully, past him – which isn't such a good idea as the contact between their bodies nearly sends her mad. She flees the room and swiftly Joseph follows, leaving Lady Byrne and Jonny staring after the departed, confusion etched on both of their faces.
Jonny turns his head to look at the woman lying on the bed. He guesses that the man - who created such a strange reaction in Jac – is Lady Byrne's son. He wonders why Lady Byrne hates Jac, and why Jac was crying in the operating theatre and why she was there in the first place. "Why do you hate her?" The question slips out of his mouth before he can stop it. His mother always said that he didn't think before he talked. She turns to look at him.
"That woman..." She spits out the word 'woman' as if it is a swear word. "Ruined my life, ruined my son's life and stole my husband from me." Lady Byrne sighs after speaking. "But still, I feel sorry for that woman, for she will never feel love. Today is the first day I have ever seen her express some sort of emotion and she just looks…broken." Her voice is more questioning by the end. Jonny nods.
"How did-" Jonny starts but Lady Byrne interrupts him.
"By sleeping with my husband whilst she was with my son. She ripped my family apart and for that I can never forgive her." Her tone is sharp again, and Jonny has to stop his mouth from falling to his chest.
Joseph comes back to his mother's room ten minutes later and he sits down on the chair next to her bed. Confused Lady Byrne now notes that her son has tears running down his face, what had she done now? "Joseph?" His mother's tone is soft.
"Don't." He snaps. Lady Byrne lies back in shock. He has never addressed her that sharply before. Her eyes find Jac a couple of seconds later, and with a sense of shock, she realises that Jac looks even worse. The tears tracks are now obvious, and her eyes are red and puffy.
"What did you say to her?" Lady Byrne asks her son. He shakes his head, unwilling to part with any information. "What's changed, Joseph? The last time I saw you together, you hated her. Do you still hate her?" She asks. Slowly, Joseph turns to face her.
"I hate her, for making me fall in love with her. I hate her for falling in love with me. I hate her for…" His voice breaks. "not coming with me to Penrith. But I love her so much more, mother." He doesn't dare look at his mother after his revelation. He is shocked to hear laughter.
"That woman, in love? You are sadly mistaken, my boy. That…" She searched for the right word. "Robot cannot and won't ever feel love." Lady Byrne speaks in a low tone, angry that this woman had tricked him again. Joseph springs to his feet.
"I thought that, but then…then…then she told me she loved me. At the time I didn't believe her but over time I forgave her and…an…and then she said something…something that changed the way I looked at her, it was changing anyway but this it made me understand." Joseph tells his mother.
"If you love someone enough, they never leave you anyway" Joseph is shocked by the words coming out of her mouth.
"Is that how it is for you?" Faye asks, and Joseph is intrigued to hear Jac's answer. Joseph looks at Jac; the red head is focusing on a point far away, when she gives Faye a small nod. She looks away from Faye.
"You learn to live with their absence, and you move on." Joseph can tell that Jac is talking from the heart and that it is hard for her to form the words.
Joseph snaps out of the daydream and stares at a point in the distance.
Jac comes to check up on Lady Byrne half an hour later. Anne-Marie notices that Joseph is ignoring the red head. Suddenly half way through the check, Jac turns on her heals and stares at him. "I can't do this anymore." Her voice is barely above a whisper, but both the occupants of the room hear her words, and both are surprised by them. Just then Jonny ambles into the room, but unlike earlier, when his presence shattered the atmosphere, this time they act like nothing has happened. "I can't lie to myself one more time." She puts her hand to her forehead and looks deep into his blue eyes. " 'Cause what the point? Who's this hurting? Me and you, and I swore to myself that I was never going to hurt you again, and I thought that the best option was to let you go, but…" She trails off. Her voice is still quiet. Jonny has the feeling that he has walked into something big. "I love you. And sometimes, in the past, I used to hate you as well for making me fall in love with you but I can't anymore…I love you too much." Jonny nearly shouts out in surprise at her words. "But you have a son, and we both know he comes first. I certainly do." Her voice is still quiet. She brushes past him before he can react.
Tears are dribbling down Joseph's cheeks. He furiously wipes them away and looks his mother in the eye. "I told you." He turns and follows her.
He finds her twenty minutes later as – like Jonny – the operating theatre is his last call. She is curled up in a foetal position trying to cry herself into oblivion. He lies down and takes her in his strong arms, forgetting the words that had passed between them earlier. He knows reality will come soon and they will need to sort out the mess their lives have become but for now, he is happy just holding her.
Hope you like this little one-shot.