Inside The Royal it was business as usual. As it was Saturday Mr Middleditch was holding the regular briefing before surgery, as usual the only items on the agenda were things put there by Mr Harper, who had conveniently decided not to put in an appearance, so predictably everybody was a little bored. Just as the meeting was about to end, a tall man with dark hair all dressed in leather, a bikers helmet dangling casually from his right hand walked in. His very walk oozed sex appeal, the expression on his face, half frown half smile was also incredibly sexy. Mr Middleditch turned round to face him after a moment, when he noticed that he had lost everybody's attention.
"Surgeries not started yet," Mr Middleditch informed him, the man smiled a smile guaranteed to make any self respecting woman weak at the knees.
"I know," he replied sticking out a hand, "I'm Dr Hardy, your new surgeon." Mr Middleditch frowned in confusion.
"New surgeon? I think there must have been some mistake. . ."
"No there's no mistake. This is The Royal and you are Mr Middleditch, correct?" Mr Middleditch nodded, "I was told to report here today by a Mr Harper." Just then Mr Harper decided to put in an appearance, seeing Dr Hardy he strode forward hand outstretched.
"Dr Hardy," he called putting on a sickly sneering smile, Dr Hardy turned to look at him and shook hands, obviously somewhat amused about the fact he had at least a foot on Mr Harper in height. "If you'd like to come through to my office so we can discuss . . ."
"Mr Harper," Mr Middleditch interrupted him, "I think that you and I should have a talk first. You know full well that appointing new staff doesn't come under the DHA's authority.
"It does now," Mr Harper smiled, gesturing for Dr Hardy to follow him. Matron stepped forward and shared a glance with Mr Middleditch, communicating that she would take over. Determinedly she walked into Mr Harper's office.
"Well, that's certainly interesting," Gordon commented, more to break the silence than anything else.
By lunchtime the news of what had happened that morning was all over the hospital, the sentiment of most of the Nurse's was that while they didn't want Mr Harper having the power to fire them, they didn't want the new dashing doctor to have to leave. Stella who had been in reception for most of the morning, ostensibly on hospital business, but really waiting for somebody to come out from Mr Harper's office was the first to know the answer.
"Dr Hardy's staying," she announced practically running into casualty, luckily with Matron in reception she didn't get into trouble.
Gordon saw her but didn't comment, he was going home early today and didn't want anybody to know. Things had been really hard for him at home just recently, although if he admitted it to himself, things had been hard at home for a couple of years. He was seeing all the signs and knew what they meant, he just didn't know what to do about it, mainly because he didn't want to admit that there was a problem. Life wasn't fair, why had it picked him to play this cruel trick on? Why had it turned out this way? They'd been so happy at the beginning hadn't they?
If he was really honest with himself, the answer was no, they'd never been truly happy. He should never have married her, thinking back now he didn't know why he did. The need to be loved and to have to somebody to love probably. That wasn't love though, love was unconditional and while it could grow deeper in time, you couldn't manufacture what was never there. There had never been a spark, she was there and he had though that she had loved him, that had been enough at the time.
Now eight years down the line, he knew he'd made a big mistake. He was in love with somebody else and now that he was, he knew what love felt like, what real love felt like. He couldn't act on it though, while he didn't love his wife, he could never hurt her. Sighing Gordon let himself in his house.
It was Monday morning, the sun was shining and it was the beginning of another week at The Royal. Jill smiled when she walked past the casualty entrance, Meryl was helping Frankie restock the medical supplies in the ambulance. Just looking at them made her feel all warm inside, she couldn't remember when she last saw a couple so in love. She hoped it would last for them, she remembered when she'd fallen in love. When she remembered the good times it seemed like yesterday, when she remembered the bad times it made her glad that it was in the past, even if remnants of it still haunted her.
Still feeling warm inside she walked into casualty and came face to face with Dr Hardy. He was wearing a black suit with a black tie, which struck Jill as somewhat wrong considering the wonderful day it was outside. He'd missed a bit when he was shaving that morning, leaving a very sexy looking trail of stubble. He turned to look at her flashing her a smile.
"I'm Dr Luke Hardy, new surgeon. You must be Jill," Luke greeted, Jill nodded and shook his hand.
"That's right," Jill smiled, suddenly and inexplicably dumbstruck.
"Good. Listen you don't who the anaesthetist is this morning do you? You see I'd like to make a few changes to the list." Jill thought for a moment.
"You only just got here and you're already making changes," Jill joked, "I think it's meant to be Gordon but he's not in yet. Depending on the changes you might want to brief Jeff because Gordon's normally really late." Luke nodded and Jill could tell he was ingesting the information and storing it away for future reference, part of her felt a pang of guilt at that but then it was common knowledge. They stood staring at each other for what felt like an eternity, both of them had run out of things to say but yet didn't feel they had finished the conversation off.
"I should er . ." Luke gestured over his shoulder somewhat awkwardly "go find Jeff."
"Yeah and I need to get my patient notes," Jill told him heading past him to the reception, for some reason Luke couldn't explain he felt his eyes drawn to her and he watched her walk away.