I haven't posted on here for a very long time, but after a sleep deprived night my head would not stop whirring until I let this story be written.

Prologue

She glanced down at her watch, checking for time yet again, and pondered how long it would be before she could bring herself to actually walk the 50 foot across the car park to the ED entrance. The decision to come back here had been a lot easier to make than it was proving to be to fulfil and as she studied the busy people too-ing and fro-ing, going about their business, she had to inwardly acknowledge that all she wanted to do right now was to walk away.

Truth be told it was not her choice to be there again, it was through necessity and a sense of duty as opposed to any personal wish, something she had hoped she was done with when she resigned her army posting three years previously. And yet here she was, back staring at the same building that she had once considered akin to a home but that now instead felt like a piece of the jigsaw of her past.

She felt her muscles tense instinctively before her eyes had even recognised the two familiar figures exiting the main entrance heading over to a car parked close to the door, in a place that she recalled staff were always banned from leaving their vehicles. Almost as if she could have predicted the scene unfolding, she watched as one party lit a cigarette and took a long drag, before the other opened the side door and let a familiar canine jump down from the seats to stretch it's legs.

Ever since she had pulled up outside an hour ago she had been suffering from the strangest sense of deja vu, almost like it was October 2011 over again. Even as she had driven into the grounds she had recalled all those days spent mere metres away from where she now leant against the seats at the bus stop surveying the still awfully familiar scene that easily could be a repeat of one she had watched, jealously perhaps, all those years before.

She found herself feeling momentarily overwhelmed at how whilst some things had changed irrevocably since she had last been here, some things appeared to be just as they once were almost like the last few years had not taken place at all. It was both disconcerting and oddly comforting simultaneously. From the occasional text message received from former colleagues, she knew of the intrigue that had surrounded the pair in front of her, their decision to first of all live together and then, almost arbitrarily it seemed, trade the clinical lead role, something which had interested her given what she knew of the circumstances that had led her back to this place.

Surreptitiously she moved towards the car, determined to get a closer look at the two whilst remaining out of sight, but before she could approach them she spied the cigarette being stubbed out by what even she could appreciate was a very expensive heel and the dog being safely returned to the backseat.

She paused momentarily, as if caught by her own momentum towards the hospital entrance, and stood staring at the doorway into which the very people she had come to see had just disppeared as the doors closed shut behind them. As she stood motionless, the bright lights, noise and activity that radiated everytime the doors swished open was both enticing and overwhelming, familiar and yet out of place.

And so like a fish out of water, and with a false confidence to rival that of her first arrival, she took a first proper step towards the ED and towards a conversation she had hoped would never need to be had.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed. More soon?

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