All rights for Saving Hope are CTV's.
As Luke disappeared, Charlie felt the tears coming up. He didn't cry, but every now and then, when something shook his world, he'd feel the tears coming up into his eyes again. As he stared at the spot in which Luke stood, he felt the pain, mingled with a sense of responsibility, floating his mind. He couldn't believe that what he's been trying to run from for so long had finally reached him.
It felt like it's been years, and not a few months, since that day. It felt like that couple running on the road towards a taxi belonged to another world, another reality. To him, it felt like those happy man and woman, on their way to their wedding, belonged to some sort of a dream, a happy dream forgotten long ago. The coma, with or without its aftereffects, changed their lives entirely, and deep inside their hearts, both Charlie and Alex knew life would never be the same. But they held on to the hope that they could build something even better than what they had.
And then they returned to Hope Zion, and Charlie saw ghosts again.
When he'd lie there with Alex by his side, when he'd watch her sleeping next to him, he could imagine that everything was alright. There were no ghosts. There was no coma. There were no unresolved conflicts. All there was left was just everyday life. There were surgeries, and duties, and patients, and arguments. There was Alex's family, and there were friends, and there was Alex. That was his life, his completely normal life.
But when he'd walk into Hope Zion before his shift begins, everything was different. There was no Alex, and there were no friends and family. They were all moving around, working hard to save lives, but for Charlie it was as if they'd barely existed. He tried to give them meaning, he tried to dispose of the ghosts and return to the life that revolved around Alex and surgeries, but he couldn't. He couldn't ignore the ghosts and he couldn't stop himself from wondering how sane he really was.
He hated how whenever he seemed to find a way to make everything right, something happened and changed his life. There were patients, and there was work, and eventually there was Luke, and they all seemed to be looking for a way to destroy the only right thing he still had in his life. Deep down in his heart, he knew he wouldn't be able to run away from it forever, but he managed to convince himself that if he'd make everything right, he might be able to.
But he wasn't. And because he loved her, because she was the one woman dearer to him than any other living thing, because he wanted to give her the only life she deserved, the fairytale he had always wanted to give her, he knew he'd have to lose her.
Charlie closed his eyes and took a deep breath before leaving the room and turning to change.