It's a crying shame it was such a nice day. No, to be honest it's a crying shame it had to be any day at all. She always thought he was charmed, untouchable from the long slender fingers of death – she was sure he'd cheated it far too many times to just be lucky, but now she realised that that was all he ever was. She's stopped yelling now, stopped screaming at them to help him, to save him, because she's come back to reality and the fact that if there'd been any point in trying, then they would be. The paramedic from earlier puts her hand on Charity's shoulder but she doesn't move, doesn't turn like she knows the paramedic wants her to. She's aware she's made a scene in the middle of a bustling hospital A&E but she doesn't really care. She's still staring at him, lying so still on the bed, knowing that she's expecting him to jump up and shout April Fools at her, except it's not April and from the looks everyone is giving her, this isn't a joke.
After a long moment, Charity can't look at him anymore and she lets the paramedic lead her away. She's led to a side room, away from the prying eyes and pitying smiles, and she sits down. The paramedic – Laura is her name, she remembers suddenly – starts talking but Charity isn't really listening. She's far too busy staring at the carpet, trying in vain to forget that this beautiful and ugly summer's day never even started; that the sun never rose and she never got out of bed, just so that the sun doesn't set on today as it has played out. Except she knows she doesn't get a chance to turn back time and change it, that life is one long performance and if you go wrong, you just have to plough through and get on with it, never letting the audience in on your mistakes.
She speaks up, not even giving Laura a chance, just cutting her off mid-sentence. She announces, her voice monotone and flat, that someone will need to call Debbie. Laura doesn't ask who Debbie is, just replying to Charity's request with a curt nod. The young paramedic, whose face doesn't even hint at the loss that she must witness every day, leaves her alone with her thoughts.
Except she doesn't have any. She just sits there, her mind completely blank, until the door creaks open and another woman creeps in. Charity vaguely recognises this one – was she the one who stood back with her hands on her hips with the look of resignation on her face or was she the one who had been applying the chest compressions, the young nurse who had looked devastated when the senior doctor had told her to abandon her useless activity. It takes her a few seconds to place her, but then she knows that she'll never forget this women's face – it was the nurse who had tried to save him but failed. Failed just like everyone else had failed before her.
The young nurse tells her that she can go and see him now. Charity steps up, her limbs jerking and wobbling like she's a puppet on a string, and she staggers to the door, her limbs out of her control. She follows the nurse – whose badge cheerily announces that she's called Kat – into a lift. The cramped journey seems to take an age, but Charity is glad for small mercies, as she young nurse doesn't try to talk to her. She doesn't think she's capable of that, at least not yet.
The lift gets to its destination – wherever that is – and the two mute women inside file out. Kat leads her down a snaking corridor until they arrive at a steel door, the metal shining in the half-gloom. Kat asks if she's ready and it's the first sentence that Charity really takes in. She wants to laugh, a bubble of mirth bursting from her lungs. She can truthfully admit that she'll never be ready for the sight that is going to greet her when she opens that door, but she does it anyway. Charity swings the door to and enters. She notes that Kat hangs in the doorway, unsure of whether or not to follow.
She doesn't look at his face, not until she's settled in the chair that someone has placed by his side. She looks at him, breathes it in, and takes a long moment to process the information her eyes are giving in. With a heavy heart, it finally sinks in.
Cain is dead.
She thought she'd feel relief; complete and all encompassing relief. She always thought she'd feel relief when Cain was dead, but now when she's confronted by the reality of it, all she feels is numb. She's numb all over; her brain is so slow, so tired that she just wants to lie her head down and sleep. She's wanted Cain dead so many times she's lost count but wanting and actually happening are two completely different. She'd even imagined it, many times too, how she'd do it and how she'd see him squirm and fight until the light when out of his eyes. She's never wanted anybody dead as much as she did Cain. He was the only person she has ever known who can push all her buttons and wind her up like he does. She doesn't bother correcting her tensing; it should be past but it would be too much of an admission.
She remembers that day in the pub when Jai had been at her side, and she'd stormed up to Cain and told him the only way he'd ever satisfy a woman was by dropping dead. But now he has, she feels anything but satisfied. She always used to think that him dying would make her happy in some sick twisted way, that she'd enjoy it, because she'd wished for it so hard so many times, but looking at his lifeless body in the cold harsh light of day, she just wants him to be alive, to mock her for getting so lost. Because that's what she is, lost like a little girl who's lost her parents in the biggest shop in town, full of that hideous dread that creeps up on you like rising damp and Cain was always able to read her so well.
And yet, on the hottest day of the year, Charity feels shivers run down her spine. She's freezing cold from the top of her head to the bottom of her toes, her whole body shaking with the cold that is slowly invading her, taking up home in her bones and her blood. The blood pumping through her veins is icy cold, so very cold – just like the rest of her. It may be the high of summer, but sitting in this mortuary, she's freezing slowly to oblivion.
She stands up and crosses the room to a big gleaming sink, and switches the tap on, her entire movement fuelled by one thing - guilt. Charity stands, watching the water cascading down the glimmering drain, her fragmented reflection staring up at her like the little lost girl she really is inside, losing a man who used to care for her so much. She had been the one holding the steering wheel, the one whose careless touch had left them wrapped around a tree. It hadn't been her fault that Cain was distracting her from the passenger seat, or that that particular van had skidded round the corner at that exact moment, blinding her, but it had been her tug of the steering wheel that had led them to this moment. She was guilty. Her fantasies from her darker moments weren't that far off the mark. Charity had killed Cain, as surely as she had driven a knife through his heart.
She scolds her hands until they're red raw and scrubs them so hard they bleed, but it's still there, leeched onto her skin, and reminded her that she is always the guilty. She wonders if when she's old and grey and dying, that she still feel the guilt on her hands, as real as Cain's blood had been just hours earlier as she'd touched his bleeding wrist to check he was still alive - which he had been, but his prone body on the table proves that this once indisputable fact has changed in such a few hours.
She turns off the tap and returns to her seat. She hasn't fallen into the cliché of thinking that he just looks asleep, that he looks peaceful, because he doesn't. He has a massive gash across his forehead and a seatbelt shaped bruise across his bare chest, and he doesn't even look that much like Cain. His hair has been smoothed down, finally tamed, and there is no longer a lazy smirk on his face that had made Cain, Cain. She takes his hand, his freezing, dead palm touching hers, still just as cold, but completely different in every other way – because she's alive when he's not, and the numbness rolls over her like a blanket of fog again, stopping her from teetering off the edge.
"Oh, you stupid little man." She whispers softly. Charity lets go of his hand before a beat has passed, like he's burning her even though his skin is so cold it's impossible. She sits in a numbness induced haze for god knows how long, before the door is pushed open and the nurse, Kat, appears. She quietly informs Charity that her daughter is here. Charity, staring at the floor, corrects the nurse. Our daughter.
The nurse disappears and Charity doesn't care if she'd offended her. She stands up, knowing Debbie will need answers as to how her parents ended up in the same car on a country miles so far from home, let alone wrapped around a tree. Charity smirks; there is no way in hell she is going to tell Debbie the truth as to where they were going. Their daughter doesn't need to know about their illegal side-line of nicking cars. She bids goodbye to Cain – having already decided that she probably won't be invited to his funeral, but quietly wishing she is. Just in case, she says her final goodbyes.
As the lies die in the morgue, Charity realises that this is the last she's going to see his stupid face except from in pictures. It brings things into a sharp focus, leading her by the hand out of the dark.
And yet, she still feels numb inside, she just starts getting better at hiding it.
Debbie's sitting on one of those hard plastic chairs that A&E's seemed to be full off, and Charity is very surprised to see Moira sitting next her, though she should be. They were together, partners, girlfriend and boyfriend, lovers – whatever label she decided to give them, it didn't make it any easier. She idly wonders if Jai is going to turn up next – he's still listed as her next of kin, as the divorce hasn't come through yet.
Jai. She thinks about him quickly, before Debbie and Moira catch sight of her and onslaught of questions start. She hates Jai, after what he did. She knows that if Jai had just trusted her enough to tell her just after it happened, then they'd still be together, because he'd forgiven her after she'd slept with Declan. It was the lying that did it for her; the year long betrayal that broke her heart, not just because he was her husband and he'd cheated on her, but because of all she'd given up to be with him. Jai had chased her, attempted to seduce her and he had made Cain snap and sleep with Faye. He had ruined her relationship with Cain, when they'd been in such a good place, the best place they'd ever been in. So, she'd given up on Cain and got with Jai. And even then, Cain couldn't let her go and he'd fought for her, but she chose Jai. She stood by Jai until Cain had given up on her like she'd given up on him when she'd found out about Amy and the baby.
She picked Jai and how had he repaid her? By getting some random one-night-stand pregnant and then hiding it for so long. She'd given up Cain for him, and now for the first time, she wonders if it was the right choice.
She snaps out of her thoughts when she hears her name being called. It's Debbie. She knows they are both going to wonder how they've both ended up here and Charity isn't going to explain. Debbie doesn't need to know about her parent's illicit money making schemes and Moira doesn't need to know that Cain was only here to try and make some money for the farm, because he'd been worrying about the finances – thought he and Charity both knew it was also for the thrill of it. She primes herself for the questions, her whole being still numb. She wonders if she's always going to feel like this from now on.
...
She doesn't get home until late that night. After the incessant questions of Debbie and Moira and then their two different interpretations of grief had taken their toll on her, she'd had to talk to the police about the accident. She flicks the lights of her home on, Debbie two steps in front of her. Debbie instantly goes upstairs, to see to Sarah, Jack and – much to Charity's relief – Noah.
It's then the hurt hits her, because dam it all, Cain Dingle had meant something to her and now he was dead.