Surprisingly, the junior doctors were a few of the first to arrive in the hospital car park and they all sleepily padded out of Dom's car. Guy and Jesse were already present and they were leaning against the minibus, each with a coffee, whilst Zosia, Dom and Arthur dragged their bags over to the vehicle.
"Morning." Jesse smiled as they stepped up into the back but he didn't receive a single reply as they all got on the minibus.
"J, what's going on between you and Zosia? She's had the hump with you for weeks now." Guy asked confusedly.
"Nothing."
"Well it must be something." Guy protested.
"She just… well we had an argument over the treatment of the patient. Neither of us wanted to admit that we were wrong and she's been in a strop ever since." Jesse stuttered.
"Try and sort it out yeah, just be the bigger person." Guy pleaded.
"I'll give it a go." Jesse muttered as Colette, Mo and Adele arrived with their hiking bags on their backs.
"Good morning ladies." Guy smiled.
"Please tell me that you were joking about us walking 17 miles today." Adele moaned.
"Oh, I can assure you Adele I'd never joke about that." Guy smiled as they dumped their bags in front of the minibus. "The time will fly by when we're walking."
"Oh I very much doubt it." Mo retorted as Jac and Jonny arrived with their bags on their backs and a coffee in each of their hands. "Thanks for getting me one Jonny Mac." Mo said sarcastically.
"Sorry, I didn't think you'd be here this early." Jonny smirked. "I can go and get you something if you want." He offered.
"Get me the usual please." Mo requested as she handed over a ten pound note.
"Oh, and I'll have a cinnamon latte, no sugar." Adele smiled.
"Jac, save me a seat." Jonny huffed as he placed his bag on the floor in front of Jac before he plodded off to the café in the reception of the hospital.
Once he'd ran everyone's empty coffee cups to the nearest bin, Jesse climbed onto the minibus as they were going to make a move, only he found that the only seat left on the minibus was the seat next to Zosia – the other couple of spare seats were taken up by large hiking bags and equipment. He reluctantly sat down next to the junior doctor and placed his bag in front of him, but before he even had time to put his seatbelt on Zosia got up and exited the vehicle.
"You alright?" Guy asked concernedly as he'd just been about to close the side door.
"Yeah, I'm gonna sit in the front. It's a bit claustrophobic in the back." She muttered as she opened the front door. There was no way in hell that she was going to spend the 1 hour 45 minute journey to the New Forest sitting next to the man who broke her heart.
"Right okay…" He frowned. "Alright everyone get your seatbelts on and we shall get going."
"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to the New Forest." Guy declared as he stood up in front of the group of ten other medical professionals who had gathered around a couple of picnic benches outside of a café where they were about to begin hiking in the middle of nowhere. "Like last time, I want everyone to hand in their mobile phones and other devices including iPads." He said sternly as he glanced at his daughter who proceeded to huff and then sort through her bag to find her tablet. "Now, the teams are as follows: Sacha, Arthur, Zosia, Jac and Jonny. And Colette, Jesse, Dom, Mo, Adele and Myself. When the whole team is ready, you may set off." He stated and Jonny then looked at his partner with a smug grin on his face.
"What?" She demanded.
"Guy isn't in our group; we can take the much shorter route." Jonny grinned.
"What on Earth are you doing?" Colette frowned as Dom began collecting pebbles from the ground around them as they stood in the carpark, awaiting the return of Jesse – who had gone to the toilet in the café – so that they could set off.
"Just getting a little pay back for a friend of mine." Dom replied innocently as he unzipped the two empty side pockets on Jesse's bag and he began loading the stones in them.
"Oh I wonder who this 'friend' is." Colette sighed dramatically. "You know he did the right thing. Jesse let her down gently, he didn't make a huge fuss and Jesse is more than 10 years older than her, it just wasn't right for them to be together."
"I don't agree with the pairing any more than you do but she was happy with him and then he dumped her in the pub." Dom stated as he squeezed the last few rocks in the pockets of Jesse's bag and then zipped them up. "She's been moping for weeks and in my humble opinion, a couple of harmless practical jokes will cheer her up a bit." He added before he casually pretended to tie his shoe lace up as Jesse returned.
"Right, are we ready to go?" He asked.
"Yep." Dom smiled as Jesse heaved his bag up onto his back and he frowned as he tightened the chest and hip straps. But he seemed to ignore the additional weight as he rubbed his hands together and then the group of 6 set off on their journey.
"It's a good job you found this shorter route." Sacha aired aloud as he, Jac and Jonny walked together whilst Zosia and Arthur walked on the forest path several meters behind them. They were walking through a large open field, randomly dotted with other hikers and there were numerous wild horses around. "After all, Jac needs to take it easy."
"And why's that?" She demanded.
"Well on the practice trek you had a headache the first day and a backache the second day from sleeping on the ground." Sacha replied which caused Jonny to look sympathetically at his partner; both ailments had just been used as excuses to cover up endometriosis pain but thankfully, the timing of the final expedition had meant that she wouldn't have that problem for the final expedition.
"Well, she's just used to living a life of luxury." Jonny smirked. "She wanted to go out and buy all of the latest camping gear like a massive tent, camping begs, a gas stove and everything but she'd forgotten one small thing: we'd have to carry it for miles." He laughed. "Hang on." He suddenly stopped in his tracks which caused Jac and Sacha to pause and they turned to face him.
"What?" Sacha frowned.
"That girl, she shouldn't be near those horses. There're foals there and the mothers look agitated." He explained concernedly as he looked at the young child – who couldn't have been older than 5 or 6 – observing the wild animals up close and he could see a couple – who were presumably the parents – sitting on a picnic blanket over dozen meters away from her and they clearly hadn't noticed that she was missing. "Stay here." Jonny said sternly to his partner before he dropped his heavy hiking bag on the ground and jogged through the long grass.
"He does realise that they're horses right? Not hyenas." Jac remarked as she folded her arms across her chest.
"Mothers of most species get very protective of their young." Sacha reasoned. "Jonny's just being…"
"Jonny's being Jonny." Jac quipped. She watched as Jonny approached the young girl, but the parents then noticed the absence of their daughter and they looked up to see a man approaching her. Of course they jumped up and ran towards her, but the sudden movement startled the horses and they began to panic. One horse began bucking, and Jac saw the hoof of a chestnut coloured horse rise as it bucked, and the next thing she knew, Jonny flew through the air and slammed against the ground with an almighty thud…