The next available flight to anywhere had turned out to be to be to Nice . 'Perfect' she thinks. She accepts the tickets, pays with her credit card and heads to the boarding gate. Emma is chatting away asking her about where they are going, what they are going to do and what they are going to see. She can't help but smile at her excitement. She stops at the foreign exchange to get some cash in Euro's and continues on towards the gate.
Finally settled in her seat, Emma next to her asleep, clearly over exhausted by the mornings rush she hadn't been able to keep eyes open soon after take off. The sudden quiet gives her pause and she wonders if she's done the right thing. She's sort of glad to be away from Holby. The memories of Jasmine and the shooting fading slightly the further away she gets. She likes the emotional distance.
She doesn't want to think about Fletch. Every time he crosses her mind she forcibly shoves the thought to the furthest corner of her mind. She's sure the frequency of thinking about him will lessen over time. It will get easier she tells herself. She's got four whole weeks of just her and Emma to look forward too, hopefully plenty of time to return Fletch to where she should have kept him in the first place. As just a colleague. She closes her eyes.
When she wakes she can hear the voice over the tannoy telling her the time in Nice and the local weather forecast. It's a mild 18 degrees, not bad for March! She knows they'll be landing soon. She looks at Emma she's still asleep. She doesn't want to wake her until she absolutely must. It wasn't a long flight, just under two hours, but they have a long day ahead of them yet, she's got to hire a car and find somewhere for them to stay so having Emma well rested is a necessity. She wants a private villa. Knows there are plenty out here so it shouldn't be to hard to find one, even at short notice.
As they exit the plane she turns her phone on and sees a message come through from Sacha. Apparently he'd come looking for her for a coffee today only to have Fletch inform him that she'd left for a months leave yesterday. He wants to know if she's okay. Seeing Fletch's name on her screen sends her brain into a frenzy. Panic mixed with regret and something else she can't quite name. She dismisses it as quickly as possible. Sends a quick reply to Sacha letting him know she is safe and well, tells him she'll ring him once she's settled. She doesn't want him to worry. She decides to turn her phone off again. She wants to get as far away as possible from everything she knows.
She hires a car at the airport, throws their luggage in the boot then heads off to find a holiday rentals agent. She heads towards Les Baumettes on the advice of the car hire employee, he had told her there's a beautiful beach and plenty of activities locally, and that as it was out of season she'd easily be able to hire a villa at a reasonable cost. He'd even given her the name and address of one rental agent but he'd told her there was also plenty more in the area so she'd have a good choice.
The drive is quick. She's there within 15 minutes. She parks the car and helps Emma get out from her car seat.
"Let's find us somewhere to stay. Then we can go and have lunch on the beach front." She tells her. Emma beams back at her.
She watches her look around and can see the fascination in her eyes. The sky is blue, twinged with only a few specks of cloud. The beach over to their right is completely golden and appears to go on for miles. Even though it's only 18 degrees the sun is shinning and it feels like a summers day. She smiles. Maybe Serena was right. Maybe this was exactly what she needed.
The rental agents tells her he has plenty of properties available but only three with two bedrooms, the rest have more, obviously meant for large group bookings. He grabs three files from the cabinet and lays them out in front of her. There's pictures of each property and information about its facilities. They all have open plan kitchens, washing machines, telephone with international calling, WiFi and satellite TV. They all look nice. She doesn't mind which one they stay in so she lets Emma pick one.
"This one." Emma tells her pointing to one file. She chooses the little white one level villa with plenty of outside space dotted with palm trees.
"Good choice." She tells her smiling proudly.
She pays with her credit card and asks if she can possibly extend the stay if she wants too. He agrees, gives her his business card plus a pack containing the address and information on the villa and hands her the keys. She feels lighter now. Everything was working out better than she'd expected.
They'd eaten lunch at a little café, had indulged in croissants and other tasty pastry goodies before heading straight over to the beach. She takes off her shoes and rolls the legs up on her trousers. Does the same for Emma and they walk happily hand in hand along the shoreline paddling their feet in the ocean just at the edge. An occasional slightly larger wave causes Emma to run from the sea in fits of giggles. She can't help but enjoy it. She wishes they'd done this more often.
They spend the rest of the afternoon on the beach building sandcastles with their hands and talking about all the things they can do with their time. Eventually though they have to leave, she knows they need to go to a supermarket to buy essentials and then head to the villa before it gets dark. She doesn't want to try and find the house late at night.
She had picked up all the things they'd need from the supermarket for the next few days, plus some magazines and a few colouring books and pencils for Emma. She'd spotted a little tourist stand just inside the entrance and had grabbed a couple of brochures to use to plan their activities.
They reach the villa just before sunset and the house looks beautiful. The sunlight bouncing off the white exterior of the house. Palm trees strategically positioned around the house and up the driveway makes it look extremely inviting. Emma gasps as she spots it and smiles broadly at her.
"Look Mummy." She says excitedly.
"You picked the perfect one." She tells her genuinely. The house is only ten minutes drive away from the beach.
Emma helps her put away the shopping and then she cooks them dinner and puts Emma to bed. It's been a long day and she feels just as tired too. She grabs the now chilled bottle of wine from the fridge, grabs a glass from the cupboard and heads for the sofa. Her mind wanders to Fletch but she's too tired to fight it. So she gives in to her thoughts. She remembers him kissing her on the forehead, holding her tightly and telling her they were going to talk later. Her heart physically squeezes at the memories. She wonders what they would have talked about had she have stuck around. She wonders if he might have kissed her properly. She sighs. A touch of regret fills her and she wants to know if he is okay. She wonders if she should send him a message but then decides firmly against it.
She picks up the phone rings Sacha's mobile and leaves him a message when he doesn't answer. She gives him the villa's number and address. Tells him to call her back when he gets a chance. She sort of wants to speak to him so she can probe him a bit to at least find out how Fletch was when he'd seen him. She feels guilty.
The next few week pass quickly. They'd spent quite a few days at the beach, a day out at Castle Hill, an afternoon a Cours Saleya which was an open air market, a day shopping at Palace Massena and an afternoon at Palais Lascaris.
She knows her time here is nearly up. She's got less than a week of leave left and she really doesn't feel like going home. She'd really enjoyed spending quality time with Emma. She couldn't help but notice that Emma seemed really happy here too. It was most definitely different but somehow they'd both settled in relatively easily. Everything seemed easier here. Her pain, not thinking about Fletch, dealing with the memories of the shooting and Jasmine. If she stayed here she was at least certain that there was no possibility of her ever hurting Fletch. Well the news of her leaving would be far less painful than the damage she could potentially do later had she have gotten involved with him. She wonders what it would be like to stay here permanently.
The pain had been diminishing everyday, she's sure the warm weather has somewhat helped with that. That and she's no longer running herself ragged running Darwin while trying to recover from a gunshot wound. She feels peaceful sort of. She'd found a local nursery and had signed Emma up for a few hours a week so she could do the shopping without dragging her around the supermarkets and shops with her, plus it allowed Emma to spend time with kids her own age. She was sure she must be missing the socializing she'd always been used to at the hospital crèche, was sure she was missing Theo too and all her other friends. When Emma was at nursery one afternoon she'd used the time to go and snoop around the hospital she'd spotted next to beach. Wondering if perhaps they have an opening. The longer she was here the more she was considering just staying put.
She glances at the clock. She grabs the phone, turns it on for the first time since she'd landed. She hears a flurry of messages come through but she ignores them all and instead scrolls through her contact list to find Serena's number.
Serena doesn't answer so she leaves her a message.
"Hi Serena, it's Jac. Can you please approve some additional leave for me? Two weeks at least. I'll get in touch again if I need more time or…anyway I'll try and call again at some point. Thanks."
She hangs ups. She hadn't quite been able to tell her just yet she may want indefinite leave. A small nagging doubt in the back of her mind had prevented her from doing so. She figures she might find the little bit of extra courage to do it next time she calls. An extra two weeks leave will do for now. Leaving Holby behind her was a big decision. She'd pretty much spent her entire career there and the majority of her adult life. She wasn't sure if she wanted to let it go, she wasn't sure if she was ready to let it go. Her holiday had suddenly turned into a life altering decision and she knew she'd have to make up her mind quickly.
Leneval hospital is practically on the beach front, it's a beautiful looming glass building with flags flapping in the sea breeze at the front entrance. She can't help but feel slightly awed at the sight of it. She's seen it many times recently every time her and Emma visit the beach here, she'd even been inside to take a look around, but today she's here for an entirely different reason. She'd left Emma at the local nursery again, trying it out before considering the possibility of making it a more long term solution for child care. Emma had enjoyed it the last couple of times she'd been but she wanted to make certain that it was somewhere she'd be happy. She didn't yet know if the hospital operated a crèche so the nursery would work for now.
She walks into reception and asks for an application form.