you can never keep hold
Jude spends her morning being shown around the new emergency department, getting used to the new layout and unfamiliar system. The system in Crete had been different and, over fifteen years, the English system had, as expected, evolved. She spent the afternoon shadowing Charlie and working with Sam, a reasonably young, evidently clever doctor in cubicles. The day for her was reasonably relaxed and rather uneventful with reasonably standard cases to deal with and as she and Sam sat in the staff room mulling over the days events she realised just how well she'd managed to adjust and fit back into Holby.
She hears a few people organise to go to the pub and Sam offers her if she wants to come. She's zoned out a little so Sam has to ask twice but when she hears she pauses for a moment, weighing up her options, before declining. She hears a few moans from the rest of the staff as they lament about her needing a 'first day drink' but she doesn't change her mind; she has to pick up the three younger children from after-school-club and she knows Poppy will already be home and have let herself in (knowing Poppy she'll probably have started making tea; she finds a solace and enjoyment in cooking Jude could never muster) but she doesn't want to make the fourteen year old remain in her own company for any longer than necessary.
Alice has painted her a picture; Tom's made her a biscuit and Emma's made her some sort of Chinese lantern thing (or so Emma claims) and when she gets home Poppy has indeed begun to cook and it smells good; far better than anything Jude could even attempt to concoct. Charlie is working a double shift so he won't be home for a while and Megan is apparently with her childminder until seven when the lady, who Jude is reliably informed is named 'Julie', will drop her off which means they have the house to themselves for at least an hour. Not that Jude disliked having Charlie and Megan around; she loved having a friend around and the little toddler was a bundle of joy, she just liked to have some time alone with her family. Her incomplete family. There was a gaping hole in her chest where the remainder of her family should be but it remained empty. It was never going to be sewn up.
She wasn't entirely sure what she was doing but she wandered aimlessly into the kitchen where Emma and Alice were sat; Emma helping Alice with her incredibly simple spellings (made, cage, shave) and Poppy was mixing a sauce of some sort and she marvelled at how well her children had managed to accept and settle into their new life, despite being surrounded by a completely unfamiliar crowd of people and atmosphere. Tom ran in, pushing passed Jude, making some sort of 'brum' noise as he charged about the kitchen clutching a couple of plastic vehicles. He circles the table a few times until his sisters almost simultaneously tell him to 'go away' before rushing back out of the room to continue his car game elsewhere, entirely settled in the new house.
It takes a few weeks for Jude to get to that stage of comfort; the stage when she could accept they were here for the foreseeable future. It had actually been Sam who'd forced Jude to accept her life in Holby; she'd managed to catch on to Jude's reluctance to mention staying in Holby for the long term and had decided to tackle it by inviting herself over for dinner at Charlie and Jude's. While there, she'd made some casual remark about how well Jude had settle in and what a great asset to the team she was and that had done the trick.
So it came, to Sam at least, as no surprise that Jude began to integrate herself more into the team; making her mark in the staff room by placing her old purple mug on the shelf and gradually beginning to genuinely use her locker; lining it with images of her children amongst other family members. She always ate her lunch on a specific stool and she'd worked herself firmly into the daily routine of running in to work, much to Charlie's horror. She was always on time to arrive and usually left about half an hour after she was due to leave. She'd made a few friends at work in Sam, Lloyd and Jamie who were the three people she found herself spending the most time with and she found herself back on good terms with Ash, their old friendship comfortably rekindled just as her friendship with Charlie was now firmly re-established. She teased Mac about his diet, Noel about his action figures, the junior nurses about their inexperience and she helped anyone and everyone who needed her help, just like she used to. Everything seemed just right, she felt like another cog in Holby's dysfunctional family.
Then she slipped. Without even realising, she lost her balance; her clutch on reality.
She'd watched as a patient's relative refused to believe her daughter was dead and even though Jude knew she should be comforting the grieving relative it all became too real for her; too harsh. It hit her like a brick wall and she felt the impact instantly. She just left, like it was part of her instinct because she didn't know how to deal with the sudden revelation. She felt like a patient in resus and she had to escape; she didn't know where to but she knew she had to be anywhere but where she was.
They don't know where she went, they don't know why she minute she was in the emergency department, her arm round the mother of the recently deceased patient and the next she was getting away, far, far away from Holby. Someone thinks they saw her get on a train but they didn't see what train or where it was going so they weren't much help. She just disappeared, ran.
Ran too far.