the re-return

This, my friends, is the story of the re-return. 

And today is the day where I have stopped separating fantasy from reality. I have no idea what was real and what was in my head. So, my hot cop re-returned for me. In a way that I had somewhat dreamt of, but clearly did not think would ever happen. 

So let's start from the very beginning and I will attempt to tell this story with some sort of eloquence. 

I'm having coffee at work with friends, in a secret staff cafe, hidden in the hospital, chatting and enjoying what will be the first relaxing day in 3 months. My pager goes and I answer it on my mobile. It's my home ward and a nurse answers. "Judith Marie! You have a visitor here, he's a policeman and you are in trouble!" 

A million possibilities run through my head. What did I do? Did I do something wrong? Am I in trouble? Why would the police want to talk to me? The nurse on the other end becomes more flustered with the questions I'm firing at her so she just hands the phone over. 

He starts with, "I'm here because there is a patient downstairs who I have just brought through to ED. He had a seizure while driving." Now worse possibilities are flitting through my head. Did I discharge someone too early? And then they had a seizure and now the police want to charge me with something? Will the medical council get involved?

Terror is about to take hold, and it must be clear that I've got the wrong end of the stick. "Do you remember me? I'm the policeman that was there when you mother had her accident." 

And then all the pieces fall into place. 

Firstly, I'm relieved as fuck that I'm not in some sort of trouble. Secondly, disbelief takes hold. Meanwhile, he's still talking. 

"I'm on your ward, I remembered you telling me and I thought I'd pop by and say hi. Are you around at all?"

I explain that I am nowhere near the ward, and that unfortunately my location isn't easy to describe. If I send him on a trip looking for me, we could be missing each other for days. 

He asks me how far away I am, I say, a few minutes, he says he really should get back on the road, and I head back to the ward. I burst in with my registrar and there he is, standing out like a sore thumb in my home ward, smiling at me in all his uniformed glory. Blonde hair slicked back, blue eyes shining and looking more than a wee bit sheepish.

I saunter up to him and say hello and my registrar rushes past, not exactly the master of subtlety she keeps ducking round the door to catch glimpses of us. 

There is some small banter, he asks me how my mother is, chats a bit about my father, and a bit about work. I know he should have left ages ago, he tells me he's left his partner in ED to do all the work while he's come up to look for me. 

"Would you like to meet up, outside of this place?" And he gestures to the hospital in general. And he saves my number on his phone. 

Later he texts me and tells me that today was the first car crash that they had brought to my hospital in over a year. And he took a chance and came to find me. Our rosters are both slightly hellish, but we've penciled in Sunday night...having a caffeinated drink before going to work. By some garish coincidence, we are both on night shift. 

After our chat he says he absolutely must get going, I hope he doesn't get in trouble for my sake. He says he'll text me. And he does. As soon as he gets off work. He tells me he's glad he took a chance and tried to find me.