6:45 a.m. Holly's flat.
He stood on her doorstep staring at the red front door he knew to well. He paced around and went to knock a few times but couldn�t bring himself to do it. The rain was pouring down and soaking him but it hid the tears that fell down his cheeks. He was scared she'd chuck him out into the street and he wouldn�t blame her if she did. But they'd been through everything together and if she wouldn�t let him stay then he knew he had no chance with anyone else. He eventually got up the courage and knocked on the door. As it opened he began to speak very fast, not wanting to giver her a chance to tell him to p**s off.
"Holly wait! Please don�t shut the door, give me a minute. Thanks. Please can I stay? Please, I've got nowhere else to go and I really need to get out of the rain. Lara's changed the locks and she won't have anything to do with me and I've got nowhere to stay. Please Holly."
"So what, Lara chucked you out so you thought you'd come crawling back to me. Good old Holly, who makes a nice second choice and will pick you up and dust you down when you fall on your arse. Am I right?"
"No, no it's not like that at all. It's just that Lara kicked me out of my own home and you�re the only person who'll put up with me."
"Well I can hardly blame her for getting rid of you as you've been cheating on her and then you go out god knows where and turn up in the middle of the night plastered out of your tiny mind."
"Oh Holly can I please just come in then you can lecture me in the morning, ok?"
"Fine!" She said then walked off up the and into her room, Patrick followed her until she stopped him.
"What are you doing?" She asked.
"Coming to bed." Patrick replied like it was the perfectly normal thing to do.
"Oh no you don�t. You can't just walk off the streets and into my bed. No, you get the sofa."
Part eleven
Holly sat bolt upright in her bed as her alarm went off. Sleepily she got out of bed and as she got dressed she recalled a weird dream she'd had. Patrick had been back, back in Holby, back in her house only� oh s**t! That hadn�t been a dream; he really was back! She sat down on the bed with a thump. Her head spinning. How could she have been so stupid? By letting him into her house she'd let him into her life and that was one thing she didn�t want. She could have blamed it on the bottle of wine she'd drank, or on her great-aunt dying, she could use every excuse in the book but that wouldn�t change the truth. The truth was that she hadn't done it because she was drunk or emotional, she hadn�t even had a bad day at work, she had done it simply because she had thought it could be like it was before. She had wanted it to be like it was before. And that made her so mad. She walked purposefully down stairs. Ready to chuck Patrick out on his ear to tell him it was all a mistake that he shouldn�t be there, only to find that he'd gone. She looked around the room, his blankets were neatly folded on the end of the sofa and all the rest of the room was tidy, just as she'd left it, as though he'd never been there at all. Maybe she had dreamed it after all� she shook her head. Slowly going mad. And walked into the kitchen to get some orange juice though maybe she should be having something stronger if she was hallucinating about Patrick! When she reached the kitchen she had a thought that terrified her and rooted her to the spot. What if he had been here and something terrible had happened. She didn�t know what could have happened but maybe aliens had abducted him or Lara had come and taken him away or maybe, or maybe� Ideas ran through her head, each more ridiculous that the last until she finally pulled herself together, saying that there had to be a reasonable explanation for all this.
She sat down with her orange juice. Calmly thinking what on earth could have possessed Patrick to be up and out of the house before seven in the morning when a piece of paper caught her eye.
Holly,
Thanks. Sorry I'm leaving without a proper explanation but I need some time and space to clear my head. Please make the necessary excuses for me at work. Thanks again.
Patrick
XXX
She grinned to her self, knowing he was safe and unharmed and not with Lara. Then she mentally shook her self. She didn�t care she told herself she didn�t care if he was on the other side of the world as long as he wasn�t near her. This was her brain telling her this but her heart was still somersaulting from knowing he was o.k.
She needed to know what to do. Which voice to listen to. Did she listen to her heart or her head?
Part twelve
Holly ran in to reception and right in to Chloe coming the other way. Holly was running about half an hour late and she knew it.
"Oh Chloe. Have you seen Max? I'm running so� "
"Holly! What on earth are you doing here?"
"What do you think I'm doing here? I work here!"
"Yeh I know that! I mean why are you here now, why aren't you in intensive care?"
"Chloe you really aren't making any sense what so ever. I'm not in intensive care because I'm not ill and to my knowledge that�s why you go up there."
"Oh my god! You really don�t know do you."
"Don�t know what? Come on Chloe spill!"
"I can't tell you. I'm not one to gossip and�"
"Not one to gossip! I've heard everything now! Come on Chloe you can trust me."
"No Holly, really, I can't tell you. Please don�t make me." She sounded really desperate so Holly didn't press the issue.
"Well can you at least tell me where Max is then?"
"Max? Umm he's in. Umm� resus!" Holly muttered a word of thanks and walked of towards resus. She shook her head; Chloe was acting very weirdly, even more weirdly than normal.
****
"Holly!" Called Max as he came out of resus. "What are you doing in here? We all thought you were in�"
"Yeh intensive care I know."
"So why aren't you?"
"Why should I be?"
"We all thought you'd want to be with Patrick."
"What? Why is Patrick in intensive care?"
"Don�t you know? Holly, Patrick was involved in an accident this morning."
"Wh� what kind of accident?" she managed to stammer.
"An r.t.a. He was hit by a car."
Holly felt a tear roll down her check and she felt a pain in her chest like she'd just been shot. She was shaking violently and her voice reflected it.
"How bad is he?"
"Well they've been able to stop the bleeding but he's still unstable. Do you want to see him?" She nodded gratefully.
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