The Ghosts of Hospital Past
Author's Note: This is a little one-shot I cooked up in honour of GH's 45th anniversary. I wonder what Steve Hardy would think of the show now. Would he even recognize it.
Steve Hardy looked down on Port Charles General Hospital, and smiled the sad, wistful smile of a man with too many memories.
"Checking up on the old girl, Steve?" Alan's voice chimed in behind him. Steve glanced startled over his shoulder to see an old friend.
"Do you know, Alan, that if I were alive today, I would have been running that hospital for over 45 years?"
"You certainly had me beat, Steve. I didn't last much longer than a decade."
"That's because of those sumptuous Quartermaine breakfast buffets. I'd been to one or two in my day, but I don't think I'd have lasted as long as I did if I'd eaten there everyday." The two men chuckled at that and stare in silence for a minute, the mood turning somber.
"I miss her."
"Monica?"
"Seems strange, doesn't it? We spent probably 80 percent of our time fighting over the stupidest things, but what I wouldn't do to be able to touch her face one more time." Steve nods sadly at this.
"You and Monica had almost as good a run as Audrey and I did, and I miss her every day. I find myself wondering what she's up to half the time." Alan smiled.
"Probably taking care of those grandchildren of hers. Ever since she retired, I'd see her in the hospital, hoping that she'd come back to work, but it was just to pick up her grandson from daycare. The hospital isn't really the same without her, but she seems to be enjoying her retirement."
"There she is."
"Audrey?"
"Monica." Steve pointed to a worn out looking woman standing sadly in a corner, taking a hard swallow of something out of a water bottle that Steve knew wasn't water.
"She needs me, Steve."
"They all need you, Alan."
"I don't understand. Where's Bobbie? Where's father? Too many of the Quartermaine clan are up here, but you'd think at least one of those two would have noticed."
"I'd like to know where Bobbie is myself," sounded Tony Jones' voice behind them, "Or my son Lucas. Some days it seems impossible to find them." The three men sighed.
"It looks so different than I remember." Tony said, after a long pause. "Look at them all. Doctors. Nurses. I can't recognize one of them."
"Wait! Look!" Alan pointed. "Robin Scorpio."
"Little Robin Scorpio," Steve was in awe. "I can't believe that she's all grown up now and working at my hospital. And little Lucky Spencer grew up to be a cop. And my own granddaughter is a nurse. And the Jones girls…are they still candy stripers?"
"One of them is up here with us." Tony said sadly, "And Emily, she was going to be a doctor too. A lot of people died too young."
"And yet some people never die." Alan said bitterly, glancing down by the docks. The local mobster population seemed to be thriving, same as they always did, rudely refusing to die while so many around them did.
If the men stared long enough down at the town, they were sure to see an explosion, or a shootout, or some other, horrible act of violence.
"I can't find her today." Steve said sadly, thinking of Audrey. "The truth is, I can't find her most days, and when I look down there, I recognize less and less. It's hard to watch."
The three men nodded, taking one last look down over the city, trying to catch a glimpse of their few remaining loved ones.
"Oh well, gentlemen. There's always tomorrow. Let's take a walk, shall we?"