Please Come Back to Me

Chapter 2: The Waiting

By Emma Louise

23 September – 9:30pm

The door opened with a quiet rush of cool air rousing Jo from her silent reflection. The sight of George Channing caused Jo to hold his hand tighter and hold her breath waiting for the eventual and inevitable confrontation. She sits there waiting for the start of the lecture, waiting to be told that this is somehow all her fault that this is what she gets for finally giving in and accepting his proposal, that she had lost Charlie her father that God was punishing her for their affair or making some wrong decision or something. All the things she had been thinking for the last three hours, the silence just as accusing as the words echoing around her head. George quietly pulled the spare chair closer to the unoccupied side of the hospital and stared helpless at the unconscious man in the bed, the usual sense of power that surrounded him pulling both them and countless other women to him.

"So, do the police have any idea as to what they think happened?" the tone of her voice struck something deep within Jo. Gone was the harsh tone always adopted when the other woman spoke to her replaced with genuine concern for her ex. "They said that he was found just outside the hospital, no id or anything it was just luck one of the doctors recognised him from the news. Have you seen Charlie?" Her eyes momentarily left that of the incapacitated Judge. "Not since we got the call from the hospital" Both women are silent then, unable to work out what to say next. It is unsurprisingly George who breaks the silence, her eyes focused on Jo's hand. "I'm glad that you were able to be there with him. Where's Coop?" Jo, taken back by the friendliness in the tone of the woman so often her adversary decided that after everything she had seen today, him lying lifeless in front of her, blood, so much blood. So much she is astounded that he is still alive.

The warm skin beneath her hand is a concession to the fact that he is in fact still breathing if not yet on his own. And so in that room she makes a decision, that as long as George is willing to play nice so will she, there are more important things on their minds right now than old hurts and petty jealousies. "I sent her home. Poor woman was exhausted" George smiles at that and reaches for Johns other hand without thinking. "So are you" she said. "I'm not leaving" her tone is final. Her voice even and George has no doubt that Jo will not move from the side of the man that she so clearly loves. Jo was not the only one making a silent vow that night. George Channing was going to do whatever she could to make sure that John got better and if that meant protecting Jo from the LCD or whatever was coming then she would, and so the two women sat and each felt comforted by the other.