The Surrogate

Contact

Seb cuts Britta off without warning to hastily accept Holly's call and finds himself holding his breath as he waits anxiously to hear her voice.

For a few seconds there's an agonising silence, he can't even hear her breathing or any sound in the background, all he can hear is the noise of the traffic close by to where he is and the siren of an emergency vehicle wailing in the distance.

Then she speaks, "Seb? It's me."

"Holly," he looks in the direction of her apartment block again, it's still in darkness, "it's so good to hear your voice, how are you?"

She's stutters, clearly thinking of how to answer him and he feels stupid for asking.

"It's ok, don't answer that, it was stupid of me to ask. Of course you're not ok, you're not yourself otherwise you wouldn't be here," he says.

She gives a halfhearted attempt at a bit of a laugh and then says, "yeah," then she does same thing he's just done and asks, "how about you?"

Seb can't stop himself and the words tumble from his lips before he can get his brain into gear, "missing you, desperate to see you, talk to you and have you home with me and Emilia."

He hears her sigh heavily, her breath catching at the very end before she sadly says, "oh Seb."

He silently curses at himself for saying the very thing he'd wanted to avoid and then apologises, "I'm sorry, forget I said that, I spoke before I could think."

"It's ok, you only said what you feel," she sounds so sad as she says it and it just makes him want to pull her into his arms and tell her that everything will be ok.

He can't deny that it's the truth, it's exactly how he feels.

"I had to leave, you understand that don't you?" she asks.

He doesn't understand that, not really but he tries to make her feel better, "I do get it and I understand that you need time to feel better."

"As much as it hurts, it's for the best."

He bites his tongue for a second. It's not for the best, it's not best for anyone. He tries to push his luck and asks, "can I see you? Can we meet somewhere to talk?"

He's expects her to say no straight away but instead he gets a shock, "yeah, ok but not for long. Where are you staying?"

"It's the London Waterloo hotel, near the station. You know where that is?" he quickly asks, scarcely able to believe that she's agreed to meet so easily.

"Yeah, I know where that is. I can be there in about fifteen minutes, is that ok?"

He can sense a great deal of hesitation in her voice, like she's on the cusp of changing her mind. Breaking out into a jog he quickly replies, "No problem, I'll see you there, room number nineteen."

The call ends as she cuts it off without saying goodbye and Seb increases his pace, before he knows it he's sprinting back towards the hotel. It's hard not to get excited, hard not to read too much into things and keep his hopes and expectations down. She's agreed to see him, this has to mean something, right?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back in his room, he's sweating and breathing heavily and lifts each arm in turn, giving his underarms a quick sniff, trying to work out if he should try and squeeze in a very quick shower or not. Checking his watch, he's got just minutes to spare so he makes a quick decision and enters the small en-suite, leaving the door open so he'll hear when Holly knocks on the door to his room.

He hastily rids himself of his clothes, dropping them to floor at his feet before turning the shower on and jumping in under the hot water. Dispensing a small amount of shower gel into his hand, it's no surprise when he hears a knock at the door. His stare snaps from his hand towards the open en-suite door and he can't stop himself from grinning as he yells out, "I'll be there in a minute!"