Chapter Text
The ins and outs of hospital mind games were not something that Ross Poldark was ever too fussed about. In so many ways it was like being in high school all over again, the gossiping behind peoples backs, the amount of times various people in different departments would hook up, the general back stabbing to get ones self up the career ladder. Being a surgeon was something that he had always aspired to be, he’d naively believed that it was good work trying to put people back together. He’d never wanted all of the general crap that came along with it.
It was for that reason that he’d volunteered to go into a war zone as a trauma surgeon in the first place. A life of nothing but taking out appendixes would bore him to death. Through gun fire, potential kidnappings, suicide bombers he’d found his calling. There was a quietness within his own mind because of such things, a peacefulness that meant even within the chaos and confusion around him he could work more clearly than he ever had before. It was perfection in so many ways because there was only him to operate, no oppressive rules for him to work beneath, and he could simply do the work that he loved to do.
Of course eventually his luck would run out. The make shift hospital in Syria was attacked, most of the staff within were killed or taken. Ross had been one of the fortunate ones, at least that was how his kidnappers had seen it, and it wasn’t for six months until he was found and released. In that time he’d been attacked, threatened and pushed to the very brink. He had survived however, survived with nothing more than a scar on his face, one that seemed to match the crack on his very soul. In so many ways all he wanted was to return to the work he was doing, but that would not be possible. Going home and being with his family was what he needed to get over his ordeal. Getting back to his Elizabeth.
That was the one part of going into a war zone that he had regretted. Elizabeth was his first perfect love, someone that he could admire for hours, loved to watch within the quiet moments. Marrying her seemed as an inevitable thing, but he had not yet been ready. There was always something that held him back from moving their relationship forward and Ross had very much suspected it was the restless energy within him that had taken him to Syria in the first place. She had hated him for it but he’d asked her to wait for him. The smile on her lips and the ring she had given him was her unspoken promise to do as he had asked.
Only that smile now in his memories seemed so faded around the edges. For the six months he had been taken he had missed her, and wished for her, and it was her face that had kept him going. Now he was ready, ready for her and the life they could share together. What a joyous moment it would be when he would see her again. The ring she had given him he would return to her as an engagement ring of her own.
In the darkest of nights it was the only thing that would keep his mind away from remembering all he had lived through. Ross was fully aware that he had post traumatic stress disorder, the nightmares would wake him and he would lay in bed tried to find peace in his mind. There was no escaping the quiet, a quiet he had once craved so terribly. Now he needed the noise, needed the chaos he’d run away from. The only way he’d been able to rest was making himself bone tired, so tired that the only thing he could think about Elizabeth. Being in her presence again would heal him, he knew it would.
Or at least that had been the hope. Returning home, returning to Cornwall, he had discovered a very different life than the one he had left behind. His father was dead, the home and land they’d owned had been left to go to ruin by the housekeeper and games keeper his father had employed. There was no money left behind either after his fathers gambling and everything their family had ever worked for was simply gone. If only that had been the worst crimes against him perhaps Ross would not have minded. But it was always the betrayals of the heart that hurt the most.
The woman he loved, the very one whose face had kept him going when he had been taken, was now the same woman whom was now married to his cousin. Elizabeth Poldark, but not in the way that he had always wished. Going to his uncles home and seeing them together was a sword to the heart. It was hard for Ross to keep his words of anguish to himself, harder still when his cousin announced that they were also expecting a child together. In the blink of an eye the very thing he had always dreamed of was gone in a flash. She had tried to explain, their family had thought him dead, Elizabeth had thought him dead. To go from what they had however to Francis, it burned him deeply, tainted the very memories of her. Was it truly he that she had loved or was the name Poldark all she had ever seen? It was not something he truly wanted to know and it was not something Ross had remained at Trenwith long enough to discover.
Would it be a sensible thing to drink his life away and wallow in self pity or would he be able to pick himself up? The drinking was easy, but with an empty bank account and a house that desperately needed life put back into it, Ross would have no choice. The place he had run from, the hospital that was full of gossip and noise would have to be the place he would return to, to find some source of salvation.
Not an easy feat for a man who did not like going backwards. Even less so when the head of the hiring committee at Grace & Leisure Hospital was none other than his worst enemy George Warleggan. That ponce of a man had gone all through private school with himself and Francis, they’d all gone to medical school at the same time as well. While he’d detoured into the world of surgery, becoming a trauma surgeon to help those most in need, his cousin had gone into being a GP thinking it a more conformable life. Warleggan on the other hand had gone into plastic surgery. Not in some noble sense of the art but purely for the money making abilities. Ross had never thought Cornwall to need such a one, but apparently he was wrong.
Going there with his tail between his legs was shameful. Maybe even the hardest thing he had ever done, even with all the trauma he had been through before. George had taken great delights over rubbing his own success in his face and honestly if things had been different than he would probably have walked out and never looked back. Unfortunately things were not different, and the choices that he had made before was the reason he was now here.
Before when he had left Grace he’d given no notice period and had burned all his bridges virtually in one go. Now there would be a probation period, so many structures in place, and not as much chaos as he truly needed. His first operating lists would be constantly under the observation of George or others that he saw fit. Already Ross felt oppressed, and honestly he didnt think he would be able to survive it. Not with the terrible dreams, not with Elizabeth’s face now altered to his waking moments now involving her making love with Francis. The world had turned its back on him, had taken the very things he loved the most and turned them to dust. There would be no way to make it through.
Or so he had thought. If only he was to know that his first day operating again would bring him someone that would fix his heart all over again. One girl with the fiery red hair and a pink scrub cap with snoopy all over it. His luck had run out, but Demelza’s was just to begin