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saintmeghanmarkle · 9 months

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A Year in Review: All the times Meghan Markle been publicly called out in 2023. Highlights and favorite #MarkleMoment from last year? 📌Part 2 of 2

These are her humiliating moments over past year that she’s been publicly called out for in some way. All with proof, all archived from media reports around the world. Get cozy, save this post, and as always, appreciate the upvotes so it doesn't get targeted for downvotes! Posting it now as many of us will be celebrating Christmas with our loved ones. Although we are a diverse bunch, this unites us all :)

Here’s some from 2022 to inspire you:

Harry and Megan of “overseas”

the Funeral candle

no Jubilee balcony

voetsek Megan

I love the part where…(YouTube comments on their Netflix trailer)

Marriott Meg

12% Rotten Tomatoes rating for Netflix flopumentary, with her cutesy (mocking) curtesy

What was your favourite from 2023?

Meg inexplicably marching with the Invictus vets, at the front, while Harry is literally on the sidelines. https://archive.ph/wip/VG5SP

Meg wears a JCrew sweater to the Games. Her fans claim the Meghan effect crashed the site. JCrew comes out faster than Dior to clarify it was a confirmed outage for a website update.https://archive.ph/wufbS

Archetypes trademark abandoned. So much for the other platforms manifested clamouring for it. https://archive.ph/wip/yhziu

Embarrassing video at the fundraiser with Kevin Costner where she assumes she’s going to be given the mic by virtue of her being there, reached for it, and is very intentionally avoided and not given it. https://archive.ph/yeZDN

Despite the NDA attempts, information on how the NY Bench faux Royal visit does not let anyone speak negatively about her visit. Ever. She also demanded a new carpet. https://archive.ph/qAhnb

Snubbed by the Beckhams on their far more popular Netflix documentary. “Humiliated” by the snub from the Clooneys at their New York Foundation for Justice event.https://archive.ph/wip/GsB7j

Snubbed by Kim K birthday party, despite earlier pics with Doria and days before floating PR that Meg may do a cameo on KUWTK. Compounded by Kylie’s ‘boyfriend’ Chalomet talking about the Worldwide Privacy Tour earlier in the week. https://archive.ph/wip/BGvVP

Mocked on Family Guy for Netflix contract getting paid for nothing/ spon con Insta for Del Taco. Del Taco joins in and tweets about it. https://archive.ph/wip/Sm56V

Meg manifests a deal with Audible. Audible spokesperson shuts that down. https://archive.ph/KTLnP

William lands in Singapore for Earthshot to lit up architecture, Union Jack waving crowds, and an official tree planting at the airport. Meg and H attempt to compete by releasing a ‘candid’ pic of them at Katy Perry’s Las Vegas show (implying the standing people, phones were for them and not Celine Dion who walked in behind them). Cameron Diaz was also there, but didn’t get pics sold the same way. None of the other celebs present interact with them on camera. https://archive.ph/gnpjA

Dior signs Meg. No, not that Meg, but Meg the actress who plays Kate Middleton on the Crown. https://archive.ph/wip/lH6dY

Harry and Meg highly publicize their birthday call to Charles. The Palace discretely responds with detailed full itinerary of Charles’s busy day and evening, plus the press runs the fact that Charles doesn’t have a cell phone. Sussexes double down and pivot to it somehow being a prerecorded message sent (to where?) with Archie and Lili singing happy birthday. The world laughs or ignores them. https://archive.ph/i0uz8

Move along Meg on TikTok, after the video of her refusing to leave her basking on the press carpet at the Variety awards. Bonus is the real celebs inside clearly refused any pictures with her. The next day it’s confirmed she wasn’t even on the Guest List, which explains the Table 12 seating in no star names social Siberia. https://archive.ph/uC4Y8

Harry and Meg graciously are open to an invite for Christmas. Palace guest list leaks a day later, NFI. https://archive.ph/wip/0dEoi

Endgame is published. Omid claims to not be a friend of Meghan. Two Royal racist names are leaked to the Dutch publication based on Meg’s letter to Charles post Megxit. Omid blames the translator. No one publicly appears to believe them. There is not one single positive review of Endgame in major world newspapers. Omid later in the week acknowledges the names were in the Dutch manuscript. https://archive.ph/wip/Lr8XR

Hollywood Reporter lists Harry and Meghan as one of the biggest losers of 2023. https://archive.ph/E4hUt

Kitson’s Holiday Hypocrisy celeb window display in LA features Harry and Meg. Tik Tok notices. https://archive.ph/7yA3F

Ranker poll has both Meghan (#2) and Harry (#6) in the Top 10 list for Most Disliked Celebrities of 2023. Oprah, Hilary Baldwin,Ellen, Amber Heard (#1), and Bill Cosby also make the list. Update: They've recently become #1 and #4. https://archive.ph/OpKH5

Archewell 2022-2023 Impact Report highlighting ‘Restoring Trust in Information’, including ethical journalism, drops the same day Harry is fined $60K in court for providing misleading information - where he’s suing a newspaper. Court documents call it “ironic” given the “Duke of Sussex is responsible for misleading the court.” https://archive.ph/wip/1YtSe

Archewell’s 2022 financials reveal they only raised $2 mil (two anonymous $1 mil donations) vs $13 mill (also two anonymous donations) in 2021. Press brand it a “failure.” Notice they literally had only 4 donations in two years. https://archive.ph/wip/LqnuL

Not invited to any parties for Art Basel in Miami. Back in 2014, Markus organized a Soho party, invited Meg, and sat her next to Misha Nonoo. Context shows Meg has even less clout now than her pre Royal days.https://archive.ph/wip/aKYPL

Christmas card released. Largely ignored by world media. The response from other media: where are the kids? Called out for its embarrassing corporate look. https://archive.ph/fldEw

WME is "horrified" by Meghan Markle's sinking brand and association with Endgame, and may drop her in 2024. https://archive.ph/mye6j

(Honorable mentions to specific Harry’s moments: with Charles too busy to met, not going to France and hiking in Transylvania, and “in the realms of total speculation”. Harry pitches a Spotify show interviewing Putin, Zuckerberg, the Pope, etc on their shared bond of childhood trauma, Spare the most dumped holiday book of 2023. “Peace talks” between KCIII and Harry since he’s nearby in Germany for Invictus shut down less than 24h later. Persona non grata).

Which ones did you not know or forget about?

It's been quite the year! To quote the Sussexes, thanks for all the support in 2023!

post link: A Year in Review: All the times Meghan Markle been publicly called out in 2023. Highlights and favorite #MarkleMoment from last year? : SaintMeghanMarkle (reddit.com)

author: somespeculation

submitted: December 17, 2023 at 02:25PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

71 notes · View notes

intubatedangel · 2 years

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Code Red - Conclusion

I got a bit carried away with this one. It’s a long chapter, and I did consider splitting it into two, but honeslty felt it wouldn’t work as well in two pieces, it all fits together as a single unit. I really hope it is worth the read, but can’t say much else without spoilers.

I’ll be taking a break from the series after this, I’ve got some non-resus stories I want to try and write while I’m still in the groove, and I need to emotionally recover from such a heavy story.

Story Index

* * *

The sky was shrouded with a layer of grey cloud and rain pattered down, drumming lightly on the old slates. It wasn't too hard a shower, spring was more a time of drizzle and persistent light rain, rather than howling storms. Carl watched large drops splash on the ground beneath a crack in the aging cast iron gutter as he sat on the old wooden bench underneath the lean-to porch, situated next to a side door of the small, old church. Anna had often told him that she wasn't religious, but in this part of the world that didn't particularly mean much. In small villages with no other amenities beyond perhaps a pub or inn, the church was simply the place where community events took place. Festivals. Jubilee celebrations.

Weddings.

Funerals.

Carl shivered as the memory intruded upon him again. He still hadn't been able to shake free of the images, despite counselling. Anna, laid out on the trauma bed, lifeless. Her utterly unmoving heart held between his hands. The sound too. A screaming monitor just behind him. Sarah's sobs as the young nurse cracked.

A hand on his shoulder broke him free of the grim reverie with a jump. Carl looked up to see Roger stood beside him. The nurse gazed down at him with a look in his eyes. Not quite pity, more of understanding with a sad element of helplessness. Which was more than true. They'd talked about it at length on more than one occasion since that day. Roger's presence in Trauma 3 wouldn't have changed anything, and every idea the two of them had come up with to combat the recurrent memories had been a bust. The only thing left to try was deeper, more intensive therapy.

He just had to get through today. Maybe doing that would help all by itself. Carl gave Roger a nod and pushed himself to his feet, throwing off the past and coming fully back to the present. They both stepped up to lean against different thick oak pillars, gazing out through the haze of the rain at the church's graveyard. Anna's adopted family had been a fixture of the village for untold years. There were generations of Swifts buried here.

Roger blew out a breath. "Do you know what you're going to say?" He asked.

Carl nodded, slipping a hand into the inside pocket of his black suit, pulling out a folded piece of paper. "I don't know if I'll be able to though."

"You will." The nurse said, making it seem like a simple statement of fact. A moment later he stood straighter, looking out at the road leading down to the church. Carl followed Roger's gaze, quickly locking on the long black car as it passed behind the trees. Roger turned to him, his hand landing on Carl's shoulder again. "Here she comes. We should get inside."

* * *

THE DAY OF THE ATTACK

Stelling had relented to Carl's request for 5 more minutes with a small nod, easing back from the bed to leave him to it. He turned to look at Mark, or more particularly the rapid infuser.

"Go ahead with another full round of blood products."

"This'll be all we have." The nurse warned.

"Jones will be here." Carl told him. Not that it would matter if they didn't get Anna back by the time the red bags were empty.

Through the conversation Carl's hands had continued to squeeze Anna's heart, palms and fingers pumping the otherwise inactive muscle. He feel the blood in the chambers, a glance at the monitor telling him that Anna's blood pressure, above the aortic clamp at least, was almost at a normal level. They, He, just needed that heart in his grasp to beat on its own.

He glanced at the clock. 2 of those 5 minutes had slid by already. It was so hard to tell time when everyone was so quiet. And when there was so little else to do. It also meant it had been 4 since the last round of adrenaline.

"Get me another round of epi." He said to Trish. "Inject it directly into her heart."

It was a desperate measure. It was a more desperate time. This was already one round beyond the usual maximum. She'd probably bled a few rounds out before they stopped the worst bleeding. As a justification for breaking protocol, it wasn't the best. However, the protocol was based on evidence. Any epi beyond the maximum showed no clear difference to outcomes. But if, technically, that maximum amount hadn't truly made it into her system, maybe giving her one more would make a difference.

Carl kept up the compressions while Trish filled the syringe, and stepped up beside him. "Right in there." He indicated with his finger, while still compressing. He was pointing just below where the coronary arteries branched from the aorta, and did his best to keep Trish’s target still as he made sure blood still flowed. The sheer size of the aorta would mean some, maybe even most of the drug would be sent elsewhere, but it also meant the whole heart itself would receive a decent dose at the same time.

Carl desperately hoped it would be enough.

He watched Trish guide the point of the needle towards the indicated point. Her hands were tightly controlled, not even a single tremor. The needle pierced the aorta just above the ventricle, sliding in just a tiny distance. Trish held the barrel with one hand, keeping the tip of the needle where it needed to be, and eased the plunger in with the other. Carl's massage pushed the drug into her system, and her heart.

Trish extracted the needle, stepping clear of Anna's chest, limiting any potential to accidently introduce an infection, in the increasingly vain hope that Anna would survive long enough for that to be a concern. Carl had hoped for an immediate response to the adrenaline, but Anna's heart didn't react.

Come on baby. Come on. Come back to me. Come back to me baby.

He repeated variations on that refrain in his head as he stared at her face.

He never even noticed the moment he started saying it out loud.

"Carl....Carl!"

Everything looked hazy, until he blinked away his tears. As his vision cleared he became aware of everything.

Sarah was sobbing. She'd detached the ambubag and dropped it next to Anna's head. The monitor behind him continued to scream, Anna was still asystolic. Her heart refused to even twitch. It laid there in his hands, lifeless, just like the rest of her body.

The surgeons had stopped working. He raised his head, to see Jones stood inside the trauma room, a large bag slung over one arm. His other was wrapped around Lucy as she buried her face in his shoulder. Trish laid her hand on Carl's elbow. He couldn't look at her.

Instead, his gaze drifted towards Stelling. He didn't expect it, but she looked broken. Her eyes glistened with her own tears. "Carl, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She took a shuddering breath. "It's been 35 minutes. I...I have to call it." She looked at the clock, one hand gripping part of the sheets in a knot. "Time..." Her voice cracked. "Time of death, 04:17"

* * *

Anna was able to feel Carl's compressions. But not much else. Her abdomen no longer existed to her senses. She did not feel her lungs inflating. The pulses from those compressions had slipped beyond her. She only felt the physical squeezing of her heart by his hands. And even that was fading away from her.

Please don't stop.

Her mental voice had barely the strength of a whisper.

Don't let me go.

She felt so insignificant. She tried to cling to that feeling of her heart being massaged, but it too was beginning to fade. Even though she was in a lightless void, a greater darkness seemed to be drawing in around her.

The squeezing of her heart stopped. Not like her sense of it faded away. It simply stopped.

They had stopped.

No...

She whimpered as that final darkness started to rush in at her.

* * *

Carl's world was ending. Tears tracked down his face, soaking into his mask. He looked at her blank face, her empty eyes.

She can't be gone.

But she was. Her heart, cradled in his hands, lay totally still.

He heard others crying around him, in a far off, disconnected way. He couldn't move, his body frozen.

She's gone. Anna's gone.

* * *

I'm so sorry Carl

The rushing darkness was close to snuffing her out completely. Close to erasing everything she was. Her memories of the past. Her feelings in the present. Her hopes for the future.

No.

All those dreams of times with Carl. Of love. Family. Life.

Not like this.

She wasn't pleading.

She was pissed.

I won't leave him! You hear me! I will NOT go!

Anger had never really come easily to her. It had always seemed like a waste of energy.

Now, she raged, pulling on every memory, every emotion. Every dream.

You think I'm just going to let you take all of that from me?!

She roared at the eternal darkness.

FUCK YOU!

She drew all her rage into a single point and cast it out like a supernova, a brilliant flash in the darkness.

* * *

Anna's heart twitched in his hands. For a long moment he thought he had imagined it. Then it quivered, wriggled, and began to squirm. Carl's head snapped around to the monitor, that persistent whine had gone, replaced by the two tone alarm, and a coarse v-fib was juddering along the screen.

"Charge to 50!" He called out, spinning around to grab the wand like paddles.

"Carl..." He heard Stelling saying something, but he blocked her out. Thankfully Trish had set and charged the defib.

Carl turned to back to Anna, plunging the paddles into her open chest, placing them around her shivering heart.

"Clear!" He shouted, even though no one was touching her. They'd all stood back after giving up.

He pressed the buttons.

Anna's heart spasmed once as the shock jolted through, the muscles throughout her chest giving a tiny jerk. Time almost stopped. Anna's heart fell still. For an agonising, endless moment, it stayed still.

Then it moved.

A co-ordinated contraction, first the atria, then the ventricles.

The monitor bleeped, once, twice, three times. It continued bleeping.

And Anna's heart continued beating.

* * *

She's alive.

Carl finally breathed again, his brain buzzing as thoughts ran into one another. But that was the most important one.

Anna's alive!

"Get the vest! We need to cool her down!" He shouted. Her body was alive, he needed to keep her brain that way too. He looked beside him to Edwards, wordlessly asking for an update.

"Renal artery is grafted, it'll hold for long enough." She said. "We can pack the rest and give her a few hours at least." She said, with a relieved sigh.

"Keep that infuser going, just like you have been." Carl told Mark. It wasn't much of an apology for his earlier forcefulness, but the nurse nodded, his expression offering forgiveness.

"Carl." It was Stelling again. "You need to leave her to us."

"Not yet."

"Now." She didn't shout, but her voice held the same unyielding command he often used. Unsurprising really. He'd learned it from her. "I can forgive your actions so far. But it's time to step aside." She held his gaze for a moment, then looked down at Anna. "We'll do everything we can. I promise."

A small part of his mind snarled at that. She had literally declared the love of his life dead. But he knew the senior doctor well. Where there was real hope, she would fight for her patients. Anna had that hope now.

Finally, Carl stepped back from the bed. His knee's trembled, and he had to place a hand on the crash cart to steady himself for a moment. The last hour had been a chaotic, terrifying, adrenaline rush. With Anna back, and nothing left for him to do, it finally started to hit him. He pulled off the glasses, mask, and gloves, letting them drop to the floor as the nurses followed their orders. He only had eyes for Anna.

Before the bed got too busy he slipped around to the top of the bed, next to Sarah. The nurse was still taking shaky breaths, but she had reattached the ambu-bag. She eased to one side for him, letting him close enough to lean down over Anna's head.

"I love you Anna Swift." He breathed, as he laid a quick gentle kiss on her forehead. "I love you."

He stood straighter, moving out of the way as the nurses arranged the cooling vest. The surgeons were working both sites, packing sterile gauze into her chest and abdomen and preparing to cover the sites temporarily before they took her to the operating theatre. They left the aortic clamp in place for now. He watched on as the whole team worked together to gently lift her up enough to slide the vest underneath her, extracting her shredded clothing at the same time.

He could feel himself trembling, the shock ramping up as he found himself unable to take his eyes off the blood soaked bundle that had been dumped on the floor. He jumped when Stelling put her hand on his arm. "Carl." She said quietly, the stony voice of his boss replaced by the compassion of a friend. "Go and get cleaned up. We'll let you know if anything changes." He struggled to nod, but the comforting squeeze Stelling gave his arm helped.

His legs felt like lead, and there was a constant ringing in his ears. He had to keep glancing at the monitor to confirm it wasn't an alarm as he backed out of the trauma room. Though the windows he watched as they got the vest wrapped around Anna's body and switched the ambu bag for a ventilator. It was one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do, but he finally dragged himself down the hall enough to take her from his view.

* * *

He shuffled down the corridor, pushing through the doors and heading for the staff room. He ignored all of the stares at his bloody clothes. All the questions from nurses and doctors. The words themselves didn't penetrate, but it was clear they knew now that it was Anna in trauma 3. His lack of response probably didn't help them, but he simply couldn't.

He finally made it to the staff room. He trudged to his locker, fingers refusing to cooperate as he manipulated the lock. Eventually he pulled it open. A change of clothes hung there, but he ignored them. Instead, his hands went to his jacket, finding a small box inside one of the pockets. His hand clamped around it, pulling it out.

It was all too much. He staggered back until he managed to brace his hand on one of the sofas, then he sank down until he sat on the floor. His mind was spinning beyond his, beyond anyone’s control. He'd come so close to losing her. He still might.

He wept.

He didn't know how many people came through. They said things to him. Gave comforting squeezes on his shoulders. An occasional one sided hug. Some sat by him for a time. It all just passed him by. He simply stared at the bank of lockers. At one in particular. Anna's. Daylight started shining through the lone window, casting a wedge of light across the lockers. To his perception it seemed to jump across lockers in small movements as the sun rose. The rest of the time all he saw was Anna laying on the landing covered in blood. Anna mouthing three words to him. Anna staring past him. Anna with a tube shoved down her throat. Anna receiving deep compressions. Anna with her chest open and her heart in his hands.

Finally, someone managed to break through to him. They had been sat beside him for a while. And he'd been vaguely aware of a conversation between the one next to him and someone else. He just wanted them to go away. To leave him alone. But they wouldn't. The person moved to kneel in front of him.

"Carl. Come on mate." He said, shaking Carl's shoulder, first gently then more aggressively. "Don't make me slap you."

Carl blinked, his eyes finally moving to look at Roger.

The nurse let out a breath. "Good. Listen. She's out of surgery. She's still with us. You hear me? She's still with us."

Carl tried to reply, but his mouth was dryer than the Sahara. He opted for a nod.

"That's it. They're gettin' her situated in the ICU, but you're going to have to change before they let you in, yeah?"

Carl glanced down at himself. The blood, Anna’s blood, on his clothing had dried, turning to a coppery colour. He gave another nod. Roger stood, and held out a hand, helping to haul Carl to his feet. Pain shot through his back and legs. The physical sensations helped to pull Carl back together more than the words. He must have winced or groaned.

"Yeah, 6 hours sat on the floor will do that to you." The nurse said, trying for a bit of levity.

It had been that long? Roger kept him steady as Carl found his feet. He finally parted his hands. The small box had left deep indentations in his palms, but he kept it from view. He started towards his still open locker.

"I'll get those. You get into the shower."

Carl's knees protested, but he took a step. He clapped a hand on Roger's shoulder and gave him a nod. He tried to say something but couldn't find the words. He just nodded again.

The nurse reached up and mirrored Carl's gesture. "It's ok mate. I know."

Carl slowly made his way to the shower, not letting the small box out of his grasp, as awkward as it made the process.

* * *

Carl sat beside the ICU bed. Machines whirred and whooshed and chirped around him. But he could only look at the figure on the bed. Anna looked a mess. But an alive mess. The ET tube was still held in her mouth by the tube holder, and she was wrapped up in the cooling vest. He could just see the bandages through the translucent material, taped over her chest and abdomen. But her skin had colour to it, her lips were pink.

The neurologist had been to examine her, but the findings were inconclusive. There was some damage. She'd been in cardiac arrest for more than half an hour. Nobody was getting through that unscathed. But at this point they had no way to tell just what had been affected, or how bad it was. The EEG monitor was encouraging though. A halo of electrodes ringed her hairline, the wires running to the screen that showed good steady spikes. Neurology wasn't his department, he couldn't interpret them to any significant degree, but he knew one thing. Spiky brain waves meant she wasn't brain dead.

A nurse was fluttering around the machines, checking readings, adjusting levels. Carl said nothing while she was there. He simply held Anna's hand. It chilled his fingers a little, with the vest covering her completely, but he could withstand that. Eventually the nurse wrote one last thing on the chart, and with a small smile, she slipped out of the room. Carl watched her go. Then his hand slipped into his pocket.

"I'm sorry." He said to Anna, almost pretending she wasn't unconscious. "I lied to you, earlier." He took a shuddering breath as he pulled out the small box. He shifted her hand, exposing her fingers, and cradled it as he placed the box half in his hand, half in hers. "About the accountants."

He sighed. He could feel the tears prickling his eyes again. "My grandfather. He did leave me a trust, but they didn't need managed. Not today. Or yesterday, I guess." He said with a chuckle that almost became a sob. "He left me a trust that I was only to use for three things. Education. A home. And..."

Carl looked up at Anna's face. Her beautiful face. His heart ached, desperate to see those eyes open.

"And a ring." He whispered, gently opening the small box.

Inside laid a gold band, wide, but not excessively so. With a series of small stones set into the band itself, forming a palindrome of ruby, sapphire, diamond, sapphire, ruby.

He'd seen her admiring it in the window of the jewellers. Seen her wide eyes and radiant smile. That reaction told him everything he needed to know. She wanted him just as much as he wanted her. And that ring was the perfect one for his perfect partner.

"So please. Anna, baby I'm begging you. Please wake up so I can put it on your finger."

* * *

13 MONTHS LATER

Gravel crunched beneath the wheels of the black car as it made its way down to the church. Flowers adorned the trees that lined the trail, bouquets of pink and white. It was a long trail, almost frustrating by the time it pulled up outside the main door. Anna struggled to contain her excitement as her dad stepped out and rounded the back, coming up to her door and helping her out of the vehicle. Anna hid the wince, the scars were still a little tight, but she could bare it, especially today.

"Are you ready Petal?" He asked, looking her in the eyes.

She nodded, struggling to find any appropriate words, before realising that words were mostly meaningless. She reached out and pulled him into a hug.

He chuckled. "I'm so proud of you." He said into her hair. His voice was thick, heavy with love, true pride, and tinged with the memory of how she was a year ago. " Let's go." He whispered, as they both heard the first few notes from the organ.

As they walked into the church Anna was comforted by the steadfast presence of her father. She might have been adopted, but he was her father. Her hand laid on his arm gently, but he held it firm, ready, just in case. It had been a long year, and she was still recovering. The tingles and numbness in her right side could still come unexpectedly.

They stopped just inside the outer door, beneath the stone vaulting. Literal centuries of brides had stood right there, waiting for the right moment in the music. Trish was there, along with Anna's niece and a young boy, barely even 4 years old, one of Carl's cousins. Trish was already crying, a huge smile on her face. She approached tentatively, but Anna accepted the hug without tottering. It was Trish's turn to be unable to speak. She pulled back, nodded, still with the big smile, and hugged Anna again.

"You're going to make me late..." Anna whispered to her.

Trish finally retreated with a shared grin, and the organ music launched into the main theme. Trish shepherded the children around the corner, leaving Anna and her father in the vestibule, waiting for the cue. Her dad laid his hand upon hers, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"Let's go kiddo."

The music came around to 'the moment' and Anna stepped onto the aisle confidently. She looked around, greeted by the sight of so many familiar faces. Plenty of family, hers and Carl's. Colleagues and friends, the line there was pretty blurred. She didn't want to consider the bill for agency staff the hospital was taking. They hadn't complained though. Perhaps it was the trusts idea of a wedding gift. Even Dr Stelling was there.

It didn't matter how many times Anna told the trauma lead that she understood her actions, the senior doctor was endlessly apologetic. It was genuinely becoming annoying. Part of Anna wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her while screaming 'You don't need to apologise again! I would have done the same thing!' She was glad Stelling had allowed Carl to give her that last jolt, but...ugh, I'm over it, why aren't you, she thought.

The steady arm suddenly felt firmer, and Anna caught herself. She hoped nobody noticed. That was the biggest lingering issue. If she got distracted her mind could float off and leave her limbs behind. Totally normal, for someone who had been dead for half an hour, apparently. In time it would hopefully get better. It was still irritating.

But it did force her to focus, and what a sight it was. Carl stood before the altar, in a frankly ...mmmmfff... fitting suit. She was sure she hadn't forgotten a word, an embarrassingly common occurrence in the last year. For once she knew what she saw was beyond such petty things as words.

Many would say it was a pretty standard suit. But with Carl in it... How do you clothe the perfect man?

He'd been the first face she truly saw when she awoke. He'd held her as emotions pulled her apart and she dragged herself back together again, a beacon when communication was almost impossible. He'd held her arm as she took her first steps on wasted legs, steadied her as she relearned balance. He read her favourite books aloud to ease her off to sleep despite the beeps and bongs of various monitors. He had taken her home, to their home, and cradled her when the nightmares came. As she gradually returned to who she once was, he was there. Always waiting, ironically she reflected, patiently, until she was ready for the next step.

It had been a long year, and at times it was terribly hard. But it only served to deepen their love for each other. The ring was on her finger throughout. And, once her recovery permitted, they'd been able to have some moments of ... fun. Considering they were both employed in the medical profession, they ought to have seen it coming. They'd both been terrified when the doctor asked them to come and double check some results from a routine post-'event' exam.

Anna's hand drifted towards her belly, where the bump was only just starting to show, and Carl's joined it as she alighted the small set of steps up to the altar. His fingers lingered for only a moment though, they had ceremonial obligations to fulfil. Anna watched the embrace between Carl and her father, and realised just how bonded the two had become. If, in some bizarro universe she ever tried to divorce Carl, she had no idea who her father would choose.

Roger's presence behind Carl was also an element she would never have foreseen. They'd been colleagues, sure enough. But something around the 'event' had changed their relationship on a fundamental level. Men. They were weird.

And then Carl took her hands, and it was just the two of them. Nobody else mattered. The vicar was giving his spiel, and Anna was slyly glad she could blame the 'event' for her distraction when it came to the parts that actually needed her input. The truth was she didn't care for anything else but him. His eyes. His smile. Him, standing there before her. It took her a moment to realise what the vicar had said, until Carl unfolded a piece of paper. His voice barely wavered as he read out the handwritten vows, and Anna's heart became physically, metaphorically, and eternally, his.

THE END

* * *

There we go, didn’t want to say this upfront in case of spoiling it, but I hope I made some people reading cry as much I did when writing. It’s the ending I always had in mind but it was so intense to write. Hard but exhillirating. I was up to 2:30am doing the first draft because I was so into it. I sincerely hope everyone enjoyed this series, and I will be back with more stories from Anna and Carl eventually.

#Medical Drama #CPR #Defib #Resus #Resus Writing #Dark Cardiophilia #Anna Swift

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chellerbelles · 2 years

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Rogue & Gambit Week 2023: Rogue messing with friends after she got her powers under control, but they don’t know it yet

In the scene preceding this one, it’s established that Rogue is wearing a bikini & sarong, and Gambit is in swim briefs.

Their section of the beach was comfortably crowded when Rogue and Gambit arrived. Most were mingling on the beach itself, but there were some already in the water.

Rogue and Gambit’s towels were slung over their shoulders, Rogue with a cooler bag, and Gambit with his hand carefully placed on the top of Rogue’s sarong at her back. They walked casually across the sand towards Rogue’s friends.

At first everyone was too ingrained in their conversations to noticed, but then a couple people looked over, did double-takes, and nudged people around them.

“Rogue, hi,” Scott said, as they approached. “A little under dressed?”

Rogue raised an eyebrow, then looked at Madelyne standing next to him. “Does he police what you wear too?”

“Uh, no…” Madelyne replied, with a nervous glance at Scott.

“Well, I think you should have a word with him about lusting after other women and trying to police what they wear,” Rogue said, and turned back to Scott. “You’re married, Scott, and have a child to think of. Don’t be a creep.”

“I am not—” Scott began.

“Also, I’m taken. This is my boyfriend, Remy,” Rogue went on blithely. “Remy, this is Scott, and Madelyne.”

“You know, if you’re going to check out other women,” Gambit said, merrily leaning into the fun, “you should probably have the decency not to do it right in front of your wife.”

“I wasn’t—” Scott tried again.

“Anyway, I should get our food to the grill,” Rogue said, and patted her cooler bag. “Come on, Remy.”

Rogue led Gambit away before Scott could get another word in. She then introduced Gambit to Logan and Bobby who were already at work getting the food cooking. Rogue pulled the meat out of her cooler bag and set it on the bench.

“So, uh, you’re looking good, Rogue,” Bobby said.

“Why thank you, but I believe I literally just introduced you to my boyfriend,” Rogue replied. “Why everyone feels the need to comment on what I’m wearing today…”

“You do look exceptionally hot,” Gambit said.

“Aww, thank you, sugar.” Rogue smiled at him, then looked at Logan. “Where’s Storm and Kendall?”

Logan gestured with his tongs. “Over there, building sandcastles.”

Rogue looked over to see Storm and Jubilee watching over while Kendall, along with Scott and Madelyne’s son, Nate, and Jubilee’s son Shogo, built a sandcastle together.

“Aww, cute,” Rogue said. “I hope someone’s taking photos. Oh, hey, there’s Sage and Bishop. ‘Scuse us.”

Gambit gave Logan and Bobby a wave, and they headed over to Sage and Bishop. They passed by Kurt and Wanda on the way, along with Talia, and a white haired man that Gambit hadn’t been introduced to yet.

“Remy, this is Sage, Bishop, and Vange,” Rogue said, introducing him to each of her friends in turn.

“Rogue, hi,” Vange said and gave Gambit a tense smile, while shifting back from Rogue every so slightly. “Hi Remy. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you,” Gambit replied with a nod.

“So you’re the boyfriend,” Bishop said, looking him over with his usual stoic expression.

“I am.”

Sage looked them both over and then said to Rogue: “Congratulations.”

Rogue grinned while Bishop frowned. She had a feeling Sage would be the one person here she wouldn’t be able to unnerve.

“Thanks,” Rogue said the same time Bishop said: “You’re congratulating her on having a boyfriend?”

“Oh, I’m a first class boyfriend,” Gambit replied cheerfully. “I recently won the ‘boyfriend of the year’ award.”

“Up against how much competition though?” said a male voice behind them, and Gambit turned to see the white haired man he noticed earlier standing there.

“All of it. I was completing against all the boyfriends everywhere,” Gambit said. “I won the hotness category by a landslide, but where I really shone was sense of humour. I’m Remy,” he held out his hand. “And you are?”

“Pietro.”

“This is my ex,” Rogue said. “He’s also Wanda’s twin brother.”

Gambit paused for a second while Pietro zipped around him.

“Brother and sister dated brother and sister?” Gambit asked Rogue.

“Yes, but not at the same time,” Rogue replied. “We dated first. Kurt and Wanda got together later.”

“Yes, it was a surprise to all of us,” Pietro said as he stopped back in front of Gambit. “Especially when they got engaged. I still can’t believe they’re happily married and with a child. They seem like they should be so incompatible.” He smiled at Rogue. “Not like us.”

“And yet, didn’t last five seconds,” Rogue said. “A common problem for you.”

“So, how long you been dating this guy for? Five minutes?”

“Five months!”

“I don’t believe it.”

Rogue smiled. “I don’t care what you believe.”

She grabbed Gambit. Bishop and Vange made strangled noises as if to object, and then Rogue’s lips met Gambit’s. Gambit kissed her thoroughly, making sure to run his bare hands over her bare skin. The entire party fell silent except for the odd exclamation and the chatter of the children on the beach.

“Woooo!” Kitty called from the shoreline

Rogue kissed Gambit a little more then pulled away slightly with a grin on her face. Gambit loved seeing how happy she looked.

“So, I’m guessing the congratulations was for you having your powers under control now,” Bishop said.

“Yep,” Rogue said smugly, turning slightly to look at him. “But the whole ‘boyfriend of the year’ thing is still valid.”

Gambit chuckled as he rearranged his arms around her and kissed her neck.

“I’m really happy for you, Rogue,” said Vange. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks!”

“Yeah, congrats,” Pietro added, and then zipped off.

“Come on,” Rogue said, taking Gambit’s hand. “I should introduce you to Kitty and Pete.”

Kitty was giggling as they approached.

“Congratulations, Rogue,” Piotr said.

“Thanks, Pete.”

“I never knew you could be such a troll, Rogue,” Kitty said.

“I have my moments,” Rogue replied with a grin. “Congratulations you two. This is Remy. Remy, this is Kitty and Pete, the bride and groom.”

Gambit held out his hand first to Kitty, then Piotr. “Nice to meet you, and congratulations.”

“Thanks! Nice to finally meet you.” Kitty beamed at him. “I’ve heard so little about you. What do you do?”

“I’m a security consultant.”

“Oh, interesting.”

“Rogue!” Jubilee exclaimed.

Rogue turned to see her friend, her legs covered in a fine layer of sand. “Hi sugar!”

“You got control!”

“Yes I did!”

Jubilee squealed and threw her arms around Rogue in a huge hug. “Congratulations! I’m so happy for you!”

“Oooh thank you.”

#rogue/gambitweek2023 #rogue/remyweek2023

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laura-elizabeth91 · 1 year

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Theresa May: Boris, Brexit and me

Four years and three prime ministers since she left Downing Street, Theresa May has written a book and loosened up (a bit). She tells Caroline Wheeler why she’ll never stop biting back from the back benches — and why Donald Trump wouldn’t let go of her hand

heresa May’s political awakening came when she was about seven years old. “I have a distinct memory of there being a knock at the door one evening and the door being opened to two chaps, one of whom had a big blue rosette on,” she recalls. She later learnt this was Neil Marten, the Conservative MP for Banbury, Oxfordshire, near where the May family lived. “My father took him and the chap who was with him into the sitting room and I went to join them and the door was shut firmly in my face. I was told, ‘No, this wasn’t for children. This was an adult thing.’ And maybe being shut out of the debate was the first spark.”

The daughter of a vicar, she was 12 or 13 when she decided she wanted to go into politics. “I just woke up one day and thought, actually I’d like to be an MP. I think that being an MP can be as much a vocation as being a teacher and I suppose perhaps [that idea] had been generated by an upbringing of public service.”

May became the country’s second female prime minister when she entered Downing Street on July 13, 2016, in the wake of the Brexit vote and David Cameron’s resignation. She lasted three years, announcing her resignation in May 2019 after failing to get her Brexit deal through parliament and her party performing poorly in the European elections. She left office on July 24, succeeded by Boris Johnson, the nemesis who plotted her downfall.

May says her resignation speech was the only time she ever displayed emotion publicly. “It wasn’t crying exactly, but when I gave my speech outside No 10 my voice sort of cracked a bit. I went back into No 10 and Gavin Barwell, who was my chief of staff, came out and said, ‘Well done.’ I said, ‘No, my voice went at the end and I’m really annoyed at myself,’ and he said, ‘No, no. That shows good emotion.’ ”

Since then the politician formerly known as the Maybot — for her sometimes robotic answers to questions — seems to be living something closer to her best life, making careful interventions from the back benches on the Sue Gray report into the lockdown-breaking parties held across Whitehall and retaining the protections her government introduced on modern slavery; and, once, wearing a glittering ballgown to the vote of confidence in Johnson in June last year. (She was on her way to speak at a dinner marking the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee — and has never disclosed which way she voted.)

In the weeks after she left No 10, on a walking holiday in the Swiss Alps with her husband, Philip, May first had the idea for a book. It would pull together the threads of many issues she had dealt with, first as home secretary and then as PM. Out next month, it is called The Abuse of Power, a concept she defines as institutions of the state and those that work within them putting themselves first — way ahead of the people they are there to serve.

With a title like that you might expect it to be payback time on Johnson, but the index points to just 13 fleeting references to her fellow former prime minister. Indeed, the closest she gets to score-settling is an attack on John Bercow, the former Speaker (and Remain supporter), whom she accuses of carrying out the biggest abuse of power she witnessed during the Brexit impasse over Northern Ireland: “We got to a point where the DUP were being positive. We were actually at the point of them being willing to say they would support the deal. The normal processes went on in terms of going to the Speaker to talk about the motion, and he wouldn’t let us put the motion down. So that meant we couldn’t have the debate, we couldn’t have the vote, and by the time we did the DUP had changed [their mind]. And so there was a point we could have had a vote to do Brexit on the basis of the deal. He took a decision that meant that didn’t go ahead.”

Bercow certainly added to the pressure on May, amid claims he was working with opposition MPs to thwart Brexit, but with the numbers stacked against her in the Commons, it is likely that even without his intervention she would have struggled to get her Brexit deal through.

Instead, her book focuses on events outside the chamber, including the Hillsborough stadium disaster, on which she commissioned Bishop James Jones to conduct a report in the wake of the verdicts of unlawful killing in the second inquest; the police cover-up over the murder of the private investigator Daniel Morgan; and the Grenfell fire. The book is dedicated to her parents, whom she says taught her the “meaning of service”. They both died before they could see her become an MP.

When I arrive at her house in the village of Sonning in her Maidenhead constituency, where she has lived for 27 years, May, 66, is in the kitchen discussing recipes with her aide. She has plucked one of hundreds of cookery books from her shelves and is leafing through it. In the centre of the sage-green room, which has large windows overlooking a well-kept garden, is a wooden table where we make ourselves comfortable. Philip, 65, a now-retired investment manager, pops his head round the door. The pair, who met at Oxford and have been married for 43 years, chat for a few moments, finishing each other’s sentences, before he scurries away to find a more private corner of the house.

May was born in Eastbourne, East Sussex, in 1956, the only child of Zaidee and Hubert Brasier, who was a Church of England vicar and the chaplain of a hospital. After studying at Holton Park Grammar School, which became the Wheatley Park comprehensive while she was there, May went on to study geography at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. She then worked at the Bank of England and the Association for Payment Clearing Services.

After two unsuccessful attempts to enter parliament, at 40 May became the Conservative MP for Maidenhead in 1997 as Tony Blair’s Labour Party swept to power. She spent much of the next 13 years on the shadow front bench. In 2010, when the coalition government won power, Cameron appointed her as his home secretary — only the second woman to hold that great office of state. She became the longest-serving home secretary in more than a century.

“They always say you had to be a communist in your youth, a socialist in your young adulthood and a Conservative as you got older,” she says. “I’ve always been a Conservative.” Her upbringing taught her the “importance of the freedom of individuals”. “It was the sense that, actually, how far you’re going in life is down to you. It’s about your talents and your willingness to work hard. To me the Conservative Party always provided the better environment in which people could succeed.” Her mother wanted her to be a nun. Did she ever entertain the idea? “No, absolutely not!”

Aside from Geoffrey Boycott, her cricketing hero, May’s father was her biggest inspiration. “His absolute conviction was that he was there for everybody who lived in his parish; I’m there for everybody who lives in my constituency. To him it was regardless of whether they were coming to his church or not. For me it’s regardless of how somebody has voted. Once you’re in that position you’re there to support and help them, to work for them.”

Growing up as the daughter of a vicar, she says, isn’t so different from being the child of a politician. “There was a combination there of public service and public speaking. In the vicarage there was very much a sense that we were there for other people.”

With such responsibility on young shoulders, did she ever feel the need to rebel? May famously claimed the naughtiest thing she had ever done was run through a field of wheat. “I haven’t had a rebellious childhood and suddenly transformed,” she says. She has also admitted that her guilty pleasure is eating peanut butter straight from the jar. “There’s no transformation on peanut butter — there’s a jar in the cupboard!”

In 1981, a year after her marriage to Philip, her father was driving to a nearby church to conduct the Sunday evening service when he was in a collision with a Range Rover on the A40. He died of head and spine injuries. A few months later May’s mother, who suffered from multiple sclerosis, also died. At the age of 25 May was an orphan. “I suppose it made me even more want to do something that they would have been proud of. Even though they wouldn’t see it.”

However much May might want her legacy to be the legislation she introduced for net zero emissions by 2050, or the Modern Slavery Act — which created new duties and powers to protect victims and prosecute offenders — she knows her premiership will always be seen through the prism of Brexit. She voted to remain in the EU and now believes her life in Downing Street would have been easier if she had been a Brexiteer.

“I don’t think it would have been easier on the negotiation side, but I do think — when I look back on it — that there were some of my colleagues who were Brexiteers who found it difficult to think that a Remainer would actually deliver Brexit,” she says.

Although she claims she is not trying to blame others for her mistakes, May believes her failure to get her Brexit deal through parliament was due in large part to people putting their personal interests above those of the country. “I started off with the view that we had to find a way of doing Brexit that recognised the concerns of the 48 per cent who voted Remain,” she says. “It became this atmosphere of both Brexiteers and Remainers trying to get what was their absolute aim, rather than a compromise that would better suit everybody.”

There were also serious global events for May to grapple with. She was the first world leader to meet President Trump when she travelled to Washington in January 2017, days after his inauguration. The visit took a bizarre twist when photographs emerged of Trump holding her hand as they walked through the White House.

“I have no idea why he did it. I mean, he sort of said, ‘Oh, there’s a slope so you need to be careful on the slope.’ Now whether this is because Melania always wears very high heels or not, I don’t know. I had heeled shoes on but they weren’t high heels. I thought, ‘I’m capable of walking down a slope, thank you very much,’ and the next thing I know he’s holding my hand.” She adds, laughing: “The best interpretation is he’s being a gentleman. But subsequently a lot of people said maybe he needed the support going down the slope. I don’t know. He just grabbed my hand and I thought he would then let go of it, but he didn’t.”

May’s tone becomes more serious when discussing the abuses of power Trump would go on to commit. She describes the storming of the Capitol building in January 2021 as “a wake-up call for us all”. “If you look over the years since the Second World War, there was a sense that liberal democracy was going to be sweeping the world, almost, and it was there and it was embedded and we could take it for granted. I think what happened at Capitol Hill showed that we can’t take it for granted.”

In 2018 she expelled 23 Russian diplomats after an attempt by Vladimir Putin’s regime to assassinate a former spy, Sergei Skripal, on British soil — in Salisbury — with the nerve agent novichok. She says this was the “right message” to send Putin. “In terms of the invasion of Ukraine, we have to look back to Crimea, and even before that to Georgia in 2008. I think arguably the West’s response did suggest to him that the West wasn’t willing to stand up for its values. The West turned its attention to China. So Putin, I think, felt that the West was more divided, wasn’t as coherent in terms of its support for its own western values. I think that all built up into an opportunity for him and he took it.”

Since the invasion, she says, “what’s happened is that the West did come together, the West did show its willingness to support its values, and rather than the division of Nato he’s seeing the expansion of Nato. He’s seeing the West made more coherent and he’s seeing the numbers of troops that Nato are willing to put on his border increase. So he has actually achieved the opposite of what he wanted.”

May’s premiership could have taken a different course had she achieved the landslide victory she had been on track to deliver after calling a snap election in April 2017. For much of the campaign she enjoyed a double-digit poll lead over Labour. But her manifesto pledge on social care, nicknamed the dementia tax, was widely blamed for extinguishing her lead.

May claims the decision to call the election was down to timing, as she was concerned that leaving it any later would have seen an election follow hard on the heels of the UK leaving the EU. “I was obviously extremely disappointed with the results. Surprised, because we’d thought that we would be able to get Labour Leave voters to switch, in order to get Brexit done.

“What happened in the 2019 general election [when Johnson’s Conservatives won 365 seats to Labour’s 202] was what we had expected to happen in the 2017 general election,” May reflects. “What we hadn’t realised is [the Labour leader Jeremy] Corbyn hadn’t shown quite sufficient negativity to Brexit that the Labour Leave voters decided to switch [to the Tories], which they did of course by 2019.”

Did she consider resigning in 2017?

“I felt I’d started something and I wanted to finish it. I said, ‘Look, I got us into this, I’m going to work to get us out.’ ”

May gently chides me for asking if she cried as she saw her majority evaporate, pointing out this is not a question that would ever be asked of a man. “I think often with women politicians, people want to pigeon-hole them. It’s either ‘You’re so soft that you shouldn’t be doing the job’, or ‘You’re a real hard harridan’, like they did with Thatcher. I didn’t feel discriminated against in the sense that most people would describe as discrimination. As with the Maybot thing, there is a different approach taken to women politicians.”

Disappointingly May today is wearing an uncontroversial turquoise cotton dress, not the £995 chocolate-coloured Amanda Wakeley leather trousers she wore the last time she was interviewed for The Sunday Times Magazine in 2016. “All those comments about ‘How does she spend so much on leather trousers?’ — they were lent to me for the shoot! It only goes to show how sometimes women are judged in different ways from men.”

She is used to the slings and arrows. At a crucial Tory party conference in Manchester in October 2017 she had a coughing fit as letters from the slogan behind her (“Building a country that works for everyone”) fell slowly from the wall, and was interrupted by a prankster waving a P45. A year on, in Birmingham, not long after the quality of her dance moves on an official trip to Kenya had been criticised, she hit back by strutting onto the stage to Dancing Queen.

One image that will for ever be associated with May’s premiership is the Grenfell tower block in west London engulfed in flames. At 12.54am on June 14, 2017, the fire brigade was called to the blaze in Kensington. Within half an hour the flames of the burning tower lit up the night sky. Seventy-two people died. May was still exhausted in the aftermath of the election six days before. “I remember the next morning standing with private secretaries in the outer office just looking at the television screen,” she says. “The building was still burning. You almost couldn’t comprehend that this had actually happened.”

She was criticised for failing to meet victims during her first visit to the site, but returned to Grenfell to meet them privately in the days and months afterwards. “I think it’s so important because often what happens is you get an event like that, a tragedy like that, and politicians turn up on day one, in my case day two, and when the photos are taken and so forth, they go away and nothing more is heard from them.”

Grenfell touched a nerve with May because, she says, it appeared to be the physical manifestation of many of the “burning injustices” she had vowed to correct during her first speech as prime minister. The abuse of power here was the “belittling of a group of people because they happened to live in homes owned in part by the state. Those people living there felt they’d been beating their head against the brick wall of authority for many years in regards safety of the building.”

May had pledged to make Britain a country that “works not for a privileged few, but for every one of us”. This included plans to tackle the lack of affordable housing, fixing broken markets to help with the cost of living and stamping out racial and class disparities. “I think there were important things that I was able to do that addressed some of the specific social injustices. Setting up the Race Disparity Unit [which collects, analyses and publishes government data on the experiences of people from different ethnic backgrounds], for example, and recognising that a significant part of our population have often had a very different experience of living in the UK from the rest of us.”

As part of my trip to Maidenhead I join May on a visit to Thames Hospice. She is a frequent visitor to the bright, airy building overlooking a sailing lake, and was there when the Queen opened it in July last year — one of her last public events before she died in September.

It is impossible to miss the broad smile breaking across the face of Aaron Sennick, a 20-year-old with complex medical conditions, when he sees May. At one point he gushes: “Thank you for everything you have done for this country.” May looks more comfortable sitting beside Aaron’s bedside than she ever did at the dispatch box.

Aaron regales her with stories of his voluntary work and his burgeoning social media career. In return May tells him she is a technophobe and has only in the past few months given up her beloved BlackBerry and switched to an iPhone. He asks about her favourite memory as prime minister. May reveals it was in 2018 when she met the British diving team who had rescued a young football team from a cave in Thailand. She tells Aaron that she often found the most special moments were when ordinary people were recognised and celebrated for doing extraordinary things.

She is planning to fight the next election but is happy away from the front benches. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for prime ministers to go back,” she says. “I had 13 years in opposition — 12 of those on the front bench and then nine years on the front bench in government. So actually it has been rather nice to go back to the back benches and to do the job of being a constituency MP.”

After she left Downing Street, her husband, Philip, was awarded a knighthood in recognition of his political service. He was nominated by Johnson. Although his title means that his wife is now Lady May, she does not use it. May remains tight-lipped on whether this is because she is waiting for a peerage of her own.

“I think there is a need for PMs to think very carefully about the numbers that they’re putting into the Lords,” she says — the closest she gets to possible criticism of Johnson, who created 87 new peers during his tenure as prime minister (and awarded 7 more in his resignation honours), compared with May’s 43. “I actively tried to ensure that I restricted my list throughout my time as PM,” she says. Liz Truss’s list, after her 49-day premiership, is imminent.

Despite Truss crashing the economy, does May think Rishi Sunak can deliver on his promises and win the next election? “What people want to see is a prime minister — which they are seeing in Rishi — who has understood issues that matter to them and is putting in place what he believes will deliver on those issues,” she says. “We all know in politics that other things happen that can knock you off course, but I think what people want to see is that you are actively doing your best to deliver.”

May says she is “very pleased” that Sunak has not yet swayed from the 2050 net zero target she introduced, insisting that net zero is “the most important economic opportunity of the 21st century”. She adds: “Lots of people talk about the costs but don’t talk about what would net off those costs in terms of positives for the economy, for jobs, for people and so forth. There is a road in Maidenhead that is social housing that recycles rainwater — it has ferns on the roof to capture the rainwater better and so forth. It has all sorts of energy-efficient elements and the people who live there have seen their energy bills go down significantly. So I always say that what’s good for the planet can be good for your pocket.”

She says the argument will not be made by “lecturing people”. “We won’t achieve net zero if all we do is tell people you can’t fly, you can’t drive, you can’t eat meat. Actually, what we’ve got to do is say, you can play your role, your part in a number of different ways on a day-to-day basis. Government must play its part and business must play its part as well.” She adds: “If you look at everything that’s coming out of the Climate Change Committee and so forth, we really do have to address this issue. You can’t get to 2048 and say, Ooh right, we’ve got a target in two years’ time, let’s do this because that would be even costlier.”

May is less supportive of Sunak’s plans to remove the protections for victims of slavery who enter Britain illegally, and she defied a three-line whip after a debate on the issue in July. “My key concern is around modern slavery,” she says. “Because if we’re going to stop it we need to break the business model. That means catching perpetrators. To catch perpetrators you need victims to be willing to come forward, identify themselves and give evidence and I worry that what’s now in the Illegal Migration Act, and indeed the Nationality and Borders Act, together will lead to a situation where fewer victims will come forward.” She is preparing to launch a global commission on modern slavery, made up of CEOs, former world leaders, academics and civil society leaders. “There’s a sort of unfortunate thing in politics that politicians will often focus on one big thing at one point and then something else happens and the energy goes out of the first thing,” she says.

However, May will combine her new role with being a backbench MP. Even as prime minister she would go knocking on doors as often as she could in her constituency. Why? “You should never forget that even if you get to the very top job you’re only there because you have been elected as an MP.”

In her book, in one of the few passages to mention Johnson by name, she writes: “Another source of anger was the perception that somehow MPs were able to get away with breaking the sort of rules which they would expect everyone else to follow. This was to have another manifestation under Boris Johnson’s premiership, when those in 10 Downing Street and elsewhere in Whitehall were found to have broken Covid pandemic lockdown rules. The idea that there has been one rule for the public and another for MPs provokes public cynicism and leads increasingly to the charge of hypocrisy. In other words, why should we do what you say when you don’t do it yourself? Above all, it shatters any sense that MPs are leaders in society. Yet I still believe we have a responsibility to try to show such leadership. It may be harder in today’s world, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”

May believes that in order to restore integrity to politics, there needs to be an understanding that being a politician is a position of public service rather than power. “What you fundamentally need is for MPs not to think that they’re a species apart simply because they’ve been elected,” she says. “It’s that sense that, for some MPs, they are in a position of power because they’ve been elected, that they’re special, that they are a breed set apart. I think we have to change that thinking because, basically, being an MP is a job.”

The Abuse of Power by Theresa May (Headline £25). Read an exclusive extract in The Times tomorrow.

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