It’s the question fans have been asking since Casualty confirmed news of Charlie Fairhead’s exit last year. Having appeared in the long-running drama since it began 38 years ago, Charlie, played by Derek Thompson, has become part of Casualty’s framework, and there’s little he hasn’t seen or experienced. He’s survived being held at gunpoint, two heart attacks and the devastating death of his soul mate Duffy to name just a few. He was the cat with nine lives – until now, it seemed.

This also isn’t the first time Charlie bowed out of the show (he took breaks in 2004 and 2005) but the BBC has unequivocally stated that this was going to be his last exit.

So when he got stabbed, in what we knew was to be his penultimate episode, it appeared the writing was on the wall. Surely there was only one way this was going to go?

In actual fact, Charlie ended up bowing out, grateful, graceful – and most importantly – fit and well, in Saturday’s much-anticipated episode (March 16), which saw him survive the shock attack he suffered last week at the eleventh hour.

Stevie regained her confidence in time to realise Charlie had an internal bleed that had been missed in the previous scan and this served to be the missing piece of the puzzle in terms of his recovery. Flashback scenes had alerted us to the fact that Stevie and Charlie had crossed paths in another decade, bringing both their journeys in the ‘History of Violence’ mini-series to a poetic end.

The interwoven ’80s flashbacks introduced us to a much younger Charlie, as he recalled a momentous day at the start of his career while fighting for his life in the present.

Here, we also met Shirley (played by former EastEnders star Annette Badland), who was the charge nurse at Charlie’s former job before he joined Holby.

Refreshingly, this allowed us to see that Charlie wasn’t always the indispensable, trustworthy diplomat we’ve grown to know and love. As a youngster, he was cocky, care-free and hungover on the job, and Shirley wasn’t impressed with him. She did, however, spot his potential and therefore didn’t accept Charlie’s later attempts at resignation when a patient they’d tried hard to help tragically died. Shirley told Charlie that being upset was a testament to how much he truly cared, in poignant words that later reverberated when he said the same to Stevie.

Shirley also explained to Charlie that she was retiring because she finally felt she’d done enough, urging him to hang on until he felt the same. In a tragic twist of events, which gave us a tangible insight into where this story was ultimately heading (if we hadn’t guessed already by this point), Charlie later discovered that Shirley had quietly passed away in the staffroom, never able to get the retirement she was so looking forward to.

And just like that, Charlie’s past with Shirley ended up having a remarkable impact on his future.

Back in the present, Charlie, who was now miraculously fully-recovered, told Stevie that he was going to retire – imminently and on his own terms. He was ready. The ED was ready. And maybe we were now ready too.