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Faith could barely look at Iain when he placed his hand onto her stomach, her baby bump…their baby.
But something kept drawing her eyes back to him.
‘I’m sorry.’ He said. ‘I just don’t want anything to go wrong.’
Go wrong? Why would anything go wr…The major trauma call…The 9 month old male. That was Iain. Wasn’t it?
Faith looked away for a second longer to gather her emotions before she turned her head to look back at Iain. He was quiet, concentrating solely on feeling their baby girl kick against her ever protruding stomach.
“It was you on that shout this evening wasn’t it?” She asked, gently.
He didn’t reply.
Away in his own little world of love and baby kicks, but also of worry and anxiety.
“Iain.” She said in the soft, concerned way that she does.
His eyes snapped up to meet hers.
“Yeah…Baby Micah…” He confirmed, his eyes drifting back down to where his hand remained on her bump.
“Are you okay?” She asked, sensing he perhaps was far from okay right now.
“I froze, Faith. He was dying infront of me and I…I froze. Indie had to take over.”
Faith was watching his every move, his every facial expression as he spoke. His eyes didn’t leave the bump at all. Transfixed.
She sighed in sympathy for him. She was glad not to have treated many infants since she had found out she was pregnant. Goodness knows how he must have felt.
“But you got him here. Alive. And he’s pulled through right?” Faith tried to reassure him.
“I guess so…” He replied, his eyes finally leaving the baby bump, and his hand following suit as he stood up and walked across the small room, sighing heavily as he ran his hands through his hair.
Faith watched him carefully from her spot on the bed. How she could feel such love and yet such frustration towards the same man in the same 5 Minutes she would never know.
“The blood pressure?” She questioned.
“Fear.” He admitted.
Faith was probably one of the only people he would admit that too.
“Right…Makes sense now.” She reasoned.
“Faith, I am terrified. Terrified of screwing this all up, just like I do with everything else.” He said, his voice thick with emotion, his eyes wide with tears.
“Iain…Iain you can’t fix this…Darlin’…” She told him, there was a firmness to her voice, yet the ‘darlin’’ on the end had softened everything about her.
She could see those words had hurt Iain. That was never her intention, and Iain knew that. But she also knew that her ‘broken’ comment from the other week had cut deep.
Deep enough for him to go off and sleep with someone else.
Deep enough to need to hurt her in the same way she had hurt him.
And Faith understood that…Well, at least now she did anyway. She told him he was broken, so he showed her just how broken he really was.
Except broken was the wrong word. This man wasn’t broken. Troubled? Traumatised? Absolutely. But broken? Absolutely not.
Eventually, Iain turned back to look at Faith.
“Come here.” She told him, quietly, holding her hands out for him. He walked back over and allowed her to take his hands into her own.
“Look at me.” Her usual, calming phrase.
Iain followed her instruction. She squeezed his hands tightly as she spoke. “Iain, you’re gonna be a brilliant Dad. Asa the other week, Luka…Micah today…Nathalia, Ana…Iain, you’ve got Fatherhood running through your veins.”
Faith looked down at her baby bump, moving one of Iain’s hands to rest on it, with her own hand placed on top.
“And this little girl? All she needs, is a Dad who’s gonna be there for her…And love her no matter what…And Iain, if that’s all you ever do for her…Then you’ve done more than enough.”
Iain breathed out a sigh of emotion as a tear or two got the better of him. He was about to wipe it away, but Faith appeared to beat him to it, using her thumb to wipe away his tears.
“I’m sorry.” The second time in this conversation that he had apologised to her…
“Don’t be. And listen, I’ll do my bit too, no more overtime. I promise. Just lots of rest to get this blood pressure back down.”
They both laughed together before a comfortable silence fell over the pair of them.
“Are you gonna be okay?” Faith asked with genuine concern.
“Yeah…I’m gonna go de-brief with Jan & Indie then go back to Jacob’s…And try and sleep this all away.” Iain said, taking a deep breath in and out; pulling himself together.
“You do that. Am I free to go now?” Faith joked, referring to the way he’d insisted she followed him in here.
Iain smiled.
“Yeah of course.” He said, and with that, she left, his anxieties a little lighter, his heart feeling a little less broken.