He'll Come Through - 29 - Hormones, heartache and the future...THE FINAL

 29 - Hormones, heartache and the future ...THE FINAL

Rose shook her head, unable to fathom this news, “Delilah, please think about this. You’ve got Maria, Freddy and now possibly another baby. You can’t manage all that financially or emotionally. You need to tell him, he needs to...”

                “He needs to do nothing Mum, I CAN manage, and I WILL manage. What I won’t do is be someone’s second best, I told you that weeks ago. If I am pregnant then I will tell him, of course I will, but that is not my bargaining tool, that isn’t what I am.”

For the first time in a long time she could tell her mother was angry with her, disillusioned maybe and it hurt her, she’d relied on her mother so much since she’d got back from her kidnap ordeal.

                “I don’t think it’s as simple as that love, life isn’t always black and white. I’m not saying settle for less, I’ve never said that. But you have got to think that this time next year you might have three children in your care as a single parent, Quinn needs to know, and he needs to pull his finger out. He has as much responsibility here as you do. That may mean that things are not as you’d like in an ideal world, for either of you.”

Lilah considered that advice all evening as she tried to watch TV, the kids fast asleep in bed; there was some truth in her mother’s words. Quinn did have a role here, and there was no way he could still play soldiers in warzones and political trauma, putting himself at risk when he had such important commitments. Maybe he needed to get a proper, reliable job, move nearer, be there! Either way he had to make some commitment to Freddy and any other potential children, whether he wanted her or not. After all, it took two to Tango.

Maria started school a few days later, and as she walked her in for her first day, Lilah contemplated the fact that despite her mother’s repeated nagging, she’d not done a pregnancy test. She just knew, and lo and behold, she’d thrown up several times and hadn’t been able to tolerate coffee for a few days. Proof enough.

She was playing in the garden with Freddy when her mother looked over the fence.

                “How you doing? You taken a test yet?”

Lilah sighed, “Mum, I’m coming to hate you with all this nagging. I told you I’ve got a doctor’s appointment, what more can I do?” Spotting the eyebrows rise in defiance Lilah blew out a large breath of air, “I know! I get it! I will speak to him, just give me some space!” She added a late, “please!” Before turning back to Freddy.

Lilah knew her mother was right, she really had to sort this out, but there was something secure about denying it was all happening. If she ignored it long enough, a small part of her really hoped that everything would go away, though she knew it wouldn’t. She also knew that she wouldn’t get rid of this baby, if ever she would then it wouldn’t be now, the baby of the man she loved, a full sibling to Freddy, nope, never an option. So all she could do was phone him...after the doctor’s appointment.

That afternoon, at two thirty she left the GP surgery, she did a test prior to going to confirm what she already knew, but it was still a shock, and as she bundled out of the surgery, tucking the confirmation leaflets and hospital appointment onto the top of the pushchair, she guided Freddy out into the early September sun. She’d taken no more than a dozen steps when she looked up to see Quinn stood in her path.

He’s come! Was her only thought as she drank in the vision of him, tall, suited...that was a turn up, and a welcome one at that, his dark haired trimmed, short, eyes hidden behind designer shades.

                “Quinn!” she breathed, “what are you doing here?”

Quinn continued an aggressive stride towards her, “what’s wrong? Is Freddy ok?”

She nodded, “he’s fine, why?”

Quinn shook his head, “doctor! You’re coming out of the doctor’s!”

                “Ah!” she laughed, “no I had an appointment! What are you doing here Quinn?” She was dying to hear the words ‘I’ve changed; I know I want you more than anything....’

Instead she heard, “Why I’m here is incidental. What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

She shook her head distractedly, she wanted this awkwardness over, wanted to throw herself into his arms, “I’m fine...” suddenly her wandering brain cleared on the reason for her appointment. She had to tell him about the baby. As she looked up to him, she saw that his eyes were on the pushchair, and had widened in surprise, following his gaze she saw the ‘Pregnancy and you’ leaflet the doctor had just handed her.

He snatched it up and leafed through it, “you’re pregnant again?” His voice was quiet, and when she nodded he glared at her, “where you ever going to tell me?”

She flinched at the anger in his voice, “of course I was....”

                “Well forgive me if I’m sceptical...after last time!”

                “Quinn!” she hated hearing animosity and pain in his voice. “Don’t be like that! This is completely different, and you know it.”

Shaking his head in a disappointed manner he mumbled, “I’m not doing this in public. Home, now!”

Taking the pram from her he stomped down the road to her house before depositing a sleeping Freddy in the front room. Lilah was in the kitchen waiting for him.

                “I was going to tell you,” she babbled as soon as he came into the room. “I only realised a few days ago, but it all made sense, I’ve been so tired...”

He’d visibly calmed now, “we were careful, I’m sorry...”

This was familiar ground, she’d been through this so many times in her head, they had been careful, but...“there was that one time....”

Looking at her quizzically, suddenly his eyes widened, “Ahh....yes. Sorry that WAS my fault! Shit, are you sure you’re ok? I mean this is all new to me!”

Shrugging she attempted a smile, “you’re ok about it?”

Quinn shrugged, “what’s there to not be ok about? It’s happening, and I’m far from regretful. In fact,” he laced his hands around her waist and pulled her in for a brief kiss, “I’m quite glad I’m going to get to see everything this time, I missed so much with Freddy!”

Lilah breathed a sigh of relief, “You mean you want to be here, with us.”

Nodding he gave a wry smile, “I should have realised earlier! As soon as your mother mentioned the doctor....”

                “MY MOTHER!” she screeched. Suddenly that romantic vision of her and Quinn with a menagerie of children disappeared in a puff of smoke. This was EXACTLY what she’d feared all these months. “My bloody mother! I knew she’d interfere! The whole point is Quinn I don’t want you to stay cos you feel guilty or obligated! I wanted you to stay because you want ME! Me as a woman and a partner!” She lashed out in frustration hitting him in the chest. “I’m no charity and I’m not here to humour your every whim. My mother may think this is everything but I DO NOT!”

Quinn had hold of her both wrists, “will you listen to reason woman?”

Lilah was fighting another wave of tears, she seemed to have spent most of the past year crying and she was sick and tired of it. “I’ve done enough listening Quinn; I’m doing the talking now! YOU need to get your head out of your arse and listen for a change. You can be a father, I’d never stop that, but you can’t walk in here and tell me what to do!”

At that comment he started to laugh, “Oh you think, do you?” Letting her hands go he grinned, “When you’re my wife you’ll have to at least TRY and listen to me!”

Lilah scoffed loudly, once against pounding her fists against his chest, “this is so typically YOU, making all the decisions, expecting everyone to fall in with you! You come in here and say that to me? ARGH! That was a poor excuse for a proposal, if that’s what it was! Even if you really did love me, did want me on my terms, I’d refuse purely for that! Please go Quinn! I don’t need this stress!”

Pulling out a chair he turned it around and sat astride it, resting his arms along the seatback, “will you stop being so bloody angry?”

Lilah was seeing redder than red, sat there with his smug smile, his knowing look and an air of condescension, she was ready to grab a frying pan and wrap it around his head, “Quinn, I asked you to leave. I am not a social responsibility that you have to ‘manage’, if you won’t go then I will. Spend as long with Freddy as you want, but be ready to go when I get back. You hear me?”

Smiling he nodded, “you’ll be back!”

With a snarl she stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind her, her angry march lasted all the way up to her mother’s house, and with a similar door slam Lilah burst into the kitchen desperate for the confrontation that might make this feel better, ease the pain slightly.

                “Mum!”  She shouted, uncaring of how disruptive that was to her. “Where are you?”

As she flopped into a kitchen chair, her mother emerged from the pantry, her hair grey with flour, “what are you doing here? I thought you’d have a lot to discuss with Quinn!” Rose looked at her daughter with a smile, then noticed the look of anger on her face. “What is it?”

                “How could you?” She roared. “I begged you not to get involved, I told you I wanted to do this myself, work out how I wanted to play things, wanting to do things in my own way, but you couldn’t stop yourself, could you?”

Rose was confused, and her expression betrayed that, but though Lilah spotted it, she was too angry to register. “What are you talking about?”

Lilah was shaking her head, “it’s ok Mum, I know you can’t help interfering! Well he’s back; he’s in town thanks to you and trying to push me around. And now he knows about this baby, he’s staying for it, for them!”

                “I don’t know what he’s told you....”

She intercepted before the ‘but’ that she knew was coming, “he hasn’t said a lot, other than you called him, told him to come here. Did you tell him I was pregnant too?”

Shaking her head she started to pace the kitchen, fighting so many emotions, it took several minutes before she realised her mother hadn’t responded. Slowing she looked down at her, sat opposite the seat she’d vacated. “Mum?”

                “Delilah, I am so disappointed that you’d think I’d do that. Of course I didn’t contact him; even if you hadn’t specifically asked me not to I wouldn’t have interfered.”

Lilah felt awful, the devastated look on her mother’s face spoke volumes, “but he said....”

                “He spoke to me?” Her mother nodded, “he came here because you weren’t in the house, I did say you may have called to the doctor’s, but I at no point said why you were going.”

Feeling as though the ground was about to open up and swallow her, Lilah slumped back into the seat, “so he came here to see me?”

Her mother nodded, “on your terms it seems.”

                “Oh Mum,” she laid a hand on her mother’s arm, “I am SO sorry...”

In a generosity that only a mother showed, she shook her head, “don’t apologise to me love, I’m not the one you’ve probably sent away. Now go and find him and tell him you’re sorry and that you love him. OK?”

She gaped open mouthed, desperate to know what to do, so with a firm shove, her mother pushed her on her way with a ‘call me’. She could hear the phone ringing as she left, but ignored it.

Lilah’s run at full sprint along the lane that joined the two houses was she imagined comical. She couldn’t remember running that fast since school. Landing against the back door, she fell into the kitchen haphazardly to see Quinn stood at the hob cooking something. Spotting her, his face curled into a smile.

                “Ok?”

Lilah could count on one hand the times she’d been truly speechless in her life...first day of High School, the day she heard her parent’s having sex, the moment she’d been kidnapped, the second Freddy was placed in her arms, and now here, at what was probably the real crucial changing point of her life. Quinn stood, his jacket discarded, tie loosened but still suited cooking dinner, the small kitchen table laid with her best linen and crockery, a vase of fresh tulips sitting in the centre.

                “Cat got your tongue?” He was grinning. “Your mother is collecting Maria from her swimming lesson, your father has Freddy. We’ve nothing to do but talk, hey?”

Lilah gulped loudly, panic at this lack of control and the heightened tense atmosphere, “I’m sorry?” She tried croakily, “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.” His response was a raised eyebrow. “Look I thought my mother had called you!”

He finally smiled, breaking the tension, “you didn’t think I’d come back because I wanted to, but because I had to?”

                “Something like that,” she mumbled, knowing that she was on the verge of tears AGAIN!

He walked over to her and took her hands, “I told you two weeks ago I wanted to stay, you’ve just ignored me!”

She shook her head, “I think that was all the stress over Freddy being so sick...”

Quinn laughed again, “you keep trying to make decisions for me Blondie! I know my own mind. You never asked me why I was in Spain when I got the call from Amir that Freddy was ill. I’d cut across the Gibraltar Strait to meet up with a guy called Stan, he’s doing the same thing as me, I was offering him my links...kind of unofficially selling him my business.”

                “You planned to leave?”

Lilah was stunned, “you never said!”

                “Hardly the time was there?” he offered with a half smile, “I mean for days neither of us knew what was going on. But whilst we there I knew I was doing the right thing.” Her face silently questioned him so he added, “I was more worried about you dealing with everything...as worried as I was about Freddy, that I knew I couldn’t leave you again.”

Lilah pushed him away, this was all too much and all too convenient, “sorry Quinn, but this is all too sudden!”

                “We are having our second child, there’s nothing fast about that!”

Groaning she walked as far away as she could in the confines of the small kitchen, “look that is no reason for you to rock up here and pretend this is your dream life. I’m sorry I stunned you with this baby.” Even though her stomach didn’t show an inch of her pregnancy, it was far too early; she placed a hand protectively across it. “But that’s no reason to offer all this! And will you stop grinning!” His incessant grin was starting to wind her up.

                “Haven’t you wondered why I’m in a suit? I mean it’s not like my normal attire!” When she shook her head he added, “I’ve been SO busy. I’ve sold the houses in Oxford, both of them, and I’ve put an offer in to your landlord for this place. But it’s too small for three of us, so I’ve offered for the house next door too.” Her house was one half on two joined cottages. “That was before I knew about the second baby!”

By now Lilah’s jaw was well and truly on the floor.

                “Look I know this is all a bit much, sit and have food.” When she didn’t move and remained stunned and confused he squatted down to meet her down turned eyes, “Blondie, what is it?”

She averted her eyes, still unable to either take in or believe his words.

Quinn groaned, “I am here because I want to be, why can’t you believe that?” When she still failed to lift her eyes, he tilted her head towards the table. “Sit down, please?”

Finally realising that if she didn’t sit her legs might give way, she agreed and lowered herself in front of one of the place settings.

                “I’m crap at this,” he offered sitting opposite her. “From the moment I saw you on that bus I wanted to sit next to you, get to know you. And you’ve not left my head since! There was something about you. The amount of times I wanted to kiss you, shit not just kiss, as we were escaping. But then I did think about Johnny, and it was the first time I’d thought about her in ages. And for a few days I thought I was abusing her honour, her memory, but she was a great friend, a great soldier. Loving you doesn’t change that Blondie!”

At those she spluttered rather dramatically and before she could answer Quinn was continuing.

                “Ok, I deserved that, and you were right, sorting things out with my mother has made things better, clearer for me. Like a bright light being switched on. I can see you’re sceptical, but if I didn’t thing that, then I’d never have joked, and I’d not have brought this with me, before I knew about number two.”

Lifting the napkin at her place setting he revealed a small velvet box, “I’m sorry to throw it on you earlier, unannounced, but I was deadly serious.”

Lilah was hyperventilating as she managed to stretch out a finger and touch the black velvet embossed with silver script. When she glanced up, Quinn was on his knee next to her, a nervous smile on his face.

                “Delilah Dawson, I love you more than anything! Please, will you marry me? Make me the happiest and luckiest man on the planet?”

Suddenly it all clicked into place, he couldn’t organise this much on an impulse, he really had thought this through and decided that this, SHE, was what he wanted.

With a smile, she met his eyes, and the word yes was swallowed up by his lips as they descended on hers in triumph. Happiness taking over every cell in her body.