Mini bawls like a fucking baby when Grace leaves for university (she's doing History of Dance with a minor in English Literature. Alo thinks her name sake would be proud), and he has to basically wrench them apart.
"You'll call all the time?"
"Mum," Grace laughs, tears in eyes, "you sound like a needy boyfriend."
"And you'll come home whenever you can?" Mini continues, arms locked around her daughter's neck. Grace nods.
"And you'll-"
"All right, all right," Alo says. His stomach is churning uncomfortably, and he's not sure whether it's because his daughter is leaving home or because he's worried about her being late for admissions – he's driving her to Cardiff himself, in the falling apart van he drove when she was born. Grace pulls away from her mother, and beams at her father (Alo thinks, not for the first time, that she is the sun. His daughter is the sun).
"Are we going or what, Dad?" she chirps, and the three of them file out of the hallway and into the September sun. Standing by the car, Mini starts crying again, and that sets Grace off too, and soon Alo's got tears in eyes as well.
"Ah, fuck," Grace mumbles into her mother's shoulder, "We really need to go – it's nearly twelve."
Mini nods and wipes her eyes, and Alo kisses her quickly (Grace pulls a face, but he doesn't care). For a second she looks eighteen again, and he's in that bloody barn, surrounded by fairy lights. She still makes his stomach do backflips.
"Don't crash the car," she says fiercely, and he nods. Grace clears her throat, and Mini starts crying again.
"Oh come on, Mum!" Grace gets into the car and Mini laughs, a sad and shaky laugh that makes Alo smile sadly.
"Don't crash the car," she repeats, and he nods again.
"She'll be fine, McGuinness."
"I know."
They drive in a comfortable silence, the mix CD that Rich (ever the good godfather) made Grace as a going away present, and then, half way across the Clifton Suspension Bridge, she stretches like a cat and says "What was it like?"
"What was what like?"
"When I was born? What was it like? Must've been weird – I mean," she shuffles in her seat, "you were my age."
He can literally feel the centre of his world shifting when the midwife hands her, all pink and new, to him, and to be honest it's sort of pathetic. For years his life centred on Rich-Rags-green, in that order, and then it was Mini and now – now, the teeny tiny new human he holds in his arms is everything, the axis on which his sad excuse of a life spins upon.
She makes a gurgling noise, and he becomes dimly aware that she has hair, and that it is as red as his own.
"Farmboy," Mini puts her hand on his knee and it feels like an electric shock (he didn't think it was possible to love her even more than he did, but it is and he does), "Are you crying?"
Fuck it, he thinks, and then he nods. "She's just…she's perfect, McGuiness, look at her – she's fucking perfect."
Mini laughs, and the baby gurgles again. He decides that those are his two favourite noises in the entire world.
"Well," he says steadily, wondering if now is the time he's going to tell her that he vomited when he discovered she was going to be born, "it wasn't…it wasn't a walk in the park, y'know? Like, we weren't the most responsible of people to start with."
A lamb is being born, he is literally helping an animal give birth, when his phone starts going off in his pocket. Buzzzzzz-buzzzzzz it goes.
"Ah, fuck," he mumbles. Assuming its Rich moaning about his weird landlord (well, Richard when you answer classifieds in the paper, you don't know what you're getting do you?) so he lets it ring out. When it stops, the lamb plops onto the straw, and he nearly cries. Becoming a father has made him an emotional wreck.
As he's putting out some new straw for the other sheep, he hears a screech from just outside the barn. It's his mum, running towards him with the landline in her hand.
"Alo!" she shouts, "Alo it's for you!"
"I'm a bit busy, Mum!" he yells back, and she shakes her head vigorously.
"It's the school, it's Grace-"
At the mention of her name, he drops the straw and bolts towards his mother, running as fast as his legs will carry him. Out of breath, he grabs the phone from her and sets off into the house.
"What's wrong with her?" he pants, "Grace, what's wrong with Grace?"
"It's all right, Mr Creevey," the school secretary says calmly, but he's not really listening. He's pulling on his jacket and grabbing his keys and fuck, he's not even taken his muddy boots off in the house, his mum will kill him – "Your daughter was complaining about an upset stomach, so we've put her in the-"
"Upset stomach?" he asks, climbing into the van, "What kind of upset stomach?"
"She's been sick, but we've hosed her down, and she's sleeping right now. We tried to contact your wife-"
"Girlfriend," he says dully, not even really aware of it because the image of his poor, sweet daughter throwing up her guts in front of her entire class is burning itself onto his retina. "Mini's not my wife, she's my girlfriend…"
"Well," the secretary says, "we couldn't contact her-"
"Yeah, she's in London for Fashion Week," he tells them, and starts the car, "She's the first emergency contact number, isn't she? I'll be there in a minute."
"There's no rush, Mr Creevey, she's sleepi-"
"I'll be there in a minute," he repeats, and then he puts the phone down.
When he gets there, the secretary smiles kindly at him. It's the first time they've met, and she doesn't realise that he's Grace's dad.
"Can I help you, young man?" she asks, and he nearly laughs.
"I'm Grace's dad, Grace Creevey."
The secretary looks a little shocked for a moment, and he curses his ridiculous baby face, but she smiles broadly and points down a corridor to his left.
"She's just in there, Mr Creevey. She's sleeping."
"I won't wake her," he promises.
She's lying on one of those awful school bed things, in some kind of medical room. It's got posters all over the walls that say things like 'coughs and sneezes spread diseases'. He breaks his promise almost immediately – she stirs at the sound of the door opening.
"Dad…" she mumbles, "I was sick…"
"I know," he crouches beside her, "The nice reception lady told me."
"She is nice, isn't she?" Grace replies, words slightly incoherent and slurred, "It was awful, it got in my hair and everything."
Alo gives a mock-gasp, and she laughs a little. "Not your lovely hair, Gracie!"
"Yes, my lovely hair," she sighs, and her eyes start to close, "Will you take me home, Dad?"
"Course I will, kid," he presses a kiss to her temple, and he's reminded of when she was born, all tiny and new. He had to look after her then and he has to look after her now. He doesn't mind. How could he mind? She is everything.
He scoops her up in his arms, and carries her to the van. The secretary smiles at him as they leave.
"But it was worth it, right?" Grace continues, chewing her bottom lip nervously, "Like, you don't – you don't regret it, do you?"
When she is seven, she is the lead in the school play. He and Mini arrive late, accompanied by proud godparents Liv and Rich, and there's the awkward shuffling-in-at-the-back thing that his mum always used to complain about when he was Cow 3 at the nativity. They finally get seats, and Rich pulls out two bags of pic'n'mix.
"Richard!" Mini hisses, but Alo just mutters a thank you and pops a fizzy cola bottle into his mouth. The curtain rises, and out steps Grace. He glances at Mini – her big blue eyes are glazed with tears of pride. He almost wants to laugh, it's ridiculous. If you'd have told him that day in Morocco, that Mini McGuiness going down on him would end up here, he would've said you needed your fucking head checked.
"What're you smirking at, Farmboy?" she mutters in his ear, and he throws an arm around her shoulder. Grace begins some kind of long winded monologue, and he beams.
"That's our kid up there."
"Yeah," she smiles, "that's our kid."
He glances across the car at her, to check whether she's joking.
"Of course I don't fucking regret it!" he exclaims, "How could I regret it? How could I regret you?"
"Well it's just," she mumbles, "you know, Mum could've been like a proper fashion designer, or a model or something, and you could've gone to university with Rich, and you wouldn't have had to live in the shit hole that is St Pauls for most of your adult life and you could've – you could've been someone, Dad, you could've done something."
"I am someone, thank you very much!" he protests, "I'm your dad!"
She pauses, and runs a hand through her long red hair.
"And that's enough for you, is it?"
"Of course that's enough, you twat! You're enough, being your dad is enough, do you understand? I don't give a fuck about doing something with my life, never have, never will! And your mum – do you think your mum actually gives three shits about being a model or a fashion designer or whatever? She only cares about you, we only care about you!"
"But-"
"But nothing! Look, Grace, you're enough, all right? You are…ah, fuck – you're everything. You are everything."
She sinks back into the seat of the car, a smile on her face.
"I am?"
"You are," he nods, "you are everything."