Author's note: The working title of this piece is: How Angel should have ended.
Oliver Davis stood, staring down at the bundle of blankets and clutching the side of the incubator like it was a lifeline. Inside the bundle was a tiny baby with a mop of dark brown hair, fast asleep.
"You'll be as beautiful as your mother is one day," he said in a low voice. "No doubt you'll have a lot of trouble with boys."
But the baby girl was not listening. She twisted in her sleep and her tiny little hand latched onto the blanket.
"Did you know that's an automatic response?" her father told her matter-of-factly. "Babies have inbuilt automatic reactions to hold onto things."
If the little girl knew this, she did not give any sort of indication that she did.
"Your mother made me promise we wouldn't do anything morbid like name you after a dead person," Oliver continued. "She was so worried you'd be a boy and that we'd be expected to name you after Gene, that's your uncle, and I promised her we wouldn't. She said that it was wrong because Gene is his name and you shouldn't force someone else on an unborn child. They don't really have middle names here in Japan like they do in England, but she said that a middle name would be alright."
The young man gazed down at his daughter for a while, seemingly scared to move in case the disturbance caused her to wake. There was nothing he could do if she woke up. He had read so many books on what was expected, but none of them had prepared him, not for this.
"She wanted to call you Himeko and I wasn't sure but I think she was right now." The man sighed. "Your mother was right about a lot of things; a lot of things that I never really understood. Your father has an IQ over 180, but he's clueless about some very important things."
The little girl twisted again, and Oliver smiled at her changing facial expressions as she dreamed.
"I hope you take after your mother. I hope you have her kindness and her abilities. I hope you don't inherit my psychometric ability. If you are lucky you won't have any psychic powers, so you can grow up like any normal kid. But regardless of that, you will take the world by storm, I know that much."
The young man sighed again.
"When your mother was pregnant with you, she would point to other babies and say how cute she thought they were. I never understood that. They were ugly squished little things. But I can see it now. The beauty is not your face, but the infinite possibilities you hold."
A bustling noise caused Oliver to turn. A nurse had entered. He watched for a moment as she begun checking on all of the incubators, before turning back to his daughter.
"No doubt the others will want to come and meet you soon. But I want a few more minutes with you. I hope that's okay. They are a bunch of idiots anyway, but your mother cares for them. I suppose they aren't that bad sometimes. They will spoil you rotten, especially now, so don't let it go to your head. You don't want to end up as arrogant as your father."
Oliver was smiling at his daughter. Smiling, as tears began to run down his face.
"You should take note of this, you know. I don't often cry. Your mother does though; she gets so caught up in trying to fix other people's problems. She has such a big heart. I could never care for as many people as she does."
The young man's hand released itself from the incubator as more tears fell down his handsome face.
Only the medium could see the raven haired man standing over his child through the window to the neonatal ICU. The monk, the medium and the priest stood beside her.
The onmyoji walked up to the group.
"I can't contact Luella and Martin, they are in the air," he told them. "Madoka has already left for the airport, they'll be here in a few hours. Does Yasuhara know?"
"Yes. I told him," Ayako said, forcing her professional façade.
"I thought, after the accident…" Bou-san wiped a stray tear from his eye. "What's going to happen now?" he asked.
"I don't know."
The group fell silent and re-joined Masako in the act of staring into the little hospital room.
"Your mother loved you from the moment she knew you existed," Oliver told his daughter. "She was always talking to her stomach as if you could hear her. I hope you could. The other's will have some video footage of us both… Mostly from cases though and due to the situations, they will have to wait until you're a little older to watch them."
His sobs began wracking his body. Clenching his eyes shut, he forced calmness through his limbs.
He felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Mai's just coming now," a soft voice so like his own said.
Oliver did not say a word. A small hand slipped into his own. He looked down at his wife, who was staring at their daughter.
"She'll be okay, right?" Mai whispered.
"Of course she will," Gene answered. "We should be going."
"Just a few more minutes," Oliver said.
The medium watched, and a tear ran down her doll-like face, as the three spirits departed.
Author's note: So I have wanted to do a "How Angel should have ended" and make it all fluffy and lovely. And then I thought - ANGST WEEK! So this happened. I have to thank Ben (my poor boyfriend that puts up with me talking about all of this all the time) for the idea on exactly how I could make Angel more upsetting. I'm upset. I hope I upset you guys too. Maybe one day I will make a happier version of Angel... BUT IT IS NOT THIS DAY.