She Will Be Loved.

(I don't own anything. I'm just playing in the Holby universe. Good times!)

I'm bleeding. Oh god I'm bleeding. This shouldn't be happening. It's not supposed to happen. There it is though, blood, spots of it in my shorts when there shouldn't be any. Oh god. I don't know what to do.

The walls of the cubicle seem to be closing in on me and I can feel tears burning hotly behind my eyes like acid. I feel so helpless. I feel so scared. I didn't think I would be scared. I didn't think I was ready anyway. I thought I was too young, that it was too early on in my career. I didn't think I could go through with this and I truly didn't know if I wanted it. But I left it even though some part of me was telling me to end it before I got too attached. I just couldn't make a snap decision even though part of me wanted it all to go away. I would never have forgiven myself if I'd have made the wrong choice. Now it looks like fate has taken the decision out of my hands. Fate has brought the blood that I've just found. It's taking away the last little piece of Dan that I have in my life, and it's only now that I seem to be losing it that I realise I do want it after all.

My hands start to shake and I have to sit down as my body starts to convulse with sobs. I need help. I need to tell someone. I can't move. I just pull up my shorts and trousers and pull my knees to my chest and let the tears come. Why can't I bring myself to get help? I need know what's going on inside of me. It's where my baby should be safe, but it's as if I'm paralysed. All I can see over and over again is the blood. Oh god, why is there blood?

My baby. How weird is that to say? Where my baby should be safe. I always wanted children. Ever since I was a teenager I've been broody. I've also been playful and done irresponsible things. I've chosen a career which at times seems to leave no room for anything else, let alone a child. If anyone had asked me if I thought that I could have brought a baby into the world at this particular moment in time I would have said hell no. There's way too much that I want to do first.

I have in the past wanted children so badly. When Sunny was born the urge to have a child of my own was even stronger. I've always been the kind of person who sees a baby and finds herself considering how I'd cope during pregnancy or holding my baby for the first time, but I've never really felt ready for it. As much as I wanted it I knew in a way that I was too selfish. I had too much of my life to live first. It was something that wasn't going to happen. Not for a long time; so I thought anyway. I truly thought I had a few more years ahead of me until I was faced with this.

It was last week that I realised I finally had to do the test. I'd been pushing the nagging thought that I may be pregnant to the back of my mind for as long as I possibly could. I didn't want to think that the man I loved - who hurt me more than any man ever has by leaving me- had fathered a baby that I wasn't sure I wanted or was ready for. Everyone on the wards assumed I was hung over when I was nauseous and tired. I didn't set them straight. It was easier to let them think that than to tell them I could be facing impending motherhood, or of course a termination of it. I even stupidly tried to ignore the symptoms. Pushing them away. Making them out to be anything else apart from the baby Dan and I had made. I didn't want to be pregnant. I was hoping it would all go away.

I knew deep down that I couldn't hide from it forever. Thinking of Sunny was what finally made me do the test. Remembering our sweet girl when she was just a baby and that baby smell that I used to breathe in deeply every time I held her, and the way it made me feel to hold such a tiny little human being. So just last week I sat in this exact same cubicle, once again in tears as the word pregnant appeared before my very eyes on the test I held in trembling hands. I was going to be a mum and I so didn't think that I was ready for it. How could I raise a baby on my own? How could I have the baby I made with a man who left me behind and broke my heart? How could I go through all of this on my own? How would I face everyone and tell them I was pregnant with Dan Clifford's baby and that I was going to raise it as a single mother because he wasn't here? What if I just wasn't mother material?

I wanted it over with. I wanted it gone. But I couldn't have the termination. I was going to phone and book one but I could never bring myself to dial the number. I loved Dan with all of my heart and the decision to terminate a baby which was partly his, no matter how much he hurt me wasn't one that I could make lightly. Still I couldn't help but wish it all away. Whether not able to bring myself to terminate or not, I still didn't think I was ready to be a mother.

The word 'pregnant' on that test scared me more than anything else has in my life. I couldn't imagine watching my tummy grow and knowing there was a baby inside it, feeling it kick and move, and bringing such a tiny little person into the world who was mine to love always. I drink, I love men, I love living for the moment and being a little bit wild. It would mean having to settle down and grow up a bit more. What if I can't do that? Why did this have to happen?

It looks like those wishes have been answered now. It very well may all be going away. My little baby may be losing its life inside me and soon it'll be like none of this has happened. Just like I wanted. What am I going to do?

What if this is my fault for not knowing that I wanted it so much? Maybe I would be a bad mother if I wasn't sure that I wanted my baby straight away. A good mother wouldn't have ignored the signs like I did. They wouldn't question whether they were ready. They wouldn't have even tried to pick up the phone to book a termination. Would they? Maybe fates telling me I'm not ready. That I'll have my baby when I am and this ones not meant to be. But another baby wouldn't be Dan's would it? Whether I have to do this alone or not, no matter how unsure I am of my capabilities and my readiness to be a mum, I really do want this baby so very much. It's his. I just didn't realise how much I wanted it until I came in here and saw that I may be losing it. It's part of me and the man I love. Even if he's gone how could I not want that? It's a little life.

I wipe my eyes with shaking hands and stand up. I pull down my trousers and boy shorts again and once more stare at the blood in them. There doesn't seem to be very much more there but still it terrifies me. Why is there blood? Am I being punished? Is it just not my time to be a mum? Or is this just a higher powers way of showing me how much I want the chance to feel my baby grow inside me and to be a mother after all?

I know I'm never going to find out by staying shut in this cubicle all day. I know I need help. I shakily pull my trousers and shorts back up and undo the cubicle door with my trembling hands. I make my way out of the toilet and walk through the ward as if in a daze, my lab coat pulled tightly around me and tears rolling down my cheeks. I don't want everyone to see me vulnerable. I don't want them to see me so scared but I can't help but feel both and I can't stop the tears. I want Dan so much but he's not here and so I make my way to maternity alone, the eyes of my colleagues burning into my back as I leave them and embark on what will undoubtedly be the longest lift ride of my life.