Webs We Weave

I fall in love with my daughter the first second I clap eyes on her. Like all expectant mothers, I've heard the hype; the warm glow, the overwhelming sense of maternal love, but I thought it was just that. Hype. Never for one second did I expect to feel it as I do when Sam places her in my arms.

Ah yes, I know what you're thinking. Sam. What the hell is he doing here? Why am I not at The Haddlington as I'd planned, on the receiving end of a 'too posh to push' C-Section without outside interference from Holby colleagues and former lovers? Well, the fact of the matter is that things didn't quite go to plan as my pregnancy progressed. In fact, pretty much all the decisions I made when I discovered I was pregnant went right out of the window.

And it's all thanks to Martha.

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As I walked away from the Hope household the morning after our… liaison, I really did draw a line under the whole experience. It wasn't an unpleasant one, don't get me wrong. As Martha herself had said, I enjoyed being comforted, loved the sensation that someone cared about me, and the sex itself was satisfying in a way that I'd never imagined intimacy with another woman could be, but it had to end there. Our situations were such that they would never have been conducive to us having a productive and healthy relationship, even if we'd wanted one. And I didn't. I had my life carved out for me and there was no room for Martha in it.

I know how horribly clinical I must sound, but as far as I was concerned that was how clear cut the situation was. Had to be.

Unfortunately for me, I reckoned without Martha. I suppose it was to be expected in a way. She was young and vulnerable and I'd shown her some kindness – I guess it was only naturally that she didn't want to let it go.

Let me go.

The first I knew of it was a couple of weeks after that fateful night when I turned up at work one morning to find her sat on my desk in a nurses uniform, her hair in pigtails and a Santa hat on her head. I'm sure to most hot blooded males she'd have been a walking wet dream, but to me she symbolised my worst nightmare. I'd done my best to put her behind me, the last thing I needed was her thrust back into my line of vision looking not only every inch a lesbian Lolita, but staring at me like I was all her Christmas' come at once.

I did my best not to react. Just busied myself taking off my coat and the like and then, when I'd seated myself at my desk finally asked the question she was obviously waiting for,

"What are you doing here?"

"Dad got me a volunteer post on Darwin. I want to go into medicine." She smiled an eager to please little girl smile that made me want to cut off my own hands for ever having touched her, "Like you."

Even in that moment I knew that her sudden interest in medicine had nothing to do with wanting to be like me and everything to do with wanting to be with me – and there was no way I could ever allow that to happen. All the same though, I couldn't bring myself to be cruel to her. It never occurred to me to tell her to get the hell off of my patch and out of my life. Instead, I smiled, kindly, and told her I hoped she enjoyed the experience and that I was looking forward to working with her.

Nothing, in fact, could have been further from the truth. It's one thing having a one night stand with an 18 year old girl, but its something else entirely having to work with her day in day out, particularly with her father there to watch over us the whole time. The whole thing was completely uncomfortable from the word go, as if my life on the ward wasn't complicated enough. Whichever way I turned I was greeted by either Martha, all big smiles and innocent looking, yet inappropriate feeling touches; or Sam who wanted nothing more than to kick my head in for refusing to let him into our baby's life.

Happy Christmas to me.

Things came to ahead at the staff Christmas party. I hadn't wanted to attend in the first place, the prospect of being surrounded by a motley collection of drunks while being forced to remain stone cold sober not appealing anyway, without the added complications. However, as I sat in my office, playing at being Scrooge, Elliot, of all people decided that I needed saving from my own misery and dragged me along before I could argue.

It was your average 'office party' – a healthy mix of nurses dirty dancing, doctors getting it on with people they shouldn't, and hospital cleaners trying to convince the pharmacy staff that they're neurosurgeons, all topped off with an explosion of tinsel and mistletoe.

I was hiding in one corner, orange juice in hand, trying to look completely inconspicuous when I first saw her slinking towards me, and if having her around the ward as a little girl playing dress up was hard, that night was even harder.

She looked stunning.

Not for her a skimpy skirt and too much cleavage. Not for her a cheap look that could found in any tacky nightclub on a Friday night. She was dressed like a woman. A smart and sophisticated woman. Everything that we both knew she really wasn't.

Words can not explain what she did to me with that look. I suspect it was put together entirely with me in mind and bloody hell she hit the target. For the first time in my entire life I wanted a woman, wanted to make love to a woman – if I'd had less self control I'd have done it, right there in the hospital function room with everyone watching.

But I couldn't. I knew that. It wouldn't have been right for her, for Elliot, for my baby or for me. None of us were at places in our lives where a relationship between Martha and I would be a good thing, quite the opposite in fact. It had the potential to devastate and ruin lives.

Not that that detracted from what I was feeling, the feelings of desire that were pulsing through me that from the smile on her face were obviously clearly evident on mine. I wanted her, and she knew it.

So I did the only thing I could.

I provided her with the ultimate sign, not to mention kick in the teeth. I reached out, grabbed the arm of the nearest man, and asked him to dance.

No prizes for guessing who.

As he tells it, he had no wish to dance with me, and I in all honesty don't blame him. After way I'd treated him I'd have thought being on the same continent as me would have been too much for him, let alone the same dance floor. But he did see a window of opportunity, and took the chance to do the one thing I'd long since denied him.

He talked to me. Appealed to me. Pleaded his case. Told me how much he wanted to play a part in our child's life, and, if I'd let him, a part of mine.

Was it what I wanted? Not particularly. Good looking boy, horny little devil but not the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with but as my eyes met Martha's over his shoulder I knew it was the only legitimate answer. It was the only way that I, and indeed she, would ever be able to move on.

I closed my eyes, kissed him, and sealed the deal.

Martha was my past. Sam was my future.

And now the baby is the icing on the cake.

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