Chapter One
The Quinton Manor Hospital was a foreboding place at the best of times. It's dirty grey breeze block walls and iron fences surrounding the building were never going to be called attractive or welcoming. In passing, one may have thought it to be a prison rather than a place of medicine and saving those whose lives are in dire need of help.
The hospital kept a good record. Its outward appearance perhaps tarnished a persons first impressions, however, the work carried out within it deemed to be near perfect, faultless. One of the lowest fatality rates in the country, the NHS had boasted for five years, judging by the brochure Dougie Poynter had been flicking through. It was hardly what he wanted to be reading whilst perched on a seat in a private waiting room. The blonde's eyes simply bored in to the glossy, printed pages, bloodshot and puffy from crying. Nerves ate away at every sense in his body, and his fingers itched uncontrollably with anticipation of some news.
The man in his early twenties had not expected the birth of his first child to happen in this way. He would hold his wife's hand in comfort, and she'd squeeze it and yell obscenities at him for putting her in so much pain. But it was not meant to be. Here he was, isolated from his wife and unborn child, waiting to be told how the surgery had gone. An emergency caesarean he'd been told, to secure both their safety. He'd made no hesitation in agreeing to it. There was nothing he could do now but wait. And that was what made this all the more aggravating for him.
The couple had known for months they'd be welcoming a little girl in to the world, the start of a family that Dougie had all the intentions to expand on. He and Isabelle had planned so much. No one thought him to be capable of settling down in the past. He remembered his mother's facial expression when he'd told her he'd proposed to Isabelle. And then there was the time when…
"Mr Poynter?" Dougie stood up immediately, his sleeve becoming a make-shift tissue for his tears. He smiled weakly at the doctor before him, his face dropping when taking in the mans sombre expression, his solemn presence. "You may want to sit down, Dougie."
"How's Isabelle?" He wheezed, now making any effort now in hiding his crying. His mouth ran dry with anxiety, and his hands balled up in to tight fists, nails embedding themselves in to his palm.
"Mr Poynter, during the operation, there were some major complications concerning your wife's health. Whilst operating, we had to make it clear to her we couldn't save both she and the baby; only one or the other. We carried out her request." The man ran a hand over his bald head, his mind running through the last moments with his patient. So young, he thought.
"Oh, God." Dougie dropped, falling in to the seat he had previously vacated at an incredible speed. "She… She wanted to save the baby."
"I'm sorry for your loss, Mr Poynter." Doctor Norton knew sorry really wasn't going to make the younger man feel any better. Perhaps, it only made matters worse. "She did ask me to pass on a message to you..."
"Yes?" Dougie looked up once more.
"She wanted you to know she has every faith in you in the world, and never to leave Elsie alone with the boys." Norton smiled. "I take it the boys are your other children?"
"No. It's feels like it sometimes." Dougie choked on his tears. "Elsie? She chose the name I picked out… I… Where is she, Elsie, I mean?"
"She's waiting for you, if you'd like to follow me, Dougie." Norton turned, holding the door open for the blonde as he walked through it. One following the other down the empty white corridor, unnaturally clean and smelling of bleach. Dougie pulled his jacket further around him, a chill creeping up his spine. He already disliked hospitals, tonight had opened his eyes. There was no way he'd ever step in to another one again as soon as he took Elsie home.
And there she was, being handed to him by a midwife, the infant in the blanket squirming, her fists tightly clenched, moving underneath the material she lay wrapped up in. Elsie was very nearly engulfed in Dougie's arms. Being just over a month premature, she was tiny and looked fragile. Breakable, Dougie panicked momentarily, until his daughter's eyes opened, and he was captivated, entranced in the innocent sparkling gems that were staring back up at him. He knew she couldn't see him properly, but her whimpers were silenced and her hand clasped around his smallest finger. He was sure she knew who he was. Dougie sat down on the nearest bed, his gaze still fixed on to his child.
"Hi there. I'm Daddy." His voice quivered, overwhelmed quite suddenly, a sensation running through every part of his being. And he knew exactly what it was. "And I love you so much, Elsie."