Disclaimer: I own nothing, except my own creations.
The arrival of their son was much like their first journey together: nothing seemed to go right, everything went wrong, but it all came out okay in the end.
The power had gone out when Anna woke in the wee hours of the morning feeling the first of many contractions to come.
Shaking her husband's shoulder, Declan almost broke a leg as he hurried from bed and stumbled on the stairs trying to gather up everything they needed.
The expectant parents seated in the car ready to head to the hospital, it failed to turn over.
Anna gripped the dashboard in pain as Declan stood in the drizzling rain and tinkered with the engine. Sweat lined her brow when the car finally turned over and he took a seat. "Okay," he swallowed. "Let's do this."
Anna gritted her teeth. "Let's."
The long, winding roads had never seemed so long and winding than that morning in the weak dawn light.
Declan kept shooting glances at his wife, his anxiety increasing at every grunt of pain. His attention split, he almost slammed into a herd of cows.
Anna moaned at the abrupt stopping action. Leaning back in her seat, she was unable to form words, panting as she pressed her hands to the side of her distended belly.
Declan was already climbing out of the car, a half apology on his lips. "I'll get them to move," he promised.
Watching his pathetic attempts to do so, Anna struggled out of the car. Opening her mouth to encourage him, she gasped when a sharp pain ripped across her swollen abdomen.
Gripping the bonnet, she rocked her body backward and forward as she keened.
The pain barely passing, she looked up to find her husband there. "My waters broke."
Declan looked stupidly at the wet ground and then back at his wife before finally snapping into action. "Let's get you back home."
She whimpered as he helped her around the door and eased her into passenger seat. She gripped his shirt, not letting him move as she rode out her latest contraction.
Pressing a kiss to her brow the minute it ended, Declan sprinted around to the driver side.
Putting the car in reverse, bracing his arm on the headrest, he started driving backward erratically. He almost crashed when Anna suddenly reached out and gripped his arm.
"Stop the car!"
He obeyed immediately. Sitting in the middle of the road, he turned his attention to his wife. Her gaze locked on his, pain lining her features. "The baby is coming," she panted.
"Now?!"
"Yes, nowww..." she screamed.
"Okay."
"No, it's not okay!"
In the middle of nowhere, on a deserted road in drizzling rain, Anna Callaghan gripped the stone wall and screamed, pushed, shouted abuse at her husband and gave birth to a son.
Declan had tears in his eyes as he knelt between his wife's legs and caught the red squalling bundle that was his child.
Cutting the umbilical cord and wrapping his crying son in his shirt, Declan couldn't stop smiling as he looked at his wife. The exhausted Anna was ungracefully propped up against the wall, but instantly reached out of her arms.
Placing their newborn baby in her arms, Declan took a seat close next to her on the damp ground. "Nothing's ever easy with you, is it Bob?"
She just smiled at him beatifically.
As dawn streaked across the sky, clouds giving way to streaks of colour, basking in the love and relief of his parents, Brady Callaghan's cries were silenced.
There could only ever be one name for their son: Brady. It was their very history was summed up in one word.