Bigger Responsibilities

by elfmaiden4legs

****Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart may be retired, but he now has much bigger responsibilities than UNIT. He is a father and a grandfather, and that means so much more to him than work. He's faced Yeti, Dalek's, Cybermen, and all manner of extra-terrestrial threat, but helping his daughter cope with a sick granddaughter may well prove to be his biggest challenge yet.

Bigger Responsibilities

Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart awoke with a start. The phone was ringing and had disturbed his sleep, and as he fumbled with the lamp upon the bedside table he cast a weary glance in the direction of the clock on the wall and failed to stifle a yawn as he noticed the time. It was one o' clock in the morning.

He was retired now, and had been for a great many number of years, but he had as yet failed to break the habit of a lifetime and would still take calls at any hour of the day or night.

"Dad, it happened again… I don't know what to do."

The voice which greeted him as he picked up the receiver was fraught with worry, and he detected a note of quite understandable panic in his daughter's tone. The Brigadier sighed, turning his worried gaze upwards towards the sky as he uttered a silent prayer.

"It's alright Kate, I'm on my way."

It didn't take the Brigadier long to change, and he arrived at the hospital within half an hour. Upon his arrival he was shown to a room where he found his daughter, holding the hand of a little girl in the bed before her and stroking the dark locks of hair away from the small child's face.

"It's alright sweetheart, mummy's here." She was speaking softly, but the girl's eyes were closed and she appeared to be asleep. As the Brigadier entered Kate turned her tear stained face towards him and smiled.

"I couldn't help her dad." She sniffed. "What sort of mother am I who can't protect her own child?"

"A good one," The Brigadier did his best to reassure his daughter, and as he took the seat beside her he wrapped his warm arms around her shoulders and drew her into a tight embrace, "But its asthma Kate. Sometimes we just have to accept that there are some things we cannot control. We just have to be thankful for the fact that in her case it isn't too bad."

"But she's just so small dad." Kate Lethbridge Stewart sobbed.

"She's strong Kate, she can fight this." The Brigadier smiled and sighed, as he took his granddaughter's tiny hand. "She is a Lethbridge Stewart after all."