Author's Notes: Written for Aubry for Yuletide 2014. My thanks to Katie for the beta, and sidewayswithanaubergine for the manc-pick.
Sammy Murray did not make his way into the world easily.
On January 3, 1994, Manchester was blanketed in six inches of snow, and Gill Murray went into labour.
Julie Dodson was at her desk when the call came, taking advantage of the natural crime deterrent that meant they hadn't picked anyone up for days. Her reports were more in-order than they'd been for months. It was dull work, though, so she was grateful for the distraction when the phone rang. She picked it up, twirling the cord around her finger as she lifted it to her ear.
"Julie Dodson."
"Hiya, Slap."
"Well hello," Julie smiled, leaning back in her chair. "How are you, lady of leisure?" Gill had finished up work at the Bruche training centre a month earlier. It had been about time, because she was roughly the size of a pygmy hippopotamus, but that didn't stop Julie from taking the piss.
"Are you busy?" Gill asked, sounding cautious.
"Not really," Julie answered, twining the phone's cord around her finger. "Kind of bored, actually. What's up?"
Julie heard Gill take a heavy breath. "I'm in labour," she said.
"What?!" That made Julie sit up straight. "How long?"
"A few hours," she said, and Julie swore. Gill laughed. "It's okay, Slap. It's not like the movies. I'm not going to have it on the kitchen floor. But I can't get a hold of Dave. He's out of the office, and they can't get him over the radio. Something to do with the weather, they think. I've left him a message, but my water's broken, and I need to get to hospital. I really don't want to drive myself in this. Could you pick me up?"
"Jesus, of course." Julie was already on her feet, gathering up her things one-handed. She couldn't believe how calm Gill sounded, like she was running late for a picnic or something. "I'll be there in ten."
"Thanks," Gill said. "Don't speed, Slap. I'm fine."
"Okay," Julie replied, but her heart was beating hard.
"I mean it," Gill said. "Promise me, Slap."
Julie stopped, took a breath. "I promise," she said, after a moment.
"Good," Gill answered. "See you soon."
oOo
Gill was just as calm when Julie arrived. She met Julie at the door, carrying an overnight bag, which Julie promptly took from her, offering her arm once Gill had locked up.
"I'm not an invalid," Gill said, eyeing Julie's elbow.
"I know," Julie replied. "It's slippery." She arched an eyebrow, and Gill sighed, but smiled as she slipped her arm through Julie's. Julie was glad she insisted, because although Gill kept her footing, she did stop halfway to the car, her fingers tightening around Julie's bicep. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, opened them again a few moments later.
"All right?" Julie asked, and Gill nodded.
"Yeah." Her voice was weak. "Just get me in the car."
Julie nodded, and they kept moving. "Can't believe you even thought about driving yourself, you daft cow." Julie opened the passenger side door and held it while Gill levered herself into the seat.
"Yeah, well," Gill murmured, voice returning to almost normal as she settled herself. "Had to weigh up how much you were going to flip out on me, didn't I?" She smiled slyly at Julie, and Julie closed the door on her.
She circled back around to the driver's side. "How am I doing?" she asked as she buckled herself in and started the car.
"Better than I thought," Gill said, letting her head fall back against the headrest. "Better than Dave would have been if I'd told him I felt a twinge this morning."
"Hope he doesn't miss it," Julie said, backing out of the driveway.
"He won't," Gill said, and Julie swallowed the response she wanted to make, which was that Gill had more confidence in him than she did. Best not to go anywhere near that.
Gill had two more contractions on the way to the hospital. The first time, she gripped the handbrake hard enough that Julie was afraid she was going to pull it and send them skidding into the snow. The second, Julie's hand was there ready, and Gill gripped it tight as she breathed her way through the pain.
"Bloody hell, Slap," Julie said when her fingers were released, giving her hand a shake. "You been arm wrestling with the trainees or something?"
"Something like that," Gill replied, smiling tiredly.
It was a short drive, and the hospital was remarkably efficient when they arrived. Julie stayed by Gill's side, carrying the bag in one hand and offering the other for squeezing, then helped Gill get settled.
"You can get back to work if you need to," Gill said, sitting on the edge of the bed in a hospital gown and looking more disproportionate than ever. "I'm sure Dave will be here soon."
Julie laughed. "Don't be daft," she said, but her smile faded when she realised that Gill wasn't wearing one. Instead, she looked serious. For the first time since Julie picked her up, Gill actually looked worried, and it wasn't because she was about to go through the most physically traumatic event of her life to date; it was the thought of her best friend and her husband in the same room that did it.
"I'm not leaving you," Julie said, feeling a pang. "When he gets here, I'll behave. I promise." Even if he doesn't went unspoken.
A lot of things went unspoken between them where Dave Murray was concerned. He and Julie had never got on, ending up at each other's throats every time a social situation forced them together. Julie had been aware that, for years now, Gill had been organising catch-ups so that Julie and Dave crossed paths as little as possible, but she hadn't realised how much it bothered Gill. She didn't know quite what to do with that, felt the moment stretch out into a few beats of awkward silence before Gill nodded.
"Okay," she said, and they left it at that.
'Birthing partner' was not a role that came naturally to Julie—babies in general had not, and likely never would be, a huge part of her life. But she did okay, she thought. Being a sturdy presence was one of her specialties, and—after the midwife examined Gill and explained what was going on, that things were progressing as expected but that Gill wasn't yet fully dilated and the most important thing was to stay calm and let that happen—it gave Julie a script for how to behave. She sat with Gill and let her hand be squeezed, walked the room with her and encouraged her to breathe. When Gill felt hot, Julie dampened a washcloth and draped it over her brow. She found that Gill was rather inept at verbal sparring in this state, too, which she took advantage of with joyful abandon.
"This is just like old times," she murmured, holding Gill's hair out of the way when she had to rush to the loo and be sick. "You've really got to stop drinking so much, you bloody lightweight." She rubbed Gill's back as Gill gripped the toilet bowl and smiled weakly.
"You're really not recommending this, you know," Julie said, later, after Gill was particularly vocal during a contraction.
"Yeah, well," Gill responded, breathless but trying to keep her wit, "it's a good thing you're such a big fat dyke, isn't it?"
"Are you calling me fat, Moby Dick?"
That one made the midwife laugh, and Gill rewarded it with a particularly crushing grip during the next wave.
Julie warmed to her role. She liked to feel useful, always had, and there was something particularly special about being here with Gill during this moment, taking care of her and helping keep her anchored as she prepared to bring new life into the world. The midwife hadn't questioned who she was, either, and after the 'dyke' quip, possibly even thought they were a couple. The whole scene felt surreal, removed from the world and right in a way that Julie didn't want to examine too closely, putting it down to this being a uniquely female experience.
And then Dave arrived.
He came striding through the door in his work suit, slightly weather-worn but otherwise pristine, the arrogant cant of his chin in place as it always was. "Sorry I'm late, love," he said, swooping in to plant a kiss on Gill's forehead and take her hand, completely ignoring Julie, in whose grip his wife's other hand rested. "Work was hellish, didn't get the message 'til late. How are you doing?"
"I'm all right," Gill said, lifting her chin to demand a proper kiss, which Dave provided. "Nearly ready to push, they said. You're just in time. Julie's been taking good care of me." Her eyes were warm, bright, like they always were when she looked at him, but Julie could see something beseeching in them, too, could hear it in her voice. She always tried so hard to have them get on. It had never been Gill's fault that they didn't.
At Gill's prompting, he lifted his head to acknowledge Julie, flashing a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Thanks for that, you're a star. I can take it from here."
And just like that, Julie was dismissed. Thanks for filling in, love, now piss off. Dave turned his attention back to Gill, smiled and slipped his free hand onto her belly. "I can't wait to meet our little centre-forward," he said.
Julie didn't move immediately, and after a moment the midwife appeared beside her. "I'm sorry," she said, offering a smile that seemed genuinely sympathetic, "but hospital policy is only one birthing partner per suite."
Julie nodded, trying to hide her sudden disappointment. Last week, if someone had told her that she would want to see Gill's baby born, she'd have told them they were mad, but now the few steps to the door seemed miles away, and Dave's casual dismissal cruel. She had promised to behave herself, though, and gave Gill's hand a squeeze to get her attention.
When Gill turned her head, Julie noticed the way Dave's expression froze from the corner of her vision, but she forced herself to only pay attention to her friend. "I've got to go," she said, smiling but letting Gill see the regret in it. "I'll be outside, though. Might as well wait around, if it won't be long." She squeezed Gill's hand again, tugged it close and kissed her fingers.
Gill's eyes were warm, and if Julie wasn't mistaken, she saw a little regret in them, too. "Thanks, Slap. For everything."
Julie released Gill's hand and a moment later slipped out of the room.
It was cooler out in the corridor, sterile and quiet. Julie slipped her jacket on and wrapped her arms around her middle, went and found a chair. She curled into it, settling herself in to wait out Gill's labour, and sighed.
She was glad Dave had made it; really, she was. If he'd missed the birth of his child, Gill would have been devastated, and Julie would have taken it as yet more evidence that he was an irredeemable arse. She didn't need any more of that, not after realising just how much it bothered Gill.
Julie had never liked Dave. He'd joined the force at the same time as Gill—they'd been at Bruche together, though they hadn't been involved then—and immediately Julie had pegged him as exactly the kind of arrogant, entitled pretty-boy who made her life and her job that much harder. It hadn't taken long for there to be stories about him—cad, skirt-chaser, the kind of bloke who flashed a charming smile at a female cop, offered a listening ear and then later presented all her ideas as his own, sometimes after he took her to bed. That sort of shit didn't work on Julie—not least because she was, as Gill put it, a big fat dyke—and as soon as Dave had realised that, he'd dropped the charm offensive in his dealings with her and instead deployed a repertoire of behaviour subtly designed to be dismissive and degrading. It wasn't something that was easy to quantify, certainly not in a complaint to your superiors, and not even to your best friend except in a sort of vague, 'God, what a twat' way as you hung up the phone.
Originally, Gill had agreed with Julie's assessment of him. One of their favourite pastimes had been taking breaks in the loos and indulging in enthusiastic bitching about all the difficult to articulate bullshit they had to endure. But at some point—while Julie wasn't looking, definitely, and possibly after Gill had sustained some undetectable head injury—Dave Murray had turned his charm offensive in Gill's direction, and she'd fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
Sometimes, Julie understood it. Gill and Julie were similarly ambitious; they both wanted to rise through the ranks to the top, but while Julie's ambition was rooted in a desire to make things better—there was a lot that was wrong about the way the police force functioned as an institution, and you couldn't even hope to begin rectifying that unless you were at the top of the ladder making the decisions—Gill's seemed to be much more about proving herself. She'd made detective the same year Julie had, despite Julie having been on the job four years longer than her. Gill had insisted on taking her sergeant's exams when Julie had, too, even though six months later she'd applied for a training position at Bruche because the hours fit in better with her plans to start a family.
Dave Murray, Julie thought, was the personal version of that professional striving. Handsome and charming and well-off, he was about as far away from Gill's roots as she could get. Julie had spent a Christmas with Gill and her family once—the first after she came out, when the tension with her own family had been at an all-time high. Gill's mother was a factory worker and her father and brother labourers, and although they all got on, it couldn't have been more obvious to Julie that everything Gill was and did was an attempt to claw her way up from that life. Dave Murray was a part of that. Julie remembered Gill on her wedding day, radiant and beaming and maybe a little bit smug—she'd tagged and bagged the GMPs biggest playboy, and that was as much a stripe on her jacket as her sergeant's exam.
Sometimes, Julie understood. They made a handsome couple, after all, and Julie was sure they'd made a beautiful baby. Occasionally, like when Gill would call Julie in the evening to share her stories from Bruche but be called away abruptly when Dave arrived home, she felt jealous. But mostly, and especially on those occasions when social situations pushed them all together and Julie had to listen to the way Dave spoke about things—belittling other women, making sly homophobic digs or commenting on darkies or pikeys or whatever other whiny, white-man issue he had his knickers in a twist about—it just made her sad and angry that her intelligent, articulate, beautiful friend had considered taming that oaf of a man the pinnacle of achievement.
Julie heard brisk footsteps in the corridor, looked up in time to see two white-coated hospital staff bustle in through the door to Gill's birthing suite. She sat up straighter. Was it happening, then?
There was no movement for several minutes, but then the door opened again and a doctor ushered a protesting Dave from the room. Julie, brows furrowing in concern, rose from her seat.
Approaching, Julie heard Dave sputter, "-but I want to be with her!"
Julie hovered behind them and listened to the doctor's reply. "I understand that, Sir, but I'm afraid you can't be. We're prepping your wife for theatre. The doctors need space to do their work, and the most important thing now is that they work quickly."
Dave started to argue again, so Julie stepped forward, touched his elbow. "Dave," she said, somewhat forcefully. "Let them do their jobs."
It was enough to break his stride. He turned on her, face an ugly grimace, but it took his attention off the doctor, and a moment later the man backed into the room and closed the door behind him.
Dave was angry, eyes panicked but chest puffed up with his own self-importance. Julie wasn't going to let him start on her. "Tell me what's going on," she said.
It threw him just enough to keep him civil. "The baby," he said. "When she started pushing, its heart-rate started dropping. Foetal distress, they said. They, er..." And here he looked around, watching two orderlies rush up the hall with a machine on a gurney. Julie stepped back to let them pass, tugging Dave with her, and he moved without complaint, watching them, bewildered, as they pushed through the door. "They're going to give her an emergency C-section," he added, after the door closed.
Julie didn't know what all that meant—how serious it was—any better than he did. He was looking lost now, though, shoulders deflated, and she took pity on him. "Come and sit down," Julie said, and steered him in the direction of the chairs. Halfway there, he seemed to remember who he was with, pulling away sharply and squaring his shoulders.
When he sat down, Julie took a chair indirectly opposite, leaning her forearms on her thighs and watching him discreetly. He was pensive, only half in the seat, fingers looped together and then balled into fists a moment later. He looked up, caught her appraisal; Julie dropped her gaze.
"Probably going to be a while now," he said, after a time. "Don't know why you're still here."
Julie lifted her head to meet his gaze, irritation flaring. "What, I should go because you're here," she said, "and you're so good at listening to instructions?"
Dave's lip curled. "Fuck off," he snarled.
Charming. "No," Julie replied, taking some small pleasure in civil refusal. "I'm not going to leave when there might be something wrong. I told Gill I'd be here, and I will." And if there was a subtle dig at the end of that sentence, well, so be it.
Dave didn't respond. They both looked up as the doors to Gill's room banged open, and two orderlies pushed her bed out of the room. Julie and Dave were both on their feet in an instant, but she was down the hall and through the doors before they even had a chance to move. The doctor from earlier approached them.
"What's going on?" Dave demanded, puffed up again.
"There have been some complications," the doctor said, and Julie felt her stomach clench. "We believe the umbilical cord is wrapped multiple times around the baby's throat. Partially travelling through the birth canal would cause the cord to tighten, and the baby's gone into distress, but we've rushed your wife to theatre, and we'll have everything sorted as quickly as we can."
"Jesus," Dave breathed, and for once Julie was in agreement with his tone. "Will they be all right?"
"We'll work as quickly as we can," the doctor said, which wasn't an answer at all. "I'll send word soon." The doctor stepped back, clearly needing to be somewhere else, and when neither of them said anything, departed.
Dave sat back down, more heavily this time, and after a moment, Julie did the same. The baby's cord... That sounded serious. Sounded like Gill would be fine, but what if the baby...? Julie didn't even want to entertain the thought.
Dave's hands were shaking, his face was pale. Julie felt a flicker of concern for him. Irredeemable arse or not, she didn't wish this on him, and he clearly wasn't taking it well. He looked terrible.
"Have you..." she started, and he looked up at her with an expression so contemptuous that she almost swallowed her words and left him to it. But she thought of Gill, who might need him more than ever in a few hours; who, at the very least, wouldn't thank her if she woke up to discover that her husband had keeled over in the waiting room and Julie had done nothing to stop it. "Have you eaten?" she asked. "Today? In the last few hours?"
He stared at her for a moment. "Breakfast," he said, grudgingly.
Breakfast may as well have been last year. Julie made a decision. "Right," she said, standing up. "I'm going to get us a brew, and something for you to put in your belly." She walked away before he had the chance to argue.
She passed other people in the halls, but they were mostly patients, trundling around in white gowns and tugging silver drip frames with them. It was eerie, really, a hospital so empty even during visiting hours, but she supposed the weather kept all but the most dedicated family members tucked up at home. After a few wrong turns, she found the hospital's cafe, bought two cups of tea and a sandwich for Dave with the change in her pocket; she'd left her bag in the car, what with carrying Gill's overnighter in one hand and letting Gill clutch the other. Made her way back juggling the lot, half-expecting Dave to have buggered off to some other waiting area just to spite her.
But no. He was sat where she'd left him, still looking wan. She thrust the cup of tea and the sandwich unceremoniously into his hands. "Here," she said. "Eat." Dave grunted something unintelligible in response to the demand, but he took the food.
Julie resumed her seat, took a sip from her own cup. It was decent tea, pleasantly hot. She drank hers silently while Dave ate, initially reticent but dropping the act after his first mouthful, devouring the sandwich in a few bites. He set the plastic package aside, picked his tea up and cradled it, didn't look up. Julie crossed her legs, rested her arm against her knee, peeled the lid off her cup. There was something wrong about drinking tea from a little hole in plastic.
When she looked up again, Dave was watching her. "I, er…" he said, lifting the cup in his hand. "Thanks."
"No problem," Julie replied, taking another sip of hers.
"For… For getting Gill here, as well," he added.
Julie looked him over, surprised that he'd deigned to acknowledge that. "Yeah, well," she said after a moment, "I wasn't going to let her drive herself. Where were you, anyway?"
For a moment his eyes flashed hostility again, but he reined it in. "Trying to talk a jumper down from a multi-storey," he said. "Left our radios in the car."
Oh, God. "Did you manage it?" Julie asked.
Dave looked down into his tea. "No."
Shit. "That's rough," Julie said, meaning it. Dave grunted in agreement, took another sip of his tea.
They lapsed into awkward silence, Julie aware that she could, maybe should, say more - it wasn't your fault, keep your chin up, don't take it as a premonition for how this new situation will turn out. But she was equally as aware that she didn't like this man, that he didn't like her, that any words of comfort would be of the meaningless platitude variety. She drank her tea, and he drank his, and they both spent far too long playing with the paper cups once they were empty.
"What if," Dave said eventually, and now he sounded small, quiet in a way she'd never heard before. "What if the baby doesn't... How will I comfort her?"
Oh, God. It seemed he did want words of some kind from her. This was... Julie shifted in her seat, looking at him. He was worried sick, that much was obvious, and he clearly cared. How will I comfort her? She didn't know what that question was. Was it 'I don't understand my wife and I would like some suggestions,' or, 'How do I ignore my own needs to be there for this woman I care about?' Either way, Julie could provide an answer, but the latter... Well, she'd never thought there'd come a day when she might identify with Dave.
It wasn't a feeling she particularly liked.
"I don't know," she answered, eventually. "I think that's the problem in...situations like that. No one knows. But, be there? That's usually good advice. And listen?" For a change, she added to herself. "And know that you're not the only one she's got."
That turned out to be the wrong thing to say. Or possibly exactly the right thing. It returned them to more familiar territory, at least. Dave snorted, looking down into his empty cup, then back up at her. The contemptuous mask had returned.
"Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you? If I was crap at comfort and she came to you instead? I'm sure you'd be there with arms wide open." He lifted his chin, and Julie's lip curled.
"Don't be disgusting," she spat. It was, the very idea that she'd use even a hypothetical tragedy for her own gain. "We're not in competition, Dave."
"No?" he challenged. "Then why all these little 'lunches' and 'girls nights' that she never tells me anything about?"
Julie stared at him, incredulous, tried to work out what he was implying. Did he think they were shagging? Or would that be him giving her too much credit? Was he actually jealous that Gill didn't want to spend every waking minute with him?
Julie laughed, couldn't help herself. "Oh, I don't know, possibly because this happens? Because you act like some spoiled child whose favourite toy has been handed to somebody else?"
"I don't," he spluttered. "She's not..."
"Yeah," Julie agreed, cutting him off. "Gill's not a toy. And as much as it galls you, you don't actually get to pick who her friends are. No more than I got to pick who she married." Julie folded her arms and leaned back in her seat, and Dave did the same.
After a time, he spoke again. "I don't actually want to, you know. Pick her friends."
Julie looked at him. His mouth was set in a line, but his eyes had softened, making him look almost petulant. He seemed to mean it, though. Julie sighed. "Yeah, okay," she said. "So you just don't like me. That's fine, I don't like you either. But you know, I think she almost didn't call me today. Almost drove herself here—in the snow, having contractions—because she was so worried about us being in the same room. That's a problem."
Dave stared at her stubbornly for a few moments, then conceded her point. "Yeah."
"Like it or not, Gill wants both of us in her life. Whatever happens, that's going to be important after today." Julie had never really thought about it before that moment in the delivery room—up until then, the idea that Gill was having a child had been a rather abstract concept—but she wanted to be a part of this kid's life. She wouldn't have one of her own—you had to want it too much, as a lesbian, and she never had—and she wasn't particularly close with her sisters, so likely would never get to be "Auntie Julie" in any way that really mattered. But Gill's son or daughter? Yes, she'd like to know that person.
Which meant something had to change. Some effort had to be made. She looked at Dave, hoping he would see it that way, if only for Gill.
He seemed to. Looked thoughtful, anyway, and, after a while, nodded. "So, the meals and the pub nights," he said, "they're really just because she tries to...stop us from killing each other?"
"Yeah," Julie said, and caught herself smiling. "I'm a bit surprised you didn't work that out. Did you think we were shagging? Trust me, love, if I was shagging her, she wouldn't be coming home to you."
As soon as Julie said it, she flinched internally, worried he was going to bristle again, and just after she'd decided she needed to play nice, too. But he didn't; instead, he snorted, and it turned into laughter.
"I think you're underestimating me," he said, when he recovered.
Julie's smile turned a little more serious. "I think you're underestimating her. Your wife's straight"—well, close enough to, and Julie certainly wasn't going to tell him about that one time way back when—"and she married you. She takes that as seriously as I hope you do." And there Julie looked at him, evaluating.
He held her gaze unflinchingly. "I do."
Julie studied him for a few moments more, then dropped her gaze, nodding, satisfied.
"I think I can live with it," he said, and Julie looked up again. "The stuff you two do together. I know you're important to her. That's, well. I don't want to be…" He trailed off.
Julie didn't think he ever would have finished that sentence. There were several ways it could have ended. His father, maybe? Or just 'an arsehole'? Whatever it was, Julie suspected it was a little too much for a truce that felt tentative at best.
As it was, they didn't need to navigate it. The door at the end of the hall opened, and a nurse came through, a woman this time, blonde and pretty. She sought them out immediately. "Mr Murray?" Dave rose from his chair. Julie canted her head, looking up, but remained seated.
The nurse addressed him. "The procedure went well. Mother and baby are both doing fine. Your wife's in recovery, you'll be able to see her soon. Would you like to come and meet your son?"
Dave's face split into a grin. "My son?" he asked, and the nurse nodded. Dave glanced at Julie, then away again quickly.
"Right this way," the nurse said, indicating that he should follow.
Julie felt her breath leave her, felt her whole body sag in relief. They were fine. Gill had a son, and they were both fine. It didn't even matter that Dave was about to go in there and meet him, that he'd likely forget their conversation in the euphoria, or in the sleepless nights to come. No doubt they'd be back where they started the next time they saw each other, at each other's throats. It didn't matter, because Gill and the baby were fine.
But Dave surprised her. He took a few steps after the nurse, then paused, turning back. "Hey," he said, "are you coming?"
Julie lifted her head, smiled. "Can I?"
"I don't see why not," Dave said, and his shoulders did that thing again, squaring and inflating. "Let them try and stop you."
He looked ridiculous, like a total arse, halfway between a bull and a peacock, but for once, Julie liked it. It suited him, the New Father swagger. Julie unfolded herself from her chair.
"Lead the way, Dad," she said, and followed him.
Maybe the truce wasn't so tentative after all.