Thank you all for your lovely reviews - please keep them coming, they really do mean a lot! Here's the next chapter - enjoy! :)

Boxing Day 1983 was bitterly cold. Snow had threatened all week but only now did it make an appearance, thick clouds hanging low in the grey sky and an icy wind rattling around the quiet London streets. Alex clutched the turkey platter to her chest and tried to bite back a shiver.

"Gene, are you going to ring the doorbell or are we going to stand out here freezing all afternoon?"

From behind her, Gene grunted. He was struggling up the steps to the front door of the flat Chris and Shaz shared, a bag of presents hanging from the crook of one elbow and arms wrapped around three stacked plates of vegetables. Balanced precariously on top was a tureen of bread sauce.

"If you insist on loading me up like a bloody cart horse, woman, you'll have to live with the fact it slows me down."

She grinned at him. "What if I give you a carrot and rub your nose?"

He huffed. "You'd have to rub a lot lower than that to get round me this time, love."

"Oh Christ." Ray staggered up behind Alex and pressed the doorbell comically with his forehead, hands wrapped round a clutch of wine bottles. "We've already got to play happy families with these two inside, I don't want to be gooseberry to you as well. Enough to put a man off his Christmas dinner, all this coupley bollocks."

"No fear, Raymondo, we'll be one couple down in a minute if Mrs Lady Woman over here doesn't stop treating me like her very own bloody chariot."

Alex sighed. "It's Christmas. Do you think we could stop bickering for one bloody day, because if we don't, I'll...Chris!" The door opening stopped Alex mid-flow and she stepped inside, shivering in relief as the central heating cloaked her in a mantle of warmth. "Let me just put this lot down and then I'll say hello properly." She moved further into the flat. She had only been here a couple of times – once for their house-warming party a couple of months after the wedding and then again to bring Shaz home when she was suffering with morning sickness, but she'd been struck then by how homely they'd made it. It was by no means large, with two bedrooms, a bathroom, sitting room and a kitchen-come-dining room, but it was warm and welcoming and young. It felt like a home, which was more than she could say for her own flat sometimes.

Their dining room table had been extended to seat the five of them, and Alex set down the food in the middle. Gene and Ray followed her in, placing their own packages next to hers with exaggerated groans of relief. "Where's Shaz, Chris?" She pulled him into a slightly awkward hug.

"Er, she's just getting changed, Ma'am. The baby was sick on her."

"Ah, the joys of newborns." She smiled at him. "Now, are you sure about all this, Chris? You must both be exhausted. What time did you get back from the hospital?"

"Shaz's mum and dad dropped us off a couple of hours ago." He looked bone-tired, his eyes a little red-rimmed and his smile ever so slightly strained, but he brightened up when Shaz returned, the baby swathed in pink blankets and clutched to her chest. "We couldn't put Christmas dinner off, could we? Well, not more than a day, anyway."

"Well said, Christopher." Gene clapped him robustly on the shoulder and he staggered slightly under the onslaught. "We've been slaving over this lunch all day, haven't we, Lady Bolls?"

She gave him a look. "We? I think the closest you got to the kitchen was to get another couple of beers for you and Ray." She turned pointedly to Shaz. She was pale and tired, but her chin was high and her whole being exuded maternal pride. "How are you feeling, Shaz?"

Shaz smiled at her, and it was a real smile, weary but content. "A bit tired, Ma'am, but not too bad. They didn't have to use stitches and they were desperate for beds, so they couldn't wait to get rid of me." She glanced over to make sure the men were out of earshot and pulled a face. "Bit scary, if I'm honest. I haven't got a clue what I'm doing half the time."

Alex put an arm around her and gave her a gentle squeeze. "It'll come in time. Everyone's terrified at first. Try not to worry too much about what everyone else tells you. Just do what feels right to you."

Shaz nodded. "Thanks, Ma'am." She looked up again then and gave her a shy smile. "Do you want to...hold her?"

Alex beamed. "I thought you'd never ask!" She took the baby as if she were a piece of glass, marvelling at how natural it seemed, all these years later. It wasn't that she'd avoided babies after Molly grew up, but she had always had a sneaking guilt that she couldn't give her little girl a sibling to play with and so she subconsciously stuck to single-child families just like hers. That, and in the years after her messy divorce from Pete, it was always a little galling to pick Molly up from a house brimming with balance and busy family life.

She brought herself sharply back to the present. Molly's face swam vaguely through her mind but she never saw her these days, never heard her voice. She was a spectre, always in the background but slipping further away with each passing day, and sometimes Alex could almost believe her other existence had been a dream. Somehow, her relationship with Gene had acted like a balm, soothing the sting into a dull ache that sometimes seemed intangible and insignificant. Once, that would have terrified her. Now, it seemed like some distant fairytale.

"She's gorgeous," she said softly, tucking the blankets back to see Ruthie's face properly. And she was. She wasn't jaundiced or underweight or blotchy. She was the perfect pearly pink of healthy newborns, her hair just the finest dark down, her hands tiny and wrinkled and flawless. "It's the nails that get me." Ruthie curled her fist around Alex's finger and she smiled. "They're exactly right, just in miniature. Even the ridges on them are perfect." Tenderly, she brushed her fingers over the baby's face. Deep inside her, something ached.

Gene came up behind her, sliding an arm around her waist. It still gave her a thrill that he was comfortable enough to do that, that around their team he'd thrown off the self-consciousness just far enough to show tiny glimmers of his affection.

"She's going to be a looker, all right. Are you sure you're the father, Christopher?"

But Chris didn't hear. He was sitting on the sofa beside Shaz, his arm around her shoulders and her head tucked under his chin. Ray, who was setting plates out for each of them on the table, rolled his eyes at Gene and Alex.

"Bloody poof. The missus has a baby and he turns softer than dog shit."

Chris looked up at that and gave them a sheepish grin. It felt strange to Alex to be in Chris's territory, where for once he had more knowledge and authority than any of them. Ray shook his head in a disgust that Alex suspected wasn't entirely genuine before searching out a cigarette and flicking his lighter.

"Ray!" Alex was scandalised. "Just because your lungs are ruined beyond repair, it doesn't mean you should start on the baby's!"

Ray frowned. "Bit of smoke never hurt anyone. My old man used to have fifty fags a day and I turned out just fine."

"Debatable," she muttered under her breath, but Chris stepped in before the bickering could escalate.

"Look mate, er, me and Shazzer have decided that no one can smoke in here anymore. We've got a little balcony off our room – you can smoke out there if you want."

Ray stared at him. "On the balcony? I'll freeze my bloody knackers off standing out there!"

There was silence. Even Gene made no comment, no withering remark about Shaz and Chris's new rules. Alex glanced at him, mildly surprised.

Eventually, Ray sighed. "Fine. But if I come back in and my balls have gone blue from frostbite..."

"We'll grow your perm and start calling you Shirley," Gene interrupted and Alex bit back a laugh. Ruthie stirred in her arms, roused by the noise, and Alex jiggled her lightly, smiling as her eyes fluttered briefly open.

"Blue eyes," Gene remarked softly in her ear.

"All babies have blue eyes when they're born. Hers might turn dark like Shaz's when she gets a bit older."

She glanced up at him and found him staring at her, face set in some unreadable expression that made her self-conscious. His hand slid from her waist to her hip and back up again in an almost unconscious motion, and for a heartbeat it seemed like the whole world was caught up in his gaze like a fly in a web, but then Ruthie started to cry, an enraged, pitiful sound, and the moment was gone.

"I think," Alex said, moving away from Gene and smiling at Chris, "that maybe she just wants her daddy."

Chris gave her a look of vague panic as he got up from the sofa and took the baby from her, but as soon as she was in his arms he visibly straightened, tiredness dissipating as he cradled the child he had created. He rocked her gently and then more vigorously as her crying failed to cease, and Alex could see a red-hot flush of embarrassment creep up his neck as Ruthie grew more and more agitated.

She was torn between stepping in to offer him advice on wind or hunger or a dirty nappy, and fear of making him even more self-conscious, and she could see Shaz was having the same dilemma. She was sitting forward on the sofa now, senses hyperaware the moment she heard Ruthie stir, and her whole body was tense with uncertainty.

It was Gene who broke the impasse, evidently oblivious to Chris's awkward embarrassment.

"Right, Christopher, hand the kiddie over. Can't be that difficult, can it?"

Chris looked as if he wanted to object, his eyes wide with alarm, but Gene planted his champagne glass down on the table and held out his hands expectantly, and with a weak smile Chris yielded the baby to him.

"Right then." Gene tucked Ruthie into the crook of his arm and gave her a cursory glance. "Looks happy enough with the Gene Genie, doesn't she?" Sure enough, Ruthie's wails were tailing off, and before long she had grizzled herself quiet, her little chest rising and falling evenly in sleep.

"Guv, how d'you do that?" Ray, wandering in from the balcony, looked astonished. "She was screaming blue murder a minute ago, now she's out like a light."

"Well..." Gene looked almost equally surprised, but shrugged it off breezily. "Piece of cake really, wasn't it?" He stooped to pick up his glass, apparently unconcerned that he had a small child nestled in one arm. "Look, it's like women. You've either got it...or you haven't."

Alex winced, witnessing the fleeting look of pain that flickered across Chris's face at his words. To his credit, Gene realised what he'd said immediately and backtracked, albeit rather unconvincingly. "Or, y'know...well, it's luck, isn't it? She'd probably scream the place down if she woke up now and saw my scary old face looming over her."

"I wouldn't blame her," Alex put in, attempting to deflect the mood. "Beginner's luck, Gene. Don't get complacent; next time she'll be more of a handful. It takes practice. Right, Chris?"

There was a pause. "Right," Chris replied finally, taking a step towards Gene and gazing down at his baby daughter. "Yeah. Anyway, she looks happy now, doesn't she?"

Gene looked down at the tiny bundle in his arms. "Course she does. That's the effect the Gene Genie has on women, whatever their age." He paused, and for a moment there was an expression in his eyes that Alex had never seen before. "Looks quite a lot like Shaz, doesn't she?" he said unexpectedly. "She'll be a pretty little thing when she's a bit less wrinkled and snotty."

Chris grinned. "That's what I said. She's the spitting image of her mum, isn't she? Don't know that there's much of me in there, she's all Shaz."

"Lucky for her, an' all," said Ray with a raised eyebrow. "Poor kid wouldn't stand a chance, would she?"

Alex moved to stand beside Gene, scrutinising Ruthie's peaceful little face, the soft, almost translucent skin; the pert little nose; the gentle drift of dark eyelashes on the flawless cheek. "I don't know, Chris. Babies change a lot. I think you might be surprised."

Chris beamed. "You reckon, Ma'am?"

"Oh, definitely." Alex smiled. "Either way, you've got a beautiful little girl there."

Ray scowled as Chris went dewy-eyed. "Bloody hell, it's a baby. Two arms, two legs, definitely overactive in the nappy area. Hardly calls for tears, does it?"

Alex rolled her eyes. "Your emotional sensitivity continues to astound me, Ray," she said drily.

Ray shrugged. "It's not my fault if I'd rather go for a pint and watch the match than get chucked up on repeatedly by something that looks like a cross between a maggot and a prune, is it?" He caught Chris's eye. "Er...not that she's not lovely and everything..."

"She certainly is," said Alex sweetly. "In fact, why don't you give her a cuddle, Ray?"

"Give her a what?" Ray looked horrified. "Look, she's happy where she is, all right?" He shot Gene a faintly disgusted look. "And so's the Guv, by the looks of things."

"Well, well, well." Alex shook her head. "Ray Carling, I never would have thought that you of all people would be scared of a baby."

"Stow it, will you? I'm not scared of her," Ray muttered. "It's just...not my style. Babies, and that."

"Right." Alex raised one eyebrow. "If that's what you want us to think..."

"Fine," Ray growled. "Give her here then." He reached out and gingerly lifted Ruthie out of Gene's arms, his expression distinctly uneasy. Slightly regretting goading him, Alex hovered, prepared to snatch the baby from him at a split second's notice. Glancing across at the sofa, she was infinitely relieved to find that Shaz was fast asleep, her breathing coming deep and even. She'd had quite enough to worry about over the last couple of days, without witnessing this. It was certainly a blessing that she was out for the count. Even Chris looked alarmed.

Ruthie remained peacefully asleep during the transfer, the only sign that she was aware of any change a slight snuffle as Ray tucked her rather awkwardly into the crook of his arm, one hand hovering around her head as if he thought she might break into pieces at any moment.

A few seconds passed as Ruthie slept on and Ray visibly broke into a sweat. "Right, well, I've...I've held her now, haven't I? Chris, why don't you –" But as he spoke, Ruthie's little fist emerged from her blanket to curl loosely around his finger, and he faltered. "Oh."

Chris grinned. "You've got a fan there, mate."

"Well, I mean..." Ray cleared his throat. "Well, she's all right, I suppose." He looked down at her again. "I could...hold onto her a bit, if you wanted a break...y'know, if you're going to twist my arm, I mean."

Alex hid a smile. "How thoughtful of you, Ray."

"What's going on?" Shaz appeared at Chris's shoulder, stifling a yawn. "Ray!" She looked surprised, but pleasantly so. "Oh look, she likes you..."

"All right, all right." Ray glared at her. "It's not like I'm bothered or anything. I mean, come on, she's a baby. She's not...I mean, she's only...oh, will you just take her?" He thrust the baby at Shaz and shoved his hands into his pockets, clearing his throat loudly and glowering at no-one in particular.

Gene drained his glass and glanced at the clock on the wall. "Much as I hate to break up all the baby talk," he said with more than a hint of impatience, "I'm bloody starving here. Any chance we could continue this over dinner?"

Five minutes later, Ruthie fast asleep in her cot in the corner of the room, they were all seated around Chris and Shaz's kitchen table, slightly cramped but far from complaining. The food had survived the journey remarkably well, and when it was unveiled the gleaming turkey gave off a wonderful scent which silenced them all for several seconds while they appreciated it. Chris did the rounds with the wine, Gene rolled up his sleeves and set about carving the turkey with an impressive expertise, and even Ray was persuaded to act the gentleman and help everyone to vegetables.

Alex, who knew from experience just how draining the first few days of motherhood were, positioned herself beside Shaz, ready to spare her from having to do anything which wasn't completely necessary, but soon found herself to be almost entirely redundant. Chris, sitting on Shaz's other side, barely took his eyes off his exhausted wife for the entire meal, and Alex had to smile at his eager but typically hopeless attentiveness.

"Shaz, you never said," remembered Alex a few minutes later, pausing in the action of helping her friend to more gravy, "Why Ruthie? It's a lovely name, but it's more traditional than I expected. Any particular reason?"

"Not really, Ma'am," Shaz replied with a shrug. "It just felt right, you know? And we didn't really want to name her after anyone. We wanted her to have her own name, all to herself."

"Anyway, Shaz had already picked her middle name after someone," Chris added, laying down his knife and fork and ducking under the table for the fifth or sixth time to retrieve Shaz's napkin for her.

"Oh?" Alex set the gravy boat back on its saucer and turned back to Shaz with interest.

"Grace." Shaz smiled. "She's the little girl in Little House on the Prairie. I've always loved the name."

"Are you kidding?" Ray swallowed an enormous mouthful of turkey with some difficulty. "If you were going to name her after some kid off the telly, you could have called her anything! Think of the possibilities. Ruthie Goober. Ruthie Danger Mouse. And you went for Grace?"

"Oi." Shaz gave him a stern look. "If any poor woman is ever brainwashed or drugged enough to have your kids, you go ahead and name them Goober and Danger Mouse. Just be prepared for them to hate you forever."

Ray looked rather indignant, and Alex hurriedly clapped her hands together. "I'd like to propose a toast." She raised her glass. "To Christmas. To the future. And, most importantly, to our new arrival." She smiled at Chris and Shaz. "To Ruthie."

"To Ruthie," they echoed, and as the little girl herself slept on peacefully oblivious in the corner of the room, Alex, Gene, Chris, Shaz and Ray raised their glasses in celebration of a Christmas which none of them would ever forget.

Not long after the Christmas pudding had been demolished, the last dregs of champagne drained and the dishes cleared away and packed neatly into the back of the Quattro, Gene, Alex and Ray said their goodbyes and left Chris and Shaz to enjoy their first Christmas with their baby daughter.

In the sitting room, Chris stood looking down at Ruthie as she slept, his knuckles white on the edge of her cot. "Shaz, I can't do this."

"What are you talking about?" Shaz, perched on the sofa examining a book Alex had given her, looked up at him and frowned.

He sighed heavily. "I can't...I just can't do any of it. I can't even pick up my own baby without making her cry."

"Chris, she's a baby. That's what they do."

He turned away from the cot abruptly. "Not with you, she doesn't. Or at least, you know how to make her stop."

"No, I don't!" Shaz put her book to one side and sat forward, her tone exasperated. "Do you think I know any more about any of this than you do?" He didn't answer. "I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just doing my best to muddle through until it makes sense."

"But you get it right," he persisted, his voice cracking slightly. "And anyway, it's not just you. She stopped crying as soon as the Guv picked her up, she slept all the way through Ray holding her, for Christ's sake. But I can't get it right." He paused, dropped his hands to his sides in a gesture of complete helplessness. "What if...I mean, what if she doesn't...like me?"

"Chris." Shaz got to her feet and put her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder. "She's a baby. And anyway, she does like you. More than that. She loves you. Not because she doesn't cry, or because she falls asleep when you hold her. She loves you because you're her daddy."

He blinked. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She smiled. "Look, sit down. I'll show you." She bent to pick up Ruthie, carrying her over to the sofa and sitting down beside him. "Here." She settled the baby in Chris's arms, and as she did so Ruthie stirred and her eyes flickered open. As they watched, her little face contorted and a choky sob started up. Chris faltered and looked at Shaz helplessly.

"Shaz, I don't know how to –"

"Yes, you do. Relax. Talk to her. Rock her. Tickle her. Anything. She's not fussy you know, she's only two days old."

"Right." Chris looked down at his daughter, and suddenly, for the first time, he understood that she was a baby, that she wasn't going to judge him or disregard him, and that, most surprisingly of all, he loved her. And then, although he wasn't sure exactly what he'd done, as if Ruthie had somehow understood everything that had just gone through his head, the sobs subsided little by little into hiccups, and eventually she fell silent.

"There you go." Shaz beamed. "I told you you could do it."

It wasn't enough, not really. There was no sudden rush of knowledge, no certainty that now everything was going to be all right. There was still a lot to learn, and the prospect had never seemed more daunting. But it was something, one small step forward, and that was what counted.

By the time Gene and Alex returned to the flat, the air was thick with tension. It had been building all day, born of little touches, looks and caresses, the knowledge that they had to hold back, be respectable because they had company. But now, alone in her flat with nowhere to be for the next two days, the facade dropped, the pretence falling away to reveal a desperate, burning need.

"Shit, Alex," he muttered as she locked the door and pushed him against it, hands sliding up his chest to the back of his neck. Her body was flush against his and he flipped them, dragging his mouth from hers to bite hard on her earlobe. She squeaked. There was something in his eyes, something she'd noticed earlier, a blazing possessiveness, an intense need to own and be owned. It was odd, because the only unattached male today had been Ray, but she had felt Gene's eyes on her all day, tracking her like a trophy. It should have repelled her, but instead, it only excited her further.

Their kisses were heated, punctuated by the swipe of tongues and the nip of teeth, hands travelling swiftly over flushed skin. Gene played her like a lyre, familiar enough now to know what she liked, what made her squirm and what elicited those delicious mews from the back of her throat, and she matched him kiss for kiss in this fierce dance of dominance.

They backed into the bedroom, leaving clothes behind them like a paper trail, and he pushed her down onto the bed with a gentleness that belied his passion. She gazed up at him, naked and shameless and gloriously, unbelievably his, and he kicked away his trousers before allowing her to pull him down on top of her.

"Gene." She fumbled between them, breathless. Neither of them were bothered with teasing, with pretences. They were comfortable enough by now to accept and admit that all they wanted was the act itself, the primitive pleasure of skin-on-skin, being literally wrapped up in each other. "Gene."

He paused in the trail he was kissing down her neck. "What?"

"Condom." She squirmed against him. He bent his head and licked once up her throat.

"Let's not bother tonight."

She froze. He was trying to kiss her, to distract her, to move things on, but she put a hand in the middle of his chest, pushed him back.

"No," she said slowly. She was trying to meet his eyes, but he was steadfastly avoiding her gaze. "Let's bother."

There was a heartbeat's pause and then he was leaning across her to fumble in the bedside drawer, and things moved on as normal and any strange behaviour on his part was forgotten in the heat of the moment. It was only later, lying in his arms and listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing, that his odd, unexpected comment came back to her.

But it was late and it was Christmas and the thoughts it raised within her were too painful to examine, so Alex Drake simply closed her eyes and forced herself to sleep.