The next two months crawled by in a slow motion smudge of work, discomfort, elastic waist trousers and daily changes of heart over whether she was actually going to meet up with her father. Some days she woke up convinced that going to see him was exactly the right thing to do, the only way to get closure on her childhood and his absence from it. On other days she woke up convinced that after nearly forty years of not having a father she didn't really need him muscling back in now. Jonny was annoyingly non-committal about the whole thing. He was brighter than she'd ever given him credit for: far too smart to be hoodwinked into expressing an opinion that could be used against him at a later date. Until the day that Neil telephoned to check the arrangements for their meeting a part of her had hoped that he would never call and she would be spared ever having to make her decision, but she knew that that wouldn't really help either. If he didn't call then she'd be more disappointed than she'd ever be willing to admit and if she was disappointed then she'd only take it out on Jonny and make life even more difficult for herself, because the further her pregnancy progressed the less heart she had for fighting with him. Being pregnant was difficult enough between the exhaustion and the unchecked hormones without provoking somebody into calling her a crazy bitch a couple of times every day.

They arranged to meet at her hotel. It suited her because it meant minimal effort and that she didn't have to cram herself and her bump behind the wheel of the car for any longer than necessary, and he seemed quite happy with the situation. There had been an awkward conversation when they'd discussed how they'd recognise one another, as if they were going on some kind of date rather than staging a massively belated father/daughter reunion, but he knew what she looked like from the article the year before so they agreed that they would work it out. And so here she was, sitting in the bar of the hotel, sipping an orange juice when she would really have liked vodka, wondering whether he was even going to show up; wondering whether every man that walked through the bar was her father. And yet, when he walked in she barely noticed him. He was shorter than she had expected, and skinnier and fairer, and far younger. He didn't look like she imagined her father would look, and a part of her was a tiny bit disappointed that after thirty-seven years of imagining him he was nothing like anything she'd ever conjured up in her mind.

'Jac?' he asked nervously as he approached her in the bar.

'Yes…' she replied, forcing herself to smile when what she really wanted to do was run away. '... Neil?'

'Yeah' he nodded, perching on the stool beside her. 'Can I get you another drink?'

'Orange juice and soda' she nodded, draining her glass, wondering just how much damage a little vodka would even do: surely nobody could expect her to face this situation sober. What stopped her was that she wanted her father to think well of her, not to think she was some kind of irresponsible idiot just like her mother.

'Fine' he nodded, then ordered a pint of lager for himself as well as her orange juice. 'So… How have you been?'

'Fine' she replied 'You?'

'Not bad' he shrugged 'You didn't mention that you were…' he gestured towards her weakly. She almost felt bad for him: twelve months ago he hadn't known that he'd got a daughter, now he very nearly had a grandchild too.

'Yeah'

'Is your husband here?'

'No husband' she replied with a shrug, and for the first time that bothered her. Not because she wanted to be married, to Jonny or anybody else, or because being a single mother was anything to be ashamed of, but because she didn't know what her father's view of it would be and somehow that mattered to her more than she'd ever thought it would. 'The baby's dad's in Scotland, visiting his sister' she added, because she wanted him to know that Jonny was on the scene. That she hadn't carved her baby's father out of their lives. That she was nothing like her mother in that, or any other, respect.

'Well, congratulations' he told her, raising his glass in a small gesture of a toast.

'Do you have kids?' she asked awkwardly, briefly debating whether or not to use the word "other": to acknowledge that technically speaking she was his "kid".

'No, no kids. I've done a lot of travelling and worked in some amazing places, but the family thing never really happened for me. Bristol is the first place that I've stayed for more than a year since I was sixteen'

'How long have you been here?'

'Eighteen months. I had to give up the nomadic lifestyle…'

'Why is that?'

'Because…' he scratched his head, looked awkward. As if there was something that he needed to tell her but didn't exactly know how to go about saying it. '… Look, there's something that you should know. It has nothing to do with why I contacted you. I didn't even know when I sent that birthday card…'

'What?' she asked, trying to ignore the tight knot of panic in her chest because she could tell from his face that what she was about to hear she was going to very much wish she hadn't.

'I have a brain tumour' he told her slowly, almost apologetically. 'I was diagnosed in July'

'I only found out that you existed in July' she pointed out, shifting uncomfortably because the baby had sensed her distress and decided that what she needed was for it to turn somersaults inside her.

'I know. I'm sorry. If I'd known before I sent the card then…'

'You wouldn't have bothered?' she finished for him, snatching up her handbag. She knew that it wasn't really fair to storm out – that it wasn't his fault that he was ill – but she also recognised the burning pain of nausea in her chest and she knew that if she didn't get up to her room fast then she was going to give the patrons of the bar a display that they wouldn't forget in a hurry.

'I'm sorry, Jac…'

'No, I'm sorry. I have to go' she told him, and stormed out of the bar without even glancing back.

When she woke up in the middle of the night, the first thing that she was aware of was pain. After she'd gotten back to the room she'd crawled into the bathroom, thrown up until her throat was raw and her chest burned, and then she'd crawled between the cool sheets and fallen asleep. A glance at the clock told her that she hadn't been asleep for any more than two hours, but that was nothing knew. She hadn't slept well for a couple of months thanks to a combination of her pregnancy and all the stress that went with it, not to mention the stress of Neil Bridges' reappearance in her life. She was used to waking up at two am with backache but normally a walk around the bedroom and a cup of tea settled her down and she would drop off again, usually on the sofa. This time she wasn't sure whether she could even move from the bed and it scared her. She didn't think that she was in labour - she'd been having Braxton Hicks contractions for weeks and this didn't feel anything like that – but she was sure that the pain wasn't just normal pregnancy related discomfort. There was something wrong and she was stuck in a hotel 50 miles from home with nobody nearby to help her. For a minute she panicked, not sure what to do or who to call. Jonny was hundreds of miles away, Sacha had problems of his own without being saddled with hers and Mo would make things worse purely by being annoying. There was nobody who was going to come to her aid, so she did the next best thing: she called somebody who wasn't going to ride to her rescue but would at least tell her what to do which for the first time in her life was exactly what she needed

He was lying on the sofa, dead to the world thanks to a long journey and a couple of beers to celebrate his arrival when the phone rang, stirring him from his slumber. Usually when he'd had a bit to drink he'd be out for the count but lately he'd not been sleeping so well, largely because he was constantly waiting for the phone to ring and for Jac to announce that the baby was coming. He knew that it could be weeks yet but he'd never known Jac do anything the easy way, whether she intended to be difficult or not, and somehow he just knew that if the baby had anything of its mother in it at all then its arrival would not be without its drama. So far the panicked telephone calls hadn't materialised but as the shrill, electronic guitar-strumming ring tone penetrated the silence and the display lit up the room he knew that there was trouble on the horizon. How bloody typical of her for it to be when he was five hundred odd miles away he thought to himself as he clambered to his feet and stumbled half blindly to the bookshelf where he grabbed his phone and slammed his glasses onto his face.

'Jac? What's the matter?' he asked blearily, glancing at his watch. 2am. Jesus.

'Jonny?' she sounded tearful and in pain, and it terrified him. He'd hoped that this was an overreaction on her part – that she was up with indigestion and was going to make damn sure that he suffered along with her – but it didn't sound like an overreaction. It sounded like she was genuinely frightened. 'I think I need help'

'I'm eight hours away' he told her, desperately wishing that he hadn't decided to pay one last trip to visit his little sister before he more or less stuck within a one mile radius of Jac and waited for her to drop. She'd seemed peeved when he'd told her that he was going but she didn't get it. She didn't know about Violet, it wasn't something that he genuinely broadcast, and so she didn't understand why his not seeing his sister for a couple of months really was a big deal. 'Do you want me to call Mo?'

'Effanga? What the hell is she going to do? She's probably paralytic and even if she isn't, it'll take her hours to get here'

'She lives ten minutes from you' he pointed out, then remembered that the reason he'd chosen this weekend was because Jac was going on some symposium or other in Bath. 'You're not at home'

'Well done, Sherlock' she snapped 'I'm stuck in some godforsaken hotel. I don't even know where the nearest hospital is and I'm fifty miles from home'

'Call an ambulance?'

'And get carried past half of the delegates on a chair by the paramedics? No thanks'

'Jac, precisely how much pain are you in?' he asked, applying the old rule that he used when triaging patients in the A&E: those that complained about how inconvenient the situation was usually didn't need to be there at all. The fact that Jac was jettisoning all of his ideas suggested to him that she couldn't be that scared.

'Enough' she replied tersely 'It's not contractions. It's my back and my hips'

'Not contractions is good' he murmured 'What about Sacha? He'll probably be in a fit state to drive…'

'He's got enough problems. He doesn't need to be looking after me as well'

'Do you know anybody at the conference?'

'Nobody that I'm on good terms with' she replied which, given her propensity for pissing other people off, was entirely believable.

'Fine. What about your dad?'

'What about him?'

'Call Neil. He's better than nobody, he's fifteen minutes drive away and he'll probably come'

'I wouldn't bet on it' she replied darkly, leaving him wondering just what Jac had said but he decided that it wasn't a line of questioning that it would be helpful to pursue.

'Either you call Neil or I call the hotel and tell them to call 999' he told her firmly, like he even remembered what hotel she was staying in when his head felt like it was full of cotton wool. He wasn't even sure that he'd been listening when she'd told him in the first place.

'Fine' she snapped. She was pissed off but then she'd never much liked being told what to do but he didn't care. All that he cared about was placing his unborn child, and her, in the safest hands possible.

'As soon as you get to the hospital please let me know' he told her 'I'm going to hit the road now. I'll be with you by morning' he added. He knew that he was probably in no fit state but he also knew that it would be a good hour before he hit a main road – probably before he saw another human being – and that by the time he did he would be under the limit.

'There's no need. I don't think that the baby is going to come tonight'

'There's every need. You're carrying my child and if you're in hospital then I'm going to be there' he told her and for once in her life she didn't argue with him.