A/N Thanks for your replies! News of Jac probably coming in the next part I promise! Just needed to decide for myself which way to go...

Two hours is long enough. It gives him half an hour to drive there, half an hour to drive back and an hour with Jac. An hour is precisely the right amount of time to be with Jac. Any longer than that and he is liable to get cornered by a doctor who wants to talk about "next steps" and "care pathways". Any less and he feels that he is neglecting her. He sits at her bedside and he talks. About their daughter, about what neither of them have watched on the television, and about the first really cold week of winter that she has been lucky enough to miss. As always he asks her – begs her – to wake up and she is as stubborn as always. Nobody tells Jac Naylor what to do and if they do then she does precisely the opposite. On once occasion he tried telling her to stay in the coma, just in case she really was that contrary, but it had achieved nothing except for earning him a very odd look from a nurse. When he runs out of small talk, which doesn't take long as it's a completely one sided conversation, he takes her hand and chafes it between his palms. Her skin is soft, her manicure is immaculate and her hand is still warm. There is still life there, coursing through the veins beneath her translucent skin, and it fills him with renewed certainty. She is going to be fine, all he has to do is wait.

ooooo

When he gets home he is in better spirits than he has been for days. He positively bounds into the bedroom and takes the baby from Mo's arms, rocking her gently back and forth and telling her what a beautiful girl she is. He is in such high spirits that for a moment she thinks that Jac must have woken up, but if that was the case then he would still be at the hospital.

'Jonny' she approaches him gently, slipping her arm around his shoulder. She hates that she is going to have to be the person to bring him crashing back down to earth, but somebody needs to do it. Clearly he has found another straw to clutch at but sooner or later this needs to stop. Letting him believe that everything is going to be fine might be the kindest thing to do in the short term, but in the long term it is no solution at all. She has fallen into the trap of lying to spare his feelings once before. Five years ago during his mercifully short term, ill-fated marriage to Marlena, he had sought her reassurance that his wife wasn't having an affair with her personal trainer and even though she knew different, she had lied. Spared his feelings and told him that no, of course his wife wasn't cheating on him. She had also gone and told Marlena to knock the relationship with the personal trainer on the head, but to no avail, and when, inevitably, it had all blown up in Jonny's face he had blamed her. Not because she knew that Marlena was screwing around because thankfully he never found out that she did, but because she had promised him that it would all be fine and it wasn't. They hadn't spoken for six months, which was actually longer than the marriage. Sometimes he can be a total child, it's one of the things she loves about him, but she doesn't want to risk falling out with him when he is going to need her more than ever. Better, she decides, to give him a gentle reality check now. 'How is Jac?'

'No change' he replies but he sounds cheerful about it 'but she just needs time. She's going to be fine'

'Jonny, I don't think she is' she tells him gently, apologetically. 'She hasn't been sedated since Tuesday and she's shown no sign of improvement'

'What are you saying?' he turns and stares at her, bristling at the implication of what she is suggesting.

'I think that you need to prepare yourself' she tells him. It is as brutal as she can bring herself to be, but it is enough. He pushes her arm from around him and gets to his feet, startling the baby with the sudden movement.

'You don't think that she's going to recover from this' it's a statement, not a question, and she can see the hurt in his eyes. Her message has hit home, loud and clear.

'I think that you need to consider the possibility…'

'Get out' he tells her. He doesn't raise his voice more than is necessary to be heard over the screaming infant, but she can hear the icy anger in his tone.

'Jonny, I…'

'Out' he storms past her and down the stairs, and by the time she reaches the stairs he has already thrown the door open and he is waiting for her to leave through it.

'Jonny…'

'Go' he tells her coldly and although she wants to stay and support him she does as she's told and leaves.

ooooo

He knows that she is right. He knows that Jac's condition is not improving and that it is looking increasingly unlikely that it ever will, and yet he cannot bear to hear it voiced. Not by Mo because she is the one person whose opinion he values more than anybody else's. He throws her out because it is easier than the alternative: listening to what she has to say and accepting that she has a point. Once she is gone he can avoid dwelling on it because he has plenty to distract him. For one thing, the baby has been screaming her little head off since he accidentally woke her while getting rid of Mo. He knows nothing about how to comfort a baby, and until now he hasn't had to because somebody else has dealt with it for him. He tries bouncing her in his arms, changing her nappy and offering her a bottle but nothing works. It seems that she just wants to scream and within minutes his nerves are shredded and he's sorely tempted to call Mo back to help. He doesn't because even to soothe his daughter he cannot bring himself to even pretend to accept Mo's point.