Hopefully this part is alright :-) I'm sorry I'm a bit slow in updating, I'm hoping when I settle more with uni and things I will be a bit more regular (and will get some of my others finished off). I still have a few (I think three) pre-written parts of this one so really I have no excuse.

He has no words. He cannot offer her reassurances; he cannot tell her that whatever happens everything will be alright. He thinks he should, that somehow he should be able to find the words to tell her, that no matter what comes next, somehow everything will be just fine.

Instead he is consumed by the all too silent room; even the machine which had the potential to destroy their hopes had fallen quiet. Its low hum lost in the stillness.

He forces his eyes from the door. He was no clue how long has passed since it had been pulled closed by the sonographer; seconds, minutes, hours or days – time has lost all meaning now. She could be gone a lifetime yet he is certain she'd return to find them sat exactly as they are now, hands clasped together. Perhaps they would not even have aged at all, they are frozen in time. The only part of him still ticking over is his mind, the beast which runs at too many miles an hour. It is overwhelmed by too many different thoughts that try to battle for attention, each one considering itself more important than the last. Each one flickers in his consciousness for the shortest of times, not long enough for him to grasp it but long enough for it to register. Each one increases the sick feeling in his chest, the fear which rises like bile in his throat.

He twists to look at her face. Her pupils are fixed, staring unseeing at the door as his had been. They sparkle with unshed moisture, though he cannot be sure if it was the relief at seeing their child or the fear of what was to come. His eyes travel down over her form, the hand that now rests against the swell of her stomach, the skin still shining slightly from gel she hadn't quite managed to remove. The paper towel lies abandoned in her lap.

And then a crick tells him that the door has opened, but he cannot bring himself to look. He sees how the corner of her lips twitch downwards, how she swallows hard before she tries to reset her features in to a look of indifference, only it is impossible to hide the dewy eyes or the way her body is shaking ever so slightly. As if aware she is now on display, the hand against her abdomen is snatched away, a movement so quick he had almost missed it.

"Ms Naylor, Mr Maconie" he recognises the voice, and he turns his head in response. He see's standing in the doorway the seemingly always ill at ease consultant who has been charged with caring for Jac's gynaecological and obstetric well-being. Of all the consultants to have her assigned to, he is perhaps the one worse suited, the man who seems to wilt under her gaze, his nervousness all the more apparent. He steps in to the room, "I just need to do a quick rescan, if that's alright with you" he tries to make it sound routine.

"Why?" she finds her voice, and he watches the consultant stutters slightly trying to decide on the best way of responding. He feels the hand squeeze his that little bit tighter, betraying the normality of her tone. The consultant looks to the sonographer as if he expects her to answer, though that is not her role, when he realises that he has no choice but to speak himself he turns back to them.

"There's a few things that we need to recheck – a more trained eye you see" he tries to joke but it falls flat in the tension filled room. He turns away from the nervous man to look at the woman on the bed, she has settled herself back, not bothering to question further. She has fixed her gaze once more at the ceiling overhead and he knows that she will not look to the screen again.

The events of the actual scan blurred in his mind. He could recall how she had gasped at the cold gel coming in to contact with her skin, but in his addled brain that had seemed after he'd glanced to the screen, and seen the shapes appear and shift before him. He had watched as the probe was held still at so many different points, before it was wiggled to gain a different angle. Other than the gasp she made no other sound. He recalls at one point, looking at her face and how she was trying so hard to let nothing on.

And then the consultant is telling her that she can wipe her belly once more and how she sits up carefully, shifting her gaze along the ceiling and then to a point on the wall opposite. She doesn't turn to look at the doctors face, for fear of seeing the frozen image on the screen, a stilled shot of the moving being that should have been offered to them as a photograph, a memento of this scan and the pregnancy's progress.

Seeming to realise that she will not look at him in his current position, the consultant moves. The nurse turns his own attention and sees how the man positions himself cleverly in Jac's line of vision. He clears his throat, and places a hand in his scrub top pocket.

"I think it would be best if we had a talk in my office" somehow the pair of them nod and with her hand still firmly holding his he helps her up of the couch. He feels how it takes her a moment to regain her balance. And then somehow they are moving, somehow their feet know what is expected and they follow the doctor through the room of waiting women and their partners, those who will probably leave clutching a precious photograph wearing watery but happy smiles. They walk together, until he opens a door for them and they find themselves seated opposite a doctor, who rests his hands on his desk, notes and images spread across his desk.

He starts to speak, though quite what the words are, Jonny isn't sure. They enter his ears, and yet they seem to get lost on the journey to his brain. Those that filter through make little sense, as though he has suddenly forgotten how to speak English or the doctor has started speaking another language not known to him. He looks to Jac, and sees how she is listening, biting slightly on her lower lip as she tries to process the things he himself cannot. He sees her lips move, but he cannot make out the words she is speaking.

He turns back to the doctor but it seems that he has finished explaining.

"And you can get it done today?" somehow her words startle him back in to the present, and he sees how the doctor is looking towards his computer screen, he is stuttering slightly to himself.

"Are you sure you don't want to wait, take some time to think?" finally he gets out the words, his face turned back to them, though it seems he is talking directly to Jac.

"I just need it done" she speaks quietly, and her hand squeezes his tightly. The consultant looks to his computer screen once more.

"You know, I really shouldn't .."

"Do you have space or not?" her voice is soft but harsh, and he feels to beads of panic in his chest, feeling lost at what has been decided without his input, at the fact that something could be happening tonight and he has no clue. His voice still seems incapable of working, of making words audible.

"I can fit you in" he says finally, a defeated edge to his voice.

"And you'll have the results back when?" something clicks in his mind and he hears the male doctor talking of amniocentesis, the words suddenly appearing in his mind having detoured through his brain. He sees the consultant frown.

"Not long, up to 10 days for a full karyotype but a rapid test within three" the words sound much more confident than his previous ones, perhaps the comfort of giving factual information, things that cannot be argued against by his flame haired patient.

"Right" the nurse turns to look at her, he sees in her eyes how she's working out the days, the ones where she will be forced to await a phone call.

"I'll get someone to talk through the procedure with you" the doctor stands, and quickly excuses himself, not waiting for her insistence that as a consultant herself she already knows these things. She squeezes his hand once more as the door closes, and he curses his inability to do anything more than squeeze it back.

I'm fairly sure in RL they would not be able to be slotted in so quickly but who knows in Holby-land (especially when the patient is Jac). So I apologise for any lack of realism.