Week 25: Collateral damage

"I have added an extra custard slice," Roy announced as he handed the white box over to Carla. "I noticed you seemed particularly keen on them yesterday. I do suspect that pregnancy cravings may be at play, as you have never professed a great love of my cakes before this. I understand that these cravings are most prevalent during a woman's second trimester–"

"Bring on the third trimester, I say," Carla laughed.

"The third trimester begins at week twenty-eight so, depending on how many weeks–"

"Twenty-five."

"Ah, then," Roy nodded. "Another three weeks and your cravings shall subside."

"And what a blessed relief that will be," Carla said. "Thanks for this, Roy."

Carrying her box of cakes, Carla headed towards the door but, unable to resist and not wanting to deny herself any longer, she opened the lid and pulled out Roy's gift of a custard slice.

"Oh, yes," Carla moaned as she bit into the sweet treat, her eyes raised heavenward as she savoured the feel of the smooth custard in her mouth and felt the sugar rush into her system, giving her that extra kick she needed to get through the rest of the day.

Sated for now, Carla exited the café and began the short walk back to the factory where she knew the girls would be desperate for their own sugar injection.

It was as she turned the corner into Rosamund Street, still munching on her custard slice, that Carla got her first inkling that something was wrong, something was very wrong.

She stopped and stared at the ambulance parked outside the bookies flat, holding her breath as she waited to see who was hurt, who was ill. Two paramedics appeared from inside the flat carrying a person laid out on a stretcher. Then two men appeared; Peter and Nick, following the stretcher, their brows furrowed with concern.

Carla broke into a run, the box of cakes and half-eaten custard slice abandoned on the pavement, and raced towards the spectacle.

"What's happened?" she gasped to Nick, clutching at her belly as she regretted her decision to run while carrying such a heavy weight.

"It's Leanne," he said, his eyes focused on her semi-conscious form as the paramedics loaded her into the back of the ambulance. "She's had a fall."

"Oh, god, the baby, is it okay?"

"We don't know."

"Peter!" she called out to her friend as he paced behind the ambulance while his wife was secured inside it. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Oh, Carla," he turned to her, the anguish in his face clear. "No, I, umm… actually, can you pick Simon up from school?"

"Umm, sure."

"Here's the key to the flat. If you can give him his tea, I think there's some chips in the freezer and–"

"Peter, just go," Carla urged him, taking the keys from his hand and giving him a little push towards the ambulance. "Go! Leanne needs you."

"Thank you," he said before climbing into the back of the ambulance.

"I can't believe this is happening," Carla said as she stood next to Nick and watched the ambulance speed away. "Poor Leanne."

"Yeah," Nick muttered, watching with unseeing eyes the street from which the ambulance had so recently disappeared on its way to the hospital, his thoughts entirely on the woman that was inside it.

"Did you see what happened?" Carla asked him. "Were you there?"

"I, umm… I was passing. I stopped to see if I could help."

"Are you okay?" Carla rubbed his arm gently. "You look like you're in shock or summat."

"I'm fine," he brushed off her concern. "Should I…? Do you think I should go to the hospital?"

"The hospital? Why?"

"I dunno," Nick shrugged. "See if there's anything I can do to help."

"Well, unless you've just completed the world's fastest medical degree, I don't see what use you could be."

"Peter could maybe use some support," he suggested feebly.

"From you?" Carla's laughter at this thought faded when she caught sight of Nick's face. "Sorry. You obviously want to go, so go."

"You don't mind?"

"Do what you want, it's nowt to do with me."

"I won't be long," he promised. "I'll just check in."

"Whatever," Carla shrugged. "Hey, listen, what time does school get out?"

"You're asking me?" Nick laughed. "I dunno, three? A little after three?"

"Damn!" Carla cried, checking her watch and realising the time. "I better get going then."

"I'm gonna head down to the–"

"Hospital, yes, I know."

"So, you're okay if I go?"

"I said so, didn't I? Go!"

Peter paced the floor of the hospital waiting room, his thoughts racing. But every time, he came back to the one thought; this was his fault. If he had just stayed to talk to Leanne, rather than storm out the way he had, she wouldn't be lying in a hospital bed at risk of losing their baby. But it might not be your baby, the opposing voice in his mind kept reminding him. She betrayed you, it whispered its mischief into his ear, she deserved it.

"Peter."

The sound of a familiar and yet wholly unwelcome voice snapped Peter out of his introspection.

"What do you want?" he sneered at Nick.

"How is she?"

"How is she?" Peter repeated, the disdain clear in his voice. "You've got some cheek to come here asking after her, after what you did."

"Can we please park what happened with me and Leanne for a while. I just want to know how she is… and how the baby is."

"The baby?" Peter sneered. "Your baby? My baby?"

"Leanne's baby," Nick corrected him. "She's the person we need to be worrying about right now. You and me, we're not important."

But Nick's calm and rational counsel caused Peter to snap. "You couldn't just leave it alone, could you?" Peter spat, allowing his rage to get the better of him and launching himself at his love rival, scrabbling for his throat, throwing wild punches, while Nick merely tried to defend himself. "You couldn't accept that you'd lost and she'd chosen me!"

"She–" Nick gasped as he pressed his palms into Peter's face, pushing him away. "Only chose you– because– she pitied you! She– thought you were– dying!"

Peter twisted his head and ducked, escaping from Nick's grasp and immediately redoubled his attack, charging head first into Nick's torso, wrapping his arm around him, holding him still, while with his free hand, he pounded his fist repeatedly into Nick's stomach.

"Hey! Break it up!"

Peter and Nick both felt strange hands grabbing at them, pulling them apart and shoving them into opposite corners of the waiting room where they stood, panting hard after their altercation.

"What the hell is going on here?" the doctor asked furiously, glancing from Nick to Peter and back again like a teacher chastising a pair of schoolboys.

"Nothing," Nick said, while Peter remained silent, his face, dark as thunder effectively doing the talking for him.

"If it happens again, I will call security. Now, Mr Barlow."

"Yes?" Peter faced the doctor, fear and trepidation heavy on his brow. "How's Leanne? How's the baby?"

"Leanne is doing fine but, I'm sorry to have to tell you this–"

"Oh, god," Peter cried out in despair. "No!"

"There was nothing we could do. Your wife has suffered a miscarriage."

"She's lost the baby?" Peter gasped, his mind unable to fully comprehend the doctor's words.

"She has, I'm very sorry for your loss."

"Can I see her?" Nick asked.

"No!" Peter interjected, his anger resurfacing at the thought of a tender scene being played out between Nick and Leanne. "She's my wife! If anyone's going to see her, it's me."

Carla looked around her with a feeling of unease. This life, the life of a mother picking up her child from school, of planning what she would cook him for his tea, of preparing his packed lunch, was a life that still seemed completely alien to her, even now that she was more than halfway through her pregnancy.

She smiled warily at the other mothers gathered at the school gates, ignoring the not-so-subtle looks they would shoot her way before turning to each other and gossiping about this new mum on the school run, wondering who she was, whose mother she was, and secretly determining never to let their husbands anywhere near her. They couldn't be trusted, not with someone who looked like her.

But Carla had no desire to be a part of their group, not now, not ever.

"Si!" Carla called out to Simon as she spotted him walking through the gates, surrounded by his little gang of school mates. "Over here!"

"Carla!" he cried out in delighted surprise, running over to her and hugging her with great enthusiasm. "What are you doing here? Where's me dad? It was his turn to pick me up."

"Your dad?" Carla stalled, silently cursing herself for not coming up with a cover story before now. "Your dad has been called away on business, so he asked me to pick you up and give you your tea."

"What about me mum?"

"She… has gone with your dad."

"Oh," Simon screwed up his face for a moment as he considered the veracity of Carla's words. "Okay. Can we have pizza again? Like last time?"

"Umm… no," Carla shook her head resolutely. "I'm gonna make you summat."

"You?" Simon stared at her in horror. "You can't cook!"

"Oi! Cheeky," Carla tweaked Simon's ear playfully. "I can so cook."

"Yeah, yeah," he rolled his eyes and took hold of Carla's hand, an action that both surprised and delighted her. "Come on, then, let's get this over with."

Peter stood in silence at the door to Leanne's hospital room, watching his wife as she sat on the bed, her face pale and drawn, her eyes downcast.

"Hey," Peter whispered as he tentatively approached her. "How're you feeling?"

"How d'ya think?" Leanne's defensive bite soon gave way to her raw emotions. "Peter," she sobbed, her face crumpling as she let her mask slip. "The baby's gone."

"I know," he rushed to her and, sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped her up in his arms and held her close. "I'm so sorry."

"I spose you're happy about it?" Leanne asked, the bitterness in her voice clear.

"What?" Peter gasped, pulling away from her and staring at her, horrified at her suggestion. "How could you say that?"

"It solves everything, doesn't it?" she sneered. "You don't have to worry about raising another man's baby now it's dead."

"Hey! How did I become the bad guy in all this?" Peter cried in frustration. "I wasn't the one what cheated."

"Oh, god, Peter, I'm sorry," Leanne shook her head, pressing her palm to her forehead, exorcising her inner torment. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

"You are right though," Peter reflected bitterly. "It does solve a lot of problems. The main one being that you can't decide who you want to be with."

"I can!" Leanne cried. "I have. I want you. I want to be your wife."

"So, why did you go back to Nick, hmm? After it nearly destroyed us last time?"

"I got confused, that's all. Seeing you and Carla together–"

"Not this again," Peter rolled his eyes in frustration.

"I admit it, I got jealous and paranoid. I know I should've trusted you, but I couldn't think straight. And Nick, he was there and…"

"You couldn't help yourself?"

"It was a moment of weakness. I needed some comfort. That's all it was. And then I was pregnant and I didn't know what to do for the best. He was adamant he was staying with Carla–"

"What?" Peter physically recoiled from her, leaping off the bed and standing, his body rigid, staring at her in disgust. "You gave him first refusal?"

"It wasn't like that. I was trying to sort it out in me head. It was all such a mess. But, you have to believe me, Peter, I never stopped loving you."

"And what about him? Hmm? Do you love him?"

"I don't, I… I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Maybe?" Leanne shrugged. "I'm sorry, I'm trying to be honest."

"I can see you're all cut up about this, trying to decide who you want. So, let me make this really simple for you. This marriage, it's over."

"Please, Peter."

"What's that old saying, fool me once…"

"I do love you, Peter, I know you won't believe me, but–"

"Save your breath, Lea, I don't wanna hear it. You obviously don't know what you want. Or who you want. But know this, I can't do it anymore, I won't. I'm done."

"We can sort this out, if you'll just–"

"I'm gonna take Simon and stay with me dad for a little bit. You can stay in the flat until you've recovered. But then… I want you out of my life. For good."

"Peter," Nick called out to Peter as he re-entered the waiting room and made a beeline for the exit opposite. "Can I–"

"No," was Peter's blunt reply, pushing past Nick, wanting to get as far away from that place as he could.

"I need to talk to you," Nick persisted.

"Read the room, Tilsley, I'm not in the mood."

"Peter!" Nick grabbed hold of Peter's arm, refusing to let him leave. "Please, I need to know what you plan on telling Carla."

"Worried I'm gonna spill your dirty little secret, are you?" Peter asked, shaking off Nick's grip.

"Please don't," Nick begged him. "Telling Carla won't make you feel any better."

"I'm not doing you any favours."

"Don't do it for me," Nick said. "Do it for Carla. I know how much you care about her. Telling her what happened now, when it's all in the past, it's done with, it's not going to help. All you'll achieve is hurting her. So please, before you say anything, think about her. And the baby. Do you really want to break up another family?"

"We've got chips," Carla noted as she squatted in front of the Barlow's freezer, contemplating its contents. "And some of these…" she picked up a bag of frozen yellow chunks and held them in the air for Simon to inspect. "What are these exactly?"

"Chicken nuggets," Simon said, rolling his eyes at Carla's piteous lack of frozen food knowledge.

"Is that okay with you, Si? Chicken nuggets and chips?"

"What sauce is there?"

"Umm…" Carla peered into the fridge, pulling out bottles one-by-one and plonking them onto the countertop. "Mayo… red sauce… brown sauce… umm… chilli sauce I think this is, it's hard to tell."

"Bleurgh!" Simon made his feelings on the mystery chilli sauce perfectly clear. "Can you mix the mayo and the red sauce together?"

"Whatever you want," she said, placing the brown sauce and the chilli sauce back into the fridge and rising to her feet awkwardly, gripping onto the countertop as leverage. "Why don't you do the sauce, here's a bowl and a spoon, and I'll get these into the oven."

Simon climbed up onto a barstool and pulled the sauce bottles towards him, getting straight to work on his special concoction.

"It's fun when you're here," he announced as he tipped the bottle of red sauce upside down and squeezed out half of its contents into the bowl.

"Aww, thanks Si," Carla smiled. "It's fun being here– Woah! Are you sure you've got enough sauce there?"

"I like lots of sauce," Simon explained matter-of-fact. "It's different when it's just mum and dad here, they're always arguing about something these days. Or pretending they're not arguing."

"That's adults, innit," Carla shrugged, restraining herself from asking what Peter and Leanne argued about. "Always got summat on their minds."

"I think I'll stay a kid forever then," Simon announced. "I don't wanna be an adult."

"You know what, Si, I think you just might be onto something."

Nick sat by Leanne's bedside. An uncomfortable silence had descended over the pair as soon as the social niceties had been done with, the 'I'm sorry for your loss' and the 'How are you feeling?' phrases that sounded trite and hollow between two people like Nick and Leanne who had been through so much together over the years.

"Why did you have to come back?" Leanne cried, breaking the silence. "Why couldn't you have stayed away?"

"What? You're blaming me?"

"We were happy before you came back and decided to mess with us. And then Carla, throwing herself the way she did at Peter. What chance did we have?"

"If you were right for each other, you'd have every chance."

"Peter's dumped me, you know."

"I don't blame him."

"Gee, thanks for your support," Leanne snarled.

"Well, what did you think was gonna happen?"

"I suppose you don't want anything to do with me either?"

"Lea, I–"

"Of course you don't."

"I've got responsibilities, you know that."

"Carla," Leanne sniffed. "Because she's still got her baby."

"Yeah, she's got her baby," Nick clarified. "Our baby. And she's still got me. I can't have anything risk that. I'm sorry."

"So, what?" Leanne shrugged. "You're here to make sure I keep my mouth shut, are you?"

"I'm not gonna lie, I would rather Carla didn't find out about you and me. But that doesn't mean I don't care about you, Lea. Because I do. More than you think. And I want to make sure you're okay."

"Get out."

"Lea, please," Nick pleaded with her. "Let's talk about this."

"I said, get out!"

"Dad!" Simon cried out in delight as he spotted Peter standing forlornly at the door to the flat. "We're having chicken nuggets and chips for tea and look, I made the sauce all by myself."

"Hey, Si," Peter hitched a smile on his face and greeted his son with a kiss to the top of his head, tousling his curls gently with his fingers. "That looks well tasty."

"Do you want some, dad?" he asked. "There's enough for dad, isn't there, Carla?"

"There's plenty," Carla said. "You wanna grab your dad a plate, Si?"

"Thanks for doing this," Peter said gratefully as he sunk into the chair next to Carla while Simon raced to the kitchen. "It's been a weight off."

"Anytime you need me," Carla affirmed, reaching out and rubbing his arm gently. "How's…?"

But Peter merely shook his head sharply, a non-verbal 'not now', as Simon returned to the table with a plate which Carla immediately began piling high with food.

"Why, thank you chef Connor and chef Barlow," Peter said with a smile, forcing himself to appear cheerful in front of his son. "This looks delicious."

Carla switched off the light in Simon's bedroom and padded softly back to the living room, pausing at the entrance to watch Peter as he sat on the sofa, leaning forward, his head in his hands.

"It's not good news, is it?" Carla asked as she settled into the seat next to Peter, picking up his hand and holding it gently between her own.

"Is Si–?"

"Fast asleep."

"Okay," Peter took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh before speaking again, his voice hoarse and shaky. "She lost the baby."

"Oh, Peter," Carla raised his hand to her lips and kissed it softly. "I'm so sorry, darlin'."

"She's devastated," he said.

"Of course, she is. You must be as well."

"Yeah, I guess."

"You're in shock."

"No, I'm not," Peter shook his head, struggling to find the words to express how he was feeling. "Not really."

"It's understandable–"

"I feel guilty."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I feel guilty for not being devastated," Peter confessed. "Not like Leanne is. Mind you, you wouldn't blame me if you knew the truth. I'm not completely heartless."

"I don't understand, Peter."

"It hasn't been easy for me to wrap me head around either."

"I know it's not the right time, but… this pain, it'll fade and then, who knows, you could try again."

"No," Peter shook his head, adamant.

"Peter–"

"Me and Leanne, we're not ever gonna have a baby. Never."

"O-okay," Carla stammered. "Is there something wrong? You know… medically? With Leanne?"

"If only it were so simple."

"Peter, what's wrong?"

"Isn't losing a baby enough?" he cried.

"There's something else," Carla insisted. "I know you, Peter Barlow, remember? I know when you're not right, and… I just want to help you. Please let me help you."

"You are," Peter reassured her. "Just by being here, you're helping me."

"You can tell me anything, you know that, don't you?"

"I know," he nodded as he slowly turned to face her and, looking her straight in the eye, wondered if she was strong enough.

"So… tell me."

"Carla," Peter began, determined to tell her the truth, knowing she deserved the truth, but when he opened his mouth again, the words refused to come out.

"Peter?" Carla pleaded with him. "Please tell me what's wrong."

But Peter's appetite for revenge, on Leanne, on Nick, on the whole world, faltered when he looked at Carla and then, as he dropped his gaze and caught sight of Carla's baby bump, it abandoned him completely. His happiness, his family, might have been destroyed, but he could not bring himself to destroy her happiness as well. She would not be the collateral damage in Nick and Leanne's affair. No, he would protect her and her family, that precious innocent baby, and even Nick, the man he hated above all others. He would protect them, no matter the cost to himself.