Hello,

Thank you for reading and for your reviews!

Okay, so I think I may need to explain the previous chapter a little. I felt that given all the time that I left before posting the last chapter, it was needed to set up this one. I hope that makes sense after this!

And so, finally, here are the results...

I hope that you enjoy,

Becca x

It's in Your Hands Now

She knew.

It wasn't supposed to be this way, it was not how they had planned or pictured this to go. All those months that had passed them- spent dangling in the suspense of the unknown, trying to make plans for a future that was clouded by uncertainty- all of it, had led them to this moment. A moment which they had always said they would face together.

And yet, here they were.

"Tell me."

When she remained silent, as if in some sort of trance, Eddie did not attempt to push any further. He didn't need to.

For the first time, he hated how well he could read her. It was impossible to be optimistic when her features had sunken and all colour had drained from her skin. Defeated, he dropped down next to her, his head briefly falling into his hands as he tried to compress an engulfing loss of hope into nothing. "It doesn't matter," he straightened himself, his hand cupping her elbow, encouraging her to face him. "Rachel, it doesn't matter. We'll make it work."

The way that her brow furrowed as her eyes finally met his confused him, it was a strange response after previously not being able to look at him at all. Whatever thought ran through her mind, she shook away as she moved from him, but as she stood from the sofa, she did so too quickly, leaving herself wincing and grasping at her lower stomach before breathing out the pain and leaving him sat in utter confusion.

"Rachel," he persisted, following her into the kitchen. "Are you okay?" He found her stood at the sink, her knuckles white from her grip on the counter top, but still, she wasn't quite steady on her feet.

The colour had somewhat returned to her face, he could see that as she turned to face him, but her eyes remained vacant, introspective, as if she was trying to figure out a formula that he could have given her the answer to in an instant. She opened her mouth to speak, but the breath that she had been holding caught up with her all too eagerly.

"It's okay, you're okay." He steadied her. "This is all too much at once, you're still recovering. Just sit down a minute, I'll get you some water-"

She gripped his forearms. "Eddie-"

"It's okay. I know." he forced a smile, a poor attempt to reassure her which only left him looking more somber "We always knew that this might happen. It's okay- it's just how it is. At least now, we know, and we can start to look-"

Following a few failed attempts to interrupt him, she was left with no option but to raise her voice to gain his attention.

"Eddie!"

A stark moment of silenced ensued as she regained her breath. She readied herself, and he could almost hear her rehearsing the words in her head. He gave a dejected nod, as if he had already admitted defeat.

"She's not his."

He froze, and this time, Rachel worried that she would have to be the one to steady him as he gawped at her in complete confusion. "Wh- What?" he questioned, his gaze unfaltering as he looked at her more seriously than he had ever done before. "Say that again."

"She's not Adam's... she's yours Eddie," she revealed with very little conviction, as if she believed her words just as much as he did.

"But- I thought- you... I thought-" he stumbled incoherently, his hands clutching at his head as he tried to make sense of it all. "What?"

Eddie followed her eyeline as it fell to the counter where she had absently dropped the letter. Still dubious, he straightened out the piece of paper and scanned down to the only paragraph that mattered. He blinked, reading over the words again, and again; as if his eyes might suddenly deceive him, but to his shock and relief, each time the result stayed the same.

"I have a daughter," he uttered under his breath first, until he felt the certainty to say it aloud. "Rachel, we have a daughter." A smile broke out on his face as he breathed out the tension and allowed it all to sink in. "Rachel?" he prompted, the energy dropping from his tone as he scanned over her tight expression.

"Eddie, I was so sure..." she whispered, "I was convinced that she was his."

"I know it's a lot to take in. God, I can barely believe it myself, but this is good news. She's ours. It's all going to be okay, we can relax-"

"Relax?" she repeated, as if he had just said the most stupid thing imaginable.

He sighed. "I didn't mean- I know it's a shock, and I don't expect you to be jumping for joy but I thought you might at least be relieved."

"You don't get it," she stared at him emptily. "Eddie, I had it all figured out. I needed... I needed a plan, to have some sort of control-"

Without warning, Adam's words echoed in her ear, a raging accusation about her always wanting to control everything. It was piercing. It led her right back there; she saw his face seething with fury, his tightening grip on the steering wheel. She could hear the radio in the background, playing a song that she hadn't minded once. Just the thought of the tune sickened her now. The wheels had screeched to a halt just as the chorus had kicked in. Adrenaline shot through her, just as it had done at the sight of the vehicle hurtling towards the driver's side. She saw Adam's face, staring straight ahead, oblivious to the incoming danger; her last memory before her recollection became hazy.

"It was all for nothing."

She lost control of her breathing once more, and it wasn't until Eddie pulled her into his arms that she became aware of her own body. It took a while, it felt as though she had been gasping forever, but eventually she settled into him, and it was as though her body finally registered that she was no longer in danger. The safety of his arms feeling a million miles away from the scene of the crash and from the sterile hospital room. She breathed in the warmth and the comfort of him, her head collapsing tiredly onto his shoulder, and when she could speak, she whispered, "I just couldn't leave it, and now he's... It's all-"

"No, Rachel." He defended fiercely as he kissed the top of her head and swallowed down the burning emotion in his throat. "It's not your fault."

Eddie knew that Rachel must have been exhausted when she didn't protest at his suggestion that she have a lie down. That, and he was aware that she had barely slept for the last few days. He felt as though he could have done with a few hours himself, but naturally, there were limited opportunities for sleep when it came to looking after a new born. Not that he minded of course.

Following the whimpers coming from the living room, he peered into the Moses basket and found himself struck by the reality of his daughter staring back at him. It was as though he was seeing her with fresh eyes, and for the first time, he took in every detail of her features.

When he had first met her, in a way she had reminded him of Charlie as a new born. He hadn't thought much of it at the time, after all, his son was Rachel's nephew, but the resemblance struck him now. She was much smaller than Charlie had been, her features softer and her eyes entirely her mothers, but the similarities were so striking that he did not know how he had failed to realised earlier.

It wasn't until he had to blink to clear his vision that he became aware of the emotion flooding out of him. "Now then, what's all that noise about?" he unwrapped the infant from her blanket and walked her around the living room, gently rocking her until she soothed. "Look at me, you're already turning me into a soppy sod," he commented as his free hand wiped at his cheek.

"Don't tell your brothers, but I think you might be the cutest one," he softly confessed. "You'll have heard Charlie roaring about the place already, he's a crazy child, but so funny. I have a feeling that you'll be keeping him in line. And then there's Michael, I can't wait for you to meet him, I miss him a lot. We'll visit him sometime, maybe once you're walking about so we can all run around on the beach. You're going to love him." he swallowed, but it was too late to stop the tears now. "You have another brother- his name is Stephen. We won't be able to visit him, but he's always in here," he gestured to his chest, "always in my heart, and when you're a bit older I'm going to tell you all about him, and then he'll always be in yours too."

Her eyes wandered, as if she was listening to his every word. "I've not properly introduced myself, have I?" he swallowed, preparing to say the words he never imagined he would. "I'm your daddy," he smiled, lowering his voice. "But I think that you already knew that."

In the comfort of her own bed, Rachel had practically fallen asleep at the very moment her head sunk into the pillow; swiftly slipping into a deep slumber, as if her body was desperate to recharge, to renew. It was only once she had awoken that she realised how much she had needed the rest, as her eyes opened much lighter now and the burden of the last few days no longer weighed so heavily on her chest. The darkness of the room informed her that she had managed to sleep for longer that she had expected, but she knew that it could not be too late as Eddie was not beside her.

She found him in the living room feeding their daughter. Beside them, sat Charlie with a book open on his lap, babbling a nonsensical story to the baby as he pointed to the pictures on the pages. Rachel had been out of their sight, watching them discreetly from the doorway, until her laughter gave away her presence as Charlie dramatically slapped the book closed and announced, "The end!"

Eddie turned to her, his face illuminated by her laughter, a sound that he had dearly missed. "I think he only noticed once he had woken up from his nap that we have a baby in the house," he muttered to her as they both watched Charlie in astonishment. The usually hyper toddler paused in a rare silence as he gawped in awe of the infant and ever-so-gently clasped her waving hand in his.

Quietly easing herself down onto the couch next to her nephew, Rachel whispered to Eddie. "Are you sure that's the same child?"

"Look. Baby!" Charlie delightedly pointed out.

"That's your sister," Rachel told him as she fixed his unruly blonde mop of hair. "Do you know, I think that you're going to be the best big brother."

She could feel the warmth of Eddie's gaze before she looked up to him, and just as she returned a smile, Charlie's interest swiftly diverted back to his racing cars.

"And he's off," Eddie laughed before pausing, softening. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," she assured. "I just- I still can't get my head around it..."

"No, me neither." he agreed, and for the next few minutes, they sat in an easy silence, captivated by their daughter in his arms. "She's amazing, isn't she? Just like her Mum."

"Eddie-" she looked up to him, head tilted and eyes narrowing, as though she was studying him. "Why aren't you angry with me?"

Baffled, he shook his head and asked softly, "Why would I be angry with you?"

"I risked all of this. I was so focused on preparing for the worst that I didn't even consider..." When his expression remained gentle and unchanged, she persisted. "You told me to leave it with Adam, you begged me to wait and still I didn't listen. I put her in danger before she'd even been born. I put our daughter in danger. You should hate me, really."

Without a word, he moved the muslin cloth from his shoulder to hers before carefully placing their daughter into her arms and the bottle into her hand. "No matter how hard you try Rachel, I'm not going to blame you for any of this, so please will you stop blaming yourself. None of that matters now." He pressed a kiss to her cheek. "And for the record, although you drive me mad at times, I could never hate you."

And with that, he scooped up Charlie to take him off for a bath; his real intention being to give her some space. He knew too well that his words would only go so far, that she had to reach her own conclusions, and that she was the only person that could free herself from the guilt that she was carrying. He just hoped she could see that this had all been for something, that all the pain and the chaos had led them here, to their daughter.

Something changed for Rachel. It felt different, to care for her daughter in her own home. It was not like the hospital where she had felt so out of her depth. As if she had no real control, and as though there was always someone in the background with a watchful eye on her, just waiting for her to fail before she had even begun.

As her daughter looked up at her, her eyes softly closing now that she had been fed and changed, Rachel finally realised that what her daughter needed from her was much simpler than she had previously thought. The life in her arms held no resentment or expectation. It wasn't that complicated, she simply needed to be fed, warm and loved. To be safe.

She thought of her own mother, a woman that she had only known for the first seven years of her life. Most of her memories remained vague, but she could never forget her mother's embrace. It was a rare occurrence, her mother was not someone to be feared as her father was, but she could be cold, and even as a child Rachel could see that she lived on a knife-edge. Back then, the only love that she had known had been those rare moments in which her mother had briefly pulled her into the warmth of her arms.

Placing a kiss into the wispy hairs on her daughter's head, Rachel softly assured her, "I am going to spend every day of the rest of my life making sure that you know how loved you are. You are never, ever going to question that."

Eddie had been cautious at first when he returned to find Rachel wiping her eyes, but as he came closer, he was relieved to see that she was smiling.

"I'm okay," she assured him. "Just hormones."

"I think I must have some of those myself," he jested. "I only have to look at her and I can feel myself welling up."

"She must think we're a right pair."

Eddie laughed softly as he joined them, carefully resting his head on Rachel's shoulder as he watched their daughter sleeping on her chest and wondered if this was the right moment. Lifting his head up, he pondered for a moment more before finally asking "What's her name Rachel?"

With Alison, they had had a long list, followed by a short list, and had only decided on the twins' names once they were born. Melissa, on the other hand, had decided on Charlie's name without so much as consulting him. It had not felt right to discuss potential names with Rachel whilst she was pregnant. She had hinted that she had a name in mind, but he hadn't pushed her to share it, somehow, he knew that it was a sensitive subject.

"Before she was here, I didn't know whether it would suit her." Rachel thought aloud. "When I was younger and I'd think about the future. I always imagined that if I had a daughter, I would name her after my mother. I know we didn't have an easy relationship but, I thought if I could commemorate her somehow, I don't know that... it might right some wrongs. It's silly really."

Eddie thought for a moment before asking. "You want to name her Elizabeth?"

"Not quite. I thought, Eliza." she revealed, not waiting for his reaction before interjecting. "If you don't like it, it's fine. She's your daughter too, you should have a say-"

"Rachel." he shook his head at her fondly, with a massive grin on his face as he nodded in confirmation. "That's her name. Eliza-"

"Lawson." she completed.

Eddie was taken aback by that, mostly because he had not even considered the prospect himself yet. "Are you sure?"

"That's her name," she echoed his earlier words.

He breathed out, before repeating with a fathers' pride. "Eliza Lawson, our daughter."