Disclaimer: Stop it now. You know, I know, we all know.

A/N: How well would a one armed person cope with a small child? I'm not entirely sure, which is why this is simply my imaginings and I hope you forgive any errors. Oh and in my universe, Gretel and any other dogs have unfortunately gone to that little doggy heaven in the sky.

My experiences of kids are limited so this may not be a wholly accurate interpretation of a two-year-old.

Oh and thanks for the tip Merrymime-you'll see which one.

It's about eight-ish in the evening. Way past Ella's bedtime, but then Robert doesn't know this.

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Robert arrived home in a taxi, in one piece and with Ella still in a relatively calm state. He marked this down as a giant achievement. Hell, after what I did this afternoon, this should be a doddle, he thought. Then he got to the door and realised that opening it without a hand would be a little tricky.

'I take it back,' he said, aloud, 'this is a million times harder than negotiating with a gun-wielding psycho.'

After standing for a minute and going through his options, he decided to put Ella on the floor. Using his leg to keep Ella from going anywhere, he dug out his keys and opened the door. He picked Ella up and checked her. She seemed fine.

'Okay?' he asked her.

She just looked at him and said,

'Ijbah!'

'I'm going to take that as a yes,' he said and entered the house.

Turning the light on with his nose, he kicked the door closed and leaned against it. He was in.

He walked into the living room and walked forward until he bumped into a chair. Depositing Ella onto it, he whirled round and turned on the light, then turned back. Ella peered up at him, absurdly small on the giant leather couch, her little legs stuck out in front of her. She looked impossibly cute. Now what? he thought.

He sat down next to her and rubbed his eyes, as sleep threatened to catch up with him. He felt like he'd been awake for years, but the day's events seemed a million miles away. Immediately his thoughts rushed back to Elizabeth. How was she doing? How much damage was there? He felt an huge urge to pick up the phone and ring the hospital. But what could they tell him-that she was still in surgery? Hardly worth disturbing the already busy staff for.

He shook himself out of his thoughts and glanced sideways at Ella. Who wasn't there. He looked about him, stomach leaping with dread. But the little girl hadn't gone far. In fact she was leaning on the coffee table, picking up coasters and shaking them before

dropping them on the floor. Robert, several gears behind, just watched her for a moment. Then she alighted upon the collection of remote controls and put one in her mouth. He dived off the couch and grabbed it off her. She looked at him for a moment, and then her features began to crease up. Even a childcare novice knew what that meant.

'Oh no-' he began, but Ella beat him to it and began a gurgling cry.

He closed his eyes. This was such a bad idea, he thought, I don't have the first clue about this. He opened his eyes again. Ella was still there, her face turning red. She had her hand out and was grabbing for the remote.

'You really want this?' he asked, not knowing what else to do.

Ella stopped crying and took some sharp little breaths. She looked up at him then back at the remote again.

'It doesn't do much,' he said and flicked the on switch.

The TV blared into life, stuck on some Reality show. He didn't watch much TV, or he hadn't until recently. His time off work had given him a strange appetite for trashy television. Ella was instantly transfixed. Her eyes widened and she jigged up and down a bit.

'Data TV,' she said, 'data prong.'

'Yep that's the TV,' he replied and flicked the channel over onto a news programme.

Ella wrinkled her nose.

'Not a fan?' asked Robert and seeming to understand, Ella shook her head vigorously.

He smiled a little and continued channel hopping. Ella registered her disapproval loudly, with a series of strange little words and sounds until eventually he alighted on a programme which transformed her face into a grinning smile. She giggled and clapped her hands excitedly.

'Finally,' he said, 'you're one picky little madam.'

Still smiling he looked up at what she had chosen. It was an old re-run of The Muppet Show. His smile widened.

'You like this too?' he asked her, 'good taste.'

Ella, focused on the TV clapped her hands some more and Robert found himself joining her, quite unaware of why he was doing so. She looked at him and clapped her hands again, prompting him to do it back. This game continued for a while, until the sketch changed and Ell's attention was diverted again. Robert found himself a little sad that he was no longer interesting and reached out a hand to smooth her hair.

He had never fully understood the attraction of having children. Most of the ones he saw were sick or grumpy, or both. To have a kid was to put yourself through the emotional wringer, worrying about them one minute and laughing with them the next.

Now he thought he was beginning to understand. Kids could make you feel like the best human on the planet no matter how much of a...a Muppet you were.

He pulled his hand away and tore himself from her side for a moment to drag over the bag that Chris had left him with. He unzipped it and rifled around.

'Okay, no 'Toddlers for Dummies',' he said aloud, 'but lets see if Miss Chris did put in anything useful.'

Toys-he pulled them out-and some clothes which might come in handy. Powder, wipes, a couple of jars of baby food-yes those clothes will definitely come in handy-spoons, a cardboard kids book and finally a rather large, if dog-eared blanket. He pulled that out too. As he did so he caught the scent of something familiar. Elizabeth's perfume. The whirl of emotions came up again and suppressed them. This was going to be hard.

His damn imagination kept picturing the worst. He knew the frenzied beeping of alarms as a patient failed and the horrendous damage a single bullet could do. All those memories converged in a sickening dream with Elizabeth's battered body at the centre.

Ella began singing. Robert glanced over at her. There didn't appear to be any words and there certainly wasn't a tune, but she was still merrily going along with the song currently being performed on the show. He laughed out loud and watched her antics, spellbound. When she finished he clapped and cheered, earning him a curious, if happy look from Ella.

He left the bag and re-joined her. She had climbed on the couch and was sitting with her legs dangling over the edge. Robert pushed all of his gruesome dreams away and for the next half an hour, they were both absorbed, re-acting in the extreme to the stupid plots and antics on the show. They even sang along with some bits. He hadn't been this happy in a long time.

After the show finished, Ella wiped her eyes and he wondered whether she was tired.

'Sleepy?' he asked.

Ella didn't reply but pointed to one of the toys on the table, a black dog and said,

'Black, black!'

He followed her finger and picked it up. She took it eagerly and hugged it in one arm, sticking her other thumb in her mouth and leaning back onto the sofa, resting her head against him.

Robert felt weirdly happy and didn't dare move. He wondered if she would fall asleep there and watched her as she played with the toy dog.

'I used to have a dog,' he said, feeling the need to fill the silence, 'she was a big dog. A big, brown dog called Gretel. You know, like the fairytale?'

Ella looked up at him and held out the toy. He took it and held it absently.

'Its a very nice dog,' he said, 'Gretel's gone now. But she was old, so it was expected.'

He held the dog back out to her and Ella took it. Two-year olds don't understand death, he thought suddenly. There's no way anyone could explain it to a small child. He wondered if Elizabeth had ever tried to explain to Ella about Mark. He'd never liked the man, but he had been her father and no one deserved to grow up without a father.

Then again, he thought, I would quite cheerfully have liked to grow up without my father. Brutal and abusive, dominating with both his fists and his temper and ignorant to boot. Robert dismissed him. His father wasn't important, he was merely the template of bad fathering.

'You hungry?' he asked Ella, suddenly.

He did a stupid little mime of eating. Ella shook her head. I hope she understands, he thought.

She pulled out her thumb and said,

'Potty.'

Robert raised his eyebrows.

'What?'

'Potty!' she whined.

Oh Lizzie you never told me you were potty training her, he thought despairingly. Ella looked at him innocently, still sucking her thumb.

'Right,' he sighed.

*

Later, after dealing with the little problem, Robert had also managed to get her changed into her pyjamas. Sitting her on the toilet seat he washed her face and hands and used a comb her found in the bag to brush her hair.

'There,' he said, 'you look beautiful. Just like your mother.'

Ella yawned cutely. Robert picked her up in his arm and brought her back downstairs again. I'm getting the hang of this, he thought, although I have to say having both arms would make it much easier.

He expected her to go to sleep quite easily, as she kept rubbing her eyes and yawning, but instead she got irritable and began crying.

Nothing seemed to calm her. He tried the TV again, but that didn't work. He tried her toys but she just threw them on the floor. He picked her up and she wailed in his ear, deafening him. Out of options he began to walk around the room, making what he hoped were comforting noises, but she still cried just as loudly. With lungs like that, she'll be a prime opera singer, he thought.

Ah-ha! said his addled brain-music. It can soothe the savage beast, lets see if it works on the savage child.

He moved to the stereo and flicked it on. He didn't know what was in the CD player, but he turned the sound down and pressed play.

A gorgeous vocal piece swam out of the speakers. Ella quietened almost immediately. He turned up the music and swayed back and forth gently, as her cries gradually subsided and she took little, gasping breaths. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he felt her damp face pressed on his chest.

He searched his mind for the title of the piece. Ah, yes-The Lamb by Tavener. Soft vocal harmonies spoke William Blake's eternal words to the silent room. Two glittering streams of water slowly made their way down his face. As the piece finished, Robert opened his eyes and felt his cheeks were damp. He swallowed and hastily wiped them away with his sleeve. Ella's breathing was slow and steady, her eyes closed.

Suddenly the phone rang. He started at its loudness in the still house and glanced at Ella. She stirred fitfully and he ran, as quickly as he dared to the phone, picking it up and taking a deep breath before answering.

'Hello?'

'Dr Romano, its Jacy here, you said you wanted-'

'Is it over, are they finished?' he demanded.

'Yes, it's over. They got out about five minutes ago. Dr Anspaugh says everything has gone as well as can be expected. She's in ICU being monitored.'

Thank God, thank God...

'And the damage? How bad was it?'

'They had to remove one of her kidneys and part of the liver. They also had some problems with the stomach but they think they've solved everything. We'll know more when she wakes up.'

Robert felt like he was going to float away with relief.

'Thanks Jacy. That's great. Could you phone me when she wakes?'

'Sure. But that might not be for a while. Do you still want me to let you know when her parents get here?'

'Oh-whichever comes first.'

Robert put the phone down in a daze and gazed down at Ella.

'Hear that Ella,' he whispered, 'your mom's gonna be fine. All patched up. Thank God.'

He peered into the living room, grabbed Ella's toy dog and switched off the light using his nose again.

He wearily climbed the stairs and entered his room. He had no-where else to put Ella and wanted to keep her close, so he laid Ella gently on one side of the bed, then pulled off the covers and threw off the pillows on the other side. Carefully he laid her down on that side and pulled the covers up around her. She murmured in her sleep and turned over.

Despite his tiredness, he was reluctant to go to sleep. He'd only spent a few hours with the girl but already he felt protective of her. She was his responsibility now and he didn't want anything to happen to her.

He sat on the bed, in the dark room, hearing the distant sounds of traffic.

Elizabeth was safe, he thought. He knew she wasn't wholly out of danger, but he ignored this and focused on the fact that she was out of surgery and more or less, in one piece.

He ran through the day, from the first shots, to his venture down the corridor and his first conversation with Martin. He traced back through what he had said, missing parts of it and not wishing to remember them. He remembered Elizabeth's voice, her face and the rivers of blood.

Then Robert went back further, back to the reason she was in that room in the first place. He could have got anyone to talk to Mrs Graham, but no, he'd chosen her. He had seen her standing at the nurses station and was burnt with resentment and longing. So he'd thrown her into the room and left her there. It was just supposed to be another game. A reason to talk to her and try to be part of her life.

'You're too old for games, Robert,' he said to himself, 'you're too...damaged for them.'

What was he waiting for? For her to suddenly break down and relent just so he'd stop hassling her? He had no idea what he was doing, no idea how to show her these feelings which he didn't want to have.

She'd almost died. Her life was certainly broken now. After everything that's happened to her, I think enough is enough.

Robert stared down at Ella. He made a decision. From now on, it was going to stop. No more games. The unthinkable was going to happen. He was going to try and get over Elizabeth Corday.

Dun-dun-dun! Gee, think they've got enough to talk about? Well, stay tuned for the next chapter-Robert and Elizabeth. Talking together. Finally.