Author's Notes: Here we are – I finally updated! Huge shout out to ShadowDiva – without her you literally wouldn't be reading this now.

Content Warning: There is reasonably frequent swearing in this chapter,which fits given the circumstance, butI thought I'd add a warning in case it offends.

Secrets and Lies

Chapter 18

Our daughter…

Those words seared themselves onto his consciousness, said with such meaning, impressed with such feeling. Much as he wanted to feel something, he didn't know which emotion to give into first. Sadness? Guilt? Should he take time now to feel deceived? Or would all that come later? He could barely process the situation he found himself in, let alone absorb the scale of it. He'd come back here for Abby. Not to find out…not to find out he'd been lied to, to find out he was a father for heaven's sakes! 5 years ago, his child had come into this world, and he'd been clueless.

Was now the time for anger? Did he have any right to be angry? After what he dragged her into, was it really any great surprise she didn't say anything about Mina to him? After all the chaos they'd caused, it must have just seemed like the proverbial straw – and so rather than face up to it, face up to his reaction, she'd just run away. Damn, Neela, you should have been stronger than that, he thought. You always seemed stronger than that.

"Ray?"

She ventured nervously. He wheeled at the sound of his name, and his chest heaved at the sight. Damn it. He couldn't be angrier with her…he couldn't see any way through this red curtain that had descended.

"Our daughter?"

He stressed, almost threateningly.

"What day was she born? What was her first word? When did she start walking? How old was she when she got her first tooth?"

He paused to draw a long breath.

"…What's her favourite colour? Her favourite food? Who's her teacher?"

Another heavy pause to allow his words to sink in.

"If she was "our" daughter, Neela, wouldn't I know the answers to all those questions?"

"You have every right to be angry-"

"Wouldn't I?"

"Ray…"

She pleaded this time, her tone as desperate as the look in her eyes. He tried very hard not to let that in, not to soften to her just because she looked so pitiful.

"You can't ask me to accept a child I've never met as mine. You can't wait five years then say – 'by the way I was knocked up when I left and my child, well, she's yours'. It isn't fair, Neela!"

"I'm sorry-"

"Sorry? You're sorry?" He was shouting now, hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Sorry's not fucking good enough!"

Her tenuous hold on her emotions slipped, and she shouted back. "Well it's all I've got!"

Dead silence fell over them like a guillotine. He began to pace, disquieting Neela, who could only stand there, blanched in the face of his anger.

"What the fuck did you expect? That you could apologise and make 5 years disappear?"

His voice was still raised, and though she'd been prepared for him to hate her, this fury sent cold shivers down her spine. What did he expect her to say? What could she say?

"I never meant - "

She managed before he cut across her again.

"What? To hurt me? For me to find out like this? Spare me the platitudes, Neela!"

He pre-empted her with a devastating accuracy. He stopped and spun to face her, arms folded tight across his body.

"What the bloody hell do you expect me to say? What do you want to hear?"

She challenged, her tone deliberately hard.

"Why you left! You didn't even think enough of me to tell me you were pregnant! I mean, what the hell? That just slip your mind?"

She thought of a hundred and one answers, each more bitter than the last. She settled on what was the most neutral, but also the weakest defence.

"It was hardly the right time-"

"The right time? Neela, please."

"I did…I did what was best."

Her tone faltered momentarily, cut to the quick by his bitter sarcasm. The words hung for a second, before his temper exploded again, the words ringing back off the walls and embedding themselves deep in her heart.

"Screw that! I had a right to know! A right, Neela! She's my flesh and blood and I don't know her! Fuck, I didn't even know she existed! Can you comprehend how fucking scary that is?"

"That goes with the territory - being a parent is pretty fucking scary, Ray, trust me. I've been doing it for 5 years."

She closed her eyes briefly and saw a fleeting image of her daughter, the reason she was standing here. The reason they were both standing here.

"Trust you? I did. You threw it away."

The tone was suitably scathing. She could only glare at him, sensing his tirade was as yet unfinished, words seething just under the surface.

"Hell, I may have been a world class liar in my time, but I never lied to you, Neela. Never!"

"And that's supposed to prove what exactly?"

Her answer was quick fire, springing instinctively to her lips. She shifted her weight, hands on her hips, challenging him.

"That I didn't deserve to be lied to…"

He returned almost as smartly. She knew it was true. But she would defend her decision to the end of time – what she had done had been best by her daughter, and that was what had mattered.

"And my daughter didn't deserve to be second best!"

Neela snapped, suddenly inflamed. The words echoed around them, and she watched shock settle on his features.

"What?"

"You heard me – my daughter…she could never replace the one you lost. I couldn't let you try and do that to her. Or me."

Her tone was sad - to match her eyes - and he stared at her in disbelief for a long moment, seemingly lost for words. Eventually, he recovered his anger enough to speak again.

"What did you think I'd do? I'd have stood by you, the same way I would have stood by Abby-"

"Until the day you decided I wasn't good enough! I was terrified of you walking away! I was terrified of investing in something, just to have you rip it apart!"

The words flowed from her uncontrollably, impassioned by her rising fury and frustration. Her face felt flushed in her anger, her eyes burning bright. She watched his expression change, almost intangibly. The green irises grew cold and his gaze was bitterly sharp around the edges

"Oh I get it. Walking away was a pre-emptive strike! You decided to hurt me just in case I hurt you."

The words were precisely, cuttingly enunciated. His glare was chilling, slicing right through her. She watched the disbelieving shake of his head, heard his derisive snort.

"That's a fucking lousy reason, Neela. Really lousy."

She knew that as well as he did, but pride wouldn't let her admit it. "You wanted the truth," she reminded him after a long moment of silence, surprised that she'd managed to keep her voice even. "Well, you got it."

"You were never going to tell me."

Her expression merely confirmed his suspicion.

His laugh was bitter. "You live two fucking hours away, Neela. Two hours! And you were never going to tell me? What exactly were you planning on telling her when she asked why I never called? Or wrote? You were going to let her grow up thinking her father didn't give a rat's ass about her!"

Hurt flashed across her face, and he tried not to let it get to him. "Do you really think I'd do that?"

He sighed. "Honestly? I don't know what the fuck to think."

"You know me, Ray-"

"I used to think so. But the woman I knew? You're not her. I don't know who the fuck you are, but you're not her."

"Ray-"

She tried again, almost hopelessly, knowing her effort was in vain.

"No." He shook his head. "I gotta get outta here. Get some air, or something." He glared at her. "But this conversation isn't over."

He strode away, the bitter words spinning ceaselessly in his head, out into in the cold night air. He braced himself against the wall, hands flat against the brick, not entirely sure he could trust his insides. The cold enveloped him like a blanket, wrapping round a damaged soul, and finding every possible way into his core.

Everything felt so twisted. The argument had just been the final nail in the coffin of his composure, the final twist to the knife. His world had just completely inverted, and he wasn't sure how to react to this new upside down reality.