It's All About You – Chapter 6
Smithy sighed softly, stroking Charlie's hair as she fought against the tears rolling from her eyes long enough to speak to him. "I should have….have said…" she hiccupped.
"Shhh…" Smithy tightened his grip on her hand. "It's ok…"
"I lost our baby…" Charlie rubbed her eyes. "It's not ok…" she tried to shuffle closer, wincing as a jolt of pain ran down her back. "I'm so sorry..." She looked desperately up at him. "I was going to go to the doctors on our day off, I'd suspected, but I didn't know." Charlie's sobs grew more intense and she clung on to Smithy as best she could. "I didn't know…" she sobbed.
"Hey," Smithy leant forward, kissing her forehead. "It's ok," he whispered, his face inches from hers. "We can have our own brood…" he forced as a joke. "We can have 'The Smith Football Club'.
"No…" Charlie shook her head, a small smile appearing. "No we can't…Becca'd never cope with the competition for her daddy." She sniffed.
Smithy smiled sadly, brushing away the tears from her cheeks, before brushing his lips over hers, letting them linger, before looking at her. "I love you."
Charlie closed her eyes as more tears threatened to escape before slowly reaching her good arm to his face to cup his cheek. "I love you too."
Mickey snorted loudly as the kid stared blankly back at Claire. "Come off it!" He glared. "You were chased by the same copper who caught you today! You've been identified!"
"Don't mean I did owt." The youth shrugged. "I didn't touch no copper."
"No-one's saying you did." Claire said softly, leaning forward. "We only asked why you ran the first time."
"To get away." The kid smirked at Claire. "That's usually why people run, innit!"
"Don't get smart, Jake!" Mickey stood up, looking at Claire as she placed a hand on his arm.
"Sit down, Mickey." She said, giving his arm a comforting squeeze.
Mickey sighed, doing as he was told, fixing the kid across from them with a stony glare. "Who were you running from?"
"Your copper mate." Jake laughed, sitting back in his chair. "Keep up."
"Jake." Claire jumped in before Mickey could. "Please, just tell us in your own words what happened."
"This is worse than useless!" John scoffed, glaring round at the small plot of land around the bottom of the flats where Charlie had fallen.
"We have to check for evidence, John." Margaret, the ever-calm forensic examiner told the sergeant as he paced up and down.
"All you'll get down here is blood" John rolled his eyes. "And Charlie's at that."
Margaret sighed, looking over her shoulder. "We need to examine all area's John." She said quietly, looking up at where her colleague was peering over the balcony at her. "Anything?" she called up.
"Hopefully." Mark, her colleague called back down with a smile.
"Hello gorgeous!" Charlie beamed as Smithy appeared in the doorway, holding Rebecca in his arms.
"Maaaa!" Rebecca clapped, instantly reaching out to Charlie as they got closer.
Smithy carefully lowered Rebecca onto her stomach, and helped Charlie hold her in place, wrapping her good arm around her.
"Who's mummy's beautiful girl?" Charlie smiled softly as she cuddled her tightly.
"'Ca." Rebecca giggled, returning the cuddle, frowning up as she felt tears dropping on her arm. "Oi!" She scowled, waving her arm around.
Charlie smiled through her tears, kissing Rebecca's forehead. "Sorry, baby." She said softly as Smithy smiled tightly, wrapping an arm around both of them.
Rebecca turned, looking up at them both, yawning, before curling up and going to sleep resting against Charlie's chest as Smithy sat beside the bed, resting his head against Charlie's as they talked in hushed tones so as not to disturb their daughter.