Kate recovered well, and soon they were back in the hospital, this time, for the birth of their child. Jack had kept to his word, and had taken as much care as Kate would let him in her weakened state, and determined to share the experience, Jack had been at her side throughout the whole labour - all sixteen hours of it. At the end of an exhausting effort for Kate, she held in her arms a beautiful baby boy.

"A boy, Jack, it's a boy." She said excitedly, looking at the crying bundle before her.

Again, Jack felt emotional enough to cry. He told himself that it must have something to do with the hospital smell, he thought. He was a father, at last. He leaned close to Kate and gazed at the little face. He had seen photographs of himself as a baby, and yes, this would definately be a little boy like he was. He was willing to bet money on the eyes being crystal blue though. He already had a rather large amount of hair for a newborn.

"Now that right there, that's my newborn peice of gold." Jack said, kissing Kate. "Thank you."

Suddenly, the room went deathly silent. Jack looked down from where he had just been kissing Kate, and looked down at his son. Panicking, he saw that he wasn't moving, and he wasn't crying anymore either.

"Why isn't he crying?" Kate asked, panicking. "Jack, why isn't he crying?"

"I don't know." He told her, still clentching her hand tightly, but even his was trembling. He turned to the midwife. The midwife ran over and looked at the bundle.

"He's stopped breathing." The midwife said, but her answer wasn't directed at Jack or Kate, it was at the other midwives in the room. The main midwife took the child over to where he had been cleaned up, and began performing the emergency steps to get him to breathe again.

Kate clung to Jack, and started to cry. Jack hugged her back. He had to be ok, he just had to be. Kate was begging who ever was listening not to have her baby taken away from her. "It's alright, he's going to be OK." Jack assured her. "Any minute now, he's gonna be fine, he'll start crying." For the longest minute of their lives, Jack watched and waited while the midwives tried to get the boy to breathe, and Kate hid herself against him, not even being able to bear to look at the midwives gathered around their tiny son.

The midwives franticity panicked them even more. But it was the cry of, "No pulse, no heartbeat," that caused Jack to let out a cry himself. The words were repeated several times, and then one midwife came over to them. In the sudden silence of the midwives, the flatline that had once been a baby's heartbeat could be heard.

"No..." Kate croaked. Their child had already been threatened with death before, and had come through. Surely, after so much survival, he wouldn't die now.

"I'm sorry..." The midwife began, but she never got to finish her sentence.

The sound of a baby screaming filled the air once again, and Kate raised her head, as did Jack. They exchanged hopeful glances. "Is he OK?" She asked tearfully.

"He's all right." A midwife said after a moments observation. "He's all right."

Kate started to cry again, this time with relief. A few moments later, the baby was brought back over to it's parents. Kate took hold of her son, turning her body a little to show Jack. "He's all right." She repeated. "Jack, he's crying, he's all right."

"He's all right." Jack repeated, and then smiled broadly, kissing Kate and stroking a finger down his screaming son's face, never having been more pleased to hear a baby crying. "My son," He whispered, but being so close, Kate heard him, even over the crying of the baby. "My little boy."

Both of them were happy that their little boy was crying again, and were proud with his fight for life even though he was so young - he was already proving to take after his mother.

"What are we gonna call him?" Jack asked.

"I don't know." Kate answered with a shrug. "The only names we agreed on were for a girl."

They had trouble thinking of a boys name during the pregnancy, but had so many different names for a girl. If it were a girl, their were going to name her Lilly, but all of the names they had thought of for a boy didn't seem fitting for their little fighter.

"Alexander." Jack suggested, and then tried out the name. "Alex."

Kate looked up at him. "Yeah. Yeah, that's perfect." She kissed her son's forehead. "Alex."

Jack found it strange how he had once sat in the hospital, thinking that his life was over as he knew it, but now he had sat in a hospital, and had watched a life be brought into the world. A life that he would care for and nurture for the rest of his life. Money was no longer a problem for them now, as three weeks after Jack had left the hospital following her accident, he had got a job working at the same hospital, and this meant that they would have enough money so that Kate wouldn't have to work; and they now had a large enough home that they shared, and enough money between them to give their precious son everything they could wish for. Jack smiled to himself. His mistake eight months ago had nearly cost Kate and Alex their lives, but they were closer now than they had ever been together, so it hadn't all been that bad. After all - they had survived together.

END