A long time later when Ric and Connie were on their way home, Ric broke the heavy silence with, "There's something I need to do. I want to see him." Slightly swerving in response to his unexpected wish, Connie fought to keep her eyes on the road. "Do you think it will do you any good?" She couldn't help asking, privately thinking that Ric had gone through quite enough stress and heartache for one day. "No, I don't think it will do me any good in the slightest," He told her ruefully. "But it's something I need to do, almost to hammer home to me that this really is happening." "Okay," Connie said understandingly. "If that's what you want."
As they neared the hospital, Connie put through a call to the mortuary, informing them that a relative wished to view Paris Griffin's body. These cold clinical words made Ric flinch, but he knew that she had to do it, to warn them in advance so that his grandson's body could be laid out in the slightly less clinical viewing room. He had often escorted relatives down there himself, something that had been required of him many times during the years he had been practicing medicine. Dealing with grieving parents, friends, siblings, had simply been a part of his job, just as breaking the initial news that their loved ones were dead had been. But now here he was, feeling everything those grieving relatives had felt, a combination of disbelief, anger and the merest beginnings of acceptance. Were any of his future grandchildren destined to live long enough to reach their first birthday? Two hadn't made it so far, so what hope did that give the rest of that generation of his family? All these thoughts swam in and out of his mind, so that it was something of a surprise when he realised that they were coming to a stop in the hospital car park.
As they traversed the long, endless corridors, Ric slightly slowed, briefly wondering if he really could go through with this. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Connie asked, sensing his thoughts. "I have to do it," Ric told her bleakly. "I think I need to see him in order to really believe it." They encountered Lola at one point, making Connie inwardly groan with annoyance. "Eric," She said as they appeared, not greeting Connie in the slightest. "You came back quick." "I came back to be with my daughter, and my friend," He told her firmly, the addition of friend making Connie give him a small smile of praise. Ric had tried his damnedest to put aside his feelings on Jess and Zubin's relationship, so much so, that he could again voluntarily describe Zubin as his friend, if only to keep Lola quiet. "Have you seen them yet?" She asked, walking alongside them. "Yes, this afternoon," Ric told her. "And are they still as bewildered and disorganised as they were yesterday?" "They are grieving parents, Lola," Ric said a little exasperatedly. "What do you expect?" "Things need to be sorted out, Eric," She said quietly but practically. "Things like the funeral, for instance. They badly need help, the both of them, yet they won't accept it when it's offered." "I think you need to give them time to do things in their own way," Connie told her a little sternly.
Lola left them shortly after this and they made their way down to the hospital mortuary. The viewing room contained nothing medical, nothing clinical, except a long table covered with a white sheet. When they were shown in, there was a tiny form on the table, lying under a clean white sheet. Approaching the table almost hesitantly, gently drawing back the sheet from the little boy's face. Connie moved back out of his line of vision to give him as much space as he needed. Ric stared down at this tiny eight months old face, the face of a child he had barely been able to know. The only time he had spent with this child had been at Christmas, and now he was dead, never to grow into the inquisitive toddler with temper tantrums, or the teenaged adolescent who would be surly and insolent for two or three years. Never would he be able to make his parents proud of his achievements, or be able to be thoroughly spoilt by his grandparents. Putting out a delicate finger, Ric ran it down the child's cheek, the skin feeling cold and hard to his touch, but also infinitely smooth. The baby skin was still there, though colder and dryer than it ever should have been. Wrapping the sheet around the little body, he picked him up, holding his grandson in his arms for just one last time.
Connie watched him as he did this, and it gave her an almost physical pain to see the desolation in his eyes. Ric cradled the baby against his chest, gazing down into that once smiling face. Seeing him do this, reminded her all too painfully of her own child, the one whom she hadn't even given a name. This little body looked far too similar to how her daughter's had looked, when they'd brought her to see her after they'd tried everything to keep her alive. This baby in Ric's arms might be bigger and more developed than hers had been, but the similarity was striking. Did all dead babies look the same, Connie wondered, even though she knew that they all looked different in their own way? When Ric finally put the child down, covering his face back up with the sheet, Connie moved forward, took his hand in hers, and led him out of the room, both of them heavy of heart and utterly devoid of speech.