It was getting quite late, and the sun had pretty much blended into the purple-pink clouds.

"I don't want to go." Karen weakly smiled, finishing her drink.

"No, me neither," Chris admitted, "I don't often do this so it felt nice for a change. Especially when it's been a lovely warm day."

She looked over at him as he got his jacket back on. He only put it on as it had gotten incredibly breezy. Such a beautifully formed body…

"Maybe we can do this again some other time." He suggested.

She nodded softly. "I'd love to."

The next day.
It had gotten to mid-afternoon, and Jess came rushing in to see her mother, clutching her stomach and appearing as though she was in extreme pain.

Karen peered up from what she was writing, noticing her daughter's pain-stricken expression. "It's happened, hasn't it?"

She nodded slowly. "I-I'm scared."

"Don't be scared," she got her car keys out ready, "I'm going to take you to the A and E and they'll look after you, I promise."

She made her way down to Chris's room with her in tow. He was halfway through a set, but she knew it was just a fleeting visit to see him and tell him what was going on.
She rapped on his door, prompting him to peer up from what he was writing at his sitting position at his desk.

He swiftly went outside, having some idea of what had happened when he noticed Jess loitering about and having real trouble keeping still. "Are you going to take her?"

She nodded steadily. She was glad that he remembered and that he didn't appear as though he didn't know what she was on about. "She's getting really bad labour pains."

He looked over at the time. "Is it likely you'll be back before everywhere gets locked up?"

Karen didn't seem so sure.

"If you do manage to get away ten or five minutes before that happens, I shouldn't worry. I'd carry on home."

She looked to the young male, incredulous. "Are you sure?" She breathed.

"Sure." Chris's blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight that had crept through the nearby windows. "I don't mind covering that for you. I think you've got enough to cope with."

"Oh…" Her eyes glazed over. "I forgot. I need to collect the medication for Harry."
She'd grown so worried about Harry that she sent out for a doctor the previous night after she came back from the small rendezvous between them.

Even the doctor wasn't a hundred percent sure what he had, but he prescribed antibiotics for him in case it was a mild infection.
She realised she mightn't have gotten away from the hospital in time to get them before the clinic closed.

"I can collect that for you." He offered.

She breathed a sigh of relief. "You're a lifesaver."

After he locked up and picked up Harry's prescription, Chris pulled up outside Karen's place, and waited for someone to answer the door.

It slowly opened, and Harry dimly appeared.

"Hey there, Harry," he spoke softly, "you wanna let me in so I can give you these?"

His eyebrows lowered in confusion. "I…what are they?"
He obviously caught him at a time when he was sleeping. Or was he?

"What your doctor wanted to give you." He replied, frowning in perplexity when he saw his eyes dart this way and that.
He was sure that he had little more than an infection and he wanted answers that time. "What's wrong?"

Harry snapped to. "Come in."

He took him through to the lounge, where he gave him the small package of prescriptions. He didn't realise his mum had gone to such trouble to make sure he got better.

"They what you wanted?"

He nodded slowly, not wanting to hold off telling him any longer.

"Harry, everything is ok with you and your mum and sister, right?" He tilted his head in mild concern, sensing that familiarly strange feeling again. "Just that you seemed really preoccupied a few seconds ago."

"There is something I wanna talk to you about." Harry heavily sat down on a nearby sofa, with Chris perching beside him. He felt awkward at having to tell him.

"Ok," he turned his body towards him, "talk away."

He peered down at the floor, finding that easier to focus on than the older male's attentive blue eyes. When his attentions were completely fixed, the blueness in the orbs set slightly, like gemstones tended to do in a certain light.
"You're going to think I'm being stupid."

"Harry, I can not think that." He reassured him gently. "I've heard some crazy stuff in my job, it's probably something I haven't heard before."

"Well," he drew in a small breath, "now that Jess is expecting a baby sometime soon, I won't be the youngest any more."

"You think that your mum's going to forget about you, don't you?" He assumed. He knew something bothered him, but he wasn't sure what. Of course, he only assumed the actual reason Harry was off was because he was sick, and so he could still be genuinely unwell. "She won't forget about you, don't worry. It's not as though her attentions are going to stray from you or your sisters. She's not going to be looking after Jess's baby, is she? That's her job."

Harry nodded slowly. "But the baby's going to get all the attention and I'll feel left out."

Chris tried to get the younger male to prise his gaze from the floor, but he wasn't playing along. "But that's natural. I probably won't understand the similar feelings you have 'cause I don't have any brothers or sisters, but whatever your mum feels towards Jess's baby, it doesn't mean she loves you any less."

"Y-you mean that?" He looked to him that time, finding comfort in his words. He wanted to believe him, he really did.

"Sure I mean it." He placed a hand on his shoulder. "That why you told your mum you weren't very well?"

He nodded slowly. "Are you going to tell her?"

"No, don't worry." He rubbed him there softly. "This is between us. But try not to worry about any of this. It's going to feel different to have someone younger and newer come into the family, but the strangeness of it will go away, I promise. Maybe you'll start to find it exciting."

"I feel awful that I lied to her and you, though."

"Don't feel awful." He reassured him. "What you're feeling is normal and you're probably not the first to feel that way. There are others out there who are going through – and feeling – the same way as you."
He heard his mobile go off in his back pocket and he answered it.

"It's only me." Karen's voice thinly came through the other end.

"Everything go ok?" Chris could only assume Jess had her baby. That said, it was a very quick delivery.

"She hasn't given birth yet," she explained, "but she's in a lot of pain and so the doctors are thinking of inducing her."

"How about you?" He wanted to know. "Are you holding up ok?"

"I'm fine, Chris, absolutely fine."

He knew that she wasn't as fine as she was making herself out to be. "You don't sound it. If anything, you sound tired."
Maybe the stress of having her own daughter go through labour had gotten to her.
"You should give yourself a break…maybe get home and go to bed."

"I'll be ok…" Her voice tailed off due to exhaustion. "I'll only stay till she gives birth."

"But that could take some time." He warned. "Even if she gets induced, that doesn't mean it'll be over and done with just like that."

It was quiet her end.

"I know I sound as though I'm telling you to not care about her, but I'm not trying to sound like that. Think about what all this is doing to you as well as her."

"I guess you're right." Karen stated slowly.

"I don't know about me being right exactly," Chris noted, "but you can't stay up there and feel as tired and stressed out as you sound right now."

She felt so reassured and comforted by his words.

"You can always go up and see her tomorrow." He went on. "But staying up there…that's not doing you any good at all."

She wished that she went back to her place and found him waiting outside for her in his car – just for him to take her out somewhere like they went to the previous afternoon and talk about anything.

"I'll see you at work tomorrow, ok?"

That made her heart sink slightly. She knew that he meant nothing by what he'd said, but he wanted her to recharge – to try and clear any worry she understandably felt for Jess.
"Ok." She eventually agreed. "See you then."

Chris approached the turning to his road, noticing that the hooded figure was still huddled up in the nearby bus shelter. He knew he could no longer ignore them that time.
He parked up outside his flat, locking his car up and going over to the slightly rain-battered shelter.
He knelt down beside them, placing a hand on their shoulder. "You ok there?"

They gave a sharp jolt from the contact.

He wanted to have more eye contact with them, and so he carefully lifted the fairly damp hood off their head.
He found himself gazing into a pair of piercing blue eyes, almost the same colour as his yet more intense.

The reasonably damp and tangled long, dark brown hair fluttered way from her youthful face, and Chris could gauge her at no older than eighteen.
She looked familiar, where from he wasn't entirely sure.

"You got somewhere to go?"

She shook her head softly, suddenly finding him more interesting to look at. She found herself face to face with him– the one person she'd been looking for.

"I don't really like the idea of you spending another night out here." He continued, looking her over.

Her eyes widened somewhat. How did he know that she'd spent the last night out there?

"I noticed you huddled up in the bus stop earlier this morning." He explained, letting her into his flat.
He took a closer look at her, sliding her damp hair between his index finger and thumb. "You're wet through."

She shivered from his affectionate touch, and it was something that she freely welcomed. Although he was a complete stranger to her, it was the contact he dealt to her that was so soothingly familiar.
She placed her hand around his wrist, as he twirled a wavy wisp of damp hair around his index finger. She caressed the inside of his wrist with her thumb.

"Hey," Chris spoke softly, "whatever's happened, it's over now. You're safe and you're with me."

She edged away slowly and removed her hand from around his wrist.
He felt so warm and soft and she felt like wrapping her arms around him, but he didn't know her and she didn't know him. For that reason, it certainly would've made him feel uncomfortable at the action.

"I should think about getting you to bed." He supposed. "I need to go to work tomorrow and you're probably really tired."