Author's Note: Thanks so much for the awesome response to the last chapter! Please keep those reviews coming!

Song for this chapter is Small Bump by Ed Sheeran. Don't freak out about that - I just think it's a really lovely song. Just listen to it while reading if you want.

As usual, I don't own or have anything to do with Skins.

Chapter 26: Small Bump

Tuesday, December 31st, 2013

Emily drove as carefully as she could to the hospital, considering she was an emotional mess. I, too, was an emotional mess, but I was containing it a bit better than Ems, I think. I was shaking with fear for Elouise, but I was still feeling her kick and move around inside me. The contractions (or whatever those horrible pains had been) had stopped. I kept telling Em that I thought things were fine, but she refused to listen and insisted that we went to the hospital anyway.

We parked, paid and rushed into Accident and Emergency. As soon as Em explained the pains I'd felt, the nurses rushed me in and showed Emily and I to a very small curtained off room to wait for a midwife. Em sat by me as I laid down on the bed, and she held my hand tightly while we waited.

"I'm sorry, Em," I said quietly, deciding to break the silence between us. The hospital itself was anything but silent, but Em and I were completely silent ourselves.

Emily glanced up at me with a surprised look in her eyes.

"What?" She asked, grabbing my hand and kissing it gently. "Naoms, you have absolutely nothing to be sorry about, darling. If anything, I blame John Foster and that idiot sister of yours."

I frowned to myself. I was quite sure Natalie had a lot to deal with back at the house, what with Gina, Jenna and Katie all on her case. I wasn't sure if I should be mad at her or not. Of course, she had no clue who John Foster was to Emily or me, but she did know the details of his charges and I knew she had more than enough money to buy him out of the company. Keeping him around was a liability, and I couldn't be completely sure that she hadn't been a little bit aware of the situation between John and Emily. I just didn't know what to make of anything anymore. I felt like I couldn't tell my ass from my elbow at the moment, and I had too much going on in my head to even try.

Emily sighed and grabbed my hand even tighter. "Sorry, Naoms. I just don't know how to feel about Nat at the moment."

I nodded at her and bit my lip. "Me, too."

A midwife pulled back the curtain and greeted us quickly, immediately moving towards the ultrasound machine and setting everything up.

"Please lift your shirt," the midwife said. I did as she asked and lifted my shirt. The midwife squirted some cold blue crap on my stomach, but smiled slightly at me. "Ah, you're lucky. No stretch marks."

I nodded at her and smiled just a little. "Yeah, I suppose I am lucky. My mum never got them so I don't think I'll get them."

The midwife nodded in acknowledgement and placed the wand on my belly. I immediately heard Elouise's heartbeat and the whooshing sound of water. Em let out a relieved breath and the midwife smiled a little at us and turned off the machine, putting the little wand back in its holster.

"Your daughter is just fine," she said. "But just to be on the safe side, I'd like to perform a proper internal exam quickly to make sure your cervix hasn't dilated. Have you had any more contractions?"

I shook my head at her as she handed me a tissue to wipe the blue stuff off my stomach. "Nope. I just had two contractions, I suppose. One was sort of...cramping in my stomach, and the other was like muscle spasms in my back. But they were within about two minutes of each other."

The nurse nodded and wrote a few more notes on my chart. She handed me a gown and told me to take off everything below the waist except my socks if I wanted to leave them on. She gave a quick reassuring smile and left the curtained area, closing the curtains to leave me to get changed. Emily was still sat next to my bed while I changed and passed her my clothes, though she looked much more relieved than she did earlier.

"You ok?" I said quietly as I slipped into the gown. Emily scoffed.

"I suppose so. Yeah."

I laid back down on the bed and called the midwife back in. She pushed my legs up slightly, put on a pair of surgical gloves and examined me as quickly as possible. She smiled up at me as soon as she was done.

"You're not dilated at all," She said. Emily sighed yet another sigh of relief and leaned over to kiss me quickly. "But we do want to keep you overnight for observation, since you did experience two contractions within two minutes of each other. I believe that the contractions you felt were Braxton Hicks contractions that could have been exacerbated due to stress, maybe high blood pressure or something like that. Remember, everything that you feel, the baby feels too. Try to keep yourself as relaxed as possible all the time. Someone will come in a few minutes to take you to your room. And Happy New Year."

I smiled at the nurse, wished her a Happy New Year as well, and Emily and I thanked her profusely. Emily hugged me tightly and kissed me again after the midwife left.

"I have to call Katie and let her know everything's okay. Everybody's probably worried sick," Emily said as she dug in her bag in search of her cell phone. I nodded at her and listened to her explain to Katie that both Elouise and I were completely fine but that I was being kept for observation overnight. It kind of sucked that I would be spending the first night of the New Year in a hospital bed and not in the comfort of my own home in Emily's arms, but I would do anything to make sure that Elouise would be safe.

I looked down at my watch and noticed that it was half an hour to midnight. I sighed, upset at how our New Year's was completely ruined. It was just another thing that John Foster had managed to ruin for us. I wondered if we'd ever be able to just live our lives without him interfering.

Emily hung up the phone call with a slight smile on her face. "They're all coming over to celebrate New Year's with us. Nat left shortly after we did, apparently."

I nodded, wanting to be happy that our family was joining us to ring in the New Year, but I couldn't get John Foster out of my head. I wanted Em and I to have a few moments of happiness, but I couldn't bear not knowing what Em was thinking another minute.

"Em. How do you feel about the whole John thing?" I asked her. Her smile slid off her face and she looked down and shrugged.

"There's nothing I can do about it, Naoms. I think it was naive of us to think that we'd ever be able to live a John Foster-free life. He'll always be there in some form or another, Naoms. I'm tired of fighting him and I'm tired of fighting for my freedom. The restraining order still stands and if he violates it again he'll be going away for quite a long time. But for right now, I just want to be happy with you, celebrate New Years, bring our daughter into this world and carry on with my life. I just want to move on," Em replied, moving over to sit next to me on the bed. She leaned down and kissed me gently. "Move on with me?"

I nodded and kissed her again because really, I'd do anything this woman asked of me. A nurse came in a few minutes later and showed me to my private room where Emily and I would be spending the night. She showed Emily how the chair reclined and could be slept in before she hooked me up to all the proper monitors and left the room. Em snapped a few photos of me looking miserable in my hospital gown, which was pushed up over my belly so a fetal heartbeat monitor could read Elouise's heartbeat.

After Em had finished taking embarrassing photos of me, I heard a group of voices walking down the hall towards my room. I was sat up in bed trying to watch some TV when I first heart it...the voice of Katie Fitch.

"'Scuse me, could you tell me where the Fitch-Campbells are?" Katie asked.

"The who?" The nurse replied, probably a bit bewildered by the sheer amount of people that had walked into the maternity ward. Em smiled and got up to get everyone.

"Oh my god, Naoms, you had me worried sick!" Effy said as she waddled into the room before anybody else. She wrapped her arms around me tightly as everybody else talked about just how worried I made them. Eventually, I was wrapped up in a massive group hug.

"Natalie got a right bollocking though," Katie said once everybody had calmed down a bit. She smiled slightly and turned to look at my mum, who was quite red-faced and looking pretty sheepish. I just smiled and decided to let it go.

"Between Gina and Jenna and Katie, Nat was in for quite the surprise. Though I'm not sure she was prepared for the wrath of Gina...or Katie for that matter!" Effy added.

I knew Natalie didn't deserve to get yelled at, but she didn't even bother to stick around to see if Elouise and I were okay. In my eyes, that was basically the end of our relationship – not because she didn't care to see if I was okay, but because she didn't care to see if Elouise was okay. So I couldn't help but smile as Effy elaborated on how Kieran and Rob and James had to hold Jenna, Gina and Katie back.

"Oh well," Emily said, obviously trying to change the subject. She was trying to hide her slight smirk. "Did you guys at least properly lock up the house before you abandoned all the hors d'oeuvres I spent hours making today?"

Everybody muttered "yes, Emily" while Katie handed her our set of keys.

"Are we allowed to drink in the hospital?" Jenna asked, reaching into her handbag and pulling out an unopened bottle of champagne. "Because I may have stolen this from your party."

Em smiled and shrugged and cracked open the bottle, pouring everybody a glass except Effy and I. Effy and I were forced to settle for water while Emily made her toast.

"To health, happiness, love and family," Emily said, everybody clinking their plastic cups together. She turned to me and whispered, 'to my beautiful wife' and kissed me passionately.

Katie pulled out her cell phone and she and Effy began the countdown to midnight, everyone soon joining in. Emily kissed me at midnight and placed her hand protectively over my belly. It wasn't the perfect way to ring in the New Year, but I had my friends and family around me and despite everything that had happened that day, I felt happy.

Wednesday, January 1st, 2014

I woke up to the sound of Emily grumbling about how uncomfortable her chair was to sleep in. I wasn't doing much better myself. The hospital bed was too soft for my liking and I was longing for our King size bed at home to spread out in. I was also longing for the special pregnancy pillow that Emily had bought for me a few weeks ago that made it much more comfortable to go to sleep. The hospital was still bustling and busy despite the early hour and the fact that it was technically a holiday. The sun was just beginning to rise.

A nurse came in a few minutes after Emily gave up on sleep and turned on the telly. She checked Elouise's fetal heartbeat monitor, and gave me a quick ultrasound before having us sign my release papers. I gladly changed back into my clothes and out of my horrible hospital gown, gathered up all of my things, and headed home with Emily.

Libby greeted us happily as soon as we got home, though both Em and I were pretty grumpy from not sleeping properly the night before. Everybody hadn't left until almost 1:30 in the morning, after the nurses were forced to kick them out. Em and I actually headed straight back to bed as soon as we got home, with Libby trailing behind us happily. I washed my face for the first time since yesterday morning, washing away all the New Year's makeup I'd put on the day before. I brushed my teeth and tied my hair up in a messy ponytail before going back into the bedroom and changing into my Pjs. Libby was already waiting on the bed for Emily and I to finish getting ready. I climbed into bed a few minutes before Emily did, snuggling into my special pregnancy pillow and almost falling asleep straight away. Emily climbed into bed and snuggled into me, pulling me close into her.

"Love you," she whispered quietly, her tiredness evident in her voice.

"Love you, too," I replied, probably sounding just as tired as Em did.

I knew that this thing with John Foster was far from over, but I did my very best to do what Emily had asked of me last night. To just move on. I wasn't going to give him any more power over our family than he already had. And apparently, his plan to get to us through Natalie had backfired since I no longer wanted anything to do with Natalie after she hadn't even bothered to check up on me at the hospital, or even give me a quick phone call. Regardless, I was sure that we would be annoyed by John Foster at some point in our future, but I made myself promise to just let it go. There was no point in worrying about the future right now. I had to focus on keeping myself stress-free for Elouise's sake. I couldn't burden myself, my pregnancy, or my marriage with any more bullshit.

I felt Elouise kick me gently but also quite powerfully, a small bump against my side. It was so powerful that it made Em's hand bounce against my stomach. She laughed a sort of half-asleep laugh.

"She's a feisty one, our Elouise," she whispered and kissed my shoulder.

I smiled. She certainly was a feisty one.

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