Hello everyone, before I start I had a review asking to clarify what the 'blip' was that I was writing about. Just to make it clear, Zoe thought she was listening to the babies heartbeat when she did the scan on herself, in which she heard that there was 'something' wrong with the heartbeat. Connie then confirmed that the baby was fine but that it was her own heartbeat that was the problem...

Also, this story is going to come to an end very soon, I just wondered if anyone would either 1) like to see it continued in a sequel (which would begin in December as I am taking part in National Novel Writers Month from 1st-30th November) or 2) Would like me to begin an entirely new Max/Zoe story. (Don't forget I'm also writing and regularly updating my Connie/Max story – Heavy Rain in case anyone would like to have a read of it...!) Or 3) Both of the above. Please review and let me know! Thank you :) xxx

Onto the story...

The sun had not yet risen. The land was indistinguishable from the sky, except that the land was pin-pricked with the stars of the street lamps and slightly creased with buildings, houses, high streets, as if a cloth that had wrinkles in it.
Gradually as the sky whitened, a dark line lay on the horizon dividing the world from the sky and the grey cloth became barred with thick strokes of moving cars, blurred, one after another, beneath the surface, following each other, pursuing each other, perpetually.
As they neared the cars came into focus, bright white lights glaring into the heavy fog of winter that hung so heavily upon their heads. The wave of traffic paused, and then drew out again, sighing like a sleeper whose breath comes and goes unconsciously. Gradually the dark bar on the horizon became clear as if the sediment in an old wine-bottle had sunk and left the glass green. Behind it, too, the sky cleared as if the white sediment there had sunk, or as if the arm of a woman crouched beneath the horizon had raised a lamp and flat bars of white, green and yellow, spread across the sky like the blades of a fan.
Then she raised her lamp higher and the air seemed to become fibrous and to tear away from the green-grey surface of moving cars, people...flickering and flaming in red and yellow fibres like the smoky fire that roars from a bonfire. Gradually the fibres of the burning bonfire were fused into one haze, one incandescence which lifted the weight of the woollen grey sky on top of it and turned it to a million atoms of soft wintry blue.
The cars moved off into the distance, a reverberating rumble, slowly becoming transparent, rippling and sparkling in the fog until the dark stripes were almost rubbed out. Slowly the arm that held the lamp held it higher and then higher until a broad flame became visible, an arc of fire burnt on the rim of the horizon, and all round it the world blazed gold. The light struck upon the rooftops, the trees, making one leaf transparent and then another. One bird chirped high up; there was a pause; another chirped lower down. The sun sharpened the walls of the buildings and the birds sang their blank melody, warning their mates of snow to come.
"Zoe..."
Her mind was bought back to the now with the lurch of the car. Max was driving, he pulled into the hospital car park.
"Zoe?"
He asked again, his voice seemed to come to her through the fog, thick and slow.
"Hmm?"
She murmured, her eyes focusing, realising her surroundings. He drew into her parking space in one swift movement and bought the car to a halt.
"What were you thinking about?"
He asked, leaving the engine running for a moment, holding his hands over the warm air that came from the heater on the dashboard. Zoe shifted in her seat, the queasiness of morning sickness seemed to have begun, but thankfully, there was only the hint of it, for now at least she could be grateful for that.
"Oh...just..."
She hunched up her shoulders and shivered against the cold.
"I was thinking about telling Tess about the baby."
She said finally, curling her toes up in the end of her stiletto's feeling them numb from the cold in the foot-well.
"Do you think she'll approve?"
He asked, watching as Cal and Ethan passed by in front of the car, both with bent heds against the beginnings of the snow.
Zoe glanced at him, reaching out a hand and slipping her cold fingers between his thighs to warm them.
"I think she'll be happy..."
She tailed off, glancing at him again, feeling him squeeze her fingers with his thighs.
"When she finally gets over you being the Father."
He pouted through a smile, raising an eyebrow.
"She knows how much I wanted children when I was with..."
She let her words tail off again as he visibly tensed, anticipating the mention of Nick. Instead she bit the words off and let them fall into the silence.
"Most woman do I think."
She murmured as an afterthought, watching as a passing couple of two woman battled with pushing a pushchair and holding an umbrella up at the same time. The latter seeming pointless due to the wind getting up and the sleet coming from all angles.
"Even lesbians?"
Max asked, unclipping his seat belt and letting himself free of it. She smiled, glancing sideways at him.
"Lesbians are woman..."
She replied with a roll of her eyes. Even now, even with the weight of yesterday hanging heavy on her shoulders he could still make her smile.
He coughed.
"If you say so."
He tossed her a wink before stretching loudly and yawning into the back of his hand.
"Shall we?"
He asked, looking out to the grey world beyond. They sleet swirled and bustled through the air, and the wind buffeted and wailed like a lost child.
"Yep."
She nodded, feigning bright spirits seemed much more draining than she had imagined, and all the while she had Connie's voice in her head, telling her to be careful, to take care, not to put herself under any unnecessary stress...
She unclipped her own seat belt and pushed open the door, stepping out into the cold, the wind whipping at their clothes, the sleet slapping their faces, taking their breath from their chests. They huddled together, bodies pressed tight against one another as they blinked, heads down toward the hospital, toward another day...
More soon! xxx