Code Red

The Reveal

*A few months later*

James sat in the corner of the room, slumped into a large hospital arm chair. He had come to accompany Georgie and Alex for their 18th week baby scan. Today, they were going to find out the gender of the baby, but Alex and Georgie didn't want to find out until the gender reveal party, so James had come along to be given the results.

Since his accident, James had undergone numerous different surgeries to correct the damage in his legs. Despite this, he was still unable to walk and relied on his crutches to get around. He also regularly attended physio, where he was slowly building back up the muscles in his legs and learning to walk again. He had agreed to meet Alex and Georgie after his physiotherapy session so he could be there for the baby scan. It meant a lot to Georgie that he was there; she trusted her ex captain with her life, they had become close like family over the years and Georgie wanted him to play a big part in the babies life before and after the birth.

Moments later, the doctor strolled into the room wheeling the ultrasound machine in front of him. He applied some cold gel to the end of the scanner and began to scan Georgie's stomach whilst an image began to develop on the screen behind him. Turning towards the screen, the doctor pointed at parts of the image that were just able visible to someone without an expert eye.

"There is the heart. It's beating nicely." The doctor confirmed as he took a number of photographs and indicated what he was looking at.

He then shuffled the scanner around to get a different angle. "There is the face." He quickly pointed in different areas of the image. "Eyes." "Nose." "Mouth."

The babies limbs were obvious to spot so the doctor didn't need to point them out. After a while the doctor fell silent as he tried to determine the gender; he then scribbled it down on a document, folded it up, slipped it in an envelope and handed it directly to James.

Then, the doctor turned to face Alex and Georgie.

"Good news. The baby seems to be very healthy and we have no concerns at this stage. We will call you back in for another scan at 25 weeks."

Alex and Georgie both released the breath they had been holding from the moment the doctor looked at them - they were relieved to know that the baby was healthy and developing well.

Leaving the hospital, Alex was tempted to peak inside the envelope and find out whether they were having a baby boy or girl amidst his excitement, but James kept to his orders from Georgie and made sure to keep the results strictly to himself.

***

*A few days later*

Alex was busy cooking the party food and getting ready for the guests to arrive. Meanwhile, Georgie was upstairs struggling to make herself look presentable, trying to hide her baby bump and having to wear baggy maternal clothes that were 3 sizes too big. She cursed and thought to herself "they sure don't make maternal wear to look nice."

"It will have to do!" She sighed as she forced her hair up in to a ponytail and applied a thin layer of makeup. Then she slowly made her way downstairs, panting and sweating profusely, just from those few tasks.

As she reached the bottom step, the doorbell began to ring.

"Could you get that, love!" Alex shouted from the kitchen so that he could continue to get the food ready.

Opening the door, all of her old comrades stood before her with Brains at the front holding a bottle of wine. They all looked so different since the last time she had seen them at her wedding and she guessed she must have looked so different too. They were all dressed in civvies and seemed so joyous. Monk had arrived with his girlfriend and cradled a small bundle of joy in his arms. Surprisingly, Maisie had turned up holding hands with Rab so Georgie assumed they must have resolved things and got their relationship back on track.

As everyone stepped into the house Alex made an appearance from the kitchen to greet them all.

"Here Alex, you might be needing this for all your sleepless nights once the baby is born!" Brains chuckled as he handed over the bottle of white wine.

Next to arrive was James and Molly with James' son and their daughter Charlotte. James stumbled into the front room on his crunches and received a warm reception from the members of 2 section as they hadn't seen their former captain since he was in hospital.

Abruptly, the doorbell rang again as Georgie rushed to answer it. She quickly glanced around the room and couldn't think of who it could be - everyone else was here.

"I brought you some flowers."

Bobby stood alone in front of her at the door holding a bunch of flowers. He wore casual blue jeans accompanied with a white shirt and black waistcoat. It didn't look like an outfit that was meant to go together but he managed to pull it off. He was that type of person that could pull off whatever he wore.

Once the guests had arrived, Alex dished out the party food; sausage rolls, sandwiches, salad, pizza slices and more. Everyone selected gendered paper plates that either supported "Team Girl" or "Team Boy" and began to stuff their faces whilst sharing all the gossip amongst themselves.

James was the only person who knew the actual gender of the baby so he had brought along confetti cannons filled with blue confetti for a boy or pink for a girl. After everyone had finished eating they all adjourned outside as James distributed the cannons so that everyone had one each.

"What do you want it to be?" Molly asked Georgie and Alex as everyone prepared to set off the cannons.

"I don't mind." Georgie replied humbly.

"As long as it's healthy!" 2 section shouted simultaneously, finishing Georgie's sentence and predicting the next words to leave her mouth.

James chuckled as he began the countdown like he was getting them ready to advance into battle one more time.

"3...2...1!"

The sound of loud bangs filled the air causing some of the guests to react to them like they were gunshots. Blue confetti flew up into the air and rained back down, forming a thin blanket of blue coloured shiny paper on the ground.

"It's a boy!" Someone shouted as Alex and Georgie hugged each other and spun around in excitement.