Love Always Wins

2

Wednesday December 11th.

Seb switched off the engine and stared ahead for a moment. He felt nervous and he was trying hard not to get too hyped up or to let his expectations get too high but he couldn't help it. Today he was finally going to see Chloe. After being persuaded by the promise of seeing his wife he'd gone back to the hotel last night and had actually had a half decent night's sleep. He'd woken up feeling refreshed and more positive and while he was in the shower this morning he'd decided to shave, the first time he'd shaved in a month. He looked a decidedly different man from the sad, exhausted, somewhat scruffy one he looked like yesterday. Getting out of the Evoque, he shut the door with an energetic flourish and then locked it. He looked in the back window and for a second he imagined a baby's car seat with his and Chloe's baby in it. Would she want to find out if they were having a boy or a girl when she got far enough into her pregnancy to know? He hoped so, he'd loved to know the sex of their child who had already won one battle before he or she had even got close to being born. His eyes refocused and he saw his own reflection in the window, he fiddled with his hair and then ruffled it before putting his black baseball cap on. Having a little smile to himself he made his way across to the hospital's main entrance. He ignored the three paparazzi that had been loitering about since Sunday morning and kept silent as they asked how his wife's condition was. Like he was ever going to tell them! As they'd already got photos of him looking rough this morning they didn't raise their cameras at all and he had his suspicions that the real reason they were lurking outside was because they were waiting to see if Michael appeared. Details of his health had made nearly as many headlines as the shooting had. He swept into the hospital with purposeful strides and started to navigate the corridors, taking the same left turning, a flight of stairs, another left turning and then the right. As he got closer to Chloe's room he was feeling nervous but excited butterflies inside. The last time he'd seen his wife was late Saturday afternoon when she'd still been unconscious, that was four days ago and now he was going to be seeing her in unexpectedly different and difficult circumstances because her psychogenic amnesia meant that right now she had no memory of their time together. As far as she was concerned they were going to be meeting for the very first time. Getting to her door he stopped, he now felt ridiculously nervous. His palms were going clammy and his mouth had gone dry. What if she didn't like him? What if his presence made her distressed? How much was it going to hurt having his own wife greet him as though he was a total stranger? How long was it going to take for her memory to come back? What if she wanted a divorce? He felt sick at the thought.
"Morning Seb." Chrissie appeared behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder and he spun round to face her. "You look better this morning, a night in a proper bed has done you good, had a shave too I see."

"Yeah." Was all he could say, his nerves were starting to leave him speechless.

"You don't need to be so nervous." She smiled. "Chloe agreed to see you, that's a good thing."

"Yeah." He nodded again, at this rate he was going to have to go somewhere and give himself a stern talking to. He knew he needed to get a grip of himself.

"I'll nip in and let her know you're here. I will warn you, she's been feeling quite nauseous this morning. I think baby is making his or her presence known."

"Really? Well that's.....that's good." He stuttered a little as he tried to regain his usual composure.

"Of course it is but she's finding everything hard to come to terms with so she doesn't see it quite how we do."

"Oh, right." He said, feeling his nerves increasing again as he stepped aside to let Chrissie open the door. "Any advice?" He asked before she opened it.

"Just keep things light and friendly, let her dictate the conversation. If I'm honest I'm not sure how she'll react to seeing you. Have you bought her phone? She keeps asking for it."