Little Ones [A Vikklan, Poofless and Merome Fanfiction]

↞Chapter 10↠

Lachlan's P.O.V.

I really didn't want to, not when I had a child I still cared deeply about there, but I simply couldn't stay at the hospital that night. I went home after only staying a few minutes with her because I just couldn't stay another moment longer, not when she was just down the hall recovering from everything with absolutely no intention of meeting, naming or raising our daughter. I just needed some time to breathe, to take a moment to think everything over and comprehend what had happened in the last 12 hours.

The first thing I did when I got home was remove everything that was Morgan's. There wasn't much, maybe a box full, but I still got rid of it as fast as I could because I didn't want to see it anymore. In the guest bedroom there was a fair few items for the baby but nothing substantial, nothing to last more than a few weeks at most. I mean there was the more permanent stuff, furniture, but there certainly wasn't enough clothing or food. First plan of action after Ella was home- go shopping and hope I wasn't recognised by anyone because that would take some explaining.

That night I didn't sleep. I couldn't. All I could do was sit on the bed with my head in my hands thinking about Ella and, more scarily, my future. Before Morgan got pregnant I had had most of my future planned out for me- continue working as a YouTuber until such a time that I couldn't anymore, save everything I could and retire early, spending my later years doing whatever I felt like. Children certainly hadn't been in that equation- I hadn't even wanted kids before this mess and I still wasn't sure if I wanted them, but now I didn't have much of a choice in the matter.

Now with a child, a disabled child at that, I really wasn't sure what my future would look like. I wasn't about to stop doing YouTube, not when it allowed so much flexibility and paid so much, but how my daughter tied into the equation was an entirely different matter. I didn't know sign, I didn't know how to care for an infant! Honestly, my best plan of attack at the moment was to just take each day as it came and hope for the best because it was all I could do.

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I went back to the hospital early the next morning with the car seat, a blanket and new set of clothes for Ella. The nurse from last night wasn't there anymore but there was a new one who gave me a sympathetic look when I came onto the ward, pointing me to Ella's cot which had actually been moved to the other side of the room. She was fast asleep, chart on the base of the cot showing she had fed four times in the ten or so hours I had been gone. Normal. Good.

"I'll go and get the discharge papers." The nurse said as she came up behind me. I couldn't help jumping. "There's a resource pack for you, for single parents and resources to help you out if you need it. Do you have family around to help you out?"

I managed to shake my head.

"I- I haven't told them yet. I wasn't exactly sure what was going to happen with..." I couldn't even say her name.

"Alright." She turned to leave, before turning back to look at me. "Morgan came to see her last night, by the way. You might not want to know that right now but when you look back on it later, the reassurance with help. She does care about her child."

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The first couple of weeks were a complete blur. I was a haze of exhaustion and tiredness because it seemed the moment I settled down to sleep Ella was crying for me to feed her again, not that she knew I could hear her. She was completely deaf, a visible malformation on her ears was what triggered the thought in the doctors to begin with and after a scan the night I wasn't there, it had been confirmed. It was a weight on my chest but it was simply one of many.

I hadn't managed to talk to Vikk at all, not since a couple of days before Ella's birth. I had tried once when she was asleep but he had simply said he was busy and left it at that. He must have been because there were hardly any videos going up on any of his channels, one a day, if that. I would have been more worried about him if not for the incredible worry I was feeling for myself and Ella at the moment, the stress and the fear.

I only made it to the second night of having Ella at home before I broke down, sobbing into my pillow because of the fear and terror and the uncertainty ahead of me. I had never liked uncertainty but this was the worst I had ever felt in my entire life- the pressure on me was enormous. My fans were still expecting videos every day, Ella was expecting me to take care of her, and on top of that I was somehow meant to cook and clean and take care of myself. Oh yeah, plus the doctors appointments that had been set up for me in a couple of months to look at potentially getting hearing aids or cochlear implants for Ella. There was that too.

If I was honest with myself I seriously considered telling Vikk about Ella before my family. He was my closest friend, he knew everything about me and to have this massive secret was utterly terrifying because I felt so completely and utterly alone. I considered telling Mitch, my brother, as well, but eventually I decided against it, at least for now.

I never thought I could shed that many tears. I cried and cried, more so than Ella, more than I ever had in my life. I was drained and exhausted and a couple of times I honestly wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. I think that was my first real thought of suicide, and it scared me.

My hand gently caressed her face as she slept in my arms, bundled up in a thin blanket. She was peaceful, having fallen asleep about half an hour earlier after a feed, and I couldn't bear to move. These- these were the moments I treasured, when it was quiet and peaceful and I didn't have to think about recording or cleaning or my future. My only thoughts were for her.

It was in those sparing moments, the moments that never lasted long, that I finally told myself I could do it.