WHAT FATES IMPOSE by MS IMAGINE RATED FRTP

All he could do was stare. Stare at the tiny, helpless little person cradled in his uncertain hands...

All he could do was stare. Stare at the tiny, helpless little person cradled in his uncertain hands, searching for any connection to the mysterious babe that he had only known through kicks and scans and pregnancy cravings. And he couldn't help but search for any resemblance, any part of the woman that was...

They hadn't planned for this.

They couldn't have.

The little one stirred, shoving a fist toward her mouth and making a squeak. Alan froze, heart in his throat. He tried not to breathe so she wouldn't wake. Apparently the baby didn't like that.

"Good lungs," Jeff commented through her squeals. He passed a bottle of lukewarm formula milk. Alan took it, and paused.

"I don't know what to do," he admitted, looking from the milk to his daughter. Jeff knelt and adjusted his son's grip on the bottle.

"Like this," he said and directed Alan's hands. "She knows what to do."

She did, muffling a cry in mid-effort as the teat brushed her lips. She opened her little mouth wide and hungrily sucked, dark eyes closing and fingers curling with immediate contentment.

"See, she likes that."

"Dad...I don't know what to do."

"You're doing fine, son."

"No...I..."

Alan's hands shook and the baby began to fuss.

"Alan, please allow me," a soft voice pleaded. He surrendered the child to Kyrano without protest and felt his father's hands on his shoulders, catching him as he fell into sobbing.

"Oh, God, I don't know what to do."

"Make her stop crying, please!"

He thrust the girl into her grandfather's hands, barely able to hold himself back from screaming along with her. She squirmed and sobbed, little tears rolling down her red cheeks. Alan bit his lip and stood back while Jeff cuddled her, rubbed her back, made soothing noises. The baby soon calmed under his spell and her hoarse shrieking turned to feeble whimpers.

"Why won't she stop for me?"

"She just knows you're not feeling the best."

"She better get used to it then," he snapped.

Jeff didn't have to respond to the outburst. Alan already felt guilty. About so many things.

"Have you thought of a name yet?" the older man asked. He breathed the delicate, soft scent of the newborn, a curious smile on his lips. Alan almost felt something like jealousy but it was quickly swamped by more persistent griefs.

"I don't know where to start."

"She needs a name. We can't call her 'the baby' forever."

Which he hadn't intended, of course, but he hadn't intended for a lot of things.

"I won't call her Tin Tin." He had to stop then and un-stick his voice, unclench his fists. "Or Tian. Or Lucille." All young mothers, lost too soon. "She should have her own name."

Jeff concentrated on something unseen for a moment. "What about...Elizabeth?"

"Do you really think she looks like a Lizzie?"

Jeff made a face. "Not at all. All right, young lady, let's take a look at you." He scooped the little girl into his arms and rocked her gently. "Are you a...Sarah?"

"Dad, please."

"Josephine? Anna? Kristen?"

"Emma? Rachel? Kate?"

"Charlotte? Isabel? Molly?"

"Melanie?"

Her tiny mouth popped open for a half hearted yawn. It was hardly a sign of confirmation but for just a moment Alan found a smile.

"Melanie it is then." And hesitating, hands forced still so he wouldn't reach for something he couldn't quite imagine was his, Alan whispered, "Can I hold her?"

Astonished, Jeff held her out for his taking. "Alan, you're her Daddy. You don't need to ask."

"Raising a daughter is quite an adventure," Kyrano smiled. He bounced Melanie on his knee - carefully - and coaxed a giggle with clever, tickling fingers.

"What's 'grandfather' in Malay?"

"Datuk. I prefer 'Grandfather', if you do not mind."

"Hey, whatever works for you, Kyrano."

There was a great roar and the house began to tremble. Melanie cooed, bright eyes interested in this new sensation. Kyrano took her to the window and pointed his finger at the sky as Thunderbird One filled it up, climbing higher and higher.

Alan turned, unable to watch. When the floor began to vibrate, echoing the powerful launch of Thunderbird Two, he had to walk away.

"Mom, mom, mom."

Alan dropped the spoon. Mashed pear splattered on the floor. She squealed at the game and reached clumsy fists to her father, begging for another go.

"What did you say, Mellie?"

She squealed again and after some exploration found a streak of her breakfast on her bib. "Mom! Momomomomom!" she declared, stuffing the cloth into her mouth and sucking hard.

"Her first word!" Virgil grinned. "Say it again, kiddo."

Alan blanched.

"You can do it, Melanie!" Gordon pleaded, half standing with eagerness. "Say mo- "

"No!"

The table fell silent. Gordon quietly took his seat again.

"Mom-mom?"

They winced at the babbled words, eyes on Alan, eyes on the baby and her wobbling bottom lip.

"Quiet, Melanie."

Without further comment, he picked up the spoon and dumped it in the sink. Fishing a clean one from the drawer of plastic baby stuff, Alan sat by his daughter's high chair and again began spooning mashed pears to her hungry little mouth.

"Next time just stick with 'Dad', okay kid?"

Scott grabbed his arm before he could follow Virgil to Thunderbird Two. "You're sure about this?" he asked, staring too hard at Alan's eyes. He shrugged his brother off.

"Kyrano's watching her."

"I know, I just mean -"

"Gotta get back to work sometime, right?"

A sigh. "It doesn't have to be now."

This wasn't something Alan knew how to explain. It was a tangled mess inside him, a knot that started with Tin Tin and was so twisted and confused now that he couldn't make any kind of sense out of it. It was frustration and heartache, the need to do something, to feel something, desperation to have a measure of normality back in his life. The feeling in his muscles that made him want to run - from his life, from Melanie and her happy chirping 'mom, mom, mom', from people that knew him too damned well and cared too much.

Articulating that was impossible, so Alan fell back on easy answers. "It's been months, Scott. It's hard enough now that I can't take rotation in Five; don't tell me you couldn't use me on the ground at least."

"We can always use you, Al. It's just that... well...you know how dangerous this can be..."

"And I have a daughter to think of now."

"Yeah."

After a pause, Alan spoke a hard truth they'd had to deal with their entire lives. "Never stopped Dad."

Scott didn't have an answer for that. Unhappily, he let it be. For now.

Much later when they arrived home tired, dirty, aching after long hours of hard and perilous work, he watched Alan run for the house to get to his baby girl. And then he watched him sigh with acute disappointment when he discovered she was asleep. He thought back to his brother's retort - never stopped Dad - and he frowned.

Maybe it should have.

Alan couldn't bring himself to move from his daughter's bedside. Her dangling mobile, a gift from Brains that played Mozart, had long since stilled. The glow of the stars on her ceiling - a gift from John - was fading into darkness. She slept deeply, her little mouth forming an 'o' with two fingers resting at the edge, handy for sucking if she happened to stir. Leaning over, so very cautiously, he felt the softness of her wispy black hair with just his fingertips. Her nose twitched and he retreated.

He wanted to pick her up very badly, cuddle her close and rock her softly, ease the ache that was building in his chest. It hurt, how much he loved her.

It hurt worse, how much he missed her mother.

And on this island where he could almost see Tin Tin in the corner of his eye, smell her in the warm, tropical breeze, feel her close by when he lay in their bed at night...

They'd already lost so much. And working its way through his head was the hypothetical, the 'what if', the insidious 'suppose this happened'. Scott was right; the work was so dangerous. After so long out of the field he'd forgotten just what it was like. Any time today he could have been hurt. Just a second too late here or an inch too short there, and Melanie would have lost both her parents.

And as he asked himself what his baby girl would do without him, some of the soupy fog inside began to clear.

Kyrano woke from where he dozed in a rocking chair by the crib.

"Alan? Is something wrong?"

"No...yes." Alan swallowed thickly. His heart was pounding. In that moment he made the decision his father had not been able to. "I think... I think we have to go."

"Are you sure about this?"

Gordon sounded like he was going to cry. Alan knew how he felt; it was there, in his throat and in his gut. He was leaving them, leaving his family and International Rescue, his home. Taking Melanie away from her Grandfather and her Uncles. It made him mad and it made him sick, and he was doing it anyway.

"I'm sure, Gordo. Melanie can't grow up here. It's already a nightmare flying over to the mainland for her immunizations and check ups. What if she gets sick? And she needs to be around other kids. And school, she'll be old enough for school in a few years."

"We could get a teacher for her here," Gordon suggested with a hint of desperation. "Maybe the rest of us should start having babies? So she has cousins to play with."

"That's disturbing."

Gordon laughed, feeling self-conscious. "Well, Virgil's always had that thing for Penelope."

"We've all had that thing for Penelope, so can we please not go there?"

The ground must have been really interesting because Gordon was looking very closely at it. The poor guy was trying hard, but he was deflating despite the best of intentions. Alan's eyes prickled.

"We'll come back," he promised. "Christmas, birthdays, vacations."

"Right," Gordon sighed.

"Are you going to be okay with this?"

"Yeah," his brother assured him immediately. Alan knew it was just because Gordon didn't want to hurt his feelings. None of them were okay with this, not really. "It's just...we've gotten used to having her around, you know? And...I'll miss her. A lot. You too, of course. And..."

"Yeah?"

Gordon smiled, shyly ducking his head. "I really wanted to be the one to teach her how to swim."

They took turns holding her, kissing her goodbye, whispering promises in her tiny ears. Jeff cried and they were shocked to see it - tears falling silently, without fuss or fight, a gentleman's handkerchief mopping them up as quickly as they came. Alan had to turn away before he started too.

Nestled safely in her capsule with Kyrano close by and the rumbling of the plane's engine buzzing all around, Melanie was almost immediately asleep. Her Uncles got one last glimpse of her - yawning, her little fists dragging at her lazy bottom lip - and then Alan secured the hatch.

And now he needed to go, before it got too hard and he gave up entirely.

"See you 'round, guys," he said to his brothers, to Brains. There were manly hugs with much clapping of shoulders, the shaking of hands, the hard stares of men schooling their emotions and failing miserably. Alan's father grasped his arms and seemed to forget how to speak but Alan understood the words he wanted to say.

With one last agonizing look at his family, Alan turned away from his home.

For Melanie's sake, it was time to make a new one.

"What fates impose, that men must needs abide; It boots not to resist both wind and tide." - King Henry VI, Part III, Act IV, Scene III

This story comes from a suggestion by Quiller at TIWF's 'Warren for Plot Bunnies':

'Tin Tin dies in childbirth, leaving Alan to bring up the child and thereby understand what his father suffered (for those who use the Lucille dies in childbirth version)'

Thanks for the inspiration, Quiller!