The Army Doc's Baby Secret

He’d been thinking the same thing since he’d stood in front of the rowdy, clapping crowd last night when all he’d been able to see had been Tia. Her face white with shock and her eyes wide with pain.

He should never have taken her to the gala. More to the point he should never have danced with her. Or taken her to that room like the irresponsible teenagers they no longer were.

It was galling that she was right, though. That a part of Zeke either didn’t forgive her or didn’t trust her. Even though he wanted himself to do both.

Even though he wanted to move on with his life and look forwards.

But it wasn’t about his leg, as she assumed it was. It was more about the truth that every time he looked at Seth, this wonderful, glorious, little boy that he had never known he wanted, Zeke felt a rushing loss at the years he had missed out on.

And he couldn’t help blaming Tia for it.

The fact her decision to walk away without telling him that she was pregnant had been based on what had happened on that mission that night meant, unfortunately, that the two events were bound up in each other for ever.

‘So these works were quite a feat of engineering.’ He forced himself to smile at the fascinated boy, who nodded so seriously, sounding out the headers for the tourist information boards, and pointing out the part of the locks that he recognised.

He really was a marvel. His son.

Whilst beside them Tia offered a rictus smile and tried to walk as far away from him as she could.

They discussed the works a little longer, with Zeke showing Seth how the series of chains and floodgates would have worked, and Tia moved away, tilting her head up to the sun as though it could conceal the dark shadows on her eyes from lack of sleep, or the lines etched onto her usually smooth features.

And then, finally, they were walking back. Seth skipping obliviously down the dusty canal path, leaving his parents to walk reluctantly together.

‘I’m sorry,’ Zeke offered at length.

‘What for?’ He hated that distant, detached quality to her tone. ‘For not being able to forgive me, or for not being able to trust me? Or maybe you’re only really sorry that I found you out.’

For a moment he didn’t answer, and when he did it was more contemplative than anything. The truth only just starting to work its way free in his own mind.

‘It isn’t about forgiveness,’ he began. ‘There is nothing to forgive. I know you did the only thing you could when you amputated. If you hadn’t then by the time I was flown anywhere else they would have had to amputate above the knee. That’s if I had even survived the flight anywhere else.’

‘What about your buddies?’

‘Duckie and Noel,’ Zeke breathed slowly. ‘I blamed myself for a long time. You’re right—I hated the fact that I was here and they weren’t. I wondered what was so damned special about me that I hadn’t been killed too.’

‘They were just unlucky, Zeke. Desperately, tragically unlucky. It wasn’t about you, or them, or anyone else in your squad that night.’

‘Logically, I know that. But...you know this well enough, Tia. Logic doesn’t always win out.’

‘But you know it?’ she whispered.

‘A part of me does.’

‘Then last night...?’

‘That should never have happened,’ he ground out.

The truth was that he suspected it was more to do with trust than he had realised. He still sometimes thought of Tia as that young teenage girl, and himself that invincible teenage boy. Whilst he might have long since come to terms with his prosthetic or bionic ancillaries—even learned to embrace them and the new life they had opened up to him—the idea of Tia seeing him as anything less than whole still rankled.

Seeing his bionic leg when he was in his everyday environment was one thing, but seeing it in a more intimate setting—when they were about to make love—was something altogether different. Tia was the only person in the world in front of whom he would feel exposed and less, if she saw him as he was today.

Yet he suddenly found he couldn’t admit to any of it. Because he already knew what her response would be. He knew she would tell him not to be so ridiculous. He could picture her indignation and her frustration; her ponytail would swing wildly from side to side as she emphasised her words. The image made him smile to himself, even as something clenched hard in his chest, like a fist closing around his heart.

She would tell him that, of anyone, she was the person he could trust the most and how he would want to believe her. But he wouldn’t.

He couldn’t.

Because however much he had achieved with Z-Black, and with Look to the Horizon, he was still the guy who had let her down. And let their son down.