“No Sleep for the Weary”

He’d had a hell of a night. The buzz in his brain had played havoc with his sleep and the lumpy couch he’d passed out on didn’t help matters, either. Sometime just before dawn, the pressing desire to visit the loo finally became an urgent matter and Colin reluctantly managed to push himself up off his make-shift bed and stumble on his one good leg over to the downstairs facilities and relieve himself. Proud of himself for making the trip without any incident, he then decided to chance the long journey up the stairs to his bedroom so he might be able to actually salvage a few hours rest before having to get up and start the day.

As quietly as he could, Colin held fast to the banister and hobbled up the staircase to the second floor – not wanting to wake his sleeping houseguest who was still snoozing over on a chair. Apparently, Alex Ross had driven him home from the barbie last night and he’d been too pissed to remember a thing.

Once at the top of the stairs, Colin fumbled with the bedroom door, wondering why he’d bothered to close the damn thing in the first place seeing how he was the only one that went up here anymore. He swung the door open and awkwardly made his way to the bed, allowing himself to collapse backwards onto it with a relieved moan. Bed. Sleep. Now.

No sooner had his head hit the pillow he drifted off into a deep, restful sleep. Sometime later (but what Colin felt had only been mere minutes) the phone rang, startling him awake with its loud, shrill ring.

“Fuck, what now?” he muttered, rubbing his throbbing head and fumbling to pick up the receiver before the blasted thing rang again.

“Yeah?” he nearly spat into the phone, mentally cursing the person who was on the other line.

“Col...?” the female voice asked, hesitantly.

“Yeah? I’m here,” he replied, glancing at the clock to check what time it was.

“If...um... if this is a bad time...”

Colin sat straight up in bed, realizing just who was on the other line. Kate. “No, um... well, not really. Its fine. What’s...up?”

“The baby...” she answered, simply.

TBC...