It's hard to imagine that twenty-four hours ago, I didn't know you.

She stared through the clear wall that separated them, as if somehow she could will health and stamina through it. As if somehow she could make up for the two months lost through pure chance. The labour had lasted twenty-four hours, and the doctor had been amazed by the fight Ben had put up. It was as if he knew it wasn't the time; that by rights he should have another eight or nine weeks within the warm safety of her womb and he was determined to hang on. But the car accident - nothing major, just a shunt from a BMW that had come up behind her and not braked in time - had started a chain of events that meant her waters breaking. And now Ben was here, premature but perfect, lying in a neo-natal care unit while she sat in the corridor in her dressing gown.

If I could just hold you for a while...

They'd told her they had to get him into an incubator, just to be sure. The nurse was quite certain he'd be fine; thirty weeks was more than enough development for him to have a fully formed body, he was just a little bit smaller than he should be.

And twenty-four hours before that she'd been ambivalent about him. The day before the accident, she'd still been debating about whether or not she even wanted the child, although it was a bit late to do anything about it now. She should have thought about that in the twenty-four hours before she'd used up the last of the condoms in the bedside table and decided not to bother going to the supermarket for more. Or the twenty-four hours before she'd met Ryan in a dusty, crowded club and allowed him to buy her more drinks than she could afford for herself.

Now she just watched her son, as she had been doing for a whole day since his birth time was written down, as she would no doubt be doing for several weeks, until they would let her take him home.

I love you.

Twenty-four hours ago, he'd been a stranger. Now he was hers.