The fact that he was gay made a lot of his patients more comfortable. Especially the first time mothers when it came to examinations. It's not like he prefaced every appointment with "Don't worry I'm gay so I won't get a boner looking at your vagina, now show me your vagina," but he openly discussed his boyfriend with the nurses who spread it like the exciting gossip that it was.

Gene had never planned on working in the maternity wards. Originally he went into cancer research. That lasted for about six months before he realised he wanted to be doing more than sitting behind some test tubes.

The first opportunity that came to him was maternity and he lapped it up. The midwives loved him because he knew when to intervene and when to let them get on with it. Likewise his patients loved him for his comforting presence and easy manner.

Lastly, his boyfriend loved him.

He had a talent for what he did. His success rate with difficult births superseded all the others in the hospital to the point where they began assigning him the troublesome cases.

But today had not been a difficult case. Not really. A pretty average emergency C-section. And yet…

"Hey!" Yasuhara called as he entered the shared flat.

Gene hummed in response, still staring at the blank wall in front of him.

"Did you know there was a broken glass in the kitchen?"

Gene hummed again.

"Gene?"

The sofa depressed beside him.

"What's up? Rough day?"

He didn't speak. A warm hand encapsulated his cold one.

"I can't work it out," Gene managed.

"Work what out?" Yasuhara asked.

"What I should have done differently…"

Yasuhara sighed, knowing no words would help.

"Want to talk about it?"

"I have done a hundred of those operations," Gene mumbled. "It was routine, nothing out of the ordinary…"

Gene felt Yasuhara's thumb drawing little circles on his palm. The sensation kept him grounded.

"What if that had been Noll's kid?" Gene asked, his voice so quiet Yasuhara strained to hear it. "Nothing I did helped… The poor little thing…"

There was a long silence.

"That baby could have cured cancer. She could have lead the world to peace or… Or just been someone's best friend… And I couldn't save her."

No tears escaped Gene's eyes. Years of imitating his brother had taught him how to withhold his tears. He knew it was an unhealthy habit. He knew that crying would make him feel better. But he did not want to feel better.

"I had to tell that mother that her child would never grow up. I had to tell the father too. I was the lead on the operation. It was my duty. That was going to be their first kid and I… I couldn't give them that."

Gene could not look at Yasuhara.

"You know a lot of couples break up when they lose a baby. At least we'll never have that problem huh," Gene said, the bitterness evident in his voice. "Noll asked me the other day to be the person on hand when Mai gives birth because I 'was the only idiot he trusted not to screw up'. But I can't even do the basic—"

"Don't say that," Yasuhara interrupted. "You are an excellent doctor and I will not have you say otherwise. Some things are beyond your control and I hate it but it's true."

Author's note: So I wrote this while a friend of mine was pregnant and I stopped writing it because if I finished it I would have wanted to post it and this little angst bucket is not what you post when a friend of yours is pregnant. So it's ended up here instead.