This Can Hardly Wait

[first_in_time]

Barbara glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. Ian's break time had just started. She knew because he sometimes called her instead of going into the staff room and eating with everyone else. Today, however, she wasn't going to give him the chance to eat for the moment, not with such important news.

The dial tone ws loud and clear as Barbara picked up their telephone, and each number she punched in had it's own sound to make. When she heard the ringing on the other end, her heart sped up and almost leapt from her mouth when a secretary answered.

"Yes, hello. I'd like to speak to Ian Chesterton please. This is his wife."

Comments

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[first_in_time]

"Tell me about your actual first day. What did the students think of Mr. Chesterton?" she asked and moved their hands to rest at her hip.

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[splendid_roman]

"They seem to like me so far, but then I do fun experiments. They might change their minds once we get down to some real work." Which would be on the second lesson he had with each class and that was complicated in itself to keep track of.

"I haven't learnt many names yet. It was easier when you could just call them by their rank, but children don't have any short hands you can use."

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[first_in_time]

"Everyone struggles with names, you just have to find a trick to help you. I try to match each name with a physicality. For example Jenny has brown hair, Jacinta has blonde hair and Jackie has freckles. Things like that." Not that it was actually simple.

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[splendid_roman]

"I'll try." He didn't sound too sure about that. "There are a lot of them."

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[first_in_time]

"And the numbers won't drop. Unless you transfer to a smaller school of course. But do you like it so far?" she asked and sounded quite interests in his answer.whihc she was considering Ian had given up the only other job he'd had (which admittedly was fairly similar in some ways) so that he might have more time with Barbara and their baby. If he didn't like teaching, he might go back to the army and Barbara wasn't sure how she felt about that.

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[splendid_roman]

"I think so. It'll just take a little while to get used to." He wasn't about to be beaten by a group of teenagers. And he had been told that it took a while to get used to civilian life. One day wasn't going to be enough.

"It would be nice not to be getting used to having a baby too, but that couldn't be helped." And so far he was only really getting used to only seeing Barbara and John in hospital. He was yet to experience sleepless nights and doing more than just cuddling John sometimes.

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[first_in_time]

"You've another few days yet before we head home. Maybe Friday or Saturday evening. The doctors simply want to make certain that there is nothing immediately wrong which they can fix." She wasn't game enough to tell Ian that he barely slept during the night. She thought perhaps that it might be better to break the news to him once they were settled at home.

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[splendid_roman]

"That's good. At least we'll have some of the weekend together." Ian was looking forward to spending more time with his son and getting to know him better.

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[first_in_time]

"We will. Do you have much work to do when you get home?" Barbara asked and yawned.

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[splendid_roman]

"No, most of my lesson planning's done for this week." But he should take the opportunity to get more done while he had a bit of peace and quiet.

He looked over at Barbara. "I should leave you to sleep."

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[first_in_time]

"I won't fall asleep yet," Barbara said and tried to sit up a little taller so that she didn't sleep on Ian's shoulder, "I feel as though I've barely seen you. Tell me more about school. What is the rest of the staff like? If your headmaster friendly?"

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[splendid_roman]

He wasn't going to complain at spending more time with Barbara. He felt like he'd hardly seen her too. "He is. They're all friendly. The headmaster did think my reason for missing the first day was amusing. He said he'd never had such a good excuse before." He chuckled. "I don't know if he was so forgiving about it yesterday."

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[first_in_time]

"If no one has told you that he was on the war path over it yesterday, then he must have been fine. Either that or the staff don't gossip as much there as they do at Coal Hill," Barbara smiled up at him and reached for her tea.

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[splendid_roman]

"Could be either." He smiled back. "I can't say I've heard a lot of gossip yet, but could just be because I'm new." A thought occurred to him and he sat up a little straighter. "A group of the staff go to the pub on a Friday after school. If you're not coming home on Friday, do you mind if I go?" If she was then he'd need to be there to fetch her and John home.

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[first_in_time]

"Of course I don't mind," she replied and rubbed his arm. Barbara remembered what it was like to start at a new school and pub nights were important. "Why don't we agree that every second or third Friday you can go to the pub until Johnny is old enough to sleep through the night? Depending on how tired we both are of course."

She hated to keep Ian at home but she doubted that it was possible to get all the way to Friday night and not be utterly exhausted. Particularly with Ian out every day and only Barbara at home to look after John.

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[splendid_roman]

"All right." Maybe if John hadn't been born yet he'd have wanted to go every night - he went to the pub often enough in his previous job. But there were more important things to be home for now.

He kissed her cheek, smiling, glad she understood. "I love you."

Which was just at the point when a nurse looked through the curtains and gave Ian a disapproving look. "The bed is meant for one person."

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[first_in_time]

"Sorry," Barbara apologised, "all I wanted was a cuddle from my husband."

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[splendid_roman]

The nurse still looked huffy, so Ian got off the bed and picked his coffee back up. It was getting cold, so he finished it off.

"Five more minutes," the nurse said before she left, "then visiting hours are up."

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[first_in_time]

Barbara frowned at the curtains which hustled gently after the nurse had left.

"I suppose we can't fault the nurses too much for being grumpy. Some of the people here sent very nice and they have to deal with them all the time." But she wished they were more nice to Ian.

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[splendid_roman]

"I suppose so." He would be glad to be rid of them, though. "I'll see you tomorrow." He leaned over to kiss her again.

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[first_in_time]

Since they were as alone as they were going to be until Barbara returned home, she lengthened the kiss and held him to her by taking hold of his cardigan.

"See you tomorrow."

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[splendid_roman]

He put a hand to cheek, just as unwilling to leave, but then let go of her to kiss John, gently so he wouldn't wake up.


((OOC: Which is the end of that one really. Shall I start something else?))

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[first_in_time]

((OOC: absolutely :) there's a staff meeting in about 15 minutes so I'll reply this afternoon if I don't catch it first :) ))

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[splendid_roman]

((OOC: I went for this one, in the Winter AU and it's at http://splendid-roman.dreamwidth.org/15368.html. I haven't forgotten about your latest idea in the thread ideas post, I just haven't had enough of a brain to reply yet!))

Re: This Can Hardly Wait

[first_in_time]

((I figured that was the case. Or you were crazy tired))