Prologue
Confused screams coming from the delivery room float down the hallway.
But at the moment, the man standing outside is a lot more confused than anyone else inside that room possibly is.
He glances towards the tensed and weary looking woman sitting on a chair by the door, hoping she wouldn’t look back at him.
But she does, and anger replaces worry.
He says to her,
Well, I don’t care.
But only in his head.
He walks towards the door for the third time as a woman, who looks somewhat like a nurse, pokes her head out from inside. He says in a loud whisper-
“Please, I think I should just come inside...”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I- There... the doctor, he said the patient doesn’t want me inside, but I’m actually pretty worried, and I think I have the right to just-”
“Sorry, but, are you her... husband?”
“No, but I’m the child’s father!”
The woman looks confused for a moment, but then she understands, and replies-
“If the patient doesn’t want you inside, I think it would be better to keep it that way.”
And then she rushes back in.
The man hopelessly walks back to the other side, and sits down on a chair.
Nothing more to do, but wait some more.
He takes a look at the hospital band in his right hand. He stares at it until the very last hope of the band suddenly doing something strangely magical fades away.
Then he looks at his left hand, trying to find something even the slight bit interesting.
Nothing, maybe except for the tattoos he’s been seeing for a long enough time.
‘Given A Chance’, A dagger, a skull...
And this stupid tattoo.
What is it anyways? Band of Aces?
Why’d I even get it done in the first place? What does it mean?
That I’m Aces?
He glances towards the delivery room door, then back at the Club, Heart, Diamond and Spade drawn around his wrist.
Well, dear tattoo, I’m definitely not Aces.
Running out of things to stare at and think about, he rests his back against the wall, and stares at the ceiling... and slowly sighs.
That’s when the screams and shouts from the delivery room come to a sudden stop.
But there’s a new sound... of a baby crying.
The man rushes towards the door, forgetting all the restrictions.
Inside the room, a doctor was holding up a tiny, bloody body softly in the air, and whispering a soft welcome-
“Welcome to this beautiful world, boy.”
A boy...
A son...
My son...
-----
15 minutes later, the tiny body in his arms, now clean and wrapped in a soft blue towel and a yellow cotton cloth, it just got harder every second for the man to hold back his tears. He whispered softly to him-
“Hey buddy... Welcome, to this... to this circus. And, thank you, for making me feel so much better, for making me feel... like...”
Like Aces.
He smiled to himself, kissed his son gently on the forehead, and whispered even more softly-
“Thank you... Freddie Reign.”
