A/N-Sorry, don't know the name of the nanny. So I called her Nanny. Simple enough. Please review!
Arthur Kipps was alone in the house. He had had it all arranged- Joseph would be out in the park with Nanny while he, Arthur, took care of an "errand." His heart sank. If they only knew. If they only knew what he was about to do himself. But it was best they didn't. They would try to stop him. They wouldn't understand.
No one did. No one understood Arthur's pain. Every moment of his life was punctured by the mere memory of her. Stella. She floated through his mind like a beautiful spirit, always there but never quite in his reach. No, Arthur knew she had never left him. He still loved her, and he could still feel the slightest trace of her love, a whisper on the wind. But he would give anything, his life, at the very least-just to hold her in his arms again, kiss her one more time.
He had never planned it would end this way. As he stood there, the cold metal of the knife pressed to his throat with a shaking hand, he counted the frenzied beats of his heart. Like it knew that soon, it would be stilled. Arthur squeezed his eyes shut, unwilling tears sliding down his face and into his black collar. What about Joseph? What would he do without his father to guide him, when he hadn't even known his mother? Arthur loved his son. But some days, when the bleakness of his life threatened to engulf him and smother him in a black haze, he couldn't help but blame him for the death of Stella. And then he blamed himself. After all, women can't impregnate themselves. It was his fault. He should have know somehow. But doesn't every loving couple want a child to share their hapinesss with? How could anyone have known that Stella's small body was too weak for childbirth? These questions whirled in Arthur's tortured mind, mocking him, scorning him, willing him to do it already. To kill himself. So he could be with Stella. Isn't that all he ever wanted anymore? To end his pitiful existence to be with the one woman he had ever loved?
For a moment, it seemed as if all time stood still. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and he found himself shivering, trembling as if the Devil himself was standing at Arthur's door. His panicked heart flung itself against his ribcage, so hard and fast that he feared it might burst. But if it didn't now, it would surely burst from his suffering. End it! End it all! one good cut to the throat, and it was all over. But little Joseph...and Stella. What would she say? Arthur slowly lowered his hand, blinking tears from his ice-blue eyes. Unwillingly, a memory appeared, hazy in his mind, as if Stella was already fading from his mind in the four years she had been gone.
She was wearing a long blue gown that just trailed on the grass. She ran forward slightly, hazel eyes glittering with childlike joy. Sunlight danced upon her face and her golden hair shone as if it was truly golden thread. "Come on, Arthur," she called playfully, " dance with me!" Arthur had smiled and caught her, laughing as he twirled her slender frame in his arms. Stella had always loved to dance-even if there was no music playing. "You know I can't dance," he whispered in her ear. She took his face in her small hands and smiled radiantly. Arthur's heart pounded at the look on her beautiful face. He loved her so much, it hurt. "You know I don't care," she whispered back, and then gently kissed him over and over until the couple's garden grew dark and the moon took the place of the sun.
He jolted back to earth with a thud. Why...why now? Of all times when he had to think of her? He glanced at the window, at the sunlight playing on the coverlet of his bed. The bed where...he closed his eyes again. The bed where she last lay. When the Doctor had announced...Dear God. Arthur crumpled to the floor and sobbed, the first time he had ever really cried since Stella's death. He cried for himself. And for Joseph. He wished he could drown in his sorrow. And then he remembered the knife. Arthur didn't even think about it. As if he was in a dream, he picked up the metal intrument and pressed it to his throat. His eyes were dry, and his hand was still as the knife rested against the sensitive skin of his neck. One cut, one tiny laceration. That was all. It wasn't even so bad. Here I come, Stella, he thought, and drew the knife sharply across his skin.
Warm blood flowed over his body, staining his clothes and stinging like his body was thrown into flames. His first thought was disappointment. It flowed over him like a wave, worse than the blood. So one more, then? What was one cut when he would soon be reunited with his wife? One more...A sound outside the door made Arthur jump a mile.
Nanny entered his bedroom, chattering away. "Little Joseph wanted to come home early so that we could-" with a loud gasp she realized the situation. Her eyes travelled over the blood-soaked, semiconscious Arthur slumped on the floor, one hand clutching a knife. "ARTHUR!" she yelled, and forced him into a sitting position, attempting to stem the flow with her hands. "By God!" she cried hysterically. "What have you done?" At the sound of Nanny's voice and the unfamiliar sight of Daddy lying so pale and strange-looking, Joseph began to cry loudly.
Arthur stirred slightly, a moan escaping his lips. His head swam. His blue eyes locked onto Nanny's, trying to form a sentence. His hands clutched her clothes in a death grip. His chalk-pale face was that of Death itself. "Help me," he rasped, every word a tremendous effort. "Stella, she needs me-" but Arthur Kipps never got to finish his sentence. As the hysterical Nanny tried to help him somehow, he sank into a dead faint, his head lolling back, his hands finally releasing her. And she wondered, through her tears and attempts to revive him, if the depressed man, who had been stuck in a place without love for so long, had finally found her again.