Last night, I was thinking about writing fanfiction, and I thought, "Why not write some angst? More specifically, Enchanted angst?" After all, I can turn even the happiest of fandoms into angst-filled stories (according to Heffy, anyway). And so, this happened.

A million thanks to Sparkly Heffely for being my beta.

My Own Worst Enemy

"So why do I always have to be
My worst, my own worst enemy?"
"My Own Worst Enemy", Idina Menzel

7:01:02. 7:01:03. 7:01:04. Robert stared at the ticking second hand on his watch. Time was moving much too slowly for him. He had been sitting here for…how long now? Three hours? Four hours? It didn't matter so much, now. What did matter, though, was the fact that his wife was currently in critical care. Robert let his head fall into his hands. The doctors had been brutally honest; Robert had asked them to be such. Giselle was not expected to make it through the evening.

It had started with a simple cough. Of course, in Andalasia, no one ever got sick, and Giselle had merely waved it off with a cheery smile. When the coffee hadn't gone down the wrong way, it was the fumes from the cars along Broadway which had caused the cough. Robert had assumed that Giselle would tell him should anything else happen, and he therefore let the issue drop.

Then, the fever had began, accompanied by shaking chills and chest pain. It was a textbook case of pneumonia. Granted, it was just pneumonia. Nothing that couldn't be cured with some antibiotics and lots of rest. Robert had promptly bought the prescribed antibiotics and given them to Giselle with the instructions that the doctor had written down for her.

Then, she took a turn for the worse. Because Giselle had lived in Andalasia all her life, her body did not have the antibodies which people in the United States had developed. She was unable to fight the same infections. This infection, which had just started out as something quite straightforward, was beginning to take over. Giselle was dying from pneumonia because of Robert. Robert was killing her.

Well, not directly. However, the only reason Giselle was lying in a room several floors above where Robert was sitting was because she stayed in New York in the first place. Damn it! Robert stood, no longer content with sitting. If only he hadn't been so selfish! If only he had thought about this before he had let himself fall in love with Giselle! History was repeating itself! Not on a grand scale, but it was repeating nonetheless. After all, hadn't the Native Americans died because of diseases which the Europeans brought with them?

He was killing Giselle with his love for her. Robert continued pacing in the hospital's waiting room, ignoring the annoyed stares of the other people sitting by him. Right now, he didn't care for what they thought of him- lunatic or worried husband. What had he learned about anti-bodies in high school biology? He had taken for granted that Giselle would be immune to the same diseases which he was immune to. He had forgotten to take Giselle's well-being into account. Just like how he had forgotten to take Morgan's feelings into account when deciding to propose to Nancy.

Robert was so busy pacing the length of the hospital waiting room that he didn't hear his name being called at first. "Mr. Phillips. Robert Phillips."

His head shot up as he looked at the doctor standing by the doorway. "Well?" he demanded anxiously. "How is my wife?"

"She…is fine," the doctor said hesitantly. "We've placed her on a ventilator for now; the pneumonia seems to have affected her lungs so severely that she is having trouble breathing. I'm curious, though, Mr. Phillips. How did you let this sickness go on so long so as to make it this severe? You should have given her antibiotics as soon as you realized that she had pneumonia."

"I did," Robert insisted. "I bought the pills that her doctor ordered. I just…never made sure she took them." He should have realized it. Giselle had never taken medicine before. And if she took one of those pills only to realize that it seemingly did not do any good, nor did it taste good, she could simply have stopped taking the antibiotics. Why hadn't he made sure she had taken the entire bottle? Was he such an unobservant husband that he couldn't even make sure his wife was on the road to recovery?

The doctor nodded. "And her natural antibody count seems abnormally low. Diseases are just getting worse and worse. With her low antibody count…" Robert winced, tuning out the rest of the doctor's sentence. There it was. Even the doctor had said it.

His stomach gave an unpleasant turn as he suddenly thought of Nancy. What if there were diseases in Andalasia (Giselle said there were none, but one never knew) which Nancy had no antibodies to fight against? Of course, he wouldn't know about it, but now, he would always wonder. Was Nancy okay? Happy? Healthy? Even if he didn't love her anymore, he still liked her as a friend. It was just another thing for him to blame himself for. If he hadn't let himself fall in love with Giselle, none of this would have happened.

"Um…sir?" Robert was pulled out of his thoughts as the doctor spoke again. "Sir? Would you like to see Mrs. Phillips?" Robert nodded, unable to speak for a moment. His words would merely betray his emotions, which were unstable enough as it were. He silently followed the doctor into the room in which Giselle lay, surrounded by foreign tubes and machines. "I will be back in a few minutes," the doctor added before walking out and closing the door behind him.

Robert took a deep breath and sat down. He had never had experience with people in the hospital before. He didn't know what he could say or do that would make everything all right again. That was Giselle's job. She was the one who could turn rain into sun, and monsters into fairies. Robert could do nothing now.

All Robert could do now was watch. Like he always did. Watch as his wife fought the infection. Watch as the machines around the room made low humming noise. Watch as time slowly expired for Giselle. Watch as the doctors came in, murmuring senseless sympathies.

The brilliant rays of the sun had turned back into the grey clouds of rain. The dainty form of fairies had morphed into grotesque monsters again. And all Robert could do was watch.

Ah. So, that actually wasn't all that angsty, in my opinion. But I suppose for an Enchanted fic, it was plenty angsty.

Reviews make me happy.

-Wolfie