Sorry for not updating "What I Wish You Knew" lately. I've had a lot on my plate and not much time or inspiration for writing, but this idea came to me and I thought I'd better upload it, or theverystuffoflife for one would be on my case :) Hope it doesn't trash your feels too much on this Sunday evening (and while I'm on that note, here's to everyone having a good week, and everything going all right for you.)
Oh, and before I forget, this falls between Demons and Full Circle (if you haven't read either of those, all you really need to know is that Lily lost her left foot in an accident because she was stubborn enough not to tell anyone that something wasn't right. But shameless plug, please read them if you haven't!) Enough waffling, enjoy xx
When Lily woke up on Tuesday morning, something wasn't right. She was stiff and uncomfortable. She brushed it off as nothing; she'd probably just slept in an unusual position or something. Ethan woke up a few minutes later and rolled to face her, smiling lazily.
Putting his arm across his wife's shoulder, he said, "How are you this morning?"
"I'm fine," she lied. Ethan stroked her hair.
"I wasn't talking to you." Lily rolled her eyes.
"Ethan, I'm eleven weeks pregnant. Right now it's only just a bundle of cells -"
"Our bundle of cells though," he insisted, lowering his hand down to the bottom of her stomach. Lily nodded, relenting. She frowned suddenly, feeling an unfamiliar tightness in her abdomen. "Lily?" Ethan's voice was full of concern.
"Nothing. I promise. Seriously, I'm okay!" she said, upping her insistence as Ethan seemed hell-bent on not believing her. It probably was nothing, why should it be anything?
As the morning went on, Lily became frightened. She could feel her old shyness returning as she was so determined to keep the increasing pain a secret. This felt like the morning before she'd lost her left foot, when she'd spent so long disguising her agonising stomach pains and ended up putting herself in real danger. So why couldn't she just bring herself to give someone the nod that something in her body was going horribly, horribly wrong? Part of her knew it was the fact that the longer she ignored this, the longer it would be before she'd have to accept the truth. Just another hour, she told herself, and if nothing had changed, she would have to tell Ethan. The idea of shattering Ethan's heart when he was so innocently happy was enough to break her heart too.
"Dr Chao." Connie's clear voice pulled Lily out of her thoughts as she nursed a cup of tea. "I've had a trauma call for two doctors to a multiple vehicle RTC. It's you and Dr Hanna, okay?"
Lily stopped for a second. "I'm – um – yes, I'll go and get ready then." She couldn't let the Clinical Lead down. There were patients out there who needed her help.
But in the locker room, lacing up her boots beside Zoe, Lily realised she'd be both a fool and a terrible doctor if she went any further with this lie.
"Dr Hanna -Zoe," she said, her voice growing more scared as she used the consultant's first name.
"Lily, you all right?" Zoe asked. Looking at the younger doctor, she clearly wasn't. She'd bitten her lower lip raw, and her face was set in the mask Zoe could only say she'd seen in patients who were hiding their pain.
"Zoe, I can't go out there," Lily went on, sounding desperate. She hesitated a second before telling the truth. "I – I'm pregnant and there's something -" She stopped abruptly, leaning against the lockers and inhaling sharply with the pain. "Something is wrong."
"Okay, come with me." Zoe's voice returned to cool and calm. Lily was a patient now. The junior doctor seemed reluctant and perhaps scared to move. In an unusual move, Zoe extended her hand, which Lily took gratefully. Zoe wished she didn't understand how much Lily wanted all of this to be a dream.
Out in the department, Zoe grabbed the first person both she and Lily could trust: Dylan.
"Dylan, I need to get out on a trauma call -"
"What about you?" he cut across, looking to Lily in her matching green suit. Zoe shook her head.
"Lily needs a cubicle, preferably a side room if you can get one." She felt Lily's grip on her hand tighten painfully. "Hurry up Dylan, okay?" Then, looking to Lily's anxious face, she said, "I'll send Ethan over if I see him." She wanted to be able to say something else, something supportive that showed anything other than her desire to be as far from this situation as possible.
Dylan steered Lily towards the last empty side room. They almost made it all the way, before Lily literally doubled over and let a soft pained sound escape her lips. Stiffly, Dylan held out his arm to support her. With the same level of discomfort, Lily took it, knowing she wouldn't be able to keep going without it. Embarrassed, she explained.
"Before you ask," she said, tears gathering in her eyes from both the pain and what she was about to say, "I'm eleven weeks and two days pregnant, and I don't think I'll be able to say that I'm eleven weeks and three days, this time tomorrow."
Dylan let out a long breath. "You don't know that, don't jump to conclusions." The look that Lily returned told Dylan that she was probably right, unfair as this was.
Ethan arrived shortly after they reached the side room. Lily stood up from the bed at once and let him wrap his arms around her. She buried her face in the fabric at his shoulder and didn't care that there would be damp smudges there when she pulled away. Ethan remained strong, holding his wife to him as her every fibre shook with grief.
"I'm sorry I couldn't get this right," she whispered in his ear between ragged sobs.
"Don't need to apologise," he said. Lily suddenly tensed in his arms.
"I'm bleeding," she said, sounding scared. All of her usual medical thoughts flew from her head and she began to panic as she felt the patch of red liquid at the back of her jumpsuit getting bigger. Her breathing got faster, and it was only Ethan holding both of her hands and looking straight at her that managed to pull her back from falling to pieces.
"Don't panic. I know that sounds ridiculous right now, but it won't help. It's a long time since we've done this, but breathe with me, okay?" Ethan spoke softly and calmly, and Dylan remembered all the times when Lily had said the same to him. In the grip of a panic, breathing in time with someone else really did help.
"Lily," he said, "you need to lie down and stay as still as you can for me, right? I'm going to administer the drugs to try and stop the bleeding, then I'll examine you and get you some painkillers depending on the outcome of that."
She nodded, feeling almost constant waves of pain now. She blocked out all the words floating around the room as she was examined, until she heard the ones she'd been dreading the most.
"I'm truly sorry that I have to be the one to tell you this Lily, but you've definitely lost the baby." Dylan's voice was hollow. Ethan took Lily's hands again, holding in his own emotions the best he could.
"What – where do we go from here?" Ethan said. His mind was blank, he should have know the answers but he just couldn't pull up the knowledge.
"I think, given the blood loss already, that surgery is the best option here. I'll get that sorted shortly." he left the room presently and Lily asked Ethan if he wouldn't mind doing the same.
"I don't love you any less, but I just need a few minutes. Please."
"Of course. I need to sort a couple of things anyway. I love you, don't forget that."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Lily said quietly. Alone in the room, Lily thought she might have cried again, but instead she found herself staring emotionlessly at the wall opposite, consumed by thoughts of what might have been.
Ethan knocked at the door to Connie's office. She looked up from her desk, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and put her papers to one side, beckoning him in.
"Dr Hardy, what can I do for you?"
"Can I – is it all right if I sit down please?" Something about his expression made her agree at once. People didn't usually ask to seat themselves in her office, especially not quiet people like Ethan. Something wasn't right. Ethan simultaneously felt a knot in his throat and a bizarre surge of confidence. He wasn't asking this for himself. The image of Lily looking so heartbroken pushed him on. "Lily and I need some time off."
"Both of you? I don't know if I can spare you both – what's brought this on?"
"Lily has just suffered a miscarriage," he said shortly. "We need some time together I think, but if you can't spare me then she's certainly going to be in no fit state to be here. She's going into theatre soon." His tone was nearly abrupt at first, then fragmented, devastated and sympathetic. Connie flinched at his words.
"I'm so sorry Ethan. Of course you can both take some time." This was unprecedented, none of them could pretend to know what Lily and Ethan would be going through at the moment. "Do you need anything else, aside of course from being immediately pulled form the shift?"
"No," Ethan replied quietly.
"If you think of anything, you know where I am." Ethan nodded before excusing himself.
In the staffroom, Ethan felt blessed that it was empty. He sat on the sofa: elbows on his knees and face buried in his hands. He allowed himself to cry freely, finally letting his emotions out for the baby who could have been theirs. He didn't notice his brother come into the room, so he jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Come on bro, come here," Cal said. Ethan leaned on him.
"Lily lost the baby." Lily didn't know that Ethan had told anyone about the pregnancy, least of all his brother, with whom his relationship was often turbulent at best.
"I wondered why Dylan told me to be gentle with you." There was a long pause as Ethan began to compose himself. "Things will be okay y'know. You can always try again, when – when you're both ready, there's still time."
"I know."
"It still hurts though doesn't it. It will get better. Promise." The two men linked their little fingers discretely, something they hadn't done since they were children and one of them was promising not to snitch on the other.
Lily held Ethan's hand as the sedatives for the operation eased their tendrils around her senses and pulled her under, and the first thing she was aware of as she woke up was hearing the soft closing of a book, then feeling his fingers stroke her arm.
"Nice to have you back," he said, smiling.
"When can I go home?" Lily asked at once, despite sounding groggy.
"Tomorrow. You're still on hourly obs -" Lily tutted. "And you're not going home until tomorrow, it's settled, they're not going to release your discharge papers until then."
Lily nodded reluctantly, then moved her left hand over her stomach. It was tender, no doubt from the surgery, but she couldn't move her hand away. She looked up at the ceiling in an attempt to halt the tears in her eyes.
"This morning," she whispered, despite her dry throat and raw emotions, "this morning I said it was just a bundle of cells, but you were so right to say that it was ours. No matter how small, this was our baby, Ethan, but -" She stumbled, her voice cracking. "It's gone, and I wish I didn't have to say 'it' all the time but we didn't even know what we were having. And now it doesn't even matter and it's not fair!" She wasn't whispering any more. Her sentences came out in frustrated sobs. "How can I be so upset for something I never had?" Ethan rubbed the back of Lily's hands with his thumb, tracing small circles. She was reminded of the nights she used to wake up form nightmares to find Ethan already in the room with a glass of water and an hour-long hug which never failed to remind her that she was safe.
"You did have it though. For eleven weeks, two days and -" He looked up at the block and worked backwards in his head. "Thirteen hours. For all that time, it was all yours, so don't say you've got nothing to be sad about. That's the thing about pain. It demands to be felt."
Lily smiled and let out half a laugh. "Don't start quoting John Green on me, that won't help in the slightest!"
Lily and Ethan spent the next week solely in each other's company. Lily was very quiet, and Ethan found himself subconsciously mirroring her behaviour. They spent hours just curled around each other, barely paying attention to the TV or the radio. Sometimes they left both turned off, taking solace from the quiet. They both spent a lot of time reading, always next to each other, but with no words left the only comfort they could give each other was to just be present. Ethan knew his return to work was drawing near and he worried about how Lily would cope by herself every day.
In the coming weeks, there were days when Lily would stay inside all day, barely allowing in the sun which would have streamed between the curtains if only she'd let it in. Ethan brought flowers sometimes, the same as the ones on their wedding day: silky lilies and deep velvet-like roses. He always made a cup of tea for her before leaving for work. He just wished there weren't quite so many days when he'd find it cols and untouched, exactly where he'd left it, on returning home.
"How do you still love me?" she asked one evening when Ethan had tried to coax her into eating dinner, before accepting that she wouldn't and remarking that none of this mattered, he still loved her.
"There's some people in the world who you can just love and love and love no matter what." She didn't even notice that he was quoting John Green again.
But things changed, slowly. One day, Ethan came home to find Lily in the garden, pulling weeds from the flowerbed.
"I needed something to do, I've already hoovered everywhere and cleaned the kitchen. Sweeping all the dust behind the door does not constitute clean, Ethan Hardy!"
He felt like he was relaxing for the first time in a month.
The next day, he arrived home from work late and found that Lily had made dinner already.
"Things feel right again," she said quietly, across the table. "I'm going back to work the day after tomorrow."
"You don't know how glad I am to hear you say that. I'm so pleased that you're okay. I've been so worried about you." He lifted his left hand, and she her right, until their fingertips just touched. The contact was electric again, no longer empty and painful.
"Sorry. I needed a long time to get things straightened out in my head, longer than I though I would. Normal feels good though."
"Normal? Do we even know what that is?"
The next afternoon, Lily walked to the hospital to meet Ethan at the end of his shift. It was good to be out of the house, feeling fresh air on her quickly pinkening cheeks. Ethan was surprised to see her, but Lily hadn't expected him to have a surprise for her in return.
"I thought we might go somewhere, before we go home. Is that okay?" he said. Lily nodded, and spent the car journey wondering exactly what Ethan had in mind.
He parked the car by the seafront, and led Lily towards the pier. Just as he'd hoped, the man selling balloons was still there.
"A blue one and a pink one please," he said, handing over the money, then offering them both to Lily, who selected the pink balloon and looked puzzled. Ethan glanced along the pier and was glad to see that everything had gone to plan. Lily hadn't noticed yet, but Cal, Zoe and Dylan stood at the very end of the pier, each holding a pure white balloon.
"What are you all doing here?" Lily asked when she and Ethan had walked down to meet them.
"Ethan asked us to be here," Zoe said. Lily looked at him. Cal had a supportive hand on his brother's shoulder. Lily had already guessed that Ethan had told Cal about the miscarriage; even if he often thought he didn't need his brother and they argued and fell out frequently, on a very real level they were dependent on each other. Ethan stepped away from Cal and put a hand on the small of Lily's back.
"I thought maybe we could let off the balloons. Y'know, for our baby. One blue and one pink, because we didn't know what we were having -"
"And white ones for us so we didn't look like we had no purpose in this," Cal said lightly.
"Yes," Ethan agreed. "I thought it would be nice..." He stopped, not knowing what else to say. Lily kissed his cheek.
"I think it's beautiful."
"I don't have anything deep and profound to say though, I feel like I should have prepared something," Ethan said nervously. Dylan cleared his throat.
"Don't hold your breath for deep and profound, okay? We'll never know who your baby would have grown up to become, but rest assured that with half of each of your genes, with parents as wonderful as you, wherever this 'better place' is that everyone goes on about, it's gained an extremely driven and no doubt unreasonably kind and patient person." He smiled at Lily, then stopped awkwardly and looked away.
"Perfect," Lily said, looking up to the sky to feel the sun on her face and hopefully push back a few tears. "Shall we let these balloons go then?"
She leaned on Ethan, hugging him from the side as five balloon floated lazily toward the clouds. When Ethan turned and kissed her, the touch of his lips on hers had never felt so good.