Quiver

"I've been waiting for someone like you." I pause for a moment taking a breath, filling my lungs with much needed oxygen,. " but now you're slipping away.. Why? Why does fate make us suffer?" I Question him, wanting a reply I see his lips start to move as if he were about to speak, but he stays silent, not speaking a word.

"Why won't you speak to me." I ask softly. "I've loved you for all of my life, as soon as something goes awry you shut me out!" I yell the last few words and look down sadly, as if I had done wrong.

I hear him softly speak to me after what seemed to be forever. "You're not doing well are you." He starts to speak in a whisper. "Are you going to die?"

I Shake my head, not wanting to give him a verbal response, not wanting to hear the sound of my own voice. Only wishing to sit in the silence. Only the faint humming and buzzing of the hospital machines making my ears ring are heard.

"Are you going to answer me?"

I sigh, giving in. "I think I'll be alright." I ponder, looking up into his eyes. Finding worry within them. Worry for me, for us.

"You keep saying that, but you don't believe it, I can see it in your eyes." He responds.

"You're right. I do not believe it, and I question why fate must tear the both of us apart. How cruel that we shall both be left alone. Its hard to think about." I pause a moment biting my lips to try and keep the tears back. "Knowing that one day, I may not be around. To look after you and Rose... I'll never get to see them again you know. When fate decides to rip away my life."

He walks over to the bed and sits next to me. Pushing the hair our of my face, putting his arm around my shoulder.

"I have you now, we have all the time in the world, there is no place I would rather be than here with you."

I smile knowing that at least some truth came out of the days activites. I haven't heard much of it so far. The doctors and nurses, however nice they may seem, mostly want me out of here. They tell me that everything will be alright. Soon I will be able to go home and spend time with my husband and children. Participate in family activites. That before I know it my children will graduate and have job and lives of their very own.

I know it's all a lie, they know that I am dying and there is no way to stop, prevent or heal what I have been going through. The medical costs would skyrocket for a small chance of saving me. The medicines are extremely dangerous and in the end we decided against it.

I decided against it.

Sometimes I do wish I had tried when I had the chance. I would see my Child go to school, graduate and get a job. I would be able to see her on her first birthday, when we would have returned home the question "where's mommy" wouldn't be asked. Ron would not have to tell her. "Mommy got very sick, Mommy had to leave."

There would be to tears, no funeral. Friends and family wouldn't gather around together and mourn the loss of a girl, one that should have had an entire life together. Sometimes I think about the memories, the one's I have made in the past, the ones I could have made in the futrue. The memories I know will soon come, but the ones I will never get to see.

"Would you like anything dear." Ron asks.

I look up to him, I had not noticed when I begun to rest my head on his shoulder, as he ran his fingers through my hair, telling me everything was alright. That we were here now in this moment and that was all we needed. I shake me head. "No" I whisper softly. "I want you to stay here, and we can live in this moment."

He smiles down at me, then pulls me into his embrace. Memories flood back to me and I can't help but cry. Tear runs down my face, Ron holds me tight. "I know you're scared, Hermione. I know you don't know what to expect. But I have you now, we have this time together. Nobody can take that away from us."

"I should have taken the chance." I choke. "Maybe then, we would have forever."

Silently we pull apart, Ron hands me the glass of water on the bedside table. He pushes the hair out of my face and tucks in behind my ears. I wipe my tears away and hold onto his hand.

"I don't want to die." I whisper. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you." I pause and begin to cry again. Choking back tears as I try to finish my sentence. "I want to be with you... forever."

"I'll take Rose to come visit tomorrow." He says. "The three of us can spend the day together, as a family." He smiles and I smile back. An annoucement comes on telling us Visiting hours are now over for the night.

I slowly lie down, He kisses me goodnight and I watch him walk through the door. The lights in the hallway of the hospital go out. I close my eyes and listen to my heart beating. I concentrate on my breathing.

I can feel it start to slow down. I can feel the beating of my heart coming to a stop. I breathe in as deep as I can and count to ten in my head. After that, there is nothing but darkness.

The phone rings in the middle of the night. My heart stops and I look toward my daughters room. My daughter who will now grow up without a mother.

I look towards the picture of the three of us on the wall, I sit down on the chair in the kitchen. I realize that she's gone. Gone forever, I will never again see her bright smile or her beautiful eyes. The lovely woman I married is gone.

Rose will wonder where mommys gone. Someday I will have to tell her. "Mommy got very sick and Mommy had to leave." Someday when she is older, she will wonder who the woman in the pictures are. Will she have forgotten the memory of her mother entirely. Maybe when Rose is older, I can tell her everything that happened.

For a while I rest my head on the kitchen table and cry. I cry for her, My beautiful wife. I cry for my daughter who will never really know what a wonderful woman her mother was and I cry for myself and the girl I lost. Until I slowly fall asleep head still resting in my hands on the kitchen table.

I awaken to my daughers crying. Knowing that at some point. I will have to answer her questions. I will have to raise her on my own and every time she asks or crys out for her mother. I will remember the girl I once loved and the girl that I must now live without.