Eva's choice
A/N: I actually wrote this story AGES ago, but I was unsure about whether to publish it. It is very short because the entire series of events takes place in flashbacks and all happens over about half an hour. I wanted to take a look at what Eva might be thinking when She finds out that Ken will be born without a soul. This is set pre-manwa, in the same universe. And there are spoilers for the later books.
Disclaimer: I do not, nor have I ever or shall I ever, own Model. That belongs to Lee So-Young. Although I do wish I could own a Ken, or maybe a Michael. :)
"Adrian, I want to have a baby with you."
"Okay."
Again Eva though back to that conversation seven months ago as she sat in the bath and placed her hand against her hard swollen belly. Marveling again at the squirming life within. Feeling her baby move. It was so hard to believe that this little thing she carried within her was already doomed.
Their union had been perfect, everything she had dreamed that it would be. She loved him so much and in those moments she had felt that he had loved her too. There were so many men who had courted her and people who had loved her, supermodel Eva Rose, but he was the man of her choice and the subject of her own love.
When she had known that she was pregnant, she was ecstatic. Here would be an everlasting proof of their love. And a reminder of him. Like so many expectant mothers, she fantasized what it would be like to raise this child and to teach it all about the world.
It would be tall and fine-featured. There was no way that it could not be. She had imagined it with dark hair and eyes, just like him.
Adrian had come to see her 3 weeks ago. By then she had grown too big to model, but it didn't bother her as much as she had expected it too. She had thought that she would be willing to sacrifice anything for the little person growing inside her. She had not yet fully understood just what she would be called upon to give up for this baby.
He was very gentle when he told her, but it had not softened the blow of his words.
"Eva, what we did was wrong, this child was never meant to be."
Then he told her what he was. And finally she understood why he had refused her for so long, not out of unkindness or a lack of love, but because he knew what their child would be. And she understood why he had finally given in, he really did love her. But this knowledge was only a small consolation as he continued to speak.
"The child will be born without a soul."
She couldn't understand that. How could the baby who, it seemed to her, became more active than ever at the proximity of his father, be born without a soul? He was alive, so alive.
"But if you choose, he can have part of your soul."
That made even less sense, she had never thought of the soul as a concrete concept. Let alone something that could be broken apart and shared between two people. But she imagined that, if this could be done, it would link the two inextricably and forever, true soul mates.
Adrian had explained to her what would need to be done and what the consequence would be: that both she and the child would have a much shorter life. But he had also told her that if she chose not to do this, her child would not live.
He had left her alone to think over the choice he had given her, promising to return closer to the time to help her prepare, no matter the outcome.
Not for the first time since then, Eva felt tears overflow from her eyes and run silently down her cheeks. She knew what she was going to do; after all there was nothing she wouldn't sacrifice for this little life that was so dependent on her, she would find a way to keep it safe, do anything for the chance to give it life and happiness, even give up her own chances for these.
With her hand still pressed to her belly and feeling the movement of the little one who was at present being sustained only by her own body and will, she promised it again and again that she would keep it safe.
But she still couldn't help wondering, what had she done?