PROLOGUE
Sara POV
The week following my marriage was one of the happiest of my life. Ronon, Natara and I spent a blissful time together at the log cabin, hiking, hunting and relaxing together as a family. Natara thrived on the undivided attention of both parents and learned to swim in a matter of days. She was not quite so quick to pick up Ronon's talent for skipping stones across the water surface, but it did not deter her from spending hours throwing her own pebbles after him in imitation.
She slept soundly in the evenings, which allowed Ronon and I to be together without fear of interruption. We made love beside the camp fire or in the cool depths of the mountain pool, the open air around us and the night sky above. No one time was ever enough, and no two times were ever the same. We rested in each other's arms until desire drove us together again and then counted the hours during the day until we could begin all over.
Invariably the holiday drew to a close, but two weeks later our happiness was revisited with the discovery that I was pregnant. Ronon's eyes shone with delight at the news, and although he claimed to mind neither a boy or a girl, I immediately yearned for a boy – a son that would grow up in the image of his father. I lay awake long into the nights, envisioning the child I carried as an infant, a child… a grown man. I was so enraptured with the idea that the days blended together in a whirl of happiness and I felt more content that I have ever been in my life.
My happiness was shattered eleven weeks later when I suddenly began to bleed. I woke Ronon from his sleep beside me, and then cried out in pain as he lifted me from the bed. We made it to hospital in record time but already there was nothing the doctors or my beloved husband could do to help me.
Three hours later I lost the baby.
Ronon POV
I never weighed up the odds before I entered a battle. If things got rough, then I simply fought harder. This was my way – no defeat, no surrender, and definitely no sitting on the side-lines. No matter how desperate things got, there was always something to do, something to better my position, something to help that or those that I loved… Until the night I took Sara to hospital and discovered that there wasn't.
Every time she writhed in pain or looked to me for reassurance I realized how utterly powerless I was to help her. I paced the room for options, threatening the medical staff in attendance, cursing, demanding, even in the final moments pleading… All to no avail. Sara's battle lasted for three hours and took the life of our baby. Her own survival was credited to the medical team. In the most important challenge of my life, I was nothing but a useless bystander.
The woman who returned home to me was a pale shadow of the one I married. She retired immediately to bed and closed the curtains, rejecting all but the smallest amount of food and shunning visits from anyone who called. At night she was equally unresponsive, turning from me in bed and closing herself off in the darkness.
The abrupt change confused Natara and saw her turn to me for reassurance. At first it was all I could do to play wrestle or piggy-back her around the garden as normal but I had already failed one child and I vowed I would not do the same to the other. I forced myself to return her smiles and was surprised when they gradually began to feel more genuine. Although the pain of Sara's withdrawal still weighed upon me, with Natara's help I slowly began to function as before.
While I found solace in Natara and she in me, Sara showed no signs of improvement. Five weeks after her return from hospital she grew more and more distant with each passing day. The only interaction she encouraged was with Natara, and even that consisted mostly of long hours holding her close and gently rocking her back and forth. She didn't laugh. She didn't cry. She didn't even rise to anger. I needed her more than I ever had before, but I was at a total loss for how to reach her. I feared if she didn't come back to me soon, she might remain lost forever.