Hey! Haven't updated any works in a while and probably won't cause school is overwhelming me at the moment. Anyways, this fic is based on azurathemagician 's comic on Tumblr.
This is the link:
post/158515216526/azurathemagician-runs-away-before-fandom-can
And because she killed me, I wanted to kill her back so I made this fic. I recommend to see the comic above and then this to be thoroughly be killed by the two of us.
The news came so sudden. A miracle in Diana's eyes when Akko rushes to her office, red in the face but with a smile that lights her world like she was a teenager again. Then it exploded with euphoria with words she never thought she would hear.
"It worked." Akko laughs, voice light with disbelief. Diana leaves her seat, eyes widening as she walks closer in cautious steps. Akko would never lie to her but if it was true… she fears that she'll fall before she could fully celebrate.
"Are you sure?" Diana asks, a tremble in her voice, she wants it to be true. She wants her to say yes. Akko smiles at her as they come face to face. Her fingers easily slide between the gaps of hers before she guides them to her stomach. Diana closes her eyes as her hands marvel at the slight bump on her skin.
The rise sends tingles across Diana's arms, the nerves in her body going haywire as high pitch giggle squeaks from the widest smile on her face. "You're pregnant." Diana whispers with awe to her beautiful brown eyes as their foreheads touch.
"I'm pregnant." Akko agrees, giggling with teenage fever as her hands move to hold Diana as Diana steps forward, one knee collapsing against the other. Diana knew this would happen. The truth hits her with so much force her knees goes weak.
"I'm sorry," Diana apologies but the smile on her face does nothing to make it sound true. "I'm just-" She pauses, voice already gone, her mind dazed by the dream that became a reality. Diana looks up at Akko, giggling to herself again. "You're pregnant."
"You must be really shocked if you're repeating your words again." Akko laughs, helping Diana to her feet. Diana shakes her head, the smile seeming to be permanent on her face. She loops her hands around Akko's waist, one hand just touching the small sign of life inside her.
"How can I be shocked, " Diana said, pressing her lips against Akko's before pulling away. "When all I feel is joy?" Akko grins against the second kiss. Melting at every tender moment their lips collide. Meanwhile, Diana's hands find shelter on Akko's womb and the tingle of new life causes love stuck laughter to be melded in their kisses.
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"What do you think we should call her?" Akko asks, shoving her face into a terrible combination like no other, pickled plum dipped in mustard with strawberry ice cream coating the skin.
Diana blinks, her head pulled from a baby magazine with a confused expression. "Her?" Diana closed the book as she shuffles closer to her pregnant wife. Her hand falls once again to the familiar setting, finding calm stillness in the rise and fall of Akko's womb. "I wasn't aware we knew the gender."
"We don't," Akko agrees, words muffled from her chewing. She swallows it down when Diana gives her one of her looks. "It's just… I know she's a girl." Diana hums, pulling her closer to play with her messy brown hair. "It's like she told me!"
"I suppose if she told you it must be true." Diana muses as Akko stuffs another pickled plum down her throat. Her hands create small plaits of brown before she releases them to create small curls. Like a spell, her mind goes blank, the only image of a girl with curls like her but brown like Akko's fills it up instead. She couldn't stop the smile grow on her face even if she wants to.
"So vhat shoud we call her?" Akko asked again, voice in disarray from the combination of food in her mouth. The dream smile falters as a stern annoyed look fell to her eyes.
"Manners Akko, I hate for Reina to get a hold of your troublesome traits." Akko blinks. The moment her head was rising from Diana's touch she knew something was wrong.
"Reina?" Akko frowns, her eyes glancing down at her current cravings. "I wanted to call her Ume…"
This time Diana blinks. She removes herself from her relaxed seat, a slight pang in her heart as she see tears near the rim of Akko's eyes. "Ume?" Her mind rolls back to past facts she heard before. She knew that name somewhere. It was something of worth to Akko and therefore to her too.
"Yep, short for Umeboshi!" Akko smiled, holding up that disaster mess of pickled plums like it was something to be proud of. Diana's face fell to a neutral frown, her mind already trying to figure out a way to let her down easy that she Diana Cavendish was not going to name her daughter after a plum, even if it did sounded cute at first.
"Akko, why don't we think of names another time?" She suggests with slight caution and slowness to her voice. Judging from Akko's actions and the speed it took for her to almost cry to complete and utter happiness, Diana knows that she's in one of the mood swings.
"Eh?" The bright smile on Akko diminishes to a heartbroken face as the light dims from her eyes where fresh tears smothers it. "You don't like the name ume?" She looks down at her plums, the jar slightly trembling from shock.
Diana's eyes widened, her hand quickly holding hers as she pushes her face to wear Akko and see her. "No, in fact I love it…just what happens if it was a boy instead of a girl?"
The rejuvenated smile on Akko's face plummets further down to oblivion with Diana's words. Worry pricks at Diana's inside as her mind struggles on what to do. Shadows loom against Akko's face, her eyes only staring at her pickled plums and not Diana's attempts of recovery. If this was a cartoon, toxic fumes would expel from her broken form. "So you think I'm lying Diana?"
"No." Diana's hands cups Akko's face and lifts it up to meet hers. "I would never think of such a thing Akko, I love the name Ume." Her heart beats faster as signs of life and joy filter back into expression. "I just think Ume is already perfect for our girl. It doesn't need to be short for anything else."
Diana lets out a breath she wasn't aware she held when Akko hums in agreement, falling back on the couch and into Diana's arms again. "A few more months Ume" Diana whispers to Akko's brown hair. The image of brown curled girl with Akko's smile fills her mind again as her eyes close with content.
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"You're doing fine Akko," Diana assures but the shaky frame of her hands doesn't support her words. She hopes the tight squeeze of Akko's hands intertwined with hers hides the nervous emotions well.
Akko nods in agreement, bags under her eyes as quick shallows breaths comes in and leaves at the same pace of Diana's beating heart. "Everything is going to be alright." Diana states with high confidence. Ume had to be alright, she made sure that Akko had best treatment any pregnant woman would ever dream of. Ume has to come out fine after the ordeal, both of them would.
"Just one more push Akko." Diana kisses Akko's fingers as they clench her bones once again. Diana doesn't mind, she knows it's only a fraction of what she's feeling. There and then, Diana decides that she's going to be the one to bear their next child. Just so that Akko won't go through this pain again. "Are you listening to me? she'll be happy, she'll be healthy."
Akko must've heard her, if the small smile on her lips indicates it. No words, only silence.
Diana understands why when the sound of Ume's scream erupts a smile on Diana's face. She read about how tiresome labour can be, she knows that Akko needs her rest after this miracle of life.
"Congratulations," she hears the midwife say with a flutter of happiness in her words. "It's a perfectly healthy baby girl."
The words of confirmation breaks the barrier as tears run down her face. Diana's head is light with disbelief, high pitched giggles fly past her mouth like she did 9 months ago when she first heard news of her child. "Ume…" she whispers as she squeezed Akko's hand, too joyous to notice the sudden slump of it.
"Akko!" Diana laughs, eyes fixated on the bundle of pink in the midwife's arm. She can see small patches of brown as it whimpers into soft silence. Already the image of months before enter her mind again, of a brown curled girl holding the hands of her mothers.
"Did you hear that?" She asks, tears falling as Ume's eyes open for the first time. It's the colour of a warm setting sun but littered with speckles of the cool shade of ocean blue. "We did it… We have a family now."
The silence that was once comforting turns into an uneasy pit in her stomach. The smile falters when she turns her head to look at her wife.
"Akko?"
Diana's wide eyes only see the soft smile left behind. The closed eyes of content that would never open again. The death paleness of her skin. Only then her hand is aware of the cold touch of her skin, the sunken form of the hand she still clenches, how when she presses a finger at her wrists no pulse is felt.
Now Ume screams. She hurls and shrieks despite the midwife's attempts to calm her child. Diana understands, Ume just lost her mother. Diana just lost her wife.
She wants to scream too, shout to the void, curse to the gods, shriek to fate. She wants to know why her, why Akko… what have she done to deserve death at a place of life?
Instead, Diana just stares at her body. Too dead to even move.
Her mind flashes back to the beginning, when they first met, the first kiss, the way she holds her close when they dance under the moonlight, their laughter intertwining when it's just the two of them alone. It goes to her bursting into her office, the way her knees trembled in happiness and that she had to catch her. The naming of Ume where her name was short for pickled plum, the ultra scans, the shared ideas in the late evening for her first birthday.
The memories of it all crushes her balance and Diana falls to her knees. Her hand still clutching Akko's. "Wake up," Diana whispers to herself, squeezing Akko's hand for any response back.
Nothing.
Nothing but the cold touch of the dead.
"WAKE UP!" She yells this time before her voice crumbles into heart wrenching sobs and heavy gasps of air.
"Wake up…"