Title: And The Sun Still Rises
Author: Kenkaya
Genres: Angst, Drama, Romance
Type: Oneshot, pre-series
Rating: PG/K+
Pairing: Izumi/Sig
Sum: In the wake of loss and a failed human transmutation, Sig and Izumi struggle to piece together the splinted fragments of their marriage.
Trigger Warnings: Situational depression and vague descriptions of stillbirth
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A persistent ache had taken up residence along the small of Sig's back, pulsing in time to the drilling rhythm already at home behind his temples. Each beat counted down another second spent awake, staring sleeplessly up toward the shadowed ceiling with itching eyes. He rubbed them habitually: thick beefy fingers resting in a pinch point around the bridge of his flat nose. The added pressure did nothing to alleviate his discomfort. Sig wasn't surprised. Long nights like these had grown far too familiar over the past month. Beside him, Izumi lay peacefully, still but awake. He turned, restless, to stare at the long expanse of her back. Messy dreadlocks fanned across the white pillow behind her, painting haphazard lines over moon-bright fabric in the dark. They remained silent in bed, together, both in pain- afraid to look for comfort in one another lest they aggravate the other's hurt.
For the most part, Sig found himself guiltily preferring these quiet nights. Nights when he wasn't kept up listening to hacking wet coughs and heaving, nights that didn't end with Izumi tossing and turning only to jerk up on a strangled sob, nights where Sig himself avoided falling into a slumber haunted by the memory of his wife marching up their staircase in the dark wee hours: glassy-eyed and falling to her knees as she vomited blood. No, these tense nights were by far a drop of tranquility in the sea of their grief filled lives.
Oftentimes (usually on the quiet nights), Sig blamed himself for not seeing the signs. Back then, he had admired his wife's strength; the way she threw herself headlong into her alchemic studies and running the household. She had been the one to keep the Curtis butcher shop running smoothly while he struggled to compose himself for work each morning. The water closet became his sad pathetic little refuge the minute Dr. Brooks walked out into their hallway, closing the bedroom door behind him, and informed Sig with controlled calm that his son was born blue and breathless. Since then, the burly man had become intimately acquainted with their stainless steel washbasin, its surface marred with pressure-smudged fingerprints along the lipped rim. Only the sight of Izumi pale, shaking, and wrapped in a blood-stained shirt rivaled the horror he'd felt over his child's death.
A voiceless sigh escaped him in the dark. He had depended on her without a second thought, he realized, never noticing how broken she was until the fact was mercilessly shoved in front of him. Now a gulf, wide as it was within arm's reach, separated them on the bed. Izumi had been strong for him in the beginning, but he hadn't returned the favor. What kind of partner… what kind of husband did that make him?
A mechanical click echoed through the muted room. Sig glanced up at the sound, a low moon and faint starlight illuminating the glass clock face on his wife's nightstand. Slim gold hands rested at five twenty-two. Pre-dawn had reached that quiet in-between: after the crickets have ceased their chirping, but before birds began their song. The sun would rise soon.
Suddenly, Sig couldn't bear the idea of laying in stillness another moment longer. The stagnation was killing him- was destroying them both and what they were. Rising quickly, he ignored Izumi's half-hearted inquiry as he rushed downstairs. She didn't bother going after him. Alone, he stepped through the empty kitchen and out the back door. Chill dew-damp air hit his face, followed by moisture settling uncomfortably on the bushy whiskers framing his jaw. He brushed the itchy feeling aside. Outside, each bracing inhale was crisp, numbing his nose as cleansing pain rushed into his chest, providing much needed focus for his harried mind. Sig knew right then he needed to do something to bridge the gap between them; he had to be the one who lays the first brick.
At that thought, his night-vision caught on their backyard shed: a small boxy structure made of painted green wood. He stared for several long minutes, as though entranced, before a very simple idea struck him. With a renewed resolve he hadn't felt since Izumi's early labor pains started, Sig ran across slick grass. Old hinges creaked loudly as the latch door swung open. Everything sat in neat and orderly fashion on the storage shelves: from basic gardening supplies near the entrance, to extra butcher knives hanging on hooked rows, and jars of odd chemical substances only his alchemist wife ever touched. He bypassed those pointedly, gathering the few items he needed with single-minded efficiency before pushing the wood panel shut behind him with full arms and an awkward shoulder. The trek back was a bit haphazard with his cumbersome cargo and mist-slippery lawn, but the burly man managed. By the time his minimal set up was complete, barely five minutes had passed. He returned to their bedroom.
"Izumi," Sig shook his wife gently, though they both knew he was aware she never slept.
"What is it?" she rolled over to meet his eyes in the dark and noticed he held an indistinct bundle tucked under his left arm.
"Come on," he nudged her out of bed, leading the protesting woman downstairs and through the back door.
"Dear?" Izumi halted as she stared between her husband and the ladder leaning against the side of their house, extending all the way up to the gabled roof. He merely nodded upwards, clearly expecting her to climb.
"Alright," she grumbled, shimmying up the rungs with less grace than she would have months ago. Sig waited until she had safely reached the top before he followed. The ladder wobbled precariously under his bulk and Izumi felt her lungs hitch, heartbeat calming only when he had hoisted his full weight onto the roof's grey shingles.
"Now what?" she asked, wrapping bare arms around her middle to ward off shivers. Her thin nightshirt provided little protection against the bone-sinking cold.
"Here," he unwound the objects rolled in his arms: a pair of familiar patchwork quilts. They had been wedding gifts from an old friend. One, a bright mix of reds and yellows, he draped over Izumi's shoulders; the other he spread flat on the slope of the roof, facing east. The two sat down then, Izumi flinging a corner of her blanket around Sig's shoulders so they could share. He adjusted the quilt to cover them both more comfortably and held his wife (as he hadn't in too long) with a warm muscular arm.
They didn't sit in cold darkness for very long. A deep blue glow lined the horizon, slowly bleeding upward into the pitch sky. Pale pink joined the blue soon after, washing the town of Dublith in dim light, shading the clouds with shadowy splotches of purple and violet-blue. Sig and Izumi watched the sunrise in silence, a silence untainted by the oppressive atmosphere thick inside their bedroom.
"This is nice," she whispered wistfully, leaning against him as she said so. Sig didn't respond verbally, just tightened his grip around her shoulders in agreement. Orange crept into the sky's palette, illuminating the diminutive smile on Izumi's pale lips.
In this moment of quiet understanding, Sig finally believed they would make it. When they climbed down off the roof not much would change. Their child was still gone, Izumi was left damaged and dying- the grief would always tear them apart in some way. These factors were a depressing constant.
But they loved each other enough to stubbornly pull through it. They would not let this horror define what they meant to each other. They were Sig and Izumi, husband and wife, town butcher and former alchemist turned housewife. They were many things, but a tragedy would not be one of them.
A blinding sliver of fire crested the grey and brown rooftop horizon. Birds cawed, window shutters slammed; the world awoke in a discordant cacophony beneath them. The couple simply sat there, in stillness- Sig holding his wife through the sunrise without a single word.
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End
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A/N: I love Izumi dearly (I even cosplay her for goodness sake!), and her relationship with Sig, his devotion to her, is very touching. I wanted to write a piece honoring that. The death of a child is one of the hardest experiences a couple can go through… I personally have known someone in RL whose marriage didn't make it through that. Canon shows us that the Curtis marriage did last, but it must have been a struggle.