Blood. Screaming. Fear.
Noah was holding his hand. Through paramedics carrying him down the stairs, running across the street, getting into the ambulance, lights flashing and sirens blaring, he never let go.
There were voices around him. Something about blood pressure dropping, someone was calling to the hospital, and Noah was chanting nonononono in a soft voice. A needle pierced the skin in the crook of his elbow, but he only felt it because he could see it.
It was the other pain that forced him onto the edge of consciousness and stunned all his senses. He couldn't smell anything, couldn't feel the fabric of his t-shirt underneath his fingertips, even though he knew he was twisting it in his grip. Blood was rushing in his ears. Everything was a blur of black and white in front of his eyes, a blur of things he wanted to see. There was no blood underneath his fingernails, no blood on Noah's white t-shirt, no blood running down his legs, he convinced himself.
Noah. He could only sense him sitting next to his head, out of the paramedics' way, clutching at his fingers and whispering.
Somewhere in between the black and the white, he wanted to frown. This wasn't right.
Noah had always been the calming presence by his side, never giving up, his hands sure and steady, never shaking; not like they were now.
Pain.
Sharp and intense, it made his whole body tense and his heart stutter. He slipped away into the black only to resurface again with another agonizing cramp. Noah's hand in his slipped away. He couldn't feel.
There was a voice in his ear. It wormed it's way through the pain, the monochromatic cloud of nothing settling in his brain, and hit his slowing heart. He knew the raspy undertone, caused by too much smoking. He's heard it form the words so many times.
"I love you, Kurt."
Why did they sound so desperate? There was nothing wrong. The pain, but that could be anything. He had to be alright, as long as there was no blood. No blood. Not on Noah's t-shirt, not on his hands, not everywhere…
"Hang in there, alright? Hang in there, for me. For her.."
Beeping. Loud, steady, and annoying.
Pain. Making it's way through his body, filling every crease of his skin.
There was a big, warm hand holding his own.
He smiled. It was almost like they just fell asleep hours ago in their bed, sharing the covers and their body heat. If he concentrated hard enough, he could almost feel the first rays of morning sun tickle his eyelids, could almost hear Noah breathing next to him.
Except for the beeping. And the pain. And the disturbing scent of lemon air-freshener in the air.
Where was he, anyway?
He tried to open his eyes. They felt swollen and dry, his eyelids heavy, and he found he could barely blink.
The shapes were blurry around him, like clouds in a stormy sky. A light flickered overhead, bright and intense. Turning his head to the right, he saw black screens full of colorful lines. Every time one of them spiked, a deafening beep sounded in the room.
There was blood rushing in his ears, it's thump, thump, thump blocking out almost everything else. Somewhere far away, people were talking, high heels were clicking and more machines were beeping. Hospital.
"Kurt?"
The voice was so hoarse he didn't even recognise it.
Despite that, he called out the name of the only person he could think of he wanted by his side.
"Noah?"
"Yes, baby, it's me," the voice replied again, a little more familiar. It was Noah sitting on the right side of what he assumed was his hospital bed – it was Noah's hand clutching at his.
"Am I in a hospital?" Kurt asked, turning his head - and stopping dead at the sight of his boyfriend.
There was blood on Noah's white t-shirt, and on his hands. His bottom lip was split, light stubble tracing his jaw, the skin on his face pale and dirty. His eyes were shining with unshed tears, sadness, defeat and fear swirling in their brown depths. He'd never seen Noah look like that, nor he ever wanted to again.
Something was wrong.
Kurt knew he should probably know what it was, and he knew it was there; nagging at all his weakened senses, screaming, muffled by all the confusion surrouding him. He was in a hospital. His abdomen hurt. Noah was sitting by his side, looking—
His abdomen hurt.
He wasn't—this was—
He felt empty. His horror grew with every passing second, and when he looked back at his boyfriend, he knew he didn't have to ask.
This couldn't be real.
Kurt was spiralling, falling head-first into a hole full of despair; the air was too thin to breathe; didn't reach his lungs, Noah's hand was gone and he couldn't breathe…
"!"
There was a voice. It was stern, demanding, but he couldn't bring himself to listen to whatever it was saying. What did it matter, anyway? He was dying, he could feel it – he was suffocating, choking on his own frightened sobs, the moments from the ambulance suddendly playing out in his head, the blood and the sirens and Noah's nonononono…
What did it matter, when he'd lost his baby?
"Listen to me, . You have to breathe!" the voice was there again.
"Kurt, baby, please…don't give up, okay? We can do this, we can, just breathe, alright?"
And there he was again. His voice still broken and raspy, his fingers sweaty, their grip on his wrist slipping.
He hasn't lost everyone. Noah was still there. He was hurting, too.
But he was alive.
And if Kurt ever wanted to see him again, he needed to be alive, too.
He took a slow breath, then another. His vision was clearing – there were hands gripping his arms, people in white labcoats leaning over his bed and looking at him concernedly.
He almost laughed, but the sound died in his throat. What right did he have to laugh, even if it was meant to be bitter? His baby was dead. He did something wrong.
God, he thought. He didn't even tell his father yet. No one knew, except him and Noah. They were going to keep it their secret for just a little while longer, exchanging ridiculous, happy smiles over the table at Sunday dinners with his parents and Finn and Rachel, eyeing the racks with baby clothing in the mall and being happy.
Now, though, Kurt was empty. He could feel no emotion, except sadness and anger – aimed at himself, because he was useless. He couldn't even carry his baby to term, the baby Noah and him had both wanted so badly.
Noah.
A look to the right revealed his slumped form in the doorway, talking to a doctor.
Almost as if he felt his gaze, Noah turned around, his eyes empty except for the tiniest spark of hope, invisible to anyone who didn't know him as well as Kurt did. He shut the door in the doctor's face and went back to his position by the bed. He looked lost; like he didn't know what to do.
And he probably didn't. Neither did Kurt. No one did.
He saw Noah reach out his hand, fingers trembling. Then he stopped. He looked up, brown eyes pleading, the question in his gaze clear as day. May I?
There was no time for explanations; for words. Before he knew it, his boyfriend was with him on the bed, holding Kurt's shaking body in his arms. The air was thick with the sadness they shared; their tears mixing together and trailing over faces, chests, arms.
"I've almost…" he had to stop to take a breath. "I've almost made it through my first trimester," he whispered into Noah's shirt, barely audible. He felt a kiss pressed into his hair.
"I know, baby. I know."
There was pain in Noah's words; the same pain he felt inside.
There was no difference.
He did carry the baby within him, but Noah had been there every step of the way. He helped create the tiny life that was now gone, ripped so painfully from both their lives. He held Kurt's hand at the first doctor's appointment, through the painful heaves of his morning sickness that has just started, in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
It would be unfair to think Noah's pain wasn't just as intense as Kurt's.
They were in this together – it was the only thing that gave him a distinctive feeling of something akin to hope. Together, they've always accomplished things they could never do alone.
Noah's hand was rubbing soothing circles into his back, his breath ghosting over Kurt's ear in short gushes. Neither of them was alright; not by a long shot. But at the feeling of strong arms around him and Noah's heart beating next to his, something sparked inside of him. It died almost right away, but it left a burn mark in the ice that was his heart. Maybe, over time, there was some hope.
"You said…in the ambulance, you said 'for her'. Why did you say that? You've always told me it was going to be a boy…"
Noah's smile was sad. Kurt could feel the corners of his mouth hesitantly lift and fall when Noah hid his face in Kurt's hair.
"Because you wanted to name her Elizabeth."
~fin