AN: This is when we all pretend that Calzona had a bathtub in apartment 502.
A Little Love Did This
If you must mourn, my love
It happens after she gets home from work. Hours after actually. She goes through the motions of her after work routine, seemingly numb to life. She knows that's what her wife is thinking. But she isn't numb. She is feeling every single bit of everything. Every time she breathes and her lungs don't cave in, every time she blinks and the tears don't fall, every time she smiles at her daughter and her face doesn't quite crack in half, every time she moves and her body doesn't immediately shutdown. She feels all of it.
And she would give anything not to feel it. To just have some peace from the on-going tragedy her life has become.
But she doesn't get breaks and she doesn't get to break again (her wife has made that very clear), so she feeds and bathes Sofia, reads her a bedtime story, kisses her forehead and her cheeks, and walks out into the living room, shutting the door behind her.
Her wife is standing in the kitchen and she knows she's looking at her, but her own eyes are fastened to the front door. She could leave. Not forever, no, she would never. But she could leave and go stay somewhere else for a little while. Maybe even just for the night. She really thinks she needs the space because she hates the way her wife looks at her. Like she's going to shatter into a million tiny, irreparable pieces. And you know, she just might, but she doesn't want her wife there to see it. Again.
She doesn't know if she can take it.
But.
She doesn't leave. She doesn't even take a step toward that silent, blue door. Instead she turns away from her partner and goes into the bathroom. Because if she goes into their bedroom, the other woman might think that's an invitation to follow and she can barely stand to look at her right now. So she runs a scalding hot bath and begins to slowly remove her clothes, letting the din of the running water distract her for a moment.
"There's no heartbeat."
The words have been ricocheting around in her head on a constant loop since she heard them earlier in the day. They destroy her psyche with their impact and she wishes her mind would stop torturing her for once. For just a minute, she wants some peace from this hellish, wretched existence.
"I can't take another loss, Callie."
She finishes shedding the necessary items on her person and slips into the steaming water, but even the shock of pain she feels from the almost unbearable heat isn't enough to temper the storm raging inside of her. She just wants it to stop. She could just slip under the water for a couple of minutes and it'd be over. She won't have to keep feeling like this. The heaviness in her heart, in her lungs, in the very marrow of her bones, she can just let it all go.
She almost does. She really almost does, but her daughter has already lost one parent and she won't do that to her.
So instead, she sits in the bath while her insides decay.
She doesn't know how long she's soaks, but the water is barely on the warm side of lukewarm when she feels the first cramp.
It's happening.
She didn't expect it to happen the very same day she finds out, but this is her life, so maybe she should have prepared herself for this. But she hasn't. She isn't prepared. She's angry and she's scared and sad doesn't even gloss over the depth of her sorrow, but she's not prepared, so when the next cramp rips through her abdomen, she grits her teeth and clings to the sides of the bathtub.
"There's no heartbeat."
Yeah, she probably should have prepared for that, too.
But she didn't and now she's sitting alone in the bathroom she shares with her wife miscarrying their baby.
Letting her head fall back on her shoulders, she releases a slow breath out of her mouth because this hurts a lot more than she thought. Actually, no. She didn't think about this. She didn't think about much after learning that her baby had died, that she was walking around with her dead baby inside of her. She hadn't been able to think about this part of it.
But now it's happening and it hurt so much.
A whimper slips out during the next cramp and she squeezes the bathtub so hard, her knuckles turn porcelain. She just wants it to be over, so she glances down between her legs and jams her eyes shut when she sees blood. Her heart hammers inside her chest and her breaths come shorter because she can't have just seen that. She can't she can't shecan'tshecantshecantshecant.
She can't do this alone. She doesn't have anything left of herself to keep it together. She can't do this. She's not strong enough for this. As much as she doesn't want her wife with her, seeing her like this, feeling anything close to what she's feeling right now, she needs her. She needs someone there to make sure she can get through this. To make sure she doesn't join their baby when this is all over.
"C-Callie!" She means to call out just loudly enough for her wife to hear, but it comes out as a scream instead. She screams because her baby is dead. Her baby is dead. Her baby is dead and it feels like she's being torn in half between the knowledge that the new mangled version of her body is defective and the dense, unbearable pressure bearing down on her heart.
"Arizona, what's―" Her wife is suddenly standing next to the tub and she doesn't know what it is that makes her stop; the fact that she's writhing under the weight of agony, her nudity, or the blood on her thighs.
It's probably the blood.
"Callie." She doesn't know what else to say. What else is there to say? Their dead baby was coming in a twisted, macabre version of a non-birth. What is there to say to that? She faintly hears the tremulous breath her wife pulls in over the sound of her stifled whimpers and grunts of pain, and through the blur of tears (when had she started crying?), she sees Callie getting undressed and the sight is so jarring in the moment that she gasps. "What‒ what are you doing?"
The taller woman doesn't answer at first, not until she's completely naked. "Being your wife." And then Callie climbs into the tub behind her, and she feels her arms wrap around her and her long fingers splay flat across her contracting abdomen. She wants to twist away from the embrace, but she needs it because their baby is coming and she hadn't prepared for this.
So she leans back against her wife's chest and sobs through the next bout of cramps and the subsequent expulsion of tissue. That's what her baby is. Just bundle of cells and tissue. Not even really a baby yet. So then why does it feel like her whole body is trying to turn itself inside out? How can the pain of losing a bundle of cells and tissue be so excruciating when it wasn't even really a baby yet?
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
It was supposed to be their turn to be happy again.
They were going to be so happy.
"Callie," she can't stop saying her name and Callie won't let her go. "It hurts," she chants the mantra over and over as she turns her face into the crook of her wife's neck.
"I know," her wife whispers into the damp strands of her golden hair. "I know, but I'm here. I've got you."
She wants to know why this is happening to her. To them. Why does it always happen to them? Why can't they move forward and be happy without some new disaster coming to wrench it all away? She had woken up this morning so happy because she was having a baby and now she can barely breathe because her body is betraying her once again. She just wanted to put her life back together, to put her marriage back together, and she gets a miscarriage for her efforts.
"Fuck," she cries out at an abrupt sharpness in her midsection and the only thing that keeps her from slipping under is Callie's arms around her. And through her haze of mild delirium, she momentarily wonders if her wife is willing to go through this again to expand their family. But the thought is gone before it ever even really sticks because the cramping settles. Just a little. And she knows that's it's done. The baby is out. She is done.
Never has emptiness felt so bottomless.
"Callie," she pants raggedly, unfocused, unable to see, unable to… unable.
Her wife knows that this is her cue to do… something. Anything. And Callie's never done this before, she's never― she knew this was a possibility, but she never― and now she's sitting in a bathtub with her hysterical wife and the bloody remnants of the life they created together.
What is Callie supposed to do with that?
What is she supposed to do?
"Twinkle, twinkle little star," the brunette begins to sing, her voice scratchy and choked because it's hard to sing over a lump the size of a boulder in her throat. "How I wonder what you are."
She can hear the song, but she almost can't believe it. She can't believe her wife would sing the song she's been singing to her belly for past month. But then, it is fitting, isn't it? It's their baby's song and even though it makes everything worse, it's exactly what she needs right now.
"Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky," her wife can hardly keep it together and tears keep running into her mouth and snot is dribbling out of her nose and her chest is heaving, and this hurts so much more than she could have ever imagined. "Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are."
She can't stop crying and she can't stop shaking. Her whole body is trembling uncontrollably and she feels her wife tighten the grip she has on her. She thinks it would be easier if the other woman would just let her go. It would be easier for both of them if she just let go. But she knows she won't. Her wife won't ever fully let go of her, no matter what. Not after what they've been through together.
Not after this.
But she has to wonder, what's the point? What's the point of loving if it turns into this? How could a little love do this to her? To them?
A little love did this.
Don't do it alone.
You by Keaton Henson
~Elphaba C. Snow Thropp