A/N: Found this sitting in my files and figured I should upload it. This is a companion to my story "In Between" so if you haven't read that, I do recommend reading that one first (although it's not completely necessary).
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize is not mine.
"It is life in slow motion,
it's the heart in reverse,
it's a hope-and-a-half:
too much and too little at once."
-from "The Wait" by Rainer Maria Rilke
He doesn't know how he's supposed to do this.
He clings to his newborn daughter, holds her warm little body as close as he possibly can while the steady back and forth of the rocking chair does its best to lull her to sleep. The soft moonlight drifting through the window plays across her face and he studies every slope and curve – his little girl.
All he has left.
The baby stirs, her dark eyes widening with awareness, and he brushes a finger down one of her round cheeks.
"Sleep, sweetie," he whispers. "You need to sleep."
She stares up at him, trying to focus on his voice in the way that only a newborn can and so he keeps talking, nonsensically spouting forth stories about knights and princesses which eventually become stories about how he met mommy.
"You look just like her," he murmurs. "Such pretty green eyes. My two beautiful girls."
His daughter cracks a smile that melts his heart and a tiny hand lifts to wrap around his finger. He feels a grin break across his own face and he leans down to nuzzle his nose against hers, breathing in the sweet smell that is his daughter. Her giggle cuts through the silence and then, just as suddenly, her eyelids are once again drooping.
He's practically holding his breath, desperate to have those eyes stay closed, and (by the grace of God) they do. He slowly stands, careful not to jostle the baby, and silently pads across the room so he can lower her into the crib.
From this angle, she really does look like his wife – all long limbs and dark hair, the sharp slant of her nose. She's beautiful – she really is – a beautiful little girl, thanks to his wife's genes.
It rips his heart to pieces all over again and it's not long before he's fighting back tears and a lump in his throat.
He watches over her for a handful of minutes and once he's convinced that sleep has completely settled in, he leaves, keeping the door slightly ajar so he'll be able to hear if she wakes again. He prays that won't happen – they could both use a good night's sleep.
The trip down the hallway and into his own bedroom feels a thousand times longer than it is. He trails his fingertips against the blank walls, can't block the rush of memories – when they first bought the house, everything they'd planned to do with it, late nights talks about building a deck and installing a fireplace and filling the walls with paintings and pictures of their family.
What happens now that she's gone?
He's lost – a ship without a compass, ready to capsize with every fresh wave of grief that will slam into him at any given time. Because all of their plans, their entire future, hinged on them. Him, her, and their baby. A family. He'd known exactly how it was going to go.
He hadn't expected to lose her.
The mattress sinks under his weight as he lays down and presses his face into her pillow, curling his body around it. It smells of coffee and spices and home and he gives himself over to it. In that moment, he can feel her skin under his palms, can hear her soft laugh in his ear, taste her kiss on his mouth.
In that moment, he has his wife back.
And he knows it'll hurt in the morning, knows that when he wakes up to an empty bed and an empty house, save for his daughter, the knife will slip right back under his heart and twist, starting up the nightmare all over again.
But for now she's here.
For now he can pretend.
He tightens his arms around the pillow, doesn't even bother pulling the blankets up from the foot of the bed – he's too wrapped up in his fantasy, as though it will dissolve if he so much as lifts a finger.
"I love you," he whispers - desperately - into the sheets, and she hears him.
He knows she hears him.
And then he can sleep.
Her first birthday is the hardest.
He throws a party - family, friends, and some colleagues all stop by to celebrate, bringing food, presents, and party games for the birthday girl. He tries to enjoy it, he really does. And his daughter is having the time of her life, grinning at all of the different people who are absolutely fawning over her and saying what a beautiful baby she is.
But he still catches the pitying glances they are throwing him in between.
He doesn't know how to feel, doesn't know how he should feel. It's a swirling maelstrom of joy and bereavement, and isn't that appropriate? Isn't that what it should be?
Three-hundred-sixty-five days with his daughter.
Three-hundred-sixty-five days without his wife.
Is it wrong to be grieving on his child's birthday? To want to curl up into a ball in his bedroom and sleep the day away? To want to drink until he blacks out? Because she should be here. His wife should be here celebrating one year since the birth of their daughter and helping him host and eating cake and laughing and she's just...
Not.
She never will be.
And he knows she wouldn't want it to be like this, that she'd want him to hold in the anguish for their daughter's sake, and so he does his best to put on a smile and act like he's doing okay, like his heart isn't cracking every time someone looks at him with pitying eyes or sadly pats him on the shoulder like that's supposed to help, like that's not supposed to be a reminder that his wife is now just a memory
He maintains the façade all day and it's absolutely draining. So that night, when everyone's left and his daughter is sound asleep, he lets the wall down.
He lets himself crumble.
It was supposed to get easier.
That's what everyone kept telling him when it happened, what they still tell him every so often – that one day he will wake up and it will hurt less, that one day her memory will bring nothing but joy.
He's come to the conclusion that they're wrong.
He sits at his desk, staring at the picture of her that he keeps propped up right next to his computer. She's smiling at the camera, laughing, and he can still remember exactly when he took it during an impromptu walk along the beach in July. He'd tripped and fallen flat on his face, and despite the fact that she'd been having a laugh at his expense, the complete and utter happiness painted across her features had made it worth it. He'd immediately pulled out his phone to snap a picture.
It's not that the grief has consumed him – he can still find reasons to enjoy his life. More than anything, he loves being a father, loves watching his daughter grow and mature, and he always finds little bits of his wife in her – her eyes, her laugh, her love of people. It's not as though he's lost himself.
Just her.
And he continues to feel her lack of presence with every breath.
A/N: I just want to quickly apologize to anyone who is currently waiting on an update to "Square One." I was stupid and ambitious when I started that - thinking that I could balance both an extended fic and my college coursework. So yes, I am putting that on hiatus until my semester is over (but I do fully intend to finish it). Again, I am very sorry for the wait.