Disclaimer: I don't own IPS or any of the characters.
Warning: Rated M for character death, adult themes, and angst. If those will upset you, don't read.
Author's Note: This story, Photograph, stands on its own, and is in no way related to any of my other stories. Though it isn't a happy story, it was one that wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it. If you don't like it, feel free not to read. If you do like the story, then thank you for your support.
She says "Wake up, it's no use pretending"
I'll keep stealing, breathing her.
Birds are leaving over autumn's ending
One of us will die inside these arms
Eyes wide open, naked as we came
One will spread our ashes 'round the yard.
- Iron & Wine (Naked As We Came)
1.
Marshall Mann woke up in a cold sweat, a barely stifled cry on his lips. Gasping, he rolled over, his hands scrambling to the other half of the bed, the cold, empty half where Mary should have been but wasn't. She never was. Waking up without Mary next to him was hard every time, but the nights when he woke from dreams of her were the worst; he reached for her, always, and never found anything but an empty space that confirmed the dreams were real as their fading echoes haunted him.
Marshall, something's wrong.
Please save my baby.
Sometimes, in the dreams, he witnessed more than he'd actually been privy to that night, his mind easily filling in the blanks; sounds of a trauma room, her continuing pleas for help, or perhaps calling for him when he'd not been allowed back with her, a doctor's voice saying ominous things like prep for emergency C-section, we're losing her, she's flat-lining…
Sometimes, he saw a look of shock and terror on her face as she realized she might not pull through this time, a hand fluttering protectively to her belly but already trembling with the growing weakness of her impending death overtaking her.
He pressed his palms to his eyes. It did no one any good to dwell on these images, but he couldn't stop. The dreams would always be there to haunt him, as would her absence.
A wailing cry started up in the next room, his daughter calling out to him either for some physical need like a diaper change or something less tangible, a need in the dark of the night for her remaining parent, who her infant brain never failed to recognize though he knew not how.
He took a moment to collect himself, scrubbing tears cried in sleep and already half-dried from his face with the back of his hand; he didn't like for her to see him like this, though she was yet too young to comprehend that much. He simply didn't feel it was right.
A few heartbeats later, feeling that whether he was composed or not his child could wait no longer, Marshall heaved himself from his bed and padded into the hall.