A/N: So just a little oneshot based off of lebzpel's Corpse Cuddles on DeviantArt.
http:/lebzpel[dot]deviantart[dot]com/art/corpse-cuddles-273825987
Nathan has some issues, doesn't he?
He would have thought that five years was long enough to get over it, really. Of course, five years ago, he hadn't been thinking about a possibility of an end to her story; didn't realize that she would be gone by the time the year 2040 ended. But she had, and here he was: Nathan Wallace (or what was left of him, rather), spending yet another night in the hall closet, sobbing hysterically onto the black skirt that Marni, his Marni, was wearing.
The one that she had been buried in.
"Nathan?" She came up to him, slightly enlarged belly peeking out over her skirt.
"Yes dear?" He wasn't in a mood to talk, not really. It had been a long, long day at work.
"Are you alright?"
"Tired, that's all. Don't you start worrying now; go back to bed."
"I'm pregnant, Nate. Not dying."
"Not dying." Those words. Those goddamn words. If she had only known then...hell, if either had known then... The memory was nearly six years old, yet it still played fresh. Oh, it was haunting him greatly tonight, for sure, but it was better than the ones that usually came.
Blood.
Coughing.
What?...What the hell had just happened...
"Nate?" She's shaking, scared, blood from her mouth and nose on her hands...
And now it's between her legs...
under his scalpel...
all over Shilo, little Shilo...
on the jacket of the GenForcer...
God, how could she be gone that quickly?
He sobbed again, and tried to shake himself clean of the memory. Here he was, sitting with Marni, just the way it used to be...
Except this shouldn't be a hall closet. She should be sitting on the couch, or their bed, or the chairs out in the hallway. Not an old wooden chair in the dusty ex-linen closet attatched to their bedroom. He looked up into her face...her blank face...the one that he had made blank, the one he had erased. Nathan took one of her arms and placed it on his shoulder. Didn't she used to do that, back when she could? Of course she had. Granted, the need for that show of comforting hadn't been quite as great or as often back then, but when the need would arise...
"Marni," he sobbed. He was kneeling on the floor, she was sitting on the edge of the bed.
"I know, Nate. I know," his wife murmured as she rubbed his shoulder.
"They're gone, they're both gone, now..." he cried into her lap.
"Yes, but now she's with your father. Wouldn't you want that for her?"
He swallowed and admitted that yes, yes he would. His parents deserved to be together, finally.
The awakened memory caused even more tears to fall, even more saltwater to pool onto her dress. God, it was bad enough to lose his mom then, but this...remembering her and Marni at once...
And then the words came back.
They deserved to be together.
Nathan lifted his face, eyes still red.
They would be together, finally.
No...not yet. Shilo needed him, still.
But what if the day should come that she didn't need him anymore?
She was only five, there was still too much of a chance of losing her...
The revelation came as suddenly as the slitting of a throat.
Nathan removed Marni's hand from his back and put it back onto her lap, putting her left hand over it, making sure that it was in front of the slight stain caused by so many nights of tears. There wouldn't be anymore, not right now at least.
Nathan kissed Marni goodbye and went down to the basement, to what was still set up as his lab. He had screwed up before, he knew, but this time, this time...He would be more careful when it came to finding something for his precious Shilo.
Now, to find something that wouldn't be lethal...