AN: Hey there, got another one for you guys (this is my first story with no dialogue)! This isn't for a prompt but, I've been thinking a lot about loss and connections made through mourning, when this idea came to me.
This one has a trigger warning just to be safe.
The sound of a car door slamming punctuated the still midmorning air, and, if at all possible, intensified the fatigue they both felt. Mira didn't wait for Laxus as she began her slow walk towards their apartment door. They had been through a lot in the past 36 hours, and neither had been prepared.
Baby books never discussed the herculean strength it took to carry an empty baby seat.
They didn't know what went wrong. The midwife tried to reassure them that many people don't get a concrete answer. He had felt his entire energy sapped from him, though he couldn't find himself feeling much when he realized how unsettlingly quiet Mira had been. Her silent acceptance had jarred the birthing staff (and if Laxus was being honest, it perturbed him too).
Once the time of death was announced, she laid back in the bed—eyes drifting towards the ceiling, she folded her hands over her still round middle, and silently waited for the placenta to deliver. The entire room had been anxiously hyper-vigilant, though the tension seemed to ease once Mira's shoulders shook under the effort of holding in body-rattling sobs. She didn't even make a sound. It was in that silence he became fully aware of the delicate emotional condition of his girlfriend. That awareness and worry had put a temporary pause on his mourning, and all of his energy (little as it was) turned to her.
When he opened the apartment door for her, she unceremoniously dropped the carrier to the floor, hurried down the hall to their bathroom, and slammed the door. The click of the lock was thunderous in the deafening silence.
After an hour, Laxus had to coax her out of the shower.
XXX
Night came slower than either of them would have liked. In the agonizing silence and stillness of their drained states, they managed to fall asleep, though Laxus' slumber teetered between consciousness and sweet surrender. He dreamt of nothing, and thought of nothing—everything was astoundingly mute. He hadn't noticed Mira had left the bed, but he became aware of her missing warmth in the middle of the night. Laxus rose from the bed, not bothering to turn on the light, and slowly made his way into the dark hallway.
Light spilled from a doorway just past the hallway bathroom. His stomach roiled, of course he would find her in that room. That room they had been careful to avoid the past few hours. The room they had consciously closed the door to. The room painted a delicate, sweet pale yellow for their future that had ended so abruptly. Walking purposefully to their abandoned nursery felt wrong—weird—because somewhere in the depths of his mind, he expected to find Mira coddling someone who they would never meet. He stood in the doorway in silence, watching quietly.
Mira hummed a soft lullaby, stumbling on certain notes, as she reached up to remove an elegantly carved wooden letter from above the now dismantled crib.
Upon further inspection, a majority of the room they had lovingly pieced together now look disjointed, placed in separate boxes that would hold the weight of their loss.
Mira held up the letter, admiring its previous position on the wall besides the other pieces of script, and her humming ceased. Laxus wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his head in the crook of her neck. She took a shaky breath as she leaned back into his warmth, hot tears rolling down her cheeks.
When the sun rose, it still hurt.
AN: :'( thanks for reading
Seeing the disconnect between someone's regular-self and their mourning-self really has changed me. I am much more protective of this person!
Anyway, let's hope these two find some emotional, and mental solace—time does heal all things.
Please leave a review if you can!
(Also, if you guys have questions about anything I write or just in general, feel free to ask!)