Twelfth Challenge: "I Will Follow You into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie

Category: Het (Canon AU)

Characters/Pairings: Isolde/Tristan

Ratings/Warnings: T (death)

Word Count: 336

Isolde, cradling her newborn, gazed at his face. She stroked his plump cheek and marveled at his tiny fingers. Once again, she brushed her lips against his in the gentlest of kisses.

"Look at him," she whispered to her partner, Tristan, inside of the dilapidated hunting shack buried deep in the Forest of Brechfa. "Isn't he perfect?"

She held up the baby for Tristan to examine by the dim lantern light, but he craned his neck in the opposite direction. "Isolde…"

"Hold him. Please," she begged.

"I can't." Frowning, Tristan sat on the ground beside Isolde and rested his hand on her shoulder. "We've been here for days and we can linger no more. We're wanted smugglers, Isolde, and I value your life. To remain here means certain death. Please come along."

"Can't I have one more day?" Isolde cast Tristan a pleading glance. "Please?"

Anguish clear in his gaze, he shook his head. While Isolde knew Tristan was right and they needed to abandon this place before they were caught, it did not make the leaving any easier.

"Did you..." Gods, this was killing her "…did you do as I asked?"

"Yes. I dug the hole while you were sleeping and collected the cairn rocks. This is horrid, Isolde. My heart bleeds just as much as yours. Please believe me."

That was impossible. Tristan had not carried this baby in his womb for seven months. He'd not been the one to give birth to their infant, a baby who had taken a single shuddering breath and then slipped into the Other World. Tristan understood nothing while her soul hemorrhaged with the agony of loss. All she wanted to do was ease into death and be reunited with her child again.

Trembling as despondency entombed her, Isolde rose, clinging to her dead newborn. "All right. It's time. But did you love him, Tristan?"

"So much I feel like I can't breathe."

Her heart in tatters and her head hanging low, Isolde followed Tristan outside to bury their child.