A/N: I'm really sorry if there are any Finnish people reading this, because I'm aware that I've probably murdered your language. I'm really sorry. Anyway, Tom's supposed to be bad at Finnish. That's the whole point. But still. Sorry. S:

Disclaimer: It's not mine. I'm not the one with the castle in Scotland.

Fast-Forward

Chapter Twenty-One: Decide

She slipped – and crashed down onto her stomach. "Ginevra-?" But even his voice was drowned out by her screams.

"GINEVRA!" Echoing, echoing – "Ginevra-" and then she couldn't even hear him anymore, she couldn't see, she could barely breathe, she was on fire, there was just this burning agony, tearing her, killing her- Tears streaming down her face, screams ripping through the apartment even as she fell from consciousness.

xxx

"You what I think this needs?" Ginevra said, pulling away so unexpectedly that Tom nearly fell forwards on top of her. She didn't seem to notice, and continued thoughtfully, "Champagne."

He stared at her, bewildered and willing himself to say something. He was still breathing heavily, and while part of him wanted to be a gentleman and do whatever she asked, there was a much larger part of him that wanted her so much it hurt – a part that was disinclined to leave her in favour of champagne. "Alright," he finally said, forcing down his hormonal side. A smile flickered to his lips. "Your wish is my command."

Reluctantly, his arms fell away from her, and he gave her just a smile before he turning to the kitchen to find some champagne. It was a tiny kitchen, and, in theory, it shouldn't have been hard to find anything – and yet it was. Eventually, however, he located a bottle, and straightened up, dusting off his hands from crouching on the floor.

At that moment, a loud thump came from the other room.

Tom frowned. "Ginevra?"

And then the piercing screams began.

"Ginevra?" he called, hurrying back through the other room, and what he saw ran ice through his veins. She was on the floor, curled up in a tight ball, clutching at her stomach – a stomach that seemed to have completely caved in. "GINEVRA!"

He didn't even notice the champagne bottle slipping through his fingers; he barely felt the broken glass and alcohol spraying across his feet.

"Oh my God." He raced across to her, almost slipping as he dropped to his knees beside her. "Ginevra – GINEVRA-"

She didn't even seem to be awake. She was just lying there, thrashing on the floor, screaming, tears streaking her unnaturally pale face, her skin burning hot to the touch, perspiration beading her brow – and that sick, perverse stomach, all wrong… not understanding what was wrong, Tom ripped aside the material of her shirt, and felt sick to his stomach when he saw purple blotching outwards across her abdomen as blood flowed beneath the surface of her skin without breaking through.

This is my fault – oh my God – oh God, it's killing her – no –

Panic took over for a second, and for a moment he was frozen, just staring at her in horror. Then he realised that he needed to do something, and sprinted from the cabin, shoving through the front door. The cold hit him like a sledgehammer, and he hadn't brought a jumper, let alone a wintry coat, but he continued.

The receptionist looked alarmed to see him - a snow-covered and panicked foreigner bursting through the door exclaiming terrible Finnish wasn't very common.

"Er – kaivata – hospital," he muttered, screwing up his forehead in concentration. "Hospital!" he snapped at the receptionist. "Shit, how do you say hospital? Tohtoroida… Kaivata tohtoroida?" he tried.

The only response he received was her blinking at him.

"For Christ's sake, I need a freaking hospital!" he shouted. "My wife is dying – do you understand that much? Dying! Te käsittää? Hospital! Place – where – hurt – people – go! Väki loukata!" He raked a hand roughly backwards through his hair. "God, I don't have time for this – do you have someone who speaks English? Englannin? French? Anything?"

Again, the receptionist just looked blankly at him.

"Shit," he groaned, turning and racing out of the main building again, back towards the cabin where Ginevra could be already – already –

DON'T THINK ABOUT THAT.

His throat choked up, and he found that he couldn't breathe anymore.

She won't be. She'll be fine. She'll be alright.

Ginevra was lying curled up on her side – she wasn't screaming or shaking anymore. She was just completely motionless, limp and unmoving. Trying not to imagine that she might never move again, Tom gathered her clumsily into his arms, her head lolling listlessly against his chest; then he left the cabin, abandoning all of their luggage, and moved away from the other cabins as quickly as he could.

'Don't Apparate directly from where you're staying', he said, remember, Tom reminded himself, 'it's a Muggle community, you'll upset the balance of Muggles and Wizards in Finland, just get the train to the Apparation Point-'

Screw that.

Tom closed his eyes and tried to calm himself down enough to Apparate (somehow, he didn't think that Splinching Ginevra would help her in the slightest) – crack. They disappeared.

The two reappeared in the Rovaniemi Apparation Point, some ninety minutes away from the Luosto area where they had been staying. Tom was glad he hadn't decided to get the train – she might not have made it that long-

STOP IT.

An empty, numb ache throbbed deep inside him in anticipation of her not making it. He was going to lose her. Again. He didn't know if he'd be able to handle it this time.

Not again – no –

Panic flooded through him when he saw that Ginevra's lifeless figure was shivering violently, but it eased when he realised that nothing was wrong with her – it was him who was uncontrollably shaking.

Stop that. You might be hurting her.

The thought that he might be causing her more pain made his throat constrict painfully, and instead he focused on getting through the doors to the Finnish Apparation Point, where hopefully there would be someone who spoke English – or, at least, someone who understood his crap attempts at Finnish – and knew where there was a hospital. He quickly located the Enquiries desk (though he hardly had a normal enquiry) and made his way towards it, ignoring the fact that a lot of people were staring at him, as he was covered in snow, and cradling his wife in his arms.

"We olen ei Suomi," he said desperately, pushing to the front of the queue and disregarding the irritated outcries of the people behind him. "English – do you speak English? My wife – autta – please – I need - kaivata tohtoroida – do you understand?"

"Mine English no good – one moment." The man at the desk hurried through a small door, and returned much more than a moment later, with a blonde woman.

"Can I help you?" she asked with a soft accent.

No, never mind, my wife is dying in my arms, I don't need any help at all – WHAT DO YOU THINK I NEED HELP WITH?!

"My wife – she – I don't know-" Tom tried to make his sentences come out intelligible, but it was proving difficult. "Something's wrong – she won't wake up, and – and – she's barely breathing – and bleeding internally – I don't – please – hospital-"

"Yes, of course." The woman's expression became grave, and she moved around the end of the desk to stand beside Tom, taking his arm and leading him outside, where she then Apparated with him.

Once they reappeared in the waiting room of a small hospital, the woman called out something in Finnish too harsh and fluent for Tom to possibly try and understand; what seemed less than a second later, three Healers came from a pair of double doors, bringing with them a clean white stretcher.

"No-" It pulled from his lips even though he knew that it was selfish and stupid to say it when they were going to try to save her, but Tom subconsciously didn't believe that she was going to survive, and at least now, in his arms, he could feel her blood fleeting faintly through her veins, and hear her quiet, strained breathing – he could feel how alive she was now –

And the next time that he saw her, she might not be.

Yet, as he realised that this was probably going to be the last time he ever saw her, Tom could only stare uselessly after her as the Healers wheeled her away.

He wasn't aware of how much time passed while he simply stood there, staring at where she had been, but a nurse was suddenly close to his side and saying gently, in Finnish simple enough for him to comprehend, "Would you like to sit down?"

Without even looking at her, he said, "No"; and then sat down anyway, stumbling sideways to a bench and crumpling heavily upon it, burying his face in his hands.

You killed her. You lost her so many times, and now you finally had her… and you fucking killed her.

He groaned, digging his fingernails deep into his skull, trying to distract himself from the painful thoughts ricocheting through his brain. Despite this, there was nothing else to think about – he couldn't just sit in this stupid hospital wondering about work or their luggage when Ginevra was being treated by total strangers, maybe dying, maybe… maybe… already…

His hands were shaking again, and this time he couldn't stop them. His breath was rough, made heavy by the struggle of getting past his windpipe, crushed with pain. Tom closed his eyes, trying to imagine that Ginevra was waking, that she was apologising to the doctors for causing such a fuss, because, honestly, she was fine, she wasn't bleeding internally, it was just a few simple bruises springing up quickly, the screaming had been another of those traumatised memory lapses – and yes, he knew that she hadn't had one of those nightmares in three years, never mind that, she'd had one now, and she's simply bumped her head – yes. She'd bumped her head and been knocked out. And there, there, was a simple explanation for why Ginevra was perfectly fine and it was all just a big misunderstanding.

Ginevra was not dead-

Then he dragged in air, agony coursing through him, because he knew that he had only been kidding with himself about Ginevra being alright, and even just thinking the word 'dead' made it all so suddenly, painfully real.

"Excuse me?" asked another nurse – this one speaking thickly-accented English. "Doctor Lemminkäinen will see you now."

Tom dropped his hands from his face and looked up at her, not understanding. "No, I'm not here to see a doctor – my wife – I'm waiting for…" then his words trailed off. "Oh God, she's died already, hasn't she?"

The nurse looked as though she was going to burst into tears, clearly not speaking a word of English past what she had been taught in training. "Doctor Lemminkäinen will see you now," she repeated.

Wordlessly, he stood, following. His face was completely blank – it could be nothing but empty of emotions if he couldn't find any within himself.

They moved through only a few corridors before reaching the door marked 'Lemminkäinen'. It had a smiley face on it. Maybe Lemminkäinen was always the one who told people that their wives or family members hadn't survived. Maybe the stupid smiley face was an effort to make the whole ordeal happier. However, inside, Tom found a very serious man with no trace of a smile on his face.

"You are the man who brought in the red-haired woman, correct?" he asked, taking a quill from a nearby ink-pot.

"Yes." His voice was quiet and toneless.

"Your names?"

"Tom and Ginevra Riddle."

"She is your wife, then? Or family?"

"Wife."

"Where do you live?"

"21-5D, Redrick Apartments. Market Crescent, South London. England," he recited tiredly, staring forwards without seeing anything in front of him.

"England?" Lemminkäinen asked curiously, peering at him over the tops of his spectacles.

"Honeymoon." One word was enough.

"Ah. I see." The doctor wrote something else down, and then set his quill down on the tabletop. He folded the parchment he had written upon and then pushed it into a small chute in the wall behind his head, where it then disappeared. Once it was gone, he returned his attention to Tom. "Now, I have some questions for you."

Tom didn't understand what was happening. "Is Ginevra-"

"Your wife is fine," said Lemminkäinen dismissively-

"Well, she's blatantly not, or I don't think she would be in hospital with internal bleeding," he snapped, not able to control himself and be civil.

"Please, Mr. Riddle, calm down. Sit."

He hadn't realised that he'd stood up. He sank silently back into the hard-backed chair in front of Lemminkäinen's desk, trying to no avail to stop his hands from shaking.

"I have a few questions of a very grave nature, so it would be best for you to maintain composure," the doctor said calmly. "Your wife is five months pregnant, is that right?"

"Four and half."

"Very well. Has she had any other previous pregnancies?"

"No." Not that I know of.

"Has she been bothered at all by this pregnancy before this point?"

"She passed out once, but the doctors informed us that it was only her system trying to adjust to the pregnancy."

"I see. And she is due to have twins?"

Tom's jaw tightened. "Yes," he ground out.

"Now… Mr. Riddle… can I just inquire as to… whether – well." Lemminkäinen took a deep breath. "Mr. Riddle, have you ever inflicted intentional or accidental harm on your wife during her pregnancy?"

His eyes flashed up to the doctor in horrified disbelief. "What?" he said sharply, not able to believe his ears. "Are you insane?"

"Answer the question, Mr. Riddle."

"No," he exclaimed. "This is ridiculous – I would never-"

"Regardless of what you say – whether you have or haven't harmed her – someone has, and it's this that has brought on this attack," Lemminkäinen told him.

Tom's eyes narrowed with understanding. "Terby."

"Excuse me?"

However, Tom wasn't paying attention to Lemminkäinen anymore. He had realised something.

Twins – one moral, one immoral. The immoral one was injured. It fed parasitically off the other. Two souls, one body. …My mother. …Ginevra.

His face drained of all colour.

My mother died.

"Mr. Riddle?" Lemminkäinen asked concernedly. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, someone did hurt her," Tom said tightly, looking up at the doctor again. He threw himself back into the conversation, trying not to think about what his realisation had told him. "I only arrived in time to stop him from killing her. He must have hit her in the stomach – I wasn't aware of it. She didn't tell me." He swallowed hard. "What exactly happened to her?"

"Well… we aren't quite sure. It seems as though one of the twins was damaged – foetus can heal alone, as we can, with time. However, it didn't have the nutrition to heal completely, and continued to ask more of your wife's body than she was capable of giving. The already weakened walls…" Lemminkäinen shook his head. "I don't know. We've never seen anything like it."

Of course you haven't. This is the first baby you've come across that's fucking evil.

"What happened?" Tom repeated.

"Her uterus wall collapsed inwards," Lemminkäinen explained patiently. "It dragged several vein systems with it, bursting them, and scratched the surface of an artery."

Tom's face fell into his hands again, closing his eyes. I've killed her.

"Now, we need to discuss what can be done with her."

Eyes dark like tunnels, Tom looked up.

"One foetus was crushed by the collapse – it's too damaged to possibly survive. If we leave it, then, once the wall is healed, her body could automatically attempt a miscarriage, and kill the healthy child." Lemminkäinen steepled his fingers and peered at Tom over the top of them.

Again, Tom wasn't listening anymore. He had tuned out. An image had come to his mind – one baby died, the other survived. The moral one survived. The problem was solved. And then… a tiny, fragile person. Maybe Ginevra in miniature. His stomach lurched, and he bit his lip. It wasn't fair. It was an image that he wanted so badly that it hurt… but was it worth risking the loss of Ginevra for? Of course not. Nothing was. And yet…

"…other option is to try to remove the harmed foetus without breaking the water around the healthy one…"

Tom frowned. He knew next to nothing about babies, and even less about giving birth to them, but even he could tell that Lemminkäinen's other plan was impossible. "How the hell would that ever work?"

"It's been tried before, but I was thinking something along the lines of magically manipulating the membrane that the babies are protected within – the 'water', so to speak – and thus encasing each foetus in two separate spaces… and then I could attempt to only remove the damaged one."

"…Alright. Do it."

"Listen for a moment," said Lemminkäinen gravely. "Firstly, I am unsure that it will work. Secondly, it may already be too late. Thirdly, it is of a low probability that the foetus would survive to birth, and then it is highly possible that there may be a cot-death. Fourthly, if the healthy foetus does survive, it is unlikely that there would no side-effects."

Side-effects? Anything sounds more appealing than psychosis.

"We can live with that-"

"And, finally," Lemminkäinen continued, fixing Tom with a beady stare to let him know that he had not yet finished speaking, "…I simply don't know if your wife is strong enough to survive."

Tom's words died in his words. That, he wouldn't be able to live with. He couldn't do it. He couldn't kill her for a baby that might die anyway, instead of saving her. But… if there was a possibility…

His lungs contracted, squeezing the air out until he couldn't breathe.

Ginevra.

A baby.

The possibility of having neither.

The possibility of having both.

The possibility of maybe actually having a 'happily ever after' that everyone else seemed so determined to believe in when he knew that it was impossible.

The possibility that maybe it wasn't so impossible.

Lemminkäinen was still watching him silently, pressurising him to decide… decide… decide… and the tick of the grandfather clock in the corner was as loud as the scream of a hurricane… decide… decide… decide…

He decided.

xxx

A/N: Dun-dun-dun. And, in answer to a random reviewer whose pen-name I forgot (sorry), Ginny's four and a half months pregnant as of now. Soooo the baby is due summer-ish. Like… July, maybe. I don't know. I don't do the maths thing. I got my report card and I got a D. Woop. A-star in English… 'Unmarkable' in Finnish. Nah, just kidding. I don't take Finnish. Be cool if I did though… Please review! Ignore my rambling.