A/N: Nooo! I hate my ideas for a decent plotline... excuse the misery :( Do I even want you to R&R? Mmm, yes, I do!
Pain. Not a sharp pain, but an ache. A bruising, excruciating ache that makes me want to writhe and contort my body to placate the monster inside my body. I defy its wishes and force myself to open my eyes. There is a stark white ceiling above me, and I can feel cool, stiff, sheets encasing me. My throat is dry, very dry.
"Water," I manage to croak. Warm hands are holding a cup of cold water to my lips, and I am reminded of those agonizing days in the clamshell. My desiccated lips turn upward into as close to a smile as I can get.
The hands touch the top of my head, and Ren's face comes into view. He smiles slightly at me, and I don't worry, because if Ren can smile, it must not be that bad.
"How do you feel?" Ren asks concernedly.
"It hurts," I say. I sound like a toad.
"Okay. I'll be back in just a second," he says, and leaves the room quickly.
When he comes back, there is a nurse following him, and she has a tray with a plate of food, a cup, and a paper cup filled with pills.
"And how are we today?" she asks in a very cheery tone.
"Not good," I whisper, and Ren takes my hand as he sits in the chair that is right next to my bed.
"Well, that is to be expected," she says crisply as she opens the curtains. I wince at the sudden influx of light "One doesn't-well, I'll let your husband tell you," she finishes. Her voice reminds me of laundry blowing on a breeze on a farm during a warm spring day.
I wonder for a minute, but I realize I am too hungry to think about it. "Can I have something to eat, please?" I moan.
"Just a minute, sweetheart. I need to take your vital signs first, and then we can sit you up and give you some lunch," she says gently.
"Okay," I sigh. Ren's hand tightens on mine, and I remember why I am here. "No. No, no, no, no, no, no," I murmur. I turn my head to look at Ren, and I see a sadness that I didn't notice at first. "Ren," I plead.
"I know, Kells," he says. He moves so he is sitting on the edge of my bed and gathers me into his arms. I cling to his shoulders and sob weakly.
He whispers words of his native language into my ear, and even though I can't understand him, the sound of the language soothes me. I realize that the pain I initially felt is nothing compared to the pain I feel now.
The nurse has been waiting patiently near the door, and I withdraw from Ren's embrace so she can do her job. Ren carefully lies me back down on the bed, and the nurse walks over to the right side of my bed.
"I am so, so, sorry," she whispers. I nod weakly, and don't bother to try to stem the tears carving riverbeds into my cheeks.
She takes my blood pressure, temperature, and checks some of my I.V.s. After making some short notes on her clipboard, she raises my bed to a sitting position, and rolls the tray of food over to me. There is a gray piece of turkey with gray mashed potatoes and grayish-green peas. There is also a Styrofoam container filled with gray-white pudding. The paper cup contains four pills; one white and circular, one gray and oval-shaped, one white and oval-shaped, and one blue and circular.
"Do you need anything else?" she asks nicely. I shake my head, and she quietly makes her exit.
I look at Ren, and his eyes fill with tears. "What happened?" I ask.
"I'm not entirely sure," he starts. "You called me, and I gave Anik to Kishan. I found you on the floor with your jeans soaking up blood. I grabbed you, and Kishan and I left Anik with Nilima. Kishan drove us to the hospital, and you just kept bleeding." Ren takes a shaky breath. "I was really scared, Kells. It was worse than when I found the Kappa on you."
I squeeze his hand to remind him that I am still here. It seems to work, though only minimally. "I'm okay, Ren. Well, I will be, anyway. Keep going."
"I carried you into the Emergency Room, and they gave us priority over everyone because, apparently, Rajaram Industries was much bigger in India than we realized. The doctors did what they could, but after you had been in surgery for two hours, the Chief of Surgery came out and told me there was nothing they could do.
"Kells, I thought he meant you. I thought he meant that you were dying, and I only had a few minutes before you were gone forever." Ren starts sobbing, and I can't do anything to comfort him, because my heart was breaking, too.
He wipes the tears from his eyes, and tries to continue. "I asked if I could see you, and the doctor said that was fine, so he led me into the surgical room. There was an incubator, like they had thought that they might have been able to save the baby, but they couldn't. You were laid out on the table-," Ren breaks off and squeezes my hand extremely tightly.
"The doctor said he was sorry again, that they had done everything they could for the baby, but it was simply too soon. 'The fetus was too small,' he said." Ren looks at the tray of food, and then stops talking. "Eat, Kelsey."
He drops my hand, presumably to make eating easier, but I pick his back up. I eat slowly, and then, courtesy of one of the pills, drift off into my first dreamless sleep in a long time.
~TR~
When I wake up again, Ren is sitting where he was before, and Kishan is sitting on the other.
"What day is it?" I ask.
Ren's eyes snap up to mine. "Wednesday, the twentieth," he answers. "How do you feel?"
"I've been out for three days?" I murmur incredulously. "Wait, the twentieth… Anik's nine months old today."
"Yeah, Kells. He misses you," Kishan says.
"He's nine months old, Kishan, not years. I doubt he even notices," I whisper dryly.
"How do you feel?" Ren asks again.
I smile slightly. "I feel fine. I'm just a little thirsty."
Ren jumps up and pours me a cup of water. He helps me sit up, and I slowly sip it.
"Can I see him?" I ask, referring to Anik.
"Um, no," Ren says apologetically. "No one under thirteen is allowed in this ward."
"Oh," I say sadly. "Do you have a picture of him?"
"Yeah," he says as he pulls out his phone. He pushes a few buttons, and then hands it over to me.
I see my son holding onto a lock of Kishan's hair. Kishan is grimacing, but Nik is grinning, showing is toothless gums. I smile, and then touch my abdomen. Tears start to flow as I think of the sibling that he will never meet.
"Ren, could they tell if it was a boy or girl?" I ask softly.
"No," he whispers. Kishan leaves the room, I guess to give Ren and me some alone time. "They said it was too early."
"Oh," I say sadly. "When can I go home?"
"Soon, iadala," Ren says lovingly. "I love you."
"I don't," I realize. "I hate myself. But I do love you, more than anything."
Ren looks alarmed. "Why would you hate yourself?"
"Ren, I can't even carry a child for more than three months."
Ren looks furious. "Kelsey, I refuse to let you blame yourself for this. It was in no way your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault."
"Then how did it happen?" I demand, tears forming in my eyes again.
"I don't know. It wasn't anyone's fault. It happened, and even though we wish it didn't, there is nothing we can do about it. We have a son who is waiting to see you, and if concern for yourself is not enough, I will not let you blame yourself when blame could affect his life," Ren says, very irritated.
"Okay," I say, and Ren looks even more worried than before. "What's wrong?"
"You aren't arguing with me. I'm going to go talk to the doctor. I promise I'll get you out of here as soon as possible." Ren lets go of my hand, and stalks out of the room.
Kishan comes back in. "How are you, bilauta?" he asks lightly.
"I've been better," I joke weakly. "I wish Ren was acting like you."
"What do you mean?" he asks.
"Well, you come in here like I just came in for a check-up, but Ren is acting like I was acting in a major car accident where I had to have most of my bone structure reconstructed," I explain.
"No, I'm acting like that on the inside. I just have to pretend, because the doctor said that stress would make you worse. I'll talk to Ren if you want," he offers graciously.
"No, that's okay," I say wearily. "That's just how he is. Would you sit my bed up for me?"
Kishan presses the button until I tell him to stop, and then he touches my forehead. He frowns slightly and says, "You feel hot."
"Ren always thinks that I have a fever, too," I inform him. "I think I just have a naturally high body temperature."
Ren comes into the room, followed by a very tall man.
"Hello, Mrs. Rajaram. I am Dr. Hudson. I am so sorry about your loss. How are you feeling today?" he inquires gently.
"Kind of tired, but other than that, perfectly fine," I say morosely. My emotional well being, on the other hand, isn't doing so well. "Can I go home today?"
"Possibly. I'll need to check your vitals, and do and ultrasound to make sure that everything is okay, but by the way you are acting, I feel very optimistic," he says.
I sigh in relief. He takes my blood pressure, listens to my heart beat from all over my body, and does things that I don't understand. As he leaves, he pins a chart up on the wall near the door, and looks back longingly at Ren and me.
"What was that about?" I ask Ren.
"What was what about?" he asks me with a quizzical look on his face.
"He looked at us weirdly. Like he was jealous or something," I muse.
"Maybe he is. He isn't wearing a wedding ring. Maybe he's just lonely," Ren muses.
I sigh contentedly. "Ren, I want to go home."
"I know, iadala," he says, kissing my hair. "I know."
~TR~
Two days later, I am declared healthy, and Ren is wheeling me into the house. I argued the wheelchair as hard as I possibly could, but to no avail. Ren just wouldn't let me walk. As soon as we cross the threshold, Nilima is waiting in the front room with my son. I hold my arms out, and she comes over to me and gives Nik to me.
I sigh happily and hold him tightly. "I love you," I whisper in his ear. Just seeing my baby has healed some of the holes in my inner garden where some of the baby's breath was savagely removed. Ren wheels me into the living room, and I move gingerly out of the chair and onto the couch.
"Okay," I say determinedly. "When are we going to see Phet?" I wait patiently, watching both Ren and Kishan grapple with being kind to me, and wanting to yell at me for wanting to go now.
Kishan gets a hold of himself first. "Kells, I don't think we are going to be able to go for awhile yet. You just had a…miscarriage," all three of us cringe at the word, "and you aren't fully recovered yet."
"Kishan, that's the thing," I say, trying not to sound like I'm whining. "I won't be fully recovered until I have a purpose again." As both Ren and Kishan open their mouths to say something, I get there before them. "A purpose other than getting better."
"Kelsey," Ren says, demanding that I look at him. His blue eyes are captivating, and I know that I am going to lose this battle. "It. Is. Not. Safe," he says shortly. "Even if it wasn't a concern for your safety, which it always is, think of Anik.
"If we took him with us, which Kishan says we have to, I would be constantly worried about you, then you would be mad at me, then Kishan would end up taking care of him, because both of us would be mad and want to be left alone," he says as he sits back in his chair with a satisfied smile, thinking that he won the argument, what with bringing Nik into the equation.
I take a slow, deep breath. I had been racking my brain for a good rebuttal, and Ren just gave me one.
"Ren, if you would cut the over protective crap for a few minutes, you would see what I am saying," I say, my impatience overtaking my common sense. "If you don't worry about me twenty-four seven, there wouldn't be an issue. If you let me worry about me, then we will be fine," I say adamantly.
Ren grumbles and I can tell that he isn't agreeing. I get up carefully because I still feel a little pain, but nothing so bad that a few ibuprofens won't help.
Kishan starts to say something, presumably about the wheel chair, but I silence him with a glare. I take Nik upstairs to play with him in my room alone, but Ren gets up from his chair and beats me to the stairs.
I glare at him, and he sighs in response as he takes my free hand.
"Kelsey, I'm not just going to go along with this one. I'm worried about you, and not just that you are physically okay," he says, and I can tell that he is attempting to use the full force of his eyes on me, but I refuse to look at him. His hand tightens on mine
"Dhiren, I need to do something besides just sit around the house," I plead into Nik's head. "I need a purpose in my life to get over it. When my parents died, I was a zombie for months. I was staying with a friend at that point, but when a social worker came to talk to me, I changed. I was working to be a good foster child to Sarah and Mike, and I was trying not to be a huge impact on my friend's life, and one day I looked in the mirror and I didn't look haunted," I say. Ren's hand loosens, and I can feel that he is close to acquiescence. "Ren, I will be okay. I just need a distraction."
My husband takes a deep breath. "Rajkumari, I see your point. Truly, I do. But I need you to see mine. I just saw you in the hospital, essentially in a coma for three days." I start to say something, but he holds his hand up. "I didn't stop you, so don't try to stop me. I know that you need something. So I propose that we wait. Not for a long time, but enough time for you to recover a little bit more. Maybe a week or two."
I think about his words. I know that this is a stretch for him, doing something that could potentially be dangerous to me, and I also know that he is trying. I decide to agree, knowing that I won't be able to get anything better out of him.
"Okay," I sigh heavily. "But I want your word that you won't attempt to delay me when I say that it is time to go."
He looks at me solemnly, and promises me with the same oath that he used so long ago when I found his e-mails when he came back to Oregon.
"As the prince of the Mujalaain Empire, I promise you that I will not attempt to delay you when you determine that it is time to go, provided that it is at least a week, preferably two, in the future."
I look down at Nik quickly, who is snuggling into my torso, and look back up at Ren, satisfied. "Thank you," I say simply.
"You're very welcome," Ren says huskily, and picks me up to put Anik in his room, and take us to ours.