Notes: Thank you all for continuing with me. I'm thinking I might need to post more on Sundays than Saturdays, we'll see how it goes.

WARNINGS: mild sexual content

38. And This Gives Life to Thee

Her time has run out. That's all Hermione can think as she wipes the latest traces of sickness from her trembling lips. Never mind the timeline Draco gave her, the nausea is unrelenting and she's lost the will to fight it.

Her broken body wins yet again.

She spits in the sink, turning the faucet to high before plunging her face under the cold stream. It does nothing to alleviate the chill creeping through her bones, but it keeps the nausea at bay.

She grabs blindly for a towel on the rack and wipes the fluffy mass of it across her face. Her skin stings under the pressure, but it's a discomfort she's happy to bear.

When she looks up, her eyes meet Tom's in the mirror. He leans against the doorway, black tee stretching across his chest. There's a gap between where his shirt ends and the grey sweats he uses to sleep begin. Her gaze lingers appreciatively before rising up again.

She expects a knowing smirk to grace his full lips, but they're pressed into a hard line and his expression is a world away from playful.

"We need to talk," he says and the absolute void of emotion behind the words makes her adrenaline spike.

She wraps her dark cardigan more fully around her as she turns to face him. "About what?"

He ignores the question. "Not here."

Hermione follows him back to their bedroom. He perches on the bed for a moment before springing to his feet. His arms cross and uncross as he wears a line in the floor at the foot of the bed. She's never seen him this agitated, this out of control.

Her trepidation ratchets up, her pulse gathering momentum until it does a frantic tap dance beneath her skin. She stops just shy of the bed and turns to watch him pace.

Her stomach takes a particularly nasty turn and she sighs. She's too exhausted to fight the nausea for long. "Tom, you need to tell me now. Otherwise, the nausea is going to win again and we'll just be back at the toilet."

Tom stops abruptly, pivoting to face her. "Right."

"So?" she prompts, trying to think only of the riot of expressions warring on his face and not the riot in her gut.

He crosses the space between them, hands coming to her hips. He gently guides her to sit at the edge of the bed. Tom drops into a crouch before her with a grace that heats her blood and reminds her of all the ways he can make her ache. But his expression is still far too somber. Whatever he's about to say, it doesn't involve the way they spend their nights.

"I know what's wrong with you."

Her brows shoot up to her hairline. "What?"

"The chills, the nausea. I know what's wrong," he repeats. But his tone is a far cry from the confident baritone she knows.

"Well?"

He dips his head, his forehead coming to rest in her lap. She combs a hand through his silken hair, relishing the soft kiss of the ebony strands. When he looks up at her again, his eyes are glossy with emotion.

"Please don't hate me for this."

She doesn't think she could hate him, even if he somehow regressed into the monster he'd once been. "Tom, you're scaring me."

Holding her gaze, he places a hand on her pelvis, fingers splaying over her thick cardigan. "I found a way to give you what you want."

Hermione stares down at his hand. Her head is a buzzing mass of confusion. "I don't follow."

Tom licks his lips and squeezes his beautiful eyes shut. When they open, there's a raw look in them that Hermione feels rattle her soul. "I found a way to make you a mother."

Her focus snaps to the hand splayed across her pelvis then back to his desperate face. He can't possibly mean what she thinks he does. The healers said there was no chance. That no amount of magical repair could return her womb to what it was.

"They said—"

"It isn't magic," he cuts her off. His jaw twitches and he adds, "it's something far more powerful."

"But I'm…" she trails off, hardly able to think the word, let alone say it.

"Pregnant." He nods, his fingers caressing her abdomen. "Yes."

She ought to be angry with him. For doing this without her permission. For making this choice for her. But she isn't. He knew what she lost and he somehow found a way.

"How?" she chokes out through the raging mix of shock and euphoria.

"It's why I needed the Hallows," he admits. "I knew their power was greater than anything magic could provide. That each Hallow is imbued with magic is mere happenstance. The true power comes when they're united. When Death is at your command."

A dark tendril of unease snakes through her incoherent joy. The idea of Death at Tom's command is not reassuring. "What did you do?"

He keeps one hand on her belly, but lifts the other to trace the contours of her face. "What I had to. To give you what had been taken."

Doubt simmers beneath the surface. That he has hidden this from her—this thing that should be impossible to hide—does not engender trust. That he offers no details, that he began this process without her consent are warning signs she can't ignore.

"Tom," she growls, low and fierce. "What did you do?"

"I gave you our child."

She about to push further, to dig in as far as he will let her, but her mind snags on his words. "Our?"

He nods, stretching up to brush his lips over hers. "Our child. Just like if we were normal. Part you, part me."

Hermione's breath hitches. Not only is she carrying a baby, but it belongs to the man she loves. A piece of Tom is now inside her, growing.

She can't fully process it. Still hasn't accepted such a thing is possible. But the nausea—it explains the nausea. She stares down at his hand and tentatively places her own over it. "How far along?"

He shifts her hand beneath his. "Nearly eight weeks. Although the total length of term may differ from the usual. There's not exactly a precedent for this type of birth."

It's approximately the duration of time they've been intimate with each other. She doesn't dare contemplate the rest of his admission, not yet. She looks up at him, drowning in wonder and terror. "We did this?"

"With a little help, but yes. The baby was conceived the conventional way." The familiar smirk finally settles over his lips.

She can't help the urge to taste it. His lips are even sweeter than usual, the knowledge of what they now share bursting through her. He meets her with equal fervor, rising on his knees and pressing her back against the bed. He slips the layers of her cardigan and shirt away until his lips press against the skin of her abdomen, worshipping her flesh with delicate bites and wanton caresses of his tongue.

She whines, deep in her throat and spreads her legs for him. Tom has her heavy sweats and knickers on the floor in moments. He dips his head to bury it between her legs, but she yanks on his dark curls.

"No. I want you inside me," she tells him. "Just like when we…"

His answering smile could melt the artic. Tom guides her back upon the mattress and shucks his jeans in one graceful motion. He's buried in her an instant later, swift and sure. She claws at his back, pulling him closer.

Tom's breath mingles with hers, his sapphire gaze unwavering as he stares down at her. Hermione shifts the angle of her hips and lets out an ecstatic sob when he hits just the right place. The familiar slide of him within her is heightened by the knowledge of what he has done. What he has given her.

Now isn't the ideal moment. If she'd still had a functioning body, she certainly would have waited until she was no longer a teenager, but that choice was taken from her. Forever. Until Tom did the unthinkable.

Her lips part with a moan as he drops his mouth to the line of her jaw and nibbles greedily. She threads her hands through his fine hair and pulls his obedient mouth to hers.

They move in perfect tandem, the high building inside her like nothing she's ever experienced. Where before there was hedonistic desire and overwhelming adoration, this is something new. Something brilliant and peaceful. Something powerful.

The ability to create life, to nurture it. The knowledge that her life is not the end. That a piece of her will live on. That a piece of him will live on.

Words aren't enough. Nor is the euphoric slide of flesh. Nothing will ever be enough to express the complex vastness of this emotion that floods hers.

She is no longer alone.

Her body, which has done nothing but fail her, has succeeded in this. Perhaps not on its own. But still, it has found a way to nourish this child, to give her hope where there was none.

When they collapse, side by side, breathless from far more than the exertion, Hermione is boneless. She feels like she's floating in the clouds, like they've broken gravity as well as biology.

When she tilts her head to study Tom, the sight of him takes her breath away. Gone is the morose boy who escapes with cigarette in hand. Gone is the sultry lover who teaches her the heights of pleasure. In his place is an angel, the pure embodiment of joy. The pallor of his skin has morphed, becoming an iridescent moonlit glow despite the absence of light beyond their window. His eyes are the heart of a flame, pure sapphire lit from within. His perfect symmetry is more obvious than ever, interrupted only by the dark sweep of his hair.

He is the most arresting creature she has ever seen. And he is the father of her child.

Hermione crashes her lips to his. He smiles against her.

She pulls back, matching his loopy grin, and drops to the bed.

There are a million doubts she should be working through. A thousand unknowns that could temper this joy. But she won't think of them. Not now. Not when her wildest dreams have come true.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner," Tom whispers against her hair. "I needed to be sure it worked. I didn't want you to believe it had only to lose the baby…"

Although she resents the omission, she understands his choice. If she could spare him pain, she would do it too. It's the reason she delayed asking about her sickness for so long.

She realizes the late-night walks, the piles of cigarettes, they were all a product of his fear, his doubt that this conception would succeed. Her chest tightens, her heart throbbing for him and all he has done for her.

"I was going to ask you about the nausea and the chills," she tells him. "In the bathroom earlier, I'd finally made up my mind to come clean with you."

He nuzzles her cheek with his nose. "Great minds think alike."

A quiet laugh escapes her lips, like chimes in the wind. "I suppose so. The world ought to fear our child."

"Indeed," he murmurs.

She shifts on the pillow until his face comes into focus. "I've always known nausea is associated with pregnancy, but what about the chill? You indicated the pregnancy should explain that too, but I've never heard of such a thing."

He catches his bottom lip between his teeth, searching her face. "The chills are a side effect of the means of our pregnancy. Of the power that makes our child possible."

All the sweet emotions drain from her in an instant. She's left with only a terrifying certainty.

"Death," she whispers.

"Yes."

~*~ Break ~*~

It's been seven days since Tom admitted the truth. Seven days since Hermione's quivering voice explained they were going to be parents. Seven days since the bottom fell out from Draco's world once again.

Draco still can't wrap his mind around it.

In certain ways, it's a perfect explanation. Hermione sickness correlates well enough with her persistent nausea. Her diminished energy level is easily explained by sustaining two beings instead of one.

But other parts make his bones quake and his blood frozen sludge.

He doesn't trust this deal Tom made. They will have a child, but what is the price they will pay? No one walks away from a deal with Death. That's the entire point of the Peverell brothers' story. It's not a roadmap to conquering Death, but a warning to those who seek to control him.

And Draco can't think of a more apparent sign of such arrogance than having Death create life. Whatever Tom has done, it will not end well for any of them.

Draco runs a hand through his hair and takes a gulping breath of the cool morning air. The sun just kisses the horizon, golden yellows and blossom pinks tracing glowing fingerprints upon the base the of the low clouds.

He hardly appreciates nature's spectacular show.

Even if he gets past the implications of using Death's power to create life, there's still the insanity of Hermione Granger having a child with Tom Riddle. With a boy who's possessed his entire soul for only a handful of months. Who was stuck in a bloody diary until the last year. Who is not Voldemort, but could have been.

It's pure madness. And that's without adding Draco's personal feelings into the mix.

He's happy for them, as much as he can be considering the circumstances. But this permanent bond between them breaks what was left of Tom and Draco. Which isn't a bad thing, but Draco had planned on whittling down that connection in his own time, not having an impossible child do it for him.

Then there's the matter of the child itself. Tom indicated the baby will likely follow an irregular gestation schedule, making traditional healers unsuitable for care. But neither Draco nor Tom is skilled enough to hold the lives of Hermione and her child in their hands. So they're left hoping and praying to the forces that be that nothing will go wrong because Draco is absolutely certain they can't afford to ask any more favors of Death. Astoria and the paltry training she's had since his mother's trial may be their only choice, if he can convince the others she's trustworthy enough.

His head aches just thinking about the mess of it.

Draco sighs, world weary and beyond exhausted, as he settles on the front porch beside Tom. The dark boy twirls an unlit cigarette between his fingers as he watches the dawn consume the early morning fog.

"I could hear you thinking from a mile away," Tom comments, voice dangerously neutral.

Draco merely slants a look at him. He has a thousand things to say to Tom, but none of them are pleasant.

"Now I can feel you boring a hole in my skull." This time there's a wry humor crusting the words.

Draco refuses to be baited. Instead, he leans back on his elbows and tips his head up to the golden sky. Perhaps he can lose himself in the radiant watercolor above.

"Salazar, Draco," Tom hisses, "say something."

They've talked since the revelation, but not much and certainly not about anything that matters like Hermione or the baby.

"What exactly would you like me to say?"

"You clearly have something you'd like to tell me," Tom grits out, a feat considering how tight his jaw has become.

Draco has several somethings that itch his tongue, begging to be released. He's also certain Tom wants to hear exactly none of it. "Now is not—"

"Now is exactly the time," Tom growls.

There is no appropriate time to tell the boy you love that he's made a grievous error and doomed himself, the woman he loves and their baby.

He doesn't say any of that. Instead asking, "what were you thinking?"

Tom takes several breaths to recover from his roiling ire. When he speaks, the edge of frustration lingers. "I thought I could fix something for once, instead of destroying it. I thought I could prove how much I've changed."

"Neither of us ever needed you to prove anything," he points out, but Tom shakes his head.

"That's all I have left to do. To prove I'm not the monster I once was. To prove I'm enough."

And as much as Draco wants to disagree again, he also knows Tom makes a valid point. With magic taken away, he has little in his life besides Hermione and Draco. No one else knows who he is, but he, like Draco, may never truly escape his past.

Draco fails to see how providing Hermione with an impossible child solves anything. They never expected Tom to fix what Voldemort had broken. That he is not like him, that his soul is whole and light is more than enough.

But he knows the power of self-doubt, and if he takes a moment, he understands Tom's manic need to fix everything he can, to scrub the stain of Voldemort from every corner of their world.

None of it warrants a deal with Death.

"I'm not stupid, Tom."

Draco stares at him, trying to pry beneath the surface of his mind with willpower alone. He knows better than to give into the temptation to use Legilimency. To force the horrid truths to the surface. Such an invasion is a massive breach of trust and Draco will not cross that line no matter what disaster he fears lies ahead. No matter how many pieces his heart fractures into.

"No, you're rather clever." The dark boy blinks at him from beneath sooty lashes. "But some things are always going to be beyond you, no matter how clever you are."

Draco is well aware of the truth of that statement. Of the secrets he doesn't want to learn. "Fine. Let's pretend you've answered the why, which you haven't. That leaves me with how. How did you garner such an extraordinary gift from Death, Tom? I know such a bargain comes only at a steep price."

Tom's lips stretch upward, the ghost of a sultry smirk. "Am I not charming enough?"

Draco gives him a hard look. "I hardly think Death wants to take you to bed."

"Alas, you are correct," Tom sighs, raking a hand through his hair and looking to the swelling light upon the horizon.

It's crystal clear Tom isn't going to admit the price he paid without Draco forcing his hand. And Draco doesn't want to push. He doesn't bloody want to know.

But he owes it to all of them—Tom, Hermione, himself and even the unborn child—to figure out what Tom has done.

"Why did you ask me to stay?"

He knows there was more to Tom's desperation than the hope Draco would help Hermione through her pregnancy. Tom wanted him here for a reason. A reason that drove him to the brink of begging.

The dark boy says nothing, the column of his throat working silently. Draco grits his teeth and narrows in on that small fracture. "It wasn't because she's pregnant, was it? No, you did something else and you need me here to fix whatever mistake you've made."

"Mistake?" Tom's laugh is low and hard, an echo of Voldemort. "This is no mistake."

"But it is something," Draco insists.

The other boy groans. "Why can't you let this go, Draco?"

Draco wants to seize his shoulders and shake him. To force Tom to see path he's chosen, the madness churning in his wake. This baby may seem a miracle, but Draco's not that naïve. The cost of such a gift is...massive.

A cold bolt of terror lodges in his chest, scraping against his lungs with every inhale. He hasn't allowed himself to imagine, has stopped this train of thought before he can ponder the consequences.

Now, though, the possibilities slam into him like a thousand blades. His vision swims, the horizon blurring to a roiling mass of light and shadow.

Blood streaming across pale skin. The light in Tom's azure eyes extinguishing in the blink of an eye. The keen of Hermione, forehead pressed against cold, hard marble. An ache is his heart that will never mend. Wails of agony, echoing through the madness of eternity, pressing down on him like the sodden dirt of a damp grave.

And other, more fragmented moments that transcend earthly suffering. The idea of his soul fracturing, of a debt repaid only in the after.

"Whatever you did," Draco manages to rasp, "it cannot be worse than what I fear."

Tom's focus snaps to him, eyes widening as he surveys the devastation laid plain on Draco's features. Draco can't hide this terror even if he wanted to, not after his control slipped. Not after he faced a million horrible echoes of what might come.

"Draco…"

And there's an apology in that word that he craves, but it isn't enough. It will not erase Tom's choice. It will not alter the destiny Tom has forced upon them.

"Just tell me."

It's a demand and a plea and a declaration. Perhaps more. Draco is too exhausted to know. He is tired of this game, of the web of half-truths that have drawn him in far too deep.

A week ago, he thought he could leave. That moving on from Tom was merely the movement of his feet away from the other boy. A bitter laugh cracks his trembling lips. How utterly naïve he was. To think escaping Tom Riddle was a matter of mere distance.

He can cross oceans or even galaxies and never be free. Not now. Not after whatever Tom has done.

Anything less and the other boy would have told him by now. They've seen blood on each other's hands. They know the depths of depravity that exist. They have scraped those depths together on more than one occasion.

This is worse than bloodshed, Draco understands with abrupt clarity. This isn't Tom slipping down the slope towards Voldemort and all his baser instincts. This isn't a simple death for a life, yet another soul snuffed out by Tom's mania.

Draco wishes Tom had simply killed someone. A Muggle. A Wizard. It doesn't matter. It would be awful, but he would understand. He would know that Tom had weighed the costs and found Hermione's happiness superior to the life of a stranger. Despicable, but logical considering his experience.

But blood on his hands isn't something Tom hides from Draco.

So it's worse.

Tom tears at his hair until chunks of it fly upward. It's nothing like Harry's unruly nest, but it's the most unkempt Draco has ever seen it and that includes the whole array of their more carnal adventures.

After he's attempted to rip his silken hair from his scalp, he turns to Draco. "You can never tell her. Not until the time comes."

Draco absolutely does not want to promise that. "No."

"Yes. Or I walk away right now and we never have this conversation again."

They're resorting to ultimatums again. It's another sign of how they've stumbled. They've irrevocably mangled their relationship over the past few months. The choices they've both made tearing them further apart even as the attraction still wrenches them together.

Draco wants to blame Tom, but he knows he has a hand in this mess as well. They won and instead of moving forward, instead of reaching for the life they dreamt of—whatever that was, they mired themselves in their mistakes. In what might have been. Or worse, in denial of their past entirely.

Draco's taken to denial like an addict to an elixir while Tom seems to have lost himself to the infinite well of guilt.

Draco tells himself he's moving forward. But he hasn't seen his mother in months. Hasn't done anything but tear the Malfoy name to shreds. But erasing his name isn't going to erase his past.

While Draco lost himself to futile attempts to rewrite history, Tom took up the impossible task of atoning for another man's sins.

And now they've reached a fatal crossroads because they were both looking the other way.

Denial isn't going to save Draco. Atonement certainly hasn't helped Tom.

"Fine. I promise."

"No," Tom shakes his head, azure eyes midnight dark despite the rising sun. "You need to vow. Upon your life."

Sweet Salazar, maybe it is worse than Draco imagined.

"I vow."

The sun explodes over the horizon, the world a hazy glow of morning joy. Looking into the depths of Tom's eyes, Draco experiences none of it. He stares into the depths of midnight. The complete absence of light and heat. He feels only the slow unraveling of his hope.

"I made a deal with Death."

That Draco already knows. "Using the Hallows."

"To summon him, yes." Tom's jaw trembles and when he continues, his voice catches and breaks like a wave against unyielding stone. "But that was only enough for an audience. I had to give him something more."

Every last drop of blood drains from Tom's face as he continues, "so I gave him what was necessary. What would give Hermione back what was taken. What I helped take from her."

The silence between them is a horrible ringing thing that makes Draco want to plug his ears, if only to escape it. But he doesn't dare move, let alone breathe, so it stretches onward to eternity.

At last Tom manages the final, fatal words. "I gave him my life."

And it would be bad enough if it was only Draco gasping. If only Draco's voice echoed into the morning that is far too bright for such a dark revelation.

But it isn't.

"What?"

One word has never sounded so broken.

The look on Hermione's face teaches Draco a new flavor of agony. But it's nothing compared to the ruination that refracts Tom's handsome features into every hue of suffering. He is a brutal rainbow of desolation.

Then she is running, bumping their shoulders as she explodes out the door and into the silvery morning fog.

Tom lurches to his feet, but Draco clamps a hand on his arm. "You've done enough."

And if that truth multiplies the shades of suffering upon Tom's face, Draco doesn't have the energy to care. This is a bludger to the skull he's seen coming, but reacted too slowly to stop.

Tom bloody deserves to understand what a mess he's made.

And Draco will find a way to pick up his pieces. Because, Merlin help him, this is not how their story ends.

Notes: A quick aside. Morning sickness is the biggest misnomer ever in pregnancy. Many women who do experience it are nauseous all hours of the day. And for some of us, it lasts well into the second trimester. I've known women who have lost 15 lbs in the first trimester because of the severity of the nausea. It sucks. It's not associated with food, really, but you often end up losing food, sometimes hours after you've eaten. It is all consuming. Hermione sexual drive in this story is perhaps the most unrealistic detail. Most of us couldn't care less about sex when we feel so damn horrible. We'll chalk it up to Tom being extra attractive or something like that, lol.