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The lights above me flickered and I watched them. I watched the shades of yellow paint the much too white walls, the clinical blanket that covered me. I listened to the buzz as I closed my eyes, knowing that St. Mungo's, the hospital that housed me, deserved better. That I deserved better.
"You're dying." Their words had rung inside me since they said them, the tipped up eyebrows, the twitch of sorrow in their lips. "It could reverse itself, but all we can do is wait."
"And...and there are no spells? No potions?" Sirius' voice had wavered with grief, frustrations. He spoke the words I could not, my mind already fuzzed by the things they had given me. A fuzziness that was there still.
"Not for this."
The night came to me in patches, my unconsciousness stitched between them. There was so much black. So much I couldn't remember. So much I had missed. So much I had failed.
The inside of me felt hollow, broken, and it was. The things I had known, the things I had wanted were pulled apart and shaped into something that I no longer recognized.
Sirius had cried. I'd never seen that before. His shoulders had trembled with sobs that left his body in an ugly rasp, his fingers had clenched around my blankets. I could do little to comfort him, I had been too far gone. I could watch only the blurriness of his features, my vision obscured by the potions that had been tipped down my throat and the veil I was so close to passing through. Faded touches and mumbles were not what he deserved. This had broken both of us.
I was clear enough now, just enough, to picture the things I'd be missing. The things awaiting me at home. The soft pink of the nursery we had painted together so many months before, the velvet blankets meant to hold a baby. The rocking chair that sat alone in a corner, it's potential use now in question.
She hadn't been pink either. Her cheeks weren't that rosy shade of happiness. She was like no other baby I had seen before. And even her, I was only allowed a split-second glance before she was whisked away and I was brought here.
I thought of the pain from the days before, that gentle nag that told me something was off, but that if I tried hard enough I could ignore. The nag that had grown violently, consuming me until I convulsed with it. Until I screamed words I didn't know I knew and begged anyone to take it away.
I thought of the nausea that had come so suddenly, consuming me and sending my breakfast to the floor. The discomfort I'd equated with a muggle flu. The exhaustion that had pulled me beneath sheets and into my dreams. Things I thought had been normal.
Then there were the spots. The brilliant flashes across my vision as though I'd stared at a light too long. The catalyst, the final spark for my realization that something was very wrong.
There had been tests resulting in spells and whispered conversations in the hall beyond my hospital door. Statements of surprise, "we've never seen it present like this."
The heartbeat inside my belly diminishing, hers. My own fluttering desperately behind it.
That was when the black began. The space in my memory I could not recall, the things that had been done to me that I was unaware of.
Instead, I was locked in a body that thundered with agony, every pound of my heartbeat echoing inside my head, spelling out the words I thought to be true, not enough. I hadn't done enough. Hadn't been fast enough. Hadn't been prepared enough. Hadn't been careful enough.
I wanted to sleep, but if what they said was true, if these were the last hours of my life, did I want to spend them in my dreams? Did I want to cascade into another world where life was easy and such painful things didn't exist? Where the white of my hospital gown was replaced by finer things, by a family that was safe?
I cried instead. It was all I could do.
My body shook as the tears carved down my cheeks, following the tracks of the ones that had spilled hours before. I didn't know how I had any left.
I didn't know how any part of me held together when I felt as though my seams had been torn, the threads holding me together frayed and useless. Everything I was spilling out into the spaces of these sheets and the dimly lit room.
"Mar, oh, Mar."
I heard Sirius' voice, a shadowed whisper, the letters of my name cracked by his own grief. I felt the bed give beside me, felt the warmth of his body as he pressed himself close. I only cried more.
He said nothing. He didn't try to take it away, didn't give false hopes or speak of the possibility I might live. It was a dangerous thing to wish for. A wish that only made the eventuality worse.
I listened to the sound of him breathing instead, the rasps of a throat made raw with tears. I felt his fingers trail along the strands of my hair, perhaps memorizing the pieces of me that too soon would be cold and buried.
We had been so excited, our anticipation growing with each passing week, each milestone, each kick and movement. Now it was an anticipation of if I would be okay, of when she would be able to leave. An anticipation of the normal we had expected.
I could hardly bear to think of her. The thought of losing myself, of leaving her behind when we were supposed to have so much more was the most painful thing of all. It surpassed that which was inside of me. It grew around the fear that had latched itself to my soul, feeding like a parasite on every good thought I had of her.
I didn't want to distract myself with thoughts of her. I didn't want to think of the baby that knew only the touch of strangers in a room far from mine.
But, Sirius didn't understand.
"She's so little," he began, his voice a quiet whisper beside me, the words spaced with sniffles. Anything said louder would have fractured the bubble around us we had created. "They gave her this little blanket." He held his hands out in front of us, estimating the square of fabric with a gesture of his fingers. "I can't believe it covered her."
I sniffed, saying nothing, picturing his words. I listened as he talked, telling me about the color of her skin and the brown of her hair, the brightness of her eyes when she had looked at him. It was an image of her, of Sirius at her side that quieted my sobs and lulled me into a sleep I didn't want to come, but that had all the same.
My sleep was dreamless, but still, it had been happier. The black had held no pain or grief, there, I simply was.
When I woke again it was to the tingle of a spell cast over me, the hushed words of the mediwitch who had cast it. Sirius' question, deep and sorrowful, afraid of hope.
"Is she… is it better?"
His voice stretched from across the room and I wondered when he had left the bed beside me. Wondered if hours had passed or days.
The Mediwitch gave a sigh and I shifted on the bed to look at her. I felt so heavy as I moved, weighed down by the rocks of my own despair.
"The functionality has improved," she said finally, her words meant for Sirius. "The cell destruction has slowed."
"But, it's not enough," his words were slow with disappointment.
"We can't yet say."
With a quiet exhale and a beat of time, he spoke again, just as she was about to turn away. "When Marlene wakes, can she see her?"
I heard the things Sirius didn't say, heard the insinuations that didn't need to voiced, that if I died, this could be my last chance to see my daughter and her me.
"I'm awake." I fumbled over the words, my tongue numb from the sleep that had come over me. I forced my eyelids open, forced myself to focus on the ceiling that swirled above me. I forced the facade that I was okay, that I was well enough for this.
The Mediwitch's lips were flat, pressed into a line, but I could see the understanding shining through the shadowed blue of her eyes.
"It can't make things worse," I begged, the corners of my eyes wetting with the worry of her denial.
"It can't make things worse," she repeated with a glance over her shoulder. "I'll send someone to get you."
The time from when she stepped from the room until the Mediassistant entered seemed to stretch into eternity. I shifted in anticipation, straightening on the bed that had become my death sentence.
Even the pain couldn't stop this, my skin that threatened to tear, my organs that threatened to fail. I felt my body pause, clinging to survival perhaps a few moments more as I was wheeled out. Wheeled towards her.
The white of these hallways was different from that of my room. They felt different as I was pushed down them, Sirius following behind. There was something brighter about the paint that had been put upon these walls, the tile beneath me a little shinier.
Nothing could dull the chance I didn't think I would have.
The happiness I felt was dimmed by what I found. Replaced by a new heartbreak I hadn't considered.
It was glass boxes. Separation. Questions that I of all people shouldn't have had to ask. There was soap meant to cleanse away the germs I carried with me, that clung perhaps to these blankets and the plastic of the bed that carried me down.
The space was congested, Healers and Mediwitches wandering between glass rooms, their eyes glazing over their miniature patients. The sparks of spells lit this place, some meant to diagnose, some to monitor, and others to heal.
I looked at them all. At every room, each with a placard and a name, a chair beside an omnibed. I looked at the boxes of gloves, the paperwork spread across desks, the baby supplies that lingered in cabinets waiting to be used. I was overwhelmed and I felt my chest contract. I felt my spit grow solid in my throat.
I thought that I would have been drawn towards her, my heart recognizing hers, but I had no idea. I could have wandered into any room, chosen any infant and thought that it was mine.
I was pushed into a room tucked inside the back, a room I hadn't first noticed. It was quiet. There was no sound of her breathing, her lungs too small, not fully grown, but I knew it was there. I knew that blood pumped inside her, that she was better off. That she was healthy when I was not. I felt the tears inside me grow again, this time out of happiness. Happiness that even if I didn't make it, she might, that throughout my failure, her life had been protected.
I watched through these tears as a new Mediwitch passed her to me, as I was able to hold her for the first time. They pressed her against my chest and she was much too small, too fragile. My hands eclipsed her and I was afraid she'd break beneath me. Afraid to touch the skin that was still such a brilliant red, a translucent view into what was beneath.
My chest rose, the sobs within it growing. My fingers brushed her hair, so soft beneath my fingers and for a moment I forgot what had brought us here. I forgot that we weren't normal, that danger waited just beyond. I stared at her instead, the red of her skin bundled inside white and pink. A bundle of innocence and childlike wonder. I looked at the way she explored me, her eyes scanning mine in those few seconds they were open, her fingers running along the skin of my neck, and I knew. I knew that if I remained in this world or the next she would always be mine, that if she came with me into the beyond, the three of us would always be connected and that, if nothing else, would be enough. It had to be.
The words that prompted this story were "trauma" and "fear". For me, this is not a story, but rooted in my life and it was absolutely full of fear and even more trauma.
Story Title/Link: Enough
Special Rule: Incorporate the colour white and the meaning behind it in your story: Innocence
School and Theme: Illvermorny
Main Prompt: Baby Pink
Additional Prompts: Sirius/Marlene, anticipation
Year: 3
Wordcount: 2114
Summary: I hadn't expected the pain that would come, that placed me in this hospital. Hadn't expected the fear or the heartbreak. We hadn't planned on it. But, it had come anyway and now I was fighting for my life and my child for hers.