Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Knight.

Precious

Staring out her bedroom window at the beauty of the sunset, the reds and pinks and golds washed across the sky as though spilled from a paint bucket, Yuuki would remember little of the five days of her hospital stay. Sometimes in her sleep she'd thrash and cry out as images were dragged up from the recesses of her mind—an imploding sensation in her gut; the image of a baby boy, naked, shivering, gasping for breath, a network of blue veins pulsing beneath transparent skin. Then the images would slyly slip back into her subconscious, and she would wake up screaming, unable to tell a terrified Zero anything more than "another nightmare…about…him."

The event that stood out to her the most was not being shot or nearly losing Zero—she was told many times about that, from Kaien, Zero, Kaname, even once Yagari Toga and the red-eyed stranger who had visited them so many months before—but it was as though her mind was playing tricks on her, trying to block the trauma from her thoughts. She did not clearly remember giving birth to her babies—it was all a blur of white; fuzzy figures rushing, machines beeping, all permeated by the dreadful cramps seizing her lower belly. And, with all the medicine the hospital personnel had given her—the epidural, the depressants, the sleeping solution, coupled with her weak, exhausted state, she barely even remembered learning her child was dead.

She vaguely remembered holding her son; not her daughter, but her son; holding his tiny figure and screaming to God to give her a miracle. Every day after her homecoming, she'd forget his tiny face a little more; his features would become more and more vague, and he began to slip away, into the vast melting pot of her distant memories. And every day, she hated herself more for it. For breathing the breath he'd never have. For not being there for him in the few hours he needed her most. For letting him go, even if she wasn't trying.

What Yuuki remembered most clearly of the whole hellish ordeal was the train ride home, how she'd stared, stupefied, at the dirtied back of her father's seat in front of her, held her little girl in her arms, bouncing her every once in a while and laying kisses on her cute little nose. How she'd fallen asleep against Zero's shoulder, and how, when she'd woken, he'd made his promise, stroking and kissing her hair:

"Don't worry, my love. You will have a son. One day, one day soon, I will give him to you, and he will be healthy, and beautiful, and he will be ours, our little boy. You hold me to that. I will give you a son."

Juuri had sneezed then, and Yuuki had been so inundated with that inexplicable motherly love that she'd hugged her baby against her chest as tightly as she dared, and for a brief moment nothing had seemed to matter but the wonderful family surrounding her on all sides on that train.

Ichiru. She had named Juuri's brother Ichiru. Not because his fate seemed similar to that of his late uncle—no, never—but because she had truly believed, deep in her heart, that he would survive. That he would make it. She truly believed that he was strong enough, and naming him after Zero's twin had given her even more hope.

Now, two and a half years later, the meaning of the word hope was just beginning to crawl back to her mind.

"'tousa!" Juuri squealed from the living room, and her squeaky-toy laugh floated through the apartment and padded Yuuki's ears. The corners of her mouth turned up and as she stood a movement in the lower right of the window caught her eye—a taxi pulling up. Kaname was here. She turned, her eyes resting for a brief moment on her thesis before Juuri's laugh echoed into the room again and she left the bedroom and trundled down the short hall.

Juuri was sitting on the floor of the living room, blocks spread out in the V her legs made, going off in different directions to support her fat little two-year-old body. Zero was lying on his elbow a few feet away, encouraging her to stack the blocks in different creative patterns.

"'Kaasa!" Juuri cried when Yuuki entered the room, and clumsily pulled herself to her feet and, dragging her MiMi doll behind her, ran up to Yuuki as quickly as her chubby little legs could carry her. She stopped at her mother's feet and held her arms above her head. "'Kaasa! 'Kaasa! 'Kaasa!"

"Could you go down and let them in?" Yuuki asked Zero, bending down to pull her daughter into her arms. "Hi there, my sweet love," she crooned, and kissed her baby on the cheek.

"'kaasa, pawk?" Juuri asked, pushing back from Yuuki's shoulder as Zero disappeared through the front door.

"Of course, beautiful," Yuuki said. "Uncle Kaname is taking you, remember? Okaasan and otousan have work to do."

Juuri pouted. "He's not here yet."

"Actually, precious, they just got here, just now. Otousan went down to let them in."

Juuri's small face lit up. "Really?"

Zero stood with a grunt. "Here," he said, taking his daughter from Yuuki so she could greet her brother. Juuri laughed and yanked his hair.

"Hey! OW!"

"'Tousa!" she shrieked, and buried her face in his shoulder.

"I hope you're still up to taking her to the park," Yuuki said, a small smirk playing on her face. Kaname smiled wearily and hugged his sister tightly. "No problem," he said.

"Pawk! Pawk! Pawk!" Juuri jumped up and down in Zero's arms.

"Looks like it better be soon, too," Kaname added.

"Don't you want to rest a minute?" Kaien said, glancing at Kaname in mild confusion.

"I don't think she can make it."

"You sure?" Yuuki asked.

"Would you like to come?"

"Oh, no thanks. You go ahead."

"Come on, sweetie." Zero took Juuri to the entrance. "Let's get your coat on."

"I'll go along," Kaien told Kaname as Zero handed Juuri off to her uncle after a few minutes of basic coat-wrestling.

"Have fun," Zero called, closing the front door behind them. When he turned around, Yuuki had already disappeared.

He found her behind the building, sitting among the bright tulips the complex had planted along the walkway. Clutching her knees to her chest with one arm, she toyed with the loose soil with her free hand. He sat gently next to her and put his arms around her shoulders.

"Yuuki?"

She threw the soil down and scooped up a bigger handful. He reached for her palm and tenderly brushed it free of soil, which had collected in thick black lines under her fingernails. "What's wrong, baby?"

She sighed heavily. "I had to drop my English class today. Now I won't be able to graduate for another semester. Another one. It's like I'm not going to be finished until I'm forty."

"That's not true. You've already done 45 credit hours—you'll probably only have to take one extra year."

"Oh, great. Only one."

"Hey now. I'm taking two."

"You're doing a double-major."

"Yuuki, come on. Isn't it worth it, to have her?"

Yuuki smiled slowly, Juuri's sweet little face floating to the front of her mind. "It's just…it's just…"

"What?"

"My academic advisor…made it pretty clear how she felt about my dropping English. I'm just so sick of all the pressure, Zero. To do more, be more, become more. And if anyone find out I have a child, it's like suddenly I'm some kind of whore, and…"

Zero kissed her cheek. "You're no more a whore than I am." Gotcha, he thought when she laughed.

"I just…I just want to be her mother, you know? Nothing else. I don't want to have a million degrees or a high-profile career or a big house. I just want to be able to make enough for my family, and spend my life being with them." She sighed and looked into his eyes. "I'm never as happy as when I'm with Juuri, or you. And I'd rather be that stupid housewife and raise our children than devote all my time to some huge job. Is that such a crime?"

Zero echoed her sigh and hugged her tight to his chest. "Of course not, Yuuki. Of course not."

Now she did smile, really smiled, and locked her arms around his neck, and he cradled her tiny frame in his arms and carried her back to the house.

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Sorry about the time it took to put this up, I started art school and it has, of course, completely consumed my life. Also if there are errors in this I apologize for that too, I have neither the time nor the drive right now to fix it. Maybe later.