"You really should relax, Rowena. Rest is all you need right now darling." Helga wrung out a cool wet rag and placed it upon her friend's forehead.
"I need to find him. How long has he been gone?" Rowena made a motion to stand but the pain in her abdomen was too intense, causing her to yell out in pain.
Helga gently placed her back down. "I will bind you if necessary, and Godric lost him in the Forest. We think he Disapparated."
"Who told him we lost her?" Rowena asked, suddenly furious, "I was going to do it myself. She was so… beautiful." Rowena was reduced to sobs.
"That she was dear, that she was." Helga held her friend in her arms, careful not to put any pressure on her stomach. Even though she was a midwife, this was the first stillbirth that Helga ever administered and she was still shaken up.
"Guinevere," said a voice from nowhere. Helga jumped and Rowena kept crying. Helga watched as Salazar skulked around from the corner.
"What?" Rowena asked through her tears.
"We should name her Guinevere. Guinevere Slytherin, clever and bright. Cunning and witty. Beautiful like her mother and wise like her father. She would've looked exactly like you my dear."
By this point, Salazar had sat on the other side of his wife and Helga let her friend go, so her husband could comfort her. She walked from the room to let the couple grieve the loss of their first child.
"Where's Salazar, Rowena?" Godric asked as he cleaned up the transfiguration class that Slytherin was supposed to preside over.
Rowena had just walked in from the gardens. "I don't know. I haven't seen him in two days. I never realized how large this place was until I lost my husband in it."
Rowena sat in the first chair, closest to Salazar's desk, which was now being occupied by Godric.
"What is that amazing smell?" Godric asked, nostrils flared.
"Lavender. I was planting it in the garden."
"That's wonderful and smooth. Almost sexy." he said, moving toward Rowena, he sat across from her and placed his hand on her knee.
"How are you, my dear?" he inquired.
"Fine. I'm stressed but fine."
"I mean your health. It hasn't been that long since your loss. Are you okay?"
Rowena took a while to answer, deciding that she and Godric we're close enough for her to answer truthfully.
"I will never be okay, Godric. I am better than I was, but I will never be okay again."
Godric frowned and looked deeply into her eyes, just realizing how blue they were. A stormy blue, like a clear lake during a tempest.
He also didn't realize his hand was still on her knee until a noise broke their eye contact.
"Salazar?" Rowena stood quickly and walked toward her husband, but he dodged her, and walked toward his desk.
"I only need… I only need some parchment from my desk."
"Where have you been mate?" Godric asked.
"Sasseth ssssessath," Salazar said, then he caught himself and said, "I'm simply doing as your cousin asked and setting up potions labs in the dungeons. I will be done soon enough."
"But what about your wife," Rowena spoke up.
"And the talk that we have yet to finish. We're supposed to discuss your teaching Transfiguration to everyone, not just your students."
"But more importantly, your wife." Rowena said again. She stood up and walked to stand beside Godric.
Salazar looked at them both in the eyes. He went to walk around them, parchment in hand but the broader Godric blocked his path. Slytherin rolled his eyes and Disapparated.
"He's gone mad." Godric said, throwing his hands into the air.
"Ever since Guinevere…" Rowena choked out her daughter's name.
"Shh," Godric rubbed his friend's back.
"I'm going to go talk to him," he said.
"No, Ric. Leave him be. People grieve differently."
Godric laughed.
"What?" Rowena asked.
"You called me 'Ric'. It's always been 'Godric' or 'Gryffindor' or 'pompous ass'. Careful Rowena, I might actually begin to think that you like me."
"Oh, that's never the case, pompous ass." Rowena said with a sly smile.