A/N: Bit of a trigger warning on this chapter, I'm afraid, for a miscarriage. Sorry.
True to his word, Elias was almost annoyingly attentive for the next two days, to the point, Chise reflected, that she would have had to call in sick from sheer exhaustion, had she been scheduled to work. As it was, it was quite late Sunday evening before he finally seemed sated, lying back with a sigh.
"You don't know how good it feels to finally give in to you to my heart's content like that."
"All very well and good for you," Chise mumbled as her eyes drifted closed. "Can't feel my legs, myself."
Elias did seem quite confident that his extensive efforts would bear fruit, so to speak, treating her with an air of smug proprietariness that she tolerated with an indulgent smile. And indeed, her usually-regular menses were late. One week passed by, as she crossed off the days on her calendar with a careful hand, two weeks, three—and then they struck with a vengeance.
Chise groaned, clutching her knees to her chest with shaking hands, resting her spinning head on them. The heat of the bath was not helping as much as it should have; it was just making her feel faint. The water was red with blood.
Elias gently brushed a strand of hair back from her damp forehead, and sighed softly as he rose, his shoulders slumping slightly.
"Out of the bath, my love," he said, gathering her up out of the water to stand, dripping, on the mat, and wiping her face with a cool, wet cloth. "I don't like how pale you are. I want you into bed."
Chise cried out, clasping her hands to her tummy as her knees buckled beneath her. Another trickle of deep red blood ran unheeded down her thighs. "It hurts, Elias!" She whimpered, weakly.
"I know, love. I know," he soothed, gathering her up into a large, fluffy towel, scooping her up to carry her up the stairs. Tears trickled down her waxen cheeks, her eyes bruised and sunken, as she curled as tightly as she could against the pain.
The Silver Lady awaited them in their bedroom, duvet already turned back, more towels in place, smoothed and ready. Her eyes were concerned as she handed Elias another towel, loosely rolled, which he placed firmly between her thighs before tucking her in.
"Rest now, Chise," he murmured, giving her a long, gentle nuzzle. "I'll be back with medicine soon."
At his inclined head and meaningful glance, Silver gave her a comforting pat before following him into the hallway.
"She's hemorrhaging magic as well as blood," he said quietly, closing the door behind them. "You've seen many pregnancies over the years, I expect, haven't you? This is what I think it is, isn't it?"
Eyes downcast, she nodded.
He sighed heavily. "Well, I suppose it's to be expected. At least it was early in; I don't think she's realized yet."
Rubbing his hands over his face, he started down the hallway to his study. "I don't like her pallor. I'm going to make something for the pain, something to help strengthen her. Would you send word to Shannon, please? I'm not sure she wouldn't be better off in the Anthill. But I don't want them swarming her and feasting from her, either."
The Silver Lady nodded, and left him to it. Her mistress's doctor would be summoned with alacrity.
Chise was somewhere between fast asleep and unconscious as Shannon took her pulse. "Weak, but steady," she said at last. "But you're right; she's lost more blood than I'd have liked. I don't think she needs a transfusion yet, though, although I'll keep monitoring her just in case. You said she started bleeding this morning?"
Ruth peeked out of Chise's shadow, his glowing eyes dim and weary. "The bleeding started just before breakfast, but she was feeling off yesterday evening already."
"Why didn't you say anything?" Elias demanded.
Ruth looked at him sidelong. "We both just thought she was just tired and crampy. Periods aren't much fun at the best of times, you know." Elias had the grace to look abashed. "It was almost lunchtime before we realized it was still getting worse and worse, and that something else was wrong. It is wrong, isn't it," he added to Shannon, making it more of a statement than a question.
The fae doctor nodded. "She's having a miscarriage," she calmly, but not unkindly, confirmed.
"Ah. We thought so. I hoped she was wrong, but she didn't think she was."
Elias sank onto the bed beside his wife, taking her hand in his, stroking her hair with his other. His shoulders drooped. "When she was so late, when there was so much blood, I knew," he said, to no one in particular. "I haven't seen many healthy pregnancies; but I've been called to miscarriages before, both natural and induced." A shudder ran through him. "I, too, hoped."
Shannon dangled a pinkish stone on a thin chain above Chise's motionless form; it pulsed, slow and dull. "Most pregnancies do end in miscarriages, especially in the first trimester," she said absently, studying the stone's vague movements closely. "Quite often the woman doesn't even realize that it was anything but a slightly late, heavier-than-usual period. It's why it used to be traditional to not announce a pregnancy for the first three months, until most of the danger of a miscarriage had passed." She paused to put the stone away. "But so far as I can tell, this one at least, is just a perfectly ordinary one, with no unusual causes. There isn't even as much magic leaking out around her as I would have expected."
Elias looked up, concerned. "She was hemorrhaging it rather badly earlier; it's partly why I sent for you. Where's it gone?" He glared at the window, the curtains dark with the flitting shadows of the ariels clustering outside despite the newly-laid wards firmly shutting them out.
"It's not them, it's me," Ruth supplied. "I've been eating her leaking magic and feeding it back into her again."
"Is it helping?"
"It does seem to be," Shannon cautiously allowed. "She doesn't seem to be as firmly out as I might expect, given her medical history. Please keep it up if you can, Ruth. And you, Elias," she turned to him, "Keep treating her for the blood loss—lots of liquids, iron-rich foods—and let her rest. Treat her pain symptomatically, but nothing that will thin her blood or interfere with clotting, please." She packed her few tools away into her bag. "I'll check in with her again in the morning, but call me back sooner if she takes a turn for the worse, of course, or if the bleeding doesn't start to taper off in the next few hours."
Elias nodded, but did not look up; his gaze was fixed on Chise.
"And Elias… Give her a month or so to heal before you try again—let her have one regular period, please, just to be sure everything is ready to go again. But you can try again, and you will. All right? There's nothing to indicate at this point that there's any kind of fundamental incompatibility. Sometimes… these things just happen."
"Thank you, Doctor," he replied, his voice distant. "I will see you tomorrow."
For a moment, Shannon seemed about to say more; but apparently thinking better of it, she simply nodded and gathered up her bag, following Silky's gesture to the door. The brownie softly closed it behind them.
Wordlessly, Elias curled up beside his sleeping wife, and gathered her into his arms.
A/N: Still off visiting my family in BC so again, might be a delay until the next chapter; but then, I managed to bang this out in a day on my phone, so I guess there's still hope!