TW: Thoughts of miscarriage.

Help Me Make It

Through The Night

She felt like she couldn’t breathe. At least, not properly. She had thought that she was going to get better. That the fever was going to break, that she was going to be okay. But this was the very opposite of okay. Her fever kept rising, and Ella was past the point of being able to regulate her own body temperature. Everything told her that she needed to get better. That she needed to figure this out, or that she was going to put their child at risk, but she had thought that she was managing it. As well as she could have been anyway. Only this morning it had been worse. This morning, when she had gone to get out of bed, she had realized that she couldn’t. The sharp pain that had awoken her was unlike anything else that had come with this illness, and she knew. Ella just knew. This was the something bad. This was what she had seen coming and had had no way of stopping.

A shaking hand on her husband’s shoulder was enough to wake him. But she had needed his help. There was no way that she was making it out of bed on her own. And she needed to get up. She needed a bath, to try and cool down. She had to cool down, she had to get this under control, or it wasn’t going to stop. Ella had to do something, she had to try and stop it. But it was no use. She had known, when she had been waking Elliot up with tears in her eyes, that it was going to be no use. She wasn’t going to be able to stop this. The hospital. She needed to go to the hospital, and she needed him to help her get there. If this was going to happen, it couldn’t happen at home. It couldn’t happen here, in this place she had made theirs. She couldn’t handle a loss like this there.

She wanted her matka. Ella knew that she did, but she also knew that she wanted Elliot. She didn’t think that she had ever wanted Elliot more than she wanted him right now. She didn’t want him to leave. She didn’t care what they did. She didn’t care who tried to make him leave, she didn’t want him to let go of her. Ella was scared, and she needed him. This was her hospital, she worked here every day, but she couldn’t be here without him. She couldn’t go through this on her own. And she had begged whomever would listen to let him stay. He was a healer too. He had worked here for years. They weren’t just anyone. She wanted Elliot with her. And the pain in her back had gotten worse the longer she had been in the hospital. The cramping that was more than cramping. The blood…

When she had started bleeding she knew that they were done for. She remembered asking Elliot for her matka. She remembered telling him not to leave her. But she didn’t know what had happened after that. There was a spot of time missing. Had she blacked out? Had he let them put her under? She didn’t know… All she knew was that she was sore. And that she was freezing. And when she opened her eyes, she was unsurprised to see that her hands were shaking. She didn’t know if he was still here or not. If he had gone to get Matka. Ella didn’t move to sit up at all, she knew better than that. Her own training had kicked in, she was a healer too, after all… Magic, how was her magic? It had been flickering for days… But she didn’t even know where her wand had gone. It had been in her hand when they had arrived this morning, but now? “Elliot…?” Her voice was quiet, and dry. When was the last time that she had drank?

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i don't want
to be alone

❧

The silence in the air around him was deafening. Even as the hospital drummed on around him – monitors beeped, and heels clacked against the tile floor of St. Mungo’s, Elliot felt as if he was submerged in total silence. He was in an ocean, floating on his back, staring up at a vast expanse of nothingness.

Elliot was not a man of many words. He never had been. With difficulty understanding the complex nature of humans, he was more often than not content to listen instead of to speak.

Today was no exception for he had no words.

He’d known when she’d woken – his wife, his Ella – he’d known that something was horribly, horribly wrong. He’d never seen her like that before. The tears in her eyes, the pain in her voice. And something in the pack of Elliot’s mind prickled with realization. He was a Healer, for Merlin’s sake, it didn’t take him long to figure out things like these.

She’d been so panicked and Elliot had, too. But somewhere along the line, instinct had taken over. He’d managed to get her to the Hospital using the little amount of Floo dust that they had on hand at the house. Without magic, he’d felt useless.

It had happened shortly after they’d arrived. She’d been so upset…they’d both been so upset. At one point, she was screaming, begging them not to have him leave her side. And Elliot hadn’t. He’d sat with her every minute since they’d arrived. Every test, every round, he had been the one holding her hand by the side of her bed. After a while, one of the nurses had brought in a chair. Ella had been out for a few minutes by then. She was resting they said.

He needed to rest too, the nurse had told him. But he couldn’t. Every time he closed his eyes he was overcome with a churning feeling in the pit of his stomach. This was his fault. He’d wanted a child so badly that he had pushed her into this. She wasn’t ready – Merlin’s beard, how many times had she told him that she wasn’t ready.

And the sickness…he couldn’t have seen that coming, but at that moment Elliot hated himself for not knowing. They had both been ill and her fever had reached an all-time high. There was no telling what it had done while she slept. Elliot should have stayed awake…he should have watched over her. Maybe then…maybe then they wouldn’t be here.

Elliot couldn’t even feel his own body at this point – he was just running off of habit and contextual clues. Looking down he could see ripples in the dark espresso in his cup. His hands were trembling. He wouldn’t have known if he wasn’t holding the mug of coffee.

And then, like a knife through the veil that shrouded around him, he heard her voice. She was awake? How long had she been awake? “Ella,” he was there, right there. Lifting his head, he was barely able to see her through his tired and drooping eyelids. Elliot managed to blink a few times, giving her hand a gentle squeeze to let her know that he was right there.

He wanted to climb into bed with her and wrap his arms around her thin frame – she looked so frail and tiny in the hospital bed. But he couldn’t move. Elliot was still frozen in place. Tonight, he wasn’t a Healer…he was a man that had lost a child. He was a man that had nearly lost his wife. What words were there to say? What comfort could he give her? Elliot didn’t know. Tears found their way to his eyes as he leaned down and touched his forehead to the back of her hand.

@ ella | 630 | Outfit

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lay down by my side

Til the early mornin' light

Help me make it through the night

Hospitals weren’t this quiet. Ella knew better than that. She knew that they were never quiet. She was a healer, after all. She knew that they were going to push them through their training as fast as possible. They were going to have to teach them new things, new ways. They weren’t going to be able to handle all of this with people trying to supervise the trainees. At least not the good ones. And Ella thought that she was plenty good enough at what she did. She had taken care of Matka, and the twins. She knew how to be a maternal medicine healer. And she knew how to do it without relying solely on her magic.

That was something that she was going to have to work on. Maternal medicine, if you did it right, was going something that came by instinct. Ella truly believed that. And she thought that she had that instinct. That she just knew what to do. Only she was going to have to get used to doing it on other people. She was going to have to get used to doing it to people that weren’t family. And she was going to have to get used to doing it, after this.

Letting herself think like that was hard. She didn’t want to think about what she had lost. She didn’t want to think about everything that had happened. And what it was that she was going to do now. Because they had been so close. They had had it all. The house, the life, the careers. They were starting a family. And now they weren’t. Now there was no baby. And they had been so close… Ella didn’t think that she had the same outlook on love that her Matka did now. Certainly not the same one that Constance had. But she had been happy. At least she thought that she had been happy.

They were going to be fine. It was going to be them, and their baby, and they were going to figure it out. Her at the hospital. Him at the reserve. Ella knew that that was where he wanted to be. She knew that he loved it, and she was trying not to let it worry her. Her dad had told her that it was going to be okay. That Elliot would be fine. And she was trying to believe him. She had worried to him, and to Matka, and she knew that Matka understood her worry, but he had told her that it was going to be fine. And he had said it with so much conviction. She believed him.

But how were they going to be fine after this? How were they going to come back from this? She had lost the most precious thing that had ever happened to them. She had lost their child, and she didn’t know that she was ever going to be able to forgive herself for that. She didn’t think that it was ever going to be okay. That she was ever going to just be able to move on. Because she had had that chance. She was going to be a matka, and she was going to get to do, and have, something that she had wanted for her entire life. But then it had been taken away. Lost. She had lost it. And it was her fault. It was all her fault. If she had just been stronger. If she had been able to fight the fever, and the illness. But she couldn’t.

She wasn’t strong enough.

Ella had failed. She had failed him. Elliot had wanted a baby, and she had too. She didn’t know if she was ready. She didn’t know if now the moment had been, but then it had happened, and she had let herself start to believe that she was ready. That they could do this. Because it would be them. They were going to do it together. They were having a baby together. Only now they weren’t. Only now they had lost that chance. Because she had failed him. She had failed him, and they were lost. Together, they were lost.

“Hey…” her voice was soft, and it was a little shaky, but he squeezed her hand and she let out a little breath, “I’m sorry…” And she was. She was so, so sorry. There was no way to make it up to him. There was no way that she hadn’t just let their baby die. Ella had failed, and sorry, sorry didn’t begin to describe the way that she felt. But she didn’t want to not say it either. She wanted him to know that she was never going to forgive herself for taking this away from him.

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help me

[attr="class","reasonsmall2"]make it through the night, And it's sad to be alone Help me make it through the night, I don't want to be alone

[attr="class","reasonbod2"]Everything had been going as they had wished it. Elliot had nabbed the job at the Dragon Reserve with no trouble and Ella was quickly moving through her training at St. Mungo’s. They’d gotten a house, a dog, a new cello. They’d started a life together out of seemingly impossible circumstances. And Elliot had fallen in love.

He’d fallen head over heels for the woman that now lay in the hospital bed before him. He knew that it wasn’t supposed to be like that. Arranged marriages rarely ended up in such circumstances, but this one…their union…it was almost as if it had been meant to be. Almost as if it had been fate pushing Elliot into a union that he had wanted all along but always been afraid to jump for. He belonged with Ella. And she belonged with him.

But the universe was quick to change the tides. Epidemic X, as they were calling it, had caused a fever that was insurmountable to Ella. At least, that was what the doctors had said a few hours ago. Her body had done its best, but at the end of the day, it had made a decision: her or the child. And, as they explained, it was an act of self-preservation.

She was speaking and Elliot immediately felt himself leaning in – taking in every sound of her breathing as if it was the most beautiful melody that he had ever heard. There was a silver lining, but it was so difficult for Elliot to reach. Beneath the sadness and pain that he was feeling, he knew that the doctors were right. He could have lost both. He could have lost Ella. But here she was…breathing and speaking to him. She was alive. And it was clear given the next words that escaped her mouth that she blamed herself for what had happened just a few hours ago.

He felt himself immediately shaking his head fervently, trying to sift his way through his thoughts. How could she blame herself? How could she possibly think that this was her fault? Her fever was making her delusional because Elliot knew who was responsible for all of this.

“No, no please don’t do that, Ella,” Elliot reached up and brushed some of her dark hair away from her eyes. Elliot could feel his eyes welling unfamiliarly. He wasn’t a man that was often brought to tears. He had always had difficulty in processing his emotions and understanding the wide spectrum of feeling. But here…now…his face lingering just a few centimeters from his wife’s on the eve of such a horrible night, Elliot could do nothing but let himself cry. Because he felt grief: true and honest grief. He felt the pain of losing his child – disappointing his wife. He felt agony and confusion. But more than anything, he felt guilt. It was not hers to endure, but his.

Elliot had been the one that had suggested a pregnancy. He had been the one that had pushed and pushed. He’d seen the miracle of life – witnessed one of his first live childbirths and seen the look on the parents’ faces. He’d seen the joy and the love that they shared. A child – their child – had been a physical manifestation of their love for one another. What did it mean that this child…this physical manifestation had…gone?

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for. Nothing in the world,” his voice was shaky – overcome with the emotions that he was grappling with, but Elliot hoped that she would understand. None of this was on her. Nothing that had happened was on her. It was his doing. All of this was his fault. He pressed his forehead to hers, trying to hide the tears that now fell out of his eyes. Be strong, he commanded himself. “I am so sorry, this is all my fault. You cannot know how sorry I am.”

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LAY DOWN BY MY SIDE

TIL THE EARLY MORNIN' LIGHT

HELP ME MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT

This was not how this was supposed to go. She wasn’t supposed to be the one lying in the hospital bed. She was supposed to be the healer. Floating around, letting her dresses out little by little. That was what she was supposed to be doing. She was supposed to be asking Matka for advice on what kind of things that she was going to need for a baby. She was supposed to be making lists of names and scratching them off. Only to put them back on again. Those were the things that she was supposed to be doing.

She was not supposed to be laying in this hospital bed, feeling like the world was crashing down around her. She was not supposed to be feeling like this was the last thing that she would ever do. She had failed. Ella had been pregnant, and now she wasn’t, and there was nothing left of that. That was failure. That was failure in its purest form. Because she was a witch, she should have been able to have a baby. And she couldn’t. She hadn’t. This fever, this sickness, whatever this was, it had taken that from her.

Getting it back was impossible. She had had that chance, and then they had taken it away. Someone, somewhere, had taken it away. And she wanted to blame God. She wanted to hate him for it. But she knew that she shouldn’t. She knew that everything happened for a reason. But what reason could there have been to take her baby away from her? They had almost had everything. They had been so close. They had almost had everything that she had grown up wanting.

They had had the house, and the career, and she hadn’t even known that she had wanted a career like this, but now that she had it, it was a part of her everything. And she had wanted that. She had wanted this all to be so perfect… And this just… Wasn’t. This was so far from perfect, she didn’t know what to make of it. She didn’t know what to think. Because this was hell. Losing their child was her fault. She had been the one that was expected to protect it. To make sure that it got here safe, and sound, and she had failed. She had failed them all.

She had failed Elliot, she had failed their child, and she had failed herself.

They would never know if it had been a boy or a girl. They would never get a chance to settle on a name. To baptize him or her. They wouldn’t get any of that, and Ella thought that the more she thought about it at all, the more her heart broke. She had lost so much, and she had lost it so quickly… They were supposed to have had a baby. They were supposed to have been happy… She just wanted a chance to be happy. And at this rate it didn’t seem like that was ever going to be possible. Happiness was always just that far out of reach. And she hated that.

She hated so much of this. She hated that she was in this bed. She hated that she had failed. She hated herself a little bit. Because this was her fault. She was the one that had failed. This was all on her. And she didn’t know who else there was to blame. If there was someone, if she could blame all of this on someone, she thought that she would have. She would have earned her maiden name, if there was someone that she could have blamed for this. But there wasn’t. The only person that she could blame was herself. And so, she would hold onto that.

Blaming herself would be the only answer. There was no peace. There was only the pain that never seemed to stop. There was only everything that seemed to work against her at every turn. Even the thought of her chosen specialty was a slap in the face now. She couldn’t have this baby. And yet, she would go back to work. She would make sure that other people’s babies were safe, and sound. She hated that she hated it. She hated that she was so upset. But there was no way around that.

Ella closed her eyes again for a moment when he brushed her hair from her face. It was hard to keep them open. They felt so heavy… “It’s not…” Her voice was soft, and quiet, a shadow of who she normally was. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t do this.”

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