This is the last snippet from my computer files that Iām gonna post here (one Iām gonna try to actually finish to post on AO3 and whatever else I have on there are second gen things that Iām keeping secret)
Arin startled awake at the sound of a loud snort coming from somewhere close by. Cracking his eyelids open, his groggy vision stumbled around the room but failed to notice anything out of the ordinary. He groaned and rolled over in bed, his hand sliding over to where Soraās was. A frown scrunched his face when his hand met nothing, and he peeked his eyes open again to find her side of the bed empty. His breath escaped his lungs in a sigh as he sluggishly slid out of bed and shuffled out of the bedroom.
Just as he suspected, a sliver of light shone from underneath the bathroom door. He gently rapped his knuckles on the door.
"Sora?" He cleared his throat to hopefully rid it of the croakiness in his voice. "You okay?"
"Door's unlocked," came the soft response.
Ignoring the fact that she had bypassed his question, he opened the door, squinting when his tired eyes were assaulted by the bathroom light. Once his vision adjusted, his heart plummeted at the sight of Sora huddled in a blanket by the toilet, her tired expression and pale face making her look utterly miserable. He carefully lowered himself to the floor, doing his best to ignore the sick smell lingering in the room, and grasped her upper arm.
"Sora," he began gently, "I think you should go see a doctor."
She shook her head, closing her eyes with a wince. "Arin, I told you yesterdayā¦I'm fine. Just a nasty stomach bug or something. It'll go away in a few days."
"You told me that two days ago. And it's not going away; it's getting worse," he argued back. "You can't keep anything down for more than an hour. You can barely get out of bed."
"It's peaking, okay?" Her grumpy retort was too strained to be effective. "It's peaking now, and I'll feel better tomorrow. Maybe even this afternoon."
"I'm starting to feel better already."
He pressed his lips together and rubbed his temple with a moan. Of all the stubborn, dragon-willed women in the Merged Lands, there was only one he could think of that could give him a bigger headache, and thankfully, she wasn't his problem. He let out a deep sigh through his nose, silently begging the Source Dragons to help him reason with her.
"Sora, please. I'm just concerned is all. You've never gotten this sick before, and I want to be sure that there isn't anything seriously wrong."
Her attempted smile came across more as a grimace. "Arinā¦you worry too much. I'll be fine."
"At least let me talk to Lloyd about it."
He raised his hands in a helpless gesture before pushing himself to his feet with a huff. She was impossible.
"Fine. Suffer then." He shook his head as he made to leave the bathroom. "I try to help, but nope. There's no reasoning with her," he grumbled to himself.
His ears caught the sound of rustling fabric and a soft grunt. "Arinā¦ wait. Iā"
He rolled his eyes and turned to her, readying a snarky remark about how she could never make up her mind. His comment soon died on his tongue and his heart leapt into his throat when he saw how dangerously close she was to falling over.
Rushing back into the room, he only barely managed to save her from slamming face-first onto the tiled floor as she collapsed into his arms.
There were few times in his life where Arin could confidently say he'd been completely, absolutely, without a single doubt, terrified. The first time that he could remember was obviously when he woke up after the Merge, alone and with no sign of his parents anywhere. The next time was probably when Lloyd used the Dragon Cores to stabilize the Merged Realms, fear of what the sheer amount of power would do to his mentor surging through him as he helplessly watched from the ground. Another instance that came to mind was just several years ago when he had come so close to hurting Sora, his best friend, and had been afraid of the person he had started to become.
This thoughā¦. This was far different.
He risked a peek at Sora sitting in the passenger seat, her hands clutching a bucket with shaking fingers. Her tattoos stood out boldly against her placid face, and her olive eyes stared into the depths of her bucket with an unfocused gaze. Swallowing thickly, he forced himself to concentrate on driving, easing up on the gas ever so slightly when he caught her gripping the bucket tighter out of the corner of his eye.
She hadn't said a word since she woke up from passing out on the bathroom floor, not even when he started getting her ready to go to the hospital. Instead, she had simply watched him scurry around their apartment like a Whack Rat suffering from a flea infestation with the dullest, deadest look in her eyes. There had been no sort of complaint or struggle to get her into the car either.
He drank in a deep breath as he pulled into the hospital parking lot, praying that the emergency room wasn't too crazy this early in the morning. He hurried around to the passenger side, helping her out of her seat, and tried not to panic at the way she sagged against him as they walked up to the automatic doors. His nose stung as the overwhelming scent of antiseptic hit his senses, his chest stuttering as she suddenly gagged beside him, though her bucket remained empty.
Thankfully, there were few others in the waiting room, and he quickly added her name to the waiting list before guiding her to an empty chair. He fought against the strong urge to pace around the room to satisfy his anxious nerves, instead fidgeting in any other way that didn't require him to get up from his seat. When that didn't work, he decided to try calling Lloyd.
He wasn't all that surprised when the call ended up going to voicemail. Lloyd didn't tend to wake up until later in the mornings these days. He'd try again later.
His gaze turned back to her miserable face, and he slid his hand into hers. When she glanced over at him, he gave her a soft smile.
"It'll be okay, Sora. We're in this together. Whatever happens."
She gave the barest nod and swallowed with a wince.
"Alright, Sora. Your husband says you collapsed in the bathroom this morning. Have you been getting dizzy spells often?"
"Iā" She swallowed again. "I feel kinda dizzy when I first get up or move too fast."
"Ok. I assume that's not normal for you?"
She shook her head briefly before scrunching her eyes shut.
"Have you been having problems sleeping? Eating?"
"She's been getting sick during the day for a few days," he interjected, flicking his eyes over to her dismal expression. "Hasn't been able to keep much down, if anything."
"I see." The doctor swiveled around to face them and scooted closer. "How severe would you say her vomiting is?"
"Umā¦three? Four times a day, maybe? It gets pretty bad in the afternoon." He ignored the light pout shot his way.
"Ok. Have you noticed any differences in her urine?"
"Uh.ā¦" His neck grew hot as he turned to her. "Is there?"
She crinkled her brow. "I don't think so?"
"Has it been darker than normal?" the doctor questioned patiently.
"Alright. Well, it sounds to me like you may be dehydrated from all the vomiting, so I'm going to hook you up to an IV for now until we can figure out the cause of all this, ok?"
He squeezed her hand with a small smile. "How are you feeling?"
Her face contorted into a cross between a scowl and a pout. "I hate doctors."
"As normal as I can get," she grumbled, her eyes flicking around the room in curosity.
"Well, I think we've found the issue, but we'll have to run a few more tests to find the best treatment for it."
Tests? He swallowed. That was never a good sign. "Is it serious?"
"It can be pretty scary, but most cases of hyperemesis gravidarum are relatively easy fixes," the nurse reassured.
"It's just a fancy way of saying severe moming sickness."
His brain latched onto those words, a memory surfacing of Nya complaining about feeling nauseous at the smell of her favorite stir fry dish at Chen's Noodle House just a couple years ago. His hand subconsciously tightened around Sora's. Morning sickness? But that meantā
"Morning sickness?" Sora's soft voice interrupted his train of thought. "But thatā that means weā You mean, I'm pregnant?"
Somehow, he found his voice first. "Noā¦. No, we didn't."
It was going on noon by the time they slid back into their car, his mind a tangled mess. Information about managing her symptoms and setting up an appointment swam in the sea of shock that had begun flooding his brain the minute they were told the news. He briefly wondered if the whole thing was an elaborate dream his subconscious had pieced together to mess with him, but in Sora's hand was the photo taken from the ultrasound, the proof of their impending parenthood there in black and white.
That moment would forever be burned in his memory. When the doctor performing the ultrasound had found the baby, he had stared in confusion at the screen, unable to make heads or tails of what he was seeing at first. And then, the doctor had pointed it out to them, and his heart had paused. There was a baby. Their baby. It was still so small, yet it was there.
So many thoughts and emotions had flitted through his mind at that moment, he wasn't really sure he could properly describe it, but he couldn't deny the swelling sense of joy that had bloomed inside his chest. They were going to be parents. It wasn't necessarily something they had planned, but he was excited all the same.
He glanced over at Sora, his smile falling at her blank gaze as she stared at the photo in her hand. He flicked his eyes down to her other hand, which covered her lower belly where their child currently rested. Gently, he grasped the hand holding the picture in his own, drawing her attention to him.
"It's going to be okay, Sora. We have plenty of time to figure all of this out."
As though his words had made reality crush her under its weight, her expression suddenly crumpled and she exploded into a mess of sobs, moving her other hand to hide her face. Her entire body shook with the force of her cries, tears freely running down her patterned cheeks.
"Iā I don't think Iā I'm ready for this," she finally hiccuped. She shook her head. "Iā I don't know anything about being aā a mom."
"You think I know anything about being a dad?" He couldn't help but ask, the idea silly to him that she'd be worried about having never been a mom when neither of them had any experience in child rearing. The closest thing they had to any parenting skills went as far as occasionally babysitting the Walker's kids or Lloyd's daughter.
"At least you haā ave decent parents to use as a guide. Myā My parents were horrible."
"Sora." He tenderly grabbed her chin and turned her head to look at him, smiling through the tears in his own eyes. "We'll figure this out. We'll learn. Both of us. We're in this together, remember?"
They both gazed at the picture of their child to-be, and he pressed a kiss to the side of her head before whispering into her ear.
"You know...? I think the baby has your nose."
Her shuddering breaths became wet snorts of laughter as she settled her head on his shoulder once again, a hand coming up to wipe the tears from her eyes.
"Thank you, Arin. I love you."
He was about to return the phrase when his phone started ringing, startling both of them. He quickly answered as he buckled his seatbelt and prepared to drive them home.
"Hey, Arin." Lloyd's voice came through the other end, along with some screeching in the background. "Sorry I didn't call back sooner. Had some things to take care of. Is everything okay?"
Glancing briefly over at Sora's smiling face, he beamed. "Tell you what, Lloyd. How 'bout we come over and fill you in?"
A bit of background for this one: Frak had not yet been introduced as a character when I wrote this, so I used to ship Arin and Sora romantically. This was originally how Rye happened before I changed things, so his character has been around quite a bit longer than you might think. Heās actually older than the Garmatwins, in terms of character creation
And Iām not sure what about her screams āsuffering from extreme morning sicknessā to me, but it has been canon to me for a couple years now. Rip Sora
