#aaangst

Arueshalae held up a cloth dabbed with water and healing ointment, keeping it near the wound. “Keep still, please. This will sting a little.” Hilde had been hurt, and she was suddenly seized with a desire to help administer medicine. Normally she would have left the job to the healers, but there was something so strangely intimate about this. It was relaxing, comforting.

"I’ll be fine, I’m a tough- Ow!" Her words were broken off by a hiss of pain as the cloth pressed to her fresh scratches. Still, it was worth it. The healing itself was fine, but being so close to Arueshalae… Picking up her fragrant scent, observing her beautiful face as she worked, it was wonderful. Each dab of the cloth against her wound burned, but it was soon done. Hilde managed a soft chuckle as a flirtatious lilt came into her voice. “You know, we mortals often kiss the wound to 'help' it heal…”

Arueshalae’s content smile evaporated as she winced. Yes… Give her a kiss to make it better… Show her your love, feel her melt in your arms... She buried the demon's words down. She was better than that. "P-please... Don't."

"R-right. I'm sorry." Hilde gently rubbed at her healing wound and smiled apologetically at the succubus. Her words had just been instinct, forgetting how fragile the succubus's hold on her desires were. She took a deep breath. "Thank you, Arueshalae. It feels better already."

No, the only thing she'd find if she reached out to him, if she tried to bridge the rift that had split them apart, was regret.

It had barely been three months since...since it happened. Since Aelin woke up from a nap feeling jolts of pain slice through her abdomen and was rushed to the emergency room. Three months since that tense, fear-choked afternoon and evening when Rowan held her hand the whole damn time they were in the ER, then held her close to his chest as her OB, tears in her eyes, delivered the news.

Three months since they'd lost their baby.

Aelin's OB could offer no explanation for the miscarriage. Both Aelin and the baby had been perfectly healthy, following all the instructions and recommendations to the letter, and nothing from any of her appointments had indicated that there might be any chance of complications to the pregnancy. Because she was into the second trimester, only seventeen weeks, she couldn't have pseudo-labor induced, but had to be rushed into emergency surgery to make sure she was safe and healthy.

No words, no sounds, no thing was enough to describe the ocean of grief in her eyes when she was wheeled out of the room she and Rowan had spend the last several hours in, when her fingers slipped from his as the doctors wheeled her away to surgery. Nothing could properly communicate the broken emptiness in her face, in his face, when she woke from the anesthesia with his hand linked with hers, alone and empty in a sterile hospital bed.

Aelin hadn't spoken for days after she came home except to cry into Rowan's shoulder, the salty heat of her tears soaking his skin. And when she broke her silence, her voice raspy from disuse and choked with grief, the first word out of her mouth was why?

"Why, Rowan? What did we do wrong? What did I do wrong?"

He hadn't been able to answer.

"It hurts," she croaked, gripping his shoulders. "It hurts, Ro."

"I know," he whispered, his own voice thick with tears. "I'm so sorry, my love."

~

Too soon, Rowan had to return to work, and he left her alone in her house, murmuring his reluctance into her hair. He hated to leave her like this, he wanted to stay with her, but he couldn't blatantly refuse his boss's orders to come back. Couldn't use any more of his time off before said boss got angry.

To Aelin, a broken shell of herself, it all sounded like excuses.

"Tell your boss to fuck off," she'd said, her eyes pleading with him to stay. "Tell her you're sick, tell her you have to quarantine, anything. I can't, Ro." She gulped. "I can't do this alone."

"Fireheart," he breathed, cupping her face, "you aren't alone. You have me at the press of a button, and you have everyone else--your parents, Lys, Aedion, Elide, our friends. You aren't alone, my love."

"I don't want anyone else," she croaked. "Just you."

"I can't," he choked out around the lump in his throat. "I can't lose my job, no matter how much I want to tell work to fuck off."

Aelin pulled back, pain and anger narrowing her eyes. "Coward."

"Fireheart--"

"See you this evening." She shut the door in his face and sank to the floor, wrapping her arms around her middle, over the still-tender scar on her abdomen. And cried silent, heavy tears, a tidal wave of emotion breaking over her.

Midafternoon, she'd called Rowan, thanking all things holy when he picked up rather than letting her go to voicemail. "A--Aelin?"

"I'm sorry I snapped at you," she whispered. "I'm--I'm hurting, Ro. I don't know what to do with myself when it all hits me."

"Oh, Aelin," he sighed, his voice a caress through the phone. "I forgive you, my Fireheart." A beat. "I know you're hurting, and if I'm being fully honest, I...I don't know what to do either."

"Don't think there's any answer," she murmured. "I love you, buzzard."

"Love you, Fireheart."

~

Slowly, as the weeks passed, Aelin had started going out of the house again, started to see her friends and family, started to figure out going back to work. Nothing was normal. Not even close. But... but the searing pain of losing her baby was beginning to dull, the edge fading from blazing grief into a gentler kind of mourning. Her body was healing, as was her soul.

And yet...she didn't know if Rowan was.

He'd grown more distant after the loss, throwing himself into his work as if to stop himself from thinking of the miscarriage, and it seemed that every time she tried to reach out, he brushed her aside or never fully answered her gentle probing. She told herself it was just his method of coping, that he would approach her when he was ready.

But as the weeks passed and he pulled further away, her empathy curdled into anger.

Until one night, she couldn't stand it anymore.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" she demanded, storming into the living room and yanking the folder out of his hands.

"Baby--"

"Don't 'baby' me, Rowan Whitethorn." Her voice was steel, the cold edge hiding her tears.

His jaw locked. "Nothing's 'wrong' with me, Aelin. Why the fuck can't you see that?"

"And that's the problem!" she yelled. "Rowan, we lost our baby! What kind of heartless, soulless asshole just fucking forgets about it after he goes back to work?!"

"I'm not fucking heartless," he spat, pushing himself up to his full height. "You have your way of processing and I have mine. And gods, Aelin, stop using me as an excuse not to go to your therapist."

Her eyes flashed with sparks. "Don't you fucking dare, Whitethorn. You don't get to throw that bullshit at me."

"Not bullshit if it's true," he fired back. "Lie to yourself all you want, but we both know you're only leaning on me because you're too damn scared to go see Yrene."

"Fuck you," she spat, tears brimming up in her eyes.

His laugh was bitter. "Isn't that what got us into this argument in the first place? Too many lines crossed too soon?"

The crack of her hand across his cheek was deafening in the sudden silence.

They stared at each other, insults and emotions battling for dominance in each of their gazes. Until Aelin, her whole body tense with the effort of not crying, pointed towards the door.

"Get out." No more than a whisper, the two words malevolent nonetheless.

"Aelin--"

"Get. Out."

"Fine," he growled, collecting his work bag and striding across to the door. "Don't bother calling."

The door slammed shut.

And Aelin sank to her knees, a wild sob clawing out of her throat, her grief an uncontrollable storm.

Hours later, all her tears drained, she stood, wincing at the aches that came from spending too long crouched on the floor. She went to her bathroom, locked the door, braced her hands on the sink, stared into the smooth glass of the mirror. Stared into the broken, dull eyes that stared back.

Grief had emptied her completely, left nothing but a shell behind.

~~~

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