Hi !! I hope ure doing well !! 🥹❤️ i would just like to req a fic with zayne and his wife having postpartum depression ! Ty in advance !! 🙏🏼
✦ ⎯⎯ㅤִㅤ୭ ୨♡୧ ৎㅤִ ⎯⎯ ✦
No one prepares you for how quiet postpartum depression can be.
Not the dramatic kind people imagine, not constant tears or visible breakdowns. Sometimes it’s softer than that, heavier in a way that settles into the walls of the house. Days begin to blur together. The baby cries, you feed her, you rock her, you sit in the same chair for too long staring at nothing while sunlight moves slowly across the floor. Jasmine is healthy, beautiful, growing exactly as she should, but inside you something feels dimmed, like the world has been covered by a thin gray veil you can’t push away.
And the hardest part is that Zayne isn’t home most of the time.
He warned you about that long before the baby was born. His schedule was already brutal: overnight surgeries, emergency calls, shifts that stretch into twenty-four hours when something goes wrong at the hospital. There are nights where he leaves before the sun rises and doesn’t walk back through the door until the next morning. You used to admire that dedication, the way he carried the responsibility of his work without complaint.
Now it makes the silence of the house feel enormous.
At first you try to hide it from him. When he calls between cases, you keep your voice light and tell him Jasmine smiled today, or that she finally finished her bottle without fussing. You don’t mention the way your hands trembled afterward, or the moment you stood in the kitchen holding a cup of tea that went completely cold while you stared at the wall for ten minutes without realizing it. Zayne already carries so much weight at the hospital; the last thing you want is to add your own heaviness to it. But Zayne has never been a man who misses details.
He notices small shifts the same way he notices subtle changes in a patient’s heartbeat.
The first time he truly sees it is late one evening when he comes home after a long shift. The house is quiet except for Jasmine’s soft breathing through the baby monitor. You’re sitting on the couch with the lights off, her blanket draped over your lap even though she’s already asleep in her crib.
He stands in the doorway for a moment before you realize he’s there.
“You didn’t turn the lights on,” he says gently.
You blink as if waking up. “Oh. I guess I forgot.”
He doesn’t say anything else right away. He simply crosses the room and kneels in front of you, his hand resting lightly over yours. His touch is warm, grounding in a way that almost hurts.
“You’ve been very quiet lately,” he says.
You try to smile. “Just tired.”
But Zayne studies your face the way he studies medical charts, patient and careful, noticing the shadows beneath your eyes, the tension in your shoulders, the way your voice sounds thinner than usual.
“Not just tired,” he murmurs.
The words break something open inside you.
It spills out in fragments at first—the guilt, the strange emptiness, the fear that something must be wrong with you because everyone says these months are supposed to be joyful. You tell him how sometimes you look at Jasmine and feel love so strong it scares you, but other times you feel numb, like you’re watching someone else’s life instead of living your own.
Zayne listens without interrupting. His thumb moves slowly over the back of your hand, steady and reassuring, the same quiet rhythm he uses when calming anxious patients.
When you finish, he doesn’t offer quick reassurances or dismiss it as “just hormones.” That isn’t who he is, instead, he nods once, thoughtfully.
“Postpartum depression,” he says quietly. “It happens more often than people admit.”
The relief that floods your chest at hearing it named nearly makes you cry.
“But your schedule…” you whisper. “You’re barely here. I don’t want to make it harder for you.”
His gaze sharpens immediately.
“You are not making anything harder,” he says firmly. “You’re my wife.”
That’s the end of that argument. And somehow, despite the impossible schedule he carries, Zayne begins finding ways to be present.
It doesn’t look like grand gestures or sudden weeks off work—those things simply aren’t realistic in his world. Instead it shows up in quieter ways, deliberate and thoughtful. He starts leaving small notes on the kitchen counter before early shifts so you’ll find them when you wake up.
He adjusts his call schedule where he can, trading with colleagues so he can come home for even a few extra hours between surgeries.
On the nights he’s stuck at the hospital, he calls during the brief windows he has between patients, sometimes just to stay on the line while you feed Jasmine in the quiet darkness.
Some mornings he comes home exhausted after twenty-four hours on his feet and still takes the baby from your arms the moment he walks through the door.
“Go rest,” he says gently.
“You just worked all night.”
“I’ll manage.”
And he does. He walks the living room with Jasmine tucked against his chest, murmuring to her softly while you sleep in the bedroom for the first time in days without listening for every small sound.
Zayne also refuses to let you face it alone. One afternoon he sits beside you at the kitchen table with a list of therapists who specialize in postpartum care, his tone calm and practical as he explains the options. There’s no judgment in his voice, no sense that you’ve failed in any way.
“This is treatable,” he tells you. “And you deserve support.”
Sometimes the support is as simple as him standing behind you while you wash bottles at the sink, his arms wrapping around your waist as he presses a quiet kiss to your temple. Other times it’s him waking up after barely three hours of sleep because Jasmine is crying and you’re too overwhelmed to move.
He never says it’s easy.
But he never makes you feel like you’re a burden either.
One night, weeks later, you’re sitting together on the couch while Jasmine sleeps peacefully in the bassinet beside you. The house is finally calm, the air warm and quiet. Zayne’s arm rests around your shoulders, his thumb absentmindedly tracing slow circles on your arm.
“You know,” you say softly, “I thought you wouldn’t be able to be here for this.”
He looks down at you. “Why?”
“Your work, the hospital. Everything.”
Zayne considers that for a moment, his expression thoughtful.
“My work is important,” he says slowly. “But it’s not the only thing that is.” His gaze shifts to Jasmine sleeping nearby, then back to you.
“You’re my family,” he continues quietly. “I’ll find a way to be here.”
And somehow, even with the weight of the hospital still resting on his shoulders, he does.
✦ ⎯⎯ㅤִㅤ୭ ୨♡୧ ৎㅤִ ⎯⎯ ✦
