Mia's Open Heart (Choices Open Heart AU)

Chapter 49: Keep Moving

Ethan eyes slowly opened, his sleep slowly escaping him. It still felt early, but the room was lit, the culprit was his wife, typing away on her laptop.

As his eyes adjusted to the light, the slight blurriness reminded him he needed his glasses, the action of which caught the attention of his wife.

"Oh shit, did I wake you up with the light?" Mia asked. "I was going to work at the desk but my back was hurting and..."

"It's alright." Ethan said, putting on his glasses. "What time is it?"

Mia scrolled to the bottom of her laptop screen to make the taskbar pop up, looking over to the date and time option.

"Um... 4:14am..." she said, as Ethan sighed.

"How long have you been up?" He asked.

"A couple hours..." Mia said, as Ethan sighed one more.

"Did you have another nightmare?"

"Yup." Mia said. "They're just happening every night, super vivid and waking me up by 2 or 3 am everything. I can't ever go back to sleep so I thought I might as well work on some writing."

"You should've woken me up." Ethan said, moving to sit up straighter.

"It's fine." Mia said as she shrugged. Ethan turned to face Mia, cupping the side of her face and running his thumb against her cheek.

"If it were fine, then your eyes wouldn't be puffy and red and you face wouldn't be stained with tears." Ethan said, putting his arm around her and placing a kiss on her cheek. "What was it?"

Mia looked down, unable to look Ethan in the eye. After a couple moments of silence, she continued.

"We went on a long drive, but then the car broke down in the middle of nowhere, and then my water broke really early, and then it went really quickly and you had to help me deliver and then I started to bleed out and was slowly dying and the last thing I saw was this horrific image of you and our super tiny babies covered in blood before I presumably died and woke up." Mia said.

"Oh." Ethan said, knowing she was giving a quick explanation of what happened, but it still sounded scary.

"And, it was just so scary. Like I haven't even been through it yet so idk what it's really like, but it hurt like fucking hell. And I just remember feeling so much pain and fear, and all I wanted was to hold your hand, but you couldn't because you had to be the doctor in the situation. And then I died."

"Wow." Ethan said, not knowing what to say. There were so many instances where he had waken up freaking out from a nightmare, and every single time Mia had waken up beside him, she always said the right thing to help. Always gave the right touch, the right kiss, the right word to make him feel better. He couldn't help but feel guilty for not knowing what to do to help.

"I mean, I'm fine, it was just pretty daunting." Mia said. "Like I've already been really scared about it and now..."

"I know." Ethan said. He held her hand, bringing it up to his lips as they kissed her knuckles. "I'm going to be there with you, by your side."

"I know." Mia said. "Better get ready for your hand to be broken."

Ethan chuckled slightly, saying "No problem."

"Sorry for keeping you up." Mia said.

"I don't mind it, we're going to have to get used to it." Ethan said, making Mia smile.

"I guess you're right." She said.

"You should go to sleep, you have a busy day ahead of you." Ethan said, as Mia made a pleading face.