Until the sun rises

Back home

Silence reigned in the room.

Deku was watching him, probably waiting for a reaction. But he couldn't give him one. His brain had stopped working.

Dying? What did he mean by that? If they were both talking about the little girl he saw at the entry hall, she had seemed perfectly healthy. She couldn't be sick. And even less from a fatal illness. Right? It had to be obvious! It wasn't the case. She couldn't be sick. Katsuki would make no sick children, he was too amazing for that.

But Deku's tear-filled eyes were not lying. The anguish was more than real and Katsuki could feel it contaminating his own heart. Was Katsuki's life screwing him over? First he lost Deku and then, just as he discovered he had a daughter, he lost her too. It was love at first sight with her. Katsuki couldn't explain it but he knew he loved this little girl more than anything in this world. And now he was going to lose her.

Pain erupted in his heart, a scalding and intolerable pain that choked him. He couldn't breathe anymore. Grief and panic were taking over.

No, he had to make sure first. Call it denial, but maybe Deku had meant something else by 'she is dying'. Katsuki couldn't find what it could be if it wasn't the literal sense, but he had to hope.

"Wha-" he croaked, his voice refusing to come out from his constricted throat. He cleared it once and tried again. "What do you mean by that?"

Deku took a shaky breath, obviously trying to calm down and keep his tears in. Old habits taking over, Katsuki didn't even think before he took his boyfriend's hands in his in silent support. The green haired man shot him a thankful look although hesitant. A few seconds passed before Deku finally tightened his hold on Katsuki's hands and opened his mouth to crumble Katsuki's world:

"She has a congenital heart defect called tricuspid atresia. It means that she was born without the valve that controls blood flow from the right upper chamber of the heart to the right lower chamber. Which means that her blood couldn't flow correctly through the heart and the rest of her body. They don't know the cause but it could be genetic or something that I've done wrong during the pregnancy. Normally it can be diagnosed during the pregnancy but the doctor that I had didn't see anything. I changed doctor after I discovered that."

"At first, when she was born, we didn't notice anything, she seemed to be completely normal. But, after a few days, she started to have a blueish skin, was sleeping more than the other babies and she struggled to breastfeed. After the doctors took her away for some tests, they told me she had also problems breathing and a murmur in the heart. Thankfully, I had my mum with me who was there to calm me down, reassuring me that this could happen with premature babies. But she had been wrong. Oh, so wrong."

He took a pause to breathe. Some tears had managed to escape and were now rolling down his freckled cheeks. Letting go of one hand, Katsuki lifted his to wipe them away. It was at this moment that he noticed that the shaking wasn't coming from Deku but from himself. His hands were trembling like leaves in the harsh wind. He took back Deku's hand. The latter didn't seem to mind that his hand was now wet with his tears.

They stayed silent for a few seconds more before Deku continued his story:

"They tested her with an echocardiogram and an electrocardiogram to be sure. But the diagnosis was certain."

"The doctors told me that she had a chance to survive but she had to go through a lot of surgeries. Right after the diagnosis, they took her for a septostomy where they created a hole between the right and left upper chambers. Two weeks later, they took her again to make a bypass from the aorta to the main pulmonary artery so the blood could get to her lungs. After that surgery, they let me take her back home with me but she had to have a feeding tube in her nose because she couldn't breastfeed properly. Four months later, I had to bring her back for another surgery called bi-directional Glenn procedure, this time to create a direct connection between the main pulmonary artery and the superior vena cava so that the blood could return from the body and flow directly to the lungs and bypass the heart. After that surgery, we could finally live peacefully like a normal family, but with this sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. When she turned two years old, I had to take her back for another surgery called Fontan procedure. In this procedure, they connect the main pulmonary artery and the inferior vena cava so the rest of the blood coming back from her body could go to the lungs. It should have been the end of this nightmare. She should have been able to live an almost normal life with meds that would help her heart, but the surgeon broke that dream. Despite all the interventions, her heart was still too weak. Her only hope was to have a heart transplantation but even that last hope got crushed because they didn't have the right hearts for her and even if they had, she was too weak to handle it. They told me she only had about four more years to live."