Unexpected Plans

Roses

(A/N: this is an original song! Called "Dying Rose.")

The ceremony wasn't formal, not that she'd ever expected it to be. She bought a sleek A-line white dress, and they'd married at the courthouse among family and a few friends about a month after his proposal. They'd taken a honeymoon to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and got lost in days filled with beaches and sun and nights filled with quality food and love-making. When they'd finally returned to the lair, it felt strangely large. As if it was a new house that had yet to be furnished. Slowly, they readjusted to getting back into the swing of things. The only difference between them now was that every now and then he'd steal a kiss between work, while she continued reading her magazines and listening to her hip hop.

Slowly, the hole in their hearts from the loss of their child began to heal. They both knew it would never heal completely. It was always trying to heal, but only ever scarred. Sometimes, in the quietest of nights, while her husband slept, she wondered about their child. It would have been born in December. She liked that month. The skies were always darker, and the nights were frigid. It lifted her spirits. Other times her thoughts wandered into darker waters. She wondered what would have happened if she hadn't been kidnapped. She wondered how she would have felt if she'd seen the child's body. Most often, however, she wondered if she'd ever want to be pregnant again. She and Drew hadn't discussed it formally, but there was some instinct that told her he wanted a child. She decided that she could accept the idea, but for now she'd only considered them in the abstract. She wasn't ready for any yet. The miscarriage had been a wake up call for her. She wasn't ready for pregnancy and it certainly wasn't ready for her. Dementor playing God had been a sort of foretelling. She was grateful she knew, but sometimes she just wished that motherhood wasn't a lesson she'd learned in the way she did. For now, she decided she'd focus on her husband and building her marriage. A baby would come eventually, but right now she wasn't prepared for it.

***

She hadn't noticed the signs.

They were much more subtle than the last time. It had started a few weeks ago. She'd been making a sandwich, was about to put mayonnaise on it, when suddenly she felt averted to the smell. She'd alway liked it on certain foods, but now it didn't seem good at all. She shrugged it off. Another sign, a subtle sign, was an enhanced sense of smell. She could smell her husband sweating from across the lab. The smell made her gag. It wasn't until she started vomiting that the pieces started to fall into place. She bought the test this time, took it, and waited. Somehow, these two minutes seemed more agonizing than the last time. It was tearing apart her soul. She looked and saw the little pink plus.

Her first reaction wasn't shock as she'd predicted, nor was it anger. The icy tendrils of fear strangled her heart the quickest. She thought of her phantom child (for that was how she would always remember the child.) and sang quietly to herself:

"In the heart of winter

Beneath the frigid snow

Is a garden beneath it

Letting nothing grow

You came into my life

Like a summer breeze

Bringing me your sunshine

And putting me at ease

You took this heart and made it

According to your will

And then you ripped it from my chest

Making me so ill

And like the rose inside the garden

I am wilting at the stem

Growing thorns and Allowing the darkness to come in

To fester till I'm dying

Like a forest in repose

My heart is black

Like a dying rose

So they tell me to forget you

That you weren't good for me

They try to repair this heart you slew

As if I couldn't see

The poison you put in my life

A phantom taste of paradise

But now my heart is dead in my chest

As I try and lay these ghosts to rest

And like the rose inside the garden

I am wilting at the stem

Growing thorns and Allowing the darkness to come in

To fester till I'm dying

Like a forest in repose

My heart is black

Like a dying rose..."

She sat on the tiled floor and started to weep.