Game of Thrones one shots / preferences

Jon Snow X Reader - (Too Much Labour)

TW - Childbirth, mild gore and infant death

This is a hell of a way to die. I thought, swallowing the last vestiges of saliva that remained in my dry mouth. The blood pooled on the sheets beneath me, soaking them a dark, almost black colour. My legs and arms shook and seized.
Jon gripped my hand and wiped my cold clammy face, staring into my eyes with a look of desperate sadness and fear.

I could hear the babe wailing in the next room and my heart ached to see her but I knew her need for the maester was greater than my desire to see her.

"I'm so sorry... I don't want you to leave me." He uttered, his voice cracking.

My heart, even in its sluggish and tired state, skipped a beat in pity for my husband.

"It's okay, my love. You have no reason to be sorry. Just promise me..." I panted, the very act of talking further draining my energy "promise me you'll look after her."

"I swear it with all that I am, I will look after her." He replied, giving my hand a squeeze.

"Please, name her Joanna after grandmother." I implored. Jon nodded, but I could see a hesitation in his eyes. Whether his was his distaste of our daughter's, of my, heritage or the doubt whether she would survive long enough to name, I couldn't tell.

Ripping pain gripped my abdomen as another wave of cramping spasms passed, eliciting a grunting moan from my cracked and bleeding lips, followed by more blood and tissue ejecting from my body. The maids busied around me trying to mop up the mess and remove the blooded bedsheets.

"Please just stop." I begged, my words now coming as a whisper. "Water and milk of the poppy."

The maid obliged and dabbed my mouth with water and medicine, soothing my lips enough that I could drink some down. I noticed the silence in the other room, my babe had stopped her angry crackling cries. At last, the maester had soothed her breathing enough for her to rest.

I let my eyes close, Jon squeezing my hand again more firmly but I did not have the means to open my eyes again. I was simply too tired.

-

Slowly I could see the light filtering in through the parting of my eyelids. My head felt heavy, as if made of iron, and my entire body ached and trembled. Hesitantly I opened my eyes, the light burning and causing me to wince in pain and immediately close them again.

I heard a gasp and the scraping of a chair against the wooden floor, followed by rapid footsteps down the hall. I longed for my child and husband, I knew they weren't near, I could feel it.

Attempting to open my eyes again, I gingerly lifted up my arms and rubbed my eyelids. This time my eyes were less sensitive and I could just make out some shapes when I heard several people bustle into the room.

"My love, oh thank the Gods you're okay"

"Jon" I croaked, my throat feeling dry and dusty. "Where is Joanna, where is my babe?"

"She was too weak, her lungs were too undeveloped to allow her to survive." Came the voice of the maester. "Please try to stay calm, My Lady." He urged as I tried to push myself up to a sitting position

"Dead?" My ears rung with the effort of movement, the room spinning.

"Yes, and you very nearly were too." Jon replied, "two weeks you've been asleep."

I wish I never woke up. I thought, resting my head back on my pillow.