After Henry (Once Upon a Time)

Finale: Homecoming

Hyperion Heights, Seattle, three months later...

Ivy: Henry's hand was holding mine with the strength of lions, his steady breath was the only thing calming me down and inspiring the force to go on. 

Doctors screamed vitals with a worried face, my heart bumped out of my chest, I didn't know what was going on, completely. My soul was lingering between the living and the dead. I had fragments of memories, trying to build a conclusion as to why I was in that tiny white room, filled with machines, scissors and needles. I looked down and my dress was stolen, I actually was dressed with a not very comfortable hospital's snowflake pajama.

"Babe, what's going on?" I asked, trying to piece everything together, only feeling comfort and grasp on Henry's presence. Everything else was shady, all I could see were colors and blurred shadows. 

"It's okay, you can do this. Our family is almost whole, you just need to push." It hit me like a flash of lightning, and I mean literally, because I swear I could hear the lights flicker, sparkling all over and spitting fiery specks of electricity, when Henry said "push", and the doctors put all their efforts into bringing Clara to the world. My little baby was being born! 

My head was so numb, all I could sense was Henry's sweet vanilla warm scent, his marble gentle touch against my hand, holding it firmly so that I wouldn't faint my spirit completely. All I could do for him was bring this wonderful baby I couldn't wait to meet.

My lungs screamed as loud as possible, heart almost drown in ecstasy, as I felt Clara's little body wanting to come out. 

Her eyes better be emerald like her grandma's or forest green like her papa's, I thought to myself with a giggle! It was an easy and delightful way, forgetting about the pain my body felt, crushed by buffalos and trains alike! It was easy to picture the baby in my mind and in those eyes I wished she stole from her papa's family, find the strength to keep going, to keep pushing.

"Yes, it's almost there, you can do it!" The clock on the other side screamed eight-fifteen, the hour when Henry and Emma were also born and every mysterious universal moment seemed to take place in this family.

"Come on, Ivy, just one more push! One more!" Henry and the rest of the doctors encouraged me, but I couldn't feel more strength to pull out of my body. I was beyond numb, shadows and colors were more blur by the second it passed. I was cold as a thousand snowflakes, body and spirit, and as my last strength went to the baby and the effort of bringing her to the world, my mind finally detached from this reality, fingers lost the warm touch of Henry's hand and I was sucked into another plan of existence, lingering between the living and the dead. Gasping for air, needlessly, taking the grip of life but never being allowed to do it completely. Lost...in Limbo I was, as I watched a beautiful world leaving me behind, Henry's voice faintly begged me to wake up but I just floated in the immense ghostly ocean of Time and Space, taken away by mystery.

Dreamworld...

My eyes turned bigger, I looked down and all my clothes were back. I recognized that outfit, it was the same I wore in Malibu, on the best holidays a girl could wish for. Shorts and a nice white  t-shirt with blue strands. 

I looked around, there were tiny firefly like beings, some transparent, others grey or white, they engulfed the atmosphere with a mystic touch. My eyes wondered where they could be, taking a whole of every tiny detail they could possibly get. Then, they looked up, where the sun was melting into a sweet orange like shade, moon whisked away the clouds turning dark, and stars got their first glimpse of planet Earth. Except we were not in Earth, rather "lost" in a familiar memory. Malibu.

The wind blowing in my face, singing sweet melodies of the stories that happened in that trip. The stories I imagined playing out, endless as the field the ocean seemed to be. Endless as the bottom of Malibu's waters, where Henry sailed our rented yacht and smiled at me, from the steering wheel. I remembered it perfectly, and like a movie frame, it all appeared in my mind, sweet piece by darling piece.