Six of a Kind

Neonatal: I

Namjoon didn't know how to feel about the disappearance of his wife. One half of his heart was crushed. The woman he loved the most had run away from him and his babies. That hurt in a way he'd never felt before. He had no idea if she was safe, or if she was in pain. He kept hoping that she might come back, but her phone always rang through. Not even her parents picked up the phone to him.

Namjoon had got the hint, though. His wife didn't want to be with him. His wife didn't want to be there, because she didn't want the babies. She didn't want that responsibility. He should have been able to guess with the way she looked when she saw their little bodies in the incubator. He should have been able to tell that she didn't love them by her stony face when she touched their limbs.

Namjoon couldn't love anyone who didn't love his babies.

If her leaving meant that the babies would be his, and they would always be his, then he would take that loss. If she wanted to leave them, then she would never have been a good mother to them. He grit his teeth, and got on with it. He refused to cry when 6 little lives continued to fight for him.

When the nurses asked him where she was, he answered truthfully. He didn't know. And at that point of time, he didn't want to know. His life was for his babies only, who continued to steadily grow and get stronger.

However, without his wife there, the babies suddenly hit a wall. Even though his wife was feeling nothing for the babies, her body was still preparing strong breastmilk that would help them grow, and build up their immune system. They didn't have that anymore. They desperately needed it, and they started to regress in front of Namjoon's eyes.

The hospital was a little more prepared for this. They didn't tell Namjoon what they were doing, and he never found out. He honestly didn't want to know as long as it worked, and his babies were healthy. They arranged a mother, who had just lost her own baby, to pump breast milk, and gave that to the sextuplets. The mother never met the babies. She never knew Namjoon didn't know what she was doing for them. She just wanted to do anything that would help other babies survive, unlike her own.

Namjoon spent every waking moment with the sextuplets. He went home at night to make sure the six cots were ready, and he had plenty of formula for them to drink. He got everything ready, and long awaited their arrival, whenever that would be.

He got to have a cuddle with Jungkook every day. Holding that small little weight against him helped quieten his mind. He forgot all his thoughts about his wife, the worries about money, the dread of something happening to them. He just cradled the tiny body gently, whispering gently to him, and sniffed his soft, fluffy hair. He made sure he washed his hands and chest first, and he knew he would decline should he get sick or was around someone infectious. He wouldn't put their lives at risk like that.

Every day, he read their charts; read over the names of the medications they were being given; what treatments they needed to keep their bodies working until they were old enough to take it over by themselves. He could chant it by heart, but he felt if, if he didn't read them, something bad might happen. It was like a bet with himself.

As they hit 28 weeks gestation, their medications were lowered, and the babies, just a month old now, started to have small movements of their own. They were very small, but they were there. Namjoon marvelled as their eyelashes and eyebrows grew, and their limbs twitched a little.

When the sextuplets turned 5 weeks old, Seokjin and Taehyung were ready to be held, and Namjoon ignored the conversations about the babies being removed from their ventilators. They were running out of time, and if they still couldn't breathe on their own, then they would have to have a tracheostomy. Something permanent. He didn't want to think about that.