Chapter Text
Louis had felt off since he'd gotten up that morning. A sharp pain in his head had woken him up before the sun, and he'd crawled unseeingly out of the circle of Harry's sleep-lax arms. He'd been able to doze back off once he was in the comfort of his nest, but even when he woke up again, long after Harry had already been awake, he couldn't find the energy to do much else but lay in the nest and watch Harry putter around while he prepared for his day with Eli. More than once Harry had asked him if he should just reschedule the day and stay home with the omega, but Louis didn't want that. Eli had been strange about the whole ordeal, not wanting to leave Louis alone, to the point of throwing a complete fit when he was told they'd have to leave before Jay could make it over to Louis' house. Louis knew the boy needed to get away from the weight they were all under---Harry couldn't postpone this outing. Besides, he hadn't felt terrible . The headache he'd woken up with was long gone, and there was no other pain to speak of.
Louis was just tired, and that was an everyday occurrence these days.
It took a bit of convincing, but eventually the alphas left and Louis was on his own for a while. He'd imagined that he'd spend the hour or so he had before his mum would show up doing things around the house since he wouldn't have anyone hovering around telling him not to. But when the time actually came, Louis found he had little to no desire to do anything but doze---so that's what he did. His mother found him curled up, cat-napping in his nest when she finally got there, and she took care not to disturb him until he was ready to wake up. When he did come to, she sat on the floor by the closet with him, gently combing her fingers through his hair while they caught up on everything that had happened over the last few weeks. Louis hadn't realized how much he'd needed to spend some time with his mum until she was there and he was confiding in her all of his worries and feelings---until he was asking her where the line of motherhood was drawn and what act of cruelty was the most humane.
She hadn't been able to give him a solid answer.
After that, Jay insisted that he needed to try and eat, because he told her he hadn't really bothered to yet. She excused herself to the kitchen, more than comfortable finding her way around Louis' house on her own. She'd insisted that he didn't have to get up, that he shouldn't , but his bladder disagreed wholeheartedly with her.
One minute, Louis had been on his way to the restroom while listening to the sound of his mother humming in the kitchen, and the next, he was waking up in the back of an ambulance with an oxygen mask pressed to his face and a worried paramedic bent over him. Louis couldn't tell through his bleary vision and his covered nose what the man's secondary gender was, or how old he was, but he could tell that the poor lad was panicked. There was a bead of sweat on his brow, and a single strand of blonde wavy hair hung down into his eyes. His breaths were coming out fast and Louis could just make out the movement of his lips---but the sound wasn't lining up with it. The sirens of the ambulance were cutting through his brain like a sharp knife.
Louis cried out in pain.
"Stay with me, Louis," he finally heard the paramedic say, but his mouth was closed now.
" Hurts ," Louis gasped. He tried to reach up to hold his head, to try and drown out the sound of the siren making every blood vessel in his brain scream in anger. The paramedic held his hands down and shook his head.
"I know," he said, the sound and his mouth finally lining up. His voice was velvety and deep, almost comforting. Louis would have probably found it soothing if the siren wasn't overpowering it in every other way. "Just a little while longer. Just stay with me."
"My baby," Louis let out in a puff of frantic air, his hands now trying to break free from the paramedic's constricting hold to reach out for his belly. He didn't let Louis go.
"Hold on, Louis," he tried to comfort again.
" My baby ," Louis whimpered. He didn't know what was happening to him, or how he'd gotten there, but all he could do now was scream in his head to any force of nature that cared to listen to just keep his baby safe. Hot, burning tears slid down his face, sliding into his ears from his position stuck on his back. The paramedic with the soothing voice wiped them away when he noticed them.
"Just breathe for me," he instructed in a hushed tone, one fit for grave sites and hospital waiting rooms. One fit for the leftover lives remaining after someone has died. Louis didn't know if he lost consciousness again, but the next time he registered what was going on around him, the pain in his head was gone, and so was the terrible siren. It was quiet where he was now, and the paramedic with the melodic voice was nowhere in sight, but he could feel pressure on his hands still, like he was still being held down. His eyelids were heavy---closed---he could tell now, but he couldn't feel the oxygen mask anymore. He could smell Harry's sandalwood and morning dew scent all around him, and his omega whimpered inside his chest.
"Shhh," a comforting voice murmured beside him. "It's okay. I'm here. Everything is okay now."
"Harry," Louis whimpered, still unable to open his eyes, but he turned his head towards the sound of his mate's voice, sniffling around the smaller oxygen tubes he could now feel in his nose. There was a quiet beeping that he was slowly becoming aware of. Fingers combed through the front of his hair, softly pushing it back and scratching his scalp.
"I'm here, omega," Harry soothed. Louis felt a light kiss on his forehead, and finally he was able to peel back his eyelids to look up at the alpha standing over him. Tears ran down his cheeks when endless forests of green came into focus.
"What happened?" Louis asked, all of the fear and the memory of the pain coming back to him in waves. He reached out for his belly as he remembered calling out for their baby in the back of the ambulance. Harry let him, but when his hands reached the small bump, he came into contact with two cloth straps and what felt like plastic saucers secured to his body. Harry's hand layered over the top of both of Louis' softly, holding him still.
"Careful, don't move those," Harry cautioned. Louis whimpered and looked up at Harry in desperation, not understanding anything that had led to this moment.
"Relax, baby," Harry cooed, the hand not holding Louis still continued to comb through his hair. "Everything is okay. You were brought to the hospital by ambulance because you fainted at home. Your mum called it in when she couldn't get you to wake up, and then she called me to meet you here. The doctors said your blood pressure spiked really high, and that's what caused you to pass out, and likely what caused your headache this morning, remember?" Louis blinked as he took in all of the information. He knew that there were vital pieces being put into place by Harry's explanation but his brain was stuck on the fact that his blood pressure spiked. It was too hard to wade through the thick cloud of fog hovering over his mind at that moment to understand completely, but he knew that high blood pressure wasn't a good thing. He knew it was actually the thing they'd been hoping they could avoid.
"They were able to get it down a pretty significant amount, which is so good. It's been a couple hours now, and it hasn't spiked again, which Dr. Wright said is a really good sign," Harry continued explaining. Louis moved his hands again, lightly touching the machines strapped to him. Harry looked up at the screens Louis could now see beside him. There were two, one much smaller than the other. "They've got a fetal heart monitor strapped to you to monitor Little Bird's heart. They weren't happy with you being in so much pain, but Dr. Malak says their numbers have looked fine since yours came back down. So they're okay, too."
"They're okay?" Louis asked, breathless. The heart stopping dread that had clenched his lungs in an iron fist the minute he'd woken up in that ambulance finally released him, and he felt like he couldn't take a breath deep enough.
"Hey, hey," Harry comforted lightly, petting his hair a little quicker. "Look at me, Lou." The omega did as he was told, looked over at Harry and let the alpha hold him in his commanding gaze. "Just breathe with me." Harry guided him through some deep breaths until Louis was able to breathe on his own again without hyperventilating.
"You're both okay," Harry murmured to him sweetly, leaning in to kiss Louis' forehead again. "Just try to rest."
"Where's Eli?" Louis asked, the fog in his mind clearing to reveal a small alpha-sized hole in the whole explanation. Harry averted his gaze and took his hand off of Louis' to rub it down his face.
"He's with your mum," Harry explained with a deep sigh. "He's a little shaken up, but he's okay, too. You don't have to worry about anything."
"I'm really tired," Louis told Harry, in case it was important to know. The omega wasn't sure how much time had passed since the ambulance ride. Harry had mentioned hours , but he didn't know if the alpha meant hours from the ambulance ride or if there'd been more time between getting to the hospital and his blood pressure coming down. Louis didn't know if he should be feeling as fatigued as he was, but he was back to feeling like his eyelids weighed a million pounds, and his vision was blurry.
"It's the medication," Harry told him gently. "It's okay, Lou. Just sleep. I'll be here when you wake up again." Louis fell out of consciousness so quickly after that, he wasn't sure if he'd even been awake at all.
* * *
The next time Louis woke up, the sun was filtering in through the slots of the hospital blinds, shining directly onto his face from its position still so low in the sky. His head felt like it was full of sand, but there was thankfully no pain. When he pulled his eyelids back, the room spun just a little bit, but there was a weight on his hand that he latched onto, and after a few seconds of holding onto the warm weight, the ceiling stopped wavering over him. The omega's mouth was painfully dry. He smacked his lips together quietly, trying to get some lubrication onto his tongue but it didn't do much good. Louis eventually gave up and looked around the room for a source of hydration, some water or any kind of drinkable liquid he could swish around in his mouth, just to ease the stickiness of his tongue. He didn't spot any, but his eyes snagged on the alpha slumped over the side of his bed. Harry's head was pillowed on his folded arms, and one of his hands was still resting on top of Louis', which Louis was clutching firmly now. The alpha was fast asleep.
"Oh good," a quiet voice said from the opposite side of the room. "You're awake." Louis' head whipped around to meet Dr. Malak's tired, dark eyes. He was shuffling into the room and closing the door behind him. Louis put a finger up to his lips and silently shushed the doctor once he was looking at Louis again. Dr. Malak peered over Louis' body and nodded his head in acknowledgement when he saw Harry's sleeping form. The doctor walked right up to the side of the bed and checked the various monitors that sat beside Louis. He worked quietly, pushing buttons and writing down numbers on the clipboard he'd brought into the room with him, before finally sighing and turning to face Louis. He crossed his arms over his chest and sighed again, meeting Louis' eyes with the same sympathetic look he'd given them a few weeks ago in his office.
"How are you feeling?" he asked in a voice as quiet as possible while still ensuring Louis could hear him. The omega nodded and clicked his tongue against the roof of his dry mouth again.
"Thirsty," Louis whispered, finding his voice rough from the misuse. Dr. Malak walked over to a small sink hidden along the wall behind Harry and filled up a small paper cup. Once it was full he walked back over to Louis' bedside and handed it to the omega carefully, holding his hand under the paper cup even once Louis' grip was firm, just to be sure. Louis downed the contents of the cup gratefully and then he silently handed it back to Dr. Malak. He held it while he watched Louis, searching the omega's face for something, but Louis didn't know what.
"I'll make this brief for now and come back a bit later when Harry can be a part of the conversation," he murmured. "You suffered from a bout of what we call Hypertensive Encephalopathy. That's a dysfunction in the brain caused by very high blood pressure. That's why you lost consciousness for so long. When the ambulance picked you up, your blood pressure was 160/110. Fortunately, they were able to bring it down quickly, and there doesn't appear to be any permanent damage to your brain function, and you've responded well to the medication for your blood pressure since you were admitted."
"Is Littl-... is my baby okay?" Louis whispered, slowly loosening his grip on Harry's hand, hoping beyond hope that they weren't disturbing him. His hand remained limp in Louis'. Dr. Malak gave Louis a tight-lipped smile.
"Little Bird is okay," he assured Louis. When Louis gave the doctor a questioning look the doctor chuckled under his breath. "Eli told me all about the nickname last night. He's quite an extraordinary kid, you know?" The omega's face relaxed into a small, warm smile.
"I know," Louis agreed quietly. "I'm a lucky omega."
"You truly are," Dr. Malak told him. For a moment they both just looked at each other, and Louis wondered where the doctor's mind wandered to in the brief second where his eyes seemed to unfocus. Then he fixed his expression into a flat smile and he patted Louis' shoulder softly. "I'll come back a bit later with your other doctors, and we can talk about where we go from here."
"Alright," Louis whispered. "Thank you." Dr. Malak nodded at him and then the doctor took his leave, silently shutting the door behind him and leaving Louis alone once again. The omega turned over the information he'd just learned and tried to apply it to everything he remembered. He tried to walk back through the moments leading up to what must have been him passing out, and the terrifying seconds he remembered inside the ambulance, and tried to make sense of them. He tried to reach back further than that and recall anything that might have given him a warning that this was coming, but he came up mostly blank. He'd been feeling so normal, really. Of course, Louis hadn't been feeling great , but there was a sort of typical baseline that he'd hovered around since his diagnosis. It had been manageable, and so stagnant. There wasn't an instance where he'd felt like things had gotten worse all of a sudden. Well, except for the day it happened. He woke up feeling much worse that day, but even that had just felt like an inconvenience, not a sign that something was rapidly getting worse---that his body was literally dysfunctioning. He watched the sun continue its ascent into the sky and he played idly with Harry's hand on the bed while his thoughts took him away from the room he was confined to. He traced his way back through time, to the moment he found out about the new life inside of him, and then he skipped ahead to the dark and uncomfortable unknown. Louis knew now that he was here, he was likely not leaving until the baby was born. This was the exact kind of thing Dr. Malak had alluded to that would send their precariously balanced plan right off the edge into one extreme or the other. Louis knew that no matter what, he wasn't leaving the hospital again without being forever changed.
He shied back to the present when the possibility of leaving without his baby appeared before him.
When the sun was too high for him to watch anymore, he turned his head and stared at the little monitor attached to the wires velcroed to his midsection. There was an endless amount of paper feeding out of one side onto a tray below with lines squiggled across it. It looked exactly like how television shows depicted lie detector machines, except instead of a needle drawing the lines, it was a machine with numbers on the screen printing out the images of what it was reading. Louis didn't really know what the numbers on the screen meant, but the lines on the paper looked steady so the omega focused on that---comforted by the consistency of it.
Little Bird's heartbeat was strong and steady---still there.
He felt like he finally really understood all the nights Harry had fallen asleep with his fingers pressed to Louis' pulse point, just feeling the methodic thump, thump, thump , taking comfort in its being there.
"Lou?" Harry croaked from his other side, the hand holding his suddenly tightening, holding it in place. Louis turned his head slowly to look at the alpha still leaning over the side of his bed. Harry's tired eyes peered up at him through the fog of his lingering slumber. Louis gave him a small smile.
"Hi," he whispered to the alpha.
"You could have woken me up," Harry muttered, straightening up in his chair with a quiet wince. His curls were darker at the top, a little oily from what Louis could only imagine was a night spent running his fingers through them to dispel his nerves. Harry appeared to have changed out of the collared shirt he'd worn out with Eli, into a more comfortable looking hoodie---one of Louis'.
"I haven't been up long," Louis told him, still keeping his voice quiet though there was no need anymore. "You needed the rest. The doctors won't be in until later." Harry nodded, letting go of Louis' hand to stretch both of his arms up towards the ceiling. He groaned as he stretched and Louis felt a pang in his chest, a searing longing for Harry that didn't make sense to the omega, since he was sitting right beside him. But even the brief moment without the small connection of Harry's hand in his own tore at the edges of Louis' tattered sanity. When Harry stopped stretching he ran one hand through his hair, mussing up the frizzy curls even more. He seemed to notice the mess they were in, because he suddenly produced a hair tie from where it had been hidden on his wrist and tied the unruly curls on top of his head in a perfect bun. Louis ran his eyes over Harry's frame, trying to reassure his uneasy omega that the alpha was still there, still looking effortlessly beautiful, even in the midst of a disastrous night and unrestful sleep, within arm's reach. It didn't do anything to alleviate the quickly mounting discomfort. His omega was practically whining in need for his alpha now. The need felt like it came from so deep, that it felt like it was turning the omega inside out. Like an itch he was feeling from within his body that only moved when he thought he pinpointed where it originated from. Louis didn't often feel this needy, not even with Harry thousands of miles away. He was knocked breathless by the sudden, overwhelming craving to just be closer , to feel Harry with every sense he had, like his very soul required the reassurance that the alpha was still there---or maybe that Louis himself was.
"You feeling okay?" Harry asked, noticing Louis' growing discomfort despite Louis' efforts to keep it to himself. Harry's voice was still rough with sleep, and there was just a hint of his alpha laced underneath, like his alpha could sense that Louis needed it.
It nearly ripped a whine out of Louis' chest.
Harry stood from his chair and leaned over Louis, pressing one hand to Louis' forehead briefly and then running it up into his hair in a soothing gesture. The alpha dropped a lingering kiss on his head and took Louis' hand back in his free one. He gave Louis' limp fingers a light squeeze and the omega had to choke back a whimper at the contact. There was a searing pain in his chest now, a deeply rooted need that felt like so much more than just his primal instincts. It felt like a force all its own that wanted to cry out for Harry now---something independent from Louis altogether.
"Yeah," Louis breathed out in answer.
"Then why do you smell so distressed?" Harry asked, pulling away to search Louis' eyes. "Should I call the nurse? Are you in pain?"
"No, I just…I want you," Louis whimpered pathetically when the need overpowered his ability to form a sentence.
What the hell was happening to him?
He wiggled around on the bed, pulling himself to one side to make a minuscule amount of room for Harry beside him. He used their linked hands to pull the alpha closer, trying to hint at what he wanted while he tried to regain control of his mouth. "I don't know what's happening---I was fine a second ago. My omega is freaking out, I think."
"Lou, are you sure I shouldn't call someone?" Harry asked, his growing concern shaking the last of the sleepiness from his voice and eyes. He started to climb into the bed beside Louis, even as he spoke, putting his body into the small space as best as he could. Louis adamantly shook his head and just burrowed into Harry's chest once he was comfortable enough to support Louis' weight. Harry wrapped his arms around him instantly and scented the omega, filling the room generously with his sandalwood scent. That seemed to work to quell the growing panic setting each of Louis' nerves on fire, having Harry pressed against him with his scent permeating the air. Slowly, his omega settled and the tightness in his chest subsided.
"I don't know what just happened," Louis murmured when his omega was settled enough to relax in Harry's hold. "I just…"
"Look," Harry interjected. He nudged the omega by moving his shoulder a bit, which encouraged the omega to look up at Harry curiously. The alpha indicated with his chin at a spot behind Louis' back. The omega turned as best as he could while staying wrapped around Harry, and he followed Harry's eyes back to the machine Louis had watched all morning. The paper spilling out of the monitor was covered with the same line Louis had tracked along with the sunrise, only now the line had spiked higher than before, and dipped lower. Louis would have panicked about it, except he could see now that the line was returning to the same steady shape it had been before, calm and consistent---placated.
"Oh," Louis murmured, his brain immediately wanting to reject the thoughts that percolated as he watched Little Bird's heart rate go back to normal. Louis' eyes stayed locked on the machine, but Harry curled in tighter to the omega and pressed another gentle kiss to Louis' forehead. One of his hands slid down Louis' side and came to rest on the swell of his small tummy, right between the velcro straps.
"I'm here," Harry said, though Louis wasn't sure he was talking to him anymore. "I'm not going anywhere. I've got you."
"Do you think that was them?" Louis murmured, in awe of the absence of the needy feeling now, and the gentle movement of the line of the monitor.
"I don't know," Harry shrugged as much as he could around the omega in his arms. "It could have just been a coincidence. Maybe they were just reacting to your omega's distress?" Harry didn't sound convinced though, even as the words came out of his mouth. His hand moved over Louis' belly softly, trying to soothe the child within him at the same time.
"I've never felt anything like that before," Louis mused.
"Not with Eli?" Harry wondered. "You never felt his needs? Not even in the later part of the pregnancy?" Louis finally settled back into Harry's chest, letting his head rest on the alpha's shoulder as he shrugged.
"By the time Eli had needs of his own I was so deep in depri I don't think I could feel anything," Louis said slowly, trying to reach back through a decade's worth of memories and find blips of light through the darkness that was his first pregnancy. "It was all just emptiness and desperation. I felt the need to survive, I felt the want to take care of him, but this was… physical . It felt like my skin was going to start ripping off. I never felt anything like that with Eli."
"Hmm," Harry hummed, kissing Louis' head again, almost out of habit. With each gentle peck and light trace of his fingers across Louis' baby bump, the omega grew more and more relaxed. "Seems our Little Bird is going to be a bit more demanding than our littlest alpha."
"Well if that was them, and that feeling is any indication of what they'll be like, I think we have a new littlest alpha on our hands," Louis scoffed. Harry smiled down at Louis, his dimple cratering his cheek as he shook his head a little.
"Hey now," the alpha chided while he chuckled. "Eli will always be my littlest alpha. Besides, I think this little strop they just threw is much more like their Mamma. You can be quite demanding, too, when you need me, omega." Harry smirked at Louis until the omega was red in the cheeks and giggling to himself. The alpha captured his mouth in a sweet kiss, swallowing the sound of Louis' bashful reaction. They'd been so hands off lately, so scared of crossing lines that might land them, well, here. In the hospital, on the brink of something too hard and terrible for either of them to process. There hadn't even been any real innocent flirting to speak of, so the smize Harry had given him had rendered Louis a bit speechless, now unused to seeing Harry's desire quite so close. Louis kissed him back hungrily---easily. He leaned into his strong arms, trusting Harry to hold all of them up even though the omega knew he was precariously perched on the bed.
He knew the alpha wouldn't let them fall.
For a moment, the strange, blissful feeling that came with experiencing a new part of their baby together erased all of the hard lines reality had drawn. The daydreaming of what might be, the balancing of their family and the love they'd have to make room for to accommodate both children---it almost felt real to Louis. It almost felt like something he could have, something they could have. But it was only a fleeting moment. One that was brought to an end with the quiet opening of a door.
"Knock, knock," Helene said teasingly as she peeked through the cracked door. "Sorry to interrupt." She smiled at the couple as Harry jumped to crawl out of the bed. He slinked shamefully back to his chair, but he kept his palm flat against Louis' belly---keeping his word. Helene laughed as she stepped all the way into the room with Dr. Malak and Dr. Wright close behind her. Besides Helene's easy smile as she regarded them, the doctors all looked pensive as they shuffled into the room. Dr. Wright closed the door gently behind them, and when he turned back towards the couple he pulled his white coat tight around his frame like he was trying to shield himself from a chill that nobody else could feel.
"Hey, Dr. H," Harry muttered, a blush coloring his cheeks endearingly. He nodded at her in greeting and then to the other doctors who did the same back to Harry.
"Hi, poppet," Helene smiled at the alpha, and then she looked at Louis and her smile tightened in the corners of her mouth. "It's good to see you up and about. You sure know how to give everyone a good scare, Louis."
"I'm sorry," Louis apologized sheepishly. Three and a half weeks' worth of guilt surged through his body as he met each of the sullen gazes of his doctors. He'd grown irritable and arrogant in the last few days, Louis knew that. He'd moved around his house spitefully, doing things way outside of his elected parameters purposefully, for reasons that felt stupid now that he was sitting on the hospital bed in front of the three people who were about to tell him what consequences he'd be facing now---all because of his own stubbornness. He'd set out to fight for his baby, to give them the strongest chance at survival no matter what it meant for him, and it had only taken three weeks for his selfish petulance to mess it all up---again. Harry tightened his hold on him fractionally, like he could shield Louis from the consequences of his own actions.
"You don't have to be sorry, Lou," Dr. Malak said in a low, soothing voice. As the only other alpha in the room, Louis suspected he could pick up on Louis' pungent, guilt-ridden scent the same way Harry was and his alpha was doing its best to soothe the distressed omega. "What happened wasn't your fault."
"What did happen?" Harry interjected, pulling Louis in tighter beside him. "No one has told me much of anything since the initial update." The alpha was eyeing Dr. Malak specifically when he asked, but it was Dr. Wright who answered him.
"Louis suffered from a temporary brain dysfunction caused by a sharp spike in his blood pressure," Dr. Wright explained carefully. He kept his eyes on Harry the whole time, as if he somehow knew that Louis had already been given this explanation. Dr. Malak must have told them that he'd spoken to Louis earlier that morning. They all seemed focused on trying to keep Harry calm now. Beside him, Harry's chest started to rise and fall a little quicker as his breathing picked up nervously.
"A brain dysfunction ?" Harry asked, notably worried. "When he first came in they just said he'd passed out. What do you mean brain dysfunction ?" Louis felt like he could fall right into the chasm that opened up between Harry's furrowed eyebrows. There was a permanent line there that folded easily now, Harry wore that expression so often.
"He did pass out. That's all it was, this time, but for someone to lose consciousness and stay unconscious for as long as Louis did, that constitutes a change in his mental status---a dysfunction," Dr. Wright said with a gentle nod of his head. "This particular dysfunction---caused by what we suspect was the sudden spike in Louis' blood pressure---it's called Hypertensive Encephalopathy."
"Okay," Harry muttered when the doctors stayed quiet for a moment. "What does that mean? For him, I mean. His heart, the preeclampsia? What are we looking at here?"
"Hypertensive Encephalopathy can be life-threatening if it's not managed," Dr. Malak took over, his voice hardening into a tone that was carefully emotionless. "Louis' blood pressure has always been a bit high, but the level at which it spiked last night could absolutely cause another heart attack or stroke if it happens again. He's responded well to the intravenous drugs so far. They are slowly pulling his blood pressure back down to a normal range---at least the range we are used to seeing with Louis, but I'm not confident that it won't shoot up again if he were to come off of them. Not while he's still pregnant."
"What does this have to do with my pregnancy?" Louis asked, confused by the correlation Dr. Malak had just drawn. He'd said when they first came in that what happened had nothing to do with what Louis did, that it wasn't his fault. He'd thought he somehow strained his body, made the preeclampsia worse somehow, but everything they'd said so far sounded like an issue with his heart, which he'd had since before the pregnancy, so how did this hinge on Little Bird's existence? "I thought this was about my heart?"
"It is," Dr. Wright confirmed. "But the spike in your blood pressure was likely caused by your preeclampsia, Lou."
"A rise in blood pressure is actually very typical with preeclampsia, as I'm sure you remember from the packet we gave you," Dr. Malak said. "It was rare that yours hadn't risen as a result of your diagnosis. Now that it has, it can only mean your preeclampsia has gotten worse. Of course, we will run tests today to really assess where we are, but I want to be honest with you both---I'm not sure how much longer we can push this."
"Are you saying we are at---that we have to---are we--" Harry stuttered out, his breathing hitching in Louis' ear. His eyes were wide as they prodded Dr. Malak for answers to the questions he couldn't finish. Louis knew what they were, every single one of them was echoing in his own heart and mind now, too.
Are they at the point Dr. Malak had warned them about?
The point that they'll have to choose?
Are they going to lose their baby?
"I'm not ready to give up," Louis stated firmly, even as his chin wobbled from the rising emotions closing his chest. He leaned into the arm Harry still had wrapped around him, and he wound a protective arm around his own stomach, like he could physically protect the baby inside of him from the ravaging toll the pregnancy was taking on his body. His hold knocked Harry's hand off of the small bump. "If we have any wiggle room at all, I want to use it."
"Louis," Harry murmured quietly, his own voice wobbling the way Louis' refused to. The omega made a point not to look at Harry. He kept his eyes locked on his doctor's.
"Lou," Dr. Wright spoke up then, his voice soft and sympathetic. "Even if your preeclampsia hasn't worsened to the point of no return, the severity of what happened yesterday would mean your heart is giving out under the pressure of the pregnancy. That's a risk that is very unpredictable, and very hard to come back from if we miss it. Whatever wiggle room you might have with your condition, it doesn't exist with your heart."
"I don't know what you're saying," Louis said in a shaking voice to his doctor and long term friend. "Please just tell me what's happening."
"Dear," Helene murmured. She walked up to Louis' bedside and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. Her thumb rubbed at the tense muscle there, and distantly Louis was aware of Harry's hand sneaking up to circle his wrist. The pad of the alpha's thumb pressed into Louis' pulse point, and he leaned over to press the tip of his nose against Louis' temple. The scent of sandalwood and morning dew overwhelmed his senses, begging his omega to fall into him, but Louis couldn't. Not with the deafening sound of the vacuum in his head once again swallowing up everything that wasn't Helene's sad, caring gaze. "We don't think it's safe for you to carry this baby any longer."
"But I'm only nineteen weeks," Louis said in an impossibly small voice. He could feel himself shrinking, drowning under the sympathetic gazes of all of his doctors, and under the overwhelming love of the alpha currently trying to hold Louis together with his constricting love. "Little Bird won't be able to survive if we induce labor now."
"Louis, do you remember when we sat in my office?" Dr. Malak asked. "And I told you that we may get to a point where keeping you healthy while pregnant is no longer feasible?"
"Yeah," Louis muttered, almost reluctantly.
"We're at that point, guys," Helene whispered to the couple, pointedly looking from the omega to the alpha.
"No," Louis shook his head, the heart monitor alerting to the uptick in Louis' heart rate. "Dr. Malak said you still need to run tests. We don't even know if my preeclampsia has gotten worse. And you all said I've responded well to treatment for my blood pressure. I feel fine. We don't know enough to make a conclusion like that yet."
"Louis, try to breathe, love," Harry tried to comfort the omega, but there was obvious panic ballooning inside of his chest as well. He was still openly scenting Louis, but his scent had started to run muddy with his own conflicting emotions.
"There's no way to know if this will happen again, Louis," Dr. Wright explained carefully. "You could be fine now, but if anything fluctuates at all, your blood pressure could spike again and we may not get as lucky as we did this time. Your kidney function is already suffering from preeclampsia, if your brain dysfunctions again we could lose them completely. Your brain could swell and you could lose your memory, motor function, or just never regain consciousness. You could have a stroke. Louis these are all things that I can't reverse once it happens, and I can't prevent it from happening with so much strain on your body from the pregnancy."
"But if I stayed here, and you kept my blood pressure regulated with the medication, it would be easier to track, right?" Louis bargained, sitting up shaking off of Harry's suffocating hold. Helene's hand on Louis' shoulder tightened, like she was restraining him, but she still rubbed soothing circles into his muscles. Louis resisted the urge to shake her off too, but only just.
"Sure," Dr. Wright agreed hesitantly. "But you're riding a lot on the assumption that we'd be able to catch a sudden change in time. Even if I'm right here, I can only do so much."
"My heart has been weak this whole time," Louis continued to argue, that same stubborn petulance that landed him here making him want to get up and shake the doctors with his bare hands---making him want to fight every threat they were throwing at him. "Why is it different now? This was always a risk. If my preeclampsia isn't worse, why is there any more risk now than there was before?"
"Louis, please," Harry's soft, tender, sickening sweet voice called to him. "You have to understand."
"There isn't really more risk," Helene answered. "If the preeclampsia isn't worse. You're right, it is the same risk we knew we were taking with your heart from the very beginning, but there is no question that the preeclampsia will get worse. That is an inevitability. It is only a question of when, and now that we know that it has the potential to manifest this way, we simply cannot encourage you to continue to take this risk. The odds of your survival and the odds of the baby's survival are different enough now that we have to look at what would cause the least amount of damage."
"And, in your professional opinion, you're all saying that killing my baby is the safest course of action? The least damaging ?" Louis bit out through clenched teeth. Grief gripped Louis by the throat and dared him to breathe freely in the one second that passed after his question sank to the floor in the middle of the room.
Louis shook Helene's touch off.
"We could deliver the baby," she tried carefully, pulling her hands in and folding them together in front of herself now. "It's rare, but sometimes fetuses born this early can survive. We can give you a hormone to help develop their lungs over the next couple of days. Try to give them the best shot."
"Less than one percent of babies survive if they're born before twenty-two weeks, Dr. H," Louis told his favorite doctor, looking her straight in her eyes. They were filled with hurt, and so apologetic it almost caused a reverberation of pain through Louis' body. She knew that statistic when she suggested delivering the baby, and a part of her had known Louis knew it, too.
"Louis, I know this is hard," Dr. Malak interjected, once again sounding separated and concise. He was taking the role of the doctor, playing the part of the objective party. Louis didn't know if he was doing that willingly because he knew Dr. Wright and Helene stood less of a chance at being able to do it, or if he was just trying to make up for their lack of professionalism in a situation they deemed serious. He hadn't known Louis the way the other two doctor's had. He had no connection to his family like they did, so it made sense, and it even hurt a bit less to hear the words come from his mouth---but still they hit Louis like a betrayal. "But these are your options now. I told you and Harry that when we got to this point, it would be up to you two to tell us how we proceed. We obviously can't force you to do anything, but if you choose to continue this pregnancy, it would be against medical advice, and I cannot confidently say we'd be able to keep either of you alive."
"We told you what we'd choose when we got to this point," Harry spoke behind Louis again, but this time to the doctor who currently had Louis' gaze locked in his own. "We aren't going to risk Louis' life for this." Harry's words floated out into the room and hovered in the thick air they all were sharing. Dr. Wright and Helene looked towards one another, exchanging looks too full of pity and sadness for Louis to give his attention to, so for one too long beat, Dr. Malak and Louis just continued to stare at one another. For one solid second of silence, Dr. Malak and Louis were caught in a silent battle of wills, daring one another to move and break the hushed pause---because they both realized in that moment there would be no going back once time started moving again.
The minute the words left Harry's mouth again, Louis had already decided nothing could ever be the same.
"I'm not giving up now," Louis said, his voice ringing out sure and strong, despite the way his hands were shaking in his lap.
"What?" Harry asked in disbelief. A meaty palm landed on Louis' shoulder as Harry tried to pull the omega's attention back to him, but Louis straightened his spine and locked his joints in place. He didn't turn to look at Harry, couldn't bear to, if he was being honest. Instead he met each of his doctor's eyes as he calmly spoke to them.
"I'm not giving up on my baby," he told them. "Not when we're this close."
"Louis, we agreed we wouldn't take a risk with your life," Harry said again, cutting off Dr. Wright's poised statement, forcing his open mouth closed again. Louis turned his head just enough that he could see the alpha out of the corner of his eye. The confusion on Harry's face sent Louis' stomach plummeting to his feet, but he locked his jaw and looked out of the window instead.
"I can't do it," Louis murmured to Harry, or maybe the words were thrown around him. Louis wasn't quite sure what he was doing anymore---who he was throwing his desperation at. The alpha shifted, standing from the chair and rounding the end of it so he could stand beside the doctors and force Louis to look him straight on.
"You can't do what?" Harry asked carefully. Louis kept his eyes on the window, but Harry just stepped into his line of sight, peering down at the omega until he had no choice but to meet Harry's eyes.
They were face to face on opposite sides of the battlefield, unable to hide from each other any longer.
"Harry," Louis breathed. Louis pressed his hand firmly against his small bump and willed the moisture that built up in his eyes to dry. "We can't give up on them now."
"Omega," Harry said, his voice growing soft and his eyes growing wet, just like Louis'. He toed up to the edge of the bed and thumbed at Louis' cheek, gently coaxing the omega into his touch with tender strokes. "I don't want to lose them either, baby. But we have to think about you now---about our son who is here and needs you."
" They need me, Haz," Louis whispered, willing the alpha to just understand---to just agree. "More than anyone else. I'm all they have."
"We knew this might be how this ended, Lou," Harry tried to reason, his touch remaining soft, but going still now. His gaze hardened, even as his words caressed Louis' mind with a faint touch of Harry's alpha tone. "We tried, darling, but we knew what the risks were." Louis pulled his head out of Harry's grasp and blinked up at the alpha, at the nonchalance he used to speak of killing their child. He was apologetic but almost stoic in his revelation---like they'd simply lost a bet they'd been playing for too long. Not the life of their second child.
"Exactly," Louis said, his words rigid. "We knew the risks when this all started. Nothing's changed."
"Nothing's changed?" Harry asked, pulling his hand away and scoffing a little. He looked over to the doctors for help but they were all standing awkwardly, politely trying to pretend like they weren't in the room witnessing Harry and Louis' disintegration. "They just said--"
"They said they need to run more tests," Louis interjected. "They don't know if anything is different right now. There's still a chance and I'm not going to let go of it."
"Didn't you listen to everything they just said?" Harry asked, now taking a step back from the bed as if Louis had just physically struck him. His omega cowered inside of his chest, not happy with the look on Harry's face or the fiery tinge his scent was taking on, but Louis just squared his shoulders and met the alpha's gaze head on. "Do you have any idea how scary last night was? What if that happens again, Louis?"
"I'll be here, where they can catch it so it doesn't come to that again," Louis countered easily. Harry blinked a couple of times in quick concession, disbelief coloring his expression.
"You can't be serious. Are you being serious right now?" Harry asked. Louis could only nod through the shock reverberating through his own system, one stiff jut of his chin downward and then back up. A part of Louis was as disbelieving as Harry was, his mind running wild with all of the moving parts of his decision. Eli, Lottie, and his mum. Harry, Niall, Liam, and Zayn; they all flashed in his mind’s eye. Scenarios and feelings, and loss too big for any of them to fathom all screamed inside of his head. But he pressed his lips into a thin line, holding them all back, silencing them all by focusing on the silent movement of the line on the small monitor beside him. Louis tightened his hold on his belly, feeling the need to protect it from Harry for the first time since before he had told the alpha about the pregnancy.
"And if the tests come back and the preeclampsia is worse, then what?" Harry wondered, throwing the words out like a confrontation, but there was no real fight in them. They were hollow as they fell from his tongue---already anticipating the rebuff, because one thing about Harry was that he knew his omega well.
"There's only five more weeks until they can safely be born," Louis murmured carefully, doing everything he could to make his answering blow land as softly as possible. He knew he wasn't being fair right now. Louis understood that he'd agreed to give up once the doctors advised him to, and that he'd never let on to Harry that he felt differently. He knew Harry had to be experiencing layers of shock at Louis' sudden revelation, because, unlike Louis, he hadn't been preparing for this inevitable battle for the last three and a half weeks. It was an advantage Louis hated having over the alpha. "I'm fine. You can see that. We can still do this."
"Are you--" Harry cut himself off as a breath rushed out of his lungs. He turned his back on the omega and ran a hand through his curls, pulling at the topknot until it was limp. Some strands fell from the tie and hung loosely by his jawline. When he turned back to Louis, there was a desperation in his eyes that Louis had only ever seen one other time. "Your heart isn't strong enough for this."
"Harry, look at me," Louis coaxed, trying to appeal to his frantic alpha and soothe him a bit. The alpha met his eyes, but only briefly. They shifted away and then back, only to bounce away again. "I'm fine, love. Look at me. You can see that I'm okay. All I'm asking for is enough time to give them a chance to be okay, too."
"You're okay? Is that really what you heard?" Harry asked, his voice shooting up an octave as his eyes finally landed on Louis' mouth. Louis wondered if Harry was unable to look into his eyes now, and if he couldn't, Louis wondered why. Was it because he couldn't face Louis or was it because he couldn't face himself as he said his next words? "Because what I heard is that they don't really think your heart will make it long enough to find out."
"We'll, uh, give you two some time to discuss things," Dr. Malak murmured, making a hasty retreat towards the door. The other doctors followed suit, though Helene kept looking between the two like she was worried about leaving them alone. The movement triggered something in Harry that Louis could tell he’d been trying to fight off.
"There's nothing to discuss," Harry barked, seething with a pain-induced rage that boiled up and over the edge instantaneously. Desperation turned his words hot and razor sharp---throwing out a spike strip in the road to try and stop the doctors from leaving. To try and stop the possibility of Louis doing this. Louis winced a little at the force of Harry's words, but his stare didn't waver from Harry. He held the alpha's angry gaze with a look as set as Harry's own. Harry’s pain was hard to face, but his angry alpha was something Louis knew he could handle. He just couldn’t let his pitiful omega get in the way.
For Little Bird, Louis could face Harry like this.
"We already talked about what we'd do when we got to this point. We aren't changing our minds now," Harry bellowed, emphasizing again that his mind had been made up about the choice. Reiterating his denial about Louis changing his mind. All three doctors slipped through the door, not lingering around despite Harry's insistence. Harry watched them disappear with a slack jaw and an angry curve to his brow.
"I am," Louis told him clearly, leaving no room for confusion or discussion. Leaving no room for softness, either. Harry’s instincts wouldn’t respond to it anyway. He needed Louis to be concise now if he was ever going to understand. Harry's attention snapped back to Louis, and his chest was heaving now with the force of his breaths.
"So you're just choosing," Harry sneered. "You're just making a decision for us, and you don't even care what I have to say? How it makes me feel?"
"That's what you did that day in Dr. Malak's office, didn't you?" Louis asked. He didn't let his emotions infiltrate his words, he didn't let the shaking coming from deep within his core reach the calm manner of his tone. There was no anger, or accusation in the words Louis said, there was only logic. Only clear facts for the alpha to wrap his brain around—to digest clearly.
“No, we decided together,” Harry bit back, his words seething but quiet. His expression was harder than Louis had ever seen it before—he was angrier than Louis had ever seen him before. Even when he’d first found out about Eli, Harry had never looked at Louis like this.
"No, Harry," Louis countered, having to exert some effort to keep his voice level and not let it waver with the apprehension festering in Louis’ heart. He hated knowing Harry was angry with him, especially since he knew the alpha wasn’t really angry at all—he was hurt. Harry was hurting, and it was Louis’ fault, but he couldn’t stop it now. He had to make Harry see things his way, or it was going to be a lot worse. " You decided, and then you did everything you could to pretend like you didn’t know it was going to come to this. I tried to talk to you about it, the night after Sunday roast with the lads. You didn’t want to hear it."
"I didn’t know it was coming to this," Harry growled back. "You agreed with me that day in Dr. Malak's office. I trusted you, I had no reason to think you’d abandon me like this . That’s what this is, you know? You want to talk about it? Fine, let’s talk about it. But let's call it what it is—if you do this, you’re basically leaving me. But I’m the bad guy because I had too much hope to dwell on the worst-case scenario with you a few nights ago? It wouldn’t have changed anything if we had talked about it, Louis. We’d still be fighting because I’m never going to agree to lose you for something that isn’t even real yet."
Louis’ heart sank to his stomach.
He tightened his hold on his small bump and his eyes filled instantly with tears that were no longer heavy with sadness, but hot with fiery rage. Goosebumps raced up Louis’ arms and down his spine and he set his jaw in a hard line as he bore into Harry’s molten green eyes. The effort Louis had shown to keep his emotions as far away from his words as possible crumbled against the anger of his worked-up omega, poised to tear apart the threat to his baby—the total disregard for their child.
“Not even real yet?” Louis hissed through clenched teeth. “Tell me, alpha , what constitutes as real in your eyes, hm? How old does our baby have to be to earn a spot in your bloodline? When does their life start to matter to you? Because they’re real enough to have a nickname, a favorite food, a comfortable sleeping position, and a song written for them. They’re real enough to physically want their daddy when they’re in distress, as we’ve just witnessed, but they aren’t real enough to fight for? If this was a gun, and not an illness, and it was Eli on the other side of it, not this new baby, would you hesitate to step in front of it, Harry? Would you stop to think about me, or our friends, or your mother who would miss you if you didn’t survive, or would you just f*cking save our child?”
“That’s not fair,” Harry growled, watching Louis with as much wounded anger as he’d been before, but there was also a bit of caution in his eyes as well. Like he was afraid Louis might get up from the hospital bed at any moment and take a swing at him, or run for the door, or just fade away altogether. “I want to protect Little Bird, Louis, but the gun isn’t pointed at just them, it's aimed at all of us. At Eli, and someone has to think of him. I didn’t hesitate that day in Dr. Malak’s office because I had hope. I refuse to be the bad guy now because my logic isn’t drowned out by my hope to keep both of you.”
"No, Harry, you're the bad guy now because you're giving up that hope for no reason," Louis seethed in a voice so quiet, so calm that for a moment all of the warmth was sucked out of the room. "You're giving up on our child because you're too scared to protect them." Harry scoffed quietly, taking a step back from the omega's bed.
"What about our other child, Louis?" Harry asked, his own voice falling flat. Louis could see that his alpha was ready to growl and gnash his teeth and snarl, encouraged and riled up by the challenge of Louis’ omega, but the hospital walls around them kept Harry under control---but only just. "Who's supposed to protect him if we risk it all for the new baby, hm? What am I supposed to say to him when he asks why his sibling is here and you're not?"
"You tell him that I would have done the same for him because I'm their mother !" Louis shouted. The hospital grumbled around them, startled into life by the unexpectedly loud sound. Harry growled quietly deep in his chest, just a warning sound that was meant mostly for anyone who might have been thinking about coming through that room door to correct them, but also for Louis. As menacing as it seemed, Louis knew it was actually a concerned gesture. He was exerting himself, and that wasn’t going to help either of their cases. Harry was unable to be the doting, caring partner he usually was, so his alpha was correcting from across the room—trying to keep a handle on a situation they both had let get way too out of hand way too quickly.
Louis' chest was heaving with how hard he was breathing, and his eyes were shimmering with tears.
"Without hesitation, from the moment I heard his heartbeat, for as long as I'm allowed to be on this earth with him, I would have gladly risked my life for Eli. I'd risk your life for him and not even blink. Because he is our son . That is our baby . And so is this child. I'm sorry if telling our son how much I loved him and his sibling would be hard for you , but I can't fathom how letting our youngest child die isn't killing you, Harry, because it will kill me. If we lose them, you will lose us both. I won't survive. I don't want to survive that,” Louis ranted, his voice still raised but not quite as loud as his shout had been.
"And I'm supposed to do what?!" Harry said back, his voice raising to meet Louis’, his pain and desperation coming up to meet Louis’ as well. At the dead end of their impasse, there could only be an explosion of disappointment, betrayal, and loss, because nothing was more clear than the fact that neither one of them was going to turn back now. There would be no white flag on this battlefield—it would be to the death. "Just go on without you?! I'm meant to survive that ? Do you honestly think I'd be able to take care of them after losing you?!" Louis' eyebrows went up towards his hairline and he scoffed.
"It's not about you," Louis said, finality ringing in his voice.
"Of course it is!" Harry growled. "It's about all of us. We're a family, and you're tearing it apart."
"No, Harry, I'm trying to save it," Louis countered. "You'd see that if you could put your own emotions aside." Harry's anger hit a boiling point, his alpha pushing him right to the edge. His own breath turned laborious, and Louis could physically see the effort Harry was exerting to hold himself back, to stop the explosion that would inevitably cause someone to come into the room and stop whatever carnage was ensuing. All of the unreleased energy swirled around the alpha’s eyes before moving outward, pulling at the lines on Harry’s face, and pulling his upper lip back into a small snarl. For a moment, Louis saw fear flash across the aggressive look, and Louis felt his hackles lower the tiniest bit. Harry looked like a fatally wounded predator, shocked by his weakness, and backed into a corner. The knowledge of his demise written clearly in sweat along his brow, but the desperation to live colored brightly in the flames of his eyes. He was looking at Louis like he was the bigger, badder predator who’d unexpectedly rewritten everything he’d known about the universe—about himself.
Louis felt sorry for him—for both of them. The world had been rewritten for Louis, too. Neither one of them was going to come out of this unchanged.
"I'm not trying to hurt you, Haz," Louis said, his voice going soft.
"For someone who is never trying to hurt me, you're exceptionally good at it, aren't you?" Harry hissed, the last round of bitter vile forcing its way past his hold on his tongue. Louis blinked in surprise at the tone of Harry's voice---how cold and hard it was. Then the omega watched as all emotion drained from the alpha’s expression. When he delivered his next sentence, he looked wrung out and empty. "I guess you've had enough practice with leaving me over the years---this decision was really a no brainer for you."
" Harry, " Louis gasped. He’d always been taught that wild animals would strike out of fear, but still Louis found himself shocked when Harry reached out and stung him with his words. He’d never directly attacked Louis that way. Not so explicitly—not with the intention to hurt him. "I'm not leaving you, it's not that simple."
"You're right," Harry agreed, pinning the omega to his spot on the bed with his blank stare. "Because if you were leaving me, at least Eli would get to keep you. This time you're choosing to leave him, too, and I refuse to let you off the hook for that. You can give any reason in the world you want to justify the pain you’ll cause him, but I won't ever excuse you for it."
“I’m not going to leave either of you,” Louis tried again, suddenly distressed by the blankness of Harry’s eyes. When he looked at Louis, it was as if he was looking right through him.
“You know,” Harry started quietly. “Just before I got the call from your mum, Eli was actually crying in my arms, afraid he’d be left alone because you’re sick again, and he thinks I love the baby more than him, because I’m here and not gone like I was when you were pregnant with him. That’s what’s been bothering him, the fear that he's going to lose us and be alone. I promised him that would never happen. I promised him that everything was going to be okay, so I hope, for Eli’s sake, that you’re right, or you’ll be making liars out of both of us, and then who will Eli have?” The alpha was still standing right in front of Louis, but in every other way Louis felt like he’d just been left alone in the room. Harry averted his eyes, but even if Louis had been able to see into them, he knew they’d be void of any emotion. Even Louis’ omega squirmed uncomfortably at the silence that descended then.
“Alpha,” Louis whispered, emotional at the revelation of Eli’s fears, and desperate to reform the connection that felt severed between him and Harry. Harry didn’t react at all to Louis’ words. He tucked a strand of loose hair behind his ear and he looked over towards the door for a two whole beats of silence.
“I’m going to go talk to Dr. Malak, find out when they’ll do your next tests,” Harry muttered, his tone flat and defeated, sounding as worn out as he looked. “Your mum should be bringing Eli up soon to see you. Try not to let him hear anything about all of this—he doesn’t need anything else to stress over.”
“Are you leaving?” Louis asked. Harry turned his back, but the omega could see his loose top knot bounce as he nodded.
“Yeah, I can’t be here right now,” Harry stated matter-of-factly, no longer sounding angry, or anything else. Just empty—like he was already gone. “You’ll need some things from home anyway. I’ll bring them up later.”
“Harry, please don’t leave like this,” Louis asked, trying not to let his voice wobble or his fear show. He was trying to convince the alpha that he could make it, that he was strong enough to make it another few weeks, he couldn’t already show weakness. He couldn’t already admit that he was scared out of his mind, that he had no idea what he was doing or if he could even do it. Especially without Harry. Louis was stuck in the worst position, trying to prove his own strength while needing Harry's so desperately.
Harry stopped with his back to the bed, and his shoulders tightened slightly, but he didn’t say anything, he didn’t even turn around. Then the alpha pushed through the door and Louis watched helplessly as both monitors he was attached to jumped in response to the hollow bang of the door shutting behind Harry. Little Bird’s heart rate spiked just the smallest bit, matching the uptick in rhythm of Louis’ own heart.
“It’s alright,” Louis told his small bump, finally letting the words shake as they came out. The omega wasn't sure if he was talking to the baby or trying to comfort himself. “Daddy’s coming back. He always comes back.” Louis watched the door as he spoke, uncertain of the truth of his own words in a way he hadn’t been about Harry, maybe ever before.
Louis had made a lot of choices in the past that hurt Harry, but this seemed to be the worst one of all. What could Louis do, though, when the choice that was finally too much for Harry also happened to be the one where Louis felt he had no other option? He'd made a lot of selfish, fearful decisions in the past and justified them by using his love for Harry as an excuse, but this time what Louis wanted couldn't matter. Not when the life of the pup inside of him was on the line---the life he could so clearly feel now, just beneath the surface. Little Bird was longing for their dad as deeply as Louis was, asking for their parents with literally every beat of their heart. He was the only one who could protect them. Louis had to believe that Harry and everyone else would eventually understand---he had to believe they'd come to respect his choice even if it ends up hurting them in the end.
* * *
“Daddy!” Harry’s thundering thoughts halted at the sound of his son’s voice rapidly growing closer. He shook himself out of his angry stupor just in time to catch Eli’s hurtling body as the young pup threw himself at Harry. Harry scooped the pup up easily, noting Jay and Lottie coming up behind him at a slower pace. Harry hugged him, but the embrace didn’t last long. The young alpha squirmed away so he could look into his dad’s eyes, and there was as much excitement in the boy’s expression as there was fear. Harry was disheartened to find the expressions so harmonious in the lines of Eli’s face, as if they were one emotion for the young alpha. “Is Mamma okay?”
Jay and Lottie reached the two alphas as the words slipped out of Eli’s mouth, and they looked at one another before turning questioning eyes on Harry as well.
“Yeah, love,” Harry said, using a bit of effort to make the words sound light and not as resentful as Harry truly felt. The leftover feelings from his discussion with Louis were settled like magma below the earth’s surface, waiting for the opportune time to find their release once more. “He’s waiting for you.” Harry set the pup down and he met Jay’s eyes seriously over the top of his head. His next words were for the older omega, and he laced them with enough of the truth to try and prevent any questions Harry wouldn’t be able to answer.
“I’m leaving for a bit,” Harry told Jay, ignoring the uncomfortable shift from Lottie as her own alpha did not miss the rigidness of Harry’s words. “To pack a bag for him and get some air. Would you mind taking E back there? Staying with them? I’ll come back when I can.”
“Harry, is he…?” Lottie started to ask so Harry shot her the same serious look he’d pinned Jay with and he gave the smaller alpha a curt shake of his head.
“He has more tests in the morning, but he’s doing okay right now and he’d really like to see Eli. Please, I just really… need to go pack him a bag,” Harry sighed. The adequate words for what he really needed were trapped behind the pressure of Eli’s hand latched onto the hem of his shirt. Harry rested his hand lightly in Eli’s curls, trying to find comfort in the softness of them.
“Can I stay with Mamma?” Eli asked, looking between the three adults who were now all looking at each other silently. The women were trying to piece together a puzzle with too many missing pieces and Harry was desperately trying to keep the image concealed from the one set of eyes that would only find pain in the picture, no matter what angle he looked at it from. Harry eventually looked down at the boy and gave him a small smile.
“If your Nana is okay with staying with you for a while,” Harry told him. Both alphas looked to Jay and her wide, blue eyes shifted from one pair of emerald orbs to another.
“Of course I don’t mind,” Jay said, but there were so many more words she didn’t say and Harry could only imagine how they’d be paired together, and who they were meant for.
“Thank you,” Harry told her sincerely, and he knew the moment she understood it wasn’t for keeping Eli.
“No problem, dear,” Jay told him, and then she glowered at him and set her mouth into a hard line, the disapproval written into the lines of her face, but she didn't say anything about it. “I’ll see you when you get back.” Harry bent down then and kissed Eli’s cheeks, ignoring the boy's small protests at the affection.
“I love you,” Harry told him. “Be good for Mamma and Nana.”
“Okay,” Eli murmured, wiping off his dad’s kisses as soon as Harry straightened back up again. “Love you, too.”
“He’s just down that hall,” Harry told the group, gesturing at the area he’d just exited. “You’ll probably see his doctors—they’re getting ready to take some blood and run more tests, so they were lingering around the nurses station.”
“Okay, thanks,” Jay nodded. Harry made to move past the group then, already preparing to let his alpha take over and get the hell out of the hospital before he could truly lose grip on the bubbling catastrophe inside of him, but before he could make his hasty retreat, a slender hand caught his wrist. Harry jumped at the contact and twirled back around with the crazed look of a startled animal, making Lottie raise her perfectly shaped eyebrows towards her hairline.
“What is going on?” she demanded. Harry let out a long breath and wrenched his wrist out of her hold to run both of his hands down his face. With considerable effort he was able to beat back the mounting emotions once again to try and piece together a logical string of words for her.
“Lottie, I can’t do this right now,” Harry groaned.
“You look like you’re on the verge of a drop,” Lottie hissed, moving in closer to make sure no one heard her. “Did something—” she stopped herself with a small gasp, one manicured hand coming up to cover her open mouth.
“Is the baby—”
“No,” Harry quickly cut off her question, unable to let her finish it. Unable to think about the implication of the words, and the good and bad emotions associated with the answer that were mixing like oil in water inside his chest—begging for eruption. “Nothing happened.”
“Then what is happening?” she demanded again, obviously unable to read the danger in their current situation despite the instincts Harry knew she had. Harry ripped the tie out of his top knot and ran his fingers through his tangled curls. He turned away from Lottie and then back again, only to turn once more as he thought about just booking it to the exit and leaving Lottie to wonder. In the end, the anger layered on the top of whatever was brewing inside of him won out and he turned back to the other alpha.
“Your brother is going to die,” Harry told her stiffly, the words falling to the linoleum floor and landing heavily between them. Lottie reared back subtly, and she searched Harry’s frenzied expression for something, perhaps a hint of exaggeration or dark humor. Harry almost pitied her, the shock rippling across her face now was the same shock he’d felt not twenty minutes prior—but selfishly, he hoped it ravaged her the same way it had ravaged him.
Maybe Louis would see reason if everyone told him he’d gone completely mental for making this decision.
“What?” Lottie asked when Harry didn’t offer any other explanation.
“Louis has chosen to die for this baby,” Harry said flatly, not letting up on the harshness of his delivery, not even when Lottie’s face scrunched uncomfortably. “He doesn’t care how it affects me, or Eli, or anyone else. The doctors told him he wasn’t likely to survive if he kept carrying and he’s chosen to stick it out anyway. He’s chosen to leave us.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t…There has to be some reasonable…is there a chance…?” Lottie tried to formulate a question, but Harry could see there were too many swimming around behind her eyes for her to get one out properly. She looked towards the hall her mum and Eli had disappeared down, looking every bit like she regretted stopping Harry and insisting on knowing this horrible truth.
“Go ask him,” Harry insisted, halting all of Lottie’s rumbling denial. “Ask him what his intentions are. Ask him how long he’s been planning to leave me while I was fighting for any way to save our family. He’ll tell you all about his martyrish scheme.”
“I think you’re both just a little worked up right now,” Lottie tried again. “Everything is just heightened right now because you’re both scared.”
“He said he wanted to tell me after our dinner together,” Harry informed Lottie calmly, feeling the last strands of his resolve pulling apart at the seams. “He’s not worked up, he’s decided. And he’s made it crystal clear that nothing is going to change his mind. He’s going to die, Lottie. All of this, me loving him, him running from me, our family coming back together, overcoming his depri, and my grief, and everyone’s PTSD, learning to love one another—me wanting to marry him…it was all for nothing. He’s giving up.”
“Harry,” Lottie said sadly, and she reached out again as if she’d like to pull him in, but Harry had nothing else to give, and his alpha wasn’t interested in holding back any longer. He wiped at the moisture he hadn’t noticed had pooled in his eyes and with a quiet scoff Harry turned his back on Louis’ sister and stormed away.
He ran all the way out of the hospital, got into his car, and tore out onto the road. Much like he had the night he ended up at Robin’s grave, he just let his mind take him wherever he needed to go. He drove without purpose, without a destination in mind, just simply moved the wheel and pressed the gas pedal until it felt like he was getting far enough away from the gaping hole that had torn its way into his chest with promises to never heal.
But Harry knew that there was nowhere far enough he could go.
He’d never outrun the loss of something so woven into his being, of someone so completely a part of him. The pain was consuming and Louis was still alive, still sitting in that hospital bed with enough strength and health to argue with Harry like the feisty omega he'd always been. Harry was never going to survive when the hole was filled with the grief of that empty bed, the grief of never hearing Louis' defiant voice again, or feeling Louis' skin beneath his fingertips. The alpha wrestled with the converging images of his new child and his dying mate, the two things melding together and then ripping apart in jarring, fuzzy images, like a bad connection on an antenna TV trying to keep up with motion pictures designed for advanced technology. It didn't belong in the life they'd created, the image of either of them without the other. Harry wasn't supposed to lose Louis. They'd beaten the scary illness a long time ago. Harry had already won this battle, he'd already let himself believe that this would be his life forever---him and Louis and Eli. Their perfect, happy family.
They'd sacrificed for that, and for the most part Harry had been happy to go without to have what he did. He'd wanted another baby, he couldn't deny that. He'd always wanted another baby, a chance to see Louis through the entire pregnancy, to watch the life inside of him go from a picture on a screen, to a tiny human being that they'd raise together. To watch Eli become a big brother, and guide the new baby through each stage of life the way his mother had guided him. Harry wanted it all, but if he'd known that Louis would throw away his life to give it to him, he never would have agreed to try this. Harry could live without those experiences, he could cope with the loss of that potential, but Harry knew beyond a shadow of a doubt now that he was not going to survive losing Louis. He already wasn't breathing. How could he breathe life into two pups if he never drew breath into his own lungs again? Louis had said that he wouldn't survive the loss of the new baby, that Harry would lose him anyway if they gave the baby up---but Harry couldn't help but think that Eli and Little Bird stood to lose both of their parents if Louis didn't survive this.
How would Harry ever live without Louis?
It was well into the evening before Harry pulled into Louis’ driveway. The sun was low in the sky, peeking in between the fast moving clouds. The weather had been terribly unpredictable the entire afternoon. Spitting rain showers, and then blinding sunlight—Harry felt like even mother nature was expressing her displeasure with the events of the day. It would be too easy to simply be dreary outside. There was no comfort to be found in a situation that changed on a dime without explanation. Harry amusedly thought maybe the movies had gotten it wrong when they always depicted bad things happening in the rain or after dark. It was one hundred percent more fitting to be tossed around by the weather in the same way the universe had tossed him around all day long.
There was no comfort to be found standing on the front porch of the house he’d called home for the last four years when the thing that made it home was likely to never return to it. He found no ease in the mixture of their smells on the furniture, or in the cupboards as he walked through the entryway, not when he feared it would be all he had left once this was said and done. There was no joy to be found in Little Bird’s scent tucked into the perfectly blended redolence of their family, not when it felt like the end of something instead of the beginning of it. Like his childhood home, this one was now only a keeper for all the memories, like a mausoleum dedicated to the spectors left behind. A place for the people still living when death scooped out the substance of their family---of their life---and left them with a shell of what once was. A shrine to what used to be, and never would be thereafter.
It would be all that was left of them, and Harry didn’t know if he already hated it, or if he wanted to drown in it while he still could.
Anger followed easily as he wandered the house aimlessly, trying to come up with what Louis would possibly need while he was in the hospital. The alpha had left the hospital to try and separate himself from the negative emotion, and he'd been successful, but being back in the house, having to see it the way he was now, had brought him right back to Louis' room where he'd had abandoned Harry. The omega had pulled the rug out from under him in front of all of his doctors, and then he'd just watched as Harry tried helplessly to pull himself back together. Now Harry was standing in a house that didn't belong to him---because they hadn't even gotten the chance to finish the deal on the house they'd picked out together---surrounded by everything that Louis was going to leave him with. The hollowness, the quiet, the devastation of his loss. Harry felt betrayed all over again, and it was all he could do to push himself into the different rooms to try and throw together a bag of things that would actually be useful to Louis without knowing exactly how long Louis would even need things---how long they'd have before---
Harry growled and ripped a duffle bag out of the top of the hall cupboard. He stormed around the house, leaving Louis' room for last. He pulled the soft throw blanket off the back of the sofa and stuffed it into the bag, but only after burying his face in it and inhaling the scent of Louis and their baby as deeply as he could, trying to combat the thundering, pain-ridden anger. The only suppressant for the flames was the flood of pain the scent unleashed. Then the alpha stomped into the laundry room, taken aback by the cluttered mess he found there. There was a stack of folded clothes that obviously belonged to Eli on top of the dryer, and there was a bin of what Harry could tell was dirty clothes beside the washing machine, one of Harry's tops haphazardly hanging on the side of it like it had been discarded and forgotten about. Harry walked over to the washing machine and opened it curiously. He found a load of washed laundry still inside of it, also abandoned mid-task.
Jay must have been doing laundry when Louis passed out.
Harry grumbled unhappily at the mess and deposited the nearly empty duffle on the top of the washing machine in favor of scooping up Eli's clean clothes. He took the small piles to Eli's room and quickly put them into the places they belonged. He stuffed little pants and socks into the drawers of Eli's small chest, and then he started taking empty hangers from the closet to hang the little alpha's shirts. Harry was just about to hang up the last one when a waft of Eli's tropical coconut scent hit him and Harry looked down at the green knit jumper hanging loosely from the wire hanger. With his free hand, Harry pinched the fabric between his thumb and forefinger, feeling the softness of the material. He pulled the small sleeve up to his cheek and nuzzled against it for a moment. He could so easily smell Eli's overwhelmed tears from the day before---they weren't present on this jumper, Eli obviously hadn't been wearing it the day before, but his woes were so deeply embedded into his scent that it clung to all of his clothes, like the tears had been silently soaking into them this whole time while Harry and Louis weren't looking. His poor littlest alpha had been through too much, had kept too much to himself out of fear or a twisted sense of obligation that he was much too young to carry. Harry's heart broke a little more for his oldest son who stood to lose maybe the only thing he'd ever truly had---the only person he'd ever completely trusted.
Harry slowly pulled the jumper back off the hanger and put the hanger back in the closet.
When the alpha returned to the laundry room he folded up the jumper and stuck it into the duffle alongside the blanket from the sofa. Harry wasn't sure what either item would do for Louis, but he was deeply compelled by his alpha to take them both and Harry didn't have the energy to try and figure out why. He just let his instincts take over, because it was easier than addressing the fact that he was choosing between what items Louis would see again and what items he likely wouldn't. It was best for Harry to do this as thoughtlessly as possible, so he didn't stop to wonder about the things that made it into the bag. He trusted his alpha to make choices that would make sense in one way or another eventually. He switched the wet clothes over to the dryer before moving the dirty clothes into the now empty washing machine. He left the discarded shirt for last, and at the last minute he deposited it into the duffle bag instead of the machine.
Once the laundry was started in both the dryer and the washer, Harry wandered back out into the hall. For a moment the alpha just stood in the space between all of the rooms in the house. He wasn't sure where to go next, didn't know what else he could gather for his omega without having to go into Louis' bedroom, but Harry was dreading going in there. He knew there would be no hiding from anything once he went in there, and though Harry knew it was pointless to try and prolong it, the alpha wasn't ready yet. So instead he wandered back into Eli's room. He uselessly cleaned up some of the clutter in the pup's room. He carefully picked up the pj's Eli slept in religiously, the ones that were too small for him now, from the floor. He'd kicked them off carelessly this morning, obviously. Harry had the urge to put them into the bag dangling from his fist, but he resisted that one, knowing that Eli would need them more in the coming days. He put them gently at the end of the pup's bed, and then Harry straightened his blankets, not bothering to really make his bed, but he at least made them look neater. Harry smiled sadly to himself when a small stuffed pterodactyl fell out of the bunched up duvet. Eli had been sleeping with the old toy. The older alpha placed it next to the pup's pillow before moving on.
Harry did pull a couple other pieces of clothing from Eli's closet to put into the duffle bag, focusing on the softest things, the ones that held Eli's scent the best. Then he also grabbed a small plushie, one Eli didn't really play with anymore but still held a compelling amount of the pup's coconut scent. Harry's actions felt very purposeful, and, if he was being honest with himself, he knew exactly what it was he was packing for Louis. It was pretty obvious at that point, but he wasn't ready to face it, so he just circled Eli's room once more, straightening toys and tidying the surfaces he could. When his alpha felt satisfied with the small collection of things he'd gathered, he left the room.
Harry stopped in the restroom next. He made sure to pack up all of Louis' medications, not sure which ones he'd need in the hospital, or if the doctors would want them to know what exactly he'd been taking. Harry figured it was probably better to bring it all than to forget one and need it later. He packed Louis a toothbrush and threw in some other hygiene items that he'd come to know Louis to use. Then, just before he left that room, he stopped to pluck the flannel he'd used to wash his face that morning and folded it neatly into the bag as well.
Harry could have gone directly across the hall then, to the bedroom where he'd find the things he really needed to pack for Louis, but still Harry found himself avoiding it. He went into the kitchen instead and looked around silently, trying to make sense of what he could need from that particular room. The dishes from the lunch Jay made Louis were still sitting in the sink, yet another task that hadn't been completed because time had threatened to stop forever when Louis lost consciousness. It was a strange feeling to find himself all alone in the middle of a place that was so clearly frozen in a time that had already passed. Like his home had been turned into a phenomenon reminiscent of the tragedy of Pompeii. Life so clearly in motion brought to an abrupt and devastating halt. He was walking through that precise moment, even though he could never go back and actually be there. Harry walked back and forth in the kitchen, from the table to the stove, running his fingers over the countertop surfaces, but there was truly nothing in there Louis could use, so eventually he had to give it up and finally turn towards the bedroom.
As he suspected, he'd been right to avoid the room.
It only took seeing their bed, just as he'd left it the morning before, to break Harry the rest of the way. Louis had been laying restlessly in his nest when Harry made to leave with Eli for what was meant to be their nice day on their own. He'd been foolish to ignore the feeling in his gut that had told him leaving Louis alone in the house, even for a short period of time, was a bad idea. He should have known by the pain written all over Louis' face while he'd been curled up inside the nest, trying to find some sort of comfort, that something wasn't right. He'd wondered, even questioned if he should stay, but Louis had insisted they go, so instead of staying, he'd made the bed before kneeling beside the nest to give the omega a kiss goodbye.
The bed was still made, and the nest was in disarray---like Louis had left it in a hurry. He'd have never left it in that state if he could have helped it. Louis took so much pride in his nest, and now Harry couldn't bring himself to touch it. He couldn't fix it for Louis, because it wasn't his to fix. He'd do more damage than good trying to rearrange it, because he'd never be able to predict what would comfort the omega or what would distress him. Though he knew the omega would hate Harry seeing it the way it was now, he didn't know what would make it better, so all he could do was look at it as it was and try to comfort himself through Louis' displeasure. Harry loved Louis' nest, like this and in every form it had been since the omega made it. It felt like a little piece of the omega's heart tucked into their closet, and it didn't matter to Harry if it was in pieces the way it was now. It was still everything to the alpha, still worth saving, still worth loving.
The helplessness Harry felt threatened to suffocate him completely.
He dragged himself over to the side of the bed and sat down. He wrapped his arms around his torso like he could hold himself together if he tried hard enough. Harry agonized quietly, realizing he couldn't put anything back together for Louis. He couldn't fix anything that was now broken---including them---because he didn't know what could possibly make it better. He was a useless alpha with no answers, and worse, he'd taken the pieces of Louis' disarrayed heart and sneered at them. Lashed out because of his own pain and treated Louis as if he'd broken everything, when he was only trying to make the torn pieces of their lives meet in the only way that made sense to him. Harry didn't agree with the omega, but looking at Louis' torn apart nest now pulled tears of regret out of the alpha, forcing Harry to lean over, balling up as tight as he could in his sitting position, as the myriad of emotions wrung him out like a well used towel. He'd punished Louis for the very thing he'd always told Louis he shouldn't blame himself for. He'd left him alone, when they should be trying to make sense of their tattered lives together. Even if they had to fight, even if they never found a way to agree, they should be trying to do it together. He never should have left like he did, Harry thought. He may have felt abandoned, but abandoning Louis right back hadn't done anything for them. They could be working together to try and find a way to make them both happy---maybe there was still hope to save them all, but Harry hadn't stuck around to try and find a way. Harry had run, just like he always did when he couldn't handle the pain waiting for him, and he couldn't believe that for a moment he forgot that Louis was his mate , and he wanted to do it all with Louis. Even the fighting, even the loss---if it had to come to that.
The alpha crumpled in on himself as he looked over the room and rationalized that it might be a snapshot of the last time their life would be as it was now, the possibility of losing Louis overcoming him finally as he let it in fully for the first time. The pain easily won over any other emotion or need the alpha had had that day. The first sob he let out ripped its way out of the cage it had been trapped in deep within his chest. The metal screeching as it broke free shook his frame, and then the sobs didn't stop. They clawed their way out of him one right after another. Harry cried harder than he could ever remember crying before. Even the days he'd spent on tour, reopening the wounds of losing Robin hadn't felt as raw as he did at that moment. He hugged the half full duffle bag to his chest, pressing it hard into his sternum as the collection of scents surrounded him, trying to offer relief from the pain that it couldn't hold a candle to. Harry buried his face in it anyway, letting his tears mix into it, knowing it would only add to the purpose of everything in the bag.
They were all things his omega could make a new nest out of, and now one of the spirits from the mausoleum would be tucked into the folds of it as well.
When Harry's tears ran dry, and his throat felt raw from his pleading sobs, he got up robotically and puttered around the room much like he had the morning before. He straightened the covers on the bed again, ridding them of the wrinkles he'd left behind by sitting on it. Then he went to their chest of drawers and pulled out several pairs of underwear for Louis, and several pairs of joggers. He made sure to include his own as well as Louis', to give the omega options for wearing and for whatever else he might need. Then he carefully stepped around the nest to pull Louis' shirts from the closet. Harry pulled out the Umbro sweater Louis loved to steal from him and put it in the bag beside Louis' clothes. He also included a couple of his well worn band t-shirts and Louis' favorite jumper that Harry wore more often than him. When the bag was too full to take anything else, Harry carefully stepped around the nest again and looked around the room pitifully. His heart ached as it beat hollowly inside his chest. He couldn't swallow the bile that kept rising up his throat as he imagined Louis never coming home to straighten up his nest, or to mess up their bed. He had to pause to make sure he wasn't actually going to vomit, but with great effort he was able to calm himself. Still, the agony didn't let up. He and Louis shared so much in life now, but nothing more than they shared this bedroom. How would Harry ever manage to sleep in this room again if Louis no longer existed in it? Harry's breath hitched in his chest as he zipped up the bag and forced himself to leave the room.
He had to go back to the hospital---to Louis, who was still very much there and alive. They still had time to try and figure this out---together.
They still had time.
* * *
Harry was quiet as he walked through the glassed off section of the hospital that housed Louis' room. The lights were all dimmer now, the place transforming in the seamless way it always did as day turned to night. It wasn't quite ten yet, but there was a sleepiness already taking over the place. Harry had spent many nights in a hospital and had gotten very used to the way the building seemed to settle for the night, but not once had he ever seen a person turn down the lights, or a mechanism designed to do it automatically. They always just seemed to go out one by one on their own, as if they ran on the same cosmic force as the sun---changed along with the turning of the earth, mimicking the natural progression of the day for those who likely would never watch the sunset again.
The nurses station was barren when he walked by it, not a single nurse in sight, but he knew they usually went down to a skeleton crew for the night shift and there was never a shortage of jobs to be done. Harry didn't mind the emptiness, he knew where he was going. He was already familiar with the route to Louis' new hospital room, and it was probably better he didn't call too much attention to himself. They'd gotten lucky so far to have encountered so many people who'd kept it professional, but Harry remembered all too well how easily information could slip out of the walls of the hospital. The more people who saw him coming and going, the more likely it would be that Louis' hospitalization would be leaked to the media. Harry walked on careful feet down the long hall, lost in the memory of Liam telling him not too long ago that all he'd be able to do for Louis is prolong the moment that his privacy would be violated. He'd always known his manager had been right, but it never felt more poignant than it did now, as Harry did his best to keep his face hidden behind his loose curls each time he passed an open door.
Harry was surprised to see Louis' door ajar as he approached it, the packed duffle bag now hugged to his chest. Like a child searching for comfort from a favorite blanket, Harry held the thrown-together items close and slowed his steps, feeling oddly apprehensive about entering the room after everything that had occurred. But he knew he had to. He and Louis had to talk about what they should do. He wanted to know what Dr. Malak had found in his new tests, he wanted to know if there was really a sliver of hope to hold on to. Harry wanted to start fighting this fight with Louis, so he had to get over his childish pride and just walk through the door. Just as he was reaching out to push the door the rest of the way open, he was stopped by the sound of a quiet voice on the other side.
"He'll come back, Lou," Lottie murmured. "You just have to give him some time. You don't have to make any decisions tonight, and you really should discuss it with him." Harry knew he shouldn't eavesdrop. He knew he should continue on into the room and make his presence known, but his limbs locked up as he heard Louis sigh heavily. His scent was sweetened with exhaustion and guilt, so much so that the mildewy smell was spilling out into the hallway.
"He won't discuss it," Louis said, his voice pitched even lower than Lottie's was, nearly whispering. "He won't even consider what I want---he never did. He's been decided since the very beginning, just like I am now. What would fighting about it again do?"
"He's just scared to lose you, Lou. He doesn't want to lose the baby either," Lottie tried to reason. "He'll come around, but you have to talk to him. I know what I said before, but this affects him, too. You should make this decision together." Harry felt his arms loosen from around the bag still clutched to his chest. The knots that had tangled themselves up in all of his muscles and his chest began to loosen at the softness in Lottie's voice---at the sense of reason in it that he hoped would get through to the omega. Still, though, he held his breath as he waited for Louis' answer.
"It's not his choice to make, Lottie," Louis murmured, the words fighting their way out into the silent room as if the omega tried to hold onto each and every one of them. But they fell out into the open anyway, and then there seemed to be no stopping the next ones. "This isn't like me keeping Eli from him. It's my body, my life . We aren't mated, we aren't even married yet. Legally, what he decides won't matter---and I don't know if I can handle another fight with him about it. I'm so tired."
Harry's mind went blank, and his heart seemed to stop right there inside of his chest, pressed up against his rib cage, rattling the bars but no longer beating.
"We aren't mated, we aren't even married yet…what he decides won't matter."
Where did an echo end, Harry wondered? Was it like a rainbow that always got farther away the closer one tried to get? If the cavern was big enough to support it, could the echo continue on forever, haunting the space? A never ending loop of silence and sound that leeched off of one another to exist, unable to ever fill up or stop because they fed one another so completely that there was no longer room for anything else?
Harry had come back to the hospital ready to be the partner Louis deserved. He didn't understand Louis' choice, or agree with it, but he'd come back with the intention to be a better alpha and try to find a way to help his omega through this. But it seemed that while Harry was collecting his thoughts and his strength, Louis had already written him off. Not in the typical way Louis wrote Harry off either, where it was clear that Louis was trying to do what he thought was right by Harry. This wasn't like when he thought he could protect the alpha by hiding Eli from him, this wasn't a decision he'd made out of love---this was a choice Louis was making in spite of it. He was spitting in the face of what they had together, using their inability to bond as a weapon to tie Harry's hands. To strip him of his voice before he'd even given Harry the chance to find it. In a single, hushed breath, Louis had cheapened every minute they'd spent together, every moment of the life they'd built together. Turned Harry into a mere side character in not only Louis' life, but in the lives of their children as well. Someone he permitted to be there, with no legal rights to fight for what he---and Eli---deserved.
Harry had thought because Louis was still alive that they had time to fix what had been broken, but now he wasn't sure there was anything left to fix.
Harry lost his footing in the uncertainty and his toe bumped into the nearly shut door, knocking it open fully. He looked around the room now exposed to him without really seeing anything inside of it. His alpha was aware of the older omega tucked into the corner with a small alpha. He could tell even in the state he was in that they were sleeping. He met Louis' wide eyes with his own, too engrossed in the source of the never ending echo inside his empty being to acknowledge Lottie. She was turned towards Harry, she might have even been talking, but all Harry could hear was Louis' words. It would be the only thing he heard for the rest of his life.
"We aren't mated, we aren't even married yet…what he decides won't matter."
"Harry," Louis said, whispering into the abyss, sliding in underneath his louder words. "How long have you been standing there?"
"Daddy?" A small voice broke into Harry's reverie, walking right into the empty cavern and sniffling into the void. Just like that, the echo ended, and Harry was saved from a never ending loop of torment. He looked towards the sound of his son's voice and he saw Eli sitting up out of the cradle of his Nana's arms. The small alpha rubbed one puffy eye with a loose fist. "You were gone the whole day."
"I'm sorry, pup," Harry heard himself say, but his voice sounded off even to himself. Shaken, like the words were being ripped from the very core of his being.
"It's okay," Eli said immediately, his eyes now alert and darting between Harry and Louis. Harry didn't dare look at the omega again. Instead he held out one of his hands to the pup, beckoning him to come to him. The little alpha obliged easily, sliding off of the small sofa across the room, jarring Jay into a wakeful state too. Eli crossed the room in a few small steps and Harry kneeled down to pull him into a crushing hug. He expected Eli to fuss and squirm away from the show of affection, but for once the pup was docile in Harry's arms. He nuzzled into Harry's neck and one of his little hands resting on the back of Harry's shoulder patted him comfortingly.
"Dr. Wright said Mamma is okay," Eli murmured. "You don't have to be afraid." The words fell like rocks through Harry's mind. If it hadn't been so painful, Harry would have found it amusing because had this been just a few minutes before, the pup's words would have been dead on. He'd be totally right about what was ailing Harry. But it wasn't and Harry was actually no longer afraid---there was no sense in being afraid of something that had already happened. Standing there outside of the cracked hospital room door, Harry had already lost the love of his life. A part of him knew he'd never get Louis back, no matter what the outcome was of this whole ordeal. What they'd had slipped away in that one moment.
"E," Lottie winced, standing awkwardly between the embracing alphas and Louis frozen on his bed. Harry looked up and met Louis' sister's eyes for the first time. Her brow was furrowed with concern, and Harry couldn't blame her. Certainly he wasn't the only one in the room that had felt the world shift a few seconds ago. Surely Louis and Lottie knew something monumental had just shattered, too.
"I know," Harry said breathlessly into Eli's fluffy hair. He kissed the pup's head, just above his ear. "I'm okay, love. Don't worry about me."
"Harry," Lottie tried to reach out to him. Harry untangled himself from Eli and stood to his full height once again. He silently walked past the other alpha. He kept his eyes carefully on the floor as he toed up to the side of Louis' bed. With effort Harry was able to place the duffle bag he'd packed gently on the end of the bed, then his eyes wandered to the small monitor beside the omega. The paper feeding out from beneath the machine showed a steady, even beat that suddenly jumped up in pace as he watched.
"They can smell you," Louis said quietly, like he knew if he spoke louder than a whisper it would bounce off of the empty space he'd left behind when he'd ripped Harry's heart from his chest. As if he knew that he was only damaging Harry more with every uttered word, but couldn't help himself anyway. A deep rooted pain started low in his belly as Harry watched the line of the paper bounce around like crazy, giving Louis' words merit. He desperately wanted to reach out and comfort this pup, too. Tell them not to worry, tell them he was there. But he couldn't. He didn't have the right to. "They've missed you all day long."
"This is everything you should need," Harry forced through nearly unmoving lips, still not looking at Louis.
"Harry, it wasn't what it sounded like," Louis hissed desperately, trying to reach Harry without letting the words reach the rest of the room. Harry finally looked up at Louis, his treacherously wet eyes boring into Louis' frantic blues. Harry's breath quickened as they were locked in one another's stares, his emotions swinging chaotically from so angry he tasted metal in his mouth, to so devastated he was sure he was going to drop right there.
"I heard you loud and clear, Lou," Harry said back, just as quiet despite the way he was screaming on the inside. "Don't worry, I won't stand in your way."
"Harry, are you alright, dear?" Jay asked from her spot in the corner. She couldn't see his face, positioned behind him the way she was, but Harry was sure she could see the way his shoulders were heaving with his pitiful attempts to contain the shattering of his foundation. Lottie's hand came up to rest on Harry's shoulder and he automatically shook her off. Harry took a deep breath and then he held it inside, blinking once, twice, and then a third time to beat back the tears that had built up. Then he turned on his heel and reached for Eli, who was still standing in the same spot Harry had left him---frozen as he watched his parents. Harry scooped Eli up into his arms, and still the pup didn't even question him. He just clung to Harry and looked at his aunt and mum with sad eyes.
"It's late," Harry said to the room. He looked from Lottie to Jay, careful not to linger long enough to give either of the astute women a chance to read him too closely. "I should take Eli home. Thank you both for bringing him up to see Louis."
"Wait, you're leaving?" Lottie interjected. Eli's hands fisted in the back of Harry's collar, as if he could physically stop Harry. Even Jay straightened up a bit and looked towards the door with a confused furrow of her brow, but Louis only looked down at his lap, resigned to the fact that Harry was leaving and taking Eli with him.
"Yeah, Lottie," Harry said stiffly. "Eli can't stay here overnight. He needs to sleep in a proper bed. This isn't good for him."
"What about Mamma?" Eli wondered sheepishly. Harry looked down at his son in his arms and he could see that the pup longed to stay, but he didn't dare ask for it. Harry softened a little, and kissed the pup's head in apology.
"I'll bring you back in the morning," Harry told him. "I promise."
"We can't just leave Louis here alone," Lottie scolded, her displeasure apparent in her voice now. Harry was still watching Eli, brushing the pup's hair from his tired eyes with his free hand.
"Can I say goodbye to Mamma?" Eli asked Harry. The alpha suppressed the want to sigh, and set the little alpha back on his feet.
"Be careful, don't pull at any of his wires, baby," Harry told him. He saw Louis smile at Eli as the pup approached him, then Harry looked back to Lottie.
"He still has depri Harry, he can't just be here by himself," Lottie jumped in as soon as Eli was distracted. Harry closed his eyes for a moment, trying to center himself as the rumbling of emotions tried to take him under again now that his son wasn't in his arms. "Hello. I get that you're feeling a lot right now, but you can't just run away right now. He needs you." Harry's eyes shot open, and they caught on Lottie's angry glare. For a minute, Harry imagined his copper-tainted tongue turning their heated stare into a blue/green inferno.
"No, he needs an alpha," Harry corrected as calmly as possible. "He's made it painfully clear how much he doesn't need me right now, Lottie. If you're so concerned about his depri, you stay with him, but I can't ."
"That's not what he meant and you know it," Lottie countered, but it was obvious to Harry that she was floundering for a way to justify Louis' words now. Harry just shook his head, throwing his gaze towards the wall instead of shouting at the room the way he longed to.
"We aren't mated, or even married, so what I decide doesn't matter," Harry repeated the words that were still carrying a ripple across the place where his heart and lungs used to sit. "Sounds pretty cut and dry to me, Lots. He wants me to stay out of it, so be it."
"It wasn't fair of him to say that," Lottie said, her voice softening with sympathy. "Please try to understand where he's coming from, though, Haz. He's in survival mode right now. He doesn't know how to trust other people like this. And you were so against what he wanted…"
"So he just decided that the past four years mean nothing, and what happens from here on out with our children, our life, isn't my concern? And he gets to say that because the last time he left me prevents me from being able to bond him?" Harry sneered. Lottie's mouth fell open and then closed again with an audible click. She opened her mouth again, inhaling deeply like she had somehow found something else to say, but then Eli walked back over to Harry, silencing them both.
"I'm ready," Eli said quietly, sadly. He was so attuned to the room, Harry could already see the weight of Harry's emotions on his shoulders. The alpha agonized internally, and pulled the pup up into his arms again. Harry held Eli close and tried to be bigger than the pain Eli was absorbing, tried to be a source of comfort the way he once had been for the pup, when Eli was much smaller and much more trusting of the adults around him to actually get it right.
Harry didn't think they ever would, and it pained him to see Eli lose his faith in that prospect, too.
"Such a good alpha," Harry praised Eli quietly, ruffling his hair lightly before kissing his cheek. Eli laid his cheek on Harry's shoulder and pulled his arms close to his chest, letting Harry cradle him in a way he hadn't since Eli was very small.
"Stay with him if you're really that concerned. I can take Jay home on my way," Harry murmured to Lottie, then he looked over at the older omega who had been quiet up to that point. "That's assuming you'd like to leave."
"That's not a bad idea, dear," Jay told Lottie. "I'm tired, and I agree Eli needs a real bed, but I don't like the idea of Lou being alone."
"There's more than enough things in the bag I brought up, you can borrow whatever works for you to sleep and I'll come back up first thing in the morning," Harry offered, rocking Eli a little. Louis stayed quiet, once again just looking at his folded hands in his lap. Harry couldn't help but throw a glance at him every couple of seconds, torn between his alpha's instincts to go soothe Louis, and his own hurt feelings telling him that he was no longer wanted by his omega.
"So I'm just being volunteered to stay at the hospital all night?" Lottie scoffed.
"I'm fine on my own," Louis tried to interject at the sound of his sister's displeasure.
"Not now, Lou," Jay shushed him. "That's not helpful." Louis shook his head but he bit his lower lip, chewing on it nervously while he swallowed any other words that might have wanted to come out.
"I could just take Eli home," Lottie countered, almost challenged. Harry's arms tightened around the pup, holding on to him like a life raft that was the only thing keeping him afloat on a troubled sea.
"Lottie, I can't be here right now," Harry nearly pleaded, for a moment letting his ruinous pain slip into his tone. "I won't be any help to him right now. I'm so…but I don't want to make things worse…he'll be in more distress if I stay…I don't want to hurt him …Please . I'll be back tomorrow. I'll be better. But I… can't ---"
"Fine," Lottie sighed. "I'll stay tonight. It's not a big deal." From his bed behind all of them, Louis sighed and laid back against the pillow. Harry released a breath he hadn't even realized he was holding and then he looked at Jay, almost apologetically.
"Let's get you home," Harry told her. Jay nodded easily but she turned towards her son before joining Harry. They briefly said goodbye, exchanging words that Harry could tell were emotionally charged even without hearing them. Then she walked past Lottie, stopping to pull her daughter into a tight hug. They were close enough to Harry now that he did hear the words Jay murmured to her.
"Thank you, darling," she muttered to Lottie. "I'll send Harry home with your bag so he can bring it to you in the morning."
"Thanks Mamma," Lottie murmured back. "Get some rest. Love you."
"Love you, babygirl," Jay answered and kissed the alpha on the cheek. When the older omega turned towards Harry and Eli she reached up and rubbed the small alpha's back gently.
"Alright, let's go," she said. They turned to head for the door as a group, but Louis' voice caught them before Harry could make his escape.
"I love you, Harry," Louis said, his voice shaking audibly. Harry stiffened but Jay looked up at him expectantly, and Eli's nose pressed further into Harry's neck, like a silent plea from the small child.
"Love you, Lou," Harry muttered back. The alpha wasn't even sure it was loud enough to be heard by the omega across the room. Then he hurried out of the door and focused all of his energy on holding onto what little strength he had left so he wouldn't fall apart with his son in his arms.
* * *
"I'm a mother, Harry, so I can tell when one of my babies has been pushed past their limit," Jay started as soon as they pulled out of the hospital parking lot. Eli was tucked into the backseat, silently watching the night sky out of the window. He didn't appear to be, but Harry knew the little alpha was listening carefully to the quiet words being spoken. "So I won't lecture you. You've been through so much as it is today. But I just wanted to say one thing." Jay paused and held Harry's surprised gaze. They were stopped at a traffic light, and Harry had been expecting Jay to go on about Louis' need for support. He hadn't been expecting Jay to be talking about him when she referred to one of her 'babies.'
"Okay," Harry whispered, still breathless, still hopelessly hanging on to his sanity.
"I won't pretend to know what you're going through right now, or how it must feel to be in your position. I think there's a lot of hurt happening right now that goes beyond what's physically happening, and I'm so deeply sorry about that. You've been so patient with my boy. So understanding through so many things that you shouldn't have had to understand, and this is yet another thing---maybe the most unfair thing he's ever put you through. But I am a mother, Harry, and I can't say that I don't understand his fight. I'd have done anything for my children, too, even if it meant I couldn't be here for them. You know what that feels like, I know you do because I see it in you every day with Eli."
"Which is exactly why I can't understand what he's doing Jay," Harry interrupted. "How can he do this to him?"
"Because he knows the new baby in a way you don't yet, and the two are not against one another, but one and the same," the older omega shrugged.
"So now I don't love my other child because I don't want Eli to---" Harry cut himself off and looked at Eli in the rearview mirror. The pup was still looking out the window, but he fidgeted when Harry stopped talking. Harry sighed and threw a look at Jay, hoping she understood.
"That's not what I'm saying, dear," she corrected. "I know you love them both. I just mean Louis' got a more personal connection to the issue. He can't see it as black and white as you can."
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do with all of this," Harry confessed. "And hearing him say that I don't even get a say because we aren't mated---" the breath rushed out of Harry's lungs as he said it outloud, and Jay reached over to put a soft hand on his knee. The one small touch was the only thing keeping him above the water, ensuring he could still navigate the road even though his vision was wobbling.
"Lottie is right," Jay whispered to him. "He's just scared. He would have never said something like that if he wasn't."
"I don't think I have it in me to understand anymore, Jay," Harry breathed. For a few long seconds, Jay was silent as she contemplated her next words. Then she patted his knee.
"You're well within your rights with that, you know," she said carefully. "I can't even imagine what you must be feeling right now. But I do know what it feels like to know in your gut that you're losing him. I've been there. I felt that way every moment the last time he was pregnant. Like every minute could be the last one I had with him, and the rest of my life was going to be defined by the moments that followed, the ones he'd never be a part of. I know how painful that is---but Harry, running from it won't stop that hurt. It won't make the days afterwards any easier. So if you're done, if this is the moment you really can't do it anymore, just be sure it's because you're done understanding things that are unfair, and not because you hope it'll change the pain of losing him if you can control how you do it. Because it won't change anything." Harry looked over at the woman he'd already come to think of as family and with a small, broken smile he gave her a helpless shrug.
"I've already lost him either way, haven't I?" he said.
"Haven't you?" Jay asked back, but Harry was sure she didn't mean it as an actual question. Still it left Harry wondering. Could there be any other answer, if he felt all alone?
* * *
"Daddy smells sad," Eli's voice floated over the thick darkness of Louis' room. Harry had been laying in their bed on top of the duvet staring up at the ceiling as tears rolled silently into his ears for the last hour now. He thought Eli had been asleep for just as long, but apparently he'd been wrong. He looked towards the pup hovering in the doorway with a small pterodactyl clutched in the crook of his arm. He had on his favorite pjs, the cuffs of the arms not even reaching his wrists anymore, just like the trousers didn't reach his ankles anymore. If he squinted, Eli almost looked like a baby again. The same toddler that had changed his life what felt like an eternity ago.
"Come here, baby," Harry murmured, wiping his tears, but not bothering to hide the cracks in his voice. There didn't seem to be much of a point when Eli had already watched him shatter so many times throughout the day. Eli walked carefully into the room, and as he got closer, Harry could see something square in his palm. Eli stopped at the bedside table and carefully set the object down, standing it up to face the bed. Harry stared at it for a moment, willing his eyes to adjust enough to the darkness to see it. He stifled a whimper when they finally did and he saw that it was the picture of him and Louis that usually lived on Eli's bedside table.
"Mamma gave me this when I was still a baby," Eli explained. "He used to come sit on my bed when he thought I was sleeping, though, and he'd just look at it. I knew he missed you a lot, so I didn't mind that he would use my picture sometimes. Now you miss him, I can smell it. I thought maybe it'll make you feel better, too? Just until Mamma comes home."
Harry held his breath so that he wouldn't cry out. His son's heart was so big, so endlessly giving---Harry remembered a littler version of Eli crying in a waiting room thinking his love wasn't enough. Harry wished he could tell that toddler that his love was the only thing keeping him going at that moment.
"I love you so much, you know that right?" Harry asked him. Eli nodded, hugging his pterodactyl a little closer.
"I know," he murmured.
"Lay with me?" Harry asked, opening his arms for the pup to climb into. Eli didn't hesitate to crawl right on top of Harry and rest his head on his dad's chest. Silence descended on them, but this time Harry found it a little easier to hear. His breaths came easier, despite the significant weight pressing down on his ribcage.
"Dad?" Eli asked hesitantly.
"Yeah?"
"Are you and Mamma fighting because of me?" he wondered. "Because of what I told you in the car before he went into the hospital?"
"No, Eli," Harry quickly reassured him. Harry shuffled around, maneuvering them both until he could tuck the duvet up around Eli's shoulders and cocoon the sad pup in his arms. "Of course not. Mamma and I aren't fighting at all. We're both just a bit scared right now."
"What are you scared of?" Eli asked, but the tone of his voice told Harry that he already knew. Of course, he already knew.
"Well, you know how he's been sick again for a little while?" Harry asked, trying to find a way to explain this to his son that honored his intelligence and how much Harry knew he understood, while still preserving what peace he might still have. Eli nodded against his chest. "I'm scared that he's going to have to be in the hospital for a very long time. I just want him to come home, and sometimes when people are scared it can look a lot like they're mad or upset." The pup was silent after that. He ran the fingers of the hand not holding his toy along the exposed skin of Harry's arm, softly leaving behind goosebumps and giving Harry's mind something to latch on to, just in case he started sliding back under into a place he couldn't come back from. So much time passed like that, Harry was sure Eli was close to sleep, but then the pup spoke again.
"He'll come home," Eli murmured, the words slurred with sleep. His fingers skidded over Harry's skin, eventually coming to a stand still as the little alpha finally lost his battle with unconsciousness. Harry felt his tears return with a vengeance, racing to his ears and down his neck. He held the sleeping pup as tight as he could, but his eyes fell onto the picture now sitting beside his head. Two people who never knew what tragedy laid before them smiled back at him. They'd just been kids then, unaware of how much they'd lose in the following years after meeting one another. But that wasn't what had Harry holding his breath, fighting off another round of burning sobs. It was the fact that those kids in that picture, despite their care-free smiles, had no idea what happiness lied in front of them either. Harry hadn't even known what happiness was then. He didn't learn until much later that happiness included Louis pressed to his back while he cleaned up breakfast that they'd eaten as a family. The kids in the picture didn't know that happiness would smell like rosewater, sandalwood, and tropical mixtures of chocolate and coconut, or that it would live in a quaint house in a small town that felt like home and always would. They didn't know that it included less music, but more laughter, and dimples that didn't belong to Harry even if they were the same. They didn't know that it would feel like waking up late in the morning and singing to small bumps that couldn't hear them.
They had no idea how much life they had to build together, but Harry wished more than anything he could go back and whisper it into his younger verion's ear. If he could do that, maybe Harry would have started building it earlier, maybe he would have savored every moment they had to be together, instead of sacrificing time for imitation happiness and dreams that would eventually lead him back to Louis anyway. Maybe he would have had more time to rewrite the definition of happiness over and over again so they could feel it in every incarnation. Maybe he wouldn't be laying in bed with their eight-year-old son now, wishing they'd had more time and more definitions now that he knew happiness would never exist for him again, once Louis was written out of it.
It hit him then, lying there staring at one of the first pictures of him and Louis to ever exist, that losing Louis was going to happen in layers. He would lose him now, have to extricate him from their present life, but he'd also have to watch him disappear from every version of their life from before. He'd have to write him out of every pre-defined notion of happiness he'd ever known. The alpha cried for the version of them in the photo, knowing that care-free, happy, in love Louis was the first one he was going to lose.
The one he'd already lost.
