Unbreakable - Surviving the Truth · (Roswell Fanfiction) ·

SEVEN

A/N: This picks up straight after the Prelude. So if you have forgotten what the prelude was about, take a second to skim through the prelude. Thank you for reading!

That night, after the information overload provided by Max's grandfather, I miscarried the baby.

The cramping was horrible and I would not let Max remove the pain. I wanted to feel my baby leave my body. It was as if the emotional pain of my grief had masked the physical pain of the contractions earlier, but as I stood there in the shower, the water pelting down on my head and my shaking shoulders, further down my body, the cramps became more noticeable. Starting as menstrual cramps, they soon escalated and become more painful than I had ever felt during any previous period.

He asked me repeatedly for my permission for him to relieve me of the pain, or to at least take the edge off. But even when my legs wouldn't hold me up any longer, and his strong arms around my waist supported my descent to the shower floor, I refused his help. 

I had no idea how long it would last. Had no idea how long a process of miscarriage could take. But I was determined to go through it consciously feeling every painful twinge escalate into full-blown contractions. 

He sat down next to me, pulled my straining body between his legs and wrapped his arms around the shell that was me. The water remained warm as it cascaded down our bodies while he gently rocked us side to side, the insides of his thighs pressing tenderly up against the outsides of mine, his chest supporting my bent and quaking back. 

Through heavy water droplets, dripping from my eyelashes, I watched the blood mix with the shower water and swirl down the drain. With every cramp, there was a more distinct red color, the color dimming in between contractions while our baby went down the drain.

Large dark clots of coagulated blood would stop at the top of the metal strainer of the drain, collecting there as a morbid sign of massacre. My eyes would fix on that, wondering which part of the clots contained the fetus. I considered leaning forward, pressing on the clots with my finger to dissolve the clots and make the clumps small enough to go through the strainer of the drain, to not have to look at them anymore, but I never worked up the strength to do so. 

His attention was also on the blood going down the drain, but for somewhat different reasons. His main focus of concern was me and my health. The baby, from his viewpoint, was already dead. He had already let go. To him, it was more important to take care of me. Thus, his interest in the blood was as means of recording how much blood I lost and when it seemed to lessen.

I knew that it took everything in him to refrain from giving me any kind of relief. His hands, brushing repeatedly over my goose bumped arms, were itching to send me a - possibly small - burst of healing energy. Seeing me in pain was ripping him apart. Especially since he knew that he had the power to remove the pain. 

But even if he had been able to fix me physically, he could do very little to heal my emotional state right now. 

When the bleeding subsided, he carefully disentangled his body from mine, and went to retrieve a towel. During the short period of time that he was gone, I said goodbye to the fetus and embarked on the road of trying to rationalize myself out of this painful situation. I needed to tell myself that it was for the best. That it was too early, too complicated, too dangerous, for Max and I to become parents. That the miscarriage was somehow meant to be. That this child was never meant to be ours. That we were never meant to watch it grow up and be her parents. 

The process of rationalization made it hurt even more. Made me cry even harder. And when Max returned and turned the shower off, he failed to stop the tears with the towel. My tears kept wetting my flushed cheeks, my sobs silent and hollow.