IANS POV
I wake up in the morning not in my bed. It felt strange not having her laid next to me playing with Indie as she waited for me to wake up.
Last night flooded my mind. Her heartbroken sobs. Her eyes that were glasses over. Her shaken voice. She didn't shout. She didn't scream at me.
I went into our room to see Indie. "Morning." I say to her. She was snuggled up with Naz on our bed. I've not seen her like this for a while. Not since Indie's been home anyway. "Morning." She said back not moving an inch to look at me. "Where's Indie?" I asked noticing her not in the crib. "Chris picked her up. I said we had the flu." She sounded so tired. "I could have taken her today. So you could rest." "I think we need to have a chat don't you?" I looked at my feet.
"Naz has been breathing fun. We should take him to the vet." "Don't you think we should talk first?" "No. No I don't. He's sick." She warned me. "It's time E...I know it's hard. But it's time we said good bye." I nodded. She was right I could see he wasn't breathing properly from where I stood by Indie's crib. "Can we just forget about it?" She asked me. "Go back to how it was before?" She asked still not looking at me.
How could we go back to before? I've hurt her so badly. I saw it all over her face. I knew she was in pain. "Can you lay with him whilst I shower and change." She asked me softly. I climbed in the bed as she got out and she kid Naz's head on my lap. "I'll be quick." She told me.
She wasn't long at all and then I got changed and we took Naz to the vets. We said goodbye to him and held him whilst he drifted to sleep for the last time. I wrapped my arm around Bella as she cried.
When we got home it was quiet between us. Indie wasn't there babbling away her music wasn't plying. Her toys weren't making noise like it normally did. It was just silent between us. I only just realised how much I had forgotten to talk to her. All this time since it happened I tried to push her away to avoid her getting hurt. To avoid slipping up and making her world crumble. I knew how much she loved me. I knew she loved me for how much she tried with me over the past few months. The way she looked at me never changed. Even when I told her last night. Yeah she was in pain but the look of adoration was still present.
"Isabella?" We we're in the lounge. Not our family one neither of us could cope with going in there without Naz being laid on the love seat. She looked at me. "I mean it Ian can we just forget about it." I couldn't forget about it. I was still
Lying to her. "Ian please." She said straddling my lap. "Let's just pretend it never happen." Her lips ghosted my neck. "I can't lose you." She whispered to me before kissing up my neck. "Isabella please."
She pulled away. "We can leave. We can go to England for a while. It's always good there and we can get good again and it'll be okay. It has to be okay." She was spiralling. I cupped her face between my hands she was a skeleton. "Let's get some lunch." I say to her. She rested her head on my forehead. "Don't walk away from this. We can work through it." She was always fighting for what she wanted. She wanted us a family like she had for Indie. I wanted what I didn't have for Indie. "Please." I felt myself nodding. "Can we eat now?" I asked as I let one hand trace her body slowly I felt every dip every bone. She was smaller than she was when Indie was in the hospital. "I'm not that hungry." She whispers like it was a secret.
Then I remembered. Nina said she once had an ED. I began to start worrying again. We locked eyes both of us trying to read each other. "I have it under control." She tells me firmly. I shook my head. "You don't...baby, you're sick." I tell her. I could barley feel her weight on me as she sat. "I have." "You don't need to stop eating to feel like you have control baby." I brush her hair out of her face. She lent in to kiss me. To distract me. And it began to get intense between us. I forced myself to not touch her for months because I didn't want to make it worse between us by pretending it was all okay and then she found out and she'd feel used. I missed having her like this all to myself.
"Where are you going?" I asked when she stood up she pulled me to my feet. "Let's go upstairs." She said with a suggestive look. "Bella." I warned. She knew what she did to me. Her innocent eyes fluttering her soft touch ghosting my skin. "We'll go to lunch after. Just." I raised my eyebrows. "No Bella." She frowned at me before walking to the door. She slipped out of her dress revealing her Lacey white underwear before doing her model strut out of the room and into the hall.
I went after her I'd be delusional if I didn't. I laid on the bed as she undressed me easily. I scanned her body taking in all of it. Every curve, every bone. She looked ill. Her muscles melted away she was just bones. "Baby." I said sadly. She knew what I was looking at why I was looking at her this way. She wrapped her arms around her small body. She had a baby bump 11 months ago and now she's skin and bones. I took her hand and pulled her to me. She was kneeled either side of me. My thumbs brushed her hip bones as I held her. "I'm sorry I did this to you." I tell her. I should have noticed. "I did this...not you." She told me firmly. She kissed my lips pushing me back to lay down as she deepened the kiss.
———————————
We ordered lunch in and she was struggling to eat. I've never seen her struggle to eat something. She was always eating and cooking and eating. "Try this." I tell her spooning some of the rice and feeding it too her. "It's good! I'll have to see if I can find the recipe." She told me. I nodded. She can cook anything. Her dad taught her. I hoped she teaches Indie how to cook keep the legacy alive.
After lunch we kid watching films together the sadness of loosing Naz setting in. We stayed in the guest lounge. I wrapped her in a blanket as she laid on me. She was asleep. She didn't have the same energy levels as she used to. She's always so full on with Indie and the. She's the perfect house wife too. Not that I expect it. But she's always cooking for me and cleaning. I do my best to help but I've been trying to avoid her to avoid hurting.
Nina came in holding a sleeping Indiana at around 8:30. Bella was in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner and I was just about to take the dogs on a walk. "She fell asleep in the car. Are you both feeling better?" I nodded. "Think we were both just tired." "Did she eat?" Bella asked drying her hands to take Indie from Nina. "Yeah she had squash mash." Bella nodded. "I'm going to take her up." She pecked my cheek before disappearing upstairs.
"You two seem to be doing better. I'm glad." She says with a smile. Guilt began bubbling inside of me. I felt uneasy. I didn't deserve Bella. She should have kicked my ass out for what I've done. Though she only knows the half of it.
"She's not eating...I don't know how to fix that." I tell her honestly. Nina's been through this with her before. "I know...but now she has control again. Of Indies health and your twos relationship she'll ease up." She assured me. "Just be there for her." I nodded.
"Where going to head to London for a few weeks. To just go back to us. Get back into it." "London always did wonders for you two. It's your place." I smiled it was our place. It's where we went to get away from the media. To just get back to grips with us. We'd always stop off there after our travels. "What happened last night?" Nina asked in a hushed voice. "What do you mean?" "Her phone was turned off. And Chris said when he came for Indie she looked like she had been crying." "Naz went to sleep today. He was breathing funny in the night." Her face softened. "I'm so sorry Ian I know he meant a lot to the both of you." I nodded. Tate, Enzo and now Naz are all gone. They were our first babies between us. We'd take Naz and Enzo on long walks together as our first trips out together. We'd hide from the paps and dodge the fans to avoid questions she was terrified in the beginning of people finding out about us.
"If you want us to have Indie tomorrow drop me a text." "We're going to go to the stables. They haven't been on a run in a while." It was harder to take the horses out with a baby. We have four. I ride one and we attach the reigns of the others and make a line. Isa will have Indie in a carrier strapped to her chest and walk with the dogs beside us and then on the way back we switch. We've only done it a few times but that was when I was pushing her away from me.
"Thank you for having her today Nina." Isabella said as she entered the kitchen again. Baby monitor in hand. "She okay?" I asked. She nodded with a smile and showed me the screen. I smiled. She was fast asleep still. "Any time. Seriously she's a delight." "Don't tell Paul...he'll have a bitch fit we asked you and Chris over him." She laughed at my comment. Nina and I wasn't currently getting on all too well. But I guess we're over it now. I hoped so. It'll be easier in Isabella.
Nina left and Isabella and I finished up what we were doing me taking the dogs out and her cleaning the kitchen up. When I got back she was waiting for me before we went to bed together. She snuggled into my side and I held her for the first time in months instead of pushing her away like I had been. "I love you Ian." She told me looking up at me her green-y blue eyes were looking up at me. "I love you. So much Isabella Somerhalder." She kid her head back down on my chest. Normally she'd face the crib but tonight she had her back to her. Maybe it would all be okay. Maybe she would ease up on the worrying of Indie's health and she might have a peaceful night sleep for the first time in months.
"I am sorry Isa." I tell her. "We're never talking of it again okay...it's done it was one mistake and it meant nothing." She paused. "It meant nothing right?" "Of course it meant nothing." "And she clearly didn't measure up to me." She said with a teasing smirk. I chuckled. "No one could." I kissed the top of her head and we went to sleep. Her in my arms.
Indie woke in the middle of the night so we brought her into our bed. I laid her on my chest and Isabella was cuddled into my side my arm around her holding her there.