Another Japril drabble. Based on Taylor Swift's Bigger Than The Whole Sky, because if you can listen to this song and not think about Japril and Samuel, then you're stronger than I am.
Warning, the angst is strong with this one.
The first night is oddly quiet. They don't cry, they don't speak, they don't even breathe. They're numb, not knowing how to battle through the thousands of emotions that are at bay. She goes straight to their bedroom, lowering her head to avoid looking at what should have been their baby's room, and curls herself under the covers in their bed.
The doctor's side of her, the one that remembers her medical training and her MD and her years of practice, would never dare to tell a patient going through what she's going through that it's their fault. The rational part of her brain obviously knows that it's nothing she's done, that it couldn't have been prevented. That their baby wasn't meant to stay long with them, that the medical reality was far stronger than anything else, and she doesn't need Jackson, or Arizona, or Dr. Herman to tell her that time and time again.
Because she knows she's done everything exactly right. She has stopped drinking alcohol, she has taken prenatal vitamins, watched what she was eating and exercised regularly. She's read countless books and articles, she has benchmarked every stroller known to man to pick the best one, she has cleaned, she has prepped, she has bought clothes and toys and diapers.
Sure, she isn't perfect. There were quite a few mornings where the warmth of their bed and the hands and tongue of her husband had won against the Sunday morning service. There were prayers she had mumbled hastily, calls she hadn't returned, patients she hadn't managed to save, a heart she had publicly broken, but she refuses to believe that this past has tainted the whole future and turned it grey.
But her guilt is familiar, a long-time friend that has always been by her side, so it seems natural to wrap herself in it. She has a lot she has to learn to live without right now, but the guilt? She knows how to live with it, has done it so many times, and so she's going to embrace it with both arms.
Jackson enters the bedroom, reaching for her as he lies on the bed, and she closes her eyes. Because now, the first thing that comes to mind when she looks at her husband is what could have been. What would have been, what should have been, and she's only starting to apprehend her grief, but she already feels that the what-ifs are probably the worst part of it.
discoholicmusic
janainaart
theartofmadeline
germansingergirl
snowghoul
