Izaak didnt dare take a breath of the potent anaesthetic stench as his daughter, his sweet, cold, beautiful daughter, was passed into his arms. Her perfect, perpetual stillness stirred his upset but the young man was too afraid to make it known. Because this moment between father and daughter was so delicate that he was convinced if he blinked it would disappear the next instant. "She would've been the most beautiful little girl in the world," Izaak sighed as he was thrown deep into thought, managing only a soft nod as his mind transported him elsewhere, to the neat little future he had worked up in his head. She would have been the most beautiful little girl in the world and he would have loved her with all that he had to give, just the way that he loved her mother. He was supposed to be the shoulder she could rest her tiny little head on and he was supposed sing the lullabies shed be lulled to sleep by. He was supposed to be the only man she could ever truly trust in her life, the one that would love her no matter what, the one that would always fall that single step in front of her to make sure nothing ever came close to harming her. Yet here her tiny body was, beyond the point of all injury and resuscitating and Izaak was returned with the hunch that he had failed Ella as her father. With a duck of his head Izaak graced her cold, silken skin with a kiss so soft, so loving and yet brimming with sadness. It broke his heart into twos again as he inhaled a breath of her, still that sweet and musty baby scent and a strong part of him wished he could bottle it up in a vile and keep it under his pillow for the rest of his life without her. But it was not possible, none of it was possible. All that he wanted and all that he could never have was lying here so solemnly still in his arms, already a world away from the heaviness of the hospital room.
The weight of his loves head felt heavier than usual as it came to rest fittingly against his shoulder and his speculations as to why were only confirmed with the broken whisper into his ear. Izaak gave a slow, sad shake of his head and wondered if her guilt would even have a chance of being reversed. It seemed not to matter in the slightest that he did not blame her at all for the fate of their baby, nor that anyone else did but herself. Es, no. Izaak replied in a whisper just as quiet as the weight of his own head lolled until it was resting against the top of hers. But all his protests and all of his trying efforts to redirect her guilt elsewhere were in vain. They always would be. Because really, when you lost your own child, no matter how perfectly you were not at fault your blame would always settle in yourself. And that was just how Izaak felt, guilted and gutted to the core. Left soaking in their own remorse, the young and devastated couple left the blame game at there for the night as they exchanged few other words through its long and tiresome course.
The hours seemed to slip into one another, blurring Izaaks sense of time and space as he and his love squeezed into the mattress together with their baby girl. There were few points that arrived to distinguish the where and when of this distanced nightmare. He remembered cringing as one nurse spoke to them, Alexis more specifically, about postnatal depression. Depression was inevitable but to hell with the postnatal part. It was no wonder his lover practically bit the nurses head off and left her cowering away with her tail between her legs. Their daughter had died, their tiny, precious, angelic little daughter, and here the staff were busying about as if she was still alive. He threaded his fingers through his lovers hair then as he attempted to soothe her anger and frustration, held her to him as if to protect her from the insensitive suggestions any of the other healers might naively think to make. Time then seemed to fold in on itself once more, just a blur of healers in and out, in and out, making their routine checks on Alexis and constantly chewing Izaaks ear off about how she needed sleep and how it was not going to come with him there beside her. He didnt even bother turning it into an argument, simply flat out refused and curled his lover in closer to his chest. There had scarcely been a night in the past year of their engagement that they had not fallen asleep for the comfort of being with the other; why should it be any different now? These people, although they may have documents of Izaaks baby with Isabella and Alexis incident with the werewolf, knew nothing about them as a couple. So what right did they possibly have to practically tell Izaak that they knew what was better for Alexis than he did?
There was one person though in the midst of their heavy-heartedness that did know Alexis in a way that Izaak never could; her mother. And so when Strella Richarde turned up unexpectedly in her daughters hospital room, the blue-eyed man couldnt help but feel relieved that there was somebody else who understood, right down to every last tear shed, the kind of pain he and Alexis were suffocating in. The moment the two shared right before his eyes twanged Izaak with another sense of loss, one as he realised that this could have been the kind of moment Alexis and Ella shared, when she had grown up and come face to face with the ugliness that life could be. The images were shaken to the back of his mind as Strella came to embrace him soon after. His arms wound strongly around his future mother-in-law as she whispered words of reassurance to him, ones that were left mostly lost on a very lost Izaak. Its so hard not to. He whispered back, out of Alexis earshot because the words and the degradation of his strength would do not a single thing to help her. But when Strella bade the both of them, if not all three of them, goodbye, Izaak watched her go with a renewed need to be stronger for his fiancée. She seemed to be in desperate need of something to grasp onto and with Ella gone, their relationship was the only thing that he could deem good enough.
The time soon came for them to vacate the room and with the influx of new and expecting mothers in and out of the ward Izaak knew it was coming. But he stood confused by the nurses words at first, puzzled as to how they could leave when Ella was still here. Then came the real dawn of loss, and f*ck it hurt. There would be no other time in their lives that they would ever see their daughter again, save for in their dreams. His azure blue eyes, deepened with worldly grief, traced over to her motionless face and the onslaught of tears pricked pin-like into the back of his sight. But as he felt his lovers gaze land upon him, searching for the answers he didnt yet have the strength to give, Izaak harshly swallowed the lump in his throat and reached for her hand to fix his fingers tightly between hers. A solemn nod was all that was needed between the couple to confirm that which seemed to awful to think of, and that was all that Izaak gave. Theyd go back to their home in Bondi and their daughter would stay here alone. He didnt want to give up, he wished there was another option he could give his love but deep down she knew the truth too. This was it, this was their final farewell. When Alexis was changed out of her hospital gown, they were allowed one last moment with their daughter and as she was held as safely as she ever would be in her mothers arms, Izaak held his fiancée just as safely in his arms and with his chin dipped down to her shoulder he gazed down at their baby, their perfect mistake. With their final tears shed, his final I love you whispered to Ella and a devastation too deep to comprehend bearing down upon them, Izaak and Alexis were escorted from the room by one of the nurses. Funeral arrangements were discussed as discharge papers were signed and how apparently the funeral directors would provide a free coffin fit for their Ella. The lady at the reception desk spoke her words as if she had rehearsed them one hundred times over, as if their had been families before them that had gone through the same grief, many families. But Izaak didnt want to talk about such things, he didnt even want to think about them and Alexis was the last person in the world that he wanted to hear them. So he hushed her mid-sentence by saying that hed call them sometime the next day because clearly they were in no state for such arrangements right now. In fact he choked up in front of the woman for the thought of his baby girl dead and buried in the ground. As much as a relief as he thought it would be, leaving the hospital building was no cause for any such thing and quickly Izaak realised that he was in no state to apparate the both of them back to Bondi. There was no way he planned on losing Alexis too. With a voice hoarse and quiet, he called up Leah and asked if she could pick them up, to which she agreed and said that shed be there as quickly as the traffic would allow. For all of half an hour, he sat by his love with a shoulder for her to lean on, to cry on, to depend upon, until Leah arrived with a huge hug and a river of tears for them all. Holding close his fiancée and his wonderful sister should have milked a little light for Izaak but all he could think of was that one tiny presence that had been lost from their lives. The hurdle of getting over Ella Mae seemed to grow taller the closer they moved to it. There was no other choice but to take each moment one step at a time. Open the car door. Settle into the seat. Close the car door. Strap in with a seat belt. Drive. Each notion was as painful as the last but it was the only way to find themselves without the bigger picture of their daughter ahead. One painful dolly step at a time.
