♛ second heir to the throne - marina & klaus

Last year, I spent a night in this hospital, a smile on my lips. Jamarion and Sephera had their baby girl - it was flawless and perfect. I was brimming with fear, of course. When my Mama gave birth twenty-two years ago within these walls, she never left. But I watched as the new parent's eyes lit up and suddenly the halls didn't seem so suffocating. The smell of bleach stopped clutching my throat and tasted clean, and the never-ending footsteps on the tiles sounded not like a countdown, but an applause. I left hand in hand with Lyana, my fingertips shaking but the grin never fading from my lips. Today, however, my frown is perpetual, my eyes tired and heavy. I passed a mirror not long ago while pacing the staircase - the dark circles under my eyes are those of a man who has not slept an hour in three long days. This reflection did not look like me. I barely recognized the pained and ancient face that stared right into my eyes: someone who has worried constantly for seventy two hours, watched over a frantic sister for many of them and eaten only pieces of stale bread between cups of weak tea. I am a prisoner of this hospital. For now, at least. Once the baby is born, I have been told, it will be passed into my hands and I will be free to walk from the doors with an arrival I never knew to await. Because, as the doctors say, Marina is not good enough for that tiny life.

They're right, I suppose. The words they use to describe it, however - unstable, unpredictable, self-destructive - these words make my sister seem like a wild animal that they cannot control. They frown at her, glancing down from their scrawled notes, making observations on her every movement. I scowl at them and plead, "It's not as bad as you think, she's alright, she's just had a rough time. She'll be okay in a couple of days. I'm sure." This isn't true. I'm not sure. In fact, buried deep in my heart is the knowledge that my sister will likely never be strong enough to hold that child in her arms and know she is quite capable of caring for both it and herself all at once. I nodded and signed the form, determined to care for the baby just as I care for Daisy, even though it wasn't my plan. After all, I always wanted a house filled with children who would never be lonely, never be unhappy. (In truth it is the fear of the blood in the infant's veins that is making my pulse race a little faster. I know that you cannot be born a villain, and that time and experience makes a person bad. The situation, after all, is the difference between a soldier and a murderer. Even so, it aches to think that the child will be comprised of my sweet sister and the man who stole away her innocence and made her believe that she was the monster.)

I am drumming my fingers on the information desk for no good reason - (the old man who was working there yesterday made for good conversation) - when a nurse rushes toward me with a clipboard tucked under his arm. "Mr. Goravich!" he says, and I flinch. I hear those words as my father's name. All at once I can taste blood in my mouth, and panic is readily biting at my heels. I do not correct her, but instead demand to know if Marina is alright. Looking fearful, the nurse shakes her head. "She's alright, but her waters have broken. She's coming along very quickly, sir, if you'd like to come this way." I do not need to be told twice. My shoes squeak as I turn corner after corner, weaving my way through the maze into the core of the hospital. I pass wards full of the sick and dying, and thank Ripred that I am moving away from them, toward the place where life begins. There is only one happy place in a hospital, and that is my destination. Only, when I arrive on the threshold, my sister is not smiling.