But you'll never be alone
I'll be with you from dusk till dawn
I'll be with you from dusk till dawn
Baby, I'm right here
I'll hold you when things go wrong
I'll be with you from dusk till dawn
I'll be with you from dusk till dawn
Baby, I'm right here

~ Zayn ft Sia, Dusk Till Dawn

3.5k (unedited)

The bright lights of the hospital room are harsh, there’s no way Sana can close her eyes, trying not to face the reality. All she can do is stare at the lights until her eyes burn.

She doesn’t say anything as the nurses are busy fixing her dress, the OB/GYN tugs in her latex glove. Nobody speaks, but she’s not waiting. Because she already knows what’s happening.

She doesn’t have her baby anymore.

Apparently, her baby was too weak to keep developing. They will do an autopsy for it but there’s nothing they can do anymore. Her baby is dead.

Her hand curls on the blanket, her stomach is still cramping but what’s another pain? Everything hurts that she feels extremely hollow. How is that possible?

“I’m sorry,” the doctor says.

She inhales as she shifts her attention away from the young doctor. She hears nothing further. She doesn’t want to hear.

There’s a heavy sigh coming from beside her before her father wraps her unmoving body in a hug and keeps apologizing to her ear.

Sana, though, thinks he should leave now. He didn’t want her baby and he should go celebrate it or something. In fact, she thinks everyone should leave her alone and stop touching her. She needs to be alone.

A form rushes through the door and fills the doorway. She turns her head away. She doesn’t have to look to know it’s him. She doesn’t want to look at him. To face him. Because it’s not only the baby she has to say goodbye to. Losing the baby means losing the father. He’s here in her life for a sole reason and that sole reason is gone now. Because she has lost it. She has one job and that is to stay pregnant and she can’t even do that. And Mingyu lost his baby because of it. Because of her.

Any hope to reconcile is gone now. Vanished in the air along with the death of her fetus. He should turn his back on her and back to hating her because that’s what she deserves.

Not . . . come to her and drops his forehead on the side of her head and cries. It just makes things even worse. Makes her aches expanded and he might as well just shove a knife on her chest because that pain is nothing compares to what she feels right now.

“It’s time to say goodbye . . .” They don’t know how long they stay that way until the doctor intrudes into the moment and besides her is a woman holding something wrapped in a blue blanket.

Oh.

No. No she can’t do this. She can’t face her baby knowing he dies because of her. No.

But the woman says nothing as she hands it to her and Sana stares down at . . . her heart breaks open in her chest.

Her baby is a boy. So tiny, just a little bigger than a banana. Banana.

A sob torn from Mingyu as they stare into the perfect little face. Perfect little replica of a full-size baby.

In her heart, she keeps apologizing, apologizing and apologizing. She runs a trembling finger over from his forehead, down her nose, to his lips, to his chin. And then she starts sobbing, clutching her baby, her whole world protectively to her chest. She can’t let this go. How could they ask her to say goodbye?

“I want to name him,” she whispers. “Kim Gi-Jung.”

Mingyu sniffles. “Gi-Jung?”

“Short for gijung-gi. The crane birds. In Japan, it’s the symbol of longevity because our baby will live for a thousand years in soul. He will be with us, watching over us, forever.” She swallows a sob, muttering, “longer than I deserve.”

Mingyu sits at the edge of the bed, one arm around her and his jaw rests on top of her head as they stare down at Gi-Jung.

Sana continues, “People makes a thousand origami cranes for dying people—to be granted a wish. I’ll do the same to keep him alive.”

He kisses her temple. “We’ll do that.”

She wants to tell him there’s no ‘we’ anymore because she doesn’t deserve to be part of the unit. He should just leave, farther than he already has. But the numbness waves way to exhaustion and she’s barely conscious when they finally have to say goodbye to Baby Kim Gi-Jung.

It’s an emotional train wreck for the first few hours since she woke up and she couldn’t find Gi-Jung when he’s supposed to be in her arms. She threw a tantrum, demanding anyone to bring her to her baby, wherever they’ve taken him. Then she whimpered in Mingyu’s arms, crying out “how could you let them take him? How could you?” and he kept apologizing and she screamed some more until she passed out.

It’s a blurred from then.

She got discharged few days later. And she feels like she’s coming home, carrying a massive void inside of her—which is kind of true, only that Gi-Jung was very small. All night long she lays awake, but she doesn’t cry. She couldn’t sleep. Her mind turned over everything she had done and hadn’t done since she found out she’s pregnant. She needs to know that one misstep she took.

Maybe it’s a punishment because she wanted to abort in the beginning.  Maybe she hadn’t taken the pregnancy seriously enough. She missed taking the prenatal vitamins once. Her diet could’ve been way healthier. And if she really paid attention, if she went for a check up the first time she felt the cramp, could this miscarriage have been prevented?

The racing thoughts made her feels sick. Bottom line, she had messed up and she doesn’t even know what she had done.

Her father doesn’t leave, but he gives her spaces, only coming into the bedroom every hour to pester her into eating chicken soup or just anything. She doesn’t move or react to his presence. She just stares at the wall, studying the cracks.

The truth is, she just wants it to be over—the physical pain and the deeper, sharper, and more hurtful pain. But she has to accept the fact that it can’t be now. So until the pain fades away by itself, she has nothing to do but deal with it. Because she deserves it, somehow. This is all her fault. Even not knowing what she did wrong is also her fault. Because she should know, goddamnit.

She finally sleeps after two whole days of staring lifelessly into spaces.

She doesn’t have any other option. She would cry, but she’s not ready. Crying would make the pain feel stronger, and what she feels is enough as it is.

The next morning, very early morning, she assumes—she has lost track of time—because her room is still blue-ish. The sun is not up yet, she guesses. When she blinks, that’s when she realizes what’s waking her up. It’s a presence of someone in the room.

She glances over her shoulder, and this is actually the most movement she does since her coming home.

Her dad smiles solemnly. “Did I wake you up?”

She turns to the wall again. There’s a huge part that wants to tell him to leave, but she’s too tired. She drags the quilt over her, tucking it under her chin.

He sighs, and when he speaks again, it’s almost sound like he’s breaking. “I want to hug you right now.” Through the hoarseness of his voice, Sana knows his eyes are watering. He’s sad, she knows. But what to do. She hurts, too. “But since the hospital, you look like you would punch me if I do.”

She would punch anyone who do. But she’s too lifeless to move.

“Baby girl, I know that I was harsh on you, about your pregnancy. I wish I came around it sooner, but it wasn’t because I didn’t accept it. Your baby was my grandson. I could not not accept my own grandkid. I, in fact, already has an account set up for him, for financial support because I would never let you do it alone.”

Sana blinks. She didn’t know that.

“But I hope you’d understand me. I was out of practice. I didn’t know what to do with you. When your mom was pregnant, I didn’t let her do anything. And then she got complication, resulting from her weak cardio. I was hugely blamed for that.”

She didn’t know this, either. She didn’t know part of why her father couldn’t move on was because he’s still blaming herself over the loss of his wife.

“So, with you, I didn’t know what to do. If it’s up to me, you’d be in bubble wrap so thick. But it apparently didn’t work like that. And even then, this happened. I’m so lost. What do I do?” And his plead is turning into a sob. “I love you so much, and seeing you like this, I’m helpless. I don’t know how to help my own daughter, how pathetic is that?”

Her first tear since the hospital rolls down the side of her head. She wishes she knows how to help herself, too.

The next hour, when her father comes checking in again, she manages to take few spoons of soup, and three bites of bread roll. When he leans in to kiss her forehead, she lets him. When he says he loves her, she nods.

She nods because she knows. She also knows she’s wrong again, for having a slight bitterness to her own father when he did nothing wrong.

At this point, what did she do that is not wrong?

She cries. When she starts crying, giving in to the pain, she can’t stop. She cries herself into a mindless exhaustion that could only be cured by sleeping. She sleeps because if she’s awake, she has to face reality, face the loss, face the thoughts that she doesn’t want to ever cross her mind.

Like Gi-Jung. And his father.

She doesn’t know what is happening to Mingyu or his whereabout. And that’s just adding to her insecurities concerning her relationship with him. If it’s still valid or not—because without Gi-Jung, what’s binding them together anymore?

She also doesn’t want to see him hurt, because she did that to him.

So she doesn’t want to see him altogether. It’s probably mutual, because he’s not here.

She cries even more until every cell in her body feels like she had been through the wringer.

Nayeon comes at noon, bringing a huge box of homemade matcha chocolate. She looks at her with sympathy laces in her eyes. She doesn’t say much. But what she says, are sharp.

“Miscarrying is common, Sana. It happens, and no one is to blame for it.”

Like she knows what’s in Sana’s mind.

And Sana wants to scoff because no one is to blame? She’s not sure about that. There’s one person, and Nayeon is currently looking at her.

“This is not going anywhere. Just crying yourself to sleep is not helping, you know that. You need closure, and before you go through that, you need something.”

Sana looks away. Nayeon thinks she knows everything. And the stupid part is, she actually does.

“You need Mingyu right now.”

in a breath, Sana stiffens.

“And so does he. He needs you, too.” Nayeon sits on the edge of the bed, trying to make Sana to look her in the eyes. “You’ve been with each other since the beginning of this. And this—this is the time that you two should be with each other the most.”

When Sana doesn’t say anything, Nayeon continues. “You think he doesn’t need you?”

And she’s right again. If Sana is always on the wrong, Nayeon is actually the opposite.

“If he doesn’t, he would have been gone. Instead, he’s been sitting down downstairs, not leaving, not eating, also not sleeping. For three days. And if he’s coming to his limit, he’ll lose his .”

Sana’s eyes finally turn sharply, looking at Nayeon. Her heart stutters. He can’t be.

She must be muttering it unconsciously, because Nayeon nods.

“He didn’t come to you because you didn’t let him.”

“W-what?” Her first word comes out.

Nayeon’s eyes turn sad. “I arrived at the hospital right before you passed out. And I heard it. We all heard it. You might not remember it, you’d probably said unconsciously in the midst of your meltdown, but Sana.” Nayeon sighs. “You told him to not come anywhere near you again, you told him to leave.”

Her heart, what’s left of it, keeps breaking. “No.”

“And you told him you don’t want to see him again, and that everyone should stop touching you.”

How is it possible—again, what did she do is not ing wrong? She hurt him, and apparently, she hurt him even deeper, even in her unconscious state.

She wonders who comforts him. Her father? She can’t imagine that.

Mingyu lost his baby, too. He must feel so alone. And even then, he doesn’t leave her.

“I need to see him, please. Bring him to me.”

His haggard form, his six feet of fatigue and sadness, is what she finds as she lifts her head to the entrance of her room. The desolate look in his eyes feels like an assault. She did this to him. He looks so worn out, so miserable. But when he sees her, his emotions appear in all his features. “Baby,” he says softly.

And she breaks. She doesn’t think she has it left in her, but the sobs rise again, and they are so powerful they shake her body—shake his as he comes to the bed, draws her into his arms and cocooning her in them. She buries her face against his chest. He has a hand at the backside of her head, and another arm circling her waist, curving his body into hers.

“I’m here. I’m right here,” he says, over and over. “I can’t leave again. Please don’t ask me to leave again.”

She can feel him trembling. And as she buries her face in his neck, guilt comes to the surface and she feels so bad that it comes to this. “I’m sorry. Mingyu, I’m so sorry.”

She’s apologizing for everything. For losing the baby and how she treats him after it. He doesn’t deserve this.

“Sana, baby, please don’t apologize.” His wretched voice kills her. “What happened isn’t your fault. You know that, right? This wasn’t your fault.”

But she keeps saying it anyway, hoping it will make a dent.

“Stop. Stop apologizing. It’s ripping me apart.”

And that’s when she stops, because she doesn’t want to hurt him even more.

She doesn’t know how long it passed until her sobs wears down and his breathing evens. They’ve both calmed down and then he moves under her. “I think we need a shower, clean up and cool down. After that, we can talk . . . or sleep, or anything you want to do. I’m not going to push you. Is that okay with you?”

She nods, and she hangs on to him as he carries her to her bathroom.

She feels so small as he sets her down to her feet and he turns on the hot shower, letting it pour to the right temperature.

He turns to her, wordlessly ing her pajama. While he undresses her, she reaches up to touch his new stubble. It occurs to her that he came here clean and prepared. Everything he had in plan three days ago flushed down the drain. They were supposed to be happy. Happy little family in another four months. Never thought it would come to this.

He kisses her palm before he pushes her top down her shoulders. He doesn’t flinch as he eyes the softness of her stomach, but Sana doesn’t feel insecure about it. All she feels is regret. It shows what they’ve loss.

After he’s done undressing her, he quickly undresses himself and together, they come to stand under the shower. He grabs her shampoo and turns her around.

It’s strange, how they don’t talk. But this long inexplicable silence doesn’t need to be filled. He washes her and when he’s done, he wraps her in a towel on the drying rack. And while Sana brushes her day-three teeth and washes her face, he cleans up quickly.

“My father actually let you in?” She asks when they are both done, putting her arms up as he rolls the sleeves of her pajama dress down her arms and through her head. She can dress herself, she said, and he said he knows that, but he’s still spoiling her like she’s fragile.

“Yeah. I was too dumbfounded to question his sudden acceptance. I just took it. I was not about to leave you. If I have to sleep on the porch, I would.”

Her tears welling again, and she steps into him, hugging him close. She breathes in his scent. He smells like her shower gel. “What do we do now?”

“I need to have something to wear, for starter.”

Sana turns to look for Ten’s sweatshirt and lounge pants she stole. How she stole it, she doesn’t remember anymore. Past relationship feels so far away now when technically, she broke up with Ten only a year ago. “He’s smaller than you, but these were large size,” she says casually, handing them to him.

“He?”

She shrugs, walking to the bed and takes her side. “My ex-boyfriend. I stole those from him.”

“I’m not wearing these.”

“Then just come here ,” she says tiredly. She already has her head on the pillow.

He puts on the clothes anyway. “I’m not risking your father to kick me out. No matter the circumstances.” Then he crawls onto the bed.

She doesn’t waste time to tangle herself limb to limb with him. She’s still grasping. Grasping and grasping until she can really feel his presence in her grip, then only her heartbeat slows to a calm thud. They don’t talk for a while, until Sana feels her eyes getting droopy. She doesn’t want to fall asleep before she clears the air between them, so she talks. “I didn’t mean it when I told you to leave me. I didn’t even remember saying it. Truth is . . . I don’t want you to leave me.” She finally whispers, admitting her vulnerability.

He sounds resigned. “I’m not leaving.”

“You left once, when I still had our baby.” He stills. Sana looks up to him, seeing the pain in his eyes. “And now, I don’t have him anymore. Why are you here?” She’s getting so tired of crying, but it’s still coming. “Why are you still here?”

“I came to reclaim you. And that plan hasn’t change.” He thumbs the tears rolling down her cheek. “Until you pushed me away, until you don’t want me anymore, I would never leave. Not again. And even if you literally did ask me to leave, I still couldn’t go. I need to be with you and if you still want me, I’m here. We don’t have Gi-Jung anymore, but you both were not a package. There is a you and there was Gi-Jung. We lost him, but I still need you by my side. It’s going to be hard for both of us, but I could never do it alone. I barely could do without you when we still have our baby. Much less now.” He takes a breath, holding her tighter. “I love you, Sana, can’t you see that by now?”

Emotions, vivid and intense, run wildly inside of her. She can’t move, can’t even breathe as she stares at him. He loves her? Even after all this?

He smiles, noticing her doubt. He leans in to kiss her forehead, her nose, then her lips. “You’re the first girl I said that to. See how terrible I was in my relationship? I was not lying. I didn’t want to subject you to that awful version of me, but I promise you I’m not being stupid again.”

She nods. That’s all she can do.

After a long minute of silence, he reaches out and click the bedside lamp. Darkness falls over them. “Sleep, baby. Tomorrow, we can plan to start a new beginning.”

She grips his shirt tighter. Why does she still feel like he’s going to slip away from her fingertips? “I love you, too, you know. Please don’t leave me again.”

He makes a contented noise and his hold on her tighten. He keeps kissing her head and even then, she still couldn’t calm herself down. What if he’s changing his mind tomorrow? What if she wakes up and find him missing, like when they took Gi-Jung from her?

“I’m right here, baby bird. I’ll stay here until you fall asleep, okay?”

She falls asleep to that.

And every time she stirs awake at night, he’s still here. He doesn’t leave her once.

And she better starts believing that.

a/n: this isn't my original draft actually. there's another plot for when it comes to this. i know some of u would love more drama, more grovel. i love that too, but seeing as i dont have much time to write anymore, i have to take the shortcut and skip the dramas. this story is almost 2 years old. wow, . 

ok my brain is fried. i feel like i have something more to say but i can't remember. 

i hope u guys can deal with this plot. the baby has always never meant to be. i'm sorry for those wishing for otherwise. but u never know in the future *wink* we're not at the end yet.

thanks for reading guys. much love!