I am done with love

I'm alive!

As Nathalie's due date was approaching, being pregnant was really making her uncomfortable and moody.

"Oh Gabe, I'm so sick of it! I can't move and I can't eat, I can hardly breathe and my throat is burning permanently from all the reflux! I just want it to be over now!", she lamented, for the first time in all her pregnancy, this morning.

Gabriel smiled at her compassionately.

"Oh my sweet, little angel, I can totally understand, that you feel like that. And you haven't been complaining at all yet. You already made me worry, because you didn't. Is there anything, I can do for you?", he asked, as he sat up to bent over his wife and place a soft kiss on her lips. Then he kissed slowly down her throat, between her breasts until he reached her belly. There he lingered with his lips on the strained skin, with the blue and purple shimmering stretch marks, to not only kiss, but to talk to his child softly and with a sweet voice:

"Hello baby! I know, you can't understand me very well through the skin and the water, but I just want to tell you, that we love you and that we can't wait to meet you. As I am sure, that you're as tough as your mummy, you most likely can come out a little early. Your mum is really getting uncomfortable by now. How's that?"

Feeling his unborn child move and push made him smile. He looked up at Nathalie:

"Why didn't you want to know, if it's a boy ore a girl? I mean, it's so much easier, to think of names, to go shopping, to paint the nursery... I'm not saying, that certain colours only fit for certain genders, but it mostly turns out, that boys like 'boy's' colours and girls like 'girl's' colours. As long as they are young, they tend to go with the flow. If all the girls like pink, well....!"

She giggled and shook her head:

"I always preferred a dark, strong red, maybe with a touch of purple!"

Pecking her belly tenderly, the designer replied:

"So that's the reason for the red streak. I loved it from the very first day, but I never asked you about it!"

Now tears brimmed Nathalie's eyes, though she still grinned viciously.

"Well, my mother let me have every colour I wanted, as long as it wasn't permanently, of course. My dad always hated that. I really loved my dad, even if he was like that sometimes, you know?", she looked at Gabriel as if she was waiting for his permission.

"I understand!", he hummed and took her hand, while laying his head from the side against her stomach, so he wouldn't put even more pressure onto it, "just go on!"

"After her......death....I couldn't look at him anymore. He still was my guardian though. And even if he let me live with one of his siblings or his niece, he always forbade me to do so and each of them, to let me. And as I really liked my family and didn't want to get them into trouble, I obeyed. But the very day I turned eighteen, precisely at midnight, I did this red strand and I kept it since then in remembrance of my mum. And to show him, that even in death, my mother still triumphed over him!"

Gabriel noticed, that she was crying. She cried a lot lately. She tried to not let him see, but he of course noticed her puffy eyes and her red nose. He just didn't mention it, to not make her feel even worse. But just now, he just crawled upwards to her, lifted her into his lap and just held her tight to his own body, so she could feel his comfort.

"Are you crying so much lately, because of your mum? Because she..."

"Won't be here, to see me become a mum too, yeah!", she sobbed into his T-shirt.

He stroked along her dark hair and her almost outgrown red streak.

"Would you like to go to the cemetery and visit her? Maybe you feel better, after you talked to her!"

She shook her head and sobbed even harder.

"I'd wish, I could, but it's too far to drive. The doctor said such long trips in a sitting position aren't very good right now!", Nathalie then explained.

But her newly wed husband began to smirk.

"You forgot my love, that you can put those beautiful legs up in the limousine or even lay down completely. So, if your doctor gives his okay, would you like to go? How far away are we talking about, by the way?"

"It's about a four hour drive until we are there!", she sighed, "but if you are still willing, I would love to go!"

"It's settled then. You pack a few things, because we will be staying the night, so you don't have to spent eight hours or more in the car, while I go and call your doctor, okay?", Gabriel beseeched her.

"Th-thank you!", she sobbed again to then kiss him savagely, "you have no idea, what that means to me!"

Two hours later, the Gorilla was driving them towards the small German village, where the ashes of her mum were buried.

As they were getting close, Gabriel started to wonder:

"Well, isn't this the place, where we're supposed to go? Yet we just passed by the cemetery and are heading towards the forest!"

Nathalie nodded.

"She has been buried under the same tree as her father. She took me there when we were visiting my father's parents, as they were living close, for several times, showing me not only the place his ashes were buried, but also taught me a lot of things about trees and plants and flowers. Rocks and soil, geography, survival, healing herbs....", she couldn't go on, as she was shaken with sobs again.

"But how...? Your name was...."

She shrugged. "I changed my name to Sancoeur, when I came to France. I was speaking English, French and Spanish fluently by then and I didn't want to be reminded of my past by hearing that stupid, all over the world name all of the time."

"But why Sancoeur? Why heartless? if I consider your complete name, it would even mean...", he hesitated.

"Born without a heart, yeah! I wanted to make sure, that nobody can get to me that easy. And honestly, I felt like my mum took my heart with her when she died. Before I met you, I wasn't even able to feel anything!"

Gabriel cupped both her cheeks and kissed her tenderly. At the same moment, the limousine stopped.

"Are you telling me, we have to walk from here?", he blurted out in utter shock, as he looked at the uneven dirt road.

"It's not far, just a few hundred meters down there and then about the length of your dining table uphill!", she exclaimed, pulling him with her, as she quickly stepped onto the still familiar looking path.

"It's been almost thirteen years, since I was last here. I hope, I can still find the right tree. It's.....let me take a look.....this way....and oh there, I see it!", she vociferated excitedly.

Gabriel shook his head laughing. He could barely imagine, that the same woman had complained only a couple of hours ago, that she could hardly move.

"Nathalie, slow down!", he called out, making the older woman, who was staring at the exact same tree, and who they hadn't even noticed before, freeze on the spot. Then the female shook her head and was about to turn around and leave, when her eyes met with Nathalie's.

"Mum!", was all Nathalie could utter, before she just fainted and collapsed into Gabriel's arms.