red herring [h.s.]

Epilogue five. (*)

it's the final one and i'm trying not to cry x

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-- Five days later -- September

Harry.

"Are you okay?" I whispered, my forehead resting against Stella's.

She had hot tears running down her cheeks and sniffled, eyes wired shut and I heard her swallowing thickly before she forced a nod, "Yeah."

Sympathy coursed through my body when I dropped the bags and wrapped both arms around her. She sighed into my neck, "'M sorry."

"Don't apologize." I murmured into her hair, stroking it. It smelled like the hospital shampoo and I pressed my lips to her temple, "Don't apologize, baby."

Stella sniffed again and I gently rocked her back and forth a little, "How much anxiety? Scale of one to ten?"

She hesitated before whispering, "N-Nine."

"Really? That's high. It hasn't been this high in a bit." I softly spoke back. Stella nodded into my grasp, "I know. Hasn't been this high since I found out we were pregnant."

I smiled slightly at the memory of that day. Now we were nearly seven months later in the blink of an eye.

A five day-old Clementine was in the baby seat, ready for us to take her out of the hospital and into the real world. Stella had been crying all morning, claiming to be so anxious to get her out of the hospital. The postpartum emotions were a real rollercoaster so far.

From not really succeeding in breast feeding, to feeling absolutely terrible after giving birth, to losing an abnormal amount of blood, to finding out she had a small rupture in her uterus... It hadn't been a walk in the park these past five days. She even had to undergo minor surgery for it and on top of that, she had a slight fever. And then in true Stella fashion, all she really worried about was being able to pay for the hospital bills.

Stella was miserable altogether. She had torn down there during childbirth and they had sown her back up, which honestly sounded bloody terrible in my opinion. I had no idea the things women went through to push out a baby. Stella was in pain all the time and I felt bad not being able to do anything.

It didn't help that Clem didn't calm down whenever she was around Stella. I had teased her about it at first, claimed she was a daddy's girl when it was only my chest she wanted to fall asleep on. But Stella felt horrible, her bottom lip quivering whenever she took a hold of Clementine and she started screaming her lungs out and only calmed down the second I held her in my hands.

It didn't make feeding time any easier. Clementine refused to latch and with her weight dropping, we had moved over to pumped-off milk. She had no issue taking the bottle but Stella missed the bonding time.

To me, Clementine was a dream. I could look at her for hours, swaddled in her little blanket with her chubby cheeks and her pink lips. She was beautiful and had a lot of Stella's features so far. If only I could've shared these emotions with my wife, who felt emotionally distanced from the baby who didn't seem to accept her love.

Pushing Stella in the wheelchair and Clem on her lap in her seat, we exited the hospital.

With each whimper of Stella whenever she moved, I rushed to her side to pick her up and carry her, to the point where she apologized so much.

"Seriously, Harry... It's like you have two babies." She spoke with a guilty look on her face as I ran through the apartment to get her settled and then also get Clem settled, who grew a little fussy as she needed to be fed.