Regrets

Reassurances

Part 11: Reassurances

When Abel finally rejoined Selena, once she'd seen her family, he let out a deep breath at the sight of her. He examined her for any change in the past half hour, but she was still smiling at him, despite the way her eyelids had begun to drop.

"How are you feeling?"

"I feel fine." Selena chuckled when he looked her over, like he could determine her condition on sight.

She reached for him to take her hand, and moved over so that he could lie in bed with her.

"Sel..." Abel tugged back gently.

"You won't hurt me," she said, as she entwined their fingers.

"I don't want to take a chance before your doctor gets here," he said, shaking his head.

"I promise I'll be fine, baby. Please?" Selena smiled, but her eyes were glistening.

Abel frowned as he surrendered and climbed into bed, easing closer so that he could hold her in his arms.

"Babe, what's wrong? Are you sure you're not in any pain? I can call your nurse."

Selena shook her head. "No, I'm not in any pain," she said, but her voice was weak and she wouldn't meet Abel's eyes.

A tear escaped to roll down her cheek.

"Sel, why are you crying?" Abel asked. His voice was quiet against the backdrop of the beeping monitors recording Selena's vitals.

"I-" Selena's voice broke. "It's all my fault." She turned and buried her face into Abel's chest.

"What?" Abel rubbed his hands up and down her back. "How could any of this possibly be your fault?"

"I almost lost our baby," she whispered. She clutched at the front of his shirt, as her tears soaked into the fabric.

"Selena." Abel's mouth dropped open. "You didn't do anything wrong. You went into labor early, you didn't snort cocaine or some shit."

Selena laughed. "Do you know why I went into labor?" She paused for a breath. "I have preeclampsia, high blood pressure."

"Sel, I'm sure a lot of women have that; it isn't your fault that you have high blood pressure," he said.

Selena pushed away from him, and grabbed the black cuff Velcro'd around her arm. She looked into his eyes; tears still streamed down her cheeks. "Abel, preeclampsia is one of the most common pregnancy complications experienced by people who have had a kidney transplant. If I hadn't had that transplant, this wouldn't have happened." She cried openly, and her breath hitched slightly with every inhale.

Abel shook his head. "If you hadn't had the transplant, I would have lost you last year," he said, as he gripped her arms firmly. "It wasn't your fault. You needed that surgery to survive."

"Yes, it was! I'm the one who has the goddamn lupus that caused me to have the transplant that caused me to have the preeclampsia and go into premature labor and almost kill your baby!"

She shut her eyes tightly. Her breathing quickened. The beeping in the room began to increase in frequency.

"Selena, baby, please, take a deep breath for me. You need to calm down," Abel kissed her forehead, "for me and for our little girl. It is not your fault you have lupus; you can't control that."

He waited a moment until Selena's breathing was smooth and steady again. The monitors returned to their rhythmic beeps. He touched her cheek, and molded his fingers to her chin.

He took a deep breath. "Babe, do you think I blame you for this happening?" He paused, but Selena was silent. "Selena Marie Gomez, I love you. I meant it when I said I wouldn't want anyone else to carry my children, our children."

Selena sniffled. "But my health problems..."

"Are not your fault," he cut her off. "We knew there would be more risks if you got pregnant, way before we ever found out about our little girl."

He tilted her chin up a fraction so their eyes met.

"Selena, we talked about this last year, and we both agreed that if we ever came to this point in our relationship, the risk would be worth it to hold our baby in our arms."

Selena closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She knew he was right, but her guilty conscience didn't care. It still needled at her heart.

"You're right," she leaned into his hand, "I just didn't realize how hard it would be, to know that my health problems don't just put me at risk - that they affect her, too... It hurts me."

"Babe, I know it's hard, but I want you to know I never blamed you for a second. I know there's nothing you wouldn't do to protect our baby," he murmured.

"I know that now, and I know you would do the same. I love you, Abel." Selena yawned.

"I love you, too, Sel," Abel chuckled, "I think you need to rest now, though."

Selena snuggled in close to her man. "Stay with me?" She tilted her face toward his.

He leaned in and touched his lips to hers, moving together slowly. He moved his hand down to rest on her abdomen. "I'm not going anywhere."

To Be Continued.

A/N: Hi, everyone. So, this chapter is pretty short. I just wanted to address Selena's emotional state in this chapter before moving on to the final part of the story.

Sorry it's taken so long to get this chapter up, I've had the flu the past three weeks and haven't been able to get any writing done. 😷 Now that I'm better, I should be able to get the next part up fairly quickly.

As always, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Let me know what you thought in the comments! Thanks for reading!