Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
•••
Five woke up in a cold sweat. He tried to take a deep breath but choked on a sob as he exhaled. He quietly let tears flow freely down the side of his face, not bothering to sit up or wipe them off. He was shaking, his whole body tense, the scene from his dream replaying over and over again in his head.
Five stared down at their son in his arms. He studied the features of the small bundle, smiling softly to himself as the baby scrunched his nose before he started to cry. Five didn't know what to do, he couldn't adjust his position because of the small, soft, hand wrapped around his rough and calloused fingers. He looked back up to Jane who held their daughter to her chest. Despite being covered in sweat, Five still thought she was the most beautiful person in the entire world. He looked back down to the baby in his arms and noticed the crying had stopped. The light grip on his finger was gone. Five panicked as a nurse came and took him away. He couldn't feel anything after that.
"William? Charlotte?" Jane's soft voice was what pulled him back into the real world. It was then Five realized that the nurses had to take their daughter too. He shot up off the floor and grabbed Jane's free hand and brushed her graying curls out of her face.
"You have to let them..." his voice broke, he didn't want to say it. He didn't, he couldn't accept it yet. With a shaking arm, Five moved Jane's hand off of the baby and allowed the nurse to take him. He slowly lowered her hand to here it was. She grabbed at the fabric on her dress. Five let out a shaky breath, knowing what she was feeling for. He grabbed her hand again, hoping she would stop.
"No, it's okay... you're okay," he muttered, trying to convince himself that what he said was true. He knew deep down that it wasn't. Nothing would ever be the same.
"Five, where- the babies...? Where are they... ?" Jane couldn't see anything, all she could make out were circles, blurred together. All her senses were clouding but she could feel Five's hand in hers.
"No," she mumbled, weakly pushing him away, "where...?" Her hand fell limp in Five's. He tried to wake her but to no avail. Angrily, he hit the wall and something fell but he didn't bother to look. He kept his eyes on his wife. Trying to make sure she was still breathing. She couldn't die on him. Not after how close it was when she first got sick back in the early years of the apocalypse. Pulling up his sleeve, he ran a finger across the silk of the ribbon.
Five let go of the pillow he was clutching, in the same manner he would to Jane and rolled over on his back. He dug into his pocket and pulled out the ring and the picture. The ring he didn't care that much about, it would matter more if it was on Jane's finger where it belonged. It was then Five understood why he liked this specific photo as much as he did. It was taken before... before her parents died, before the apocalypse, before the twins... before Yvonne killed herself. The was taken during a time when Jane was truly happy. There was no pain hidden in her eyes. Five only wished the photo had color so he could stare into her deep blue eyes. It would make it feel so real like she was really there. But she wasn't.
