How Green Becomes Wood

"Sloan? The neighbor?" Daizi asked, "She's always seemed like a very nice girl, are you kids becoming friends?"

Dark scrunched his eyebrows together ever so slightly and set his glass down. Finally, his chance to tease his wife, "You just sounded so old."

She whimpered and pressed her forehead against her knee, "I know... I was hoping nobody would bring it up," Daizi raised her head slightly and gave the most pitiful look to her husband, and it was really only about 10% played up, since she really was feeling so poorly and just fighting through it, "I'm so dreadfully unwell you know," her word choice and tone increased the percentage of how genuine her emotional reaction was to about 35%, "I can't be held responsible for what I say."

"Then you should eat something." Dark replied. He didn't like how she had come home looking a bit pale.

Daizi grumbled, once more hiding her face, "I said I will, just not yet."

There was an uncharacteristic edge to her voice and for a moment Dark looked like he was about to say something back to her, but then instead he said, "I would have no problem driving you to the thrift store. We can go on the weekend."
 
"Alright! This weekend it is!" Alec agreed. He stood and cleared his plate off the table. "I'm looking forward to that. I'm going to go work on my designs. I'll see you later!" He cleaned up his area and hurried out.

Xander frowned at Daizi. "If you can't eat, you're going to starve to death. That ain't going to help tiny thing, either," he stated in his usual oh-so tactful and delicate manner.
 
"I miss when you were irrational," Daizi replied. In truth, she just really, really didn't want to be sick again. She couldn't take it. And she figured, ultimately, either way she wasn't getting nutrients. She wanted to help 'tiny thing' but it didn't really feel like her call to make anymore, she was just being dragged along uterus first. She stood up, squeezing her eyes shut to fight through another round of dizziness, and then lifted her untouched plate, "I'm going to go lie down."

"Tarot, you--" Dark began but was immediately cut off.

"Dark I just--I can't, okay. Right now, I can't, so I'm going to lie down," She was sharp with him and immediately felt bad about it, so she lightly tugged on his sleeve and in a sweeter tone said, "Come with me, please? I don't want to be alone. I'll eat bread or saltines or whatever, I just want to lie down."

He sighed, mildly annoyed by her stubbornness, but he knew trying to battle it wouldn't help and at least she agreed to eat something. So he stood after her, took her plate from her, and grabbed his own, which was empty, and cleaned up after the two of them.

Then they went upstairs, but had only really been gone a few moments--too soon to have made it too the bedroom--when Dark, who always simply walked to whoever he wanted to speak to, rather than calling through the house, called out, "Will someone bring me a cup of juice, please?" He sounded mostly, but not completely, the same as he usually did.
 
Xander was still in the hall when Dark called. "Got it," he called back and went to the kitchen. He wasn't sure how much to get, so he found a plastic cup and filled it almost full of juice. He called it toward the bedroom, looking for Dark and Daizi. The bathroom, maybe? "I got grape juice," he announced, hoping not to take anyone by surprise.
 
They were in the hallway, right at the bottom of the stairs, and Dark had his arms wrapped fully around his wife as he slowly knelt down, laying her on the hardwood floor. The two of them had been partway up the stairs when she, partially due to having hardly been eating for the past few days, and partially due to the standard lightheadedness common at her current stage, began to slump down, but he had immediately caught her so she hadn't fallen.

"Thank you," he said to Xander, and his voice was calm. His hands were steady, too, as he unzippered her dress so she was ever so slightly less restricted, although really he didn't need to, because her dress fit comfortably. But there was panic in his eyes, and not in a subtle, muted way like the majority of his expressions were.
 
Xander stepped back and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Do you need me to call someone?" he asked, keeping his voice low and tight. As far as he could tell, Alec hadn't caught onto what had happened, and he wanted to keep it that way.
 
He looked up at Xander and stammered, trying to think of words in English, and finding it difficult he took a second to breathe before being able to say, "No, no, she would--panic, if she woke up somewhere she did not know."

He looked down at his wife again and stroking her hair, he kept repeating her name, and all of the many variants he used, and she came around rather quickly, "Mmhm..." she mumbled, blinking and touching the floor with one hand, "what...?" she tried to sit up, but Dark gently put his hand on her shoulder.

"Stay down for a bit," He told her, "okay, Spider, I know you will not like this, but I think I need to take you to the hospital."

Immediately upon hearing these words, her face clouded over with genuine fear, and adamantly she said, "No, no I'm okay, don't make me."

"Tarot, you fainted, we need to make sure everything is okay."
 
Xander scowled at Dark. "Oh, stop pussy footing around and acting all guilty 'cause you ain't hurtin' as bad as she is when it's half your fault!" he snapped. "She is gonna die because she can't keep nothin' down! I don't know much about childbearing, but I'm pretty sure that's an end to the tiny thing. Might be the end anyway if she doesn't get better." He looked down at Daizi as if she was Alec during one of his irrationally stubborn times. "I will personally take you there if I have to drag you, Daizi, 'cause I ain't watching another one die! Alright? Not again! Not on my watch!" His voice cracked at the word "again," and he flushed but pretended it didn't happen as he continued to glare, fists balled in his pockets.
 
"I am going to take her there," Dark replied. He gripped Daizi's hair tighter, not to hurt her, and he didn't, it was more like clutching a blanket, he didn't pull on her scalp at all, "I would never let--" He stopped himself. He wasn't angry because he was yelled at, but he did detest the notion he would ever, by action or inaction, do something to hurt her, much less something that would kill her. He knew that if he pushed too hard she would run the other way, which wouldn't help anybody, so he had been choosing to be gentle with her.

Daizi forced herself to be sitting, even though Dark tried to keep her lying down, and trembling she replied, raising her voice back at him, "I can't go, I can't, they'll take my baby again, just like last time, and I can't!"

"Tarot, Tarot, breathe," He cupped her face in his hands and tried to get her to take deep breaths with him, "Good, just relax, darling, breathe. I know you are frightened, but you do not have to be, this will not be like last time, okay?" He released her face and wrapped one arm around her waist to support her, with his spare hand he handed her the cup of juice, "Drink this. It is just juice, normal juice. It will help." This last sentence he said firmly.

Her whole body shook. She hadn't even known Xander was there until he began to yell at her. But Dark was rubbing her back. And she recognized the tone he used when he told her to drink, so she took small nervous sips of it, and since she was drinking and couldn't speak, Dark continued to speak, "But we are going to go, because we have to go, and everything will be fine."

"But--"

"Drink. Daizi," His voice broke, and he never called her by her birthname, "go for our baby. I will be with you the entire time."
 
"I'll go get the car started," Xander said. He didn't bother to wait for Dark to say anything as he walked away and found the keys. He went out, closing the door behind him firmly, but not slamming it. Oddly, the one thing he almost never did while angry was slam a door. Maybe slam it open if he was running, but never closed. He was more likely to slam it when excited.

He sat in the driver's seat of the car and started it up. Then he sat, staring out the window, jaw clenched. The rational part of his mind told him this was a lot more complicated than he was allowing it to be, but the angry side fumed. Dark should have done something about this so much sooner! Sure, Daizi had issues about something, everyone had issues about something, but it was Dark's responsibility to override those issues and take care of her! She hadn't eaten properly in days! Maybe even weeks! It shouldn't have taken passing out for Dark to do something about it. He may have looked tough, but he was too weak-willed to force Daizi to do anything even when it meant her very life and the life of the thing they both supposedly wanted so badly. Or maybe he just didn't care hard enough. This was all Dark's fault! All of it! And a little bit Daizi's too for being too pigheaded to save herself. And both he and Alec had to live with their stupid decisions just because they'd wanted a hole to fill in their lives.

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel of the car, imagining for just a moment that he could drive away. Drive somewhere, anywhere, and start over. He knew how, it wasn't that hard to figure out, but he wasn't practiced having only done it twice before. Once in a parking lot and once down an alleyway. He could go somewhere. Anywhere. Just him and Alec.

He loosened his grip and let out a long, slow breath. No. He couldn't do it. They'd get caught by the skunks for stealing a car, and Alec would never survive that. No, he was stuck. He growled under his breath and smacked the wheel before letting it go. This was why you should never care about people! This was all caring got you. Secondhand hurt. He got out of the car and waited angrily.
 
Daizi trembled beneath Dark's hands and he inched closer to her, still speaking calmly to her, although if she could see, she would recognize the fear in his face, "But I hate it there," she murmured. She wasn't yelling anymore because she wasn't being yelled at, "I hate it and it's cold and I never know what's going on or who is in the room, and they never talk to me."

"I know, I know," He moved closer to her still and kissed her brow bone, "but we cannot pretend like nothing is wrong, darling, and because I love you, I cannot ignore this," Dark dropped one hand and put it over her belly, "if you do not want to go for yourself, go for her. Please, for our baby."

"But, last time--"

"Was a tragedy," His voice broke. It was hard for him to remember, too, and he remembered sitting in that room with her, powerless, and hearing her screams when the doctors said they needed to take the remains of their son away from her. And he remembered how long it took for her to be like herself again afterwards. And how much they fought, then. He had been trying so hard, over the past few days, to convince her to eat just a little bit more, or to at least call her doctor--not the hospital, the private practice with the doctor she liked--because he had seen how she had taken a turn, but if he had tried to force her to do either of those things? And it wasn't like she hadn't been trying to oblige, they were going upstairs and they had saltines in their bedroom, and they both knew that if she had managed to keep them down, she would have then, cautiously, ate dinner. Daizi wasn't stupid, she was scared, and Dark knew that, "but it will not happen this time. You are not in labour like you were, right?" She shook her head, "So you don't have to worry about that. And as for the rest, we can bring a blanket so you are warm, and I will be there to make sure you know what is happening, and if they try to talk to me instead of you, I will demand they direct their attention until they learn. And I--I feel very strongly that you and our baby are okay, you are probably just dehydrated or something, but I will not take the risk I am wrong, because I love you too much, and those boys," he meant Alec and Xander, "already lost their biological mother, and they are so afraid something will happen to you, too. So for their sake, and mine, and our baby's, we are going to go to the hospital."

She squirmed and flopped forwards against him, intentionally, she hadn't fainted again, and with her face buried against him she murmured, "okay... fine..."

"Good..." He kissed her hair and then lay her back down, "Stay there, I am going to grab a blanket, as promised." He went upstairs to their linen closet to fetch the blanket, but on his way he stopped, knocked on Alec's door and said, "Hey... do not be alarmed, everything is going to be okay, but I do have to drive Daizi to the hospital." There was no way he was going to avoid telling him. He knew it would scare him like it scared Xander, but--what would be more upsetting? Being told in advance, and being given the option to go with, if he wanted, or coming downstairs to find them gone, with no knowledge anything had happened?
 
Alec took the headphones off and stared at Dark, wide-eyed. What on earth had happened while he'd been blissfully listening to music? "Oh," he said in a small voice. "Should I come along? Do you want me to? Or should we stay here?" He looked around, realizing that Xander was nowhere in sight. "Where's Xander? Is he going?"
 
"You can come if you would like to. Tarot is frightened of hospitals because she has had many bad experiences at them, so..." He sighed. He did not look panicked anymore, since Daizi had agreed to go, "she might like it if she has more people to talk to, so she would not have to focus on the environment, but I could be wrong and even if I am not--if it is not something you would be comfortable with, there is no pressure on you, I just wanted to let you know. I do not know if Xander is going, but he went outside to start the car, so I suspect he intends to."
 
Alec removed the headphones entirely and turned off his music. "I'll come," he said simply. He picked up the backpack still sitting at the end of his bed, not his school backpack, and zipped it up without looking. He always knew exactly what was in the backpack. Then he grabbed his grey coat and pulled it on as he hurried after Dark. Then he turned, ran back to his room, and grabbed Xander's backpack before running to catch up to Dark.

Xander leaned on the side of the car, arms folded, glowering at the sidewalk as he waited. He opened the doors when he saw the others coming but waited to get in until last.
 
Dark kept his arm fully around his wife as they walked to the car, and now that she had calmed down somewhat, she was beginning to see what a big mess she had made, although, in her defense, it wasn't like she had chosen to faint, and it had really only taken her a few minutes to be convinced to go to the hospital. But still she felt like a child and a bad parent, "I'm sorry..." She murmured, as Dark pulled out of the driveway and drove to the hospital.

It wasn't too long before they were all in the waiting room and Daizi was fully clinging to her husband, who was really doing his best to fill out paperwork while being half 'strangled.'
 
Xander and Alec stayed close behind Dark while keeping a few steps behind. Xander never fully lost his sullen look as he stood with one hand in his pocket, the other holding his backpack, shoulders raised as if waiting for a fight. Alec practically hugged Xander's shadow, silent and cautious as he looked around. Neither knew what their roles should be in this instance, so they waited in silence for something to happen or for someone to tell them what they should do.
 
Dark kept an eye on what felt like his train of ducklings. He had no idea how to handle them being there, but it was obvious they were a little bit freaked out and uncertain, so he said, "Hey, how about, while we wait--tell us more about how school is going. Or," God, why did these kids hardly do anything, "if there is anything from your childhood you miss that we could incorporate here? Like, a special dessert or tradition, or something?" He hoped if he got the twins talking, it would both give them something to do and serve as a distraction for his wife, who was visibly hating every second of being in the ER.
 
Xander and Alec both gave Dark a look like he'd lost his mind. School? Childhood? Special dessert? He really had lost his mind, hadn't he? Then they seemed to catch on, glancing at Daizi.

Xander looked away, a muscle jumping in his jaw. Then he spoke as calmly and normally as he could, trying to squash the urge to speak as caustically as possible. "There's nothing we want from the past," he said slowly. "There's not much there worth repeating. No traditions, really."

"I heard a rumor of one of the other boys at school trying to start a D and D club," Alec said in a quiet, meek voice. "I have heard of D and D, but I don't know what it is, exactly. Apparently, Logan didn't like it, but he seemed to dislike everything. I think he just wanted attention. Do you know what D and D is? Or are?"
 
"Okay, well, if you ever remember something, just let us know, okay?" Dark said. He saw that they were initially confused, but when they spoke he nodded, encouraging them to keep talking.

Daizi squirmed slightly, really doing her absolute best to not seem afraid, because having actual minors around made her feel stupid for being afraid, but but she couldn't help the genuine anxiety and fear she felt. All of this she would need to talk about with her therapist next time she had a session. For now she just tried to listen to her foster sons, "It's a game," she murmured, "everybody plays a character, and you go on adventures together and fight monsters, but it's all decided through dice rolls... I like sorcerers and warlocks... and druids... It's very fun..."
 
"Oh, you know how to play?" Alec asked, managing to sound just a little excited behind the shakiness of his voice. "Maybe you could teach us and we can all play together."

"Fighting monsters sounds like fun," Xander agreed absently, watching the people around them. "I've never played a dice game."

"I think the last board game we played together was Candyland, and Xander cheated," Alec told Daizi.

"Did not," Xander said automatically.
 
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