Re: Sun, 4/21 - Nat and Njall (evening)
Nat felt like she'd been trampled a few times over by a herd of hippogriffs, and for the first time in the last couple of weeks, it wasn't because of any complications with the baby. It had been a long time since something had knocked her back quite this fiercely, not since Tony had gone off to play Quodpot and left her to figure out her own life. The part that almost made it worse was that her twin was just as wrapped up in this as she was, facing the same flood of emotions and doubts...and it didn't help. It had always helped before to have Tony there, regardless of the situation, but now she just felt like she was in a tailspin that eventually had to meet a wall.
The door opened, and she very nearly didn't turn around to see who it was. Probably wouldn't have moved at all for a good long while if she hadn't been aware that it was near time to take her nighttime potion. She wiped at the tears on her face, despite knowing how little good it would do, and turned to see Njall standing there. She sniffled once and immediately started crying again.
Alarmed, it probably spoke volumes that his first action was to rush to her bedside and pull her immediately into his arms. A voice inside him advised caution and restraint, but that voice could go fuck itself. When faced with a person that he still cared very deeply about, despite their tumultuous history, in obvious pain, he would have moved heaven and earth and the oceans themselves to relieve it if he could. "Nat? Elskan? What's wrong? Are you okay?"
Maybe he was a little scared to ask about the baby directly.
Nat wanted to set his mind at ease, to at least let him know that the baby was okay, but when she opened her mouth, all that came out was something akin to a sob. She pressed her face into his chest and let it go. All of the worry, the fear, the uncertainty, the anger, the frustration, all of it. She had no idea how long she cried like that, because it had been so, so long since she'd let herself do anything of the kind. Spurts, sure, but this wasn't a short downpour; this was a flood.
"I'm okay. We're okay," she managed to croak, at some point when the tears had finally begun to slow. If not for her Uncle's Jesse's insistence on that point, she might not have even been able to manage that much. Even when she'd mostly managed to stop crying, she simply laid there in Njall's arms, weak from the exertion of it, and stared at the fabric of his shirt.
He knew. Few people in the world could, but Njall did. He knew what she was facing. She couldn't decide if that made it better or worse.
"It's not just you." Her voice was a whisper, raspy and spent. "You're not the only one who's—." She bit her lip hard to keep from crying all over again.
It hurt him to see her like this. Physically hurt him. It was like being tossed against sharp rocks in the shallows, pounded into them by an unforgiving surf. His bones were being crushed and the thick, grey skin cut and torn from his body. As much as the sensation scared him, he shoved it down. It wasn't about his pain, it was Nat's. It just seemed to reverberate through him, intensifying with each wracking sob and awful tear. Njall set up a comforting pattern along her back, sometimes gently tracing her spine, sometimes combing through her hair. Even her reassurances that she and the baby were fine didn't stop that.
What did were her next words, though, and he went still as he stared down at the top of her head. His thoughts took off in a blur of starlight. He was aware that he'd frozen, and it took a real conscious effort to get his hand to move again. The implications of what she hadn't yet said hadn't completely solidified in his head, but comprehension was close. "What do you mean? I'm not the only one what?"