Since this is the first thing I have published since that episode last Sunday, I feel I should say a few words. I'm deeply, deeply sad, and it feels like actual mourning way too much to be healthy. We've all lost something so truly good and wonderful with Sybil, and the only thing that really helps me is knowing that I'm not alone, and that you all feel just as sad.

I will not stop writing these two. It's my therapy, in a way. I've written two one shots in the days after the episode, and they should be posted soon. I hope to still see some of you, despite the sadness we're going through.

The title for this was taken from a poem by Aldo Kraas.

These were prompts I got on Tumblr, and I wrote these quickly, they're mostly unedited, but, at least speaking for myself, they helped a little.

prompt: a happy au of the birth, in which Edith drives Sybil to the hospital

Two

Her eyes are closed, and Tom marvels at the paleness of her skin, so peaceful, yet so sombre. Slowly, her chest rises and falls, evenly, much like a clock set to perfection.

Readjusting his arms carefully, Tom cradles the bundle in his arms closer to his chest, their daughter resting just as peacefully as Sybil, and in this moment, Tom is utterly alone.

His fingers dance around Sybil's, flat against the cold sheet of the hospital bed, his every fibre aware of her breathing and that of their beautiful, perfect, curious child. There would be not a fragment of sleep for him tonight, not a moment to let the guard down. Not one.

It had been so utterly close, and he can still hear the mumbling and the screams and look at the stars echoing in his mind. No one had known truly what to do, and, in the end, it had been down to him to make a choice. A car rushing in the night, Sybil in his arms, her fingernails biting the skin of his hand, the cold and deserted hospital, a sleepy nurse wide-eyed in the darkened corridor. Blood, blood everywhere and screams, and finally silence. The wooden door keeping him away from her, away from them. Finally, another scream, a different one, so longed for. Two beating hearts, two breathing lungs.

There are tears in his eyes now when he thinks about what might have happened, what he might have lost. The miracle cradled securely in his arms, and his heart, resting now by his sight, under his watch.