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Viktor stood perched against the side of the hospital bed where Anya lay. His cane languishing against his better hip, his eyes cast down on the shadowed floor – the thoughts that plagued his mind seemed to spiral between everything and nothing. The fragility of life, the certainty of death. With his own terminal diagnosis a week prior, the lament of death was still acrid on his tongue.
Thoughts of what could be. Thoughts of what could have been.
Anya lay silent, placid – the pallor that hung over her like a threat made his chest grow weak. She was fine, the nurse reassured him. The doctor had prescribed a mild sedative. She needed rest if the bruises and swelling were going to resolve themselves.
It didn’t quiet his mind any.
But having Jayce there, even if there was nothing he could do, anchored him. His friend, his confidant. Jayce was seemingly impervious to the wrongdoing of the world – a perfectly tanned hide from which things could bounce and roll. He was strong, weathered. Viktor was only the latter, and every day his body reminded him of it.
Another nurse came through the door with a blood pressure machine trailing behind her. No words were spoken, Viktor only moved his cane and watched as the woman tended to his beloved. The reading was low, but not overly concerning – after years of his own ailing health, he had grown accustomed to what was worrying and what wasn’t. It still didn’t allay him.
“Are you her next of kin?” she asked.
“I am. I am her husband,” Viktor said. He shuffled to turn himself towards the bedside.
Jayce pretended not to hear anything as the nurse began to go over Anya’s health with him.
“Her blood pressure isn’t bad, but the doctor may want to keep her overnight to monitor her and the pregnancy. How far along is she?”
“Ten weeks.”
The nurse wrote her notations. “I will keep you updated on what the doctor has to say.”
He didn’t look up when the nurse left, he kept his sight on Anya. His thumb brushed over her cold hand, it was usually his hands that were frigid and sharp to the touch, Anya’s usually warm and soft, like the honey color of her skin. He swallowed silently.
“You didn’t say she was pregnant,” Jayce said.
Viktor half turned to look at his friend, though his sight was still held captive by his beloved. “She asked me not to.”
There was no malice in Jayce, but fear of betrayal and the doubt that Anya did not trust him – even despite their own friendship.
“We were unsure how we were going to proceed,” he continued. “I told her whatever she decided, I would support her.”
Jayce tensed his teeth and took a breath as his friend finally parted from her side. He chose his words carefully, and veiled. “You told me a long time ago you couldn’t have children.”
Viktor shot him a glance as he took a seat beside him on the other end of the room from Anya’s bed. “There was always a fraction of a chance.” The chemical runoff that had scarred his lungs had also devastated other aspects of his health. Prolonged exposure throughout his childhood and young adulthood had rendered him barren. The lasting effects of polio robbed him of the capability of unaided pleasure. It wasn’t enough that the people of Zaun suffered in poverty, they were also denied the ability of reproduction and desire.
Anger seethed in his mouth. It burned his tongue as his eyes lain fixated on Anya. Tensions between the upper and under cities were too high for her to have been wandering the Lanes in her condition. He should have stopped her, he should have gone in her place, he should have forbidden her.
A scoff pulled at his lips as he thought of her outrage that he should forbid her from something. She was strong willed and vibrant. It was his only comfort that she would fare well despite the pain she was in. The child inside of her was another matter.
His braced leg extended, Viktor laid back in the chair and rested his head on the wall behind him. “I would make a terrible parent,” he said to no one in particular.
Jayce furrowed and looked at him, incredulous. “I think you’d make a great father. You’re smart. The world needs more smart parents.”
Viktor rolled his head along the wall. “I am too self centered. Too preoccupied with my own thoughts. My own endeavours. I would be neglectful.”
“Your parents were inventors, too, weren’t they? It’s not impossible to do both.”
“Not impossible. Improbable.”
Jayce almost laughed, but his heart was too heavy. “So was your chance of having children.”
Viktor ebbed his head to look at his friend, a blank expression written across his face.
Despite his doubts about himself, his faith in Anya prevailed. She would have been an excellent parent – attentive, fair, thoughtful, intelligent; qualities that drew him to her in the first place. She always made an effort to include him when they were children living in the Fissures; she never forgot him, never forgot his name. Even after almost fifteen years had passed since they had seen each other in childhood, after they reconnected, her judicious and kind demeanour had never left her. She remained a constant in his life, despite the time they had spent apart.
Viktor did not believe in God, neither Fate, but he gave credence to happy, and unhappy, coincidence – statistical anomalies that varied in subjective favor. Meeting Anya again had been as close as he had come to seeing the face of God, to seeing the strings of Fate.
His life had only improved since she had been in it. Something akin to hope and something close to happiness had found him. They followed her into his path.
The thought of losing her was something he chose not to hold onto. It was his life that hung in the balance, not hers. That is always how it was meant to be. He knew himself to be a doomed man from a young age – children from the Fissures don’t often have long lifespans.
Only that he did not expect his time to come so early, when life seemed better.
But Anya was a different species than him, altogether. A species afforded with long life, with thicker bones and thicker blood. She would have outlived him anyway, despite her immunity to the fumes and fluids of the Fissures.
It made him wonder about the child they had conceived – the statistical anomalies it would possess. Would it inherit the immunity offered by its mother? Or the weakness of the flesh by its father? Would it have her eyes? Or perhaps his own sense of humor?
Would he be alive to see it born?
“Promise me you will look after her.” Viktor did not look at Jayce.
Jayce bowed his head. He did not answer.
Viktor did not need him to. The faith he had in his friend, in those he loved, was the only faith and entity he needed.
“It is a terrible irony. That I should create life. While losing my own.”