shivers and terrors (pm to join)

[Ginny Weasly]

"Muggles." Ginny said, nudging him and giggling softly.

After a moment, she sighed, "I want him to have some more humanity. How will he respect all life if he doesn't understand any of it?"

Ginny knew that with a child like Cody, he could easily become distant, anti-social even, if he did not interact with people his own age. She wanted him to respect all life, to understand that every life was important. To someone.

"We've taught him all we can. We cannot teach him social attributes. He can only learn that from his peers."

[Xaver]

Mugglers, muggles, mortals..
Who knew.

A corner of his mouth tilting slightly in amusement, Xaver rolled to his side, dropping onto the pillows and curling up behind her.
"Respecting and understanding..."
He nodded against her shoulder, and brushed a kiss to the slope of her neck, closing his eyes.
"Mmm... I suppose humanity is too vague for me, and go figure.. Neither of us are adequate at this.. social.. thing.."

He chuckled softly.
Exhausted.

[Ginny Weasly]

"Speak for yourself, love. I had six siblings. I had to be social."

Ginny closed her eyes, muttering the words almost inaudibly. Even after all that sleep from before, she too was exhausted. And still sick. She reached down, pulling the covers up over the both of them and snuggling deeper into his arms. It wasn't long before she drifted into sleep.

Hours later, her eyes snapped open. It was the darkest part of the night, around two, three am. It was also the coldest part, yet somehow Ginny was sweating. And shivering. She felt so sick. In their sleep, she and Xaver had become a bit untangled, and now she completely removed herself from him and stumbled out of bed.

She stood up, and everything spun, turning sideways, then upside down and Ginny dropped down onto her knees.

"Xa...Xav..I don't feel so good..."
She knelt on the floor, one hand holding onto the small table beside the bed so she wouldn't fall on her face. She made a small noise, sounding almost like a lost kitten. She couldn't remember what she had been dreaming of. Something about eyes...
Ginny shivered as her thoughts brushed near what her dream had contained.

[Xaver]

Xaver huffed a laugh at her answer and shook his head, conceding her point.
It wasn't long, curled up against her warm form, his cheek brushing the back of her head, before he drifted off.

He didn't dream.
A seemingly endless, dark sheet had encased his thoughts.. Concealing everything, and giving nothing.
There were no bodies, no blood, no tears, no screams. No answers. Both a blessing and a curse, his dreams often provided a few more visual insights to the dark abandon that was his subconscience, while tormenting him, and reinventing the past.. A double sided coin that was a blurry whole.

He stirred slightly when Ginny rolled away from the far stretches of his arms, drawing in a slow breath as he heard the soft, distant rustling of her movements as she got out of bed. His form curled, slightly, beneath the covers, enjoying the remaining bits of warmth as she moved away. Her words drew him to an abrupt stillness, before he sat up quickly, blinking against the sleep-distilled darkness that still was a thick and complete presence in the room.

"Love?"

Xaver tossed off the blanket, and within a breath, was kneeling beside her.
Gently touching her shoulder, he peered into her face.

[Ginny Weasly]

"I..."

Ginny shook her head, everything seemed to be moving slowly. Now everything speed up. She felt sick all over, not exactly like she was going to throw up. Just sick, horribly dizzy. Her perception kept changing. First she saw everything from the ceiling, then from her own eyes, then from across the room.

"I don't know what's..."

She tried to speak, but her words came out airy, as though she couldn't get a proper breath. Her free hand went around her stomach, as though to protect the child within. From what she didn't know.
Those eyes.

"Somethings...wrong with...me."

[Xaver]

Xaver had never been religious. He'd lived too long, and too hard a life to know any sort of reverence or affection for any sort of power. To him, there were no gods, there was no afterlife. There was here, and now, and what came with death was something else entirely. Something he'd figure out when he got there.
There was no one in which to beg, no one to curse, and no one to blame. There was only him, those around him, and the world they created.

He didn't know what to do.

"Hold on, baby.."
With both hands, he cupped her chin.
"Just hold on."

Xaver blurred as he rose, and sprinted to Cody's room. The boy was still more or less asleep, arms looped around Xaver's neck and legs around his middle, piggyback style, when Xaver burst back through the door.
"C'mere, love.."
He scooped Ginny up into his arms with ease, but very carefully - and then they were gone.

They appeared in the center of the nearest hospital.
That it was a muggle hospital, was only in the growing irony.

"Help!"

Doctors looked around from their stations, and the nearest nurse dropped her clipboard, staring.

"I need a doctor here, now. Please.."


Socially adept.
Perhaps Ginny was.

Xaver however, was absolutely not, on more occasions.

[Ginny Weasly]

There was a moment of silence, in which the small family was simply stared at. Then a group of people surged forward, taking Ginny from Xaver's arm and laying her on a moving bed. The doctors moved her away, down the hall and out of sight as the nurse who had dropped her clipboard touched Xaver's elbow.

"Sir? I need you to answer some questions."

The nurse smiled kindly at the sleepy eyed Cody and nodded towards the uncomfortable looking chairs, "Why don't we take a seat over there?"

Usually, women couldn't help but go gaga over Xaver's good looks. But this nurse didn't seem to see his attractiveness. Instead, she seemed interested in only one thing, getting him to answer the questions that she was required to ask.

[Xaver]

They all came to him as ordered, and Xaver nearly backed away. They took Ginny from the protective circle of his arms, and Xaver murmured in protest. He started after them, but was brought to stillness by the nurse brushing his arm. His eyes remained on Ginny, until they had taken her away, and around the corner.

"But.."

Swallowing around the lump in his throat and the panic lurching in his heart, Xaver shifted, bringing Cody around him and cradling him more fully against his chest. The boy, eyes still heavy with sleep and barely awake, dropped his head to his shoulder and pressed his face into Xaver's throat, the arms around his neck slack.

"Questions?"
Xaver glanced at the nurse.
"Ask them. I do not need to sit."
His words were short, his tones choppy. His eyes fixed on the corner Ginny had disappeared around, instincts tempting him to follow.

[Ginny Weasly]

"Sir, I understand you are upset. These questions are going to take a few minutes. Perhaps you would like to lay your son down?" She blinked, "Assuming he is your son."

She glanced down at her clipboard, "What is your relationship to the woman you brought in? I'll also need her name and your name."

"As well as her age, any current medical problems, and if she has been on any drugs. Prescription or otherwise."

It was her job, not to be kind, but to get a proper medical history. Without it, the doctors could overlook something vital to helping Ginny.

[Xaver]

"He is my son."
Xaver's glare was hard. It wasn't, perhaps, the nurse's fault, but the Fallen lord had been under far too much speculation over that simple fact, than surely anybody was due.
He merely stood, simply ignoring her offer.

"She is my wife. Ginerva Molly Weasley Xian. I am Xaver Xian."
His sidelong glance was distrusting.
"Three and twenty years, no drugs, and she is very pregnant."

Xaver didn't understand hospitals, or even what the nurse was doing.

[Ginny Weasly]

"Pregnant?"

The nurses eyebrows drew together in puzzlement, "This is her second pregnancy? And she's only twenty-three?" She wrote the answers down, not needing his confirmation.
He had said it, after all.

"Has she been out of the country recently? Does she smoke? Does she drink? What is her occupation, if any?"
The nurse moved on with her questions, seemingly unperturbed by his sidelong glances.

[Xaver]

Xaver stared at her.
"Is that to you odd?"

His dark head tipped to the side very slightly, the wild oceans of his eyes now solely fixing on the nurse.
Was this all a stupid idea?
Ginny needed help, or something, he knew that.. but was he right to take her here? To these people?

"I.."
He could feel his heartbeat, pounding a bruise into the underside of his chest.
"Don't know."

[Ginny Weasly]

The nurse sighed marking down that he didn't know and answering him at the same time, "Sir, I'm not a doctor. But in my experience, young pregnancies are often accompanied with many problems. Did she have a hard time with her first pregnancy?"

She lowered her clipboard, "Sometimes, we have teenagers come in here..babies having babies. Mr. Xian, I don't mean to be forward, but the body was not built for such a thing."
The nurse herself seemed to be only thirty something.

[Xaver]

Xaver clenched his jaw as Cody snored softly into the contour of his throat.

That old, familiar ache rushed back, as fresh and painful as ever. The guilt.
He'd been gone three years. He'd missed more than he'd ever be able to repent for. Ginny's pregnancy, Cody's birth...

"I do not know."

It wasn't that he cared what she thought - the woman before him was only a tool, for him to effectively use and dispose of for his own means; helping Ginny. Accusing eyes and degrading tone did nothing to him - but the knowing start in his own heart, of his own subjecting, malicious opinion, was suddenly put on display. And far too violent for him to ignore, or subdue.

Looking up from the desk where his gaze had drifted to in thought, Xaver slowly looked back to her. His dark blue eyes ablaze with a sudden fury.
"Your meaning and your means are not symmetrical."
Finding that irrelevant, and that he shouldn't care, he altered subjects.
"I have no care for your some times. My wife is neither a teenager, nor a child."

He had centuries on her years, and she was talking down to him?

Of course, she couldn't know that.

[Ginny Weasly]

The nurse gave a sigh, "Wait here, sir."

With that she tucked her clipboard under her arm and went down the hallway, in the direction in which they'd taken Ginny. Several minutes passed, and out came a different woman. This one wore a white coat, and walked with her head high. She carried the nurses clipboard, which she glanced at as she neared Xaver.

"Mr. Xian? Your wife seemed to be having some sort of panic attack, but it's gone now. Would you like to see her?"