A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, Section H (5,000-9,999 words) – write a fic with exactly five chapters.

I'll explain the premise at the end. Don't want to spoil anything. :D Though this is post-reincarnation, but not compliant with the little flash of reincarnation we see at the end of the final main episode.

Missing an Angel's Heart
Chapter 1

In the dull summer day when nothing else moved, Kanade listened to the soft lullaby of her heart. It was something she had always been fond of doing, from her childhood days when the doctors had told her it wasn't the strong healthy heart she should have been born with. And sometimes it did seem like it couldn't keep up with her, particularly in her teenage years when she'd ran like the wind on the tracks. But that was okay. She didn't want a particularly long life. Just a life long enough to accomplish all the dreams she'd made for herself. And she'd managed a lot of that. She'd managed to run to her fullest before the stress on her heart made that impossible – but by then she'd felt she'd run for long enough, and that was fine.

She wasn't so active anymore. In part, she'd done as much as she could in childhood in preparation for those limitations in this later life. She still gardened: that small flowerbed in the front and the larger vegetable patch in the backyard. She still walked in the park on nice days with her husband – another dream, and another one of her dreams fulfilled. And she worked as well: perhaps not the sort of job she'd expected to wind up with back in junior high, but it was one she loved more by the day. Just sitting at home, reading and analysing and writing out her own thoughts… a job she'd never imagined herself in, but it was a wonderful ebb to the flow in her life.

All that remained now was a child: one with bright eyes and a strong heart to run around, laughing, about the house. A sweet child who had a sweet smile and a tender voice and a loving soul. The perfect child: the child she was sure all people who longed for children wished for, and received. A little angel born from her own body.

But that hadn't happened yet. Not from lack of trying: Kanade and her husband had made the decision almost two years ago, but as of yet nothing had come from it. Still, she hoped. Hoped that she would hear two rhythms playing in synergy one day soon: hear a little baby heart beating nice and strong beside her slowly dying one.

If she could have a happy, healthy child, she could die happy afterwards, she was sure. She was older now: an adult with a slowly failing heart. She wasn't young and naïve, thinking it would hold out forever – but she'd never been like that. Not really. She'd thought carefully about all she wanted to do with her life, and she'd tried her best to do them.

In that sense, she was lucky. Most people went through their lives thinking there would always be a tomorrow, until suddenly that tomorrow was gone and regrets took the place of the waiting game. But for Kanade who'd already had her heart operated on once, the tomorrow was something she was fortunate to see time and time again, and she'd prepared herself for the day she would wake and find tomorrow no longer there.

But when it came to it, maybe she would still find a dream, hiding somewhere for now, making itself known. Maybe she would have regrets after all, regrets she didn't want to be with her in death. Because she had a peaceful life despite all, and she wanted a peaceful death as well. A death without her soul being wrapped in regrets that tore at her like thorns, trying to keep her chained to a life that had already passed. For someone who'd thought about her imminent death from childhood that was a depressing thought. And it would have been more depressing if she hadn't found her dreams: the things that made living each day to the fullest worthwhile.

But living to the fullest didn't have to mean running about, laughing, every hour of the day. Sometimes it meant just breathing, just listening, without even having to think. The stethoscope had been a gift from her parents quite some time ago. Something she could place on her chest and in her ears and hear the sound of her heart beating through. It had quickly become her favourite thing: more than the cute little stuffed animals that had filled her bed till elementary school and had sat on her bookshelf through most of junior high. And on quiet days when she had no pressing work to do and her husband wasn't home and the garden was wilting under the dry summer weather and she had to wait until the cooler evening hours to work with it, listening to the rhythm of her heart was her favourite thing to do.

It reminded her of life: of the life she had lived, and all the things she had accomplished in it. It reminded her of the dream still left, the longing for another heart to beat alongside her one, gentle and slow. Sometimes, when nothing else spoke save that heart of hers, she could hear another heart alongside it, like in a dream. She even had a name, if it was a boy. She didn't know why, but the moment it had occurred to her it seemed like a perfect fit, and she could think of nothing else.

And it sounded perfect too, almost as if that unborn baby boy was already a part of their family. Yuzuru…Otonashi Yuzuru, the child she hoped she could conceive, and safely deliver with that still beating heart of hers. If it was a girl she had a few names, on the same string, like Tsuna, or Kizuna, but none that spoke so firmly to her as Yuzuru did. It was almost enough to make her hope it was a boy, because the perfect child deserved a perfect name for them…but that was for fate to decide and she would be happy no matter what the child was, so long as it was safely born, safely in her hands, that heart beating in rhythm alongside her own…

The rhythm suddenly changed: fast and strong and familiar, and Kanade opened her eyes. At some point they'd slipped shut, lulled into a daze at the rhythmic sound to awaken when it changed. But that heart beat was a lullaby as well: the one she would hear in sleepless, windless nights when she pressed an ear to her husband's bare chest and listened to the heart within.

He was smiling at her now, the bell of her stethoscope over her chest and a twinkle in his eye. But it was a sad twinkle as well. Kanade knew that, and so did her husband. He'd known when he'd agreed to marry her, that he'd be watching her slowly die as well. But that had been his choice, the way he wanted to live his life. Just as Kanade had chosen the path to her own: one filled with fulfilling dreams instead of regret or despair.

'I was dreaming about our child,' Kanade said. How long had it been since she'd been sitting there unmoving, on the rocking chair, just listening. Summer days sometimes seemed so long, but in other times they managed to carry her away.

And how many times had he come home to find her lost in that dream? Many, it seemed. Not enough to call despair forth but enough to keep it a constant presence in their minds, amongst other things.

'We'll keep trying,' he said softly, letting go of the bell and offering the hand to his wife instead. Kanade took it and stood, the sweat from the walk home clinging to his palms and just from inaction and the humid summer air to hers. 'We'll see this child.'

Kanade smiled. 'They'll be a troublemaker,' she said. 'Teasing us already.'

They laughed about that. A comment they always made, but a likely one if not for the reasons they said. They wouldn't discourage that. Children grew by learning, by experiencing. Both of them had caused their fair share of troubles growing up, but those were the things that taught them responsibility, and their morals. The things that shaped their decision making, helped them grow into the people they now were.

'I've made salad,' Kanade said, finally, when the echo of their laughter drowned the soft beating of her heart. Time was flowing again now, and she had another dream: that time in her house, with her husband, making the family the both of them so wanted to be…

'Then let's eat.' And then after that would be another effort. Another chance. Another hope. Not another despair; neither of them would allow it. Not yet, not when there were years ahead of them still, even in the face of approaching death. Because, truthfully, everyone would die one day. And they could only look ahead with so narrow eyes – and that was too great of a sacrifice, with all the opportunities that were around them, in life.