Fatherless

By oathk33p3r

Revised: 050910

Kyron

Waiting rooms are always interesting to observe. People of all stages in life can be found here. Elders patiently waiting for their health results, children resisting their appointments with piercing screams, and anxious husbands waiting for their wife's pregnancy updates sit side-by-side in that room.

Sora happened to be one of the latter. His hands were wringing an issue of National Geographic while his feet were tapping on the floor. Kairi had mentioned some abdominal pains earlier, and Sora immediately brought her here.

Finally, he saw Kairi show up from around the hall, cradling her swelling belly. She always looked damn beautiful.

Magazine thrown aside, Sora jumped up from his seat and rushed over to her.

"What did the doctor say? Was there anything wrong with you?"

Kairi smiled and pinched Sora's cheek. He tried to ignore the fact that her fingers seemed to carry no energy in them.

"Silly, you need to ask about the baby, not me. He's due in two weeks! But the doctor is still checking the results to see his condition."

"Sit down and talk, honey," Sora interrupted.

"Sora, I'm talking about our kid right now!"

Sora shook his head and wrapped an arm around his wife's shoulders.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Of course I care, how many times do I have to tell you! But until the thing is born, you're the most important person to me." Sora kissed the top of Kairi's auburn hair.

Kairi let out an exasperated sigh, but didn't protest.

She leaned on Sora's shoulder, letting out a sigh of content.

"Can you believe it, Sora? We're going to be parents."

The young twenty-four-year-old couple had been married for nearly a year and was expecting their first child.

"How are you so sure he's going to be a boy?" Sora teased.

"It's called a mother's instinct," Kairi giggled.

Again, Sora tried to ignore the little energy she seemed to have.

"Oh, sure. Well, I have "father's instinct" and I don't sense a boy," Sora joked back.

Kairi smiled and sat up straight to face Sora.

"What should we name him?"

Sora raised his brows and looked at the tile floors of the waiting room, thinking. He gently stroked Kairi's frail shoulder with his thumb.

"Sora?"

Kairi playfully smacked Sora's knee.

"I already told you how weird that would be."

Sora raised a brow.

"Because you scream my name whenever we're having hot sex?"

Kairi's jaws dropped and she pulled away from her husband.

"I can not believe you just said that!"

"You're smiling, you are totally smiling."

"Am not!"

But she was, oh she definitely was.

The couple burst out laughing. And they couldn't stop. They were so happy.

So very, very happy.

"I love you," Sora said. He tilted Kairi's chin and kissed her smiling lips.

Only until a nurse with a clipboard nervously coughed into her hand did the two realize where they were.

Sora cursed under his breath and quickly got up.

"Good news, Mr. and Mrs. Wataya. The baby is healthy and there are no problems. The abdominal pains you had were just results from a bit of stress. We suggest you relax at home. Mr. Wataya, please make sure your wife doesn't work too much," the nurse said.

Sora thanked the nurse and then turned back to his wife.

"Stress? Work? What is this nurse talking about, Kairi?"

Kairi didn't say anything and looked down at her hands. She started fiddling with a piece of string hanging from her white, cotton sweater.

Sora knelt down and put his hands on his wife's shoulders.

"What work? Kairi, answer me!"

"Let's talk about this at home, Sora," she said softly.

xxx

"You've been working at a grocery market? Are you kidding me, Kairi?"

The couple was back in their small apartment. Kairi was sitting on the couch with Sora standing over her.

"I thought you promised me, Kairi. You promised you'd stay home and let me make the money."

Kairi tried to hold back her tears and looked the other way.

"Sora, you weren't making enough."

"I had three jobs, Kairi! Three! My paychecks don't come out until the end of this month, Kairi! I promised we would have enough, why didn't you listen to me? "

"You made enough for the two of us, Sora!" Kairi spat back angrily. "But how about Kyron, huh? Why don't you ever talk about the baby? The baby is part of our family, Sora! I took that job because our child needed the money!"

Sora stared at his wife with disbelief. A heavy silence filled up the gap between them.

Kairi's bottom lip started to quiver and then she threw her face into her hands.

"Whenever I talked about names, you made a joke out of it or ignored the subject completely. The entire time I was pregnant, I've been thinking of a name so that we don't have to call the baby "it" or "the baby" all the time." Kairi wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and gained her composure.

"I hope you don't mind that I named him already," she said stiffly.

"Sleep on the couch today," Kairi said as she carefully got up. "I'm going to bed."

Sora watched his wife close the door behind her. He pinched the bridge of his nose and hung his head in frustration. He was such a jerk sometimes.

After letting out a deep sigh, he walked towards the bedroom.

"Kairi…honey…may I come in?"

When he heard no reply, he opened the door and walked towards the bed. He squatted next to Kairi's lying figure and placed his hand on her arm. Her back was towards him.

"I'm sorry, I really shouldn't have yelled at you, Kairi. I know how important the baby—Kyron—is to you."

He waited for Kairi to say something.

She only pretended to be asleep.

"Please forgive me, Kairi."

Sora sat there for a while. He was convinced that Kairi was really asleep until he felt her shudder from under his touch.

"I really want to do all I can for the child," Kairi cried.

Sora climbed into bed next to her and wrapped his arms around her frail body. The baby kept the two inches apart, but she still felt so small and weak in his arms.

"I know, I know. Shh, it's all right. I'll work hard for this family, all right? Go to sleep now, you can't be more stressed than you already are. I'm really sorry," Sora whispered.

xxx

"Don't come out today, okay?" Sora reminded Kairi over his shoulder.

Kairi wrapped her jacket tighter around her body and nodded.

"I won't. I'll see you later!"

"I love you!" Sora shouted.

Kairi smiled.

"I love you, too."

xxx

Sora burst out of the taxi and ran towards the glass doors of the hospital. His sweat-drenched shirt clung onto his skin and his heart knocked against his ribcage. He nearly broke down the glass doors before arriving at the waiting room. He found Riku with his head in his hands.

"What happened? Where is she?" Sora asked frantically as he shook his friend.

Riku looked up in surprise.

"Sora…"

"Dammit, Riku! Tell me what's going on!"

He was sobbing as tears merged with sweat.

"I dropped by your apartment to see how Kairi was doing. I found her on the floor with her dress drenched. She was unconscious," Riku answered as calmly as he could. "And so I called 911. I don't know what's going to happen, Sora."

Sora let go of his friend and slammed his fist against the nearby wall.

"Mr. Wataya?"

The doctor was standing behind him.

Sora turned his head around and angrily grabbed the doctor's coat.

"I was told that the baby was due in two weeks, not two days!" Sora shouted. "Tell me what's going on."

"Mr. Wataya, please, you need to calm down. We are doing all we can to help your wife. Your baby boy is doing fi—"

"Let me see her," Sora demanded.

The doctor shook his head.

"I'm afraid—"

Sora grabbed the doctor's coat even tighter.

"Let me see my wife!"

The doctor's shoulder slumped in defeat and stepped aside for Sora to pass through.

Not letting a second pass, Sora thrust the doors open and stepped inside.

"Sora, is that you?" Kairi called out weakly.

Sora's knees almost buckled. She looked horrible.

Sora wiped the sweat from his forehead and wore the biggest smile he could muster before rushing to Kairi's side.

"Of course it's me," he said.

"I'm dying, aren't I?"

That knot he dreaded started to swell under his Adam's apple and his blood seemed to run cold.

"No, of course you're not, stupid head. Don't think like that!" Sora furrowed his brows, trying to swallow that knot, but the stubborn bastard only seemed to get bigger as his eyes started welling with tears. He grabbed her cold hands and enclosed them in his.

"Yes I am. I could feel it. Yet, I feel so peaceful. Kyron, our Kyron. Take care of him; you'll take care of him, right?" Kairi's lavender eyes looked up at Sora's worried ocean blue ones.

"Of course I will, and you'll be there with me, Kairi."

He couldn't take it anymore. The tears started streaming down his face, blurring his vision of someone he might never be able to see again.

He wasn't able to understand anything his wife was saying. All he was able to see was her crystalline, lilac eyes, slowly growing duller and duller.

Kairi shook her head, "Sora, you know that I can't be there. But you'll be a good father, I know you will."

"Kairi. No, don't go. You can't do this to me."

A single tear fell out of her eyes. As if trying to ignore what he was saying, she said,

"Sora, tell me the story about how you proposed to me."

Sora licked his lips and tightened his grip around her hands.

"Well, it was after we finished high school," Sora started shakily. The knot was as tight as ever, causing his voice to come out in cracked fragments.

Kairi closed her eyes and whispered, "I'm listening."

"And you were going out with that one guy named, what was it, Tidus?"

Kairi didn't answer, but Sora hoped to God she had given a slight nod in acknowledgement and continued.

"Yes, it was Tidus. And whenever I saw you two together I got boiling mad, seriously!" Sora said with synthetic enthusiasm.

"I knew I wouldn't have a chance; you were so beautiful and I was just the poor guy who worked night shifts at the drug store next to your house." Sora waited for a response he knew would never come.

But still, he kept going on.

"And I always wanted to say, 'I love you' every time I saw you walk home. I never knew you liked me as well. You don't know how happy I was when I found out you left Tidus. I took you as my own the very next day and soon, I proposed to you at the beach." Sora sighed, "and that's where we had our first kiss."

Sora gazed into the pale face of his wife.

"I love you," he whispered into her ear and then softly kissed her lips. She didn't say it back.

Riku was waiting where he was last time, his hands clenched together as if in prayer and feet nervously shaking.

He spotted Sora and quickly got up.

"How is she," he asked cautiously.

Sora looked at him with sad eyes and shook his head.

"She won't be coming out of those doors. Riku, she won't be coming back, ever."

Riku stared.

"What about your son?" he asked.

Suddenly, that knot in his throat seemed to melt cold water onto his hard and sent waves of hatred all over his body.

"Son?" he seemed to choke out.

"Sora, what's the matter with you? You and Kairi's son!"

"You mean that thing that murdered my wife? He's no son of mine." Sora spilled tears of anger now.

"I know you're upset, but that doesn't mean you have to put this out on the kid that you and Kairi had together." Riku tried to calm him down.

"But it's his fault that she died. It's entirely his fault. She died for his life. You know what I found out? She's been working at a fucking grocery store to get enough money for him. That's why she's been so weak and stressed lately. She died for his life! SHE DIED!" Sora pushed Riku away and headed for the exit of the hospital.

"Sora! You have to take the kid! You're the father!" Riku stopped him.

He turned around. "I am no husband. I am no father. And I have no son."

And just like that, he left.