Notes:

Written for pocky_slash's writing chat thingy. Prompt: "someone gave you flowers"

They just appear.

On her honeymoon, Donna woke up to a delivery of fresh roses. She gave Shaun the biggest kiss of his life before the dumbo admitted he hadn't sent them. There wasn't a card or anything. Donna chalked it up to an amenity at the hotel and almost forgot about them.

Except ...

The next bunch arrived on her birthday. Tiger lilies these were, bright and orange and no name at all on the card. Every year, around her birthday, more arrive just as mysteriously. She stopped being surprised about her birthday flowers.

It's the other times that worry her.

See, Donna received a large bunch of lilies-of-the-valley, with a card that read, "Deepest condolences." It was two days before her grandfather died. The day after she lost the baby, when she was still in bed, not sobbing, but tired and drawn and not thinking much at all, violets came to the door. A week before her car accident, she received a delivery of daisies saying, "Feel better soon!" But it was two whole months after she took that cruise to Iceland that the cruise line said the peonies bouquet was delivered to her former stateroom.

It's like the universe is sending her flowers, and it's got awful timing. At least the mystery lavender arrived while she was still in hospital with little Annika. She pressed one sprig into the baby book, and she looks at the page sometimes, thinks she can still smell the bloom.

And Donna is all right with this, doesn't like thinking about it. She gets headaches. Shaun mutters about someone sending her flowers, but he's more worried about why she starts crying in the middle of a sentence and doesn't know why.

This morning she received more flowers. She stares at the card over and over, begging the message to change, and scared to death of what it means:

"I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry."

The End