Goodbye Before Hello

An hour ago Hallie had walked into St Mungo's rather casually, as though finding yourself in a clash of wands with a band of werewolves was an everyday occurrence. Being an auror you'd expect it was for Hallie, far from it. Most of the auror work was investigative work, looking from criminals. There was those rewarding moments when you solved the crime, caught the criminal and made the world a better place but those moments were far and few. Yet, they were most definitely worth it. Until today, until this moment Hallie didn't think that she would ever doubt he career choice. That was because, until today, Hallie had never fully realised the dangers of her job. She'd landed herself in St Mungo's near death on occasions but never had her job or related activities placed another person in danger too. Things were different now. Hallie was pregnant. Was.

Ten minutes ago the procedure had been completed. Hallie no longer had her child in her womb, no longer able to protect the most precious thing in her life. At twenty nine weeks the healer of St Mungo's had induced delivery and Hallie was no holding her baby, no heavy than two pounds.

A smile and a tear rolled from Hallie's face, lightly landing on the blanket the healers had wrapped her child - a boy - up in. This isn't how she had wanted to deliver her baby, prematurely, but there was no other way. The healers couldn't have left her son in, not given the baby's current condition. Theodore had been alerted upon finding out the complication from her fall, it had taken a while but Hallie had finally managed to conjure a patronus, a lion, that had vanished from the delivery room to Babbity Rabbity. There wasn't more information in her patronus besides four words echoing Hallie's thoughts: 'Come To St Mungo's.'


Now Hallie was alone, the healers and nurses had decided to give her some privacy. A moment with her son before he was taken from her arms. They had hoped to take her child a lot sooner, but Hallie had insisted Theodore meet his son. His eyes were closed and he was silent and the screwed up expression on his face was one Hallie imagined would have stuck being the son of Theodore Rookwood - no doubt he would have always found something to complain about, or would cringe everytime he tasted Hallie's cooking and not his own.

'Remember to say hello to your Grandpa.' Hallie whispered so that only he could hear. 'He'll look after you, and cherish you and protect you but-' A lump had caught in Hallie's throat as she attempted to fight back the tears. 'But you wont need protecting.' She smiled, forcing happiness was the only way Hallie would be able to stay alive in this moment.

Now she had an idea how her Mother had felt the day Toby had gone missing, the night she believed him to have been savaged by werewolves. Amelia Cooper had never been the same, even now after being reunited with her son, she wasn't the Mother Hallie had once known. How she would inform her Mother about this Hallie didn't know, she couldn't put her Mother through that sort of trauma. Not after what had happened.

The doors to her private room burst open. Theodore.


(OOC: I've tried to go about this situation in a sensitive and respectful manner. If anybody is uncomfortable with what I have wrote don't hesitate to let me know and I'll edit/remove the post!)

The scent of cleaning fluid invaded his nostrils, stinging him and lighting up his senses and making him brutally aware of his surroundings. The lights beat down unrelentingly, wide and white. Sound didn’t quite permeate further than the lobes of his ears. He stormed through the hospital ignoring the pleas of the nurses to wait, to let them help him. They couldn’t, however – help him, that is. He slammed his hand on the button calling for the lift and got inside, a persistent nurse following in, badgering him for a response, one he could not give. He had nothing to say to her. He had nothing to give. He needed to get upstairs, and so when the doors opened, he continued to pace, the scuttle of shoes on tiles behind him flittering around his ears.

It did not take long for Theodore to find the room. After shirking himself out of the keening grasp of the nurse, Theodore burst in through the door, shattering the comfortable silence in the room. The nurse did not hasten to follow him but stayed a little away, holding her hand up to pause the security wizards who had rushed up in order to detain him. They were forced to watch as the muscles in the man’s shoulders tightened, his jaw clenched painfully, a vein popping out against the porcelain of his skin. They were forced to watch as his hands clenched, unclenched and his legs seemed to buckle absently. A hand slammed out against the frame to brace himself and Theodore Rookwood stared at his wife. Stared at his child, words unable to find themselves.

“Hallie,” was all he managed, a breathless, disbelieving word as utter sorrow changed to disbelief, absent hope. But that disappeared. It disappeared quickly and resolutely like a candle being snuffed out in the darkness.

Theodore’s hand slid off of the door frame and fell aimlessly to his side, every word on the subject that his father had handled so dryly with him once coming back to mind. It was to be expected, he’d said. Rookwoods had gross misfortune to make up for all that they had been gifted with. This happened. Though, only usually with weak, meek wives who couldn’t hold what was inside of them. It didn’t happen with strong ones. But of course, they didn’t marry strong-willed women. There was a reason for that. They didn’t listen. And when they didn’t listen, all hell broke loose. With Athena, leaving without preamble. With Bridget disappearing, allowing them to believe her dead. Now this.

And he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t stand and lend a sympathising ear. He couldn’t pretend to understand because that was his child. He didn’t want to know what it was. What it would’ve been. He didn’t want to imagine a daughter, one he’d protect until it killed him, one who would be the envy of all others. He didn’t want to imagine a son, one he would look upon with pride, one that was so unlike himself, unlike all of those who had come before him. He didn’t want to have to face the what ifs. It was done. To take upon an air of empathy would hurt more than anything in the world. And he didn’t want it. He didn’t want to feel that unbridled sorrow. He couldn’t.

But what could he say? What was he supposed to say? He didn’t have it in him to find any words. He knew as soon as he’d clapped eyes on them. There was only one person in that room. The other had been born in vain.

Theodore turned and exited the way he came, striding as composedly as he could manage down the hall until finally grief took him out from underneath himself. A respectable distance from the room he reached out and braced the slam of his body onto the floor. The ice rattled through his bones and he screwed up his face, desperate to keep the tears and the sobs from wrenching forth but move him they did with great reckless abandon, his hands beating aimlessly until bloody against the tiles.

A calming potion later, he found coffee being pressed into his palms as he was deposited into a chair in a non-descript hallway. Theodore closed his eyes, dropping his head back against the wall of behind him. He twitched his fingers, feeling the temporary bandage around his hands, and he sighed, reaching up with a spare to rake his fingers through his hair.

“Are you going to see your wife?” A nurse’s voice flitted over to him and Theodore quirked open an eye.

“When does the calming draught kick in?” He asked hoarsely, his voice still full up with crying.

“Ten minutes, Mr Rookwood, but are you to answer my question?”

Theodore shook his head and got up, handing her over the coffee.

“I’m leaving,” he expressed solemnly but with an almost glib abruptness that made the woman narrow her eyes.

“How can you?” She asked incredulously. “How can you just go?”

“Because I can’t stay here,” he swore and turned on his heel. Then, with a crack, he was gone.

For a moment Theodore had been there, at the door. For the first time in the past hour Hallie really wanted to let go, allow her tears to fall, have Theodore swoop his wife and child in his arms and know that she didn't, for once in her life, have to stay strong. All Hallie wanted to do was accept defeat. She wanted the world to revolve around her and not care what happened, she wanted to grieve and cry. But that chance never came. Theodore had gone.

A nurse scuttled in, bringing a box of tissues for Hallie and dabbing her eyes. Hallie could hear her voice, it's tone sounded supportive and caring, but she didn't listen. Whatever those supportive and caring words were Hallie ignored. Her world had frozen, her eyes transfixed at the spot where her husband had once stood. She sighed and looked down at her son.

Hallie let out a light gasp and bit her gums. She couldn't cry. She couldn't. Her son wouldn't remember this, she knew that, but as a Mother who had just lost her child Hallie couldn't let him only ever know her to be sad. Hallie was a bright flame, one full of love, courage and happiness. The Hallie who was holding her son wasn't the Hallie everybody else knew and she didn't want her son to know that person. His life was supposed to have been surrounded by love and happiness. Hallie wanted that for him. Even only for a minute.

'Hallie, would you like me to find your husband?' The nurse's voice broke through Hallie's momentary heaven.

'No.' She replied, her eyes not moving from the bundle of blue.

'No?'

'He's gone.'

'I'm sure he's just in the waiting room he'll-'

'No.' Hallie interrupted. 'He's gone.' How she knew she couldn't have said, perhaps it was because of the magic that bound them. Hallie knew the moment that she saw Theodore's face, watched it turn away and vanish, that he would have left the hospital. It was a common thread for Theodore, to run from his problems and face them later. A part of Hallie never understood why but now she did. He wanted to stay happy, just for a little longer, feel protected from the cruciating pain that was destroying Hallie. Could she blame him? No. But could she accept this? Probably not.

Mascara was running down from her eyes, red raw. Her lips was trembling and her breathing a little off. She'd had her moment, bid farewell to her son. Had Theodore come earlier then this moment would have been and gone but Hallie had waited, waited for their son to be held by his Father but now, now that wouldn't be happening Hallie wanted to be out of this moment. She'd stayed strong for her son but she wanted to crumble, cry herself to sleep. What Hallie would have done to have been the werewolf hit by Marcus Belby. That way... That way her son wouldn't have gone on alone.


'Take him.' Hallie said suddenly.

'Wha-?'

'Please.'

And as quickly as her son had come he had gone through those same doors as his Father.

Hallie stayed in the hospital overnight. She hadn't informed anybody yet of her sons birth. There would have been too much attention, too many comforts and questions. She didn't want any, all she wanted was time alone to grieve the loss of her child. Hallie had signed an official document and a birth certificate, confirming that her son had died in utero. Robert, she'd called him, after her Father.

The next morning the nurses attempted to force feed Hallie breakfast, even brought her a collection of smoothies to drink to at least provide her with some energy. They were all turned away. Hallie didn't want anything. At half past nine she'd dressed herself and signed herself out. The last place Hallie ever wanted to be was in that room.