1 Week Later

The days were dragging. Time moving forward at a slow crawl. Lazy days of nothingness was all Jana knew because anything else, the thought of anything else other than existing was hard for her. Too hard.

She tried to do more than exist, to not dismiss the doctor who she now knew as Jene. The head healer had personally taken her case as his own, he was starting to become optimistic. He said that he had noticed change in her blood work, not anything too drastic but he hoped that with time her body would accept Simeon's blood cells.

He hoped that if her body accepted the blood cells and stopped killing them they could eventually begin healing the scarring. He didn't believe it would heal completely but the scarring would be minimised because of Simeon's genetics.

He hoped...

That damn word that Jana had long discarded. Hope got her nowhere. All it did was fill her stomach with butterflies that made her feel light and excited, to only find out that the feeling wasn't butterflies but maggots. Wriggly corpse disintegrating, flesh decomposing maggots.

Hope was a cruel mistress, it did more harm than it ever did good. Her soul was rotting on the inside and no kind words or loving hands could stop the inevitable. They could slow it down, prolong the eventual decaying of her heart, mind and soul but she knew that they couldn't stop it. How could they when she had long embraced it.

She wanted to be numb, anything but this. It wasn't working though, not with Simeon. He was making her feel, even when he had no idea what was wrong he was there, making her feel all these things. He made her feel safe, protected... Loved, but then he made her nervous, scared.

He was the paradox of her life, Simeon had the ability to make her want to be in his arms but run away from them at the same time. All with that stare of his. Dark brown eyes filled with so much pain, worry and determination.

She saw determination in his eyes when he stomped into the healers tent, the flap flying and smacking against the side creating a clapping sound. Her eyes as wide as saucers, lashes barely moving, air hardly escaping through her lips as she just stared. He was on a war path.

Grabbing a chair by the door, he carried it to the bed and slammed it down right by her side. His arms folding over his wide chest. Blonde locks tied back in a bun highlighted how chiselled his jaw was, though the sharpness was swallowed by the growing beard. The slightly darker hairs made him look scruffy, unkempt. He clearly wasn't sleeping well and the dark circles under his eyes were a clear indication, if his un-groomed state wasn't.

He sat there for 10 whole minutes, just watching her with that unnerving glare, her fingers playing with her sheets as she tried to look away. He sat in silence, no words or any indication that he wanted to talk. He was making her uncomfortable and he knew it, it was what he intended.

And then he spoke, words of fire full of conviction and strength "I will sit by your side for as long as it takes you tell me what the doctor said."

"You have won Jene's undying loyalty and so he has yet to say anything, which is just as well because I want to hear the words come from you." His jaw ticking in annoyance, eyes blazing and nostrils flaring. He was slouched lazily in his chair as if he could spend the rest of his life there and if she were to go by his words then he would.

"I won't care about whatever it is you have to tell me." When her eyes glazed over and she turned her head away from him he realised his blunder and adjusted his words. His arms laying on the bed as he leaned over towards her, trying to grab her hands and her attention.

"Wait that came out wrong. I won't care any less for you regardless of what you tell me." Her face was still turned towards the door but he could see clear droplets sliding down her cheek. Her hands clenching beneath his as she tried to control herself, to stop the storm brewing inside her.

"You could be missing a limb and I would still want you." He murmured, getting up and sitting on the very edge of the bed.

They sat that way for a while, his thumb rubbing over her clenched knuckles and her head titled away from him. Her eyes closed as she snivelled, shoulders shaking.

"Jana" he whispered but she refused to speak and that was it. He was tired of sitting in silence, of waiting around for her to be better or to finally share with him.

Khan had been hounding down his line and if they hadn't been friends for most of their lives, he was sure that Khan would have killed him by now. Even so khan's badgering and worrying was something he could deal with but this, this withdrawn and despondent behaviour was worrying.

She wasn't herself and she hadn't been for days now and it didn't seem as if she had the intention of reverting back. No Jana seemed only to happy to just sit in this bed and wither away, as if death was better than living this life. He wouldn't let her live like this anymore.

Jana's attention was taken away from plain the tent walls the moment she felt his muscles tensing. His shoulders rolled back and his posture straightened, a low growling noise emitting from deep within his chest.

"I have tried to give you time, but time isn't getting us anywhere."

"So I will wait right here until you tell me." He was on his feet now, pacing by her bedside in his anxiousness, grasping at straws as he tried to force her to speak.

"You need a bath? I'll be here. You need to eat, I'll be here. You need to piss, guess what I'll still be right here." Her mouth hung wide as she watched him stomping around the room, throwing a tantrum like a little child.

Nothing he did could make her tell him, no tantrum, no fuss. Nothing. But then he changed his approach and her heart melted at the sight of him. Brows knotted and worry in his orbs as he stared at her earnestly.

"I want you how ever I can get you, Jana and I won't give up on you even if you won't try." A sigh leaving his lips as he sat back down on the bed, his hand stroking away her frizzy hair.

She knew she had to look a mess, she hadn't bathed in days, just wiped herself with a damp cloth and cleaning her teeth before going back to bed to stare listlessly at the ceiling. Her eyes were swollen and red from crying and from countless nights of no sleep. Her hair was matted and her lips were dry and cracked. She knew she looked a terrible and probably smelt it too but here Simeon was staring at her as if she was the answer to his prayers.

As if she was Orion's Belt, some magnificent constellation that burned bright in his sky. He made her feel warm, burning away the ice that had begun to settle over her being. He was thawing away the snow and with each drop of water that melted to the ground, her being got fuller. Until she was nothing but a ship sailing along the rocking water, flowing with Simeon at the helm.

"I," she heaved a deep sigh before continuing, lashes flicking open as she finally spoke to him.

"I can't have children," the words were ripped from her mouth by some entity, something that she couldn't control and found that she did not want to control.

She needed to share this with him because she would never find peace, never be healed if she forever hid this. If she kept this in her heart it would only corrupt her being and in the presence of Simeon she found that she didn't want to be this version of herself. She wanted to be strong, to move on even though she knew she would struggle, he made her want to try. A part of her died at the thought of accepting the reality but she knew this was the only option she could live with, anything else would only drive her to deaths door, insane and bitter.

"I don't understand we spo-"

"No- I mean" her voice quietened and her eyelids clenched closed, a grimace sliding across her face. Her hand reflexively curling around her stomach as she gnawed on her lip. "I can't conceive"

"The doctor said the scarring- and well I can't have them." She was rushing to finish her speech, words tripping over each other as she tried to stop him from saying what she feared he would.

"And I know you are probably relieved because you said you don't want any."

"And so I should have probably been used to the idea of - not having any." Her hands shook in her lap as tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, her lips twisting as she tried to contain those heart wrenching sobs. God when would she stop crying.

"But it's not the same." Her face sunk into her hands as the urge won out, her heart shattered as she cried into her palms. Her body shaking with the force.

"I wanted them so bad and there was always this hope that I could, if not with you but I-" she was cut off by a loud hiccup, her words lodging in her throat.
"I can't."

Gods it hurt her so bad when she thought on it, that baby scent that she would never smell. The kicking in her womb or the baby wails for a feed, she would never give her child nourishment through her body. It hurt, it was a pain that she felt right down to the source of her grief. A shredding feeling at her core.

His face dropped, his hand rising to his mouth as he rubbed it, trying to adjust to her words. He had told her he didn't want more children, that his lifestyle wasn't safe to start a family but it didn't mean that he hadn't hoped in the deepest recess of his mind that when this was over, if she still wanted him they could have a family. This was a blow that he didn't know how to deal with but he would try for her.

"Is that what you think of me" her head shot away from her hands as her big brown tear struck eyes met his. Her eyes widening at the anger plastered all over his face.

He was red with anger, his jaw clenched tightly and lips flattened into a straight line. "You really think that low of me?"

"I would never be relieved by your suffering. Ever!" His hand thudded on the bed, head shaking and nostrils flaring in frustration and pain. He was hurt, hurt that she could think so low of him. That she genuinely thought he could ever be happy by anything that harmed her. He knew she wasn't in the right mental state to think clearly but still her words hurt him.

"You are my mate and I know I haven't been a good one but you are mine." He gripped her chin in his hands so she could see the sincerity in every word that left his mouth, no joy could ever come from this.

"And I am yours Jana. There isn't a thing that can stop that." His thumb stroked over her damp cheeks, hoping that she would believe him, trust his feelings because they were real. He wasn't speaking just to shake her from the downward spiral, he cared for Jana and nothing would change that.

Her lips fell open at the barely there touch that reached all the way into her soul and blasted her with light, but the dark shifting shadows whispered in her ears, filled her with doubt. They tried to kill her light.

"But I can't hold your mark." Her hand patting at the already fading mark on her neck.

It would be gone within a couple of weeks and then what? She didn't know if she would ever be able to bear his mark completely and if it faded then what. Where would she belong then? Not here because her new position was dependant on her relationship with him, this fading mark being the only proof that he claimed her.

Her teeth ripped at her lip in nervousness, in anger. She was a bundle of coiling emotions, they fluttered from one to the next until she could barely understand how she felt. She was loosing her grip on sanity.

"I can't ever fully be yours and I know we agreed-"

"Fuck what we agreed." He interjected angrily, his hand moving from her cheek to the back of her neck and forcing her head closer to his until their foreheads touched, breaths mingling.

"You are my mate and the moment you are feeling better, I will make sure everyone knows it" his eyes were full of heat, full of carnal promises that even in her moment of turmoil had her skin itching with need. He was her addiction an addiction that she had never wanted or anticipated but desperately needed.

Colour filled her pale sickly cheeks, eyes turning downcast as she tried to hide from the fire in his, "But the doctor-"

"Fuck what Jene said, fuck what you know and fuck whatever you have been thinking." He would not let her hide from him any longer, they would get through this together, not by hiding or doubting but by sharing. He would show her that her inability to conceive would never ever change how he felt for her, how he was beginning to feel for her.

He would show her and she would know that with him was where she belonged. With him and Zosia and though Zo wasn't hers, Jana needed to know that she was the only mother she would know. Zosia needed her just as much as Jana needed them.

"You belong with us, with me and Zosia. There isn't a thing we can't deal with together Jana, just let me be there for you. Please just lean on me miłość." His eyes were wet, lips trembling as he lightly kissed her forehead. His head pulling back so his cheek rubbed along hers.

"Simeon," her hand rested along his chest as she shuffled closer to him, her head dipping into his neck.

"Shh, it's okay miłość, I have you." He soothed rubbing her back as he held her close, his strong arms wrapping her in his protection all the while he murmured soft words in her ears. Words rough and slurred in his mother tongue as he made promises and spoke of deep feelings. His deep baritone travelling through her like a clap of thunder that shook her to her core and jolted her body awake.

She was listening. Listening to the roaring thud of his heart beat as his words struck shards of lightening into her soul. He gave her strong bursts of light in her darkest times, never leaving her alone out in the storm that was their life.