Here We Go Again

Chapter 30: Feel Again

POV: Dominique

Everything happened in slow motion; every second stretched into an hour and lasted a lifetime. All was a blur.

I remember the pain, though. I can sorta see it through a haze: when my water broke, the pain shooting up my body, the throbbing of my lower abdomen, and I can even see Uncle Harry cradling me in his arms as I screamed for mercy...

There were so many tears, but none of them were for the contractions. I wasn't pleading for the ease of that pain, but for the one produced by a broken heart. I wanted the pain of my heartbreak to be taken away. I wanted to be numb, I remember that. I just wanted the world to stop spinning, I wanted to fall into darkness and never come out.

How could he leave? The crushing weight of that question was the primary source of devastation through the hazy memories. Uncle Harry talked a lot, I could hear him in the background, but I remember the question was all the noise in my head aside from my own screams. How could he leave me?

Vaguely, I remember being lowered onto a white mattress in one of the maternity ward' rooms of St. Mungos. I remember seeing Uncle Harry mouthing words to me, an encouraging glint to his eyes, and I remember thinking he was out of his mind. He was seeing something I wasn't—something I didn't want to see.

With tears adding more to the haze the memories were, I made out the figure of Aunt Angelina marching through the door of my room. Usually, she was composed and a complete professional. When it came to a relative being hurt—which occurred frequently in our family—she was never one to panic, but it was different this time, I remember that. The background was filled with her shouts, her assistants running in and out, and Uncle Harry rushing to my bedside, clutching onto one of my hands.

'Help her, Angelina!' I managed to catch Uncle Harry shout.

None of it made sense to me, and I didn't want it to. I just wanted to be left alone. I wanted everyone to just leave me to disappear and to mourn. Couldn't they see? Couldn't they see that I wasn't there? That my life and heart was gone? That Derrick Rowle took it with him? I just wanted to die. I just wanted darkness to win over me.

That's when Mum and Dad came in. Merlin, that was the only clear fragment of all these hazy memories. It was my mum's terrified face, her blue eyes crying fat tears, and Dad shouting at Aunt Angelina just as Uncle Harry had. They were so hectic, they were so loud...I knew in that moment that I was them in their youth.

None of that mattered, either. They didn't matter, my parents. I wanted it to be the last time I saw them before Death came for me. I was tired, so tired.

'You're going to be okay, 'oney,' Mum spoke to me in a teary whisper, her soft hands caressing my cheeks as Aunt Angelina and Dad continued to discuss loudly in the background. 'You're going to be fine, I promise. I will be 'ere every moment of zee way, mon chéri.'

Get out, I remember wanting to scream.

I didn't want her to touch me. I didn't want them with me, I wanted them gone. I didn't want them inside the room, not when they have judged me before. They saw my pain, they knew of my heartbreak, but I knew they thought I deserved it. Careless, foolish girl—that's what they thought of me. I knew they thought I deserved it. Well, fine. I was suffering already. I was dying. The boy they said would hurt me in the end had—and it was brutal. They didn't need to be here, their point had been proven.

I hate you, I remember thinking, too.

Another scream rushed up my throat and shattered past my lips. A contraction hit me with great force, sending waves of pain throughout my body. I screamed, screamed, screamed.

No more, no more, I thought, let it end, let it end.

'Angelina!' Mum shouted, her tears falling heavier as I let out another booming shriek. 'What's 'appening?!'

During my longing for darkness, during the flood of self-pity that took over me since the beginning of this giant mess, I'd been unaware that I was hooked onto machines and my clothes were replaced with a ghastly medical gown. The machines attached onto my body were beeping loudly, sending everyone into a frenzy.

'Everyone clear the room!' Aunt Angelina commanded just as her two assistants rushed around the hospital room.

'What's the hell is going on, Angelina?!' Dad's resounding voice added to the chaos.

'The baby is losing oxygen, Bill!' The Healer shouted at her brother-in-law, shoving him away from her path. 'Now get out! I need this room cleared!

The rhythm of my heart increased in speed, panic and dread rising up in my chest. The past misery I was feeling, all those self-centered emotions, were gone. My baby was in danger—my baby. The most important thing in my life, the thing I was supposed to be focused on, the thing that was demanding to come out...I forgot about my baby.

'Mum,' I cried again, this time reaching for the fleeting hand of Fleur Weasley. 'Mum, I don't want my baby to die! Mum!'

The haze of my memories ended there, just as my mother cried along with me, but was dragged out of the hospital room by one of my aunt's assistants. An ocean of black came to conquer over my focus, and everything else that came after was flooded with the realization that I did have something to live for...

There was a faint knocking in the background of my thoughts that eventually won over. I glanced to the door of my hospital room. I was about to part my lips and let my dry throat answer, but I wasn't given the chance. The door opened, the bright, white light of the outside halls washed inside of my room; and in came my siblings.

Sluggishly, I said my faint hello to them.

As soon as she heard my voice, Victoire—oh, sweet and dramatic Victoire—practically ran to my side. Tears were falling from her blue eyes, leaving trails down her rosy cheeks as she was fast to get her hands on me. Not only did my older sister look like our mother, but she acted exactly as she did. Her hands caressed my face, her eyes scouted for physical evidence of my previous pain and complicated labor. She muttered things that my ears barely caught, and she held on tighter to me.

Louis, on the other hand, remained with his back pressed against the door. His blue eyes were narrowed into mine, completely focused in keeping contact. Usually, he paid more attention to a fly on the wall than me if we were in the same room. This time, however, his gaze glowed with worry. There was something hesitant about the way he stared, something that I knew as resentment. What he was resenting, I couldn't say.

Sitting on an armchair that was placed on the right side of my hospital bed, Mum made herself noticed to her other two children when she said, "Say bonjour to zee newest member of zee Weasley family."

Cradled in my mother's arms was a bundle wrapped in white. And once attention had been called to it, it illuminated the entire room. There, in my mother's arms, was everything good in the world. There, in my mother's arms, was my everything.

"Come 'ere, Victoire," Mum encouraged my sister who looked flabbergasted at the bundle in our mum's arms, "'old zee baby."

Before my sister could, there was another knock on the door. Like the last, no one waited for my permission to access the room: the door opened and I really wished my throat wasn't so dry because a scream rippled out and burned.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" Louis whipped out his wand from the pocket of his school trousers. There was fire turning his blue eyes into a darker shade, hate in them roaring to life. His focus was gone from me, and now I was staring at his back as he threatened the person who'd previously knocked.

"I came—"

"You're not coming in!" Louis wand-tip was jammed into the chest of the newcomer. "Get out!"

Victoire marched towards our brother. "Louis," her tone was filled with parental attitude, "don't you dare. Stop this now. This is a hospital."

"I don't give a damn if it's a bloody prayer temple," Louis bellowed, the fury in him making his hands shake. "Get out of my sister's room before I make you regret your entire existence!"

I never thought that I could be as shocked with any of Louis' threats as I was in that moment. The way his entire posture tensed, the gleam of hatred that I saw in his gaze, his words laced with heavy resentment—I was proud, safe, annoyed, and afraid at the same time.

As my brother's wand began to illuminate, another figured appeared by the door. This time it was my father that stood behind Derrick Rowle.

"There is a newborn in here," Dad's deep voice echoed around the thick tension of the room, "lower your voice."

"I will not—!"

"It wasn't a suggestion, Louis, I ordered you to lower your voice," Dad interjected, ire quick to show upon his scarred features.

Grudgingly, Louis stopped stabbing Rowle with his wand, but he didn't completely lower it, either. "What are you doing, Dad?" He hissed past clenched teeth.

"That is not your concern."

"Of course it is," and Louis was quick to lose his cool again. "She's my sister, and this twat abandoned her! If you think that I'm going to let him get near her, you're wrong! I'm going to kill him!"

"That's enough," Dad declared harshly. "I know exactly what occurred, Louis, I was there every single day since Rowle left. But he has a child with Dominique, and they need to sort things out once and for all. We can't interfere with that, no matter how angry we are. Do you understand me?"

With a clear fury, Louis made his way out of the room without a look back. He shoved into Rowle, but the latter said nothing and just lowered his head.

The blood in my veins started mixing with dread as it pumped through my body. My mother raised herself from her chair, leaning in so that she could hand me the bundle that had graciously stayed asleep through the events unfolding. As I nervously held onto my baby, my mother's sapphire-colored eyes focused deep with mine; I saw her own hesitance, mistrust, and anger. If she had not been holding my newborn, if she wasn't supposed to be the level-headed adult, I was almost positive my mother would have encouraged Louis to murder Rowle.

Since she was still stuck next to me, Victoire caught the same emotions I saw in our mother's gaze. Taking it upon herself, as it was in her nature, Victoire reached for one of my mother's hands and tugged gently and respectfully; all in indication that it was time to depart from the room.

More fear submerged me as they finally left and the door of my room closed behind them, leaving me alone with the person who broke my heart and who made me contemplate death.

He raised his head so his dark, indigo-colored eyes could find my face. It hurt. It burned to have him look at me after so long. There was so much passing through his gaze, but I didn't have it in my to dissect and study every single one he was showing.

"You left me." I had to speak. I had to say something before his gaze alone engulfed me and the room in flames. I was crumbling, and fast. He had so much power over me, and he didn't see it. He didn't know how quickly he could ruin or build me.

Derrick gulped. "I need you to...You have to understand me, Weasley."

"You left. What's there to understand? You didn't want to marry me." That pained me to say, but it had to be said. After all, it was the truth (and this is usually why I avoided telling the truth to begin with). "Then you pissed off to another country without telling me. You left me and our child."

"Stop it," Derrick snapped, a frown creasing his forehead. "I didn't...You were the one that left me."

"And you let me," I snarled back. Accidentally, my palms contracted and I had to quickly remind myself that the bundle I was clutching harshly was my child. I swallowed, momentarily disgusted with myself and my fragile temper.

Sighing, I loosened my arms from around my sleeping child and stared down at it.

"I was scared," in the background, Derrick let out a sigh of his own. "I know it's not an acceptable excuse for...Look, all of this happened too fast, Weasley. Mind you, I've been in love with you since our Fourth Year at Hogwarts, but we were barely doing anything about it. Then you got pregnant, and though I would never not take responsibility, I was scared. I had to man-up and get my life together so that I could provide for our baby. Things just got to be too much, you know."

I blinked up at him. His black gaze was glistening with unshed tears, the usual paleness of his face was scarlet, and the hands at his sides shook nervously. I was almost tempted to get up from my bed to go to him, to hold him. Slytherins took pride in not being overly emotional, and Derrick was one of them. He was always poised, arrogant, and unattached—it's what attracted me to him. He was a breath of fresh air; different from my circle of overly-sensitive people. I wanted to comfort him, but I remembered my anger.

"Don't you dare stand there and tell me you had it rough, Rowle. I was the one living with the problem, and you took a holiday from it," I accused. "You ended right where you wanted to be, the Auror Department. Your family not once shunned you, and you know it. They offered you access to your inheritance, they even offered you one of your many homes for us to live in—everything came served on a silver platter for you, you wanker. Meanwhile I had to deal with the hard stuff! I had to endure my parents and their constant worrying, their questions, and their accusations. My life went on hold, not yours."

I inhaled deeply through my nostrils, calming myself again before I squeezed the bundle in my care. "Despite the rotten time I was having, I endured it all because I loved you. My father despises you—all my family does—yet I defended you over and over again...All I wanted was for you to love me back."

His lips were pressed into a tight line as I spoke, and his face went redder as he held in all that he wanted to say. I didn't give him a chance to let it all out, though; I continued.

"You know me, Rowle; when have I ever been a proper, normal girl? I didn't want you to get down on one knee, all I wanted was reassurance that one day it could happen. I wanted to...But you don't see a future with me," I stopped, taking a shallow breath as my tears fell and exposed my vulnerability. "Why are you here?"

Before speaking, he cleared his throat and waited for a moment until he was collected. "Lupin found me," he offered in monotone. "He promised that when you went into labor he'd contact me."

The surprise I was feeling was surely etched across my features. "What?" I questioned as I slightly cradled the bundle that gave a small whimper. "Why would Teddy do that? He hates you."

"He does," Rowle nodded, "and he was glad I asked for a transfer. Before I left...We talked about you before I left. I suppose he thought I was sincere, though I'm sure he'll always hate me. Just like your father, really. He almost killed me on sight, but Lupin persuaded him to listen to me."

With another sigh, loosening his fists, he added, "I love you, Dominique," it was a mutter, a low declaration, but his eyes were dripping with sincerity. "It's not that I didn't see a future with you, it's that I was scared. But I love you with everything I have, I swear it."

He took a first step towards me, causing my breath to hitch in my throat. Once again, panic began to rise in my chest; sending my heart pounding away in an outrageous rhythm. I almost recoiled into myself as he knelt on the left side of my bed, his ink-colored gaze never moving from my emerald one. Slowly, daring himself to, he took one of my hands.

That was it, that was all it took for everything else to fade out.

I loved him, and I was positive that I always will. He has all the power in the world to break me, but also to put me back together. It was either black or white with him and I, that was the truth of our love. There was no in-between. We either hated each other or we loved each other; we either were apart or we were together.

"Do you forgive me?" he asked in another murmur.

I kept silent for a few seconds in order to give myself the chance to find my voice, my strength, my heart—to find everything I lost when he was gone.

"Look at our child, Rowle," I deviated from his question for a moment as I turned the bundle in my arms so he could get a better look at it.

Nervousness again took over him, just as fear and excitement took turns swimming in his eyes. With a deep breath, he rose tall as he was in his knees in order to peer at our child.

"Promise that you'll never leave him—"

"Him? It's a boy?"

"—and I will forgive you. Look at him, and promise me that you'll stay...Because if you can't, I can't let you back in. I love you, Rowle, but he's my everything."

Derrick raised a hand, gently caressing the head of the baby. As he did, our son opened his eyes, sensing his father, sensing the connection, and we saw his green eyes inspect us with curiosity. He was just absolutely breathtaking.

"I promise," Rowle muttered, leaning in and pressing a kiss to our son's smooth forehead. "I'm not going anywhere anymore, Dominique. I promise you that. I'm here forever."

A smile stretched my lips when our eyes met. Derrick attempted to lean to me, wanting to find my lips, and I needed him to kiss me, but our baby let out a whimper at the body trying to hover over him.

"What's his name?" Derrick questioned curiously, a smile also on him as he went to lightly run his fingertips over our son.

"Dustin," I said without hesitation. "Dad wanted to name my brother that when he was born, but Mum ruled over. I think it's fitting—Dustin Louis Rowle."

Yeah, that was a name of great potential.