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The nursery smelled faintly of cedar wood shaving and antiseptic, it was an unsettling combination, too clinical for child's room and too warm for laboratory. But Zandik seemed entirely unaware of the contradiction as he stood in the center of the unfinished nursery with sleeves rolled past his elbows. Tiny mechanical birds lay dissembled across the floor beside paint samples and folded fabrics imported from Fontaine. One cradle remained half built near the window, silver tools abandoned beside it as though he had been interrupted midway through perfection itself.
"You moved too quickly again."
Your voice drifted from the doorway, soft with exhaustion. He glanced up immediately, irritation flickering across his face before concern buried it beneath something gentler.
"You should not be standing."
He crossed the room with long strides, setting both hands carefully against your arms as if you might splinter apart beneath his touch.
"How many times must I repeat this? The additional strain on your spine during twin gestation—"
"I only walk from the bedroom."
"And you still breathless, see?"
You laughed quietly at that, though it ended in a tired exhale. Zandik's brows drew together instantly, he guided you toward the chair near the window with almost obsessive precision, adjusting cushions behind your back until he seemed satisfied with the angle of your posture. Even then, he lingered beside you, fingers pressing lightly against your wrist to measure your pulse.
Your hands were colder lately, perhaps because the Snezhnaya winter or perhaps it was because you were sometimes too busy knitting the tiny sock for twins everyday near the window. Now the sun slightly peek through the cloud, weakly filtered through the curtains as Zandik returned to adjusting the crib. He had rebuild the structure three times already after deciding the corner were too sharp, then too unstable, then aesthetically displeasing. Anyone else would call it madness, but love and madness had always resembled each other too close inside him.
"You're overworking yourself again," you whispered.
"I am still functioning properly."
"That is not what i meant."
The mechanical tools paused in his hand. For a moment, silence swallowed the room whole. You watched his shoulder stiffen beneath the blue fabric of his shirt, watched exhaustion creep through the rigid line of his spine like fractures spreading across glass.
Then he spoke without turning around,
"I calculated every possible complication." His voice remained calm, almost detached. "Nutritional requirements, Potential hemorrhaging, Bone density deterioration, Increased cardiac strain. I have prepared medication for all foreseeable outcomes."
Your expression softened painfully, "Zandik.."
"The probability of losing you is below three percent."
There it was, the truth he always afraid to admit. He resumed working before you could answer, his movement harsher now, wood creaking faintly beneath the pressure of his grip. Sometimes you wondered if he even realized how transparent he became around you. The great second Harbinger who feared across nation and yet reduced to sleepless paranoia over every flicker of discomfort crossing your face.
The floor beside the crib was littered with papers, hundreds of names. Some crossed out violently enough to tear the parchment, other circled repeatedly in dark ink. He had spent weeks selecting names despite pretending otherwise.
"This one is terrible." you teased softly, picking up a sheet.
He scoffed at you, "Because you deliberately chose the worst option available."
"Subject B is not a proper name for our baby."
"Well it's efficient."
You laughed at that, he just watched, and he swear he could've destroyed a whole nation just to protect that laugh.
Outside the manor, snow drifted silently across the Snezhnayan landscape. The world remained frozen and merciless as ever, but inside this room existed something unbearably fragile. Something warm, almost resembling peace.
Zandik finally approached again after finishing adjustments to the cradle. Without a word, he lowered himself carefully before you, resting one hand against your stomach with startling reverence. The sharpness on his eyes softened immediately as he watch you.
"There." he murmured quietly.
"What?"
"They move,"
His voice whispering softly like a man hearing divinity speak directly into his hands. Slowly, his thumb brushed across your stomach, tender enough to make your heart ache.
"They respond when you speak," He continued softly, "Mostly when you read aloud, its increased activity suggest auditory recognition developing ahead of project estimates."
"You sounds proud."
"I'm just observing."
"Mhm sure,"
A faint scoff escaped him, though the corner of his mouth twitched upward despite resistance. He look like genuinely in peace when he smile like that, as you softly staring at his face. You reached up instinctively to touch his face, your fingers passed through nothing.
His smile vanished.
The room seemed to distort afterward, though only briefly. Zandik blinked once sharply, as if awakening from a dream he could not quite remember. Then he caught your hand before it could fall, pressing it against his own cheek.
"There," he said quietly, as if correcting reality.
"You forgot your medicine again," you whispered at him gently.
Tension immediately flooded his expression, "I did not need it."
"It help you sleep."
"I told you i don't need to sleep."
His jaw tightened, and for several moments neither of you speak. Snow continued falling outside while silence thickened between breaths, then Zandik leaned forward slowly until his forehead rested against your stomach. It was such an unusually vulnerable posture that it nearly shattered you.
"I cannot lose you," he whispered
You closed your eyes, your fingers moved through his hair gently, though he trembled beneath the touch as if fighting something invisible clawing inside his skull.
"You won't," you lied softly,
Snowstorms swallowed the manor whole by the middle of winter, the windows groaned beneath layers of frost while servants moved soundlessly through the corridors. Entire wings of the estate had become forbidden after dusk, no one entered the floor unless directly ordered, and no one allowed to spoke her name aloud anymore.
Zandik sat cross legged on the nursery floor surrounded by dismantled clockwork piece and folded blue fabric. A tiny moon model spun slowly above the nearest cradle, silver stars chiming gently whenever cold wind slipped beneath the doorframe. He adjust one of the mechanism with meticulous concentration, his crimson eyes narrowed behind loose strand of his hair.
"It tilts unevenly," he muttered.
You looked up from the armchair near the fireplace, a blanket draped over your legs. "No normal child would notice that."
"Well they are my children."
"Ah yes, that's explained."
He look almost offended as a faint smile touched your lips, exhaustion seems lingered beneath your body. Your figure seemed light lately he noticed, sometimes when he carried you to bed he almost didn't feel anything. Yet he brushed it off by saying you probably didn't eat enough due to morning sickness.
He reached for another screwdriver beside him only to pause suddenly, his gaze lingered on the floorboards. Dark stains spread faintly beneath the crib, for one horrifying second they resembled blood. His breathing stopped, the image struck without warning.
a shattered glass vial
his trembling hands stained red
servant screaming somewhere distant while your body—
No.
His mind immediately recoiled from the memory like flesh from flame itself, the floorboards looked normal again as if nothing stained it before. Zandik exhaled sharply through his nose before returning to the model with deliberate calm.
"The heating system is malfunctioning," he said flatly. "Hallucination induced by sleep deprivation remain irritatingly persistent."
"Zandik," you said softly
"I am perfectly functional."
"You nearly crushed the screwdriver."
Only then did he realize the metal handle had bent in his grip, his jaw tightened at the sight. Silence settled heavily across the nursery room for several moments, then you rose carefully from the chair and crossed toward him, your footsteps impossibly soundless against the wood.
"Go take your medicine Zandik," you whispered
"I already told you before, i don not need it."
"But it will helped you."
"I don't required any help from it."
Your fingers brushed against his cheek, or tried to, because for the smallest fraction second, he felt nothing at all. Cold panic sliced through him instantly, the sensation returned abruptly as if his mind hurried to correct reality before it fully unraveled. He caught your wrist too quickly afterward, clutching your hand against his face with quiet desperation.
"You're here, you're okay," he murmured.
Your expression broke for only a heartbeat, enough to make his chest ache as he looked away.
He resumed working after that, his movement becoming harsher beneath trembling hands. Tiny screws scattered across the floorboards, one rolled beneath the crib unnoticed. You watch him in silence for a long time after that, watched the shadows beneath his eyes deepen against his skin, his fingers twitch every few minutes from fatigue, the way he keep glance toward you constantly as though terrified you might vanish the moment he looked away.
The manor had become more quieter in recent weeks, the upper floors empty he noticed. It seems no one lingered long unless summoned directly by the Second Harbinger himself. Pierro arrived just before dusk, snow clung heavily to the dark fur lining his coat as he stepped through the entrance hall, his expression carved from the same cold stone as the Snezhnayan winter outside. The servants bowed immediately upon seeing him, even though unease flickered visibly across their faces.
The upper corridor remained dim despite the hour, lamps flickered weakly against the walls lined with untouched portraits and expensive furnishings gathering dust beneath neglect. Halfway down the hallway sat a silver tray abandoned outside the nursery door, tea long gone cold beside untouched medication bottles. Pierro paused beside them, one bottle remained shattered against the floor as if has been thrown.
He can hear a faint sound drifted behind the door, followed quiet murmur of Zandik's voice answering someone. Then he opened the door without knocking, warm light spilled across the corridor immediately. The room look almost painfully ordinary at first glance. Blue curtains swayed faintly near the frost covered windows while unfinished toys cluttered at the floor. Two cradles stood near the fireplace surrounded by folded blankets and stacks of medical journals covered in Zandik's precise handwriting.
Zandik kneeling beside one of the cribs adjusting the height of the mattress with clinical concentration, sleeves rolled carelessly to his elbows. Several mechanical components lay scattered around him alongside pages of developmental calculations.
He did not look up when Pierro entered.
"What do you want?" He said flatly.
Pierro's gaze moved slowly across the room, there were two teacups on the table beside the window. One looked untouched while steam no longer rose from either.
"You missed six meetings."
"The Fatui seems continues functioning despite my absence."
"Her Majesty disagrees."
He adjust another screw inside the crib without pause. "Then Her Majesty may voice her dissatisfaction directly once my wife finished giving birth."
Pierro remained silent for several moments, then quietly
"Zandik."
"No."
The word came sharp as he lifted his head, crimson eyes cold with warning behind strands of light blue hair falling loose around his face. Exhaustion hollowed him visibly as his hands trembling faintly despite obvious attempts to still them. Pierro had seen him after failed experiments before, after diplomatic massacres, after founding him at the endless desert of Sumeru, yet he had never seen him like this.
"You have isolated yourself for weeks," Pierro continued carefully "The physicians confirmed—"
"Leave."
"Zandik."
"I said leave."
Pierro watched him carefully as Zandik moved across the room with rigid precision, gathering scattered tools from the floor one by one. He turned toward the fireplace before Pierro could see whatever crossed his face, his shoulder had gone rigid beneath his shirt, breathing uneven despite visible attempts to steady it.
"She was here this morning," he said calmly. "You arrived after she retired upstairs."
"She asked about names," his voice softened
Pierro looked away, because how could he described this feelings? Zandik did not look like maniac or delusional while saying it, he looks genuinely happy. Like a husband speaking about his wife after an ordinary morning together. Pierro looked again at the untouched teacup near the window, a thin layer of dust had settled across its surface. Pierro watched as he moved toward the armchair near the fireplace before stopping beside it, his posture softened as his expression became gentler than Pierro had ever witnessed on him.
"You should rest," he murmured toward empty air, yet only silence answered him.
Still he smiled faintly, "I will take it later, let's sleep."
Pierro could not remain there another second, he turned without another word and walked toward the door leaving a man continuing a conversation with someone death had already taken. Just before the door closed, Zandik spoke again with soft and lovingly voice as if comforting a frightened wife.
"I'm here," he said "The twins are safe."
You sat near the window in the cushioned armchair near the bedroom, he insisted it was the only one sufficiently comfortable place for your condition beside bed. A heavy fur blanket rested securely around your shoulder, tucked almost overly close beneath your arms by your Husband.
"You're smothering me," you murmured
"You're gonna get cold."
"I am literally sitting beside a fireplace Zandik."
"Still there's possibility."
And that ended the argument because once Zandik convinced himself of something concerning your wellbeing, not even the god itself can change his mind. Now soft knitting needles clicked quietly between your fingers while pale yarn pooled across your lap. Tiny socks were slowly taking shape there, impossibly small compared to your hands. While Zandik working quietly on music box in his work table, for a moment everything looked normal, a husband working quietly beside his wife. Then the music box slipped from his hand, metal struck the floor sharply.
The noise shattered something loose inside his mind.
a pool of blood across white sheets.
a physician refusing to meet his eyes.
tiny unmoving forms wrapped in cloth beside your body.
His breath caught violently as the room distorted around him for one moment, memories clawing upward through fractures he spent months desperately sealing shut. He remembered screaming at someone, he remembered destroying surgical equipment with bare hands, he remembered your skin already cold when he begged—
No.
That is not what happened, right? your due hasn't even here, he still had many things to prepared. Sleep deprivation really got him as he keep hallucinating stupid things, he bent to retrieve the music box. His movement appeared controlled, but the metal casing trembled faintly in his grip.
You looked at him quietly from the armchair, "Zandik?"
"I am fine." The answer came too quickly
He adjusted the gears inside the music box again as tiny mechanical birds began spinning softly beneath the lid afterward, playing a delicate lullaby that filled the room with aching sweetness. Neither of you spoke for a while, only cracking fireplace and the quiet rhythm of knitting needles remained.
"Do you think they will get your eyes?" He suddenly asked, his voice sounded unusually soft.
You looked up slowly watching him, Zandik still faced away from you near the desk. Pretending to focus on the music box despite how tightly his fingers now curled against the wood. You realized then he had been thinking about it for some time, probably longer than he wished to admit.
A faint smile touched your lips, "Maybe one of them."
"One?"
"Well the other might inherit yours."
He immediately frowned at that, "That would be unfortunate."
You laughed quietly, "There's nothing wrong with your eyes."
"They are unsettling."
"Nonsense, they're very pretty for me."
Zandik finally turned toward you, his expression look calmer now even though something fragile lingered behind his gaze. He crossed the room slowly before kneeling beside your chair, one hand instinctively resting against the blanket covering your legs.
"You would not mind?" he asked quietly
The vulnerability hidden inside the question almost hurt, you set the knitting aside gently.
"Mind what?"
"If they resemble me."
Your hand moved toward his face softly, this time your fingers brushed his skin properly, real enough for him to lean into it immediately.
"They'll resemble the man who stay awake three nights rebuilding a crib because one corner looked dangerous for his baby" you whispered softly. "The man who memorized infant nutrition before they were even born. The man who carries blanket around because he thinks I'm cold every five minutes."
"You speak if those are admirable traits."
"They are."
You hand softly brushing loose strand of his hair away from his face with heartbreaking gentleness, Zandik closed his eyes the moment your fingers touched him. Exhaustion finally visible beneath the mask he wore so relentlessly for everyone else. He rest his forehead carefully against your knee while the half finished baby socks remained forgotten in your lap, his breathing turn uneven as he stayed there listening to your voice humming softly through quiet bedroom, clinging desperately to it like dying man holding the last fragile thread connect him to a reality already slipping away.
The knocking started just past noon, and he ignored it as usual. He remained seated at the edge of the bed with several medical reports spread across his lap, crimson eyes scanning through nutritional calculations while one hand rested absently against your stomach beneath layer of blankets. Snow light filtered weakly through the curtains, painting pale silver across the room while fireplace crackled softly nearby.
You spent more time resting on bed lately, while he hovered endlessly like starving animal guarding something precious. His entire laboratory had gone unattended because he refused to leave you longer than necessary. Meals were brought directly to the bedroom now, his research documents piled untouched outside his office door.
The knocking came again, louder this time. "Lord Dottore?"
His expression darkened immediately, "What?"
The silence followed for several seconds before the poor agent managed to continue, "Lord Pierro requested your attendance at the Harbinger meeting immediately, my lord."
"No, tell the Director that i am occupied."
"My lord, he specifically requested—"
"I do not care."
Another long pause followed, then quietly "He said it was non negotiable."
Zandik stood abruptly, the papers scattered across the bed as he crossed the room toward the door. Exhaustion had made his temper dangerously thin these past months.
"He belives himself entitled to command my schedule now?" He hissed at the door. "Perhaps i should remind Pierro who—"
Your arms wrapped gently around him from behind, which make him instantly went silent. You pressed your cheek carefully between his shoulder blades, heavy blankets trailing softly around your form as you held him there in the middle of the room. Zandik stiffened beneath the embrace before slowly relaxing.
"You can't keep ignoring them forever," you murmured softly
"I can."
"You have responsibilities Zandik."
"My responsibility is here."
His answer came too fast as you felt the tension trembling through him beneath your arms, his figured felt so thin now. The past few months had hollowed him slowly from inside out, leaving sharp edged where warmth used to survive more easily. Yet still, whenever he looked at you, something unbearably gentle remained.
You held him tighter, "I'll be fine."
Zandik closed his eyes immediately, no matter how many times you said those words, they never stopped terrifying him.
"You should rest now," he muttered instead, carefully turning within your embrace until his hands settled instinctively against your waist. "The temperature outside keep worsened, Additional stress could increases cardiovascular complications."
A faint smile touched your lips "There's my doctor again."
"I'm being serious, stop teasing me."
You laughed quietly beneath your breath, and for one brief moment the sound softened the harshness carved into his expression. Zandik reached toward you, adjusting the blanket around your shoulders despite already wrapping it securely twice earlier.
"You'll come back soon?" you asked gently
His gaze lingered on your face for too long, as if he carving your face into his memory.
"Immediately," he answered quietly, then after a pause
"Do not leave the room while I am absent."
"I won't."
"Take the supplements near the bedside table."
You smiled at him, "Zandik."
He exhaled softly through his nose before leaning down, pressing his forehead briefly against yours. The contact lingered several seconds longer than intended, eventually he stepped away. He opened the bedroom door finding young Fatui agent outside who nearly recoiled at the sight of him. His expression had gone cold instantly, every trace of softness erased completely it almost seemed imagined.
"Lead the way," he said flatly.
The meeting chamber fell unnaturally quiet when he entered, they seems genuinely surprised to see him as if expecting he won't appear anymore. Pierro looked up first from the head of the table, a flickered suprise crossed against his face before disappearing beneath composure. Capitano straightened slightly beside him, Pantalone's expression turned wary almost immediately, even Columbina tilted her head with unsettling curiosity as Dottore took his seat without greeting anyone.
"You finally remembered we exist,"
Scaramouche muttered dryly from across the table, he did not even spare him a glance.
"Begin," he said
And the meeting continued, diplomatic reports, military movement. Trade disruption near Liyue's northern routes, he contributed where necessary with minimum efficiency, though his attention visibly drifted every few minutes toward the massive clock mounted along the chamber wall. His patience deteriorated rapidly after another hour passed, by the time Pantalone began discussing economic projections, his fingers were already tapping sharply against the armrest of his chair.
"Are we finished?" His voice sliced through the chamber
Pantalone stopped speaking immediately at that, Pierro looked toward him.
"Not yet."
His jaw tightened, "I have more pressing obligations than listening to financial complaints."
"You were absent for six weeks," Arlecchino said coolly. "You can survive another thirty minutes."
"My wife is waiting for me."
A complete silence, every harbinger at the table went still. Some of them look at him with concern and pity, he noticed immediately as his expression sharpened dangerously.
"What."
No one answer at first, then Capitano was the one who finally spoke, voice measured and careful in the way one approached unstable explosives.
"..Did you take your medicine today doctor?"
The room changed instantly, He stood abruptly as his chair crashed backward against the floor. The air inside the chamber became suffocating.
"How dare you."
His voice came low enough to make even a nearby soldiers tense, Capitano did not move, Pierro closed his eyes briefly avoiding his gaze, he looked between them slowly afterward. Realization twisting across his face as fury painted his face from being cornered.
"You think i am incapable," he gritted his teeth, "You think they—
"They are alive." his words came harsher now, "My wife is carrying twins, I left her less than two hours ago."
No one spoke, not because they ignored him. But because there was nothing left to say, his breathing became uneven beneath the silence pressing inward from every direction. He looked furious and exhausted even, and suddenly he looked like a very young abandoned scholar from Sumeru standing alone before another room full of people looking at him with pity.
"I heard her this morning," he snapped. "She spoke to me."
Columbina lowered her gaze, Capitano's hand tightened slowly against the table, Signora looked away entirely, even Sandrone looked uneasy at her seat as Pulcinella expression tightened. He laughed quietly then, he sounds so broken as he watch every single of them avoiding his gaze.
"You are all unbelievable," he muttered. "Truly."
He turned immediately afterward, coat sweeping violently behind him as he strode toward the chamber doors.
Music drifted softly through the manor long before Pantalone reached the sitting room, the melody carried through the corridor with tenderness so unfamiliar within these walls that several servants had stopped working entirely to listen in uneasy silence. No one dare to interrupted when the Second Harbinger played, because he only played for her. The last unfortunate soul who attempted to disturb him during one of these episodes had been dragged to laboratory, Pantalone remembered the blood on the marble floors vividly, yet he knocked anyway. Gentle enough trying not to provoke irritation, no answer came as the music continued uninterrupted.
After a brief pause, Pantalone open the door himself. The sitting room glowed beneath low firelight while snowstorms battered the windows beyond thick velvet curtains, near the fireplace sat an armchair draped in heavy blankets, knitting supplies abandoned beside it on the floor. One sock remained half finished, pale blue yarn still tangled loosely around silver needles
And at the piano sat Zandik, his posture looked strangely relaxed compared at the recent meetings, light blue teal hair slipping loose over his shoulders while long fingers moved fluidly across the ivory keys. The harshness usually painted at his face had softened beneath concentration, candlelight flickered gold against sharp cheekbones and exhausted eyes beneath his mask half lowered toward the instrument.
You sat near the windows humming along to the melody, your hands rested gently over your stomach beneath layers of blankets while your gaze remained fixed lovingly at your husband. Every so often Zandik glanced upward briefly, and each time his expression eased as he looked at you sitting there calmly enjoying the melody.
Pantalone expression remained calm, yet his chest tightened faintly. The nursery door beside the sitting room door slightly ajar, from where he stood, Pantalone could see the edge of one empty cradle inside. Dust shimmered faintly across the floorboards whenever the firelight shifted. Zandik still did not acknowledge his presence, so he simply sighed softly and crossed toward the tea cart himself. If reality could not be forced onto the man anymore, then at minimum someone needed to ensure he consumed something beside caffeine and insomnia.
Pantalone prepared three cups out of habit before the realization struck him midway through pouring, his hand paused briefly above the third cup, then slowly and carefully he finished filling it anyway. The porcelain clicked softly against the tray, only then did Zandik speak.
"Did you smoke before you came here?"
Pantalone laughed softly as he caried the tea toward the fireplace, "No i did not, don't worry"
"Good, you know she hate the smell from your cigarettes."
Pantalone sat down across from the piano with practice calm, placing one teacup carefully beside the armchair near the window where you sit.
"I know that."
"You're indulging him," Arlecchino had warned quietly after the meeting several days ago.
Perhaps he did, yet what can he do now? He also helpless seeing his close friend destroyed himself slowly every single day, no one can stop him to do so. Even his own segments almost got killed after some of them trying to force down the reality to the grieving man. So Pantalone lifted his own teacup calmly and listened to the music continue, the melody shifted after several moments into something softer. He remembered this melody, a Sumeru lullaby.
"She likes this one," Zandik murmured eventually.
Pantalone followed his gaze toward the armchair, and smile softly. "She has excellent taste."
Silence settled comfortably afterward, broken only by music and crackling firewood. Snow continued striking the windows in restless waves, Pantalone watched him carefully over the rim of his teacup, he looked thinner. The sharpness in his face had become almost skeletal recently, his skin stretched tight beneath cheek shadowed dark from chronic exhaustion. Even now, his hands trembled faintly between notes whenever concentration slipped. Yet every time he glanced toward the armchair, warmth returned instantly to his expression.
Pantalone's gaze drifted quietly toward the nursery door again, moonlight spilled faintly across untouched cradles and folded blankets left exactly where they had been months ago. No servants cleaned that room anymore, not after one maid accidentally removed pair of baby shoes from the dresser and The Second Harbinger calmly broke her wrist and push her out from the room.
"She said one of the twins will probably inherit my eyes," He suddenly said quietly
Pantalone's grip tightened subtly around his cup, "And?"
"I told her that would be unfortunate."
The corner of Pantalone's mouth twitched faintly despite himself, "I see no issue with your eyes."
"Of course you would say that, just like she did."
For a moment this almost resembled old conversation again, before everything happened. Pantalone used to visit both of you just to have a tea and having simple conversation, the room used to feel alive back then. Now it feel haunted by the shape of happiness left behind. Then he stopped playing abruptly, silence rushed inward immediately afterward. His gaze remained fixed downward at the piano keys, as his expression unreadable.
"She keep telling me to take medicine."
Pantalone set his teacup aside carefully, "Have you taken it then?"
"No."
"Why?"
He laughed softly beneath his breath, with tired sigh.
"It makes the house quieter."
Spring should have arrived weeks ago, Zandik realized that somewhere between midnight calculations and another sleepless morning spent reorganizing the nursery selves. He sat alone at his desk beneath dim candlelight, surrounded by scattered medical journals. The storm has ended, Snezhnaya remained cold but winter was weakening now, pale sunlight lingering longer each evening across frozen hills.
The twins were supposed to arrive in spring, his pen stopped moving. He look slowly toward the calendar resting near the edge of the desk, then toward the nursery door standing slightly open across the corridor. No that didn't sounds right, it should be complications altered timelines constantly during multiple pregnancies or he miscalculated fetal development. Yes it should be that, it has to be that. Yet still unease lingered afterward like rot spreading beneath his skin, because you didn't change. Your stomach remained the same size it had been months ago, you no longer complained about discomfort while sleeping, and there's no kicking beneath his hands anymore.
He stood abruptly from the desk and crossed the hallway before he could think further, the bedroom foot creaked softly open. You sat near the window in your usual chair, wrapped beneath heavy blankets while silver knitting needles rested quietly between your fingers. Evening light touched your face gently, as you worked on the same tiny sock you had been making for a weeks now, always the same sock who never finished somehow.
You looked up at the sound of the door opening and smiled softly the moment your eyes found him.
"Zandik."
Relief struck him instantly. Of course you were here, all of this anxiety was ridiculous. His breathing steadied as he crossed the room immediately, kneeling beside your chair while one gloved hand rested instinctively against your stomach beneath the blanket, yet he feels no movement at all. His fingers pressed slightly harder, and still nothing.
"Have they moved today?" he asked quietly.
You hesitated for too long, until "They're resting."
He looked up sharply, for one second the room felt wrong again. Your outline flickered faintly near the edged where firelight touched your skin, then it stabilized immediately afterward. His heartbeat pounded violently against his chest
"You're pale," you whispered softly, touching his face "You need rest."
"I am fine."
"No, you're not."
"I said—"
"You haven't slept properly in months."
You set the unfinished sock carefully aside before reaching toward him again, fingers brushing exhausted shadows beneath his eyes with unbearable gentleness.
"Take the medicine tonight."
Fear flashed across his face immediately. "If i take it.." His voice caught slightly. "Will you still be here?"
You looked at him quietly for several long moment, and suddenly your expression become unbearably sad, yet you smiled at him anyway and nodded.
A loving lie.
"..Yes." you whispered softly.
Zandik stared at you, his face looked desperate like some hidden part of him already understood the answer and begged for permission not to. Then slowly with trembling hands he reached toward the bedside table, the medicine bottle remained exactly where you always left it. Dust gathered faintly along the glass, his hand shook as he opened it. You watched him silently with sad smile on your face as he swallowed few tablets dry.
Exhaustion hit him violently, he swayed slightly where he knelt beside your chair, one hand gripping the edge of the blanket as though trying to anchor himself.
"Stay," he murmured weakly.
"I'm here."
The last thing he felt before sleep claimed him was your fingers moving gently through his hair.
When he woke up, the manor was silent, too silent. No humming near the windows, no footsteps crossing the hallway, no voice calling his name. He sat up slowly as he felt the pain at his neck from sleeping at the armchair, panicked strucked instantly as he looked at the empty chair in front of him. He rose too quickly, dizziness crashing through him as he searched the room with increasingly uneven breaths.
"Love?"
No one answer, and the hallways remained still. Every room he passed felt wrong somehow, dust coated furniture untouched for months. And then he reached the nursery, the door creaked softly open beneath trembling hands. White sheets covered both cradles as a thick layer of dust blanketed the shelves, the tiny moon models he reassemble few days ago hung motionless, he stopped breathing.
No.
His gaze fell slowly toward the floor beside the armchair near the window, a tiny unfinished baby sock rested beneath scattered knitting needles, half completed never finished.
Suddenly memories returned with violently inside his skull, blood. There's so much blood.
The labor room drowning in red while physicians shouted over one another in panic, your body trembling against soaked sheets as machines screamed beside you. He's own hands covered in blood up to his wrists while he demanded more instruments, more medicine, more time—
"My lord, her pulse is dropping,"
"Save her."
"But the infants—"
"I SAID SAVE HER."
The memory hit harder as his chest convulsed violently now in the nursery, the pain was unbearable, it feels like his organs were rotting alive inside his body. His heart feels like become something diseased clawing desperately against bone trying to escape from the agony consuming it. He wanted to tear it out, rip the thing from his chest with his own hands just to stop the feelings.
The memory continued as his gloves coated with bloods, he remembered screaming orders while pressing trembling hands against your stomach, desperately trying to stop the bleeding while physician moved around him in panic and his segments looked at him with helpless eyes. He remembered how your eyes struggled to stay open afterward, lashes damp against your pale skin while your hand searched weakly for his.
"Zandik... it hurts."
Your voice destroyed him more than anything, he remembered dropping immediately beside you, clutching your freezing fingers against his face while every rational thought inside his mind collapsed into blind panic.
"I'm here," he kept saying frantically. "Look at me love, stay awake. Stay with me."
Another physician approached him carefully holding something wrapped in cloth, far too small. His eyes darted toward it, no movement or crying, just pure silence.
"No." the word barely came out
"My lord.." the physician whispered.
"No."
Another bundle followed moments later, yet equally silent. He felt something inside his mind split open completly, he remembered laughing as he stared at the cruel reality in front of him.
"No no no no.." his voice cracked apart into something hysterical. "That is impossible. I calculated everything. I calculated every complication—"
Blood keep dropping from his hands on the floor, your heartbeat monitor began slowing until it faded into nothingness. He remembered the screaming, he remembered grabbing the nearest physician by the throat hard enough to crush cartilage beneath his fingers.
"YOU INCOMPETENT ANIMALS"
"Lord Dottore please—"
Another memory hit him as he pick up the surgical blade and throws it at another physician throat, blood sprayed across the walls. Screaming erupted instantly afterward, he remembered all of it now, the sound bones made beneath his hands. The wet crack skull against marble flooring, doctors begging while he tore through the labor room like something rabid, crimson every inch of white fabric wrapped around him. Someone tried to restraining him, he broke their jaw violently teeth scattered across the floor beside the hospital bed.
When he turned back toward you, you were no longer breathing.
Back in the nursery room he collapsed hard against the floorboards with a strangled scream tearing from his throat, his hands clawed desperately against his chest as though he genuinely intended to rip every part of his body to escape the agony crushing him alive.
It hurt.
It hurt so much.
His body physically could not contain the magnitude of grief returning all at once after months buried beneath hallucinations. Every breath felt like inhaling shattered glass, his ribs ached violently around a heart beating too hard as if they wanted to jump out of his chest entirely.
He remembered the final moments too, you were already gone when he crawled back to your bedside through blood and corpses, yet he still grabbed your face carefully with shaking hands. He spoke with you softly and carefully, begged.
"Please."
His voice sounded so small, terrified even.
"Please don't do this to me."
No answers, only cold skin beneath his bloodstained fingers.
He remembered carrying the dead infant against his chest while the other remained tucked carefully against your side beneath trembling hands. And then, he started talking to you calmly like nothing happened.
"The boy has your nose," he whispered shakily. "I told you that would happen."
Silence answer him, yet he still continued "I'm not sure about the eyes, but let's see it together when they wake up."
His hand softly caressed your face, "You should rest now," he murmured gently "You've been working too hard."
The door burst open, Pierro entered first followed with Pantalone alongside armed Fatui soldiers and stopped. The entire labor room looked like a massacre, bodies everywhere, blood covering walls and floors, surgical instruments scattered beside mutilated corpses while terrified nurses huddled sobbing near shattered equipment. One physician still twitched weakly beside the doorway, throat opened nearly to the spine. Pierro looked at Dottore, no Zandik now, sitting silently atop blood soaked sheets beside your corpse. Cradling two infants carefully while speaking softly to you like a husband spending quiet time beside his sleeping wife.
"Zandik." Pantalone said carefully,
He looked up slowly, there's a blood across his face, hands and throat. Yet his expression remained disturbingly gentle.
"Shhh.. she's sleeping," he whispered, "You'll wake her up."
Pantalone's chest tightened violently as Pierro looked away, one of the soldiers behind him nearly gag quietly at the sight. Yet Zandik looked back toward you afterward, adjusting one tiny blanket more securely around the unmoving infant in his arms.
The nursery had gone completely silent by the time night swallowed the manor whole, Zandik stood motionless at the center of the room while darkness pressed heavily against the windows behind him. His breathing refuse to steady, every inhale scraped raw against his lungs. It felt as if his chest had been hollowed open with surgical precision, organs left exposed to freezing air while memory continued carving deeper and deeper into the wound.
You were dead.
The twins were dead.
He had spent months speaking to ghosts because his mind lacked the courage to survive silence without you in it, he lowered himself slowly into the chair near the nursery window, your chair. He remembered arguing with you about curtain colors, he remembered measuring the room temperature every hour because he feared the babies would grow cold, he remembered placing his hand against your stomach and pretending he could feel the movement.
None of it had been real.
A broken tired sound escaped him quietly, the sound of a man finally collapsing beneath the weight of truth. Slowly he reached toward the nursery dresser and opened the bottom drawer, the handgun rested exactly where he left it months ago beneath old research documents and unfinished medical notes. Cold metal reflected faint candlelight as he lifted it carefully into his shaking hands. He leaned back into the chair afterward, staring toward the empty cradles while tears slipped silently down against his cheek, he did not noticed them falling. Zandik had forgotten how to cry properly long ago.
"You lied to me," he whispered into the silence,
Yet even now he could not sound angry with you, only devastated, because he finally understood why you had asked him to take the medicine knowing you would disappear afterward. Knowing the hallucinations would end and he would have to remember everything, because you loved him enough to let him hate reality instead of remaining trapped inside delusion forever.
"I'm tired."
The great doctor of the Fatui Harbinger, a brilliance scientist he claimed, yet he unable to save the only three lives that truly mattered to him. A weak laugh escaped him, trembling apart halfway through. For a fleeting moments he could almost imagine it, your soft voice humming near the window, tiny infant hand wrapped around his fingers, warmth filling this room instead of death. What an impossible gentle life, the kind the world would never allowed someone like him to keep.
Zandik lifted the gun slowly, the barrel pressed against his temple as his breathing shook.
"I'm coming home, my love"
The gunshot echoed through the manor moments later, and the nursery became silent enough for snow to bury the sound completely.