The golden light of the late afternoon filtered through the reinforced glass of the private medical wing within the Black Box. It should have been a warm, comforting glow, but today it felt like the cold, clinical light of a courtroom.
This wasn't the usual chaotic check-up. There was no Section E arguing in the hallway, no Alexander playing with a toy stethoscope, and no Aries trying to "align" the room's energy. At my strict command, the wing had been cleared. Only three people remained in the sterile, high-tech suite: me, my wifey, and Ci n.
POV: Keifer (Mark Keifer Watson)
I stood by the window, my hands clasped behind my back. My "Monster" mask was clamped tight, but inside, my ribs felt like they were shrinking, crushing my lungs. I watched Ci n move with a silence that unsettled me. He wasn't cracking jokes. He wasn't complaining about the coffee. He was a machine—a precision instrument of medicine.
Jay sat on the edge of the examination table, draped in a white gown. She looked beautiful, her pregnancy glow still fighting against the paleness of her skin. She was 24 weeks along—the 6th month. The "Starlight" was growing, but the shadows were growing faster.
"The Doppler readings are in," Ci n said, his voice devoid of its usual warmth. He turned the monitor toward us. "The vascularity of the placenta has bypassed the myometrium completely. It's now deeply embedded in the surrounding organs. We are looking at a full-scale Placenta Percreta with bladder involvement.
I didn't care about the Latin terms. "Translate it, Ci n. Give me the bottom line."
Ci n stayed quiet for a moment, his eyes flickering to Jay, who was staring at the floor, her hands resting on the swell of her stomach. He then looked at me, and for the first time in twenty years of friendship, I saw his hands tremble.
"The baby... Astraea... she's a fighter, Keifer," Ci n began, his voice cracking. "She's robust. Her heart rate is perfect. Her lung development is ahead of schedule thanks to the steroids we've been giving Jay. Based on the current growth, if we take her out now or in a few weeks, I can almost 100% guarantee she will be very fine. She is a Watson. She's going to live."
A small, choked sob escaped Jay's lips. "Thank God," she whispered.
But Ci n didn't stop. He stepped away from the monitor and walked toward me, his face pale. He looked like a man delivering a death sentence.
"But Keifer... I can't guarantee Jay's life. I can't even give you a 50% chance anymore."
The Shattering
The world didn't explode. It didn't end with a bang. It ended with a quiet, hollow thud as the air left the room.
"What did you just say?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
"The risk of a catastrophic hemorrhage the moment we try to detach that placenta is... it's absolute," Ci n said, tears now welling in his eyes. "We will be operating in a pool of blood. We can have twenty surgeons and a hundred pints of blood on standby, but the speed of the bleed... Keifer, there is a high probability that you will lose her on that table."
I looked at Jay. She wasn't crying anymore. She was looking at me with a profound, heartbreaking serenity—the look of a surgeon who had already reconciled with the data.
"No," I said. It was a low growl. "Fix it. Find another way. Use the German team. Use the Japanese specialists. Buy a new hospital."
"We are already using every protocol on the planet!" Ci n shouted, his frustration finally breaking. "Biology doesn't care about your billions, Keifer! I am her best friend, I love her like my own blood, and I am telling you... I might have to choose between the baby and my sister."
"YOU CHOOSE HER!" I roared, stepping toward him, my fist clenched. "You always choose Jay! The baby... Astraea... we can try again! You save my wife!"
"Keifer, stop," Jay's voice was small, but it cut through my rage like a diamond through glass.
I turned to her, my chest heaving. "Wifey, he's lying. He's just being cautious. He's—"
"He's not lying," Jay said, her eyes filling with a fierce, motherly light. "And you don't get to make that choice, hubby. If it comes down to it... you save our daughter. You save the star. We already lost Aurora. I won't let another one of my girls die."
POV: Jay (Jasper Jean Mariano)
I watched the man I loved—the "Monster" of the Watson Empire, the man who had stared down assassins without blinking—crumble.
Keifer's knees didn't just buckle; they gave out entirely. He fell to the floor in the middle of the sterile room, his forehead resting against the edge of the examination table. His shoulders shook, and for the first time in my life, I heard him make a sound that wasn't a command or a growl. It was a keening, broken sob.
"I can't do it," he choked out, his hands gripping the metal legs of the table so hard the steel groaned. "I can't live in a world where you aren't there, Jay. I can't look at Alexander and Astraea every day and see your ghost. I'll go mad. I'll burn everything down."
I slid off the table and knelt on the floor with him, ignoring the ache in my body. I pulled his head into my chest, cradling him as he wept. Ci n walked to the corner of the room, turning his back to give us a shred of privacy, his own shoulders shaking.
"Hubby, look at me," I whispered.
He looked up, and his face was a mask of pure, raw agony. "Don't ask me to be okay with this. Don't ask me to be a 'brave father' while they bury my heart."
"You aren't going to bury me," I said, though my voice lacked the conviction of my heart. "But we have to face the truth. We are Watsons. We plan for every outcome. If Astraea is meant to be the one who stays... you have to be her fortress."
"I am nothing without you!" he cried, burying his face in my neck. "The Black Box is just a cage if you aren't in it. Section E, the business, the money... it's all ash if I can't wake up and see you."
The Darkest Vow
Ci n finally turned around, wiping his face. "We have three weeks until the scheduled window. I'm putting the mansion on total lockdown. No one in or out except the surgical team. Jay, you are on strict bed rest. If you so much as stand up to reach for a glass of water, I'm sedating you."
Keifer stood up slowly, his eyes bloodshot, the grief in them turning into a terrifying, cold resolve. He didn't look like a man anymore; he looked like a god of war preparing for a final stand.
"Listen to me, Ci n," Keifer said, his voice flat and terrifyingly calm. "I don't care about the baby's 'guarantee.' I don't care about the odds. You will gather every drop of O-negative blood in the hemisphere. You will have a second surgical team standing by just to manage the hemorrhage. And if she starts to slip... you pull her back. You pull her back, or I will make sure the sun never rises on any of us again."
Ci n nodded solemnly. "I'll do everything humanly possible, Keifer. And then some
Keifer turned to me, picking me up as if I were made of glass. He didn't say a word as he carried me out of the medical wing, past the confused and worried faces of Section E who were waiting at the perimeter.
He carried me all the way to our room, laid me down, and crawled onto the bed beside me, wrapping his entire body around mine like a shield.
"I'm not letting you go, wifey," he whispered into the dark. "Even if I have to chain your soul to this earth, you are staying with me."
I held his hand, feeling the frantic beat of his heart against my palm, and as I looked out at the stars, I prayed to Aurora. Help us. Keep your sister safe, but please... let me stay to see her grow.