Dark nodded, leaning in against Alec after he had been nudged. "I know. I know I have, and I know I do, but I do not think it is the same. The miscarriages, our stillbirth, that was not easy on me. Watching her go through it was not easy on me. The stillbirth will always be one of the worst days of my life. But it did not happen to me in the same way it happened to her." He passed his hand over the lower half of his face, tugging lightly on his beard, trying not to get too caught up in the sights, sounds, and fear of that day. Then he admitted, "I wanted to be a father, and I wanted to raise children with her, and all of this," he gestured at their living room, which had taken on not only evidence of Ivy, but of Alec and Xander also, "is something I would not trade for anything. And I know now I value being a present and active father over almost anything else in my life, I chose to leave my career, and all the plans I had for it, to be a stay-at-home father. But I do think, had we not been so fortunate, and it had not happened, when I was seventy and reflecting on my life, I would have been able to make peace with it. But she..." He shook his head slowly, "I grieved for all of our other children. There were some I held her as it passed at home, there were some she needed a procedure for, and I held her hand in the hospital with Omar. I washed her clothes and dried her sweat, but for how emotionally brutal it all was, I could see by the look on her face how much more of a toll it took on her. You remember how she was, physically, after Ivy."
Swallowing hard, he turned down the volume on the monitor and said, with a true, heartfelt smile on his face, "But even when you met her, she was still so bright. I have always been depressed, but even after all of that she--!" He gestured with one hand, "I think I have suffered less, in that regard, but she came out so much brighter."
