She felt his presence beside her. He had grasped her limp and heavy hand. Only the beeping of machines and the sound of his tears filled the room for a long time. If Qian Meng could wake up, she would cry with him. She wanted to.

  "God," he choked out eventually. "Please, god. Please…" His voice was raspy. He was tired and broken. "You can't take her from me. You can't…"

  It sounded like a desperate plea, a last resort. The man was not religious. She knew this because she knew him inside out. But his heart was breaking so painfully that he couldn't think straight.

  Her heartbeat grew stronger at the sound of his voice. She felt a pang of victory. It was a small miracle. This was the part that confounded science.

  Her body had migrated through parallel universes to be here, so it was prone to moving again and again. But this desperate voice filled with the love and prayer of Qingchen bound her.

  He squeezed her hand. "I love you…" he whispered.

  The words made her resolve to fight impossibly stronger.

  He sat there, not knowing the war Qian Meng was fighting. He was witnessing something that he didn't know was possible——

  "Mrs. Mo's blood pressure is abnormally low. Blood and urine samples showed signs of severe dehydration. So, we did an ultrasound and confirmed a diagnosis," the physician told Mo Qingchen as he stayed put beside his wife.

  Qingchen waited patiently for the declaration.

  "Mrs. Mo has hyperemesis gravidarum," he said. It sounded grave and Mo Qingchen felt his pulse leap. "Please don't be alarmed. Most women experience morning sickness during pregnancy. The hormone created by the placenta is the problem in this case. There is a large amount of this hormone produced by your wife at the early stage of the pregnancy. But if treated properly, there would be no issue."

  Mo Qingchen sagged in relief. "Do you have the ultrasound results yet?" the physician asked.

  Mo Qingchen shook his head. "We were going to get the tests once we hit the three-month mark. Is the baby okay?"

  The doctor smiled. "I did see your wife had an appointment coming up. She must have lost some weight too. Don't worry about it. You have triplets, by the way."

  Mo Qingchen choked. "W-what?"

  The doctor smiled. "We shall give the ultrasound pictures when your wife wakes up. Congratulations," the physician said.

  Mo Qingchen frowned. "But why isn't she awake yet? You have her on IVs and medication. Why isn't she waking up?"

  He gulped.

  "She has stabilized. The dehydration and exhaustion take time to recover. Some patients sleep for days after their first spell," he assured.

  "When will she wake up?" Qingchen asked in frustration.

  "It will take some time, Mr. Mo. Please patiently wait by your wife's side. She is doing really well. We are monitoring the babies, too. Don't worry about anything."

  He patted the worried husband on the back and went his way.

  Qingchen on the other hand, simply sat in the room, feeling numb as he read everything about the condition.

  Feeling constant nausea. Loss of appetite. Vomiting everything they ate or drank. Becoming dehydrated. Feeling dizzy and dazed. Losing five percent of weight instead of gaining.

  All the symptoms scared him. He felt like he was making it happen to her. That it was his fault.

  It would go on for all of her pregnancy and end when she gave birth. But her recovery period would be longer than others.

  As he dug into everything he could do to make her comfortable from the moment she woke up from her long sleep, he heard people enter the room.

  The phone felt weightless in his hands as he pressed his forehead into Qian Meng's hospital bed. He fought the bile rising in her throat. Outside, the birds chirped and the city kept moving.

  But everything was grey to him.

  Colorless, like death. She sucked in a pained gasp of air at the thought. He shot up and looked at Qian Meng's sleeping face. He checked the machines to make sure her heart was still breathing.

  "Brother, are you okay?" Mo Yize asked.

  "No."

  "I am sorry. That was a stupid question."

  "Nothing has color anymore, Yize." He fisted the material of his pants, fighting back the pain as it seeped into her bones. "It's just grey…"

  There was a long moment of silence. Mo Yize was at a loss of what to say.

  "It won't be like that forever. Once she wakes up, everything will go back to as it was," Yize assured.

  "You don't know that." Mo Qingchen had a strange feeling that everything wasn't as simple as the doctors made it out to be. He felt pangs of hopelessness now and then and he was sure she was slipping away.

  He couldn't sleep.

  He just couldn't sleep in fear that the moment he did, something bad would happen to her.

  "Even if you feel hopeless, I know it will get better. It has to!"

  Mo Qingchen turned to her sharply. "Would you feel the same way if your boyfriend… Li Jun… was where Qian Meng is right now?"

  The sharpness of her exhale said it all. The bite of his words had the effect he intended them to, like a knife to the gut. Like what he felt.

  "I'm sorry."

  "Isn't everyone?" Qingchen said dispassionately.

  Yize reached across to take his hand and he let her hold it despite how limp and lifeless it lay in her grasp. Silence stretched between them, meaningless matter to fill the voids of space that words couldn't.

  Their sympathy wasn't going to make Qian Meng better. And encouragement wasn't going to chase away the pain. It was all inevitable.

  "Dad called to ask for you again in the morning," Yize informed carefully.

  "Why? What else does he want to know? He knows everything that happened."

  Yize sighed. "I guess he wants to talk more about it… the pregnancy."

  "What's the point?"