Hey, a quick update! You're welcome. ;)

Time passed by quickly once we came home two days after my birthday. Izhar made sure we went directly to my place before his parents' since Sabr had made him promise he would bring me without delay. I was swarmed with hugs, kisses, and gifts. One of Zarha Bhabi's presents had made Izhar chuckle and blush deeply as red as sun-dried tomatoes. Aside from the accessories she'd bought for me and our home, I had received two cute customized pillows. Though what was written on them was quite the catch. The pillows were similar but one had a crown that said King of the Bed, and the other had a tiara with sewed in rhinestones that said Queen of the House. I had hugged mine tightly and looked over at Izhar who thought of countless escape routes.

Once he gotten me alone as everyone prepared lunch for us, he hugged me from behind and whispered things in my ear that made my heart burst sporadically.

Bhaiya had cleared his throat from the French doors that opened into the kitchen, and we had jumped out of the embrace. Izhar scratched the back of his neck and smiled nervously while I covered my rosy cheeks with the thick curtain of my hair and ran into the bathroom. The kitchen not being an option unless I wanted to get teased even further.

His family greeted me with as much happiness and eagerness as mine had and showered me with more presents. I had declined politely, but they had insisted nonetheless reminding me they had the privilege of spoiling me as well. How I managed to get another loving family was beyond me, and I couldn't be more thankful to Allah.

As time passed from sunrise to sunset and the colors of the sky changed from hot to cool, the days passed to weeks and then months. Before we knew it, Izhar and I had been married for about six months. We were busy with our work when we weren't home, and there were days we rarely saw each other since our work demanded so much of our time. However, we made the most of every moment we spent together. No, we didn't always have perfect days. Yet, we learned to accept that it only made our relationship stronger. We'd get frustrated with one another only because we craved the other's presence, but it only made us more close and affectionate. Time passed like a shooting star, but we were uncannily worried about what our future would bring us.

******

I smiled down at the white carnation that I had bought for Ms. Samantha, the 80 year old geriatric patient with Alzheimer's. I saw her about three days ago and before I left the shift, she had asked me to bring her a pure white carnation the next time I came to visit. I asked her if there was a reason why she asked for white instead of all the other colors and she'd said, "I want to reach purity, and I feel as if the white carnation will be a reminder of the good things I have done in life. Maybe it will help my heart be free of the bad things I've entranced."

She had been doing better lately. Since I had come back from the trip, I made sure to visit her whenever I had a shift and leave a different colored carnation each time though I rarely had a rotation there.

As I turned to the left, heading to her room on the second floor of the geriatric ward, I noticed it was unnaturally quiet. The nurses and doctors who passed me on the floor looked at me with sad faces. I looked around in confusion and quickened my steps to her room. A needle deep in my heart told me something bad had happened, but I wasn't ready to accept it.

The door to her room was wide open and the evening sun streamed rays of light outside of the door. I put an arm on the side of the door and gently swung in to be met with a young boy in gray scrubs stripping down the hospital bed and tugging on new fresh linen sheets. The cards made by the kids in the pediatric ward for the geriatric patients lay flat on the wooden table instead of standing up. The many frames around the shelves were nowhere to be seen. And the white crystal vase that was filled with all the carnations I had brought for the past six months was still filled to the rim. Not one carnation had been touched, and some were starting to burn under the sun, some wilted at the base of the head, and others stood straight.

The young boy looked up at me with dread etched in his face and loss written in his eyes. He slowly shook his head and looked away unable to meet my saddened gaze.

She was gone.

The carnation I held tight in my palm fell to the floor. I covered my mouth as a sob erupted at the back of my throat.

I tried to mask my emotions and bent to pick up the flower. I brushed my fingers over it and got up to walk to the vase. I kissed it and tucked it in the middle of the flower bed and gently ran my hand over all of them.

"Please make sure these get delivered to her grave," I said.

The boy heard my quiet voice and nodded as tears threatened to spill before his eyes mirroring mine.

Before I could break in front of him or someone else, I ran down the hall to the women's restroom. I locked myself in a stall and slid down the door to the floor. As much as I reminded myself to not get close each time I was getting fond of a patient, I failed when it was someone I saw so frequently and cared for continuously.

I muffled my sobs with the sleeves of the shirt I wore under my lilac scrubs. I had to get myself back together before I lost it again during another rotation. I had half an hour left, and I had to pull myself through.

******

"Nouran habibi, you have to eat something," Bhabi said.

I shook my head and snuggled my head closer to her stomach. I kissed it and touched it softly, pretending to communicate with my future niece and nephew.

We found out that she was expecting twins insha'Allah; a boy and a girl. The excitement of the family had soared through the roof. She was due in a few weeks and the nursery needed just a few touchups here and there. Bhaiya and Bhabi weren't allowed to see it till they brought home the babies since it was supposed to be a surprise.

After my shift was over, I called Izhar and told him I was coming to Mama's because I was feeling so horrible about everything. One would think that being in a medical profession for quite sometime would give him/her plenty of time to get used to sudden tragedies including death. However, until you actually went through it, you'd never truly understand how hard it really was.

Izhar hadn't questioned me and never asked me when I would come home. On the contrary, he told me he'd come here after work and eat dinner with my family. He wasn't the type of person to mingle and associate with people quickly even though he was polite. Our marriage had changed him in ways his parents and sisters noticed, and they assured me they were good changes. Izhar cared for my family as his own, and it made my heart swell even more.

"Nourie! Come on. How long are you going to stay like this? You've been over for three hours and haven't eaten anything other than a peach," Bhabi scolded.

"I had breakfast," I murmured.

"Was Izhar home this morning when you left?" she asked pointedly.

"No."

"Then I know for sure you probably only had a cup of coffee!" she iterated.

My family knew me too well for me to get away with anything.

"Bhabi please. I have a headache," I whined.

"Of course you do. You worked a 13 hour shift and are running only on coffee!" she scolded some more.

I sighed heavily and shut my eyes trying to block her voice. Each sound was like a hammer hitting my corpus callosum.

Bhabi muttered something under her breath along the lines of two more child to take care of. She wove her fingers down my silky locks and I slowly felt myself slip into slumber. I don't know if I had actually fallen asleep, but was awaken from tranquility with a knock on my door. It was probably a lot softer than how I registered it to be a loud thunder vibrating throughout my entire bedroom.

I opened my blurry eyes and Sabr stood by the door, holding the doorknob in one hand, a smile twitching its way on her face.

"Izhar Bhaiya's here!" she smiled.

Sabr creaked the door open a bit more. Izhar stood right behind her, a small smile grazing his lips.

Bhabi looked down at me in her lap and stroked my hair once more. "I'm gonna go help Mama with dinner," she said.

I slowly sat up on my bed even though I didn't want her to go, and Sabr came to help her walk down the stairs. As they walked out of my bedroom, Izhar and Bhabi greeted each other fondly.

Bhabi and Sabr looked back into the room and winked at me while giving me a thumbs up. They closed the door behind them and Izhar made his way to me. His hands were in the front pockets of his pants, sleeves rolled up hastily to his elbows, tie dispersed somewhere, and hair wild and heartbreakingly messy on his head. Just the way I liked it.

"Hey," he said.

"AsSalaamualaikum." My voice cracked at the end, and the tears dripped down to my lap.

"Walaikum asSalaam wa Rahmatullah." he answered harmoniously.

He quickly made his way to me and grasped me in a tight embrace. I clutched his neck in my arms and the tears pooled in the curve of his neck. He didn't say a word and let me cry until I felt lighter. Once the sobs subsided to quiet tears, he picked me up not breaking our hold on each other and sat on the bed with me in his lap. My legs were wrapped on either side of his waist and I faced the headboard of my bed.

After a few moments of utter silence I loosened my grip on him and leaned back enough to look into his eyes.

"I'm sorry. I lost it for awhile, and I shouldn't have-" Izhar put a finger to my lips before I could continue.

"Hey, don't be sorry okay?" he peered into my eyes.

"It's all my fault. I know not to get too close to patients, but sometimes it just slips my mind," I croaked.

"It's not your fault that you get attached. It's common! Your caring and loving personality never wants to leave one without help. And you did help her. Even though she didn't remember you every time she saw you, you helped jog the memories that stuck with her. She may not have been able to recall you with her eyes, but her heart was accustomed to you, and she knew who you were. You brought her carnations, and that's something that's deep within her."

Izhar and I always shared how our day at work had been, and I always had more stories than he had. But he never complained when I would rant about a patient, a fellow staff member, or a policy. He would listen animatedly and make fun of how caught up I was with my work. I had told him all the things Ms. Samantha and I had talked about and all the stories she shared with me.

She may not have remembered much, but she told me her eternal love story. She met her husband at a coalition she was volunteering at. Ms. Samantha was a young 23 year old, and he was a lot older. His pure white hair had struck her and she wanted to know more about him than she ever wanted to know about anyone else. She described him looking like a dramatic Italian cavalry officer. She became pregnant with her son in two weeks and was madly in love with the mysterious man. Her husband was starting to die from the tumor in his brain that interfered with his memory almost instantly. As he started to lose it rapidly, he told sufficient and theatrical stories of the war. He had been alive when the Nazi's were trying to take over Germany. Being a Jewish himself, he reminisced their last few years together setting facts he lived into reality. Ms. Samantha's husband died before she turned 30 and her son got into a car crash when he was 27.

Her story was devastating but beautiful at the same time. She didn't believe in Al-Mutakabbir till her husband had told her all the gruesome stories. He brought a new light to her life and she knew for someone like him to come into her life, there must've been a force greater than anything else in the world behind it, and she could only define the force as God.

The most beautiful part of her story was when she explained what the carnation meant to her. Her husband would bring her one each time they met each other after their first meeting and made a garden filled with them once they married. When she asked him why he brought her carnations instead of roses, he said something along the lines of the carnation dating back to over 2,000 years. In Greek and Latin history, the incarnation refers to "God-made flesh". He always reminded her that if not anything, to always remember that God had made him and her. Without God's creation, they would be nothing.

The way Ms. Samantha's memory worked was astonishing since she had Alzheimer's. Music and pictures were her main triggers. Her music therapy had helped her induce memories that were bound with her husband.

"I never got to deliver the white carnation she asked me to bring," I whispered.

Izhar kissed my forehead and rubbed his hands against my collarbone sparking goosebumps on my skin. "She'll have more than she could ever dream of insha'Allah."

"Insha'Allah," I prayed.

I fell back into his embrace and let his heartbeat lull me into peace. We stayed like that till Mama called us down for lunch. We got up, and I put on my black-framed glasses that I had placed on my side table. I wore them when I had severe headaches, and today was a must.

"You look cute," Izhar scrunched his nose at me.

I gently smiled and let him take my hand in his as we went downstairs. Without Allah, we wouldn't be anything.

******

I quickly put the dishes in the drying rack next to the stainless steel sink and scrubbed my hands with soap. I gasped as something pricked my lower abdomen and bent over the black marble countertop.

Ya Allah, please don't tell me this is happening!

I wiped my hands on the kitchen towel placed on the door of the cabinet under the sink and clutched my stomach in my hands. As if it would ease away all the pain! My TOM (Time of the Month) had been somewhat normal for the past ten months, and the episodes hadn't occurred for seven months now. Seven months was before I was married, and I dreaded Izhar finding me in such a horrendous condition.

I quickly ran upstairs still hunched over my waist and flung myself over the bed. I had managed to get to the bedroom without fainting in the hallway or falling down the stairs. I sent prayers up to Allah, wishing it to go away and for the pain to merely be a tease and not an actual attack.

Please not an episode! I hated the episodes with a burning passion. No one and nothing could help me or ease the pain.

I laid on the bed for over half an hour with my eyes closed and arms securely wrapped around my waist, but the pain wouldn't go away. Instead, the pain only got worse. I tried to balance the fragile glass box that was in my pelvic region, praying that it wouldn't tip over or break. The strangled screams tried to break free from within my body, and I was blazing hot one moment and then freezing cold the next.

I tried not to scream but my emotions got the worse half of my actions. I let out an involuntary shriek at the top of my lungs as hot tears ripped my face apart. I thrashed on the bed and scratched my stomach cursing the glass box inside. I couldn't do anything anymore because it was already broken and had shattered into billions of pieces. Each piece cut, stabbed, pierced, punctured, and skewered its way out leaving me breathless.

One minute I grabbed my hair and the other, I pushed my stomach down trying to end the pain. It was unbearable and I was losing the fight to remain harmless. I screamed unknowingly and pulled at my clothes. It was hot again, and my skin was overpoweringly clammy. My clothes stuck to my skin like another layer of dermis. I peeled at it and tugged it free. The screams stopped, and I heaved as my head lolled to the edge of the bed. I swallowed air into my dry throat and for a second, just a second, I felt at peace. No, the nagging pain in my lower abdomen had not stopped, but the cold had sufficed over my body.

I was in nothing but my underwear, tank top, and jeans. I relished the cold till it came back twice as harder than I could comprehend. My fingers felt like they were about to fall off from frostbite, and my naked skin was hard as ice. I struggled to pull the blanket free from underneath me and cover myself with it.

I cried silent tears of mercy and asked Allah, why me? My tears did nothing, and it felt as if my prayers didn't do anything as well. Suddenly, there was a lighting-fast pang in my pelvic region, and I let out the loudest cry yet. I bit my bottom lip till I could feel the blood starting to ooze out and drip down my chin and into the curve of my jaw.

I was dying.

Nour darling? Nouran?

His voice... Izhar's voice echoed in my ears and pleaded for me to not surrender to oblivion. I tried to hold onto the dream but the sound was almost hurtful for me to hold on to.

"Nouran!?" Izhar yelled in a booming voice.

No! Could it be really him? But he was at work.

I opened my eyes, and they burned as each eyelash separated itself from the other. Izhar's shadow stood a few painful feet away from me. He was so beautiful, just like the epitome of an angel. A soft white glow traced his silhouette, and his hair seemed fluffy and pristine.

"Nouran hayati." He fell to his knees on the floor by my head.

I painfully smiled as my face cracked from the fresh and old, dry tears that coated the bottom half of my face. "Izhar?"

Was he crying?

I touched his face with my right hand and kept my left on my stomach. He kissed my cheek and grabbed my hand in his.

"You're going to be okay insha'Allah. We're going to the hospital, okay?" He said it more to himself than to me.

I looked at him in confusion, and he easily picked me up in his arms, the blanket tightly wrapped around me. He hadn't even asked what happened. He cared for my betterment, and formalities did nothing to ease his stress anyway.

"Izhar, I'll be okay," I faintly whispered.

He placed a chaste kiss on both my cheeks. His tears mixed with mine as his face brushed my cheekbones. The rhythm of his steps pulled me into darkness, and I could slowly feel myself drift away.

"Nour, stay with me! Please Nouran!" he shook me and whisper-yelled into my ear.

I tsked, annoyed with the disturbance that pulled me away from peace. With my eyes closed, I moved my mouth to his neck.

"Izhar?" I sleepily called.

The pain had subsided to a annoying nag, but my whole body was sore.

"Yes, darling?"

"I love you," I whimpered in a hushed voice.

"I love you too hayati," he cried into my hair after what felt like eternity.

And then there was nothing but darkness, nothing but oblivion.

I know it was a short chapter. Please don't kill me! *covers her face and says: Remember I updated two days in a row?, and then runs for her life*

Hey, psht. Yeah you, Nouran is describing the pain metaphorically with a glass box. There isn't an actual glass box inside of her if any of you where wondering. Oh, and don't forget to click the star if you enjoyed the chapter. ♡

Okay, bye!