Chapter Text
Daddy's flown across the ocean.
Leaving just a memory.
A snapshot in the family album.
Daddy, what else did you leave for me?
Daddy, what'd ya leave behind for me?
All in all it was, just a brick in the wall.
All in all it was, all just bricks in the wall.
~ Another Brick In The Wall, Part 1 - Pink Floyd
***********************************
The hospital reeked of stale air conditioning. Everything in the room was white. White walls. White lights. White sheets pulled tight over Jill Tuck’s shaking body.
John Kramer had long gotten used to being inside hospitals.
The aged man stood frozen just outside the delivery room for half a second too long; listening to Jill cry out somewhere inside. The sound cut through him instantly. Terrified.
A nurse moved in front of him quickly. “Sir, you need to wai-“
“My wife is in there.” The words came out sharper than he’d intended. No, they hadn’t remarried, but John certainly wasn’t going to explain himself to this random nurse.
The young woman hesitated just long enough for John to move past her.
The delivery room swallowed him in vivid noise. Machines beeped steadily beside the bed. Stainless steel instruments clinked together somewhere near the doctor’s hands. Rubber gloves snapped against skin. Everyone moved quickly without ever looking panicked. People trained to hide fear.
John Kramer recognized that kind of performance.
Jill looked up the second he entered. Her face was pale beneath the sweat. Damp strands of blonde hair clung to her forehead and neck. Her fingers twisted violently in the sheets every time another contraction hit.
“J-John-”
He crossed the room immediately and grabbed her hand. Her skin was ice cold.
“I’m here.”
Her fingers crushed his with extraordinary strength. “I’m scared, John. I’m so scared.” The words barely made it out of her.
He leaned closer automatically, brushing wet hair away from her face while the doctor spoke calmly somewhere near the foot of the bed.
‘Premature.’
That word had been echoing through the aged man’s skull for the past 30 minutes.
Too early.
Too small.
Too fragile.
John recalled this exact hospital: Where another child never got to cry.
For a second, the memories overlapped so violently, he almost couldn’t separate them: Jill screaming. Cecil’s face. Blood running across the floor. Their son never getting to experience life at all.
Kramer’s stomach tightened hard enough to hurt.
‘No. Not again.’
He looked away from Jill before the fear could show on his face.
The clock on the wall read 9:50 PM. He stared at it. The second hand moved with mechanical precision.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Order.
Meaning.
John’s philosophy consisted of believing that people spent their entire lives pretending coincidence was the default explanation for miracles. To him, they thought believing in ‘random suffering’ was easier than accepting that there just might be a purpose behind their pain.
But there are no coincidences.
Not to John Kramer.
Jill cried out again; dragging him out of his thoughts. One of the nurses coached her breathing softly while the doctor instructed her to push again. Jill shook her head weakly.
“I can’t-”
“Yes, you can.” John told her immediately. His voice sounded calm. Controlled. But inside, he was unraveling.
He could feel it physically. His pulse hammering beneath his ribs. The sick heaviness sitting low in his stomach. Fear crawling slowly beneath his skin like insects.
Helplessness is a horrible thing.
People imagine helplessness as weakness. John didn’t think so.
He thought it was standing in a room knowing there is absolutely nothing you can do except watch someone you love suffer and pray the outcome spares you this time.
Jill’s nails dug deeper into his hand. “Don’t let anything happen… please….”
The words nearly broke him.
He bent down and kissed her forehead quickly. “Nothing’s going to happen.”
A lie.
‘Necessary lies are okay.’ He tells himself.
***********************************
Jill Tuck sat with her swollen belly resting heavily in her lap, one hand moving in slow, protective circles over the curve. John sat across from her; watching her every movement with that intense, calculating gaze.
“I still like Scarlet.” Jill said, her voice quiet, but edged. She kept her eyes on her stomach; rubbing another slow circle as if the name itself could shield the child inside. “I think it’s so pretty.”
John shook his head and sighed, leaning forward slightly. “No. Not Scarlet anymore. We’ve been over this.”
The words dropped between them like a lock clicking shut. Jill’s hand stilled. Her fingers pressed harder into the tight skin of her belly as heat rose in her chest. They weren’t even remarried. He had no ring, no papers; yet he still spoke as if the decisions were his to make. I mean, I guess you could argue that as long as he held up his end of the bargain: Not knowing the baby’s sex until birth, so Jill could be surprised and John could plan less. The least she could let him do was name the kid. She was grateful that she got at least some say in her pregnancy this time around.
John continued in a lower, steadier tone. “We’re not carrying old names into this new season of our lives.” He paused, eyes flicking to Jill’s hand on her own stomach before returning to her face. John Kramer was never one to admit his superstitions, but Jill could take a hint. Especially after he’d refused to use the old baby crib he originally made for Gideon. He needed to make a new one. Everything needed to be fresh.
“If it’s a girl…” He continued. “I’d like Eden Jill Kramer.”
Jill’s breath caught. She pressed her lips together; fighting the way the name already felt right, already felt like it belonged.
John watched her closely, reading the subtle shift in her expression. “Eden: For the delight she’ll bring back into our lives. Our Paradise after the hell we’ve endured.” His voice steadied further. “And Jill… after her beautiful mother, of course.”
Jill hummed. She looked down at her belly again, feeling the baby shift under her palm. A reluctant, small smile tugged at the corner of her lips, even as her other hand clenched into a fist. She hated how easily he could do this: How he could take something away and replace it with something that felt better than she’d ever wanted to admit it was.
She let out a slow breath. “Eden Jill…” She murmured, testing the name aloud. It lingered warmly on her tongue. “That’s nice.”
John’s shoulders eased a fraction.
“And if it’s a boy?” She raised a curious eyebrow.
“Zavier Charles Kramer.” He answered without hesitation. “Zavier means ‘new house’. What else but a perfect metaphor for this new addition to our homelife? And Charles… after the boy I met in Mexico: Carlos. He was a warrior, that young man. He taught me so much about resilience.”
Jill nodded slowly, her hand resuming its gentle circles. The tension still hummed between them, but the names had finally settled over her heart.
“I like those…” She commented, almost to herself; as her fingers traced the curve of her stomach.
********************
The doctor’s voice sharpened suddenly. More movement around the bed. More urgency. The clock still read 9:50. John couldn’t stop looking at it.
Rebirth.
Transformation.
The old self dies so something new can emerge.
John was convinced the average human would never understand that transformation required suffering. They’d spent eternity avoiding pain, as if pain itself was ‘evil’. But to him, pain was revelation. Pain stripped people down to their most honest parts.
He looked at Jill again. And at that moment, she was nothing but honesty.
Fear. Hope. Love. Agony.
No masks left.
Then-
a sound split through the room.
A cry.
Thin. Furious.
Alive.
Everything stopped inside John.
The doctor laughed softly first. One of the nurses exhaled in relief. Jill collapsed backward against the pillow with a trembling sob escaping her lips.
“Congratulations. It’s a healthy, beautiful baby girl.” The doctor smiled.
Jill gasped immediately. “A girl?” She whispered again like she needed to hear it twice before believing it. “Oh my God, John… a little girl…”
The nurse wrapped the baby carefully before bringing her towards them. When she placed the child into Jill’s arms, something inside John’s chest tightened painfully.
She was impossibly small.
Her face was red from crying. Tiny fingers flexed weakly against the blanket near her chin. Her breathing came unevenly, little sharp pulls of air; furious at the sudden cold of the world
John looked down at her, and for a moment the rest of the room faded. Her tiny hand closed around his finger with surprising strength.
He glanced back at the clock, then to Jill; his expression a mixture of awe and calculation.
Jill was watching him carefully now. Emotional and overjoyed.
But uncertain too.
She knew her ex-husband well enough to recognize when his mind had gone somewhere deeper than the room they were standing in.
“She was born at the Hour of the Pig…” John finally admitted quietly.
The nurses continued moving around the couple; cleaning instruments and speaking softly to one another, but their voices sounded distant to them now. Muffled.
Jill’s expression shifted slightly. John looked at her.
“It’s not a coincidence, Jill.”
Silence stretched between the two for a moment.
Not hostile.
Just heavy.
Jill gave a small nod, eventually. He could tell she didn’t fully understand what he meant. Though, it was more likely than not that she understood enough to wish he hadn’t said those words at all.
He looked back down at his daughter.
His daughter.
The thought felt strange in his head. Dangerous, almost.
John lowered his head and gently kissed the baby’s warm forehead. “Hello, little one.” He whispered, his voice rough with emotion. “Welcome to the world.”
The newborn shifted slightly against Jill’s chest. John stepped closer to the bed as Jill let him reach out with trembling fingers to touch their daughter’s cheek.
John’s voice dropped as she weakly handed him the baby. “She’s perfect, Jill.”
After a moment, Jill moved slightly against the pillows; wincing a little before settling again.
“I can tell you’re thinking too hard.”
A small smile almost appeared on John’s face. “You know me so well.”
“I have to.” She smirked weakly. “You only get that look when something’s bothering you.”
Kramer stayed quiet.
She watched her ex-husband for another few seconds before speaking again.
“John.”
He finally looked at her fully. Her expression had changed. It was more vulnerable now. Not frightened, exactly. Just uncertain, in the gentle way people become after life changes permanently, and there’s no going back to the person they were yesterday.
“Are you okay with it?” She asked carefully.
“With what?”
Her eyes flicked toward the baby.
“With her being a girl…”
The question settled heavily into the room.
He stared at Jill for a moment without answering. Outside the room, footsteps passed slowly down the hallway. The baby shifted in John’s arms again, making a soft, little sound in her sleep.
Jill looked away briefly when he didn’t answer fast enough. “I know you wanted Gideon so badly.” She continued. “And after… everything…”
She stopped there.
Neither of them liked the idea of saying his name again in a hospital setting.
He looked back down at his new daughter. Tiny veins showed faintly beneath the skin near her eyelids. Her breathing became soft and uneven against John’s arm. Completely defenseless. Completely dependent on them for everything.
He realized then that Jill was waiting for reassurance.
Not about the baby.
About him.
About whether grief had ruined something in him permanently.
‘Maybe it had… I mean, shit, he is the infamous Jigsaw Killer, isn’t he?’
John leaned back slightly in the chair and studied baby Eden’s face again before answering.
“When I first saw her,” He admitted slowly. “I was afraid.”
Jill’s expression tightened almost immediately.
Bracing.
Kramer shook his head faintly before she could misunderstand. “Not because she’s a girl.”
The fluorescent lights hummed softly above them. He swallowed once. “I was afraid... because I loved her immediately.”
Jill blinked.
He looked toward the window across the room. Rain slid slowly down the dark glass outside, distorting the hospital parking lot into smears of red brake lights and shadow.
“That’s the problem with loving something.” He murmured. “The second it exists, you start imagining losing it.”
The younger blonde’s eyes softened.
For a moment; neither of them spoke again.
Then, she smiled tiredly and looked down at baby Eden curled against his chest. “She already has you wrapped around her finger.”
A quiet breath escaped John that almost sounded like a laugh.
The baby moved again then; tiny fingers uncurling from the blanket for half a second before closing again.
He suddenly met Jill’s eyes.
“Jill… I won’t be here to guide her for much longer. Not as I should.”
Jill’s face tightened with fresh pain.
“This cancer is getting worse.” He continued plainly, unflinching. “It’s moving faster. I feel it in every breath I take.” He looked down at Eden, then back to his ex-wife. “But I will stay as long as I can. She will learn the value of every choice. Every second she is given. I’ll make sure of that.”
Jill exhaled sharply, fighting back a sob. For once; there were no arguments. Only the fragile new life between them, and the man whose time was already running out.
A weak cough rattled through him. He steadied himself against the bed; refusing to show how much it cost him. He felt something break and mend inside his chest simultaneously .
“I am sorry,” He then whispered to the infant. “That I will not be the father who watches you grow. But you will know me through the lessons I leave behind. You will know… that life is a gift to be cherished.”
John kissed Eden’s forehead once more, then leaned down and pressed his lips to Jill’s. The weight of time cut deeper than any trap he had ever designed.
A baby girl had just entered the world.
And her father had already begun to leave it.