Tangled: From the universe of Wasnโt Love, Blondie
The reminders came despite Rapunzel's best efforts to hide them.
It was a slow development, so slow that for the briefest moment Eugene had allowed himself to hope that perhaps the doctor had been wrong in his diagnosis, or that Rapunzel would prove to be one of those cases where the outcome was rather positive. However, the doctor had been quite tragically right, and it was only a matter of time before what was already bad got worse.
It took days, even a couple of weeks, but over time Rapunzel's smiles became smaller and rarer, the light behind her eyes dimmed. Her rosy cheeks slowly lost their healthy color, her skin lost its glow, becoming sallow. Despite her still growing belly, her body became frail and thin, as though the baby was slowly absorbing what little energy remained in her.
It was becoming harder and harder for Eugene to pretend like it didn't kill him on the inside to see her like this, to bear witness to such a change without being able to do anything about it, see the darkness slowly creeping in, stealing all her light away and being unable to stop it.
It was ridiculous really, that she remained his rock despite her fragility, that he relied on her dwindling strength to keep himself from crumbling. As long as Rapunzel had even a morsel of energy to fight back, he would not break down.