Disclaimer: I do not own the characters appearing in this story nor am I making profit out of this. This story is written entirely for fun.
Author's notice: I would like to thank my wonderful beta, Freya. First of all, for showing interest in my story. Secondly, for betaing it. And finally, for doing a wonderful job.
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It was the fourth night in a row that sleep had eluded Jansen. He had tried laying on his stomach, his back and both sides but the dreamworld hadn't opened its gates. He knew that he would fall asleep eventually but only catch a few good hours before waking up to his kingly duties again. Not that he minded his duties, of course. After he married Ming his life had taken a turn for better. No more did he stay in a bar until the lights went out and find himself with three ladies of the night. Had he been told of this 'change' the morning he joined Kaim and Seth on their quest he would've denied the possibility of it ever happening. But now...now the sound of Ming's soft breathing beside him was enough.
He lay back on the bed knowing that his mind, no matter how he tried to close his eyes and drift off, would not allow him rest. Yesterday there had been worry in Ming's eyes when he finally crawled out of the bed. She had noticed his tired, somewhat glassy gaze and the bags that were slowly but steadily forming under his eyes. She said no more of it but kept on giving him glances laced with worry throughout the day, and Jansen half-wondered if she was planning on giving him a sleeping draught or simply use her magic. But she hadn't. She had drifted off to sleep as if nothing in the world was wrong - no worries, no fears.
Jansen hadn't had either of them a week ago. And then, just some nights ago, he had found out he was going to be a dad. She had told him like it was the most normal thing to happen...perhaps it was; even he thought so in the beginning. The first of the four nights there had been only one word going through his mind: Wow. It was the word that kept him up all night and when Ming woke she found him still staring at the ceiling. The second night was worse - Jansen began picturing himself as a dad. Cooke and Mack were his closest experiences to being around children and, truth be told, he hadn't done that well. Near the end of their quest for Gongora he had even stopped counting the number of kicks Cooke'd given him. And Mack...was Mack. Gohtza came to mind next - Jansen remembered his part in Sarah and Kaim's grandchildren stealing a train and going to look for their mother, and how it had lead up to the frozen train tracks and the children nearly freezing to death. And he had had a hand in all of it.
The third night brought the worries - was he good enough a person to be a dad? There were times when he lost his self-control and said things he didn't mean - or didn't think he meant. The kid would learn to swear before it learned to walk. What kind of an example would he be to his own kid? Would the kid sometime in his or her adulthood tell him they'd been better off without a dad? Jansen himself had never known his own dad and his mom had told him only a thing or two about the mystery man. He was supposedly brave, handsome and all the like. Why he had left her, Jansen's mom never shared. He didn't even know if his dad was still alive.
This night it was worse - it was time for the fears. Even when he married Ming, Jansen knew she was going to outlive him. She was going to watch him grow old, get sick and die. It was easy now, three years into their marriage, for her to say that she would not mind but what about when he was fifty...or sixty? What about when his hair faded in colour and he got those old-man's eyebrows? Would he be an ugly old man? Was there any other kind of old man? What about the kid? Jansen wasn't going to be there to see it waste away, to see the light of its eyes slowly fade until nothing but a dim spark remained. He couldn't understand how Ming was able to do it. He had seen how losing a child could break a woman. It had robbed Sarah of her memory, leaving her wallowing in guilt. And Kaim...it hadn't served him any better. The first time Jansen wasn't around to witness the pain of the loss, but he was there for the second time. And somehow, even though he should've felt he was intruding, he didn't. If anything, he felt an affinity.
It was all of these thoughts that kept him awake now, even though he should've been sleeping blissfully for quite a few hours already. Jansen was sure that no one else in Numara was still awake - apart from those weird dock worker guys who had, for some strange reason, chosen a night job. And the thieves that searched for an easy mark. Or maybe even they had gone to bed already. He corrected himself - anyone who had the choice of sleeping through the night was probably asleep by now. And he, the King of Numara, lay there thinking of things he knew would eventually drown him in a well of guilt.