Gilbert Nightray had come to the conclusion that there was no denying the fact that there was definitely something wrong with his lover's usually slim figure, and it surely wasn't all the cake he had been eating, even if the number of deserts he had eaten over the past few weeks had increased dramatically. It wasn't just his figure that was estranged either, but his attitude, even in bed, normally snippy and sarcastic, was getting a little bit out of hand.

Lady Sharon agreed as well that Xerxes Break's behavior was becoming odder and odder as the days went on, even by his standards.

There were things that Lady Sharon didn't know, however, that were bothering Gilbert more and more. Things that happened more in the bedroom than anywhere else. When they had started their little relationship, or mutual relief of stress as Break would refer to it as, during the ten years that Oz had been away, Xerxes wouldn't budge on the full removal of his clothes, being cautious about the seal that remained from his illegal contracting days as the Red Eyed Ghost. As soon as the word love had been mentioned, however, Break was quick to get them both undressed completely in no time flat, not being bothered, after a long period of time, that Gilbert would see the scar of his days as a murderer.

Recently, though, it was like things had taken a step backwards and Gilbert wasn't sure if he should be worried about his lover falling out with him, or if it was just Break's declining physical status. The last time they were in bed together, Break had been quick to pin Gil's wrists above his head and ride him when the Nightray started to undress his him. It had taken ages, more like a couple hours, after that for Gilbert to calm Break down enough to get the man to admit he was just feeling a little self-conscious. The lie on his lips was almost as white as his skin, but Gilbert knew his lover better than Break thought he did.

To top it all off, Break had been completely avoiding Gilbert in the daytime, dodging corners and flitting around the Rainsworth mansion like a flighty maiden avoiding his brother Vincent at a ball.*

Currently, Gilbert was trying to track down the red eyed man and also trying to dispel wherever in his mind that terrible analogy had come from. It was starting to really worry him that Break had stopped talking to him in the day time, even if it was just a passing mention in the hallways, but he had even started skipping out on tea, something completely unlike the Hatter.

Gilbert had checked just about everywhere in the mansion's hallways and servant quarters before he finally find a bundled up mess of purple silk shirt and lavender hair but... it was shaking. At first, Gilbert's initial thought was that the clown had pulled a prank on one of his fellow staff members, perhaps Oz or the stupid rabbit, maybe even made a passing mention of Sharon's love life, and was laughing it off while hiding in the hallways. A better look at his lover, and Gilbert realized that the shaking was not of joy, but the man was actually sobbing.

"There you are..." Gilbert muttered, kneeling down to Break's level. "I've been looking everywhere for you, I hope you know-"

"Don't come near me!" Xerxes' head shot up, a most hateful glare coming from his single red eye that was wet with tears. His face was stained with tracts of his crying. Gilbert realized that Break had been at this for a while, probably hiding in such a remote corner of the mansion in fear of someone coming across him, of all people, in tears.

The Hatter's normally red eye, and even his left socket that had been partially uncovered in his fragile state, was rimmed with red from tears and rubbing, and when Gilbert made a motion to help his lover up, once again, Break protested, shoving himself away from the Nightray. "I said get away! I don't want you seeing me like this!" A sob hitched the words in his throat, and once again, the man hid his face in his arms, propped up against his knees, and gave a violent sob, returning to his tears in hopes that ignoring Gilbert would make him go away.

"Xerxes..." The raven haired man muttered to his lover, sitting down next to him and pulling the crying figure into his lap. He wrapped his arms around Break before speaking, hushing his tones so that he wouldn't sound as harsh. "What on Earth would make you think that I would possibly ridicule you or hold your tears against you?" Gilbert pressed his lips to the top of Break's head, rubbing his shoulders gently, trying to calm down the sobbing Hatter. "Now why don't you calm down and tell me what's been bothering you?"

"No." The usually stubborn Break seemed more impassive than ever now, and though Gilbert wanted to release and exhausted sigh, he could not, in fear of cracking the already fragile state of his lover. Instead, the Nightray opted to continue soothing the lavender haired mess in his arms, hoping that Break would sooner or later calm down enough to talk to him.

The minutes that passed before Break calmed down enough to just shaking whimpers seemed, to Gilbert, like hours. He did, however, finally speak once he had reduced himself to little more than a shaking mess. "Let me go, Gilbert..."

"No," The Raven muttered, just as stubbornly as Break had, before him. "I will not let you go until you tell me what has been going on. Why are you avoiding me, Break?"

"Because, you idiot!" Break nearly shouted, before he collected himself enough again to quiet himself down. When he spoke again his voice was barely above a whisper, so much so that Gilbert had to practically strain his ears to hear what the Hatter was saying. "I'm pregnant..." Break left his lover with little time to process the information before he was, once again, thrown into a fit of tears, this time against the Nightray's chest.

Much to Break's protests, Gilbert had finally gotten the Hatter out of the hallway and into his bedroom, calmed down enough to finally explain what he had said before bursting back into tears. Gilbert laid Break down onto his bed, on his back, before crawling in next to him and lying on his side, head propped up by one arm, the other hand resting on Break's shaped out stomach.

The Nightray, bemused as ever, had listened to Break's explanation several times before he just couldn't take it any more. "Slower, this time, Break." He muttered, running his thumb in circles over the patch of skin that shone just below Break's shirt. "Repeat it to me again..." He muttered, staring dumbly at where his hand rested.

"I told you a thousand times already..." Xerxes mumbled, head resting on Gilbert's shoulder, eye barely concentrating on the shape of the hand on his belly. "I don't quite know how it happened, but I suspect that... when I went through the Abyss all those years ago something just... changed. You know as well as I do that that place changes people, mentally and physically. While it took no time at all for the mental change to be noticed, the physical change, something that I hadn't rightfully experimented with until just recently, took longer."

"So you're saying that when you went into the Abyss, before you were the contractor to Mad Hatter, when the Will took out your eye..." Gilbert's hand froze when the smaller man flinched away from his words. "You grew a womb, then, too?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying, Gilbert." Xerxes muttered, a little more coolly than he would have, had Gilbert not mentioned the Will and his precious left eye.

"And that, after all of those years you were sexually inactive until now, and you've gotten pregnant with... my child?" The words felt strange on Gilbert's tongue, but he let them slip out anyway, feeling that, however strange this circumstance was, he would have to get used to saying them anyway.

"Clearly, that's what's happening." Break didn't want to repeat himself again but he was prepared to, in the case that Gilbert, innocent as he always was, would continue having such a hard time accepting what Break had already come to terms with.

Gilbert's expression was blank as he returned his thumb to the patch of skin on Break's belly, rubbing little circles into the milky white skin. He stared at the patch, thinking a thousand times over again that he was going to be a father, the father of a child that was developing in the man that he loved.

It was several months into Break's pregnancy before anyone besides Gilbert really knew about the situation. Everyone had known that the Hatter had been acting strangely, and although they were more likely to admit that even Gilbert looked like he was up to something, no one knew that the two strange behaviors of two of Pandora's top operatives were related to each other at all.

Lady Sharon, naturally, was the first one that figured it out. By 'figuring it out' of course, Break had told her, no longer being able to hide it from his Lady, how he would no longer be able to tend to her constantly as he had before. He had intended the meeting to be about how she needed someone else to take care of her while he was in his current state, but the discussion had taken a completely drastic turn from it's course when the Lady began to discuss, instead, details about the child. Gilbert, really, didn't know how it would come to such a surprise to Break, with how many romance novels the Lady read, and how headstrong she was about feminism.

The next to know was Liam, but this, unlike the meeting with Sharon, was a complete mistake.

Xerxes, in his stages of pregnancies, had not been keeping up with his Pandora work, no matter how much Gilbert tried his best to help him with it and stall Liam off until the last minute. The Barma servant could not wait, however, as Pandora members were strongly emphasizing that the work that Break had needed to be completed. When Liam stumbled upon the scene of Gilbert and Break in bed, the smaller man's head resting against the Raven's chest, while Gilbert brushed back Break's lavender hair with one hand, the other resting on the bump that had rounded into a belly that was healthily pregnant, an explanation was in order. Needless to say, Liam accepted the truth much less gracefully than Lady Sharon had, but was still willing to help Break as he needed, and that included helping with his paperwork.

No one planned to tell Oz or Alice, or especially Vincent Nightray.

When the time came, however, for the baby to come, no one would have thought that Vincent could have been so handy after having carved up all of those stuffed animals.

Gilbert paced the hallway in front of Break's room, listening intently to Vincent muttering himself, putting as much trust as he could in his younger brother to not hurt Break. He knew not how sturdy that amount of trust was, but the skills in narcotics that his younger brother apparently had and the strangely vast knowledge of human anatomy that he possessed, Vincent sounded like he knew what he was doing, so Gilbert had no room to question.

It seemed like hours had passed, and Gilbert was surely feeling the weight of time on his shoulders, as he had ceased his pacing and slumped down on the wall opposite Break's door, before Vincent emerged from the room, blood coating his clothes, and an infant, wrapped in a thin blue cloth, in his arms.

"You'll be happy to know," Vincent said, looking down to his brother. "That it doesn't have red eyes." Vincent waited for his brother to stand before handing over the infant over with a mild look of disgust, awe at the miracle of life just hidden behind his dislike for Xerxes Break.

As surprised as he was to hold the crying bundle, no relief at all came from Vincent's words or the baby in his arms. "Is Break alright?" Gilbert asked, doing his best to support the child's head in the crook of his arm. He had never held a child before, not even little Ada when he was younger and still a servant in the Vessalius manor. He would not feel relief until he knew that Break was awake, living, that Vincent had not done anything to harm him in his vulnerable state.

"Yes, yes, the Hatter is fine." Vincent scoffed, rolling his mismatched eyes. "Honestly how you could love him..." He sighed and shook his head. "Either way, I knew that hurting him would hurt you, and I did this for you, brother, not for anyone else." He sneered, looking down at the infant. "You're just lucky the thing looks like you, and not him." He laughed once, and waved his hand, turning to leave. "Either way, he should be waking up soon, Dormouse shouldn't have his hold any longer and the narcotics will wear off shortly after he wakes."

Gilbert would be angry that his brother had undergone all of that while his chain was out, knowing the little control over it that Vincent had, but everything in the room appeared to be fine when Vincent left to get cleaned up and Gilbert was joined at Break's side by Sharon and Liam.

"What are you going to name him?" Sharon asked quietly, poking at the baby boy's hand and letting him grasp at it, a smile wide on her face.

"Brett," No one had noticed Break open his eyes, they were all so focused on the child. He sat up unsteadily in his bed, hair plastered to his cheeks, a smile spreading across his face. He looked up at Gilbert and they shared a long, knowing glance. "We agreed to name him Brett."

*credit completely goes to my friend Ellie, flick knife, for that lovely fucking sentence