All credits to their respective and rightful owners.

Description: Thirty-eight days after Hae Soo leaves the palace - her thoughts on when she realizes something.

Characters: Hae Soo/Go Ha Jin, Wang Jung (mentioned), Wang So (mentioned), Wang Yo (mentioned), Chae Ryung (mentioned), Wang Wook (mentioned), Princess Yeon Hwa (mentioned)

Cradled in her arms

It began a month after she had left the palace and moved into 14th Prince's residence. Thirty-eight days to be exact. Wang Jung had done everything in his power to make sure his new bride was comfortable and wanted for nothing. Hae Soo finally had been relinquished from the restraints of palace life that she had been in her for years. The new freedom felt almost alien to her. She had forgotten how to breathe and was now re-learning what fresh air felt like.

That was not to say that she was free of pain, oh no. Every day her heart was in anguish, aching for the one she loved and had left behind. The one who now probably hated her with every fibre of his being, probably as much as he had despised his elder brother Yo. Even now, miles away, his magnetic pull beckoned her to him. She wanted, so desperately wanted, to cradle him in her arms and protect him from the evils and hurt the throne would bring.

It was her fault. She had horribly misjudged him in the beginning, mistaking what she thought to be knowledge from her future, and contorted it so much that she had set off a chain of events without even realizing it. She had been so wrong thinking that her 4th Prince was capable of murdering his own brother whom he loved and in the end, it had been her who forced him to do it.

After he had killed Chae Ryung, Hae Soo blamed him for that too. It was at that moment that she had let go. There was too much blood, too much tears, too much tragedy, too much hurt for her to keep holding on. After the imperial physician told her about her poor health, she had been desperate to hold on for as long as she could but after her beloved's hands were stained with the blood of the one whom she saw as her little sister, she realized she no longer could.

So she let go. Let go of the person she loved most and never wanted to hurt again but had still dealt him a final blow when he learned about her past with the 8th Prince Wang Wook. Never mind that 4th Prince had owned her heart and soul and still did to this very moment. Her romance with 8th Prince was a betrayal that Wang So could not swallow or turn his face to. This added to 14th Prince's marriage appeal from the previous king, Wang So had also finally let go.

Thirty-eight days later, Hae Soo realized that she was carrying their child in her womb.

It should have dawned on her sooner, she thought as she sat at the water basin, absently wiping her mouth with a silk handkerchief. The bone-aching tiredness, the cramping stomach pains, the way she recently slept like the dead after years of insomnia, the violent nausea that came with any of her favourite dishes that Jung dangled in front of her – they all finally made sense. She had initially thought of it as more symptoms of her current illness, made worse by the separation and agonized longing.

Had she been Go Ha Jin in her own time period, she would have known. But she had spent so many years as Hae Soo that every day her life as Go Ha Jin faded a little more.

She never thought that she would get pregnant. Her failing health had made her think it was impossible and her moments with her 4th Prince too rare for such a phenomenon to occur. But it had happened.

At first, there was joy. Then, there was sadness as her So was not there to experience this moment with her. Suddenly, crippling fear banished any other feelings and lingered, anxiety mounting. She couldn't tell him about the baby.

How could she? Even if he was angry with her now, she knew he loved her still despite all the heartbreak she had caused him. This would be their baby and also his first royal child. If this baby was a son, he would fight to put their child on the throne. But how could she put her poor baby through that? She had seen up close how the bloody the succession battle for the throne was. Then there was Princess Yeon Hwa, or rather Queen Damok, who would never let her child live in peace. No, she couldn't tell him she was pregnant with their child.

But how could she hide it? Surely, the servants would notice an expanding waist and Hae Soo knew Wang So would have his spies in the household. Unless she asked Jung to accept the baby as his own. A baby that was born a few months early would not be that unusual.

She discarded that idea almost as quickly as it had come. She would never take advantage of 14th Prince's kindness like that nor could she let So believe his child was someone else's – that she would sleep with his younger brother and give him a child when she had not been able to do the same for him. That would further hurt him and she could not, would not, do that again. Wang So, in his pain, might even try something regrettable like harming her child out of spite for his brother and her. No, she couldn't do that at all.

There was only one option left and the very thought of it broke her heart. She would have to retire to a convent to pass her months of pregnancy in peace and once the baby was born, give her child to another family to raise. Hae Soo knew she could not raise the child – the suspicions about if the child was a royal heir alone made that impossible. She would not allow her baby into that cage that she had only recently been freed from. Never again, she promised silently to the new life growing within her. She would have to be strong for both of them now.

I will protect you, my little wolf.

A few months later, cradled in her arms was a precious baby girl. Ten perfect fingers, ten perfect toes. A smooth and tiny face with a pointed chin like her father. Big eyes like her mother. Keen intelligence and overwhelming charm in that smile.

Hae Soo never did get to see her child grow as she died shortly after the birth and Wang So never knew of their daughter. Neither of them would ever know that when their daughter was 4 years old, she would get lost in the woods and a wolf would protect her throughout the night before guiding her back to the village. When their child told the story to her adoptive parents, they would smile indulgently and shake their heads, forever referring to her as their wolf child, recounting the tale to her future in-laws even as she leaves their home to marry the neighbour's son.

Author's note: This is written before I see the final episodes. I accidentally saw a video titled "Hae Soo's daughter" which sparked my imagination and this was its product.