Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and the situations all characters find themselves in. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!

Waiting For Answers

The hallway was a glaring white, Harry thinking in one corner of his brain that he ought to suggest to whoever was in charge that it be repainted in the near future. He was wearing his usually black tinted sunglasses, he only wore the eye patch when he absolutely had to, and even then the starkness of his surroundings made him close the one eye he had left. And in that darkness, without the lights to distract him, bloodstained images slid in like the sharpest of blades, plunging into his heart with skillful ease. Blades laced with poisons, impossible to escape as he pictured the images he'd seen on the screen of his tablet after Merlin had informed him that Eggsy had sustained life threatening injuries in Austria. Was being transported to a secret military hospital as a favor to them, because Eggsy had needed immediate surgery and every second would count.

According to Merlin Eggsy and Lancelot had been scouting alongside the target's winter retreat when Eggsy had unknowing stepped on false ground, snow that had clung to the actual side of the ravine and frozen up, giving the mistaken impression that one was a safe distance from the edge of the two hundred foot drop. The day had been warm, the ice had started to crack, and Eggsy had gone down with it, smashing into rocks and other forest debris with the snow providing little cushion before, thank God, Eggsy's coat had snagged on something, holding him in place when continuing down would have meant certain death.

Lancelot had seen the whole thing, her glasses recording everything including her screams and her horrified assumption that Eggsy was dead when she'd rappelled down to him, the boy's face and the snow around him bright red with blood, her partner unmoving and unresponsive. He'd had a pulse though, and Merlin had sent a copter for them while making the arrangements to get Eggsy the help he needed. Everything that could be done was being done.

The cruel irony that this had happened during the last mission Eggsy would ever perform as Galahad was not lost on Harry in the slightest. That this had happened because he'd just had to put his foot down and insist that Eggsy do this one last mission before throwing away all the hard work and good he'd done in the six years he'd been a Kingsman. He'd used Eggsy's friendship with Lancelot to guilt the boy into it, hoping that the mission would make the idiot reconsider quitting just because…just because he'd broken up with his former lover a little over two months ago. Had ended their relationship because he hadn't wanted to tie the much younger man to him, knowing how short their time together would be and wanting Eggsy to have the chance to find someone who wasn't old, crippled, and undeserving of the gift that was the most important person in the world to him. If Eggsy…if Eggsy died, then he'd denied them those two months they could have been together, had broken the boy's heart for no reason….

And here he'd honestly thought that he couldn't hate himself any more than he already did for the pain he'd put the love of his life through.

Feeling the weight of Merlin's hand on his shoulder didn't help in the slightest, though Harry was still grateful his friend had come with him. On Merlin's other side was Lancelot, the girl having hardly spoken a word since she'd last fought with the doctor that had insisted that the minor injuries she'd sustained in her hurry to get to Eggsy be dealt with. He'd had to order her to let the doctor do his job, and when she'd come back all she'd asked was if there was news before taking a seat to wait, like him, to find out what was going on.

Eggsy had been in surgery for eleven and a half hours.

)

It was three minutes before the clock would have signaled Eggsy's twelfth hour of surgery, the sound of footsteps reaching all their well-trained ears so that the three of them went from sitting to standing and facing the approaching target in a snap, ready to pounce like the super trained spies that they were. The lone man walking towards them showed no emotion on his face, though there was a hint of weariness to his eyes that had the three Kingsmen bracing for the worst even as Lancelot grabbed onto Merlin's hand and Merlin latched onto Harry's shoulder.

Speaking perfect English with only a hint of a German accent, the doctor got straight to the point. "He made it through the surgery."

"Oh thank God." Tears running down her cheeks Lancelot beamed at the doctor, Merlin echoing her sentiment while Harry just closed his eye and bowed his head a little, the muscles in his face working overtime as he tried to compose himself.

"When can we transport him home?" Merlin asked, his voice gruff with emotion.

"A week, possibly. Right now I'm having him put into quarantine. He came close to dying more than once on the table, and the fact that he did not miscarry was most unexpected, especially given the degree of injuries he sustained. I want both him and the fetuses stable before he goes anywhere. As it stands now he might still lose the one." The words were matter of fact, followed by the question of whether they wanted to review the list of the patient's injuries again and what had been done. He would of course provide the information for their records.

When the three just looked at him in stunned silence the doctor raised both brows. "English is not my first language, did I perhaps misspeak?"

"Did…did you say fetuses? As in babies?"

"Ah, yes, I see." The doctor gave Lancelot an understanding look. "This is why-you did not know he was pregnant. I wondered why that information was not passed on to us. Had he not briefly regained consciousness during prep, we would have been unaware and he would have most certainly lost them."

Since Harry appeared to have been struck dumb since the first mention of a miscarriage, Merlin blurted out what all three of them were thinking. "Galahad can't be pregnant. He's a male beta."

"No, he is an omega. Your file said he was a beta, but I have just spent hours with him cut open before me. He is an omega and thirteen weeks pregnant with twins." The doctor sounded like a teacher lecturing a slightly slow student.

"And I might not be a doctor, but I am an alpha. Galahad doesn't smell, act, or have heat cycles like an omega would. We would have bloody well noticed!"

The doctor gave Merlin a less than amused look. "And if you were a doctor, Sir, you would know that there are genetic defects, injuries, or hormone deficiencies that have led to some male omegas being misdiagnosed as betas. Did he receive proper and regular medical examinations as a youth?"

"No. He didn't." Harry's voice was hardly above a whisper, but the doctor had sharp ears.

"Ah, there we go. If what you say is true, then by the time he reached adulthood, his system would have stabilized enough that his true nature would not be obvious unless he was X-rayed. When he became aware of his true status, you will have to ask him. All he stated was that he was three months pregnant and then passed out again." The doctor's look softened, obviously picking up that they weren't just his patient's colleagues, but friends, too. "When he regained consciousness at all at that point, we knew we had a fighter on our hands, which is good." A pause. "I suggest you three find someplace to stay for the night and come back in the morning. You cannot visit, but we will put him somewhere where you can observe him through glass. Right now infection is the enemy."

Biting her bottom lip, Lancelot had to take a deep breath first. "You said…you said he might lose one of them?"

"Possibly. For now both are stable, but the right side of Mr. Galahad womb sustained damage that we've repaired. But the fetus is, again, only thirteen weeks, and death or damage to its future development is still a possibility at this point. We'll monitor it closely, and that must continue once he leaves." A stern look that said very bad things would happen if he wasn't obeyed. "Now I too need to turn in for the evening, it was a busy day before this and your compatriot will perhaps need me at my best again. So unless you have further questions that need answering now, I will bid you good night."

"I can't see him now?"

"No, I'm sorry." The doctor shook his head at Harry.

That being that the doctor again said good night before walking back the way he'd come, leaving them behind to stand there and try to process the facts.

"Well at least we know why he decided to quit now. It wasn't you." Merlin said softly to his friend. "He knew about the wee ones, that they'd be at risk."

Silence, then, "Why didn't he tell me?"

"He couldn't have known for that long." Lancelot finally volunteered after a long, awkward silence that had been filled with all the unspoken, obvious reasons why Eggsy wouldn't have wanted Harry to know he was pregnant. "He wouldn't have risked them that way."

"I can look into that. Check with the clinics in his area." Merlin put the offer out there, that being one of the few things he could do at the moment that might distract Harry from the trio of emotional bombs that had just gone off in the man's face.

"No. No…he and I will talk. When he's awake."

The fact that Eggsy had been avoiding Harry like the plague since the breakup went unsaid, but neither of his subordinates questioned whether the talk would take place or not as Harry turned and started walking in the direction of the exit without another word.

Because if Eggsy was three months pregnant, then the babies were unquestionably Harry's. And Harry was a man who'd survived over three decades in Kingsman, as well as being shot multiple times, one of those times in the head.

When Harry decided something…lord help anything or anyone that got in his way.

)

Eggsy went in and out of consciousness for the next fifty-two hours or so, vaguely aware of the voices and that he was being asked questions. To the best of his drugged ability he answered drowsily if he could find his voice and the words, otherwise Eggsy tuned them out if the pain was too much or he couldn't focus enough to understand what they were saying to him anyway. There was a feeling in his gut too, that there was something he needed to ask them back, but his head always seemed to start splitting or he'd lose consciousness every time the knowledge of that something seemed in his grasp. He also thought at times he heard Roxy, Merlin…and Harry speaking to him, but that was blurry too. Mostly because he didn't want to think about any of them given that he was leaving them permanently soon. Either by dying, because if he was in this much pain that had to be a possibility, or because he had to leave Kingsman if he lived. Had to leave Harry and…and…

It was when he finally remembered why he was leaving the Kingsman ranks that Eggsy started to struggle to actively regain consciousness, not caring that being awake and aware hurt like fucking hell because he remembered. Remembered that he was pregnant and if he'd been hurt then what about his baby? What about HJ?

"HJ?" To his own ears his voice sounded hoarse and raspy, but Eggsy repeated the question, frowning when the nurse responded with a confused look and what he took for German. He had to…God he must have scrambled his brains good. Of fucking course she wouldn't-

"Baby. Is baby all right?"

"Ah. I understand." The nurse's accent was heavy, but her English was decent. "The babies are doing well, yes."

"Babies…babies is plural, innit?"

"Yes. Twins."

Opening and closing his mouth, Eggsy didn't know what the hell to say to that, sucking on the straw she held out to him as she apparently misinterpreted his actions to mean he wanted water. Seriously, twins? Fucking hell!

Though after the month he'd been having, Eggsy supposed he should be used to having his world as he knew it blown up without warning. In the past two weeks he'd learned he was an omega, was pregnant, and that books about pregnancy and what to expect were more sodding traumatizing than seeing Harry shot in the head or seeing other people's heads explode like fireworks. And don't even get him started on the horror that was how much it costed to raise a kid in the twenty-first fucking century. It was bloody criminal was what it was. And now he was having twins. There was going to be another baby that he'd have to raise, financially support, and put through school on his own as a single parent. And he'd looked up how much post-secondary educations costed on the internet. Fuck!

"Sorry, HJ, TBA. Looks like you'll be workin to put yourselves through school if ya inherit your dad's brains." It hurt like a bitch, but Eggsy managed to lift the hand that wasn't casted and pat his still flat tummy in sympathy. Then winced, because that hurt too.

"HJ? TBA?"

Giving the nurse a rueful look, Eggsy explained that HJ was the first and middle initials of the baby he'd known about. TBA was To Be Announced when he came up with another one.

Smiling, the nurse congratulated him on having one name picked out. She'd had three kids, and her and her husband had still been arguing about the names well into her last month.

"Yeah, well, it probably helps that I'm the-oh fuck me. He knows."

Closing his eyes, Eggsy let his head fall back against his pillow, absently assuring the nurse that he was okay, just tired. Though he was most definitely not okay.

It would have been reported to Harry by now, that he was pregnant. Merlin would make sure that Harry knew. Which meant that odds were he hadn't imagine Harry's voice earlier, since Harry might not give a shite about him anymore, but there was no way Mr. Fucking Perfect Gentleman would so easily dismiss a child of his. Make that children of his.

Fuck

He'd been prepared to move his family to America, had already been shopping around online for a place just to avoid the possibility that Harry might find out he was up the duff. Now Harry knew, and this was going to fuck up all his plans, not to mention break his heart all over again since the bastard would probably propose the minute Harry judged him awake enough to understand what he was saying. Harry was old school, the fact that the man dinna want a husband or sprogs wouldn't matter. Doing the right thing would be all Harry cared about, damn him.

The idea of breaking himself out of the hospital and trying to disappear before he was sent back to England occurred to him, but Eggsy knew Harry well enough to know the alpha would hunt him down to the ends of the earth if he tried. And with Merlin helping him…yeah, he'd be lucky to get out of the country before Harry found him.

Restraining the urge to shake his head, that would probably hurt like a bitch, Eggsy asked how bad he was broke.

He'd suffered massive head trauma, they'd had to open him up, and his right lung had collapsed at some point. Apparently his left arm was broken in three places, as well as six broken ribs, eight cracked, and his nose had had to be reset. He also had a huge fucking gash on his right thigh that had needed lots of stiches, a shit ton of torn muscles, and he had cuts and bruises pretty much everywhere on his body, both inside and out. Fun.

Of course this was the moment the door to his room opened, bringing with it a smell that Eggsy's pregnancy heightened sense of smell recognized immediately. That it registered first as 'Mate', and then 'Harry', was just one more cross for him to bear.

His first instinct was to pretend to be unconscious, or in too much pain to talk, but then Eggsy caught sight of the alpha out of the corner of his eye and he forgot about being careful or trying to hide. Instead he turned his head faster than he should have, Eggsy biting back the groan of pain that wanted to escape his lips over that little bit of stupidity, and then he just stared in shock at the former epitome of an English gentleman in stunned silence.

Since getting shot in the head and then taking over the position of Arthur Harry had aged considerably. Where once the man had looked remarkably younger than his actual age, the last five years had changed all that in a fucking hurry and Eggsy had watched it happen. There was a fair amount of silver in that beautiful hair now, more lines dug into the face that he knew as well as his own. And since they'd spoken last, which would have been the day before he'd been sent out with Roxy, Eggsy thought the man looked to have aged another five years at least.

That Harry wasn't wearing his sunglasses was the biggest shock, the man hated for anyone to see the frankly horribly scarring and visible proof that there was no eye there anymore, period. There was a dark circle around Harry's one good eye now, and swelling too like Harry had allergies or had been…Eggsy couldn't finish that mental thought.

Eggsy had never broken the habit of being a total smart arse when he was feeling afraid or vulnerable, so he worked up a smirk for Harry rather than address the numerous elephants in the room with them. "What happen to a gentleman always being properly put together, eh? Looking a little rough around the edges today, Bruv."

Rather than comment or correct his language, which were the two reactions Eggsy had counted on getting, Harry just stared back at him and then closing the last bit of distance between them came to a stop beside his hospital bed.

And then Harry leaned down and buried his face against Eggsy's throat, still not saying a word.