London. St. Mary's Hospital, Lindo Wing. 6:15am.
Why did I ever bloody put myself through this, Princess Eleanor wondered to herself. She had been in labor for the past 9 hours surrounded by her two nurses, Susan and Tracey. They talked to her in soft, high-pitched tones as is she were a five year old and she had resisted the urge to smack them multiple times throughout the night. She heard that awful noise from Tracey's heinous sneakers coming around the corner into her room and felt herself well up with anger inside.
"Your highness, you have a visitor", Tracey said from the doorframe.
"Who." Princess Eleanor said, not taking her eyes off of her newborn baby's full head of dark hair.
"Her Royal Highness, Princess Gemma" Tracey announced, looking at the ceiling obviously racking her brain to be sure she didn't mispronounce the long and obnoxious title.
"Right then. She can come in". Eleanor said, still not looking at Tracey. She could hear the clacking of Gemma's heels coming towards her hospital room.
"Knock, knock" Gemma said, pulling her glossy lips into smile. She sat herself down at the end of Eleanor's hospital bed.
"Well finally someone shows up" Eleanor said, cocking her head with annoyance, peering her eyes.
"Am I the first?" Gemma said looking around before adding, "Liam should be here soon."
"Whatever."
"So, judging by the blue blanket we have a new prince, do we?"
"Princess actually. I just liked the color of this blanket," Eleanor said referring to the dark blue swaddle blanket she had found in a baby store two weeks prior. She had been in denial throughout her entire pregnancy and left the nursery planning up to the palace's interior decorator. She made it clear that she wanted no part in the nursery and she didn't care…because she didn't. Every baby thing she had ever seen made her want to light it on fire. But then she saw the blanket in shop window and quietly bought it because it was the first thing that didn't make her want to gag. It was white with dark blue stars and even though she knew she was having a girl she knew this was the type of girl she wanted. She wasn't going to force her into overly girly and bright pink bow outfits like her mother did when she was a child. Her baby was going to be unique, starting with the blanket that Eleanor knew was designed for a boy.
"So where is Liam anyways. Are you telling me he has something more important than meeting his niece?" Eleanor said trying to draw Gemma's eyes to hers. Gemma had locked onto her baby's face and seemed to be in a daze of sorts.
"He's meeting with security. They're finalizing how to get you two out of her without it being total chaos." Gemma answered, still fixated on the baby.
"Hah. It's going to be chaos any way we go." Eleanor said starring at Gemma. "Um..do you want to hold her?" Eleanor added quickly and awkwardly, unsure of how Gemma would respond.
"Can I?" Gemma said with the most excitement and oddly, vulnerability in her voice that Eleanor had ever heard from her.
"Yeah, just grab her head of course," she said as she handed off the baby carefully into Gemma's arms. Gemma stood to the side of the hospital bed and started to sway, stroking the baby's dark hair. They sat in silence for a moment as Gemma admired the baby and Eleanor admired this new side of Gemma.
"Well she's got your hair for sure" Gemma said with a giggle. Eleanor saw Gemma's guarded exterior begin to melt and her smile grew even wider. Eleanor could feel herself getting mushier too and as much as she tried to ignore it she felt small tears begin to well in her eyes.
"Did you pick a name yet?" Gemma said, finally looking up to see Eleanor's cloudy, wet eyes.
"Bellamy." Eleanor annunciated it clearly for Gemma as Bell-uh-mee. She didn't want anyone thinking it was like the American name Amy. Her child's name was different and special. She had never met a Bellamy before.
"Hi Bellamy. I'm your Aunt Gemma. I'm going to give you fabulous clothes, gorgeous diamonds and maybe even a cousin someday..." she said in a sweet, soft voice while rocking the baby in her arms.
"You're not technically her aunt yet you know." Eleanor said half-jokingly. "You're not 'her royal highness' yet either."
"Soon enough I will be. They finally chose a date for the wedding. It's going to be June 15th next year, isn't that exciting?"
"Very." Eleanor said, rolling her eyes desperate for a cigarette. Even though she couldn't bring herself to show it, she was excited. She did love Gemma and couldn't have chosen a better companion to bring along to all of the boring events she knew her years would be filled with. She knew that her brother loved Gemma but mostly chose to marry her because he knew she would make the best Princess and Queen someday.
"Liam wants to invite Ophelia to come to the wedding but I'm not quite sure how I feel about that." Gemma said in a soft and disappointed voice.
"It'll be fine" Eleanor reassured her. "Ophelia's always been a great family friend of ours, like a cousin. You have nothing to worry about".
"I'm not worried but I'm also not naïve. I understand what this is. Liam and I…we're good partners but they'll always be lovers."
"But he loves you too."
"In a different way. I know he loves me because I can slip into the role of a princess and eventually of a queen. He loves me because I can be his partner and carry him through his duties standing by his side, taking pictures, shaking hands, and making speeches. But at the end of the day, we both know if he wasn't a part of this family he would be with her. And I have to accept that."
"We've been over this, that's not true." Liam said, trotting into the doorway.
"Liam," Gemma said, clearly unaware that he had heard her.
"Hi," Liam said kissing the side of her face, dismissing the previous conversation completely, "How you feeling, Len?"
"I'm good. I feel like I need to lock my door and sleep for the next three weeks but we all know that isn't bloody likely." Eleanor said as Gemma handed off the baby to Liam.
"I'll give you guys a moment." Gemma said before giving Liam's arm a loving squeeze as she turned on her heels and left.
"Does she have a name?" Liam asked, cradling the baby.
"Yup. It's Bellamy."
"Bellamy. I love it."
"Thanks."
"So did you call Beck?"
"Beck?"
"Len, it's just us. You can be honest here." Liam said looking sternly into Eleanor's eyes.
"Honest about what?" Eleanor said, getting defensive.
"Who her father is. You don't have to tell the public, you don't even have to tell Mum. But you need to tell Beck that he has a daughter."
"He knows. Well… he knows I was pregnant with his baby and planning to keep the child." She said taking a drag from her e-cig.
"This is a hospital. You can't smoke her, are you mad?" Liam said to her.
She puffed out the hot smoke. "It's one of those fake cigarettes. I quit the real ones."
"Well good. Anyways, you should call him. Tell him she was born."
"Soon enough it'll be all over the papers... he'll find out that way."
"Len. You have to tell him."
"Fine. I'll call him tonight" she said taking a long drag from the device.
"No. You have to call him before we leave, before the media prints everything."
"Whatever. What's your 'plan' to get us out of here anyways?"
"Well, seeing as there's been paparazzi camped out there for months we have to give them a few photos."
"No. Absolutely not. I refuse."
"Come on, you have to."
"They can take all the photos of me they want but they are not taking any pictures of her. She's hours old. What kind of mother lets five hundred cameras invade her child's newborn face when she isn't even a day old?"
"Eleanor. We have to. Mum and I have a plan though."
"Yeah well Mum couldn't even drag her ass down her to meet her granddaughter so I'm not taking any orders from her at the moment." Eleanor said looking away from Liam and scratching her snarling and tangled dark hair.
"It won't be too long. The staff here will open the doors and Gemma and I will go first. We'll pose for a few pictures, wave to the crowds and then leave in the first car. Then you'll walk out holding Bellamy, stay there for about a minute to a minute and a half and then climb into the car, strap her in and drive off. It's easy."
"I'm not doing it."
"Why?"
"Why because I am a single mother now. Do you get that? You can walk out there holding Gemma's arm totally in control because you can depend on someone there standing next to you, feeling as much anxiety and emotion that you are in that moment. You have her to share the camera with and you have her to drive off with. I have no one. The cameras are going to be attacking me and I have no one to put me at ease. I am supposed to take care of her out there and guess what I have no one to take care of me." She lashed, unable to control her mascara stained tears.
"You chose this. You chose to keep this child and do it alone."
"Yeah well. Maybe Mum was right. Maybe I am just some whore who was dumb enough to have a baby at age twenty three." She said looking down at the bed, away from Liam's gaze.
He raised his voice and looked down at her. "You didn't choose to do this on your own. It's not your fault that Beck is an idiot."
"How did you know that Beck was the father?" She said raising her eyebrows, still looking down away from him.
"If it was anyone else's baby you wouldn't have gone through with this. I know how special Beck is to you. You couldn't bring yourself to kill the chance to have his baby even if he isn't going to be there with you through this."
She knew he was right. She had privately thought about the day she would have Beck's baby ever since she had met him.
"I'll meet you downstairs at the doors in a few hours. We have to do the birth certificate and all the necessary things so we can leave." She told Liam.
"We'll be back at 2:00 to leave with you. I'll see you then."
London, St. Mary's Hospital. 2:52pm.
Eleanor watched as the doors open and the bright lights fought their way inside. She watched the backs of Liam and Gemma disappear as the staff closed the doors once again. She knew that in less than a minute it would be her stepping out there to face them. Somehow that minute raced by, feeling like a single second and it was her turn now.
"Your Highness. Are you ready?" The nurses said to her with their hands on the doorknobs.
"Of course not" she took a long, deep breath. "Now open the doors."
She took five steps outside as the cameras violently flashed. She held her lips tightly together in a stoic grin, refusing to smile for the cameras.
"Princess Eleanor!"
"Princess! Over here!"
"Eleanor you look beautiful now over here!"
"Give us a name Princess!"
"Your highness! Give us a wave!"
"Princess Eleanor who makes your dress!"
"Princess where is the father?!"
Eleanor stood still on the steps holding her daughter with a locked gripped in her arms. Her face was didn't move. She couldn't hear anything. She couldn't see anything. She just counted.
"Twenty nine..thirty..thirty one.." she counted in her head desperately waiting to get to sixty so she could finally descend down the steps and into the black Range Rover that was waiting for her.
"Sixty." Slowly and confidently she shot her head down, starting at the cement steps as walked closer and closer to the car that would drive her out of this and into safety.
She climbed in as the door slammed behind her.
Behind the black tinted windows she took a long breath before starting to strap her baby into the carseat. Her fingers were shaking uncontrollably from the moments before.
"Dammit!" She said, clasping her hands into a tight fist.
"Let me" said the voice sitting next to her. He quickly snapped buckles of the car seat into place and stroked the baby's chin with his pointer finger.
"We're ready." He said firmly to the driver as they began to pull away from the paparazzi.
"How was it?" He asked Eleanor who was sitting back in her seat breathing shortly and quickly.
"It's over at least, " she said, trying to slow her breathing. "Thank god you're here." She slid her hand over his knee.
"Of course" he said before adding, "I'm going to be here to help you with this, you know. You're not going to be alone."
"Thank you, Jasper, " she said as she leaned her head on him.
He pulled her closer to him and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. As the car sped off, Eleanor realized that she wanted to remember this moment forever.
For the first time since she got pregnant she felt sure. As she sat next to the man she loved most and the child that she never thought she would have, she knew this was exactly where she was meant to be.