"It is Christmas, remember?" Aubrey tried to smile again, and though it stretched across her face perfectly fine, it didn't reach her eyes. Whatever had been occupying her thought the past month, it was weighing especially heavy on her today. "And, yes, I am attempting to fry the chicken. Why not? We've experimented in the kitchen before, and nothing's been burnt down yet."
"So we're going to try even harder today?" he teased with a smile.
Aubrey smirked, moving to elbow him, but he was just as quick to wrap his arms around her, pinning her arms in place and dropping a kiss onto her scalp. He had hoped that the gesture would bring the light back into her eyes for a moment, but it did nothing of the sort. Apparently, he'd only irritated her further, because once again he found her wrenching angrily from his grasp, only, this time he grabbed her wrist before she could run.
The atmosphere in the kitchen dropped by about twenty degrees as he demanded desperately, "Talk to me, Aubrey! And don't tell me that nothing is wrong, because something is, so please tell me what."
"I can't!" Aubrey suddenly screamed, eyes welling with tears as she struggled against his unrelenting grip.
"Yes, you can," Henry begged. "Come on, Aubrey, we've already established that we're all one another have here. You can trust me with anything and I'll do whatever I can to help you." His tone became hesitant as he added, "I… I even figured out how to heal whatever's making you sick. That was the best Christmas present I could think of."
The first of her tears slid down her cheek as she blinked slowly, the fight suddenly gone out of her as she whispered, "Oh, Henry… I'm not sick."
"Then what is it?"
He released her wrist and she sank down onto the floor, burying her face in her hands as she began to sob in earnest. He knelt down in front of her and peeled her hands away from her face, much as she'd done to him their first day here.
She tried to bury her face in her own shoulder, still refusing to look at him until he cupped her chin in his hand and turned her eyes towards him, repeating, "Please, beautiful, talk to me."
A ghost of a smile just barely flickered over her face at the endearment before she asked, "You promise me you won't hate me?"
"Of course I won't;" he said gently, taking her hands in his. "Whatever it is, we can get through it together."
Aubrey straightened her spine, threw her shoulders back, and lifted her chin, looking him in the eyes and squeezing his hands as she took a deep breath and said, "Henry, I'm pregnant with your baby."
His grip on her hands faltered and she squeezed them again, asking, "Are you okay, Marquess?"
"Are you?"
"I asked you first."
So he gave her his honest first thought – "No. No, I'm not okay – but I will be." He nodded resolutely as his thoughts slowed down enough to make some measure of sense. "I will be okay, and we will be okay, and I will be here for you no matter what, just like I said I would. I'll be fine, you'll be fine… and so will our baby, I promise. I'll make sure of it. 'Whatever happens, I'll take care of us,' remember? I meant it then and I mean it now – and that definitely includes our baby."
"You're sure?" Aubrey asked hesitantly.
His answer was an instantaneous "yes," the ferocity of which surprised even him.
She looked a little taken aback as she asked, "Aren't you afraid?"
"Yes," Henry nodded, rising to his feet and helping Aubrey to hers. "But my family sports a long line of son-abandoning dads, and I refuse to be one of them."
"What if it's a girl?" Aubrey asked, some of her old brightness lacing her suddenly teasing tone as that same spark returned to her eyes.
Henry laughed out loud, not sure if he was happy or losing his mind or both as he declared, "Then she'll be the most spoiled thing ever when we get back to Storybrooke, seeing as she'd be the first girl in my family since my mother on the Charming side, and on my dad's side since I don't even know when." He paused, thinking it through before he said, "You know… I think I might like to have a daughter. A daughter."
He pulled Aubrey to him, kissing her in the midst of sudden, crazy giddiness before he took her hands and twirled with her around the kitchen until they were both dissolving into hopeless fits of laughter. Henry sat down on the table and pulled Aubrey down beside him, kissing her again. Looking in her eyes, he saw that the happiness – the sparkle – that he had so missed was back again, and it thrilled him.
"A baby," he repeated, giving her another quick kiss. "We're going to have a baby."
"And you're happy about it?"
"I think so," Henry answered honestly, smiling hesitantly as he asked, "So, are we okay now?"
Aubrey nodded quickly. "If I'm okay with a baby, and you're okay with a baby, then we're okay… as… us, too."
"And what are 'we'?" Henry asked, carefully twining his fingers through hers and searching her eyes hesitantly.
"Well, let's take stock of our circumstances, shall we?" Aubrey asked with a soft grin, scraping the toe of her shoe against the floor as she spoke.
"We're here, in the Enchanted Forest," Henry started. "We're living in the Dark Castle – together – and we're… apparently… going to have a baby."
"It sounds like we're a couple, doesn't it?" Aubrey asked, tilting her head to the side as she studied his face.
Henry smiled again, his free hand going up to run through her hair as murmured, "Yeah, it does." He closed the last of the distance between them, kissing her with a smile before saying, "Merry Christmas, my beautiful Aubrey."
The look on her face made him wonder if she was going to stop smiling before the New Year around as she repeated, "Merry Christmas, Marquess."