Eleven

Mirabel Szelsky
May

The weeks that passed after mine and Alexei's first time in his bedroom at Court was several more trips to heaven and back. We both knew, although we tried not to think about it too much, that this relationship wouldn't last after high school. It almost broke my heart to think about it; he would leave to be the guardian to the Prince and I would get myself a job.

However, the realization really made us value the nights that we got together. We always had the dreaded moment of when we would have to part ways when we slept together; and I mean slept together in both the literal way and the more delicate saying.

Vanessa still had no idea about our relationship, no one did as far as I knew, but her crush on Alexei seemed to have cooled off a little. Thank god for that, I was getting tired of hearing her talk about him. However, it had always given me a smug satisfaction when I heard her talk about her desires to kiss and touch him while I could really do that. Perhaps I should feel bad about that, but I didn't.

To top that off, I was now laying in sick with the worst stomach flu I had ever had. I could barely eat anything before my stomach decided that it didn't want to keep it. A high fever that threatened to boil me over and a headache painfully embraced my head had immobilized me in bed for the past two days. Joanna had been a darling a brought me several bottles of yoghurt and soup that I could eat and luckily keep.

"Are you thinking about getting better soon?" Joanna asked when she stopped by for the third time today. She kept her distance, not wanting to be contaminated, but still sat down at the end of my bed.

I glared at her and poured the yogurt into a clean glass. "As soon as possible, I hate feeling like this."

"You look really thin", Joanna commented with real concern. "I hope that you won't have to live on yoghurt and soup for much longer."

"When this passes, I will ask for permission to order a large pizza along with the delivery boy", I assured her, taking small sips from the glass as I returned to the bed. "That will be the meal of the year."

Joanna laughed. "You have earned that."

As I finished the glass, I felt my stomach turn over. I waited for less than a second before I felt the, now familiar, feeling of everything in my stomach on its way up. Joanna fled the bed as well when I rushed up from it and into the bathroom. I grabbed both the edges of the toilet seat and just waited for the convulsions in my belly to pass.

I let out a large groan and flushed the nastiness away as I headed over to the sink to rinse my mouth. "This is fucking horrible", I mumbled.

"I feel sorry for you", Joanna said, her back pressed against the door.

"I have only thrown up in the mornings so far", I noted. "Apparently now it turned into the afternoon as well."

"Morning sickness?" Joanna huffed. "Are you pregnant or something?"

I froze for a microsecond. Pregnant…?

I wanted to think that it was impossible. However… I rarely kept a schedule on my periods since they arrived when they arrived and I had never been in a relationship long enough for me to think about birth control. And… Alexei and I hadn't been very cautious with protection. How incredibly foolish.

There was a possibility… there was a senseless, perplexing and completely unexpected possibility.

I recovered quickly and waved my hand at Joanna with a snort. "Who would have gotten me pregnant?"

Joanna shrugged her shoulders. "Didn't you sleep with Michael Zeklos before Christmas?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Perhaps, but then I'm sure that I would have noticed that a long time ago. I'm not pregnant."

Joanna seemed content with the explanation to that far-fetched possibility and wished me to get better before she left. However, I was left in my room with a head full of thoughts and a large lump inside my stomach.

Alexei Boyarov

A light knock on the door woke me only a few minutes after I had fallen asleep. The clock was only 10:30 am, but I was exhausted after tonight's training. I flung the covers aside and walked to the door, rubbing my eyes to get rid of some tiredness.

Mirabel stood on the other side, her arms plastered to her sides and her fists tightly clenched. She quietly slipped through the gap and closed the door behind her, leaning her back against it. I couldn't see much more than the blank expression on her face in the darkness of the room.

"What is it, has something happened?" I asked.

Mirabel looked up at me, opening her mouth to say something, but her bottom lip began to tremble. She put her hand over her mouth, trying to choke a sob. Alarm bells began to ring inside my head, when a girl cried it was never a good sign unless it was tears of joy. Also, I got bad vibes since she had snuck past the guards outside both her and my dorm to get here.

I placed my hands on her shoulders and bent down to look her in the eyes, but she turned her head away from me. "What is the matter?" I asked.

"I-I'm s-s-sorry", she sobbed, burying her face against my bare chest and sliding her arms around my waist. She continued to sob, I could feel lukewarm tears fall from her eyes and down onto my chest.

I didn't know what to do or what to say. Should I say something? I didn't have much experience with girls, especially not when they cried, and I felt myself hesitate in every move since it could be the wrong one.

Perhaps it was good to let her cry and explain in her own pace, so I wrapped my arms around her and leaned my cheek against the top of her head.

Almost ten minutes later, Mirabel had calmed down enough to speak without her breaking down. "I'm so sorry, Alexei."

I placed a kiss on her forehead. "What are you sorry for?"

"I think that I'm pregnant."

Her words hit me like a fist in the stomach, knocking the air out of my lungs. I wanted to believe that I head misheard her, but I knew that I hadn't missed a letter of what she just revealed.

I couldn't believe this. Not that I didn't believe that she was pregnant, I trusted her on that. But I couldn't believe that I was doing the exact same thing that I had promised myself that I would never do; make my parents' mistake.

Mirabel moved her head from my chest and dried the tears away from her cheeks and eyes. "Say something?"

I swallowed down a mouthful of saliva. "I-I do not know what to say…"

I pulled her with me to the bed and sat down on my rumpled covers while Mirabel slowly sunk down next to me.

"Just tell me what you are thinking about", she pleaded and dried her eyes once again with the edge of her shirt.

I took a deep breath. She was not going to like what I had to say, but I just crossed my fingers that she would appreciate the honesty. "I hadn't expected this to happen to me, I honestly didn't want this to happen to me. I have always been told that duty comes before anything else, which means that I would instinctively chose duty over family", I glanced over at Mirabel. Her eyes welled up with tears again, but she didn't interrupt me.

"I know what happened between my parents, they were in the exact same situation and my father chose duty over family. I grew up after that choice and I hoped that I would never have to choose between the same things, I didn't want to experience myself what happened with their relationship. It's not that I wouldn't like to become a father, not many guardians gets that opportunity, but I wouldn't be able to take the responsibilities that a father should take."

Mirabel waited for my pause before she interrupted. "I don't expect you to give up your career as a guardian, I know how much you want that and I would never make you choose between me and your job." She took a small break to look me in the eyes. They were red-cornered and a little swollen, but she didn't cry anymore.

"If… If I keep this baby I won't put you in an uncomfortable position. I will accept any help and support or responsibility that you feel like you can offer."

I felt a little bad for not feeling any happiness over the news of her pregnancy, but honestly; the news didn't promise a good outcome. If I could chose, I didn't want her to have a baby with me. Mirabel was from a Royal Moroi family and her baby would be a Dhampir, I was sure that it was going to raise several eyebrows and many unwanted questions.

I took her hands between mine. "I don't want to put you in trouble, Mirabel. I don't want you to walk the rest of your life with a child by your side that you had with a Dhampir in high school and mean words about your behind your back."

To my surprise, Mirabel's face turned into a soft smile. "What if I don't care about that? What if having a baby with you would make me really happy, despite the species of the baby?"

I returned her smile, but I wasn't sure that it reached my eyes. "I'm not sure that I would make a good father."

"Well…" she said and cleared her throat. "Now you have the opportunity to find out."

"I don't want to make my own father's mistake", I pointed out to her.

She kept a steady gaze at me. "Then don't, do the best that you can. Clearly, he didn't even try."

I felt deep in my heart that she was right. Despite my wishes of never wanting to choose between duty and family, that was a choice that I would have to make now. And Mirabel's logic made sense; if I didn't want to make my father's mistake I just had to do my best to do this differently. I knew that I wouldn't be able to live with Mirabel to raise our baby, but I could help out with financial support or perhaps even visit when/if I had some time off.

Perhaps it wasn't the best that a man could do, but it was better than nothing.

I leaned down and kissed Mirabel long on her lips, tasting the saltiness from her tears on them. She gently pushed me down on back onto the bed and snuggled close to me, one of her legs tangling with mine and her arms over my torso.

"We'll make this work…" I mumbled and kissed her forehead. She didn't reply, she just buried her nose against my throat after pulling up the covers over us. She didn't even seem to think about that she still wore her everyday clothes.

Almost an hour later, Mirabel was calmly sleeping while still wrapped around me. But I couldn't sleep, I felt too awake to sleep.

I was going to be a father.

Now when she shock had sunk in a little, it didn't feel as disastrous as it had before. I wasn't worried about me not being able to do it anymore. I would try to do the best I could to do everything for this baby. I was more worried about him/her and Mirabel than myself.

I knew that there was going to be talk about her after the baby was born. Perhaps people would think that she has dated some Moroi in secret and accidentally gotten pregnant, but the truth would come out when the baby was born and everyone could see that it was a Dhampir.

I didn't care what they said, but I was sure that everything wasn't going to be kind words and I didn't want to see how hurt Mirabel would look when she heard it. I never wanted to see her hurt or sad, especially not when I had been involved in causing it.

However, she was a strong and independent woman. In a way she was stronger than I would ever be. Physical strength was easy to build up and maintain in comparison to an inner strength and courage.

If she said that she could do this, I trusted her on that. If she said that she could have this baby and turn her ear away from the gossip, she could do that.

There you go! Thank you all for your patience :) The whole baby-thingy miiiiight not be completely unexpected, but illegitimate children from forbidden relationships are always interesting!

I'll update in a week again :)

Love, Zeraphime