I loved the mix of responses to last chapter, I had a bunch of messages and the split between "surprised at pregnancy" and "called it!" was almost even. So I'm a mix of surprising and predictable. Guess I can live with that.

Onward!

-HTTYD-

Pregnant.

Pregnant.

Pregnant!

"Are... but... I don't understand."

"Had you begun to go through the menopause?"

Valka shook her head. She was in her forties, that wasn't a completely unrealistic question.

"I was told after having my son that I couldn't have any more children."

"Well" the doctor flipped a page, nodding as though that would make more sense to her "your hCG levels suggest you're at least six, perhaps eight weeks pregnant. Did you not notice a missed period?"

"She has an irregular cycle."

Hiccup piped up out of nowhere, looking surprised himself that the words came out. Valka quirked an eyebrow at him, but he merely winked.

"What? You don't think I notice?"

Well, he wasn't wrong, and Valka supposed they had been having sex for months now - he probably would have noticed that some months, her body didn't require a few nights off from sex. Even so, he didn't look nearly as thrown as she felt.

"You seem calm."

"Well, two things. One, I don't want to wake Tyr. And two, I'm thinking they're gonna confirm things since you just told them you're not meant to be able to... so I'll reserve my emotions for if its confirmed, and then when I can a) jump up, and b) hug you. Neither of which are presently possible."

He was confined to a wheelchair, on the other side of glass and in isolation with an infection that was also likely to be the reason her young son was drifting in and out of consciousness. Oh gods, what on earth was she going to say to Tyr? How would Sven react? Hel, she'd have to tell her parents!

Oh. Right. Hiccup had said they'd probably want to confirm it.

"Is there anything else that could be causing those hormone levels?"

"Yes. Particularly in a woman of your age. Which is why you'll need an ultrasound to confirm. If that doesn't show something, then we'll investigate the other causes. However, those are incredibly rare. I'm expecting the ultrasound to simply confirm that you're... expecting. It's imperative you stay away from those infected."

Valka nodded absently, mind turning over a multitude of thoughts. Gods. She was too old for a baby! There were... risks. And after the trouble before, she was terrified that something could go wrong.

"Hey" Hiccup tapped the window between them, just enough to get her attention "go. Stop panicking when you don't know anything for sure yet. I'm not going anywhere. My leg is over there, for starters."

Valka felt a laugh bubble up in her throat, unable to help but smile at her lover. Hiccup was... she couldn't even describe him. He'd been everything she needed before she knew she needed it. Even his age - he didn't make her feel old. He made her feel young. Fresh. Alive. And apparently, fertile.

His hand splayed over the glass again, eyes fixed on hers.

"I love you."

Her smile widened; damn him.

"I love you too."

The doctor led her toward the radiology department, muttered to a nurse nearby that she needed to be checked for pregnancy and soon - without her full bloodwork, there wasn't a guarantee she wasn't sick, the doctor explained, and pregnancy would alter how they treated her. As they shooed her into a side room, unforgiving gaze of a slightly terrifying nurse leaving no room for argument as Valka undressed, she ached to have Hiccup there. He'd keep her calm, hold her hand.

He should have been there to possibly see their child for the first time.

Valka grit her teeth as the ultrasound probe was inserted - this was not something she'd expected to be doing! - but focused on what it was supposed to be detecting. She could be going back to tell Hiccup he was-

Her brain stopped dead when Valka heard the first heartbeat. Gods. She really was pregnant!

Twisting her head to look at the scanner, she saw the messy white noise of everything else, but there was a tiny little thing, just discernible from the rest. The rapid swishing sound would have made Valka's legs give out if she'd been standing.

"That's... oh my gods!"

"I take it this wasn't planned?"

"I didn't even know it was possible."

The tech looked at Valka like she was ever so slightly mad.

"Well, unless you're suggesting an immaculate conception here..."

"What? No. I meant because I was told I couldn't have more children after my son, and he's twelve this year."

And it wasn't as though there'd been no chance for her to get pregnant - having been told she wasn't going to conceive again, she and Sven had stopped using contraception for the better part of nine years, before a fizzling-out of their marriage put the end to their sex life.

She and Hiccup had never bothered with protection either, since Valka was so certain. And, well... they were a pretty active couple.

"I see. Do you know why?"

"I had a placenta increta with Ty, which left a lot of scarring behind. I've not used a preventative measure since, and I was married for most of that time too."

The ultrasound confirmed, Valka was allowed to get dressed, fingers curling around the print-out of the tiny little thing inside her.

"Given your age too, I'm honestly going to admit I'm stunned. You'll need to be set up with a specialist who can talk you through this, as between prior complications, your age and so on, technically we'd consider your pregnancy to be high-risk."

Valka nodded, rubbing her stomach.

"I need to get back to my son. Could I have a second one of these? My boyfriend is in quarantine, if I give him this one I can't have it back."

Hiccup had indicated he wasn't averse to having a child with her, but Valka had been open from the start about the fact that wouldn't happen. So to now be about to present him with the evidence she was really, actually pregnant, Hiccup might not be so thrilled.

"Here you are."

"Thank you."

Tucking the images into her pocket, Valka hastened back to the isolation room, intending to tell Hiccup right away.

As it turned out, she couldn't - he was no longer by the window, instead wheeled over to where Ty's bed was, hoisted himself up and the little boy had curled up on Hiccup's lap, and it looked as though both of them were asleep. She knew a pang of guilt - there was nothing she could do from outside, but her son was in distress and Valka wasn't even there to see it. Everything had seemingly conspired to happen all at once.

"What's he doing on Ty's bed?"

"Comforting him, by the looks of it. He's the only one that can, we can't even go in there."

Sven huffed, then looked over at Valka.

"You seem antsier than earlier."

She was not telling Sven. Not before Tyr, and certainly not before she'd given the confirming images to Hiccup.

"I'm just tired Sven. And worried."

That was probably the longest conversation they'd had without legal representation in a while. Valka wished it wasn't under such dire circumstance.

"Are his tests back yet?"

"No."

After a few more minutes terse silence, Sven gruffed that he was going home for a shower and a change of clothes. Valka waited for him to leave before sinking into a chair, pulling the sonogram from her pocket and staring at it again for a moment. She hadn't totally processed it yet.

"Val!"

Turning her head, Valka looked up and - rather surprisingly - saw her parents. She'd let them know Tyr was sick, but hadn't been aware they planned to make the trip. Her fathers health concerned her - if what Ty had was particularly aggressive...

"What's that you have there Val?"

Oh. Yes. She was still holding her sonogram picture. Valka didn't have time to shove it away before her mother had worked it out, cooing.

"Oh! You're... are you?"

"Gods, be quiet mother! Ty and Hiccup are sleeping. Yes! I literally just found out."

Relinquishing one copy of the picture, Valka watched her parents peer at it, both looking stunned.

"I thought you couldn't have more children?"

"So did I. They took my blood to see if II've caught what Ty has, and the doctor came to lecture me for not telling them I was pregnant. When I said I didn't know I was, they sent me to confirm it in case my hormone levels were caused by something else. And, I just got back from that now. I'm waiting to tell Hiccup."

She gestured, her parents looking around to where Hiccup and Tyr were sleeping still, seeing the IV hooked up to Tyr and the isolation warnings on the glass.

"How bad is it love?"

"We don't know yet. Hiccup's not nearly as sick as Ty from what we can see, but he went in there voluntarily and said he won't come out without Ty. They didn't diagnose Hiccup with pnuemonia until after he was in there."

He'd begun coughing almost the second he was in there, so Valka suspected he'd been feeling off anyway, but it wouldn't have surprised her if her stubborn boyfriend had just made himself an infection risk so Tyr wouldn't be alone. Valka had certainly considered it - the doctor dropping the pregnancy bombshell had given her second thoughts. Valka didn't know what she'd have done - or what it would have done to Hiccup! - if she'd gone in there and gotten sick, lost the little surprise in her belly. Would she even have realised it? Well, the doctors probably would have. But perhaps not before it was too late.

Oh Hel, she was already facing the struggle between her son and her foetus. Ty seemed to accept that Valka shouldn't go in there in case she got sick, but a delirious boy who was already fiercely attached to his mother may not always be so logical.

When she next looked up, Valka saw green eyes open, Hiccup looking at her over the top of sleeping Tyr's head. She offered him a tight smile, saw a nurse coming along with a protective mask and what looked like Hiccup's next dose of medicine.

"Excuse me, would you give this to Hiccup for me?"

The nurse nodded, took the little polaroid-sized life-change from her hand with gloved fingers before heading in. Hiccup managed to take his medication one handed, the other still around her son, and then she watched his face anxiously as he received the sonogram image. For a minute or two, he didn't move. Just stared. Valka was just starting to panic when his face broke into a wide grin, looking up at her with happiness writ clear across his features.

"Really?"

He mouthed it, not waking Ty - for her to hear him from there, he'd have to be shouting anyway - and Valka nodded. Well, he didn't look upset about it. Eyes fell back to the little sonogram, what looked like the word 'wow' mouthed several times as he examined the image of the tiny foetus.

"Seems like the daddy is happy. It is his, right?"

"Mother! Yes!"

"Just checking. For all I know, your young lover gave you a want to sow some wild oats-"

Before Valka could die of mortification - she was too old for embarrassing parents, surely? - her father chimed in.

"I don't need to hear this!"

Tutting at her husband, Rama went right back to cooing about the new grandchild.

"I'm not sure if it's a good thing he's so excited or not."

"What makes you say that love? You're not... are you two having trouble?"

"What? No! Of course not. He's... perfect, as ever" she gestured vaguely to where Hiccup was cradling her son "but I've already been warned that between my age and everything else, that this is technically high risk. What if I..."

"Hey now" Rama squeezed Valka tightly, petting her hair and making her feel five years old again "don't think like that. You're strong, healthy. You have that wonderful young man taking care of you. Everything will be fine love."

"Oh look, Tyranno's awake."

Valka looked up in time to see Hiccup's eyes widen, placing the scan picture on the bedside table face down so Ty wouldn't see before gently brushing his hair from his face, looking to be speaking in a hushed tone to the boy. Hiccup turned, pressing the nurse call button on the wall behind him and Valka immediately panicked, unable to do or know anything until Hiccup had moved back to his wheelchair, rolled over to the window while the curtains were pulled across Tyr's bed by the requested nurse.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. He just needed to go to the bathroom, but he said his legs don't feel good."

That wasn't terribly reassuring, Valka mused, but she fought not to get too panicked. It could be that Ty was fatigued. Or it could be that the swelling in his brain was worsened. Oh, she was terrified. After a couple of minutes, the nurse had pulled away the curtains and Tyr was calling out to Hiccup, who immediately wheeled himself back over. Oh how she wished she could be in there, tending to her sickly boy.

"When was the last time you slept love?"

"Before court, I suppose."

"That was yesterday, technically."

Valka shrugged, plucking at her jumper.

"I went home for a shower and food."

"That's not enough. Especially when it's not just you now love."

It was so hard to even think about taking care of herself when Ty needed her, but her father was right - Valka wasn't just caring for herself now.

"I'll... think about it. When I know what's wrong with my son."

There was little news before Sven was back - Tyr was awake, but judging by Hiccup's expressions while they talked, not terribly lucid. The delirium was normal, for both his fever and the infection in his brain. One doctor had even commented it was good Ty wasn't combative and difficult, which was apparently common for people with swelling around their brain. Valka idly commented that Tyr would be much worse if they put him in a hospital gown.

Hiccup had secreted the sonogram to his bag, but Valka caught his eyes going toward it constantly, obviously itching to look at it again. She imagined if he could see it, he'd be looking at her stomach, as though wondering if she was 'showing' even though he'd seen her body the night before. Well. The night before the night before now.

"Anything?"

"He's in and out of it. We're waiting for results."

Sven barely acknowledged Valka's parents, but that didn't surprise her much. He was there for Tyr, nothing more.

Finally, the doctor came looking for them again.

"We have the cultures back from his spinal tap, and now we've identified the cause of his illness we can begin to treat it."

"I hear a 'but' coming."

"Tyr has an aggressive strain of bacteria, and the medication for it is stronger than the one we have him on currently for his chest infection. This may well not be pleasant to watch, I'm sorry. And since your partner is so likely to have contracted the same infection, he'll be given stronger medication too, so neither of them will be feeling good, but it's obviously preferrable to letting the infection run untreated."

Valka fretted as the doctor went on to instruct the nurses, then something occurred to her that she did not need to deal with right now, following the man along the corridors until she thought they were out of earshot.

"My ex husband doesn't know about the pregnancy, and honestly I'd like to keep it that way."

"Of course. Confidentiality holds me to it."

Relieved, Valka let him go do his job, getting back in time to see the antibiotic IV Ty was on being changed over. They'd tried to get Hiccup to go to his own bed, but he was having none of it, adamantly staying by Tyr's side except to chat at the window or roll himself off to the bathroom. When he got out of the hospital, Valka was going to have serious words with her boyfriend about his reckless stubbornness.

For a little while, it didn't look as though they had anything to worry about. Tyr dozed off again to the sound of Hiccup's voice, looking to be enjoying a story Hiccup was reciting to him. Either that or just a very one-sided conversation.

Then Hiccup turned rather pale, clutching his stomach and clapping a hand over his mouth. Expecting problems or perhaps by luck, the nurse was watching and had one of the disposable bowl-type things under Hiccup in record time, preventing him from simply vomiting all over himself. He'd managed to angle himself so the window-watchers didn't see much, but it was enough for Valka to feel a rising bit of nausea herself. She fought it back, swallowing some water and ignoring the cold sweat prickling on the back of her neck.

"Well, at least he'll be able to sympathise with your morning sickness!"

As her ex husband turned toward them, face a picture of quick calculation and the emotions that came with realisation, Valka realised she ought to have told her father not to mention she was pregnant in front of Sven.

-HTTYD-

Dun dun dunnnnnnnnn