1st of August 2031

Twenty five. There was something quite amazing about having reached this age, Rose couldn't help but think. It was just that twenty five felt so much more grown up than the early twenties. And the Rose of the past had never imagined living the life that the Rose of the future was currently living. Living so happily. Currently living happily ever after.

Living happily ever after with her beautiful husband of just over a year, in a beautiful little house in Cornwall, making pretty things and writing for a living, feeling closer than ever to her family and friends. Rose still couldn't quite believe this was her life. It was so wonderful and she was so happy. Had been for a long time. And although she knew that things would come and go that might be hard, sad, or challenging, that time would every now and then send things to temporarily puncture that happiness, she was still very content simply to be this happy for this time.

A beautiful house, a beautiful husband, and, in seven months time, a beautiful child.

Of course, the house felt less beautiful when one was spending rather a lot of time in the two bathrooms retching into the two toilets. And the husband seemed less beautiful at that exact moment, four in the morning, when Rose had just been woken by nausea caused by the child said husband had planted in her womb. And the beautiful child caused by she and the beautiful husband seemed less beautiful when causing Rose to currently be throwing up last night's spaghetti bolognaise into the upstairs toilet in the beautiful house.

Despite this, things were beautiful, they really were.

As she was rinsing her mouth and using this moment of awakeness in the bathroom to get round to removing her make up from the day before, Rose heard Scorpius come in from his shift at the hospital. She heard him make his way upstairs and then poke his head around the open bathroom door before entering.

"More sick?" he asked sympathetically.

"Yeah," Rose replied, "shame I flushed it already, really, was a very interesting half digested spag bol mixed with stomach acid. Literally everything inside me is gone."

"I feel like I really missed out," Scorpius replied, managing to keep a straight, non-disgusted face. "at least in my job I have the pleasure of seeing people be sick at least a few times a week."

"You love it," Rose giggled, kissing him on the cheek.

"I love the healing, not the sicking! Though I'm sure your sick is far more desirable than the sick of my patients." he laughed.

"Of course it is, you love me!"

"I do. And I love the little demon that's making you sick too."

"So do I." Rose said with a smile, stroking her still flat and stilly slightly uneasy stomach.

"Happy birthday, by the way." Scorpius said, pulling her into his arms.

"Thank you, can we celebrate after shower, sleep, and morning sickness round two or three, though?" Rose asked.

"Agreed," Scorpius yawned, "You get to bed, I'm going to get clean then I'll join you." He took his healer's robes off.

"Nah, I want a shower too. Got sick in my hair, see? Can we shower together in a cute, romantic, but not sexy way please?"

"Of course, babe." Scorpius replied, helping her pull off her little summer nightie as it got caught in her necklace as she pulled it off.

The two got into the roomy shower area of the bathroom and Scorpius switched on both enormous heads. They had designed and bought this shower basically for this purpose. They liked to shower together. Of course, they also liked to have a lot of shower sex, but this was more common and it was lovely. There was something beautifully intimate about being naked and getting clean together, about how they used different shower gels but ended up both smelling like a wonderful combination of both, about how sometimes they liked to gently wash each other.

Rose found herself suddenly feeling really tired and heavy right after squeezing some shampoo onto her hands. Scorpius noticed her yawn and the despondent way she leant against him so offered to wash her hair for her. She nodded and wrapped both her arms around his middle as her gently massaged the vanilla shampoo through her curls.

Scorpius looked down adoringly at his beautiful wife as she kissed him sweetly on the shoulder while he sorted her hair out. He loved her so much. So so so much. So much it felt like he might burst from the so muchness of it all. He had finished doing her shampoo and found he had quite a lot of foam left on his hands, so decided to put some in his own hair too. She noticed this and smiled, she loved it when Scorpius stole her wonderful smelling shampoos and shower gels.

"Thank you." Rose said, after Scorpius had finished rinsing her hair.

"It was my pleasure." Scorpius replied, putting his arms around her and leaning down to kiss her tenderly before turning the shower off.

Wrapping themselves in fluffy towels, the two dried off and then made their way into their bedroom. They curled up under the covers together, slightly damp, very naked, very tired, and very thankful for their light and noise cancelling blinds. It was nearing five AM and both were hoping to sleep in until midday at the earliest.

A/N

I really wasn't planning or expecting to go back to this story, but for some reason I started reading it again tonight and I just wanted to write more. So I am. I don't know how regular updates will be and I don't know exactly where this story is going yet, I just know that I kind of want to find out. I'm also tempted to edit and maybe rewrite some of my previous chapters. The dialogue to narration ratio in this story so far is definitely off, as is the comma to full stop ratio! If I do edit, most of the changes will be just shortening some of the too long speeches and maybe adding a tiny bit more narration or background detail to accompany the long conversations!

I am also considering changing the title of this story to something like 'Recovery'... I don't really know what yet, so if you have any suggestions please let me know!

A huge thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favourited, and followed this story. I really appreciate it!

Would love to know what you think of this new, unexpected chapter.