I don't own The Selection.
guysssss omg
i outlined the rest of this story, and we only have two chapters left :( BUT
BUT BUT BUT
i'll be outlining the sequel to this fanfic this weekend :))
the last chapter of this will not be posted until the new story is up, so don't worry! i'm not gonna leave you guys hanging like that
however, i need some input desperately
i want to do an epilogue, but it would be one long chapter split into three parts, because i know you all wanted me to write the births of the rest of their children, and i want to do that too. so, instead of three individual chapters, i was gonna put them all in one. i know it's a lot to soak in at first and that's why input would be AMAZING
this and the next chapter will mainly just be tying up the whole conflict with the rebels :))
i love you guys
AND PLS GIVE ME YOUR INPUT! if you'd rather not review, then PM me! (if you can, of course. i'm not forcing you guys to do anything, but you don't know how much it would mean!)
ENJOYYY (hopefully)
We sat facing Gavril and Stavros again.
Though, this time, we had more to discuss than just Estelle's adoption. There was the matter of the baby too. It didn't help that America was starting to show. Now it was harder to hide.
"We kind of have another complication," America said.
Awkward? Absolutely.
"Your Majesty?" Stavros asked. "A complication?"
"You see.. I'm eleven weeks pregnant."
Well, he was definitely taken aback. Stavros was rarely shocked to the point of being speechless. Gavril, however, only seemed to have replaced his grin with a full out smile. If he was shocked, he was hiding it very well.
"Congratulations, Your Majesties," he said, shaking my hand.
When Stavros regained his composure, he did the same thing. And now that telling them was out of the way, we needed to know about the added risks of this.
"Well," Stavros said. "I think this may be good."
"How come?" I asked.
He laced his hands together. "If you were to announce the news of Lady Estelle's adoption and title change, and say.. it went badly, you could announce the news of a royal baby."
"It would add another legitimate heir to the line of succession," I realized. "It would reassure the people of the monarchy's stability."
Gavril nodded in agreement. "His Majesty is correct," he said.
"How many people are aware of this, ma'am? It's important that this information doesn't leak to the public." Stavros said.
America counted on her fingers, "My brother-in-law James Orders, you both, my maid Mary, and Dr. Ashlar."
Good, I thought. That was five people besides America and myself that knew of the baby. It would be much easier to keep under wraps with so few people. But, I did happen to know better. America's stomach would grow quickly over the next few weeks. Rumors would be spread.
"Excellent," he said. "Now, I hate to intrude, but I think it's for the best that you keep this a secret, ma'am."
"Could I ask why?"
"If the news is leaked before Estelle is legally adopted, the backlash could be worse than it would've been without your pregnancy, ma'am."
I frowned. "Because there's no reason to adopt when we can have our own children?"
He nodded.
"It makes sense," I said. "They could force us to stop the adoption. But if we announce it and do it quickly, then they couldn't force us to do anything. At that point, she'd be our child."
"I hate politics," America muttered.
For someone who supposedly hated politics, she sure had married the wrong person. And though I hadn't married her for political reasons, I now saw that she was the best partner I could've picked. She was smart, kind, stubborn, and hardworking.
After assuring them that we could keep it a secret, Stavros explained to us that he'd have the legal things for us to sign the day before Estelle's birthday.
He also explained to us that we needed to decide on a more permanent sentence for Kota and Mia. So we settled on adding one hundred years to their time and having them locked in an even more secure cell. Unfortunately, it's all we could really do.
Kenna turned on the TV above the fireplace, turning it to the Report.
Tonight, it wouldn't be an interview, but a very important announcement from the King and Queen. Though, no one knew that it would be a statement and not a verbal announcement. Or that it wouldn't be directly from us.
I was extraordinarily tense.
Truth be told, I was too nervous to be paying attention. My mind was running through the same old possibilities of what could go wrong.
In the end, I missed the first part.
"Their Majesties will be adopting," he read, and the—our room went deathly silent. "Within the next month, the royal family will have welcomed Lady Estelle into it. She will be titled as a princess and gain the Schreave last name."
He paused for a second, letting the information sink in.
That was the only part I cared to listen to.
He skimmed over the rest of the statement, only mentioning the important things like Estelle's age and how long she'd been at the palace with us. And then it was over.
Beside me, Estelle tucked herself further into my side. I kissed her head.
"They're going to hate me," she whispered.
May leaned forward. "No one could ever hate you, Stelle."
"Yes they could," she said. "And why wouldn't these people hate me? I'm not related to any of you guys. I'm like an imposter."
Avery chimed in. "You good. Sister."
Roman crossed his arms and nodded. "Stelle good."
They looked so confident in their answers that it was hard to believe they weren't biological siblings. Avery and Roman both loved Estelle to the point where they'd snuck out of their room to make her a present, but had been caught by Markson.
"Up," Avery ordered, and Estelle picked her up. Avery patted Estelle's head. "You good."
"Thanks, squirt," Estelle said, letting Avery sit in her lap.
Roman—desperate to be close to his sisters—climbed up into my lap. I was seriously starting to see the resemblance between us. He had my nose, my face shape, my exact hair color, but he had America's eyes. It was an exquisite combination.
Roman poked Estelle's nose. "I loves you."
"No," Avery huffed. "I loves Stelle."
They stuck their tongues out at each other. Ah, yes. The sibling rivalry we would be getting much more of. It would probably last for the rest of their lives.
"Why don't you both love Stelle?" America asked. "Though, you need to save some love for your little brother or sister."
Every head turned in our direction.
"What?" Kenna asked.
America grinned. "I'm pregnant."
"No way!" May squealed. "Is it triplets this time? Please—"
"It's one," she said.
Avery clapped. "Baby!"
America shushed her. "Guys, it's a secret. Stavros told us it would be best if we kept it to ourselves so we could use it as a backup plan."
"A backup plan?" Gerad asked. He was sitting beside Magda, who was wiping tears from her eyes.
"In case the country reacted horribly to this," America said. "It would be a reassurance of the monarchy's stability. Just in case. So, please, no blabbing."
"Promise," Estelle said. "Congratulations!"
The hours passed as we spoke of the baby and everything else, and then it was time for us to put the twins down. We would've let them stay up later, but they were both yawning and dozing. It would be better to stick to their sleep schedule.
Gerad and Estelle went to go play video games, and Astra trailed behind them.
Eventually, Stavros came to us with several pieces of paper. He even had a couple of pictures.
"Your Majesties, we've had civilians send us these," he said, laying out the pictures. "They're from all over the nation."
There was one of people dancing in the street, holding signs that praised both us and Estelle. One read Long Live King Maxon and Queen America! and another that read Princess Estelle is our princess!
It was safe to say that I was amazed.
Of course, some of the pictures had negative things in them, but the fact that there were any positive things at all surprised me.
"These.. they support this?" America said, gaping.
"Apparently, ma'am," Stavros said. "It seems change is becoming a more welcome thing."
"What do we do about the baby?" I asked.
He nodded. "I'd advise you to wait just a few weeks to announce anything. We need to ensure that this won't go sideways in the next few days."
"Alright," I said. "Thank you."
He bowed. "Your Majesties."
And then he was gone.
"Happy Birthday, Estelle!"
Estelle jumped, but when she caught on to what was happening, she started crying. The twins and Astra were the first to give her birthday hugs.
You see, we'd thrown her a surprise party.
Everyone had pitched in.
We'd hung banners on the walls, put party hats on our and the dogs heads, gotten her a huge cake and dozens of presents. She was turning thirteen, so why not go all out? Plus, we had important news to give her today.
"Okay, okay!" May said. "Presents!"
"Dis one!" Astra demanded.
Estelle sat down and opened the present. It was a framed drawing of Estelle and Astra, which I guess Astra had created.
"I love it, Astra," Estelle said, giving the girl a huge hug.
By the time Estelle reached America and I's present, she'd gotten two drawings, things for her horse Harriet, a new soccer ball, and so many other meaningful things.
She took the top of the box off and looked down at it.
With shaky hands, she pulled out the framed document. Tears streamed down her face and we all watched with anticipation. She began to read it.
"On this day, the 10th of March, Estelle Natalie Bryant has officially been adopted into the Royal Family of Illéa, making her the daughter of the King Maxon and the Queen America Schreave."
Estelle was still sobbing, and so America wrapped her arms around her.
"You actually adopted me?" she asked, choking back another sob.
"Of course we did," America said. "Happy Birthday."
"Open this one!" Astra squealed, handing her another box.
This one was my personal favorite.
It was a much larger box, and inside were two things. Estelle looked up at us with confusion as she read the tag saying it was from us.
"You got me two things?" she asked.
I grinned. "Just open it."
She did.
Estelle pulled the lid off of the box and burst into tears again, picking up the tiara with shaky hands, tears still streaming down her face. She ran a finger over the ornate item and laughed.
"It'll make more sense when you read the paper," America explained.
She read the paper aloud. "This document hereby declares that the Lady once of the name Estelle Natalie Bryant shall now be referred to as Her Royal Highness, Princess Estelle Natalie Schreave of Illéa, daughter of the King Maxon and the Queen America."
"Here," Magda said, taking the tiara. "I'll help with this."
She carefully placed the tiara on top of Estelle's head, pinning it down with two bobby pins.
The tiara looked stunning on her.
It was lined with diamonds of all sizes, creating the Illéan emblem. At the very front was one diamond carved into a circle and placed at the top of the tiara. It was not only beautiful but very well-made.
May stood and dropped into a curtsy. "Your Highness."
Estelle reached up to gently touch the tiara, but then decided on taking it off and giving America a hug. She then ran right into my arms, hugging me so tightly that I thought she might be trying to choke me.
"Thanks, Dad,"
I wanted to cry myself.
That was the first time she'd ever directly called me Dad. Sure, I'd heard the twins say it, but this was a tad different. She had a choice of whether or not to call me that and she'd picked to.
"Anytime, kiddo."
"How would you feel about seeing your little brother or sister, guys?" America asked as we sat the twins down on our bed.
Avery frowned. "Where?"
"We get to see a picture of the baby," Estelle explained. "Like watching TV."
"Oh," Roman said. "Yes!"
So, after deciding that the twins and Estelle would be in attendance for America's ultrasound, we all walked down to the hospital wing. Dr. Ashlar welcomed us into one of the larger rooms where we'd have sufficient seating.
The room was a light blue and the wall opposite the door was almost entirely covered with medical posters about babies and uteruses and everything else.
America laid down in the chair, and pulled her shirt up to her bra.
"Who'd like to rub this on her stomach?" Dr. Ashlar asked, holding up a bottle of gel.
Avery and Roman jumped up. "Us!"
"Alright then," he laughed and turned back to the odd looking computer in front of us. With the touch of a few buttons, he'd turned it on.
I helped the twins get a thin layer of gel on their mother's stomach, but they had a tendency to get it all over themselves. Once it was over, Estelle helped me wash their hands off so that they wouldn't be spreading it all over the palace.
"Are you ready?" Dr. Ashlar asked us.
I think we all nodded at the same time.
He pressed just one more button and a black and white image appeared on the screen. I recognized the familiar form of a baby.
"I try!" Avery squealed, pointing to the wand. "Pwease?"
Dr. Ashlar handed the wand over to her, but let me assist. Then, Estelle and Roman took a turn with the wand. America and I laughed as Roman got us lost in her internal organs, which took Dr. Ashlar to get the baby back on screen.
"That's the baby?" Estelle asked.
"It is," Dr. Ashlar said. "And that would be the baby's head.. feet.. arms.."
"Blob baby," Avery said, tilting her head to one side. "It blob baby."
America grinned. "You were a blob baby once, Ave."
"Was not."
Dr. Ashlar left us alone for a minute so that he could retrieve the printed image we'd requested. Avery wiggled up into my lap, giving her a better view.
"I can't wait to meet the baby," Estelle sighed. "What do you think, Rome?"
"I wants baby now!" he said.
America laughed. "Rome, the baby still needs to grow so that when it's born it will be all healthy and ready for you to play with, okay? Patience, darling."
He huffed. "Fine."
When we got the pictures back, we gave both of the twins their own just as they'd asked. According to Avery, they wanted to be able to take the baby everywhere with them. Estelle had even gotten her own.
I thought how much they already loved this baby was adorable.
(A/N: OKAY QUICK TRIGGER WARNING! PLEASE READ IT!)
TW: MENTIONS OF MANIPULATION AND MURDER, SUICIDE
Kota—the killer of my parents and many others—sat across from me, tied down to his chair after several attempts to strangle me.
I had to admit that he was quite dedicated to trying to kill me.
This time, it was less of an interrogation and more of an attempt to get any information out of him that we could. No one but Stavros would be witness to this. And a few guards, but that was for our safety. Just in case he lashed out.
"Why did you try to break out, Kota?" I asked. "Surely you knew you'd be caught."
"I was hoping you'd ask. Have them untie me."
"How do I know you won't try to choke me?"
"That would be stupid."
I raised an eyebrow. "You don't seem to know the difference between stupid and logical choices, Kota. You've killed Illéan monarchs which gives me a perfectly good reason to have you executed."
"Then why haven't you?"
I turned to the guards by his side. "Untie him."
Stavros threw a worried look at me, and I shook my head.
I trusted Kota no more than he did, but we needed him to talk. We needed to get the reason for this idiotic decison out of him. Was it because his rebel friends were here? Or something else?
They reluctantly untied him.
He stretched his arms. "Much better. You're getting better at this kindness thing, Max."
I resisted the urge to snap his neck.
"Why did you do it, Kota?"
"Why did I do what?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. "Why did I kill your precious parents? Or why did I try to escape? Or was would you like an explanation—"
"Answer the damn question," I said, "or I'll have them tie you up and let you starve."
He shrugged. "You see, I have these friends back at the camp, where—"
"At the camp?"
"I do a lot of hiking, Your Majesty."
Yeah, right.
Kota didn't do anything like hiking. Well, except for maybe murder. That did seem to be one of his stronger skills.
"They sent me a message, asking me and Mia to come get our—"
"How the hell did you get a message?"
"Remember that guard I killed?" he asked. "He let me have a letter. I spent hours trying to convince him that it was from my dying wife who was nine months pregnant. He gave in. Well, no, actually he didn't. The poison got to him and he dropped like a fly. It took me a minute to get the letter out of his hand, but I did."
"You were manipulating a guard?"
"He wasn't that smart. Easy job, really."
"What were your friends asking?"
"Oh, you know. Just the usual how's jail working out. Nothing that interesting, sir."
I really wanted to hit him, which was probably not such a positive thing to want. Though, I was sure that every human wanted to hit him. America sure did.
"Where's the camp?" I asked.
"We can get to that the next time you visit me, dear brother," he said, but clapped his hands together. "It's time for me to be fed."
"Take him to his cell," I ordered, and the guards grabbed him by the arms.
As Stavros and I walked out, Kota called out a sentence that shocked me.
"Oh! And Maxon, I promise not to do anything stupid in the future," he said. "Seriously, I promise. I'll listen to these human robots!"
There was an insistent knocking at our door.
Part of me wanted to scream. It was one in the morning and I was enjoying the hours of sleep I was getting.
I climbed out of bed and pulled on a black robe over my gray t-shirt and black sweatpants. There was another knock as I hurriedly pulled on my socks. No one wanted to see my toes.
"One second!" I called, and rushed over to the door.
Behind it stood Stavros.
Luckily, he looked no more dressed than I was. He had on a t-shirt and cotton pajama pants and surprisingly, he was barefoot. However, I was worried that he'd woken me up this early in the morning.
I shut the bedroom door behind me.
"Is everything alright?" I asked.
"Your Majesty," he said, quickly dipping his head. "There's a bit of a complication with the rebels."
"A complication?"
He explained to me that there was a meeting occurring with a few of my advisors, who needed to know what to do. I asked him about what they needed to know what to do with, but he never answered.
In the conference sat Aspen, Carter, Greggs, Peyton—who I had recently added, and several other men. It made me feel better that no one was anymore dressed than I was.
"What is going on?" I asked before anyone could bow.
"The rebels!"
"Sir—"
"The rebels did—"
I was getting too many answers at once.
"Could one person explain this?" I asked. "Anyone?"
"Kota killed himself," Aspen said, and everyone nodded. "He left a note, but we can't figure out what it means."
"He did what? And Mia?"
"She followed shortly after, sir."
I cussed.
We'd needed them to get the locations of the Southern Rebel camps! They'd been our only shot at finally putting an end to these bastards. But as always, our plan had exploded in our faces. Now we had no location and no rebels to ask.
"Let me see the note." I ordered, and Greggs rushed to hand it to me.
It was a wadded up piece of paper with what looked like blood on it.
You broke your promise, and now I'm breaking mine.
Kota Singer
"Any idea of what it means?" Carter asked.
I nodded. "When he had that girl at gunpoint, I promised I'd clear his charges. When I spoke with him earlier, he promised he wouldn't do anything stupid again."
"So this is his idea of a sick joke?" Greggs rasped. "Killing himself?"
"Have they done an autopsy?" I asked.
Stavros shook his head.
"I want one done," I said. "On both of them."
I set the note down on the table.
How would I break this to America?
At eleven o'clock that day, I was still in my pajamas. Most of us were, including my best friends and Stavros. We were trying to figure out what to do now.
I sent a note to America, asking her to get the family to gather in the family room.
Though, I'd asked her to exclude the kids. I didn't want to explain this to a six year old today or ever.
When I walked into the correct room, everyone looked at me with strange expressions. Then it came back to me that it was almost noon and I was wearing pajamas and probably looked like I'd been through a hurricane. My hair couldn't be faring well.
"Silvia hasn't killed you yet?" May asked, frowning. "I didn't know you were allowed to walk around like that."
"Silvia is the least of my worries," I snapped. "Sorry. It's been a very horrible morning."
America crossed her legs. "What happened?"
"Kota and Mia killed themselves," I said. Perhaps being blunt was good. "Kota left a note when he died, which indicates that he did it because of me. And if he did, then I'm the reason we'll never find the rebels now."
"Now your outfit makes sense," Kenna said.
"They're dead?" James asked.
I nodded. "They let me see their bodies. I'm going to have them do an autopsy and see if either of them wasn't exactly.. in the proper mental state. I wanted to ask if you'd like for Kota to have a funeral."
There was a momentary silence, in which I sat down beside America and ran a hand through my hair.
"I say no," Kenna said. "He killed your parents, Maxon. He tried to kill you."
"I don't care about what he did to me or my parents, Kenna. I want you to make this choice. The only Kota I've ever known wants me dead."
"But—"
"No." Magda said. "He was my son, but he's betrayed us all."
"Mom's right. He doesn't deserve it," May said.
To my surprise, no one looked.. sad. I couldn't say that I was sad either. Kota had caused me a hell load of pain and grief that I could've easily not had.
Magda nodded. "No funeral. He's brought too much pain to us all."
I sighed. "You'll still have a few days to decide, just in case you change your mind. I've got to go—"
"Are you going to wear that all day?" James teased.
"Maybe I will."
As the days passed, there wasn't much grieving happening. The entire family hardly seemed fazed by the events. It was almost strange to see.
Whatever I'd been expecting, it wasn't this.
They'd still opted for not having a funeral, so that's what I'd told Silvia. No funeral.
But we still had these damned rebels to stop.