It'll Be Us

by WanderlustandFreedom

Mal worked eight years to be queen and gave up countless experiences in the name of love. But Auradon never seems to like her, and things only get harder instead of easier. Revolt is coming to the palace and her mom's name has been branded on top of hers. And not only are people out for her blood, they're out for her family's, too. In the end, all she wants is her own Happy Ending.

5. Chapter 5

The stirrings were her first warning, and they almost sent her running for the hills. She couldn't even really explain the itchy, foreboding feeling that filled her when she rolled over the next morning and found her head and chest full of butterflies, but something horrible in the pit of her heart told her she knew exactly what it was. It was like someone was holding her stomach in their hands and slowly swishing it from side to side. She felt hot… burning, really.

She called breakfast to her office and walked down to meet it there. The wall was being patched into a framework of white. The carpet for the entire hallway and the wall from one edge to the other would have to be completely replaced after the wall was patched. Mal would have felt guilty if not for the fact she was swaying from side to side as she walked, completely lost in the maze of her mind and panicking as she stepped around tools and buckets of wall mud and the removed sheetrock. She stepped into her office and shut the door, which had been repaired overnight.

It took a few minutes to get going – she powered up her computer, setting the garment bags Evie had delivered aside for another day and moving the shoes and scattered possessions into a little pile for safekeeping. As her computer completed rebooting itself from the power loss yesterday, she finished the paperwork that officially relinquished her court responsibilities to Princess Anna and then sat back as a word document and a search engine opened without her command.

Mal skimmed the headlines: "Viral Footage from Future Queens Office Leaked", "Palace Coronation Back On Track", and "No Word From Palace on Scandalous Royal Conversation." She sighed irritably and clicked on the search bar. She drummed her fingers on the keys lightly, so that they wouldn't type anything, and then punched in: My stomach feels like its on fire.

It was probably a very, very bad idea to be looking these things up on the internet, especially considering her office may or may not be tapped and the Palace Guards were allowed to look at any and all signals leaving her computer, just like they were with her phone, but Mal hit search anyways and began to skim the list of internet diagnosis's.

Stomach ulcer… gastritis… Mal sighed irritably. She drummed her fingers on the keypad irritably and then began to key in: "Symptoms for" before the door opened, and she saw a flash of gold.

Ben took off his crown as he stepped into the room and dropped a long, tapered wire with a small black box attached to it onto her desk with a smile. "There's your listening bug," He pronounced. "And we were able to recover all the audio files from it, surprisingly."

"No way," Mal smiled, closing the tab before he could glimpse it and picking up the device. "That's pretty nifty. Where was it?"

"Attached to the underside of your desk, right behind where your computer wires are," Ben told her. He held up a flash drive. "And this, right here, is a recording of every single conversation that's been had in here for the last two months."

Mal's mouth dropped open. "Two months?" She gasped. "Why so long? You hadn't even proposed back then."

"Someone must have had foresight," Ben shrugged. "We still don't know who." He twirled the flash drive in between his fingers and hesitated. "Can I listen to the file from yesterday?"

Mal's smile faded and her heart sank. "Yeah, I guess," She mumbled. "Need a port?"

Ben nodded, so Mal got out of her chair and offered it to him. He took a seat and began fiddling, pulling up her file folder and then plugging the flash drive into the side of the computer.

"Are you in a free hour right now?" Mal asked.

"A free two hours, actually," Ben laughed. "I just got out of a meeting with the National Guard Services and the National Emergency Services officials. Let me tell you, it hit a little closer to home than it usually does." He opened the folders on the drive and then fiddled with the volume on her computer a little before he opened the audio file. Immediately, Mal's voice filled the room. "Oh my goodness, you're showing," She gasped. Mal shrunk a little and picked up the bug again to examine it. Such a little thing, and it had caused her so much trouble.

Ben listened to Mal and Evie discuss the dresses with almost no emotion. His eyes flickered to where the bags now sat – across the room over Mal's printer – and let loose the tiniest of smiles when he heard Evie's description of the details on Mal's dress. All too soon, though, the conversation soured.

"I mean if you're into disfigurement," Mal's voice echoed around the room, full of disgust and unease. Ben's eyebrows shot up as there was a long pause before Mal tried to correct herself.

Mal turned the handle on the door and stepped outside when Evie began to attack her. She couldn't listen to her and her best friend screaming at each other so soon after the actual event had taken place. It hurt too much to remember her best friend using everything against her and hurling every insult she could think of at her. But even through the door, Mal could hear when she began screaming.

"You've had your dreams accomplished for years, am I not allowed to be happy now that I've finally gotten my one wish!" Mal flinched. She bit her lip and wondered if it had been such a good idea to let Ben listen to the recording after all.

Eventually, the room fell silent. Mal stayed outside the room, leaning against the wall until the door opened, and Ben appeared. He leaned against the doorframe and stared at her for several seconds before he let out a breath.

"It's bad, isn't it?" Mal sighed.

"No! No, it's not." Ben let out a dry, humorless chuckle. "I mean, it's not good, but you didn't take any digs at her. She was just overreacting. You're okay." He leaned around the doorframe, shifted his weight, and then pulled her towards him using her shoulder. "Honestly, I think the tape more clears your name than incriminates you. And I see now how skewed the tape I heard was."

Mal listened to his words and swallowed. "What do you think of us releasing the tape?" She whispered.

Ben's eyebrows shot up. "I'm listening," He murmured.

"If we release the full tape, then people will know what actually went down," Mal sighed. It was an invasion of privacy, but if it kept her life on track, she was willing to make sacrifices.

Ben nodded. "Okay," He nodded. "I agree with you. Let's release it." He sighed, let go of her arm, and ushered her into the room. The door swung shut. "So…" he began, heaving a heavy sigh. "Disfigurement?"

Mal winced and closed her eyes. "I wasn't calling her disfigured, I was just..." She twisted her hands anxiously. "I was nervous and caught off-guard. I just let my mouth get away from me."

"Mal," Ben began with a sigh. She could hear the stress in his tone.

Mal stopped him with a hand. "I don't want to discuss it, Ben. Really, I don't." She wrapped her arms around herself in defense. "Not now."

"Mal, eventually that will have to-" Ben began. Mal exploded.

"I know, Ben!" She snapped. "I'm not backing out of anything!"

Silence reigned over the room. Ben's hands dropped to his sides. Mal shook her head and reached around him for the doorknob. "Mal-" he tried, but Mal ducked away from his grasp, just like she had all those years ago when she'd been blonde and miserable.

"No," She sighed, waving him away a little. "I have a meeting soon anyway. Bye, Ben." She opened the door and slipped out, shutting it behind her with a click.

---

They'd only been lying down together for about five minutes when the mattress shifted and she was pressed into his side. He pulled her close and wrapped her arms around her. Her skin felt cool against his. Mal buried her nose into his arms and took a deep inhale of the way he smelled. His chest was still bare and coated with sweat. She wished she'd gotten even an ounce of comfort from their expression of love, but instead, she felt like she was about to break down.

The feeling was back. Her insides were churning. Her chest felt like it was closing up with fear and she was shaking like a leaf.

"You're shaking," Ben mumbled against her ear. She felt him turn her towards him as her eyes squeezed shut. "Are you upset?" He whispered, running his fingertips down her sides.

Tears began to roll down her cheeks. She scrubbed at her cheeks and hiccuped. "Oh my gosh," She murmured, running her hands down his chest. His skin was slick with sweat that was steadily drying.

"What is it?" He asked, pulling her up into a standing position. The sheets fell around their legs. Mal wrapped her arms around her stomach as her shoulders shook almost uncontrollably. "Are you feeling sick?" He asked.

"Fire," Mal choked out. "My belly is on fire."

"Should I go grab your medicine?" Ben asked. He got up, started to swing his legs off the bed, and Mal stopped him with his arm.

"It's not that," She whispered, shaking her head. "It's not. I just… I think…"

"What?" Ben asked, leaning down and taking her hand.

Mal clawed at her stomach as panic set in. "There's something… it's inside me!"

Ben's shoulders dropped and he stared at her incredulously. He looked down at her body – completely bare still, by the way – and swallowed. "No," He shook his head. "It's way too soon."

But now that Mal had finally gotten the words – or the general idea, at least – out of her mouth, her head was clouding over with dozens of worries and at least a million thoughts. "Oh my gosh," She cried, leaning over and squeezing her belly as the feeling – the itch, the fire, the warning – turned her stomach from side to side.

Ben took a deep breath and tugged her into his chest. She unwrapped her arms to put them around his neck, burying her face against his shoulder as her body wracked with sobs. "Calm down," He whispered. "You're not. Not yet. It's too soon."

He sounded completely shocked. This hadn't been what he'd been expecting either. "It's too soon-" He exhaled. "Listen, we'll call someone, okay? Someone tomorrow. I'll have a doctor make an in-house call. Don't panic."

"I don't want to be pregnant," Mal sobbed, shaking into Ben's grasp, as his arms squeezed her tighter and tighter against his skin.

"You're not going to be-" He let out a dry, humorless, desperate laugh. "We have time."

But they didn't. She didn't know how she knew – it wasn't like this had ever happened to her before – but she had the most awful feeling that it was already too late to prevent, that Something, with a capital 's', had already appeared, already taken up root inside of her, and was already growing, feeding off of her body.

She cried and cried onto his muscled frame as Ben continued crushing her to him, and then spent a few minutes trying to relearn how to breathe without a hiccup interrupting every inhale. "I'm sorry," She whispered as she wiped her tears off of Ben's chest. He only squeezed her tighter to him, and she heard him take a deep breath.

"It's okay" He whispered. "I'm just… worried about Auradon."

"Auradon?" Mal asked. Why did this have to be about Auradon, and not about them? She kept her arms wrapped tightly around him with her eyes clenched closed.

"They don't know we're married yet," Ben breathed, pressed a hand to the back of her head to hold her tightly to him. "Oh god, if you are, I don't know if it'd be legitimate."

"Legitimate?" Mal sniffled. "But… we're married. You're my husband." And yes, those words still filled her with pride.

"But you're not coronated," Ben sighed, finally withdrawing a bit. "I don't know if they'd have a claim to the throne. We have all sorts of anti-conspiracy laws to keep random women getting pregnant with heirs and…" Ben covered his face with stress. "Not to mention the general talk of you getting pregnant before our 'wedding'. I could get cited by the courts… especially with all the talk that the media has been putting on you since Dad fell."

Mal's mouth went dry. "Assuming it's not legitimate," she gasped. "Does that mean-"

"The right to the throne would go to a second child, though I could probably argue the first to the people." Ben sighed, pinching the bridge between his nose. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened one to Mal. "Are you sure, though?" He whispered. "It's only been two months. Do you really think that-"

"I feel something," Mal hiccuped. "It may just be my conscience, but…"

Ben nodded with a deep sigh. "D-don't worry about it," He stuttered, putting a hand over hers. "Let's… let's just go to sleep. You have a longer lunch hour tomorrow, right? I'll call for a doctor. Everything will be okay." He laid back down with a heavy sigh and Mal carefully laid her head down on the pillow in between sobs. His strong arms wrapped around her and pulled her tight to him, squeezing her comfortingly.

Mal squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her forehead to Ben's chest. She listening to his heartbeat for several seconds, biting her lip as more tears threatened to spill out of her eyes. Ben kissed the top of her head and began rubbing her back, and the floodgates burst open. Mal cried until she fell asleep.

---

Mal hated the doctor from the moment she saw him. She knew he was there to tell her nothing but bad news. He asked her questions about her body and life with Ben across her desk as she ate lunch, took her pulse, took her blood, and began running tests on a portable machine he had brought. Mal didn't say anything as the machine beeped. She examined the doctor instead. He was a tall man, with grey roots and a receding hairline, but with dark, intense eyes and a chiseled face.

At 12:45, Ben let himself into her office without a knock. He knew the doctor was in there with Mal.

"Hey," Mal mumbled as he slipped around the desk and put a hand on her shoulder, before continuing his trip around the desk. "You just get out?" Mal asked. Ben nodded breathlessly. He pulled a chair to sit beside her and cleared his throat.

"How are things?" He asked.

Mal shook her head and covered her brow with a hand. The doctor shook his head with a small smile. "Your… fiancée? Wife?" He looked up to Ben for a moment of question and then moved on. "She called herself a Mrs. Anyways, she has a very, very intense and obvious case of tokophobia."

"Which is the fear of…?" Ben sighed, running his hands through his hair.

"Technically, childbirth, but we use the term to describe anyone with intense fears of motherhood. Pregnancy, labor, newborns, they all fall under that classification," The doctor remarked. "It's not a bad thing to be afraid of, but very… unfortunate given your status." His machine beeped and he made a sound in the back of his throat, like an odd hum, before he began scribbling on Mal's patient form that she had filled out when he'd arrived. Mal slumped forward a little, even though she couldn't read upside down and had no way of knowing what he was scrawling.

"Can it be treated?" Mal asked with a sigh, rubbing her brow line.

"Well, there's always anxiety treatments and therapists and psychologists who can help with that," The doctor informed her with a sigh. "I can prescribe anxiety pills if you decide you want to try them." The machine let out a soft beep. He leaned over to check it. "I get people like you in my office all the time," The doctor continued, capping his pen and running the sample of Mal's blood he'd taken into the electronic reader. "It's very common."

"Really?" Ben asked, raising an eyebrow. "I had no idea."

"Well, believe it or not, the idea of nine months of being bloated, uncomfortable, and generally upset and then being ripped apart or cut open never to have your body return to its original form disturbs some women," The doctor laughed. "Combined with those mom websites that tell you things you can and can't eat and exercises you have to do and the general horror stories of death and blood and people breaking ribs and backs, and it's actually not as common as it should be."

"People break ribs?" Mal asked in shock. Ben leaned over and set a hand on hers.

"I wouldn't worry about that for you." The doctor rolled his eyes. "If anything, you're in for a low risk, easy ride pregnancy. You're active and healthy enough that this should be a walk in the park most days."

"You're speaking in the present tense," Ben pointed out.

The doctor glanced at him, scribbled a few more readings down from the machine, and shut it off. He threaded his fingers together and looked at them both. For several seconds, no one said anything. Then Mal put her head in her hands and whispered: "Oh, someone save me."

Ben slumped back in his chair. "For sure?" He whispered.

The doctor nodded gravely and picked Mal's patient file up to scribble more notes into it. "Only about three weeks in. This is when people generally start noticing. If I had to place a date, I'd bet that your conception occurred around the twentieth or twenty-first. That places a due date on approximately August fourteenth." His pen ran out of ink, so he tossed it into the trash and pulled a spare out of his chest pocket. "Now would be a good time to start taking prenatal care vitamins and, if you want, those anxiety medicines."

Both Ben's and the doctor's gazes fell on Mal, who said nothing. "We want some," Ben told the doctor with a sigh. He got up to crane his neck at the paper. "Do you have her height and weight?"

"I do," The doctor affirmed. "I think it would be best to get some that help more in the day, rather than at-"

"What do you think about an abortion?" Mal blurted out. Both people turned to her with a look of surprise on their faces. She straightened up, examining them both. Green tones appeared in Ben's face.

The doctor swallowed nervously. "I… am authorized to perform those procedures, however-" He glanced at Ben.

"Mal." Ben shook his head, looking absolutely devastated. "You can't."

"What do you mean, I can't?" Mal frowned. "It's my body, Ben. I'm not ready. I know I told you I would get there but I thought I'd have more than a month and a half before I had to accept this in my life and I just can't do it now."

Ben's fists were clenched, and angry red tones were rising in his neck. "If Auradon ever found out you'd even suggested that, you'd be hated by the citizens for the rest of your life. That decision is beyond us. The future of the kingdom-"

"There'll be other times!" Mal cried. Her eyes were filling with tears. "Auradon will never have to know. We can claim patient fidelity and have it done in the palace and-"

"That's not right to just throw it away…" Ben sputtered, grasping at straws for any argument he could conjure. "Tons of women who have abortions never get over the guilt and-"

"Do you really think I'd have guilt?" Mal scoffed. "It's my life at stake. Ben, look at me, I need more time. At least six months, if not a year!"

"I don't want you to kill our baby!" Ben exploded. He buried his face in his hands as he dropped back into his chair. "God, is that an awful thing to say? I'm sorry Mal, I don't want to watch you do that! Abortions freak me out – do you know that the baby can still feel pain and can hear you from month four and then their bodies still come out afterward and – god, no!" He shuddered so hard it almost looked like he'd convulsed instead.

"Well, you know what freaks me out?" Mal asked, scoffing in disbelief. "My pelvic flooring being ripped to shreds, my pelvis itself separating into new pieces, and hours spent trying to push an eight-pound living organism out of me!"

"I will pay for therapy, I will pay for painkillers, I will take all your palace responsibilities over and move you out of the palace and the public's eye and I will do everything I can to make this as painless as possible for you, but please, Mal, don't make me stand by while you kill it," Ben pleaded, facing the floor and squeezing his eyes shut.

Mal shook her head and shot back in fiery protest. "Yeah, will you pay the price of stretch marks and swollen feet and your back moving out of alignment and – no, Ben, I don't want to do this!"

"God, I can't even look at you right now," Ben moaned, pressing his fingers against his temple and keeping his eyes closed. Mal flinched back at his hard words and stared at him in shock as his face twisted in pain. "If these years meant anything to you, if all our work was actually for something, if you ever loved me," Ben's voice broke, "Please, please don't do this to me. I beg you."

Ben was begging her. Oh god. He hadn't begged her to do anything since he'd begged her to come back to Auradon after she'd left as a seventeen-year-old. Mal's fingers curled deep into the arm of her chair to stop the shaking, and she bit her lip so that it wouldn't quiver. "Okay," She forced out, sinking back into her chair and slumping her shoulders as they grew heavy with the weights of disappointment.

Ben pulled his head up and opened his eyes. They locked gazes for half a second, and then Mal looked away and closed her eyes.

"Thank you," Ben whispered, sounding absolutely relieved. Mal turned her frame away from him a few more inches, and the doctor let out a breath.

"You're a brave man," He whispered to Ben, not soft enough that Mal couldn't hear him. "I've seen that line work on exactly one woman in almost thirty years of this work."

"Can she get two anxiety doses?" Ben asked. "One for at night and one for in the day?"

"Yes, but only if I make them as needed," The doctor warned. "I think her main problem will be struggling with it during daylight hours. Does she usually sleep through the night?"

"Yes," Ben mumbled softly in response.

"I honestly expect her to have little to no physical discomforts with how uncharacteristically strong she is," The doctor sighed. "She'll likely keep her sleeping habits up, maybe start waking up earlier and going to bed later in the summer when her time is approaching. Sickness and nausea usually only last for the first few months. Her emotions will bounce a little as she enters that middle trimester. To be honest, I bet most of her problems will be psychological. The pain is going to be locked in her head with her. You need to do your best to get her help before the kingdom and the family and her friends know."

Ben let out a breath. In her head, she could see him nodding along and running his sweaty palms up and down his pants' legs. "Is there a specific type of family or anxiety counselor I should look into, or…"

"I have a small list of people my patients have said helped them," The doctor murmured. "She needs to start seeing someone like…" He broke off with an exhale. "Months ago, really. I don't know if this ever came up between you two or if this is just now surfacing because it's happening now, but she needed that preparation long before this became a reality."

Mal leaned further into her seat as she imagined Ben nodded his agreement. His hand appeared on her leg. "I have to look into seeing the other royal's regulations for doctor appointments, but I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot of each other for the next few months." Ben sighed.

"She'll probably need to see me less often than a normal woman would, which is good because she'll be busy here in the palace with work anyways. Don't let her get too stressed out. And, if you like, when her time is at hand, I'd be more than happy to come up and perform the delivery. I can be on twenty-four-hour notice even if you need me." She heard Ben stand up as his hand left her knee and then the brushing of skin in a handshake reached her ears.

"I'd like that, but again, I have to look into what the palace dictates and talk with Mal on what she wants to happen." There was a pause, and Mal felt two stares land on her. She didn't move, hoping they'd get the hint that she wasn't making any decisions on this right now. Ben sighed. "Well, thank you for coming up to us today. Have your secretary call mine and I'll get you paid for your troubles."

"Thank you, sir," The doctor hummed. He took a few steps and a shadow descended on Mal's head. He picked up her hand. Mal opened her eyes as she watched the older man lean down, pressing a kiss into the back of her hand. "Congratulations," He bid her. "You have nothing to worry about, your highness." He set her hand back down and opened the office door. The handle of his machine hung from his fist. He shut the door behind him with a thud.

Ben undid his tie and tossed it onto her desk. He pulled his chair closer to hers and sat down in front of her. "No tears?" He asked.

"Not yet," Mal mumbled.

Ben twiddled his fingers together and sighed. "I guess… we had a bit too much fun, huh?"

"I regret nothing but our lack of protection," Mal sighed. "We should have planned ahead." She wrapped a hand around her stomach, and then withdrew her arm and leaned her head back in mental anguish.

"I'm sorry," Ben whispered.

"Me too," Mal sniffled. She cleared her throat. "Should we move Coronation day up?"

"It won't matter," Ben sighed. "Anyone with a brain can count backward. Even if we had it tomorrow, people would still notice the timing is… extremely tight," He sighed. "I did look up the laws regarding any kids of ours. They'd be legal and legitimate so long as the court chooses to accept them as their future overseer."

Mal sighed. "That's the only good news I've received all day," She sighed. "At least I know people in the courts who like me." Ben nodded in agreement. She looked up at him and examined the slope of his brow. "You're still mad at me?" She whispered.

Ben looked over at her and shook his head. "No," He assured her. "And I wasn't really mad. It's just… for about thirty seconds I was sure I was living in a nightmare."

Mal couldn't rip her eyes away from his honest gaze. "I'm sorry," She whispered. "I really, really don't want to do this."

Ben let out a long, slow breath and then looked at his watch. "You have a meeting in twelve minutes with Auradon Charity for Gifted Orphans," He reminded her. "You should get going." He stood up and picked up his tie, quickly redoing it around his neck. As he stepped around her chair, he paused.

Ben lifted her chin up and leaned down. He stopped when his breath was warm against her lips and waited. Mal let out a long, deep sigh and gave him a kiss. Worry, shock, and anger quickly left her system, leaving her feeling refreshed and energized. Ben let her kiss him for a few more seconds and then stood up. "I love you," He told her, opening the door and putting one foot out.

"I love you too," Mal smiled, straightening up in her chair and waving a little to him. He shut her office door with a thud and Mal turned with a soft smile back to her desk. She spotted the patient's folder lying open on her desk and slowly, the bad, worrisome feelings began to sink in. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and leaned back into her chair. Some things were just easier to deal with after the moment had passed.

---

Carlos and Jane came up to stay the night in the palace over the nights of the 20th and 21st while Ben traveled overnight to Cinderellasburg. The excuse was that they wanted to spend time with Mal before a.) She was drowning in coronation plans and b.) Before they left on vacation so that Jane didn't get roped into helping with the said coronation. However, Mal knew it was because Ben was trying a bit too hard to make her happy in the hopes that she wouldn't change her mind on staying pregnant.

"So, how's life in the palace been?" Carlos asked, pushing a suitcase underneath the bed in the guest room he and Jane were occupying and then turning to sit on the sheets and stare at Mal, standing in the doorway and wringing her hands silently.

"Fine," Mal rehearsed in a monotonous voice. "A bit busy, but what else is new?"

"True," Carlos snorted. "The second term is underway, and I had this one kid who's been gone since the beginning of term walk in and dump a stack of papers from the first term on my desk before he asked for everything he's missed. Right before I left, too!" Carlos rolled his eyes.

Mal snorted a little. "I used to do that," She remembered. "I'd get so clogged up with court responsibilities I'd end up handing everything in seconds before the deadlines."

"I hate children like you, and I have formally written letters to all of my old teachers to apologize," Carlos grumbled, folding his arms.

Mal glanced at her watch. "I have a meeting to attend in twenty minutes," She announced half-heartedly. "I'll be out at seven. Maybe we can order fast food into the palace. Need anything before I go?"

"Seven?" Carlos frowned. "You work too hard. I thought you and Ben usually got off at… when was it?"

"We usually get off around seven, actually." Mal shrugged. "But lately we've been starting earlier. Things are… gearing up." By that, she meant that she had therapists coming into the building and Ben was scrambling to cover up to his parents and the entire palace staff(Aside from his secretary, who Mal was beginning to respect more and more with every passing day) the fact that a.) he'd had an obstetrician come visit Mal in-palace, b.) she was on regular anti-depressants, anxiety meds, and prenatal pills, and c.)the fact she was pregnant in general. Add that to the looming dates of coronation, the responsibilities of which they were both balancing and juggling back and forth, and their workdays had once again extended to eleven hours with breaks for lunch.

"Yeah, coronations are bears," Carlos chuckled. "When Jane heard that you and Ben were going to have one, she booked our flights to Corona without even telling me so she wouldn't get roped in."

"I don't blame her," Mal sighed. She stood up straight and heaved a sigh. "Well, I'd better go. You can text if you need anything. Or ask one of the servants, either way."

Carlos nodded and waved goodbye to her. She turned and walked down the hall.

As she passed by the meeting rooms in search of the smaller one that she was supposed to be in, where her stuff had apparently already been laid out, she heard a voice behind her. "Mal!" Jane called.

Mal turned and saw Jane, with her beautiful, long, curly hair falling over her shoulder, hurrying up the hall towards her. Behind Jane was Ben, with his hands in his pockets and a straight, blank expression frozen on his mouth.

"Hey, Jane," Mal greeted, giving the shorter woman a hug as she neared. She glanced up at Ben. "I thought you left after your next meeting?" She asked.

"I decided to delay so I could say bye to you while you're in between meetings," Ben sighed. He put his arm around Mal's shoulder and kissed her hair. "You going to be okay while I'm gone?" He asked.

"I'll be fine," Mal sighed. "It's only one day."

Their gazes froze on each other in a sort of look that made her heart thud against her chest while also making her fingers feel icy. She swallowed. Maybe she had agreed not to stop this mess, but that sure didn't mean she was happy about her condition.

A sound echoed up the hallway and a group of people walked up. They were heading to the same meeting room Mal was supposed to be headed to. She watched them pass.

"I got our flight tickets," Ben told her. He patted his coat on top of his chest. She had no way of knowing but assumed that he either had the tickets or the flight information hidden there. "For after Coronation. You excited?"

"Yeah," Mal agreed. "It'll be nice to get away." Sure, it meant that she and Ben would be crammed to the point of exhaustion the two weeks before they left, but it'd be worth it to leave the kingdom for a while and not have to worry about their looming problem.

Ben blinked slowly at her. He took her face and ran a thumb down her jawline before he pressed a kiss onto her lips. She let out a simple sigh of relief. "It'll be okay," He promised. "Don't worry so much."

He took his arm back and looked at his watch. "Crap, I'm late," He groaned. He gave her one last hug and gave Jane a fist-bump. "Sorry to run. Have fun tonight, guys! Jane, you should see if you can send me a picture of Mal's white dress, that'd be great. Evie's forbidden her to show anyone and Mal's obeying for once."

"Bye Ben!" Jane called as Ben bid a hasty retreat towards the palace central elevators. She glanced up at Mal with a raised eyebrow as soon as he was out of earshot. "Trouble in paradise?" She asked.

Mal let out a scoff. "You have no idea," She mumbled, crossing her arms around herself.

"Spill," Jane demanded, shifting her weight onto one foot and giving Mal a half-sort of a smile.

"I can't," Mal shook her head in dismay.

"Why not?" Jane asked with a frown. "You can't just keep everything bottled up. I know I'm not Evie, but-"

"It's a matter of national security, Jane," Mal cut her off. "I'm not allowed to talk about it with anyone except Ben." She rubbed her eyebrow in exhaustion. "I have to go, now. But hey, we should watch a movie or something tonight. I told Carlos he could order in whatever junk food he wanted. I get off at seven – let's meet up and hang out for tonight."

Jane nodded with a frown. "Good luck," She told her. "And I hope everything works out, Mal."

"Me too," Mal nodded. She watched Jane turn and head down the hall and turned her head in dismay. She slid her hands into her pockets and entered the meeting room feeling absolutely pitiful.

---

The thing was, she didn't feel any changes. Her main therapist(she had two) asked her every single time she walked in whether Mal had started experiencing any symptoms, and she hadn't. Ben returned from his trip, Carlos and Jane left on theirs, Thanksgiving passed and then it was Friday and it'd been a week since that fatal appointment and she was officially a month in, and there were no differences.

It was twisted, but she almost wanted to be so sick she couldn't stand up in the morning. She wanted to be so sore she'd wince whenever Ben touched her in any way and she wanted to be so tired she'd fall asleep in meetings because then, at least, she'd feel justified in hating this. But so far, after one week, there was nothing except the continuing feeling she was being burnt alive, which was a psychological thing, not a physical one.

Evie, meanwhile, had started posting pictures of herself on the internet as she started to show more and more, and so Mal temporarily disconnected her social media presence(Or, what little the palace would allow her to have) to avoid the panic attacks that came with everything.

Every morning there were vitamins that she didn't know the names of and pills that made her throat constrict. She had to take them in her room and then they had to be locked in a safe in the wall where literally nothing else besides the crowns and an antique sword that had belonged to Ben's Great-Grandpa was kept so that none of the servants came across them. And god, she hated it all.

Her physical relationship with her husband fell to null soon after they got the news, simply because Mal couldn't disconnect the two ideas of a.) loving Ben and b.) being pregnant. Instead, he'd simply trail his fingertips through her hair as she cried herself to sleep each and every night, which was embarrassing for her if nothing else. Most nights she'd wake back up and cry for ages over the horrid nightmares that plagued her. Ben didn't know how to help her other than kiss her and hold her as long as she'd let him.

November 24th was gone all too soon and soon November itself was gone and she was drowning in paperwork and therapy and the news hype of the upcoming royal 'wedding'. Then there were practice events in the evening where everyone was in costume except for her because she wasn't allowed to wear the dress in front of Ben. And since Evie was her best friend, she was head of the wedding committee after Ben and Mal, and therefore Mal was spending all too much time watching Evie surrounded by people talking to her, asking how she was feeling, and be generally disgusting.

They finished a rehearsal late on December ninth. Mal had been up since six trying to stay on top of everything, and Ben had been awake since four. As they cleaned up things, Mal tried to avoid the sight of Evie in a black dress with a billowy skirt and black blouse. Her hands were, as always, on her belly. That was one feeling Mal could relate to – always fighting the urge to touch her midsection where she knew there was Something growing.

Belle walked towards Mal and dropped a flute of champagne into her hand. Without a second thought, Mal downed the glass and immediately felt her head spin. She doubled back over, spitting the foul liquid out, and then set the glass down to rush towards a trash can on the other side of the room. The room fell silent as she completely lost the contents of her dinner and then straightened back up, wincing and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Is there something wrong with that champagne?" She asked the silent, stunned room as she turned back around, holding a hand to her ribs.

"It… tasted fine to me," Belle breathed, staring at Mal in worry.

"Really?" Mal asked. "It tasted… rancid to me."

Ben's shoulders slumped across the room. The movement caught her eye and she watched him close his eyes and take a deep breath as his hands shook. Her stomach churned harder. "I just need something stronger," She sighed, still wincing at the taste stuck in her mouth.

Adam stepped forward, frowning a bit and moving carefully. He pulled a can off the table and brought it to her. "Try that," He requested with a deep frown.

It was only a whiskey. Nothing she hadn't had before. She'd had tequila and vodka mixed in a shot back at the end of her Auradon Prep days. Mal took the can and popped the top open without a second thought. The smell hit her and a wave of disgust ran through her body. She swayed on her feet and Adam's lips pinched together.

Suddenly, she realized why everyone was looking at her so strangely. She'd never, not once, thrown her alcohol back up. That habit was more attributed to poor Jane. But not Mal, never Mal. And an aversion to alcohol was a pregnancy symptom. It was part of why Evie hadn't joined in the alcohol games at Mal's actual wedding, the other part being that she was a decent mother who didn't want to hurt her child.

She felt irrational anger. She couldn't even enjoy a drink without feeling like she was going to throw up her small intestine. And, of course, her first real symptom would be something that was harder to hide from her family and friends.

Mal grit her teeth and raised the can to her lips. She knocked it back like it was a shot glass and resisted the urge to be sick as literally everything in her body screamed at her brain to stop. It was just a whiskey. It wasn't like she was trying to down Sunset rum on-the-rocks with a hint of lime and mint. Still, her throat blocked up and she almost choked as she finished off the drink. She dropped the can from her mouth and twisted it in her hands. "That's better." She announced to the room, forcing herself to pull a poker-straight face. She crushed the can in her hands to keep from showing how much they were shaking with the effort of not showing any weakness. She walked past Adam, who watched her pass without much emotion, and tossed the can in the trash can before she picked up a second from where Adam had grabbed the first. She didn't dare glance at Ben. Say, how many of these would she have to chug to lose the pregnancy?

"You can go back to business," She told everyone, cracking open the second can and taking another sip. "I'm fine."

Slowly, one by one, dignitaries and friends turned back to conversations. Mal saw someone take her champagne away, examining it carefully. Out of the corner of her eyes, she watched Ben put a hand on someone's shoulder as he maneuvered around them, on his way towards her. She turned and began to quickly walk away.

She ducked behind the table and around Carlos and Jay, who were launching grapes into each other's mouths. Someone reached out to ask if she was okay and she forced herself to take another swig of the foul-tasting drink to keep up the act. As she lowered the can from her lips, Ben's heavy hand fell on her shoulder. She hadn't been fast enough.

"Don't drink that," He whispered in her ear, trying to take it away from her without making a scene.

Mal grumbled and moved the can around his hand before she brought it to her lips and took a gulp with a completely straight face. The more she did it, the more her old Isle acting skills came back to help her. "I'm fine," She grumbled, "See? Stop worrying."

"Mal," Ben growled in the back of his throat.

"I need to go to the bathroom. Go find Doug and talk with him," Mal demanded, ducking out from under his grasp. She forced herself to keep taking sips as she walked out of the room until the world was spinning and her stomach felt like it was about to launch itself out of her mouth. Then, she continued pressing the opening of the can to her mouth, pretending she was drinking as she hit the hallway and finally sprinted into the bathrooms. She didn't even have time to lock herself in a stall before she was doubled over, clutching the basin of the toilet with the can on the ground beside her, barfing up everything – bile, alcohol, whatever sustenance remained in her stomach, into the toilet.

As she sat, heaving for breath and with her fingers still locked around the basin of the toilet, she prayed to all the gods she could think of off the top of her head that no one would walk in. "Please," she thought desperately, squeezing her eyes shut, "Please, don't let anyone see me like this.

The door opened, and Mal's head slumped in defeat. She heard the sound of beaded flats landing on the ground and then two cold, well-manicured hands pulled her curly hair out of her face. She got a glimpse of blue nail polish as the smell of the alcohol beside her overtook her.

When she finished throwing up everything she had in her body, Evie helped her up and guided her to the sink, where Mal began to wash out her mouth. Evie flushed the toilet and brought the can over to Mal, holding it distastefully. "Stomach bug?" She asked. "You shouldn't be drinking if you're sick."

"I thought I was fine," Mal grumbled. "Why are you holding it? Doesn't it make you sick?"

Evie wrinkled her nose. "Ugh, yeah. Ever since I got pregnant, I can barely even look at alcohol. It's gotten worse the last month too. Doug's quit until I'm done being pregnant because it's just so hard for me to be around." She wrapped her hands around her bump as she watched Mal squeeze her stomach as she finished rinsing her mouth out. "Why did you keep drinking after it made you sick the first time?" She asked.

"I… thought I could do it," Mal claimed half-heartedly. She shut off the water and upended the rest of the whiskey into the sink. The smell made her stomach turn again. "Ugh." She groaned, setting the empty can on the counter and leaning against the granite. "If anyone asks, I finished that outside. I walked away for some fresh air."

Evie's brow furrowed as she watched Mal pinch the bridge of her nose and groan in wallowing self-pity. Her hands dropped from around her stomach and she stared at her best friend incredulously. "Are you pregnant?" She asked.

"No," Mal blurted out, too fast. "No, no." She shook her head and dropped the can onto the floor, crushing it with her foot.

"When was your last cycle?" Evie pressed her.

"On time." Mal glared at her friend. "I'm not… I'm not… whatever." She cast her eyes aside and turned to glare at herself in the mirror.

"Have you seen a doctor?" Evie asked. "How can you be sure?"

Mal grit her teeth and ignored her friend. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the clean, citrusy scent of the bathroom. Evie waited for a few seconds and then set a hand on Mal's shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it?" She whispered.

"Talk about what?" Mal snapped. "There's nothing to talk about. I'm just sick because I've been working too hard. As soon as all of this is over, everything will be fine."

"Will it be, though?" Evie asked.

Mal's shoulders crumpled and her entire frame began to shake. Tears appeared as feel from her eyes as she hastily wiped them away. "This isn't fair!" She growled. "I never asked for this!" She dug her nails into her hands so hard she immediately felt drops of blood appear in their palms.

Evie's hands dropped like she'd been shocked. "So… this is for real, then?" She whispered. Mal bit her lip hard and glanced at her friend, who was looking absolutely shocked and a little… upset. She looked away and Evie let out a huff. "You got pregnant after, what, two months?" Evie snapped. "How far along are you?"

"It doesn't matter, I don't want it!" Mal snapped, waving her friend's concerns away. "And keep your voice down. If Auradon finds out about this, Ben and I will be in serious trouble." She pinched her fingertips to her skull as her hands shook.

"You don't want it?" Evie gasped. "That's so… Mal!"

"What? Are you going to call me selfish again? God, I'm sorry the idea of sharing my body with a – a parasite isn't really appealing!" Mal snapped.

"You're so lucky," Evie told her in a hushed tone. "You got pregnant just like that and now… you're just going to throw it away? Do you know how long it took me to get pregnant?"

"God, I'm sorry I'm not nearly as happy that I have something being dropped on me that you were blessed with," Mal grumbled. "The difference between you and I is that you were ready for it. I'm not. And what's all this 'why don't you feel like I feel'? Am I supposed to be just as excited as you were for your planned baby that doesn't literally put the entire future of Auradon on your shoulders?" She wiped her forehead.

"You're supposed to be happy," Evie insisted. "Do you know how many girls would kill to be able to be you, pregnant and with Ben, of all people! You're not supposed to be chugging alcohol, which causes all sorts of birth defects and calling your baby a parasite and just being overall really, really-"

"Selfish?" Mal cut her off. She turned and stared at Evie. "If this were any other situation, you'd say I was justified for worrying about what I'm capable of before helping someone else. I'm sorry that our situations are completely different, and you feel the need to judge me based off of what you've found to be true in your life." She straightened up and wiped her eyes. "You clearly don't understand what I'm going through."

"I can't believe you're not the least bit happy about the fact you're going to be a mom," Evie sputtered, shaking her head.

"I can't believe you expect me to be happy about something you know I'm upset about and afraid of," Mal snapped right back. "Three months ago, it was all: 'you can do this on your time, it doesn't have to be right away', and now you're mad at me because I'm scared."

"Two months ago, there wasn't another person's life on the line," Evie pointed out with a frown.

"They're not alive! They barely even exist!" Mal argued.

The door swung open and two princesses who were chatting lively stepped inside. When they saw Evie's clenched hands and Mal's red face, they stepped back out carefully. Mal took a deep breath. "This is a matter of national security and I'm not supposed to be talking about it with anyone. You can't either, under penalty of the law." She and Evie locked eyes. "Even with Doug," Mal specified.

Evie shifted uncomfortably and glanced at the door. Mal waved a hand in her field of vision. "Do you understand, Evie?" She asked.

Evie hung her head for a second and then nodded. "I understand," She whispered.

Mal stepped forward and opened the door. The two princesses were still waiting outside, looking a little uneasy. "Did you hear anything?" Mal asked them in a hard tone. The girls shrank and shook their heads simultaneously. "If you did, you're forbidden to repeat anything," She told them and then held the door ajar. They slipped inside with red faces, exchanging bewildered looks. Mal shut the door behind them and returned to the party, pushing the entire conversation out of her head.

Ben was waiting in the hall for her. She went to him, putting an arm around his waist and pulled her body close against his. He looked at her in surprise and put an arm around her shoulders. "You okay?" He whispered.

Mal shook her head. "Evie knows now," She whispered.

The color drained out of Ben's face a little. "Well," He choked. "We'll just have to tread carefully."

They stared at each other for a few seconds, and then Mal pulled her head up to his. She kissed him, and he wrinkled his nose. "You taste like alcohol and stomach acid," He told her, withdrawing and wiping his mouth off.

Mal hummed, and simply leaned in to kiss him again.

---

On the morning of the fifteenth, Mal was crowded into a back room to the Auradon Cathedral, where Evie, Lonnie, Jane, and Belle helped her into the white gown and began to do her hair in an elegant, queenly manner. Mal's hands were shaking, and though she knew it was unlikely, the dress felt too tight on her frame.

"I'm going to be sick," She announced to the room as Lonnie carefully applied a thin layer of powder onto her face.

"Are you nervous?" Jane asked, patting her shoulder as she and Evie pinned Mal's hair into place. Evie's lips pinched together tightly.

"I don't really want to be queen," Mal sighed. "But at least I get two weeks off after this."

"It's not like you haven't already been acting as the queen anyways," Lonnie laughed. "Are you feeling like you might throw up?"

Mal's eyes filled with sudden, spontaneous tears. She ducked her head away from everyone's hands and began to scrub tears away as she hiccuped a little.

Belle got on the floor and took Mal's hands away from her face. "Is everything okay?" She whispered. Mal shook her head furiously. "What's wrong?" Belle asked.

Mal swallowed her sobs and exhaled. "I can't talk about it," She told the girls around her.

Evie frowned and looked away. Jane put a hand on Mal's arm as she crouched down beside Belle. "Is it because of national security, again?" She asked.

Mal hiccupped, wiped her tears away, and straightened up. "Yes, but I'm okay," She let out a breath. "I'm just a little stressed."

There was a long pause. Belle patted Mal's hand. She knew what it was like, to have law and legal worries seal her tongue. Lonnie began to re-coat Mal's face, but Evie set her things down. "I need some air," She announced. She headed towards the door as the other three girls began to repair the tear damage. As Lonnie started to apply eyeshadow and color to Mal's cheeks, Evie reappeared with flushed cheeks. She went to the back of the room, unzipped the last dress bag, and hung the creamy, lace dress up beside the window to air.

"Thank you, Evie," Mal bid as her friend came back towards them and began to pin white metal flowers into her hair.

Evie's face relaxed a bit. "You're welcome," She smiled, bending down and smoothing Mal's hair. "And you look beautiful. Don't worry."

Mal nodded and let out a breath.

Outside, television crews had been set up. Thousands of people were viewing this event – the coronation that they were treating as her wedding – from their homes in silent anticipation. Mal's hand was shaking. Today, she had to walk down an actual Isle, be coronated, and remember what she and Ben had been rehearsing back and forth for weeks – her vows.

The clock ticked forwards toward ten-thirty in a series of clicks that were reverberating into her brain. A knock sounded at the door, and Evie went to open it. She slid the lock out of place, pushed the door open, and looked for who was outside.

It was Ben. "Hey, Evie-" He began, But Evie immediately moved to shut the door in his face. Ben barely caught the door with his toe as Evie screamed: "He can't see the dress yet!"

"My eyes are closed!" Ben called. "Geesh, I have to talk to Mal. I'm here on officialish business!"

"Let him in, Evie," Mal rolled her eyes. "He needs to see me."

"Well," Ben hesitated, "I don't need to see you. But I need the ring so I can give it to you in front of the country, and I need some good luck."

"Me too," Mal sighed. "Well, with the luck, at least. Do I need to take your ring until I walk up there?"

"I don't want you to take my ring," Ben sighed dramatically as he removed the silver band and carefully took a step into the room, holding his hands out for balance and so he could feel his way towards Mal's voice. "It's mine."

"You're taking mine," Mal laughed.

"You have two," Ben grumbled as a smile spread across his face. She watched him bump into a side table and got up to walk towards him. She took his face and turned him towards her. Immediately, a smile broke across his face and he brought his hands back up, putting them first on her shoulders to stabilize himself and then finding her face with a bright smile, even as his eyes remained closed tightly. He felt her brow line, her cheekbones, her jaw and her ears as his smile grew brighter and brighter.

"You look beautiful," He told her.

"Don't look!" Evie shrieked.

"You can't see me," Mal laughed, immediately quelling Evie's fears of Mal's dress being seen before the ceremony.

Ben drew a hand down Mal's cheek in a careful manner, rightfully assuming that she'd just had her makeup finished. "I know what you look like," He promised.

Jane and Belle let out happy sighs behind Mal as she smiled and blushed. Evie sniffled. "No, you don't. You haven't seen her dress yet."

"Do you want me to look now?" Ben laughed. Evie tensed up, but he kept his eyes closed. "I heard the description anyway," He recalled. "You have embroidery on your shoulders and there's no back to the dress." He dropped his hand to her side and let it travel around to her spine, knowing exactly where to go. His fingers spread out on her skin and his nails dipped below her waistline. He looked over to where he could hear Lonnie, Jane, and Belle shuffling and smiled in a conspiring tone. "That should be fun for later."

Mal threw her head back and laughed a little as he spread his fingers out on her bare skin. "You're a tease," She told him. "And this dress is only for the wedding. I have another one for the party."

Ben laughed in response and held up his ring. She took it and put hers back in his hand. He sighed as he turned it over in between his fingertips. "This is a sad feeling," He mourned.

"Just imagine what it'll feel like to put it on knowing you don't have to take it off whenever you go out in public with me," Mal comforted him. "And then we don't have to put up with so much secrecy anymore."

A tight sort of smile crossed Ben's face. "I mean, strictly speaking," He breathed, and then jolted back to reality. He tucked her ring into a special pocket on his sleeve and then took her face again. He dragged a thumb down her lower lip and then rubbed his fingers together. "Evie, Lonnie, Jane, Mum, have one of you put her lipstick on yet? I can't tell."

"We haven't," Lonnie laughed. She leaned against the chair Mal had been sitting in with a smile.

"Well, that's good, because I wouldn't want to ruin it," Ben laughed. His fingers hooked underneath her jaw as he fell down upon her, hitting her lips almost immediately despite the fact he couldn't see. Mal closed her eyes as her anxieties melted away. Her feet, which had been throbbing lightly from the heels, were now good as new. She opened her mouth to let him explore as one of his hands snuck down to her lower back to pull her snugly against him. Her hands became trapped in between their frames, and she could feel the muscles in his chest as she let her hands roam.

All too soon, she started seeing stars. She moaned pitifully against his mouth as her head grew light and her knees started to shake. He tried to withdraw but she wrapped her arms around him in a hurried motion to try and keep him near her. "Don't go," She begged.

"You won't be able to walk straight," Ben laughed. "We'd better stop."

Mal pouted, jutting out her lower lip even though he couldn't see it. "That's it?" she whined.

"It?" Lonnie chuckled behind them.

Ben sighed and took her face again. He pressed his lips to her in something that wasn't nearly as intense as the first one but was still very, very nice. She felt herself getting drunk, falling into his frame and swaying as her mind filled with euphorias. Then he stopped and leaned his head against hers. "Better?" He slurred.

"A little," She replied, squeezing him tightly as her head started to balance itself again. She sighed and let him go.

He felt around the edges of her face again and a smile righted itself on his lips. "You look absolutely breathtaking, though. I can't wait to see what you look like today, tomorrow," He took her hand and threaded their fingers together. "And the rest of our lives," He finished.

Mal chuckled and then he took a clumsy step back. "Evie, can you help me out to the door? Unless you've decided it's okay for me to have a peek…?"

"Don't you dare!" Evie hissed. She jumped towards Ben and carefully guided him towards the door.

"I'm opening my eyes now!" Ben warned in a teasing tone.

"No! No! No! No!" Evie snapped, shoving him out into the hall and slamming the door behind him. The sound of his laughter echoed under the door.

Lonnie uncapped a lipstick. "Okay, your highness, let's finish getting you ready!" she proclaimed. Mal chuckled and sat back down. Evie frowned from the doorway.

"Mal?" She called, "why does Ben know what the dress looks like?"

"He listened to the audio footage of our argument," Mal rehearsed in a tired tone. "Remember how the palace released the footage after someone edited that conversation of ours? We released a cut version but he still listened to the full version."

"The angry one?" Jane asked softly. Mal nodded, unable to say anything as Lonnie began applying lipstick to her mouth.

"That was Evie?" Lonnie asked incredulously. "Jay and I were talking and he told me it sounded like her, but we couldn't tell for sure."

"It was me," Evie sighed. "Mood swings. I really, really overreacted."

"Yeah, holy crap," Lonnie snorted. "I mean, I was listening to the version the palace released and I was like: Wow, that's awful. You really laid one on her."

Evie didn't say anything as she slipped some earrings through Mal's ears and clipped a necklace around her neck. Mal rotated Ben's ring around in her hands and stared at the engraving of their names.

"Ready?" Belle whispered in her ear.

Mal looked at herself in the mirror. The beautiful sleeves, her purple hair, and her small, red mouth. She looked like the perfect vision of a bride. Yet her gut was twisting, and her heart was hammering in her chest. "I don't know," She whispered. "I have a really, really bad feeling about this."

"Well, stop feeling bad," Lonnie laughed. "It's almost time!" She waved her hands about her face for a few seconds and smiled. Mal let out a breath and looked down at Ben's ring again.

Belle put a hand on her shoulder. "Everything will be alright," She promised. Mal nodded along to her mother-in-law's words and got shakily to her feet. She gave Jane and Lonnie hugs first and then squeezed Belle tightly before she slowly turned to look at Evie. She and her old friend stood, wringing their hands for a few seconds, and then Evie stepped forward with arms outstretched. Mal wrapped her arms around her old friend and ignored the way her new body felt against her front.

"Everything will be okay," Evie whispered. She was starting to shake. "And we're all so proud of you."

"You're going to be the greatest queen Auradon's ever had," Lonnie breathed, clasping her hands together. Mal swallowed. "Well, I can't say it'll be easy. I have to live up to Belle, after all."

Belle waved her off with an eye-roll and glanced towards the doors. "We'd better get moving," She whispered. "You have an aisle to walk down."

Evie pressed a hand to Mal's back, on top of the embroidery, and they opened the door. Lonnie checked around carefully to ensure that Ben wasn't around, and then they made their way to the front of the cathedral. In between the dividing doors was Jay and Carlos. Jay held a large bouquet of flowers which he handed to Mal before leaning in and kissing her cheek. Mal chuckled. "You look amazing," He whispered, taking Lonnie on his arm as he admired Mal's dress.

"I do," Mal confirmed, holding up one layer of skirts as she balanced the bouquet in her arms. "Evie always keeps me looking like a queen."

"It's not easy," Jane laughed. "We all know Mal prefers mud to makeup."

Jay and Carlos laughed. Carlos kissed Jane on the cheek and wrapped her up in his arms for a big bear hug. She smiled and kissed his cheek back.

"Are you giving me away again, Jay?" Mal asked as she took the flowers and arranged them in front of her chest. Jay shook his head and patted Carlos on the shoulder.

"I got to give you away at your real wedding," Jay laughed. "Now, it's time for your other brother to present you to your kingdom. I'm sitting this one out with Lon."

Carlos held out an arm to Mal, which she took with a smile. "Well," She exhaled. "What now?"

"Now we go to take our seats, and then they'll start the music," Evie laughed. "Don't trip."

"I won't," Mal grumbled. "Hey, Evie, what shoes do I have for tonight to go with that cream dress?"

"More heels," Evie laughed. "But they're comfy ones. I'll show you later." She kissed Mal's cheek and gave her best friend one more one-armed hug, careful of the flowers. Then she, Jay, Lonnie, Jane, and Belle slipped inside the closed doors, pulling them closed behind them. Only the strains of conversation drifted through the door. She let out a breath and squeezed Carlos's arm.

Several minutes passed with Mal shifting her weight from foot to foot as Carlos straightened and re-straightened his suit. Finally, they heard the grand organ start up. Mal cleared her throat, and two guards in Auradon Blues reached forward and opened the doors.

The cathedral was filled with dignitaries and official representatives from around Auradon. Flowers hung from the rafters and thousands of chairs had been set up in the room, filling it from front to back. There were more chairs than people – citizens stood around the room, holding small children up to see her as Carlos led her into the cathedral.

Down at the very end of the Isle was Ben, wearing a black suit and standing proud as he looked down the aisle at her. His crown was on straight, for once. He looked absolutely breathless. A smile spread across her face, and she blushed.

The moment she stepped into the room, everyone rose in a rush of color that seemed to rustle the rafters. She continued walking, one foot in front of the other, and keeping her eyes on Ben, who stood to wait for her at the end of the room, feet away from where he'd been coronated.

Carlos let his grip loosen as they neared the end of the walkway. Mal smiled at him before she carefully stepped up onto the platform, placing her hand firmly in his as they turned to face each other in front of the Fairy Godmother, whose wand was underneath its glass cover beside her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Mal thought she saw something dark and leather-like out of the corner of her eye. She turned with a frown, but there was nothing.

Mal handed her flowers to a little girl standing very near the walkway with a small smile and then stepped up. Fairy Godmother removed the glass and took the infamous wand out from underneath the glass. She stepped forward as Ben and Mal took each other's hands. Ben's ring had been slipped onto her thumb, where it was easily accessible for the moment that she'd give it back.

"Do you solemnly swear to love and protect each other every day you are married, for the rest of your lives, till death do you part?" The Fairy Godmother asked, presenting her wand for the crowds to see.

Mal nodded and squeezed his hands. "I do," She announced, loud and clear to the crowds.

Ben smiled and couldn't resist pulling her a few inches closer. "I do too," He agreed with a bright, exhilarated smile.

"Then it is my honor and my joy to bless and uphold this marriage," The Fairy Godmother recited, waving her wand around the two. White ribbons materialized, tying their wrists together loosely. "You may kiss the bride."

Ben's hand left hers to fumble in his sleeve pocket for her ring as she took hers off her finger. He leaned in and kissed her, long, sweet, and chaste for the cameras. Mal blushed as he withdrew, long before either of them would have started slurring their speech. Then, in front of the crowds, he took her left hand and replaced her ring on her finger, never to be taken off again. Mal held out a hand for him to give to her and slid his ring back on as well. All in all, they'd probably been missing them for a half-hour. Ben leaned in to kiss her again and this time, she saw stars.

The crowds applauded and whistles rang through the air, but it wasn't nearly as magical as the first time she'd been married. She was glad she and Ben had gone the route they had.

Ben took two steps back and away from her as the Fairy Godmother cleared her throat. Mal exhaled, and then carefully, as best she could, got to her knees on the platform. Her dress billowed out around her and the little girl who'd held her flowers gave them back so Mal could arrange them on her lap as the Fairy Godmother took up an authoritative stance in front of her.

"Do you solemnly swear to support the king in all of his responsibilities, and to join with him to protect the people of Auradon, blessing them in goodness and well-being as long as you shall reign?" The Fairy Godmother asked, beaming a little as she tapped the wand once on Mal's left shoulder and then again on her right.

Mal looked up at Ben as she ran her fingertips over her ring. "I so swear," She declared with her voice echoing like thunder around the room. Ben's smile grew brighter as he heard her announcement.

"Then it is my joy and my honor to bless our new queen," Fairy Godmother announced. She turned to the side of the platform, where a young boy strode forward with Belle's old crown laid on a soft satin pillow. She laid her wand down and took up the crown before she laid it onto Mal's head. Mal winced as one of the gold attachments prodded her skull before the accessory balanced and stopped hurting, though it remained quite heavy. "Long may she reign."

The crowd took up the chant: "Long may she reign."

Ben stepped forward and extended a hand to her. She took it carefully and he helped her to her feet. As she stood, the room exploded into applause once more. Ben raised her knuckles to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her rings. She laughed and squeezed his fingers as guests cheered and screamed.

And that was it. She was finally, after all these years, queen.

---

She missed her alcohol. Really, all she wanted was a stiff drink.

Mal stood, loitering at her own afterparty, holding a glass of champagne that she didn't dare drink and looking around with a political smile as people came up in a line to shake her hand and offer congratulations. Her pretty cream dress was swishing around her frame and her hair was hanging free around her head, though the crown was still pinned into her locks. The comfy heels Evie had promised were made of woven straw with fabric sewn around them.

Evie watched as Mal toasted her champagne to someone else across the room and pretended to take a drink. She looked sorely unimpressed.

Ben appeared, walking towards her with a smile. He took the champagne out of her hand, setting his and hers down on a side table, and then took her arm. A small crowd gathered as he took Mal's shoulders and abruptly dipped her low to the ground before he kissed her, pressing his tongue into her mouth as she held onto him, two feet from the ground. She pointed her toes as she held onto his shirt. Cameras flashed and people yelled in approval.

"You doing okay?" He whispered in her ear as he brought her back up.

Mal smoothed his shirt out and stood on tip-toes to whisper in his ear: "I need some more anxiety stuff." Her stomach felt like it had a rabid wolf stuck in it that was trying to claw its way out of her intestines. "I just… can't deal with it anymore."

Ben nodded. "I'll run out to the car and grab you a pill," He promised in a whisper lower than most people could imagine. He brushed her shoulders off. "I love you," He promised her, louder and in front of all their spectators.

Mal smiled and pressed a kiss to her husband's cheek, leaving a bright red stain that matched the ones on his mouth. "And I love you," She returned.

The journalists sighed as Mal turned and picked her champagne up. The party, fun as it was to see everyone so excited for Ben to kiss her, was becoming a bit much. "I'm going to take some air," She announced. She glanced around the circular building that Evie, Belle, and Ben had rented. The sun had already set outside, and the glittering snow cast the reflection of the moon up into her eyes. It was too cold to go out. She glanced up and saw a staircase leading up to a balcony that no one seemed to be occupying at the moment. It was simple in an elegant sort of way. Two staircases curled up to join against the wall, forming a second story that rested above everyone's heads. A gold wrought banister completed the look. Mal pointed up to the level. "I'll be up there," She whispered to Ben. He nodded and, with another kiss, disappeared to run out to the car.

Mal slipped through the crowd and made it to the base of the staircase. She climbed up as her heart began to pound and her hands started shaking. Was the dress really that tight? It hadn't seemed nearly so restrictive when she'd first stepped into it. And worst of all, it was mostly around her hips and ribcage, which forced her heart to begin running wild with thoughts of the… thing inside of her.

Mal tripped on the last stair and barely caught herself as she hurried out of sight of the guests. Upstairs, there was a tiled veranda with a balcony extending out over the snowy slopes of the hill the wedding party had rented. She ripped the crown and a few small locks of hair out as she practically collapsed against the balcony, heart pounding and head spinning. Then she examined the champagne glass tactfully. She raised it to her lips with a shaking hand, forced her throat open and downed the entire glass in one fell swoop. Immediately, her stomach rejected the foul, rancid-tasting liquid. She leaned over the balcony as her stomach rushed back up her throat in protest, praying no one from the ballroom noticed.

Someone's cool hands brushed her hair back as she groaned. She batted the person's hands away. "Mm fine, Evie," She grumbled.

"Evie?" A cruel, cackling voice laughed. Mal's eyes snapped to attention. She turned her head around and found herself taking five steps away to put distance between her and the person who'd appeared at her side. They were dressed in mostly black, with skull appliqué hanging from her ears and embroidered into a scarf she had coiled around her neck. Dark teal braids hung down to her waistline in thousands of thin, shrimp-smelling twists. A very long knife was sheathed at her side as if it were a sword, and she was fiddling with a ring on her finger in the shape of a silver octopus as she chuckled at Mal's bewildered expression.

"Uma!" Mal gaped like a fish, which was irony if nothing else. "What – How did you – Why are you here?"

Uma hummed as she leaned over the balcony to glance at where Mal had just thrown up. "Nice one, princess. Are you sick?"

Mal wrapped her arms around herself defensively as she glanced at the knife at Uma's side. "Sick of you showing up to ruin my royal events, sure," She grumbled. "What are you doing here?"

Uma laughed. "You got the Isle, then the king, and now Auradon. I am not going to be stuck with your… leftovers anymore." She cocked her head at the items in Mal's hands. "Nice crown," She complimented. "Belle's?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Mal hissed.

Uma laughed. "Well, aren't you feisty for a cornered girl? Tell me, Mal, aren't you curious at all how I got in here?"

Mal hesitated and glanced around the circumference of the balcony for clues. She glanced over the balcony and suddenly realized what was amiss.

"The guards," she mumbled. "All of the north-side guards are missing."

"They'll come back around in the morning," Uma laughed. "Sleeping spell. More your mother's specialty, but it works well enough for me."

She unsheathed her knife and took a step to her left, towards the ballroom, blocking Mal's escape route. Mal leaned against the balcony again, arms shaking. Her stomach was churning again, and suddenly it felt like her worst fears were coming to life. She was sick, incapacitated, and had nowhere or way to run. Trapped. She curled a hand around her belly as tears filled her eyes. Curse this small cell clump for all the pain it was about to cause. If only she weren't susceptible to panic attacks. If only she didn't have to worry about being sick or hiding that she wasn't drinking or needing medicine.

"Ben knows where I am," Mal gasped. "He's coming with things for me. He'll be here soon."

"Then I'll be fast," Uma laughed. "What's Beasty-Boy bringing you? More champagne?"

Mal's hands clenched into fists as she guarded her front carefully. Uma took a step forward and Mal's spine hit the balcony. Uma examined her stance – it was clear that it was delicious to her; seeing Mal with nowhere to run. Then, her face contorted into a frown, and then reverted back into a devilish smirk.

"Oh, is that what this is?" Uma laughed suddenly. "He knocked you up? Before your wedding?"

Mal stumbled and her shoes slipped underneath her feet. "No!" She denied though Uma wasn't going to be fooled.

"What happened to Princey?" Uma cackled. "I thought he was all about standards and everything." She ran a finger down the blade of her long, silver knife. "Imagine if Auradon knew about that."

Mal grit her teeth, planted her feet, and straightened up. "Uma," she hissed through her teeth, "if you kill me, you'll have killed the reigning queen of Auradon. That's an act of treason. Ben will have you executed for it. You can't run when everyone in Auradon will know about it."

"If that's the only card you have to play, you're less prepared than I was expecting," Uma told her, looking absolutely gleeful.

Mal set her champagne glass down on the balcony, along with the crown. She swallowed and straightened up. "I could still burn you alive any day."

Uma threw back her head in hysterical laughter. "Hasn't anyone told you?" She laughed. "Ah, there are so many problems with that plan I can't begin to explain how dumb you are! Palace life has made you weak, Mal. But go on, burn the building down with all of your citizens and guests inside. Maybe Ben will have returned by then, and he'll be baked too. And all your cameras are still rolling, letting everyone in Auradon know how happy the royal family is, so I'm sure Auradon will be pleased to see the queen performing such drastic, evil magic on the eve of her coronation. I wonder if the palace could recover from the riots?" Uma chuckled and then gestured to the area around her. "Not to mention your other… incapacities."

"I am not incapable," Mal insisted, eyes flashing. "Out of practice, but not incapable."

"Go on, then," Uma gestured to the area around them. "I honestly want to see you try."

A crash sounded from inside the room. Harry and Gil appeared, stalking towards her with long swords drawn. Mal swallowed hard and felt her fist light on fire. She braced her body and went on the defensive, guarding her face carefully with her flaming fists.

Uma looked genuinely impressed she'd been able to manage the feat. "Impressive," She murmured as Harry and Gil approached her from behind. "How long can you keep it up?"

As if Uma's words had triggered something within her, Mal's fists flared and sputtered. For half a second, she felt the heat, real and painful on her hand, and she yelped and waved it out as a feeling like tingles ran up and down her frame. Uma laughed, turning to Harry and Gil and gesturing at Mal as if she were some sort of freak show.

"She's pregnant," Uma told her comrades through laughter. "No more magic, at least for a while."

"What?" Mal sputtered, twisting her hands back and forth as evil grins spread across Harry and Gil's faces.

"Don't 'cha know?" Harry slurred, tapping his sword on the ground as he inched close to Mal. "Pregnant woman can't work with magic. It turns out… horribly, for the mom."

Mal stared at them, her old foes, for a few seconds, and then abruptly kicked Uma back into Gil and Harry. The three went down, and Mal jumped over their heads. Harry snatched her ankle in midair and she slammed, face-first, into the ground. Something in her face broke.

Behind her, Harry raised his sword. He brought it down towards her leg, and Mal kicked out and into his hand. The sword went flying as Harry let out a yell. Mal turned, seized Gil, and wretched his sword out of his hand. She made to bring it down on Harry's arm, and Harry released her.

Uma made it to her feet, seizing Harry's sword and leaping towards Mal before Mal could get up off the floor. She locked swords with Mal using one hand and then braced the knife above Mal's left eyebrow. "Long shall she reign," Uma hissed.

Mal kicked Uma in the stomach, sending her sprawling across the floor. She pushed herself to her feet, and a fist came flying into her vision. Her head was knocked back on impact, and her ears started ringing. She coughed, and spat out a mouthful of blood, swinging wildly. Another fist connected with the right side of her head and then the fleshy part of her arm before she watched in slow motion as a boot landed in the center of her chest and sent her sprawling out on the floor again.

Another flash of silver signified that a sword was coming down on her head. She blocked it, pushed herself back up, and caught Harry's next right hook with her free hand as it came. She slammed her forehead onto his to daze him and then pushed him back into Uma as she came back with sword and knife waving in precise, deadly patterns. Then she turned and dodged one kick, one punch from Gil before she dropped her sword and stepped on it to keep any of the pirates from grabbing it back. She punched Gil straight in his chin, right over where his father's stupid 'swell cleft' was visible. She used the foot not holding her sword down to kick him in the stomach as he fell back, and then turned to snatch up her sword as Uma made a slash towards her neck.

She stopped Uma's attack with a parry and used her elbow to lock under Uma's shoulder, keeping her from wielding the knife. Harry was getting up, looking slightly dazed, but not down yet. She just had to take out Uma, and-

Gil kicked her feet out from under her.

Mal crumpled to the ground as the large, strong man seized her hands and pulled the sword out of them. Uma stomped down on her feet, twisting the heels at horrible angles on her joints. Mal let out a scream, and the music stopped inside the ballroom. She started to yell, but Harry jumped up and drew his fist back. He slammed his knuckles into her jaw, making her see stars in a way she hadn't in a very, very long time. The next target was her neck, and then he stood tall and stomped down on her chest. She felt something snap. He crouched back down and slammed his fist into her midsection, completely stealing her breath away before he seized her legs.

Uma released her feet and together Gil and Harry hefted her into the air. Mal couldn't breathe as her lungs refused to constrict. They swung her one way, then the other, and then launched her frame towards the ballroom. She flew through the air and slammed into the banister guarding the stairs with her stomach taking most of the blow. Guests looked up, gasping in horror as she coughed up a mouthful of blood onto the ground twenty feet below her.

For several seconds, no one moved. No one knew what was going on. Mal was bleeding, her dress had blood and mud on it from where she'd been kicked, her crown was gone, sitting back on the balcony, and she was struggling for breath as Uma advanced behind her.

She braced her hand on the banister and turned away from the crowd, leaning heavily on the metal as her feet slid uselessly beneath her. She couldn't get them to straighten up. More gasps ran through the crowd as Uma appeared, and she heard Jay let out a: "Let's go!"

Harry jumped past Uma and snatched the back of Mal's head. He ripped her neck back and braced the sword Mal had lost at her neck. "No one move!" He bellowed. The room froze. Mal looked down at everyone and saw people staring in silence with their hands poised over their mouths. Jay, Carlos, and Doug were all poised at the base of the steps, frozen as they watched Harry pull Mal's head back further and further. She swallowed and felt a dribble of blood run down to her collar.

"Harry," She whispered hoarsely. "I can't breathe."

"I don't know why you thought that was the goal," Harry hissed.

Mal looked across the room and saw Ben standing with his eyes wide and his hands poised in the air and let out a breath. Blood continued spilling from her nose and her neck, and she could taste even more of the coppery substance in her mouth.

"Out of the way, Harry," Uma commanded, wiping her brow and brandishing her knife as she stepped forward. Harry carefully kept his sword raised above Mal's head as Uma let the second lethal weapon clatter to the floor. Mal kept a hold on the banister for balance as Gil picked up the sword and went to the top of the staircase that her friends were poised at the base of, ready to fend them off. Uma balled up her fist and gave a swift right hook to the side of Mal's head. Her neck snapped back, and she almost flew off the banister. Jay flinched forward a little, and Harry raised his sword threateningly.

So here she was, slumped against the banister with her back to the room, holding on with both hands, bleeding and bruised as her frame shook. Uma raised the knife above her head. "God bless the Queen of Auradon," She spat in a crazed tone. "Long shall she reign!" And there was a flash of silver, and Mal felt something incredibly warm in her stomach. She let out a short yell as the crowd screamed below and people began to rush for the exits, all except for Jay, Doug, and Carlos. They rushed up the stairs and tried to dodge around Gil as he slashed to keep them back.

Mal looked down and observed the hilt sticking out of her stomach. She felt something die inside her – literally, not figuratively. She could feel that the knife had gone all the way through her abdomen, breaking through the skin on her back. And for now, it didn't hurt. It only felt incredibly, incredibly warm. Then Uma twisted the knife, and Mal screamed. Pain. Everything was pain.

She twisted the knife clockwise about halfway around a full circle, then pressed her foot to Mal's chest and yanked it back out. The metal came away red, slicked wet with her blood. Mal slumped into the railing.

"Stop it!" Jay yelled, slamming his fist into Gil's chest. The son of Gaston didn't budge, but Harry took his sword and rushed over to help him.

"Guards, guards!" Someone screamed at the back of the room. Blue-clothed people were streaming into the room. Lonnie, in a flurry of pink and orange, rushed up the stairs with two swords in her hand. She slashed, and blood spilled to the floor as her sword sliced through Gil's forearm. The pirates were quickly on the retreat.

Uma held up her knife, took a firm hold of Mal's hair, and drew a slit across her throat. Mal held her breath as she waited for the gurgling sound that would tell her that her artery had been sliced, but there was none. Uma, apparently, didn't know how to slit throats.

The pirate girl waved cheerily at Mal. "Ta-ta!" She bid the queen farewell, and then, hooking her hands under Mal's hips, hefted her over the railing.

She crashed onto the ballroom floor in a heap of bloody lace and tangled hair. Harry, Gil, and Uma began to retreat to the balcony. Her friends started to follow, but one of the guards yelled: "Halt! Ready, aim, fire!"

A barrage of gunshots rang over her head as everyone leaped off the stairs. Mal heard a yell, and then a shout, and then all was silent. The ballroom was mostly empty aside from the last few guests who were too frozen to move.

"Out of the way!" Ben yelled from the back of the room. She felt his hands land on her broken body and let out a cry as he rolled her onto his back. His hands roamed her body as she felt the presences of people gathering around. The world seemed awfully dark. Ben's hand covered the wound on her stomach as blood gushed out in a grotesque manner like someone was squeezing jelly out of a bag.

"Ben," She whispered.

"You're going to be okay," Ben whispered. "Everything will be okay."

"Ben," Mal mumbled. "It's gone." She felt the blood rushing up her battered esophagus and coughed up a bunch of thick, red liquid.

Ben's hand fell limp on her sides. "Yeah, I know," He whispered. "I felt it too."

Mal saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Someone in the crowd was scooping up three colorful, bead-sized items off the floor.

She curled her fist around his elbow and pulled as much as she had strength too. "Ben," She whispered. "I'm dying."

Ben wrapped his arms underneath her shoulders, supporting her head as he leaned down. His mouth pressed against hers, though he remained tight-lipped and there was almost no passion.

"Is she breathing?" Someone yelled.

Mal had her eyes closed, so she couldn't see anyone's reactions when she began to heal a little, but she heard everyone fall silent as the warmth in her belly lessened a little. Her back slid back into place. He kept his lips on hers, breathing through his nose until abruptly they started seeing stars. He let her go, and together they examined her. She had not healed, or, at least not all the way. She'd only been stayed from the edge of death. The blood was flowing less, her neck, back, and nose had fixed, but she could still feel the internal damage and the broken rib that Harry had kicked in.

Ben ran his hands over the oozing wound, ripped off his jacket, and pressed it to her abdomen. Mal focused on breathing in and out as Jay removed his coat, rolled it up, and slid onto the floor. Together, he and Ben carefully lifted her head and slid the jacket underneath his neck. Mal coughed when they moved her chest too much and blood appeared in her mouth. Her throat, she realized, felt incredibly, incredibly dry.

"Has an ambulance been called?" Jay whispered to Ben, who grit his teeth.

"I don't know, can you check?" He whispered back. Jay nodded and jumped to his feet.

"Can… can I have some water?" Mal whispered.

Ben shook his head. "I'm sorry, I don't think you can until we, um, take care of you." He let out another breath and leaned down to give True Love's Kiss another try. Mal let her eyes drift closed again. She felt small, small lacerations fix themselves in her stomach, but the gaping wound was apparently too much for the magical kiss.

Blood seeped out from under her in a perfect red puddle. Guests took a few steps back as the smell grew worse. One of Ben's hands continued holding his jacket to her gushing wound as the other felt down her arm until his warm fingers brushed her cold ones, and they both squeezed each other's hands tightly. He finally gave up, sitting back and kissing her fingertips instead, one by one.

"Help is on the way," Jay announced, crouching down again and smoothing Mal's hair over. "Why didn't True Love's Kiss heal her?"

"It did what it could," Ben sighed. "But even magic has limits. True Love's Kiss… just can't be expected to keep a person alive in situations like this."

Mal glanced around at the crowds and then squeezed her eyes closed. She clasped Ben's hand to hers and took a few deep breaths. Shouts came from above, on the balcony. Harry was escorted down, swearing up a blue cloud as two guards held his hands behind his back. When he saw Mal, he glared. "She's still alive?" He yelled. "Just die, already, you witch!"

The guards turned him away sharply. Two more guards escorted Uma down the stairs. She'd been shot through the cheek, and so her mouth was full of cloth. She sent a scathing glare to Mal as the soldiers marched her away. Then, finally, a procession carried a third person, whose body was completely limp, down the stairs. Gil, the son of Gaston, had been shot through the chest and was dead.

Ben pressed another kiss to her to keep healing her as much as he could, but the more he tried the less happened, and he knew it.

"Is she pregnant?" Someone blurted out from the sidelines. Everyone's heads snapped to the person who'd spoken; a girl with long, curly hair and a magazine pass. She was holding out three colorful pills in her hands. She pointed to them. "King Ben dropped these. This one is a prenatal vitamin." She pointed to the middle-sized one. The other two were the anxiety relief pills he'd been bringing her. Mal looked up at Ben, who straightened up in shock and looked on the floor all around him. That reaction all but constituted the conclusion: yes, those were hers. Yes, she was pregnant.

Jay looked at Ben incredulously. "She's pregnant?" He gasped, and then looked down at Mal. "We've got to – we have to-"

"She's not!" Ben snapped and covered up his face. "Someone stop the cameras. How much longer until the ambulance is here?"

"How far along is she?" One of the guests gasped. "Is the child legitimate?"

"That's why this whole thing happened so soon!" another one of the dignitaries called out. "You were trying to hide it!"

"No, no," Ben denied fervently. "No, we already had the plans in place long before-"

"She is?" Jane gasped, covering her mouth. "So soon?"

Belle crossed her arms. "This is the national security you were talking about?" She frowned.

"She's not pregnant," Ben shouted, pulling at his hair. "By God, can't you people just shut up for five minutes? She was just thrown into a balcony, stabbed, and then dropped twenty feet. Do you really think she could still be pregnant after all of that? Use your brains; the baby is dead."

"What about these other two?" The magazine girl asked, still pointing at her hand. "I looked these up – they're high-end anxiety and depression treatments! Why's she taking these?"

Mal watched Evie cover her mouth with two hands. Ben ran his free hand through her hair, staring at her, and she got the feeling he was about to take a blow for her.

"They're mine!" He announced, lying through his teeth. "Believe it or not, running a kingdom isn't always planning parties and trying to keep people from attacking your wife." Mal squeezed his hand tightly and gave him a look that said: "You don't have to do that."

Ben leaned down to kiss her again and finally, the sounds of sirens were heard around the building. Blue and yellow lights flashed across the walls. He kept his mouth by her ear and squeezed her hand so hard the blood flow stopped. "You didn't have to do that," She whispered. Beside her, Jay flinched, and she knew she hadn't been quiet enough.

"It'll look better," Ben whispered. "And listen, I can't go with you in the car to the hospital, but I swear I'll meet you there. Everything will be fine. Okay?"

Mal reached up and touched his face. Her hand was bloody and left red fingerprints behind. She could hear car doors slamming outside. "Ben, I'm sorry," She whispered. She wasn't talking about the blood or about the horrible evening.

Ben let out a heavy breath. "It's okay," He assured her. "Next time, we'll plan it. Everything will be fine."

The doors to the ballroom banged open and soldiers streamed in. "Where is she?" Paramedics yelled. The guests turned and rose the call up. As the emergency officials rushed over, Ben leaned down to kiss Mal again. He kept his lips on hers as long as he could as paramedics lifted his jacket off her, examined the wound, and began to pull him off of her. "Your Majesty, we need to move her. Step out of the way, please," They directed.

Ben got to his feet with the help of Jay and Carlos. His knees were soaked through. The paramedics moved Mal onto a stretcher. A large amount of blood remained on the floor, spreading now that there wasn't anything there to help soak it up. Guards stepped close to Ben, putting hands on his shoulders as the paramedics drew close. Ben waved them aside a little. "I'm going to follow them out to the car. You can follow me if you need, but please call ahead and make sure the palace limo is running. I want to follow them to the hospital." He started walking alongside the stretcher. All ten of his emergency escort guards followed him. Mal's standard five, plus her new ten, were marching around them, clearing a path for the paramedics as they hurried out the length of the ballroom, down the driveway leading up the hill to the building, and into the ambulance. As they began to raise Mal into the vehicle, Ben wrung his hands.

"I'm her true love," He told them. "If you would let me, can I kiss her one last time before she gets in? It might help."

Paramedics shook their heads. "She has blood on her mouth," They told him. "And we need to make sure her airway is clear and fix her internal bleeding as soon as possible."

Ben nodded sadly, and his guards made him take several steps back as two of Mal's armed guards helped load Mal into the ambulance, and then climbed up alongside them. All of her other eight guards would follow her in a separate car.

Mal kept her eyes on Ben until the doors shut. They rushed around in the small space, pulling on an oxygen mask, flashing a blinking light in her eyes, and then carefully inserting a needle into her arm. Someone male waved at her to get her attention. "Can you hear me?" He called. Mal nodded. He gave a thumbs up. "I want you to relax a little, lean your head back, and then focus on my hand." He held up a fist in her field of vision. "We're going to count to three together. I'll do it out loud, and you'll do it in your head." Again, Mal nodded. "One…" The man started, holding out a finger.

The car started to move, meaning that her guards were all loaded up in their car. One of the rules was the emergency services weren't allowed to remove the royals from their premises without their guards.

"Two," The man continued, holding out two fingers above her head now.

She didn't like all the palace rules. She used to mess them up all the time. She used to break down in her room and cry because there was so much to remember… so many rules.

She watched the paramedic mouth the word 'Three,' but couldn't hear it. Her ears were ringing. He waved a hand over her head in a concluding manner and she closed her eyes, falling fast into slumber.