This scene was cut for not conveying the situation appropriately and for informing Auradon too soon.
Mal got back to the castle early, around four. Ben was in a meeting with the other royals when Stewart left them in the driveway with a hug each.
"I'm going to go up to change." Audrey said, picking at the sawdust that covered her Auradon Girl Scouts shirt. They'd helped the construction crew build a new house that day.
"Sounds good." Mal nodded, ruffling her hair and causing a small waterfall of sawdust to waft to the ground outside the palace. Mal sighed and pulled the front door open. "Is it fitting for the queen of Auradon to have sawdust in her hair?" She asked Audrey with a smirk.
"Better than having gutter grudge on your face." Audrey laughed as she slipped inside and began to head up the stairs to the room that she was staying in. Mal laughed as well and pulled out her phone. She stood in the front foyer and texted Sophia: 'Do you know where Ben is?'
Within seconds, she sent back: 'Large meeting room' before sending a purple heart emote. Mal resent it with a laugh.
She headed up to the meeting room. As she approached, the door swung open and Aurora and Phillip appeared, looking incredibly uncomfortable. Ben was yelling inside the room but Mal couldn't make out what was being said as Phillip pulled the door closed behind him. Mal immediately stiffened in surprise. She had barely ever heard Ben yell.
"Oh, you might not want to go in." Aurora said as she caught sight of Mal. "We're having a few problems."
"What of?" Mal asked.
Inside, Ben's voice rose even louder. "Alright! I'll go! But I won't be happy about it!"
Mal's lips pinched together and she rolled her eyes. She approached the door to tell her husband to stop being so melodramatic and was shocked when the handle flew away from her grasp. The door flew open and hit the wall as heroes started to gather their items, most of their faces in varying shades of angry red and pink. Ben stood in the doorway, looking like he was sweating a downpour. He nearly flattened her as he made to storm out of the room.
"You don't have to be happy about it, you just have to get it done!" Adam yelled at his son's retreating back. Mal glimpsed Jack Frost flying above everyone's heads. "Mal has to leave too! It's not your job to always stay here, waiting for her to come back."
"Mal." Ben said, ignoring his father's yells behind him. The room fell silent as they looked at the wide-eyed purple-haired fairy in the doorway. Adam wilted into his seat and pressed his fingers to the bridge between his nose as he sighed.
Mal backed up a few steps to be out of the view of the room. "Going somewhere?" She asked.
"What?" Ben asked in a surprised daze.
There was a silence between them as Ben returned back to homeostasis. "Yes." He sighed. "Up North. War stuff. I'll leave in a few days."
Mal nodded. She wasn't really feeling anything at the moment. She figured she could be sad about him leaving when she wasn't trying to talk to him and when there weren't a hundred other people in the next room. "Need help packing?" She asked.
"That'd be nice." Ben agreed. "Are you okay?"
Mal shrugged. "Well, it's not like I don't live without you for a month every month anyway." Even at those words, she put her arms up around his neck and pressed him close to her. She put her nose in his shoulder crevice and inhaled.
Ben chuckled and hugged her back. "Aw, you'll miss me." He smiled as he began to lightly rub her back.
"Mhm," Mal hummed her nonverbal agreement. "Yeah, don't stay away too long, okay?" She smiled and broke apart from him. No one was moving in the room next to them. "How long will you be?" She sniffled and immediately cursed herself. Nope, nope, no. Bad. She still didn't feel sad, but her body was obviously feeling it. Mal supposed this is what passive sadness must be. It kind of hurt, but in a way her heart wasn't sure what it was actually feeling.
Ben smiled at her. "I don't know, but I'll call you every night if you want."
Mal snorted. "You don't need to do that." She rolled her eyes.
"I will." He promised. His arms were still around his waist.
Mal hummed and brushed imaginary dust off of his shoulders. "Well." She said tactfully. "I was just coming up to tell you…" She hesitated.
"Tell me…" Ben trailed off after a few seconds of waiting for her to speak.
"I'm trying to phrase it!" Mal grumbled.
"Just spit it out!" He probed.
"I can't just spit it out!" She protested. "This is really important!"
"What?" Ben asked.
"Hush." Mal commanded as she fiddled with the lapels on his suit. "You're going to be back by July?" She asked.
"July is months away." Ben deadpanned. "If I'm not back by January, I'll riot – oh crap!" He facepalmed. "Our anniversary. I'll leave before then."
"Doesn't matter." Mal waved him off.
"It does matter." Ben frowned. "I had – a thing! Remember?"
"July?" Mal reminded him.
"Yeah." He sighed with a frown.
"That's good, because I might need a bigger set of hands to help out with my little ones." Mal fumbled over her words. She groaned. "Wait, that sounded more obvious in my head. Let me try again."
Ben squinted at her. "What?" He asked dubiously. "Can't you just tell me?"
"No! I feel pressured to do this in a cute way." Mal snapped back. "I looked at like, two hundred pictures on my way back from the Isle." She groaned. "Okay, try number two. There's going to be a new prince or princess around here." She told Ben.
There was a sudden gasp from inside the room, but Ben was going cross-eyed trying to figure out what she was saying. That meeting must have really fried his brain. Mal pressed her lips together to try to stifle a smile as she waited for him to catch up.
"Is… someone coming to visit?" He asked slowly.
"To stay." Mal corrected. She glanced sideways and saw Adam staring at them with his hair ruffled upwards and a shocked look frozen in his eyes.
"Oh!" Ben exclaimed, drawing her attention back to him. "You're bringing someone else from the Isle over?"
"No." Mal slumped forward. Ben delved back in confusion. "Oh my gosh." Mal looked at the ceiling.
"I don't understand." Ben mourned.
"Okay, okay." Mal sighed. "One more try and then you'll have to ask your mom." Ben gave her a weird look.
"Kay, first you were my sorta-kidnapper," Mal began.
"Ouch." Ben interrupted.
"Hush," Mal demanded with another eye-roll. She began to use her hands to help accentuate what she was saying. "Then you were my fiancé, and then my husband, and now my best friend-slash-significant annoyance. But come July, you'll get the chance to be something that I never had on the Isle because our little family is going to grow."
Ben withdrew his arms to think a little. Mal threw her hands up into the air. "Oh my gosh I married an idiot!" She turned out of his grasp and started to walk away.
Someone in the meeting room finally lost their cool and exploded. "She's pregnant, you idiot!" They yelled. Mal had no idea who it was, but she suddenly had a deep amount of respect for them. Ben's eyes grew wide.
"Oh!" He shouted as he jolted to attention. He suddenly realized she was still walking away. "Wait!" He yelled. "Mal, come back here!" He sprinted towards her, grabbed her hand, yanked her back into his grasp and kissed her. His fingers went straight for her hair. When he withdrew, Mal blinked lazily up at him with an air of 'whatever'. "You're really pregnant?" He asked.
"You're really slow on the uptake." Mal drawled.
"Are you okay?" Ben asked. "Like, emotionally and everything? Can I get you anything?"
"Oh my gosh." Mal rolled her eyes and pushed him out of her path. Someone began to bang their head on a wooden surface in the meeting room. Mal quickly walked back to the doorway and pointed at her father-in-law. "Did you get all that? You're going to be a grandfather." Adam nodded.
"You couldn't have told me like that?" Ben exploded.
"No." Mal insisted stubbornly. "Is Belle in here?" She asked Adam.
"No." He said quietly.
"Dibs on telling your mom." Mal said, turned to walk away. "You get to call my friends and tell them."
"Wait, how is that fair?" Ben asked. "Jay will kill me if you make me tell him. Heck, even Carlos will pound me into the ground. How come you get to tell mom?"
"I called dibs." Mal smiled and walked backwards past Aurora and Phillip. She saluted her dumbfounded husband. "We should play your Auradon news game."
"Thirteen minutes." Ben sighed with an eyeroll. Inside the room, a chorus of voices arose. "Twelve! Nine! Twenty-seven!" People called. Mal raised her eyebrows and disappeared down the hallways of the palace.