A week after the blowout at dinner, the Beauchamps are none the wiser.

Joanna keeps quiet. Ingrid will ask – If she wants to – in her own time. Might that be for advise or for cookie recipies. It's just hard for Joanna not to see her. Not to call her or text her. Not to turn up at the library with lunch. But Freya is right: It's not their business.

Yet still, there's one thing she has to do; one thing she wouldn't forget herself not to do. Testing the baby. After calling Alex, Joanna knows that not only it's quite possible to get pregnant by a Mandragora, but it's very likely and dangerous.

She's never thought about it until this day, that you always see male Mandragoras. Never female. In fact, she's now put that knowledge in perspective with the Mandragora feeding in stages. The first one is to gain strength. The second one binds the maiden to her Mandragora for good, and, according to Alex, is the one where the maiden usually falls pregnant. This gives Joanna hope, as Ingrid never got to the second feeding. If she had, she wouldn't be the one pregnant right now. She would have died along with the blue creature.

Her hope is shattered as quickly as it has been built up. Normally, Alex remarks, Mandragoras have no liking for witches as their magic protects them from being called. But as Ingrid had not fully developed her skills then (and still hasn't as of today) she got called anyway. Without any other records of a witch being called, there is no guarantee that Mandragora/mortal works the same way as Mandragora/witch. And that's what scares both Joanna, who decides she needs to bake off some nervous energy right away, and Alex, who promises to come and have a look at Ingrid. If anyone she should be able to figure out the origin of this... baby? Thing?

Sighing, Joanna puts the pizza into the oven. Pizza first, because it needs a lot of heat for a short amount of time; bread second, because it still needs some heat, but more constant and longer lasting; and finally cakes, which need less heat and half the time the bread does. Looking down at herself, especially with the prospect of Alex approaching, she notices the extra pounds she's gained from worrying. It doesn't look too bad for a woman around 1640. And with those two children, how is she not to worry.

Beisdes Ingrid disappearing out of her life after that terrific announcement, she hasn't heard more from Freya than those odd text messages (Don't have lime to walk. Gotta blind Killian. Love. _F) and according to her boss she has called out of work for the week. Joanna can only hope that she's not slithering into new love troubles. Whenever Freya reaches majority, may that be in 1692 Salem or 2016 North Hampton, all her simple troubles – school, clothes, girlfriends – turn into boys. And it's not even getting them, that's troubling her. She attracts them easily, like light does flies. She just doesn't know what to do with them.

But Killian. He seemed like the right one. For a moment there Joanna thought she'd recognized two young Gods from Midgard in the Gardiner brothers. Two brothers of whom one is Freya's soulmate. Can she has been mistaken yet again?

"Stop worrying. That frown will bring everybody down", a familiar voice says then, startling her.

"Alex!" She swirls around. Wow. Alex is looking good. Then. What else did she expect? "You look great!"

"Thanks, Jo. You look... well. Worried." She shrugs, then they hug. "But who can blame you."
After all, half of Joanna's family is dead – forever – and the other half has gone positively wild.

"No one, I guess. There's no one living in this house anymore anyway." She says it like it's not a big deal, but it really is. Her girls never lived that long.

She feels the older they grow, the less she sees of them. Although they live in the same town, they don't live under the same roof anymore. It's different. And with Victor, Wendy and Freddie all gone, she's gotten lonely. Before she drowns in self pity, Joanna squares her shoulders, puts on gloves and presents her baking."Fancy some pizza?"

Alex smiles kindly. "Smells delicious, but I think we should really have a look at the patient first. Is she upstairs?" From her one and only experience of watching Joanna throughout pregnancy she knows that it's connected to an increased level of naps.

Joanna shakes the head. "No, actually I haven't talked to her yet..."

"Jo!" Never before has a head-shake stirred so much guilt in Joanna as this one. "I know that today's parents are all about letting the children speak for themselves and sitting things out instead of confrontation, but. Ingrid is 31 years old. I think she'll be able to handle this." Alex nods seriously. And she's probably right.

"We'll visit her at the library tomorrow", Joanna decides, "It's too late to call her now and besides, this pizza is getting cold."

A/N: It's Sunday, I don't know when I'll be able to post again, so. Here we go. Have a nice week.