You wanna know something? Well, girl, you'd better ask me.
He said that to DG three weeks after beginning whatever it was they had. She'd given him a look when he called her 'girl,' and he'd smirked and said at least it wasn't kiddo. She gave him a smirk that matched his own and said that there wasn't any way he could call her that.
Not after last night, any way.
Two seconds later the representative from the Traders' Guild came in, but if he hadn't… He would've had a much more interesting morning.
It was so hard to restrain himself, especially now he knew he didn't have to. But she had a reputation to uphold and even if she wanted to put off matters of state to christen her desk, she couldn't.
His day-to-day life hadn't changed much – wake her up, shadow her around the palace/Central City/Finaqua, etc. – but it seemed so much more. He was so much more possessive of her, but less angry. He watched her talk to other men and instead of becoming angry enough to bash their skulls in, he just watched them in their flirtatiousness and when they looked his way, he gave them the smuggest look he could muster.
Raw had formerly been in chambers next to DG's. Two and a half weeks ago he'd moved across the palace. The looks the Viewer gave him now weren't so much odd as knowing (and a little amused).
The first night they spent together was long and sweet. He didn't want to rush anything for her – she was young and delicate and he didn't want to hurt her – but halfway through she bit his ear and he went crazy. Good thing the next day was a holiday – neither one of them could leave her quarters.
He liked having her to himself and knowing he was the only one. Before she told him her feelings, she would see suitors from around the O.Z., to please her parents, but now she would tell them outright she wasn't interested.
Their downcast looks made him especially happy, for some reason.
A week ago he went back to his quarters in the Honored Guest wing – half a hallway away from the Royalty Wing – to find them empty. When he went to ask her why, she smiled and told him that she found she needed her bodyguard closer and had moved him into the room in her quarters meant for a maid.
His lips almost curled up in a grin before he remembered that there were two maids and Glitch – who, upon regaining his brain, decided to keep Glitch over Ambrose; he never revealed why – standing in between them. Instead he just fixed his lips in a tight line and gave a stony nod.
He liked to wake up in the middle of the night with her in his arms. Her hair smelled sweet and light, like the flowers that grew in the field of the Papay. He'd breathe her scent in deeply and sometimes she would wake up and it was those moments that were perfect.
One day she comes out of one of her endless meetings and has a funny look on her face. He'd been called away and instead her sister had sat in with her – no one dared threaten the queen when the princess royal was there – so he had to ask what the matter was. She opened her mouth, as if to ask him, when she caught sight of Jeb standing behind him. Her face colored and she instead greeted Jeb softly and asked about his duties.
He wishes he could tell Jeb about this woman that he loves, how she loves him too and how they're so happy, but he can't. He can tell his son knows something is different, how now he's happier and less likely to snap at everyone, but he hasn't said anything yet.
Later he goes with her to a tea and there are children everywhere. She looks startled, so he reminds her that it's customary to bring children to the annual Spring Tea. She nods, absently, and smiles vaguely at a little girl bounding by, who's yelling at her older brother to stop and help her climb a tree.
He wonders what their children would look like. Would they be blonde and blue-eyed or dark with blue eyes? He never even considers them not having either his or her eyes, but then again, every time he considers children, he has to remind himself that she can't marry him, ever, and they someday they'll have to end this and she'll marry someone suitable and his heart will die, but he won't ever leave her because he can't.
She spends a lot of her free time with Azkadellia and he's grown to like this other woman, who is recovering from the years of her possession with so much grace. He knows she hasn't told Az anything about them, but sometimes when she's pouring the tea, the princess royal will give him a knowing look and ask her sister if she shouldn't call for a third cup for her poor, thirsty Tin Man and he'll answer before DG can get a word out and say it isn't his place.
And then Az will smile at him like she's saying that maybe it's not now, but soon it will be.
And he has to excuse himself because he knows that if he stays any longer he's going to say something to give them away and he can't do that because of the things people would say to her and he can't bear to hurt her. And while he wants to be free, free to tell everyone how much he loves her, he knows other people would never understand why she loves him, and to be honest, he doesn't even understand it himself.
He climbs into bed with her and it's almost midnight and he wishes he could have come to her earlier, but the maid took so long in cleaning and he couldn't chance her catching him. But when he gets under the covers, oh so carefully, so she won't wake up and she curls up to him and places her head on his chest and sighs so peacefully in her sleep, he knows he won't ever forget this moment in time and when she's someone else's wife and the mother of someone else's child, and he's just her bodyguard again, he'll think back to this and it'll keep him warm at night.
Ahamo and Glinda aren't as perceptive as their older daughter is and they keep trying to subtly set DG up with some man from somewhere or other and she sees them and is polite, but then they propose and she'll decline just as politely and once one of them tried to slap her across the face because he thought she'd be sure to say yes to his apparently irresistible self.
He shot a hold in that one's hand as he raised it to strike her. No one touched the queen without her permission. And the only man who touched her – besides her father, but that was different – was him and he knew she couldn't stop him and she couldn't even not want him to.
After that, the suitors were less amorous around her crusty old Tin Man, which he appreciated. He hated having to shoot people, not because of the violence but because of the paperwork. He couldn't believe how much paperwork he had now, as the head Tin Man. At first he ignored it, then he did it to stop thinking about her, now he had no time to do it. He had finally accepted his second-in-command's offer of a secretary, which was almost as annoying, since the woman his 2IC had recommended kept trying to flirt with him until he finally told her he was involved with someone and he just wanted her to do his paperwork.
Then she quit. But after that he got Glitch to give him one of his unending line of aids and the bland little man the former zipperhead gave him was extremely good at what he did, which gave him the time to be good at what he did.
One morning he walked into her dressing room without knocking and she wrapped her bathrobe around her body so fast and snapped at him to knock that he couldn't think of anything to say, so he just apologized and wondered what her problem was.
Her birthday came up suddenly. Her mother wanted to have a large celebration, but she explained she only wanted a small party of family and friends to spend a few weeks at Finaqua. So they all made the short journey to the southern retreat and finally he wasn't just her bodyguard, but her friend.
His rooms were across the hall from hers and he snuck across the night after they'd gotten there – the first night he'd stayed in his own rooms because her parents were right next to her, but now he knew he could go there without rousing them. She was sitting on her bed, reading a history of the O.Z., frowning at the pages. For the first time in a long time, she was wearing one of her flimsy nightgowns. Lately she'd been wearing something more bulky and in a material she called "flannel".
He sat down next to her and she smiled over at him and asked him if he knew what that night was. He honestly had no clue, so she prodded his side lightly and informed him, in her queenliest tone, that it was their five-month anniversary. He grinned and kissed the top of her head.
"Wait one minute," she said, pulling out of his arms and bounding off her bed and into her bathroom. When she came out, she was holding a bottle and two glasses. "It's fizzy cider. I though it'd be appropriate."
He smiles at her and his eyes travel up and down her figure and then he notices something –
"What's that?" He looks at her, and he's curious, not angry.
There's a little bump under her nightgown that he hasn't noticed before. But he hasn't slept in her bed for almost three weeks now and hasn't seen her undressed in four.
She stops pouring the fizzy cider and puts the bottle down and looks at him, and that funny look she had after that meeting – which, he remembers in an odd flash, was with the Viewer liaisons – three or so months ago. Her arms cross over her chest and she sits down on the very edge of the bed.
He's getting the weirdest feeling that his world is about to end and she's going to tell him she can't do this any more. And the thing is, he doesn't know what he would say to that. Even yesterday, he thought he knew, but now he thinks he can't see a future where he isn't with her, that he doesn't think he can live without her.
"Wyatt," she says, and he remembers the last time she called him that was when they kissed the first time. He thinks suddenly that it would be ironic if their relationship – or whatever it was – started and ended with her calling him Wyatt.
"Yes?" He's so careful in his reply, so careful that he can't say anything else; he just wants her to say what she's going to say and get it over with.
He's listening so hard to hear what she's going to say that he misses the door of her outer chamber being opened and he doesn't hear the footsteps because all he can hear is her quick, nervous breathing until she says –
"I'm pregnant."
And just like that, his world does come crashing down, but not in the way he thought it would. It comes down and a new one goes up because the only thing he can do now is pull her onto his lap and kiss her until she pulls away to breathe and his hands are on her stomach and he thinks his face is going to turn to stone because it hurts from the grin he's got on it.
And she's laughing again, just like that night, with tears coming out of her eyes, just like that night, and it's so much better than the first Wyatt and he can't stop touching the swell of her stomach where his unborn child is.
And he knows now that night, the first Wyatt, could be topped by something so big that he can honestly say that compared to tonight, that night was like a mild cheerfulness.
And he's so happy, and she's so happy. And their hands are joined together on her stomach and they're both crying. And he knows his heart is so full it could never turn to stone again.