As she throws up her breakfast she wonders why a Gwen Stefani song is running through her head.
She leans against the bathroom door for a minute longer than she meant to, cool washcloth pressed to her forehead. She reaches over to turn off the faucet in the tub, turned on to full blast so he won't hear what she's done.
This is the fourth time in as many days that she's been unable to keep any food down in the morning. She worries over it, thinking she doesn't have time to be sick, she has so much to do, but at the same time she wonders over it.
Is this what she thinks it is? She places her hand on her lower abdomen, and she's nervous about even doing this so her hand is fluttering. And, yes, there's a little roundness there, just a bit, but she sucks in her breath and feels her heart beating faster and it's not because she's shocked and unhappy, it's because she could only have dreamed of this.
A week later, her sickness stops and he's gone away on Tin Man business so her sister had accompanied her to her meetings. The last one for the day was with the Viewer representatives and when she got up to leave, the leader – an older woman – grabbed her wrist and told her in hushed tones that she carried a new life inside her, barely a month and a half old.
She's startled, because she's only been with him for two months now and it's not like this wasn't a possibility – apparently no one in the O.Z. had ever heard of condoms and she wasn't on the pill anymore – but she didn't expect it and even though, she feels so happy.
And she knows she should tell him right away, but somewhere out of the back of her mind she remembers some old factoid someone on the Other Side told her about miscarriages happening most often in your first trimester when you're stressed and she takes one look around and thinks that if she isn't stressed, she doesn't know who is.
And now he's asking her what's wrong and she opens her mouth to tell him but his son is right behind him and she can't, so she just asks Jeb – this unknowing older brother of her child – how his life is and about his job and she sees Cain realize this isn't what she was going to say.
All she can think, now, is about this baby, and she's surprised that Az hasn't figured it out yet, since she figured it out about her and Cain almost right away, but she's thankful, too, since she doesn't know what she's going to do. She wonders what the protocol is for unwed Queens who are pregnant with their bodyguard's child and also wonders if this is something that will get her taken off the throne.
That last thought makes her a little happy, since if she weren't queen she could marry Cain right away and they'd go live in the woods with their baby and be happy forever, but she doesn't know if he would marry her now, since he's so adamant about not wanting to tell people about them yet. She wonders if he would run from her, from this life, if she told him.
But that's just a thought she has in the blackest hours of the night and still only when he's been called away, or can't join her in bed. When he's with her she sleeps better than she can ever remember, she feels so secure with his arms wrapped around her.
One night when she wakes up she has this thought that maybe everything will turn out all right and they'll have a happy family. And she has this vision of him running around the gardens in Finaqua after a small, laughing blonde-haired boy and black-haired girl, both with the bluest eyes she's ever seen. And she wonders if that's a true vision since this is the O.Z. and visions do come to people. And all she can do is hope it is.
She notices that Az likes to tease him and ask if he'll take tea with them and then after he leaves her sister will try to get her to confess about her secret, this secret she has with this man. It's not malicious and it's not because Az has feelings for him – her sister is half in love with Ambrose – but her sister just wants to help her and she feels guilty for not telling her, but she can't because he can't.
And one day Az says she's noticed her becoming different, not the sister who came brazenly into the O.Z., with the wanton recklessness that she had then. And she thinks it's because she has so much more to lose now, than a family she barely knows. And her sisters tells her she'd best get whatever it is that's holding her back off her chest or else she'll change into someone she doesn't want to be.
And she believes her. She knows it's true. She feels horrible for keeping this secret from him, he deserves to know about this child and she doesn't really think he'll run from her – quite the opposite, really – but she's afraid of what people will say about him, to his face. She knows they'll spread rumors and be cruel and she doesn't want him to have to endure that.
But one night as he climbs into bed and his arms slip around her, she feels the baby inside her move and she knows then that she must tell him, tell him soon, so she arranges for them to all go to Finaqua for her first birthday as queen.
In the weeks before they go to Finaqua she arranges things so he can't come to her bed – for four weeks she has to sleep with a shirt of his she stole, because she can't get to sleep if she can't breathe in his scent – and for the three preceding she doesn't let him see her undressed because she has, as the say on the Other Side, "popped" and there's a tell-tale swell on her stomach that marks where the baby is.
The second night that they're in Finaqua – where it's just her parents, her sister, him, Glitch and Raw – he comes to her room and she's prepared to tell him, she thinks it's perfect tonight, their five-month anniversary. She's got fizzy apple cider and some glasses and she's put on one of her old flimsy negligees and is going to tell him.
And when he comes in she smiles and tells him what that night is and he's surprised and she knows he doesn't count the days with her, but views them all as a gift, just like she does, and savors every moment they can get together. She jumps up almost immediately because she's about to cry and she wants to get the drinks first and she does and as she's pouring, he asks her about the bump under her gown.
She sets the bottle down and all of a sudden thinks back to that meeting with the Viewers and sits down carefully on the very edge of the bed.
And suddenly his face goes hard and stone-like and she can't see his thoughts written there anymore and for the first time in weeks she's nervous about telling him and her breaths come quick and shallow and she's just hoping he won't hate this.
"Wyatt," she says, and fights the urge to smile because she so rarely calls him by his proper name – the last time was when she first kissed him – and his face goes even more closed off when she says this.
"Yes?" And she can't tell what he's thinking, his answer is so curt and cut off.
He looks so forbidding and she wants to tell him that she's just been sampling too much of the O.Z.'s wonderful pasty and baked goods but all of a sudden her tongue betrays her and she blurts out something you should never blurt –
"I'm pregnant."
And the look on his face is so wonderful that she only vaguely registers the sound of her outer chamber's door opening and footsteps coming to her bedroom's door because he's grabbed her and is kissing her and all she can think is that he doesn't hate her, thank God, and his hands are feeling her bump.
When she pulls back to breathe she thinks that she's never seen him smile this much, not even when he first realized Jeb was still alive. And she's laughing because it seems so funny now, all her worries and anxiety about how he would react and tears roll down her face and he's whispering to her how happy he is and how he loves her so much.
And they're both crying and laughing and they're touching her stomach together and she's happy she told him now because as both their hands touch her stomach the baby starts to kick like crazy and it only makes them cry more.
And it's in this moment that she knows her life is complete and she can't imagine anything ever being better than this and she knows he feels the same.