Mal let Evie talk all the way to the hospital area about babies, pregnancy, clothes, and the long walk to the medical room. Once in a while, Mal smiled and seemed to agree with her friend's pep talk. She still can't believe she's pregnant and knows that eventually she'll be as happy as Evie, but now is not the time.

The two go to the castle's medical room. There is a medical wing for everyone who lives in the palace. Although she doesn't go there much, Mal knows the doctor and so does Evie, Dr. Clare is Grumpy's daughter, the only woman among the seven dwarves and in Evie's opinion, after Doug, the quietest of the family.

"Clare?" Evie knocks on the door. "Can I come in?"

"Evie and Queen Mal? Come in, be my guest." The women sit down facing the doctor. "I don't see the queen around here much, which is fine, that's not what I mean. Not that I don't want to see you and…" Clare is shy and fumbles over her words, just like her cousin.

"Calm down, you're just like Doug when you get nervous."

Evie says, laughing.

"And how is he?"

"He's coming home this weekend."

Her husband is traveling, and the whole family knows it.

"What brings you here?"

"It's just that Mal…"

Evie tries to speak easily. It's still hard even for her to believe that Mal is expecting a child.

"I'm pregnant."

Mal says briefly, as if she's already accepted the idea. The doctor is also stunned when she hears the news.

"Clare, no one must know for now."

Evie says, almost imploringly, since not even the baby's father knows yet.

"Don't worry, everything that happens in the palace stays in the palace. So, what can I do for you? I don't imagine you've known for a long time." Mal agrees. "Pregnancy test?" There was a mirror too, but it's best not to mention that part. "Well, I'm not an obstetrician, so I can't monitor your pregnancy, but as this is your first appointment I can do the basics, okay?"

"Great." Evie replies as Mal is too distracted to answer. This is the first of many questions Evie has had to answer, even though the pregnancy isn't even her own. Mal is on another planet or somewhere other than the room. "Mal? Mal?" Evie calls her into the world.

"Huh? What?"

"We're going to do an ultrasound, okay?"

Dr. Clare asks suspiciously, wondering why the queen is like this.

"Okay."

The two walks to the other side of the room where the ultrasound machine is. Mal doesn't feel comfortable at all, especially when she has to lift her clothes and be exposed.

"I'm going to apply this thing, and it's a bit cold, maybe you'll feel uncomfortable." Mal nods and doesn't think that the product really is that cold and uncomfortable. Due to the strangeness, she shrank back a little, but even that didn't stop her attention. "And there he is. A seven-week-old baby, about to enter its eighth week." Mal turns around, but all he sees is a gray spot. "He's still quite small, but here he is growing." Mal is almost certain that Evie is going to cry, but she herself remained scattered, until a sound caught her attention. A loud, rhythmic sound.

"What's that noise?"

She asks the doctor, thinking it might be a noise outside the castle.

"It's his little heart." She turns up the volume on the device so that Mal can hear it more clearly. "Pretty loud, huh? It sounds like he's very agitated or excited."

And that's when Mal notices the reality. Her child is real. She's going to have a baby. She's not as emotional as Evie, and she's still very scared, but seeing him eases her fears a little.

"You'll see when you get to the sixth month. They think they can dance around inside us."

Evie says, remembering when she was lying on this stretcher and her friend was on the other side making fun of her. Seeing Mal here and seeing the baby takes her back to memories she struggles to forget.

(…)

Later, Evie had to rush off to work, leaving Mal alone. The queen walked around the castle, and if she hadn't lived there for a while, someone might have told her she was lost. Her eyes went to the sweets in a bowl in the corner of the corridor, and when she went to take one, she felt her stomach turn. Her gaze went straight to her belly. "I guess it won't be easy to ignore you," she says in her thoughts.

Mal takes a deep breath, searching for strength within herself. She needed to go to a room in the castle.

"Majesty."

The guard bowed, making way for her to pass through the door, which is always guarded.

"Hi, Max. I thought you'd been transferred."

Talking to the old guard who's been watching the little lizard for years.

"Honestly, sometimes I think she likes me. She bit the other guard who tried to feed her."

Mal laughs trying to imagine her mother liking someone other than herself. She doesn't deny that it must be funny to see the animal biting a soldier trained to fight in wars.

When she left Auradon Prep, her mother couldn't stay there any longer. And since she ran away about four years ago, everyone has seen fit to leave a royal guard on standby at all times.

Mal has entered the small room, which is quite dark (Mal seen on the internet that lizards like the dark, or just his mother, Queen of Darkness). It's a good habitat for a small animal.

"Hi mom." She says with a smile. "I'm sorry I haven't been around much, it's just that this queen thing is a lot of work. I think you understand, don't you? You were the queen of evil, but I think it's twice as much work, and forget it." When the lizard starts to walk around the cage, Mal understands that it's to change the subject. "So, Max had to come back. He thinks you like him, I was going to say that you don't like anyone, but I think he thinks you're cute." She laughs at her own mother. "I'm sorry, but it's funny that he thinks you're cute." Apparently, even Maleficent laughed at that. "I came to talk to you about something else, Mom." She took a deep breath to change the subject. "Apparently I'm pregnant. I'm going to be a mother." The lizard stopped in front of the glass and looked shocked by the information. "I know I should be happy, but it's so hard and, you're the only person in Auradon who understands me. I mean, I don't think you planned me, either. I just… I just… I just don't know how to do it, Mom. What I've learned all my life is how to be bad and that's what I know, so how can I teach something to a child?"

How ironic that Maleficent is the only one who understands what she's feeling.

(…)

"No, I'm sure I made it exactly the same size as her, but it's okay, I'll do it again. It'll take two hours. Okay, bye Carly."

Evie hangs up her cell phone, ending the call with her secretary. Huffing and puffing with exhaustion, she arrives home to make a dress for a princess. She had to leave Mal to sort out this little unforeseen problem.

She has the design in her head and all she has to do is sew it back together. Evie would do it as quickly as possible, but when she goes to her workshop, she is stopped by a force greater than her sense of responsibility.

The door to the little blue room is open. She was just going to close it and avoid looking inside, as usual. But by the grace of life, the living room window is open, letting in the wind, which passes through the house and into the room that is always closed. This barely perceptible breeze passes through the mobile on top of the dusty wooden cradle. The little crowns arranged in the arch hit each other, making a very familiar and almost unforgettable sound for her.

Hearing it brings another melody into her head. The baby's laughter. He's trying to reach the mobile and laughing only at the sound of the wind hitting the objects.

Evie turned her eyes back into the room, unable to avoid looking into every corner.

Her chest tightened and tears came without her realizing it. She felt so vulnerable. She didn't know how to control her feelings or her body's natural reactions to all these emotions.

She closed the doors of the room as quickly as she could and ran out of the house. Evie went as far away from home as she could. Your mother's house.

(…)

Later, much later in the evening, the woman with the purple hair was asleep when the door to her room opens and all the light from the corridor comes towards her. She knows who it is when she recognizes the perfume appearing in the room, but everything becomes clearer when she feels his arms encircling her.

"Hi."

She says, still yawning sleepily.

"Hey."

He runs his hands over her face, kissing her cheeks.

"I'm good to see you back."

Smiling, she turns and kisses him. He came back a while ago, but had to go to a boring meeting and couldn't find her around the castle.

"I'm glad to be back. Are you better?"

"Yes, I am."

She hates lying to Ben even more, but it's best for now.

"Good."

He kisses her head and brings her body close to his, ready for sleep.

"I'm pregnant."

She says without any preparation. Ben stares at her in disbelief and not understanding. He just shuts up, letting his brain process his wife's words. How could she be pregnant? After the discussion in Paris, he had stopped thinking about having children and as difficult as it might be to change her mind about it, he was getting used to it, after all, Mal doesn't change her mind easily. Ben hadn't expected to hear that.