Summary: Margaret and Belloc's meeting goes a little differently :3

She felt as though her heart was about to burst out of her chest. She was tense, sweaty and could literally see her veins popping out like worms out of her skin due to the pressure.

She wanted to shoot someone.

With autopilot and an insane amount of self control she finished adjusting the suit, now too tight and constricting, and whether that was due to anxiety or weight gain she didn't know. Having a baby will do that to your body, even if it's been sixteen years and said baby can't be called one anymore. She doesn't really care; Duncan will be her baby until the day she dies, no matter how much he complains.

She finishes with the gloves, made to avoid burning your flesh when handling artillery that's likely been set on fire, and goes back to the cabin of the futuristic looking helicopter to see with a knot in her stomach that she has arrived. The cage is well illuminated, dozens of soldiers running around with useless tanks and guns at the notice of a kaiju attack in the town, and she tries not to cry at the thought of her little boy —who is not so little anymore— fighting alone.

Margaret switches to manual and lands the thing herself, not wanting to risk anybody catching a glimpse of a non registered ship in a military temporary base. A literal fucking hole in a rock wall to restrain a being that can snap a cargo ship in half in a good day. Fucking morons.

The plane touched the ground, lights off and silent like a feather, and Margaret knows that she can't keep hiding. She takes a gun, a big one she knows will do nothing against thick scales, and makes sure it's loaded to the brim. Eyes, no matter the species or race, are squishy and an easy target when the size of your head. She has always had impeccable aim; she won't miss if it comes down to it.

With her breath stuck in her throat she looks outside the plane. It's dark except for the light that comes through the opening in the prison, which is conveniently shoulder height for the beast. Not even when imprisoned she gets to have the high ground. Careful as to not make a sound and alert him of her presence, Margaret abandones de ship and slides down to where the hole leads to the light. The gun in her arms suddenly weighs double and the suit is strangling. It's been so long.

She walks up to the ledge, still keeping a good distance for good measure, and knows he is aware of her presence the moment he starts sniffing.

Belloc stills in his place just to, a moment later, erase his frown and look at her.

"Margaret…"

It's been too long.

(…)

"You haven't changed"

It's the truth, she looks just as breathtaking as the day she left him. Her hair is a bit shorter, and she looks more toned. The suit hides nothing and having to raise a hybrid child must be challenging for a human. Belloc is sure she has gotten even more beautiful with age.

"I'm going to ask you a question. Lie to me, and I'll pull the trigger."

"I don't doubt it."

He really doesn't. It wouldn't be the first time, and it would probably be deserved. She always said for a being so old and wise he had asshole behavior, and she enjoyed making sure he knew just how lucky he was that a woman like her had decided to marry him. Even after all these years, barely an instant in time for him —that had been so painstakingly slow and miserable—, he still acknowledged that. Even after she left.

"Did you send those things that are trying to kill Duncan?"

The question hurt, he wouldn't deny it. For a moment he felt himself experience something close to anger, an emotion he had never directed to her. Did she really think him that heartless? Capable of plotting against his child's life? Their child? He wanted to be furios, to unleash on her the last sixteen years filled only with memories of a pregnant belly under the midday sun, kisses shared in the privacy of their nest and hours filled with baby names and the carving of toys.

He wanted her too feel what he had felt that night when arriving home, seeing his nest empty of his wife and unborn baby, only proof of their existence a note that, to this day, haunted his dreams. Seven words that would chase him like a crow to a dying man.

Oh, how he wanted to be mad… if only he could. Looking at her, gun raised at him, tense like a statue, and yet smelling of longing. I miss you went unsaid.

"Do you really think that low of me, my love?"

Margaret didn't answer, but by the way her finger abandoned the trigger and her hold on the weapon relaxed, he knew that, deep inside, she had suffered just as much as he did.

"I'm not sure I know what to think of you anymore"

"Then how come you still lean into my touch?"

(…)

She, honest to God, hadn't noticed. Only then did she feel his hand around her, fingers barely gracing her body, only surrounding her in an imitation of a hug, one of them caressing her face with the same care he had her pregnant belly, whispering to their unborn baby when he thought her asleep. She had unconsciously leaned against him, her cheek pressed against the pad of his finger, his thumb hovering on the opposite side, as if threatening to close around her. She knew it was a bluff, so she didn't bother pushing it away when it grazed her shoulder.

She wanted to say a lot of things. How she still kept the necklace, safely tucked inside the suit. How she had given their son his name, well hidden under a long list of middle names that signaled him as a member of their royalty. How she still kept the dragon, carved in wood with his own claws, that had been a constant in Duncan's life since birth. A present that, during his early childhood, had somewhat appeased him knowing that "papa made it for you, my love, because even if he can't be with us, he loves us more than anything in this world".

She knew that if she started talking the dam would break, and there were things more important than their feelings at stake. Her baby was still out there alone, but Belloc was looking at her like she held the answers to existence itself. He wanted her to say out loud why. He wanted closure from that day, where he stained his teeth and claws with a stranger's blood who had almost ended both her and her baby's days before they could even start. The day they argued, loud and painfully, where Belloc had refused to see the truth; refused to see that he wouldn't always be there on time.

She held the finger against her cheek for a second, and uttered the words that had been haunting her since the day she wrote them on paper and left their home.

"One of us had to be strong"