Slowly Gru cracked one of his eyes open. "Oh-h-h…," he groaned.

He could just make out the two figures hovering directly above him. Lucy, who crouched beside him on the ground, had thankfully remembered her training but displayed concern over a potential head injury. The other figure, Margo, pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and looked on with wide eyes.

"Hi partner," said Lucy, with more relief in her voice than she'd meant to show. "I thought I broke you," she joked, but worry painted her face.

Now able to see Lucy clearly, as well as two pink and blue blobs that he realized must be Edith and Agnes, Gru started to raise his head.

Lucy placed a hand on his chest, gently nudging him back down. "Oh, no, honeybear. You're gonna need to lay down for a while."

"O-h-h…how—how long was I—out for?"

"Hasn't been more than a minute, Gru-Gru, judging by how my heart hasn't stopped racing yet." Lucy laughed nervously.

"I'm all right, Lucy, don't worry," he said reassuringly. "But are you sure it wasn't longer? I had a crazy dream. We were in the mall, and you told me you were pregnant—and—," Gru paused. The night sky shining through the glass ceiling of Paradise Mall began to come into focus. "Nope, it's real."

His eyes started rolling back into his head again.

Lucy fanned his face frantically. "I'm so sorry, Gru. I should have waited until later after the party didn't go as planned. I didn't mean for this to happen…it just seemed like such a great moment. I'm so, so sorry."

Gru tried to speak more, but only garbled sounds escaped his lips.

"It's all right, honey," said Lucy. "You don't have to say anything yet."

"I can't believe you're having a baby!" Edith whooped, filling in for the confused Gru. "I sure hope it's a boy. I don't need another sister."

"Edith!" Margo snapped.

"Okay, okay, I'd take another sister," sighed Edith, "but she'd better be nicer than Margo."

Agnes had finally given up and thrown away the rest of her ice cream cone, which she could barely eat after she had seen her father faint. "I'd love a boy or a girl," she said. She'd been reasonably calm throughout the whole ordeal. She seemed accepting of the idea of a younger sibling. Agnes was very attached to her sisters, but Margo was getting a bit old to play with, and Edith's games sometimes involved too much violence for her liking.

Lucy pulled Agnes into her lap for comfort, hoping Agnes' calm demeanor would rub off on her somehow. "Thank you, Agnes," Lucy murmured, stroking her daughter's head. "The baby will be so lucky to have you for a big sister."

Agnes beamed, but then she looked down at her father in concern. "Do you think Gru's gonna be okay?"

"I'm…okay, sweetheart."

Lucy scooted in closer so her husband could see her and their daughter better. "You should be all right to sit up now," she said tenderly. "How about you put your back to the fountain?"

Gru did exactly that, still shaking his head in disbelief as Lucy helped him move. "We're going to have a baby," he said softly. Lucy couldn't ever remember hearing his voice sound so fragile.

"That's right, partner. Nearly fainted myself when I found out," she chuckled to herself.

"…Last week?" Margo asked timidly, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

Lucy blinked. "How did you know?"

"First time I heard you throw up. When I heard you beg for takeout from Zarelli's just an hour later, I knew something was up."

"Nothing gets past you," muttered Lucy. "No wonder you've been watching me so closely. Thanks for keeping an eye on me, sweetie."

"No problem," replied Margo.

Lucy turned back to her husband. "Clearly you didn't know before this," she quipped. "Unless you can make yourself faint on command. I guess you do have a little flair for the dramatic sometimes."

Lucy kept joking, but Gru could hear the wobble in her voice. It was slight, but even half conscious, he could detect the deviation from her normal tone. He cracked his eyes open, and he discovered that Lucy was biting her lip. It dawned on him that he hadn't reacted very explicitly to the news.

Gru gathered the strength to stand up and then sit back down on the fountain. Lucy quickly got to her feet and scrambled up to sit beside him.

He tried to speak, but his mouth still felt a bit dry. His heart threatened to explode from his chest. A baby. He and Lucy Wilde were going to have a baby. He would be a father of four. There would be bottles and pacifiers scattered around the house and crying in the middle of the night. Given the nature of her job, Lucy would have to leave the field for a while, and she would endure a lot of pain.

What about the girls? How would the girls feel about all the change?

And then he saw it. Margo and Agnes cooing as they hovered over a bassinet. Edith gawking as the baby karate kicked her hand through Lucy's belly. The minions jingling a banana-shaped rattle. Lucy with strewn hair swaddling a fresh bundle in her arms, beaming up at him from a hospital bed. And—surprising him most—he could just see himself, rocking his new child as milky moonlight flooded through the window, shrouding them both with the hope and protection the moon always offered him as a child.

Gru looked over at Lucy, who'd been patting his shoulder, giving him time to think. He squeezed her hand soothingly, and she relaxed, to his relief. "We're going to have a baby," he said again, this time with more confidence. "And I can't wait."

His eyes misted over. Lucy blinked back at him through equally misty eyes, and she swallowed hard and squeezed his hand right back.

"This just might be my new favorite mall memory."