AN: I know someone mentioned in a review they were curious about how Ellen got pregnant so this chapter will explain that. (I always intended on explain it but I'm glad people are keeping me in check. :) ) I've always enjoyed writing foreshadowing and adding little clues so lemme know if you guys spot them, I'm kinda curious.
Enjoy!
It had been about a month since the news was broken to the hotel and to try and keep herself sane and active Ellen had insisted on continuing her walks although they were starting to get less frequent. This meant Hell knew which to her surprise, didn't seem to spark as much chaos as she thought.
She currently found herself sitting in the parlor with everyone else as Charlie went on with her activity. Ellen had managed to get Alastor to sit in on a few of them, though she knew he only did so because she asked.
To her surprise Lucifer had also joined them, though he didn't participate, much like Alastor, there for moral support. Lucifer seemed to be giving her disapproving looks from across the room. No one else in the room seemed to notice. Ellen did. Alastor probably did but chose to ignore him.
When the room eventually became a bit more empty after the activity was finished and with Alastor gone to get her a glass of water, he moved to pull Ellen aside.
"I need to have a word with you. Privately." He lightly pulled her arm to direct her from the room and she followed though a bit confused at the secrecy. They only made it a few feet before Alastor manifested in their way no glass of water present.
"And where might you be taking my wife?"
"I just need a quick word with her." The king of Hell didn't hide his annoyance.
"Well don't let me interrupt, please continue." Alastor was staring daggers at Lucifer.
Ellen could already feel the tension building, the two were not going to let the other go. She didn't care to see this play out. She turned to Alastor, a hand resting on his arm fixing a calm smile to her face.
"I'll be back soon, it's just a quick conversation."
"If it pertains to you should I not be present?"
"What, you're afraid we're going to talk shit about you?"
Another glare was shot at Lucifer. "I didn't realize you needed to speak to another man's wife in such secrecy. Why, some may get the wrong idea. We can't have that now can we?" He turned to her, a malevolent grin now on his face and with a quick wave of his wrist he held a frying pan out for her. "Here you are my dear, I have a feeling you'll need this."
She made no effort reaching for it, giving him a disapproving glare instead. She should have known he was going to make a remark about taking Lucifer out, despite her telling him not to.
"Oh now you're getting your pregnant wife to fight your battles for you? What? Can't take me on yourself?" Lucifer's smug grin almost mirrored the Radio Demons.
"If a simple mortal can take you down with a frying pan, you are not worth my time. I simply wish to watch, seeing as I missed it the last time. I'm sure it was most entertaining."
"Why you arrogant piece of-"
"-Alright enough! Jesus you two are acting like children." She let out a frustrated breath before turning to Alastor.
"You, I am fully capable of doing things on my own, I don't need you glued to my hip. You can read me well, if I need you, you'll know."
She spun on Lucifer next. "And you, you're just letting him rile you up, you're making it too easy. Now, if you two are quite done, I'll be off to have this quick talk and we can all carry on with our day. Good?" She didn't wait for either of them to respond before she turned on her heels making her way up the main stairs.
Lucifer caught up to her rather quickly, but remained silent until they were in his room. Probably thought Alastor would spy on them and he'd likely be right.
"I need to know how you did it."
Ellen let out a small confused laugh. "I'm sorry what?"
He gestured to her.
"Umm, you got the birds and bees talk right? I don't know what else you're looking for."
"You're not a sinner, the magic that prohibits procreation doesn't apply to you, but it applies to Bambi. I need to know how you circumvented it. I can't have others doing the same."
She shook her head, helping herself to a seat. "You think we planned this? I have no idea how this happened. I was under the impression it was impossible."
"It's supposed to be."
"Well we… I donno, found a loophole accidentally I guess?"
"I need to know everything."
Ellen couldn't stop the tears welling up in her eyes. Stupid hormones. "Am I in trouble? Did I do something wrong?"
As soon as he saw the tears, Lucifer's eyes widened in panic, quickly summoning a box of tissues to hand to her.
"Shit, no…don't cry… you're not, I didn't mean…"
He sighed, taking a second to get his thoughts together. "If there's a loophole, it needs to be fixed before someone else finds it. Heaven is not going to be happy about this, but if more kids are being born down here I'm going to have problems. Big problems."
He ran a hand through his locks giving Ellen a sympathetic smile. "You need to stop crying, Alastor's going to kill me if he sees you like this."
A hiccupped laugh escaped her as she wiped her face. "He won't ask. He learned that lesson earlier this week. Pregnancy hormones are a nightmare." Her face burned with embarrassment thinking back to it.
[Flashback]
She watched as Alastor cracked two more eggs open, gracefully expelling the yolk into the pan. She couldn't help but feel overwhelmingly sad. They were just eggs, but for some reason it was upsetting watching Alastor cook them. It wasn't long before she had tears sliding down her face, soft sobs almost unperceivable under the sounds of them cooking.
"They never got a chance to grow up."
Alastor turned, giving her an incredulous look. "What?"
"The eggs," she sobbed. "They never got the chance to be chickens. Maybe they could have had a full happy chicken life."
He looked at her like she had lost her mind. "They're just eggs. I don't understand why this has got you in such a tizzy, my dear."
"They could have had good, happy little chicken lives!"
He just stared at her lost for words as she continued to cry. He tried a few times to find some sort of response but nothing came out.
"Somethin' smells good in… whoa, Ellen what's wrong babe?"
Angel flipped between the two other occupants. Alastor just shook his head, still unsure what he was supposed to do to remedy this situation, if that was even possible.
Angle put a set of hands on his hips, glaring at the back of the Radio Demon.
"Alright what did smiles do?"
"She has completely lost it. Over eggs."
Ellen only wailed louder at Alastor's comment. Then turned to Angel trying to explain herself.
"The eggs never became chickens. And it's so sad."
Angel's face quickly turned red trying to hold his laugh in. It seemed Alastor was right, she had completely lost it. He pressed his lips together, taking a second to fix his composure before moving to wrap an arm around her shoulder slowly guiding her out of the kitchen.
"Look, they're just eggs, nothin' to cry over." He sat her down at the dining table taking a seat beside her.
"They don't get to wander around being happy little chickens now."
"I doubt they'd even wanna be born down 'ere anyways. Fuck dis dump am I right?"
There was only a two second pause before the whole lobby was filled with her sobs. Angel sprang to his feet panicked, unsure what had caused Ellen to cry even more. It caused Alastor to abandon his cooking to see what had happened.
"What did you do!?"
"I dunno, I just said the eggs probably didn't wanna be born in Hell."
"You've made her even worse!"
"I didn't mean to!"
Alastor let out an annoyed sigh moving to stand beside Ellen. "My dear I'm not sure how to remedy this."
"I've ruined this kid's life! Not even chickens want to be born in Hell. I'm a terrible mother," Ellen sobbed.
Alastor returned to glaring at Angel, waving at his wife like he was proving a point. "Worse."
Angel froze for a second. "If you donno how to fix this, how da hell am I supposed ta know?"
The two continued yelling back and forth while Ellen just sat there crying.
Husker rolled his eyes moving over to the table. He was not going to listen to all this bullshit any longer then he already had.
He tried getting the attention of the other two men but couldn't, the two almost nose to nose screaming at each other. He lightly pulled Ellen to her feet guiding her away from the other two, toward the bar where he sat her down. She wasn't wailing any more but the tears hadn't stopped.
"There's nothing wrong with having a kid in Hell. Hellborn do it, I don't see this being any different. It doesn't make you a bad mom. Look at Charlie, she was born here."
He poured her a glass of orange juice and gently slid it to her, before turning back to move some stuff around behind the counter.
"What about the eggs," she sniffled.
"The what?"
"The eggs never got to be chickens."
There was a solid five seconds that he looked at her like she was stupid before his eyes rolled so hard it could have shifted the plains of Hell.
"They were never going to be chickens, they aren't fertilized." He turned away wishing for the millionth time that he could be somewhere else, anywhere else.
"Oh."
She wiped her face taking a few minutes to recompose herself. She looked down at the glass in front of her only now discovering its appearance.
"What's this?"
"Virgin screwdriver."
She gave the glass a confused look before taking a sip. "It's just orange juice." It clicked. "Oh."
"Umm somethings burning on the stove. Was that on purpose or…" Charlie was leaning through the kitchen door oblivious to the mayhem that had just occurred.
Ellen's tears started up again. "We wasted those eggs!"
[End Flashback]
The two were silent for a moment and Ellen took the time to look over to Lucifer's workbench, surprised to find the Charlie and Vaggie ducks were no longer there. Where'd they go? Instead a little black duck with black devil horns. She shook the thought of having a duck modeled after her. She doubted he would make an 'Ellen' duck.
Her gaze continued around the room, finding the two ducks in question on his bedside table. She smiled wider. With a small sigh, finally feeling back in control of her emotions she went back to topic.
"I'm not too sure I could give much details even if I knew what happened. Alastor is a private person and our contract limits much of what I can talk about, exceptionally in that uhh specific area."
"Right, I should have figured that." He fell to a sit beside her.
"I don't even really know how far along I am or when any of this started. I mean I have an educated guess but…" She shrugged.
"That would be easy to figure out."
"How?"
"A touch of magic of course. It may be a bit uncomfortable."
Her thoughts instantly went back to when she had changed her form and how excruciatingly painful that was. Maybe she didn't really need to know…
He must have read her face because he further explained, "oh no nothing like that, just a bit of Angelic energy. It probably won't affect you, but the baby… ehh may not like it."
"It won't hurt it right?"
"Hurt no, just a bit uncomfortable. It'll be fine. It's how I checked up on Charlie when Lilith was still carrying her."
That was enough to ease Ellen's worries, and she gave him a quick nod. "Okay. I want to know."
"Gender too?"
"You can figure that out as well?"
"If you want."
She was surprised it was possible without ultrasounds. Should she have gone to Lucifer sooner? Maybe he could have watched over her, like a doctor. What else could he do?
"No. I think I want to keep it a surprise."
She also would have wanted Alastor there for the reveal, but seeing as it was almost impossible for the two men to get along, she wasn't going to put the two of them in a room together. She may be patient, but not that patient. And with her emotions in overdrive it was a disaster waiting to happen. Best to leave it a surprise.
"Alright. You ready?"
Another nod and she watched as his right hand lit with glowing gold energy. He slowly moved it closer, eyes on her looking for any hesitation. When he seemed convinced there wasn't any he placed his palm on her stomach.
It was an odd feeling, like warm pulsating waves were being sent through her abdomen. They were slow, like the radar maps on old submarines. Steady and rhythmic almost.
It was after the fifth or sixth pulse that there was a very hard kick, followed by two more. Each one was more forceful than the last. It seemed Lucifer was right, the baby did not like it. She was just about to ask Lucifer to stop when he pulled his hand away.
"Well I can confirm it's healthy, and at least half demon. Got some strong kicks."
Ellen rested a hand on her stomach silently hoping it would be enough to cease the kicks that had continued. It didn't seem to work until she started rubbing small circles.
"I'd say you're about 28 weeks along." He smiled.
Ellen quickly did the math, trying to figure out conception. Her face scrunched up confused. It didn't seem to add up. There was a month discrepancy. It had to have happened the day they had to work through the effects of the love elixir.
"Is something wrong?"
"The math isn't adding up. It's off by a month."
"So you already knew how far along you were?"
"I had a suspicion, now I don't know."
She absent mindedly rubbed her stomach. Lucifer seemed to know quite a bit, what else could she ask about?
"Oh! Are growth spurts a thing with demon babies?"
"What?"
She bit her lip. Was that a no? Should she be worried? "Growth spurts? Is that not…normal?"
"No?"
"Are you asking?"
"No." He cleared his throat. "No, that's not something I have heard of."
Her shoulders slumped. Of course, nothing down here was like it was on earth. Why couldn't this just be something normal?
"That doesn't mean it's not possible."
"Well yeah, I lived it." With a sigh she explained it the best she could, everything leading up to it, minus the intimate moments.
He gave her a curious look, unsure if he wanted to ask. After a few seconds he broke. "So you ate raw venison?"
"And a demon steak apparently. I wish I could say I didn't. Does that mean my baby is also cannibalistic?"
"It's highly possible. Maybe that's what did it."
"Did what?"
"The growth spurt. Alastor eats that stuff right? Not just for the taste."
Ellen sat for a second to think. "Yeah he… he finds it helps restore him, helps him recover faster."
"Maybe it's the same for the baby."
"So it's speeding me through my pregnancy?"
"I can only theorize, unless you want to test it yourself. This is a bit of a rare case, in more ways than one."
"Yeah umm I don't think I want to do that."
"Then I would suggest limiting your…uh venison intake."
"Right." Well at least she got some sort of answer, or theory at least. If she was brave enough she may consider testing it. She did promise the baby another steak. Hmm. That was starting to look like a bad idea. Something else to figure out on her own. As the silence stretched on she was left wondering why she was pulled aside. Something about the pregnancy…Oh!
"We're gotten a bit off track haven't we?"
It seemed she had pulled the king out of his thoughts, him sitting up a bit straighter at the sound of her voice. "What? Oh Right, the how."
"Does love potions mess with that kinda thing?" It was the obvious choice, they hadn't really done anything else different that evening. It couldn't have been the music or whiskey. Different position maybe?
Lucifer shook his head. "No, it would have to be something with a lot of power to negate the magic."
Ellen rested her other hand on her stomach trying to wrack her brain for anything that might fit that description. Something that stopped magic? Was that even poss- Her eyes widened.
"The rope," she whispered to herself. Oh she never thought about it, but it all made sense now.
"What?"
"Can you make a portal to my room? I don't want to have to walk down the hall and back."
He did, and she was a bit surprised he didn't ask any questions. When she returned she held the angelic rope out to him. He took it, running a hand down the length slowly looking at it with great interest.
"Where did you get this?"
She ignored the questions asking her own. "That's what did it, right? If he was touching that while we did the …um…devils tango."
His eyes shot up to her. "The what?"
"The devils…uh…it's an old euphemism for sex. Sorry." Her cheeks heated. She didn't even think about the fact she had just used it in the face of the ACTUAL devil. Would it be an insult? She had never thought about it before. The world had many sayings and depictions of the devil and none of them were really flattering. Did he know about them? If he did, she would have to marvel at how well he seemed to be taking it all. A lot of people hated the devil yet he seemed to be taking it all in stride. That took a lot of confidence and self fortitude, something she didn't think she would ever be able to do.
"Uh yeah, yeah. This," he held the rope up, "this would do it." He shook his head. "Of course it wouldn't have been possible if the roles were reversed."
"What? How?"
He didn't seem to hear her, muttering to himself quietly for a moment before clearing his throat.
"I don't have to worry about anyone else doing this, it won't be possible."
"What? Then how the heck did Alastor and I do it?"
"Simply put, cause you're a mortal woman. Had it been the other way around it wouldn't have been possible."
"I…I don't understand."
Lucifer got to his feet moving toward his work bench. He paused when his eyes found the little black devil duck. It had moved again.
"The only thing stopping you from getting pregnant was a viable…uh…donation. Not possible from a sinner unless of course you used something like this." He threw the rope onto his workbench. Ellen just noticed it seemed to have no effect on him.
"Had it been the other way around. Mortal donating to a demon, as soon as the rope was removed it would have killed the viable egg."
There was still one thing bugging her about all of this. "I haven't had periods since I've been here, surely that makes this just as impossible."
"Not at all. Your kind can still get pregnant without periods. You are irregular, I take it."
"What?"
"You didn't have a regular cycle?"
Ellen scoffed, confused at how he could possibly have known that. Maybe she should have taken the frying pan.
"I don't know how you could-"
"-I'm probably not the best source for this kind of thing, but just know, it is possible."
Ellen gaze moved to her feet as she sat on that information. So it wasn't impossible, just highly improbable. She should go get a lottery ticket, she seemed to be beating odds that were statistically impossible. Marriage? Basically impossible, yet she and Alastor did it. Having a kid? Should be impossible, yet here she was 28 weeks along.
"Another anomaly," she muttered under her breath. The only good thing about all of this, was if some other poor mortal soul found themselves in Hell, they wouldn't be as clueless. She had guinea pigged her way through enough, to give them some answers.
She pushed to her feet. "If there's nothing else to discuss I-" She was interrupted by a loud crashing sound, the building trembled a bit. It hadn't fully stopped before there was a loud knocking on the door.
"Lucifer!"
The king fixed his hat that had shifted with the trembles, glaring at the door with a sour expression.
"Yeah, yeah relax bellhop, I still got your lady," he muttered dusting himself off before helping Ellen to the door. "He sure is overbearing."
Ellen smiled. "Yeah, but it means he really cares about me, so I'll take it."
It was when the door opened Ellen realized that she never got that glass of water she had asked for. Now probably wasn't the time to mention it, though.
AN: Hey all! Hope you guys enjoyed this one I had fun with the flashback. Just a silly thought that came to me randomly so I made a chapter just to put it in. XD I have a bit more editing to try getting a forth chapter this week (I'm putting pressure on myself to get it done cause I have other parts that I'm more interested in writing right now) So three for sure, and if I can motivate myself to finish up chapter 59 you'll get that this week too.
Cheers!