Chapter 344: In fact, better than fine. Mrs. Vale, you’re pregnant
"Hey, Amara. Your mother-in-law talks about you constantly," he said, grinning. "Can’t wait to meet you properly."
"That’s amazing," Amara said, laughing through the last of her earlier tears, utterly charmed despite herself. "Happy to meet you too, and we will very much like that."
"Well," Madam Vale said with obvious, unrestrained pride, patting her husband’s arm affectionately as she turned back to the camera, "that’s my son. Julian."
Julian, for his part, sat a little straighter at his mother’s words, something quietly pleased flickering across his face at hearing her claim him so warmly, so publicly, in front of the man who now shared her life, as though some small, old, unspoken worry in him had finally been laid to rest.
"Hey," Julian started, clearly gathering himself to say something more, but before he could find the rest of the sentence, his mother had already blown a kiss toward the screen, called out a cheerful goodbye, and ended the call, leaving both of them staring, faintly stunned, at a now-dark phone screen.
Amara turned to look at him, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Are you okay?" she asked gently, echoing the very question he’d asked her only minutes before.
"Yes," Julian admitted, shaking his head at himself, a rueful laugh escaping him as the car turned down the quiet, tree-lined road toward home.
"I can’t believe I froze. My own mother puts her husband on a video call for thirty seconds and I turn into a teenager who’s forgotten how to speak in full sentences."
Amara laughed, the sound bright and unguarded in the hush of the car, and for a moment it felt like the most natural thing in the world the two of them, still dressed in their evening finest, trophy resting on the seat between them, teasing each other the way they always did when the noise of the world finally quieted down enough to let them just be them again.
"It was sweet," she said, still smiling, reaching over to smooth the lapel of his jacket. "You should have seen your face. The king who, runs half a continent’s worth of business, and one proud mother renders you completely..."
She stopped mid-sentence.
The laugh died in her throat, replaced by a sudden, disorienting lurch, as though the car itself had tilted sideways beneath her.
The interior lights seemed to swim for a moment, blurring at the edges, and she reached out instinctively, palm flattening against the leather seat to steady herself against a dizziness that had arrived with no warning at all.
"Amara?" Julian’s voice sharpened instantly, the teasing warmth gone from it in a heartbeat. His hand found her arm, firm and immediate. "Are you okay? Something’s wrong."
"I’m fine," Amara said quickly, blinking hard, willing the spinning sensation to settle. She pressed two fingers to her temple. "It must just be stress. It’s been a long night, the ceremony, the speech, all the excitement. It’s probably nothing."
"No way." Julian was already leaning forward, tapping sharply on the partition to the driver’s seat. "Take us to the hospital. Now, please."
"Julian..." Amara started to protest, but he was having none of it, his jaw set in that particular stubborn line she knew all too well, the one that meant there would be no arguing him out of this course of action no matter how reasonable her objections sounded.
"I’m not taking any chances," he said, and though his voice was steady, there was something taut beneath it, something that hadn’t fully released since the day, when a very different kind of dizziness had cost them something neither of them ever spoke about without their voices going quiet.
"You’re being paranoid," Amara said, though she let her head rest against his shoulder as the car changed direction, the city lights sliding past the window in streaks of gold and white.
"I promise you, it’s nothing. I probably just stood up too fast on that stage. Or it’s the excitement. Or I forgot to eat properly before the ceremony because I was too nervous to keep anything down."
"Humor me," Julian said simply, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, his arm tightening protectively around her shoulders for the rest of the drive, his thumb tracing slow, absent circles against her arm the entire way the wordless habit of a man reassuring himself as much as he was reassuring her.
The hospital, at this hour, was quiet and softly lit, the emergency wing largely empty save for a handful of night staff who recognized Julian Vale on sight and ushered the two of them into a private examination room within minutes, no waiting, no questions asked beyond the necessary ones.
Amara sat perched on the edge of the exam table in her emerald gown, feeling faintly ridiculous, still clutching her small clutch bag in her lap as a nurse checked her blood pressure and asked a polite, methodical string of questions about her symptoms.
"Really," Amara said again, mostly to Julian, who stood rooted beside the table, arms crossed, watching every movement the nurse made with the focused, unblinking intensity of a man bracing for bad news he refused to let himself imagine.
"I feel completely normal now. I think we overreacted."
"We didn’t overreact," Julian said, without looking away from the nurse. "We reacted exactly the right amount."
It was nearly forty minutes later, forty minutes that stretched out long and strange, filled with hushed hospital hallway sounds and Julian’s restless, silent pacing before the doctor finally returned, a folder tucked under one arm and an expression that gave absolutely nothing away, the practiced neutrality of a man who had delivered every kind of news imaginable inside these same four walls.
"Mrs. Vale," the doctor said, taking a seat across from her, "I have your results back."
Amara felt Julian go very still beside her, his hand finding hers and gripping it tightly, both of them bracing themselves in the particular way that people who have already survived one devastating piece of medical news learn to brace quietly, completely, expecting the worst before they’ve even been told anything at all.
"Everything looks fine," the doctor said, and Amara felt the breath she’d been holding begin to loosen in her chest right up until his next sentence landed, entirely unexpected, and knocked the wind straight back out of her all over again.
"In fact, better than fine. Mrs. Vale, you’re pregnant. Roughly five weeks along, from what we can tell."