Work Text:
“Before I say anything, I want you to remember that I love you. And really, you asked for something like this when you fell in love with a girl from the Isle.”
Ben looked up from where he was reading a report from the Forestry Commission on grey vs red squirrel numbers. It was a little after two in the afternoon. Mal should have been in her Art Through Play class. When they’d graduated from Auradon Prep, Mal had decided that, if she was going to be Queen, she should probably have a decent understanding of her Kingdom. She’d enrolled in the University of Auradon, an art major, but with a few history and politics and economics classes thrown in. That was nearly six years ago.
Twenty-two year old Mal had a better grip on being a ruler while staying true to herself than sixteen year old Mal did. She knew what kind of Queen she wanted to be now. What policies she’d promote. What charities she’d endorse. Initiatives she wanted to spearhead.
Art played a huge role in that. She wanted to reach disadvantaged children - from Auradon and the Isle - through art programs in their communities. Not everyone could read or write. But everyone could doodle.
Getting children off the Isle was Evie’s baby. Rehabilitation and equality for all his citizens was Ben’s. Her’s was smaller. More colourful. Messier. Louder.
Her’s was chaos. And she loved it.
So it was really out of character that she was skipping class to barge into his office as if she was being chased by paparazzi asking about wedding dates.
Because yes, three years after proposing, they still hadn’t set a date. There had been so much work to do, reopening the Isle, that there hadn’t been time to plan a wedding. And then they decided to just wait until after Mal had graduated from college. They talked about a late summer wedding, maybe six months from now, but nothing was set in stone.
“Good afternoon to you too,” he smiled, standing and rounding his desk to advance on his fiancé. She was still standing with her back pressed against the door, hands behind her back. Her eyes were wide, with a hint of panic. He’d say she looked paler than she normally did, but that could just be a trick of the light. After almost four years in Auradon, she still had her Isle complexion. He thinks it’s less Isle and more the fairy in her.
He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her towards him for a kiss, although he noticed she didn’t move her hands from behind her back. He could tell she was distracted from the way she responded to his kiss, so he broke away and rested his forehead against hers, “You seem stressed.”
“Do you think we could pull together a wedding by next weekend?” Mal completely ignored his words, pulling away from him and heading towards his desk. She picked up his tablet and flicked to his calendar. “Evie has done like a thousand sketches of dresses and suits and everything. She could pull it off in ten days. Tourney doesn’t start back until February so Jay’s available. Mrs Pott’s can cater a banquet in her sleep. The only thing we won’t have time for is commemorative merchandise, but I’m not exactly big on that anyway.”
Ben turned slowly to follow Mal, blinking as he processed her words. He looked at her for a long moment, as she continued to ramble about which dignitaries she thought would be able to make it on short notice and whether he thought she’d get away with four bridesmaids instead of the traditional eight, before he cut her off mid sentence. “Have you been spelled?”
Mal stopped mid-swipe of the tablet, her head snapping up to lock eyes with him. Her brow furrowed and the look she gave him was one of genuine confusion, “No?”
“Are you sure?” He tried again as he slowly advanced on her, looking for any sign of magic or personality changes. Other than her earlier panic, which was still there, she seemed normal. She looked like Mal. She was frowning at him like he’d lost his mind. But she was still talking about a rushed wedding, and that was not the Mal he knew. “Why the sudden rush to get married?”
“Because Auradon may have removed the stick from it’s ass a little over the last few years, but it’s still pretty damn conservative.” Mal replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. She shook her head slightly for emphasis as she added, “Especially when it comes to the ruling royal family.”
Ben still wasn’t following.
What she’d said was true. Auradon was more welcoming. More willing to celebrate differences and embrace second chances. But they were still held to a higher standard than most of the kingdom. Nothing more than a few glasses of champagne in public. For the sake of appearances they still had separate suites - Mal had added an adjoining door that looked like a tapestry. If the maids noticed her bed was rarely (never) slept in, they hadn’t brought it up.
But that didn’t explain the sudden need to get married.
“Mal, honey, I love you. I’d marry you tomorrow if I could, but you’re going to need to spell this out for me.”
Mal sighed, her frustration clear, as she dug into the pocket of her leather jacket and pulled out a white stick. He didn’t realise what it was at first. It looked a bit like a thermometer, but the shape was wrong. It was too big. Mal threw it at him, and he instinctively caught it.
He was surprised by the force of the throw. There was clearly more than a little frustration there.
He looked down at the stick, and his attention was immediately drawn to the two very prominent pink lines staring at him from a window on the stick. And suddenly the pieces fell into place.
He looked back at Mal, a slow grin spreading over his face. He noticed the way she crossed her arms over her chest - a defence mechanism - and tried to look indifferent. But he could see the worry in her eyes. The fear of rejection. Of a bad reaction.
Before he knew where he was, he’d crossed the space between them and lifted her onto his desk. He dropped the pregnancy test onto his desk as his hands moved from her thighs up to cup her face.
This time, she responded to his touch. Her arms wound around him to tangle in the hair at the base of his neck, her legs widened to accommodate him. “You’re not mad?” she whispered between kisses, tilting her head back to give him better access.
“Nope,” he affirmed, pushing her jacket from her shoulders and throwing it to the left somewhere. “Definitely not mad.”
…
Some time later, they were curled together on one of the sofas he used for entertaining. Mal had snagged Ben’s shirt, and was sitting on his lap with her head against his bare shoulder. She knew she’d need to get dressed before they returned to his suite. The palace was their home, but it was also a working office. Belle, Adam and Hades had suites in the East Wing. Maleficent had an enclosure there too, but it was less suite and more...cupboard.
She and Ben had apartments and offices in the West Wing of the castle. There were guest bedrooms across both wings, but she could never think of an occasion when they would all be in use. The South Wing housed the kitchens, the servants and the public offices. Several of their charities, and a few select media outlets, had offices in the South Wing too. They weren’t allowed in the living quarters, and Mal would rather they were based offsite, but sometimes it paid to keep the select few close.
“So,” Ben finally spoke, pulling her closer and resting a hand over her still flat stomach, “How long do you think we have to prepare?”
“I don’t know,” Mal admitted with a sigh, linking her fingers through his free hand. There had been so many learning curves since coming to Auradon. Sometimes she was still adjusting, never mind helping the younger girls through the transition.
None of the girls on the Isle were ‘regular’. They didn’t know if it was living under a magical barrier, the malnutrition, or the effect of being surrounded by so many other girls who were irregular that their bodies just matched up. Trying to write sex ed classes that were suitable for both sets of teenagers had been a fun ride. “It’s been nearly ten weeks, but that’s not exactly strange. The only reason I even did the test was that I’d had this insatiable craving for charcoal. I’d asked my dad if it was a god thing, and he burst out laughing and told me it was a woman thing. And then he conjured me six tests. And they all came back positive. And then I found a metamorphosis spell and went and bought six more tests. And then they came back positive. And then I started planning a winter wedding.”
Ben wasn’t sure which part of that to address first. He supposed her reaction could have been a lot worse - she could have panicked and tried to run again, she could have decided she didn’t want kids, she could have ignored it until it became a much bigger problem. But she didn’t.
“I’m surprised your dad didn’t stroll in here and start making veiled threats the moment you left him.” His future father-in-law took great pleasure in good natured torturing. Whether it was popping up whenever he and Mal decided to take a few risks with PDA around the castle. Or reminding Ben that his day job still consisted of stealing souls. Or playing his tambourine at 7am. On a Sunday.
“Oh he will,” Mal assured Ben with a laugh, cuddling in closer, “he now has undeniable proof that you’ve been defiling his daughter. But we are about to create untold scandal across all of Auradon. He’ll probably be proud of the chaos.”
“We don’t have to get married next weekend,” Ben assured her, resting his chin on top of her head. He knew they’d be encouraged to marry as soon as possible. But he didn’t feel like changing their plans. They were most likely past the point where they could hope the baby would be late and they could pass it off as early. And she would start showing at some point - there would be no hiding that in an Evie 4Hearts wedding dress. And announcing a short notice wedding - it screamed shotgun. There was legislation for some of the member kingdoms which allowed for children born outwith marriage to take the throne - Enchantia was the most recent, when King Roland decided his stepdaughter should have equal rights to his two biological children. It would be simple enough to roll that out at an Auradon level.
But again, proposing that legislation was essentially a pregnancy announcement.
“You say that, but I can already hear the lecture we’re going to get on the proper order of things.” Mal groaned, imagining his parents’ reactions. Fairy Godmother’s. Evie’s. Queen Leah would no doubt make an appearance.
“Let’s see the doctor first, then worry about telling people.” Ben suggested, reaching over to grab one of the now ringing cells from the side table. “Speaking of people, Evie is calling you.”
“She knows.” Mal hissed as she took her phone gingerly, looking at it as if Evie was about to pop out of the screen. “E. Hi.”
Ben snickered as she answered, knowing damn fine that Evie would notice that her voice was a full octave higher and far, far too chirpy.
Life just got a hell of a lot more interesting.
…
“M. What’s wrong?”
Evie threw Doug an ‘I told you so’ look across the studio before refocusing on her best friend. She’d had this knot in her stomach since lunch. Like something was about to happen. Somehow, she knew it was about Mal. She hadn’t been able to settle at all - pacing the floor, unable to focus on her designs, constantly checking her phone - and eventually Doug had told her to just phone Mal and confirm she hadn’t ran off to the Isle again.
“Nothings wrong. Why would anything be wrong?” Evie’s frown deepened when she heard Mal’s tone. It was high pitched, she was speaking too fast. She was hiding something - and not an evil something. Evie swore she heard Ben chuckle in the background - that was good, wherever Mal was, Ben was there too. “Um. E. I have a work question.”
Evie took a deep breath, willing herself to stay calm as Mal tried to evade her questioning. Evasion was good. Evasion was better than avoidance. “This doesn’t mean I’m distracted. But shoot.”
“How quickly do you think you would pull together a wedding?”
Evie paused, the knot in her stomach tightening. She threw her phone a look, despite the fact Mal couldn’t see the side eye, before clarifying, “A wedding, or your wedding?”
“My wedding?” The way Mal said it it almost sounded like a question. But her voice was back to normal, even if there was some hesitance.
And suddenly, it all clicked into place. There was only one reason Mal would bring their wedding forward.
“Oh my god, you’re pregnant!”
Evie clapped a hand over her mouth as soon as she shouted, spinning to check that she and Doug were still definitely alone in the studio. They could never be too careful. Sometimes it felt as if the walls had ears.
Nope, they were definitely alone. And Doug had definitely heard her, judging by the three hat boxes he’d just dropped.
And then Evie caught sight of one of her mannequins. Her eyes widened in horror. It stood there, taunting her. The glamorous, sparkling, so-fitted-you-couldnt-risk-underwear, blue and purple gown was her next creation for Mal. For a gala in two weeks time.
Mal could not wear that in two weeks time. Not if she was nearly three months along.
Of course she’d be that far along. At least. Mal wouldn’t notice before then. Assuming it was the missed period she’d clicked...
“Oh my god.” Evie repeated, still staring at the ballgown. She was mentally flipping through every sketch she’d done, trying to work out which ones would accommodate any kind of baby bump. Or would Mal want to show it off? She didn’t think so. She should probably ask. “Oh my god.”
There were tears in her eyes now. Her best friend was going to have a baby. This would be the first child to be born off the Isle.
It was going to be small and innocent and have purple hair and blow steam out it’s nose when it got fussy.
It was going to need it’s own wardrobe. Booties. She’d start with baby booties.
Was bringing out a line of babywear basically a pregnancy announcement?
“Evie?” Mal asked cautiously, probably wondering if she’d broken her best friend. It was a close call.
Taking another deep breath, Evie forced herself to come up with a more coherent response. Mal would be freaking out enough for both of them. Slowly, a grin worked its way onto her face. The kind that usually appeared right before she and Mal snuck away from royal functions with a bottle of tequila. “We have so much work to do.”