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Michael’s been working tirelessly on his new project, so it’s better to let him sleep, Mia thinks, as she watches his chest rise and fall. He goes to the lab and comes back, eats dinner, and then sleeps, and it’s been this routine for at least a week now, but she really can’t blame him for being passionate about his work. She’d rather him be happy with his career than constantly be reminded that he is the prince consort who stays two steps behind her all the time. He has an arm over his bare stomach and the other over his head, his chin pressed to his chest. If she listens closely, she can detect the faintest sound of a snore that makes her lips pull into a smile.
He deserves all the sleep he can get.
Being six months pregnant, it’s a bit hard to get out of bed, but she manages after a few unsuccessful attempts. Her belly, round and a bit unsymmetrical, is heavy and larger than the average woman’s. She rests her hand on the bump as she does multiple times a day and carries herself, first, to the bathroom, and then to the balcony. There’s a nice autumn breeze blowing through the castle, the dark sky twinkling with stars that she stares up at. She makes sure to close the door reading to the balcony as her husband is asleep without a shirt and she doesn’t want to rouse him. She rests her elbow upright on the balcony with her chin in her palm and gazes out into space, biting the inside of her cheek. From her spot, she can see the gates of the palace and then men guarding, as well as the cameras roaming around the entrance. She probably looks insane, a pregnant woman in her night suit staring at them from afar, but she doubts they can even see her, regardless of their unreasonably expensive and impressive binoculars. Even if they see her, she thinks, she’ll just wave or something.
She hasn’t had much time to go out in all honesty. She’d promised Olivia that she’d take her to the most tourist-y places around Genovia, however her doctor ordered her to stay in bed the days she didn’t have many obligations, and Mia’s never been one to turn down a doctor’s medical expertise anyway. She has many servants and guards, not to mention her own mother and husband, who constantly tell her to “take it easy” and to “get some rest.” She can really only tell Michael to “shut up!” when he tells her to relax because really, how can you relax with two babies inside of you who decide that when she’s sleeping is the best time to wake her up, the same person who has so graciously decided to give them her womb for the duration of her pregnancy. She tries to settle them down the techniques Dr. Delgado has told her (rubbing her hand wherever they seem to kick the most and even gently humming to them) but they only respond with more intensity.
She wishes they wouldn’t keep her up though. Staying in bed and watching Michael sleep has been getting on her nerves because it’s not fair that he gets 8 hours every night, but instead of waking him up to scold him (as she’s done a few times), she just removes herself from the situation and goes outside to get some air.
Air doesn’t exactly help, but it stops her from ramming her palm into her husband’s chest. He doesn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of her wrath anyways. She’ll explain that it's just hormones, and she knows he is very sympathetic, but seriously, what gives? She deserves at least 6 hours every night, and not just the measly 4 she’s been getting recently.
One of the twins gives her a particularly hard kick against her rib. She inhales deeply and rests a hand there, massaging the area. “That hurt,” she mutters, looking down at her belly. “Do you two never sleep?”
She has a meeting with the Genovian court tomorrow at 11, but it’s now 3 in the morning and she doesn’t think she’ll be sleeping anytime soon.
No kick comes after the previous one, so she rests her chin in her palm again and sighs, glancing out into the horizon once more. The guards are now laughing and playfully fighting with each other. It makes her smile.
She doesn’t smile for much longer because she gets another kick, this time in her gut, and her face screws up with pain. Those hurt a lot, and she doesn't know which one of her children is settled lower than the other, but they seriously have a good kick with a lot of power to it. She stands up straighter and says, “Alright, alright. Settle down in there.”
She loves that she’s having children, but why must it take nine months? It’s everything she’s ever wanted (okay, maybe not this early, but she’s stopped complaining about that), and she’s doing it with the man she loves, but does it really have to be this exhausting? When she’s not sleeping, she’s either getting sick or yelling at her staff which, in return, makes her apologetic. She doesn’t recall her mother’s pregnancy being this difficult, but then again, her mother wasn’t having twins.
“Mia?” Michael’s voice comes behind her and she turns around to find him sleepily making his way to the balcony, shutting the door behind him, causing the curtains to fly a bit. Some of the material gets stuck in the door, but he makes no move to fix it. He’s put on a shirt, she notices sadly, and walks up to her. “Did you get sick?”
She shakes her head. He hugs her from behind and places a tender kiss on her cheek. “No, I just wanted some air.”
“Have you slept yet?”
“No. I think I may have to cancel the meeting with the court tomorrow. If I manage to sleep, I’ll only have slept 7 hours in the past two days.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” His chest rumbles as he talks, her back pressed up against him. He rubs her bare arms gently.
“You looked so tired,” she says with a shrug. “Didn’t wanna bother you.”
She knows he’s frowning. He lets her go and stands beside her, hands on the balcony, peering out to where she was a few moments ago. He’s very sweet to be standing with her outside, but it’s not as if he can help her.
“What’s on your mind?” he asks, watching the two guards playfully rough each other up.
“The usual. You know the whole, got a country to rule, gotta make everyone happy, and oh yeah, the whole thing about becoming a mother.”
He perks up at the last one. “Let’s talk about the last one. Not that I totally don’t hear you on the other ones, but I’ll probably be a better help for that one.”
Mia hasn’t felt the need to cry in a while, and it’s amazing because she tends to be a bit of a crybaby even when she wasn’t pregnant, but she’s gone a long time without crying. The last time she’d slipped was at the baby shower when Tina gave her customized blankets for the babies with hand stitched golden crowns (Tina took lessons for her!) and she’d sobbed right into them. They had to be washed immediately after because her mascara had leaked onto the material, but that was weeks ago. She had plenty of reason to cry and plenty of time too, to be frank, but it’s never been a necessity to her. Until now.
In an effort to not alarm her husband, she lets her hair fall over to create a curtain between them. Tears pool at her eyes, and she sniffles, but it can easily be blamed on the slightly cold air.
“Do you remember,” she starts, “when mom was pregnant with Rocky and how neurotic I was about making sure she ate right and took all the vitamins she needed?”
“Yes, I remember that. You were very neurotic indeed, but that was your way of showing her you cared about her wellbeing.”
She just nods and continues, “And do you remember you used to print out articles about pregnancy and babies and how to make sure that the mother is well nourished during that time?”
There’s a smile in his words. “Yes, I remember that too. I became pretty invested in it, huh?”
She sniffles some more. “Yeah.”
“What made you think about that?”
“Well, I was remembering it because I realize now how annoying that must have been. I constantly told her what to eat, and yelled at her when she’d order all those chips and chocolate. And I went seriously ham on her when she wouldn’t take her vitamins.” She can’t hide the fact that she’s crying now, her voice trembling so much that Michael has to tuck her hair back and wrap his arms around her again.
“Mia…”
“And I was such a pest to her. And she didn’t say anything to me. Occasionally she’d be upset, but she knew I was just trying to take care of her, but now? Now they do it to me and I hate it so much.”
It’s kind of hard to hug a woman who is 6 months pregnant with twins, but Michael tries anyway, getting his arms around her as much as he can. It’s uncomfortable, but one whiff of him relaxes her tense muscles. Unfortunately, it relaxes her so much that the tears don’t show any signs of stopping and she cries into his chest for the first time in a very long time. He doesn’t say much, letting her cry it out.
“Mia,” he says, cradling her head because it’s really all that he can reach. “If you knew why you did it to Helen, then you know why they’re doing it to you.”
“But, they do too much! Maybe I want to have more than one pack of yogurt!”
“They don’t let you eat yogurt?”
“One pack has six.”
He laughs a bit. “You can eat more than 6 containers of yogurt? Wow.”
“Shut up,” she sniffles, rubbing her face into his shirt.
“You’re a royal, Mia. You’re the princess, of course they’re going to take care of you. Why wouldn’t they? I know that if it were up to me, I’d be hounding you like that too.”
She pulls away slightly, looking up at him with her tear filled eyes. “You’d take my yogurt away from me?”
“Nobody should be eating more than two of those yogurt containers a day, Mia.”
“They give me energy.”
“That’s what the vitamins are for.”
“I take them!” she insists. “But they don’t work the same as yogurt. Sometimes I make a little parfait, but they say that I can’t have too many of those either! At least I’m not having ramen every day or salt and vinegar chips like my mother! She had them all the time despite my badgering and Rocky turned out fine, so why can’t I do it?”
“Mia,” he says gently, but she knows he’s about to say something very obvious. “You're a royal. Your mother wasn’t. If she were a royal and lived in Genovia with all these dieticians and doctors, she would be pampered like this too. You have the resources and that’s why they give you all that.”
She wipes her face. “You make me sound so ungrateful.”
He smiles a bit, shaking his head, looking at her with his kind, dark eyes. “I don’t mean to do that at all. I’m just saying that you have the ability to have the healthiest pregnancy, and it’s okay that you get fed up with all these rules, but they’re doing it for your own good. Don’t you see that?”
“I do,” she says back stubbornly, rubbing her eye. “I just hate it. I hate being told what to eat when I really just want some cold sesame noodles, and I hate getting kicked by the twins, and I hate…” her voice trembles again, “not seeing you around anymore. And I get that you’re busy, and that I can’t ask you to do anything more than you’ve already done for me, but it’s… it’s so much!” She buries her face in her hands and cries harder, shaking her head. “It’s too much.”
Michael is quick to jump in and stop her mind from going too far. “Mia, I told you I’m doing all this extra work so I can go on leave by the end of this month. That’s only two weeks. I’m here in the morning and at night.”
“At night I get to watch you sleep while I’m wide awake not knowing what to do with myself!”
It’s not fair of her to put this on him, but she can’t help the words from coming out before she can hold them back.
“I tell you all the time to wake me up.”
She looks up from her hands. “So I can feel bad about it? No thank you.”
Michael pulls her back in, laying his cheek on top of her head, rubbing her shoulders. “All you have to do is wake me up. You’ve done it before. Have I ever gotten mad about it?”
She shakes her head.
“Right. Because I don’t mind being up with you. It’s not fair, you’re right. It’s not fair that you have to do this alone, especially when I’m right next to you, Mia. I don’t mind staying up. Even if it’s just to hear you yell at me.”
“I don’t yell at you,” she groans, wiping her face harshly.
He chuckles a bit. He waits until she’s done crying, which takes a while, but he doesn’t mind. She holds onto him tightly and cries her poor eyes out, but he doesn’t make any motion to stop her, simply standing there and holding her.
It’s not until a few minutes later when she pulls away again and mumbles an apology, that he says, “They don’t let you sleep, huh?”
She shakes her head, her voice nasally, “No, they hurt so much.”
“Is that so?” He puts his hands on her stomach, something she hates unless it’s Michael or Rocky. “What are you guys doing in there?” In response to their dad’s voice, one of the twins kicks right where his hand lays, his wedding ring shining up at her in the moonlight. “Wow, that was very rude of you.”
“Imagine the toll on me,” Mia says, pained.
He glances at her. “They do that a lot more than before?”
She nods. “I get that they’re just saying hello or something because that’s what Dr. Delgado said, but I’ve never felt such a violent hello.”
He can’t help but smile and sigh contently. He lets his eyes wander over her. Her cheeks are more filled out and her hair is longer and thicker. Possibly even shinier. You can tell she’s pregnant by looking at her face, a healthy glow across her skin that makes him quite happy. He remembers last week when she’d grumbled that her wedding ring didn’t fit anymore and that she only got to wear it for a few months. He’d laughed very hard and offered to give her his.
“Can you believe that those are our kids in there? We made them.” He laughs, running a hand through his dark hair, emotion in his voice that makes her suspect he’ll let out a few tears too. “Do you ever think about how far we’ve come?”
“All the time,” she says, getting choked up again. “We’ve been dating since high school. That’s crazy.”
“You count high school?”
“Don’t you?!”
“Well. I was a senior when we started dating. But I didn’t think you’d count it because we broke up.”
“I like to count it. You know the other day, I was rereading my own journals. And,” she breaks off with a wet laugh, her face turning pink, “they were all about you. And Josh Richter for a while, but mostly about you.”
He pulls her closer. “Yeah? What about me?” He has an arrogant tone as if he’s proud of himself.
“Just about how much I loved you. The weird thing is that I thought you’d break up with me like 3 times.”
“Remember when you asked me if I was in love with you or if I loved you like a friend?”
Mia groans, hiding her face. “That is so embarrassing! Please don’t bring it up again.”
“And the time before I went to Japan when your hair was shorter than mine.”
“Oh, my God.”
“And when you wrote a romance novel instead of the thing about the Genovian oil presses circa whenever to whatever and didn’t want to show me?”
“Hey, you called it hot!”
“You’re right, I did. It was so hot,” he says, grinning. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s reenact some scenes right now.” He leans in and starts kissing her neck gently, trailing up the side of her ear. “What do you say, Your Highness?”
She shivers, laughing a bit. Her eyes are still teary. “I say that you can’t even reach the fun box thanks to your children.”
“Oh they’re just my children now, hmm? Last time I checked, it takes two to tango. And don’t worry. I can make it work. I don’t mean to brag but--”
“Do not continue that sentence. And you did not just call sex the ‘tango’.”
He continues kissing her neck, whispering, “And what if I did? Come on, let’s go back to bed. I’ll make sure to tire you out.”
She’s still laughing when he reaches for her hand and leads her back to their room, making sure to close the curtains and lock the door behind him. “Come on, Thermopolis,” he says, gesturing her into the bed. “Let me have my way with you.”