Swallowing Darkness   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

I understood why I was hooked up to more machines than normal. If anything went wrong with this pregnancy there would be problems for the hospital. I was about as high profile as you got, and they were worried. Also, I'd been in shock when they brought me in, with low blood pressure, low everything, skin cold to the touch. They'd wanted to make sure my heart rate and such didn't continue to drop. Now the monitors betrayed my moods.

"Talk to me, Doctor, because the hesitation is scaring me."

She looked at Doyle, and he gave one small nod. I did not like that at all. "You told him first?" I said.

"You're not going to let this go, are you?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Then perhaps one more ultrasound tonight."

"I've never been pregnant before, but I know from friends I had in L.A. that ultrasounds aren't that common early in pregnancy. You've done three already. Something is wrong with the babies, isn't there?"

"I swear to you that the twins are fine. As far as I can see on the ultrasound and tell from your blood workup, you're healthy and at the beginning of a normal pregnancy. Multiples can make a pregnancy more challenging for the mother and for the doctor." She smiled at that last. "But everything about the twins looks wonderful. I swear."

"Be careful swearing to me, Doctor. I am a princess of the faerie court, and swearing is too close to giving your word. You don't want to know what might happen to you if you were forsworn to me."

"Is that a threat?" she said, drawing herself up to her full height and gripping both ends of the stethoscope around her shoulders.

"No, Doctor, a caution. Magic works around me, sometimes even in the mortal world. I just want you and all the humans who are taking care of me to understand that words you might say casually may have very different consequences when you are near me."

"So you mean if I said, 'I wish,' it might be taken seriously?"

I smiled. "Fairies don't really grant wishes, Doctor, at least not the kind in this room."

She looked a little embarrassed then. "I didn't mean... "

"It's all right," I said, "but once upon a time giving your word and then breaking it could get you hunted by the wild hunt, or bad luck could befall you. I don't know how much magic has followed me from faerie, and I just don't want anyone else hurt by accident."

"I heard about the loss of your... lover. My condolences, though in all honesty I don't understand everything I was told about it."

"Even we do not understand everything that has happened," Doyle said. "Wild magic is called wild for a reason."

She nodded as if she understood that, and I think she meant to leave. "Doctor," I said, "You wanted another ultrasound?"

She turned with a smile. "Now, would I try to get out of this room without answering your questions?"

"Apparently you would, and that wouldn't endear you to me. That you talked to Doyle before me has already put a mark against you in my mind."

"You were resting peacefully, and your aunt wanted me to talk to Captain Doyle."

"And she is paying the bills," I said.

The doctor looked flustered and a little angry. "She is also a queen, and honestly, I'm not sure how to react to her requests yet."

I smiled, but even to me the smile felt a little bitter. "If she makes anything sound like a request, Doctor, she's being very nice to you. She is queen and absolute ruler of our court. Absolute rulers don't make requests."

The doctor gripped both ends of her stethoscope again. A nervous habit, I was betting. "Well, that's as may be, but she wanted me to discuss things with your primary," she hesitated, "man in your life."

I looked up at Doyle, who was still by my bedside. "Queen Andais chose Doyle as my primary?"

"She asked who the father of the children were, and I, of course, couldn't answer that question yet. I told her that an amniocentesis would up your risk of problems right now. But Captain Doyle seems very confident that he is one of the fathers."

I nodded. "He is, and so is Rhys, and so is Lord Sholto."

She blinked at me. "Princess Meredith, you only have twins, not triplets."

I looked at her. "I know who the fathers of my children are, yes."

"But you... "

Doyle said, "Doctor, that is not what she means. Trust me, Doctor, each of my twins will have several genetic fathers, not just me."

"How can you be certain of something so impossible?"

"I had a vision from Goddess."

She opened her mouth as if she'd argue, then closed it.

She went to the other side of the room, where they had left the ultrasound machine after the last time they'd used it on me. She put on gloves, and so did the nurse. They got the tube of gloopy stuff that I'd already learned was really, really cold.

Dr. Mason didn't bother asking if I wanted any of the men to leave the room this time. It had taken her a little while to realize that I felt that all the men had a right to be in the room. The only one we were missing was Galen, and Doyle had sent him on an errand. I had been half asleep when I'd seen them talking, low, then Galen had left. I hadn't thought to ask where, or why. I trusted Doyle.

They lifted the gown, spread the blueish goo, again very cold, on my stomach, then the doctor got the chunky wand, and began to move it across my abdomen. I watched the monitor and its blurry picture. I'd actually seen the image enough that I could make out the two spots, the two shapes that were so small, they didn't even look real yet. The only thing that let me know what they were was the fast fluttering of their hearts in the image.

"See, they look perfectly fine."

"Then why all the extra tests?" I asked.

"Honestly?"

"Please."

"Because you are Princess Meredith NicEssus, and I'm covering my ass." She smiled and I smiled back.

"That is honest for a doctor," I said.

"I try," she said.

The nurse began to clean my stomach off with a cloth, then she cleaned the equipment as the doctor and I stared at each other.

"I've already had reporters pestering me and my staff for details. It isn't just the queen who's going to be watching me closely."

She gripped her stethoscope again.

"I am sorry that my status will make this harder for you and your staff."

"Just be a model patient, and we'll talk in the morning, Princess. Now, will you sleep, or at least rest?"

"I'll try."

She almost smiled, but her eyes had that guarded look like she wasn't certain she believed me. "Well, I think that's the best I can hope for, but," and she turned to the men, "no upsetting her." She actually shook a finger at them.

"She is a princess," Sholto said from the corner, "and our future queen.