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impossiblesuitcase · 5 days ago

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Lilac and Gold and You

Cinder knew something was wrong from the moment Cress came barrelling through the door.

“Cinder!” she cried, launching into her with a hug. Cinder stumbled under her weight, hands jumping up to secure Cress by her shoulders.

“Hey, Cress,” she greeted, albeit uncertainly. Cress was known for her ecstatic embraces at reunions after a long time apart. Except, it hadn’t been long since she last saw Cress and Thorne.

Over Cress’s head, she watched Thorne enter, face pale and eyes ringed with dark purple bags.

“Hey, Captain,” she called. “You look like crap.”

Thorne sarcastically blew her a kiss, but his dead-eyed blankness stole his usual charm. “Likewise, Cindy.”

A testament to his physical state was his rumpled clothes and unkempt hair; it was unlike Thorne to be anything but spruce and well-dressed. This was one of the only times Cinder actually felt like she’d put more effort into her outfit than him, even with the simple jeans and lavender t-shirt she’d chucked on after finishing work.

Chuckling, Cinder disentangled herself from his wife—a surprising struggle as Cress’s delicate fingers had a steel lock around her—and met Thorne by the door. His hug was much less confining.

Kai left his glass on the kitchen bench and pulled Cress into an embrace. She reciprocated, but her eyes stayed trained on Cinder. “How are you both feeling?” he asked, voice tinged with concern.

Groaning, Thorne ran a hand through his hair. “Like we’ve been throwing up for four days straight. I’ll let you figure out that mental picture.”

In unison, Cinder and Kai cringed. A week ago, they, Cress, Thorne and the rest of the Rampion Crew were together in the American Republic for a state dinner ‘honouring heroes of the revolution.’ Cinder and Kai were well-versed in such formal dull dinners, being the emperor and empress of the Eastern Commonwealth. Winter, who was also accustomed to public attention as a former princess and current ambassador, was likewise willing to attend—along with Iko, who loved a party. The rest of the crew were a tad more hesitant. Media spotlight was an unfortunate unavoidable byproduct of their roles in the revolution. Even Thorne, who generally basked in acclaim, grew a little tired of it as the years continued and his initially distant adoring fans became fanatical, showing up at his grocery runs and doctors’ appointments.

But, with nine of them each busy with their own packed schedule, an opportunity to reunite was rare and not to be squandered. So they all fancied themselves up, sat through the speeches and camera flashes and questions, and once it was over, they had the rest of the week together, with Wolf to scare off the incessant paparazzi by bearing his canines.

But—given that Thorne barely returned to his native country anymore—the highly publicised event was prime opportunity for his parents to snatch him and Cress up for a ‘family’ dinner. To Thorne’s dismay, Cress felt strongly that they should at least try to be diplomatic with his parents and convinced him to agree. So at the end of the week, everyone returned to their respective countries while Thorne and Cress begrudgingly went to dinner with his parents. A dinner in which they got food poisoning.

They had been due this week on Luna for a conference that Cress had been selected to panel for the rights of ungifted Lunars across the universe. Naturally with their maladies they had to bail—much to Cress’s disappointment. Thus, when Cinder mentioned that one of the lead panellists would be staying in New Beijing Palace for a handful of days, Cress begged her to let them stay so she could meet him and demonstrate the 38-slide presentation she had prepared.

Today was Friday, and the panellist would be staying until Monday, so Cinder had hoped that that would be just enough time for the couple to recover enough to return to society. But, glancing between the two of them, Cinder could tell that Cress had fared much better than Thorne. Her face was rosy and nowhere near as pale, her hair was in a neat ponytail and her simple floral daydress was unwrinkled and clean.

“You thirsty?” Cinder asked, making her way into the kitchen and plucking two glasses from the cupboard.

“Yes!” Cress said quickly, claiming a kitchen stool. “Water, please.”

“And Thorne, for you? A whisky?”

He just about turned green. “Don’t do that to me, Cinder. I thought alcohol would help. As of my experiment with a nip of scotch five days ago”—he pinched his fingers, mimicking how minuscule it was—“the conclusion is no. Perfectly good liquor down the toilet.”

“Love, why don’t you make him your mother’s remedy?” Cinder suggested to Kai, who was standing behind the bench arranging a tray of plain crackers and mooncakes. “The stomach bug one?”

His eyes flashed with recognition. “Oh, right! Seriously man, this stuff is the best. You’ll be fixed in no time.” And though it wasn’t a fair comparison, Cinder noticed how Thorne’s bedraggled state amplified just how handsome Kai looked in his simple pale yellow shirt and black jeans. Then, berating herself, she shook her head to clear it, confused by the intrusion of the random thought. Okay, she knew her husband was attractive, but normally her mind wasn’t so quick to go judging her friends in comparison.

“Great,” Thorne responded, flopping dramatically onto the couch.

Chuckling, Cinder passed Cress the glass of water, who immediately chugged it down. Wiping her arm on her sleeve, she pushed it forward. “Could I have some more, please?”

She obliged, but not without a strange look. “You must be dehydrated.”

“What?”

“From all the vomiting.”

Cress stared at her with a look of total confusion, as if Cinder had just catapulted from the moon. “Oh,” she said finally. “Not really. I mean, we both stopped puking three days ago. We’ve actually been recovering okay.”

Cinder darted another look at Thorne as he wallowed face down into a cushion. “Are you sure? Thorne looks ready to start divvying up his will.”

“Oh, you know how he gets with stomach things. He’s always been a bit dramatic when tummy bugs are involved,” Cress replied, but she sounded distracted, eyes flitting in all directions.

When she passed the refilled glass back to her, she gulped that down just as quickly as the first.

Cinder crossed her arms. Sure, Cress had her quirks and oddities—only natural for someone who grew up alone in outer space—but even this behaviour was bizarre, and intuition told Cinder that this wasn’t just a strange symptom of the food poisoning. The guzzling down water was suspicious enough, but Cinder couldn’t really take that as concrete proof of anything; she herself had been feeling unusually thirsty lately. Perhaps it was the humidity.

Narrowing her eyes, Cinder watched Cress gulp and planted her hands on the bench.

“Cress, do you want to talk—”

“—Could we talk for a second?” Cress rattled out in the same instant, then froze as their words overlapped. She gave a vigorous, seizure-like nod. “Yeah—yeah—um, let’s go to your room.”

And without waiting for Cinder, she made a beeline for the hallway.

Kai—humming away and seemingly too busy in his brewing to notice the weirdness—brushed past Cinder as he rummaged through drawers. He gently took her by the shoulders and moved her aside, reaching into the cupboard she was blocking with an, “Excuse me, love.”

In a swift motion, Cinder stayed his wrist and said in a low voice, “I’m on girl duty. Can you babysit Thorne?”

As another exaggerated groan sounded from the couch, Kai sent her an almost panicked look. “What? Why do I have to—”

“You’re the best, love you!” Kissing him quickly, she sped off after Cress.

———

Reaching the bedroom she shared with Kai, Cinder found Cress pacing a hole in the floor. Relief rushed through her for making the bed that morning and that Kai had picked up their clothes from the bathroom floor to run through the washing machine, because they hadn’t actually been expecting guests in their room. Ordinarily, Cress and Thorne stayed in the guest bedroom down the hall. But Cinder wasn’t going to berate Cress, who was clearly experiencing some sort of existential crisis.

Closing the door behind her, Cinder approached with caution. “Okay—what’s up? You’re acting like you’re the one who poisoned Thorne.”

Cress froze in place to emit a shocked, “What! I didn’t—I wouldn’t—”

“Cress,” Cinder laughed, holding up her hands in a mollifying gesture. “Stars, are you okay? I haven’t seen you act this weird since that first vid comm on the satellite.”

Much like that frazzled sixteen-year-old girl, Cress was unable to keep tears from brimming in her eyes.

Guilt instantly swept over her for acting so flippant. Cinder rushed over with a “whoa, whoa, what’s wrong?” as she wrapped her arms around her.

But Cress breathed deeply, dried her eyes and extricated herself from her. “I think I’m pregnant.”

Cinder blinked. Once, twice, three times.

“Okay…and that’s…bad? Good?”

Resuming her pacing, Cress clawed her hands through her hair. “I don’t know! I mean it’s not bad, but I’m not prepared for this and Carswell isn’t prepared for this and we don’t even have a house! We just moved out of our London apartment so he could do this new transport job around the world and that’s fine because we have the Rampion! We can live on the Rampion full time—but not with a baby!” she rambled, barely pausing to breathe.

“Cress—”

“And I know he wouldn’t be mad at me, I mean—we’ve talked about having kids someday, but not to-day! I’m only twenty-six for stars’ sake—I’m too young to be a mother!”

Cinder chuckled dryly. “Well, that bodes well for me, considering we’re the same age.”

Realising her mistake, Cress latched onto her arms, eyes imploring. “No, no, no, I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant at all. You and Kai will make amazing parents. You’re both so much more mature and settled than we are; you’ve been married way longer. You’re going to make a wonderful mother.”

Awkwardly, Cinder mumbled a “thanks.” When she and Kai had decided to start trying for a baby a year ago, she’d had to reassure herself of those exact things too. That they were mature, they were settled, they’d been married five years. They would make good parents.

But, as a year had come and gone with never a second line on those infuriating white sticks, her optimism was wearing thin.

Pulling away, Cress rubbed her eyes with her fists. “You have pregnancy tests, right? Can I use one?”

She began to nod, thoughts swarming as Cress sped off into her bathroom. “Hang on,” she called after her, “why do you think you’re pregnant?”

Haphazardly throwing open cupboards and drawers under the sink, Cress listed, “I’m tired, my eye has been twitching, I’ve been throwing up—you know, morning sickness, and—”

“Cress,” Cinder cut her off. “You had food poisoning. So did Thorne.”

She hovered her hands close to her face, gesticulating aimlessly. “Yes, but I was feeling nauseated before that meal.”

“Yeah, you told me that you were nervous,” Cinder chided, raising an eyebrow, “are you sure that wasn’t anxiety?”

Unconvinced, Cress simply stated, “My period is late.”

A sigh. “Okay then. But I don’t think you’re pregnant.”

“Don’t say that—you’ll jinx it!”

Ignoring her, Cinder crossed the bathroom—large and voguish with its ornate marble bathtub and overhanging chandelier and mosaic-tiled shower with about fifty different temperature settings—and squatted down in front of the long sideboard by the towel rack. Architectural magazines had begged to have an exclusive look into the “swanky bathroom fit for an emperor and empress,” but in truth, Cinder and Kai weren’t the best at keeping it tidy, transforming—as Iko put it—a “palatial Roman bathhouse into a fast food joint’s restroom.”

As Cinder pulled a box of pregnancy tests from the shelf, Cress came behind her and peeked inside. “Whoa,” she muttered, and began fossicking through the dozen boxes, stacking them all up in her arms.

“Cress, you don’t need that many,” said Cinder, grabbing two off the top before they toppled onto her head.

The tower teetered precariously as Cress blindly carried it to the benchtop. “I’m not taking any chances. If I take multiple tests from different brands it will cover all bases.” At ten boxes high, Cinder thought this was extremely overkill. Then, remembering they belonged to her, she realised who really was overkill.

In truth, she couldn’t argue with Cress’s logic, because that was the exact reasoning she’d been using this entire year. When the first few months of tests persisted in coming back negative, she decided to switch brands. And again. And again. And then when that produced no results, she began trying more expensive ones that promised the earliest results, and then taking tests morning and night just in case her hGC levels increased over the day. She was in the habit of shoving the boxes in the back of the cupboard, ignoring how they were piling up, until Kai had gently suggested that this was making her more than a little stir crazy.

Although it was hard to agree at first, Cinder trusted her husband, and so for the last three months, she’d stopped taking tests entirely. Now, with some distance from that routine of manic testing, she could see how obsessed she had become, and how Cress was now equally as frantic.

Cress scanned over the labels on all ten boxes, picking out the ones that promised the highest accuracy and earliest results. Some of the pricier tests on the market were even more thorough—some would give you results in ten seconds, or tell you the sex of the baby or even tell you your exact gestational progress in weeks and days. But all that felt too overwhelming, so she opted for the traditional tests; a three-minute timer, pregnant or not.

When she pulled out four tests, Cinder laughed and tossed one back in its box. “I don’t think you’ll have enough urine for that many.”

“Why do you think I was drinking all that water?” Cress argued, reaching for it again.

She locked her grip on the box, drawing Cress’s gaze to her. “Two is enough, trust me.”

Reluctantly, she pressed the third test into her hand. “Okay.”

As Cinder took it, she felt Cress’s fingers tremble. “Hey. It’s going to be okay. If you are pregnant, it’s not the end of the world. You and Thorne are good people. I’m certain you could handle some adorable crying snotbag running around. I mean—you’re both great with Scarlet and Wolf’s kids.”

Biting her lip, she nodded. “I know, I know. We’d be okay. I just…tend to freak out sometimes, if you hadn’t noticed.”

At Cinder’s deadpan, Cress laughed shakily. “Okay: everyone knows how I freak out sometimes.”

As Cress tore the wrappers off the two tests, Cinder couldn’t help clutching the one in her hand tighter. She’d been intentionally blocking out thoughts of pregnancy and motherhood and all its wonders and gross parts for the past three months. The reminder of an adorable crying snotbag sent a surge of complicated feelings through her.

Before Cress walked to the adjoining toilet closet, Cinder stopped her. “If it makes you feel better, I can take one too. We can think of this like…I don’t know, a girly activity? So there’s less pressure?”

Despite Cinder feeling herself cringe at the absurdity of her words, Cress’s eyes welled up again with tears. “Yes, thank you!”

About five minutes later, the three tests—Cress’s to the right and Cinder’s to the left—were laid out on the bench, screens displaying a loading bar. Having taken her test after Cress, they both concentrated on the two on the right.

“No matter what happens, it’s going to be okay,” Cinder promised.

A too-quick nod. “Right. Right. Besides, a little version of Carswell would be super cute.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Let’s hope the kid inherits your personality, though.”

Cress laughed, but her hands were cupping her cheeks as if squeezing the breath out of her. She spun around. “Oh, I can’t look at them. Are the three minutes up?”

“Ten seconds,” answered Cinder, watching the timer on her retina display.

“This is unbearable!” she moaned. “How do you do this every month?!”

Sighing, Cinder rubbed at her forearm. This is why I stopped.

The timer flashed to 00:00 in her eye. “It’s ready, Cress.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, Cress squeaked. “I can’t look! What does it say?”

Peering over at the bench, Cinder felt not an ounce of surprise as the two tests flashed up at her, not pregnant.

“Negative.”

Whipping around, Cress lunged at the sticks, holding them up as if to confirm that they were real. “Stars,” she whispered, and slumped against the bench, the tests clattering onto the marble as they slipped from her hands.

“Food poisoning,” noted Cinder, laughing.

For the umpteenth time, Cress attacked Cinder with a hug, in the process knocking over the stack of boxes with her elbow.

“Thank you, thank you!”

Cinder couldn’t reel in her chortle. “For what?”

“For putting up with my freaking out,” Cress meekly supplied.

Gazing down at her, Cinder fondly messed her hair. “Cress, that’s the first requirement of being your friend.”

———

When Cinder returned to the kitchen, she found Thorne miraculously upright, perched on a kitchen stool and chatting with Kai.

“Wow! He lives!” she quipped.

Rather than return her sarcasm, Thorne sighed in relief. “I feel reborn. That drink truly is a miracle cure.”

Kai sat on the stool beside him, sipping a drink out of a coffee glass exactly the same shade of green as Thorne’s. Cinder wrapped her arms around his waist, catching a whiff of the beverage’s aroma.

She frowned and whispered, “That doesn’t smell anything like your mother’s recipe.”

Winking at her, Kai replied in a low voice. “No. It’s just green tea with some spices in it. We didn’t have all the ingredients for the remedy. But I think the placebo effect is just as potent.”

Sharing a glance at Thorne, who was obliviously sipping away at the tea, they shared a conspiratorial grin.

Cress burst into the room. “Carswell!”

He barely managed to set down his glass in time to catch her as she pressed a firm kiss to his lips.

“Whoa,” he chuckled. “Is it my new cologne?”

Eyes alight, she said, “I’m not pregnant.”

His eyebrows flew up. “I didn’t think you were, sweetheart.”

“Yes, but I’m definitely, definitely not.”

A slow nod. “Yes, as I assumed…wait, did you think you were?”

“Well, I was sick last week and my period is a day late—”

In a motion identical to Cinder when Cress had told her that same reasoning, he stared blankly. “Cress, I was sick too. We had food poisoning.”

“I know!” she affirmed cheerily, as if the memory of hurling her guts up was nothing but pleasant.

As she embraced him again, Kai looked back at Cinder, casting her a quizzical look.

Shrugging, she smiled and rested her chin on his shoulder.

———

“Whoa, is there some kind of womanly pregnancy test ritual I don’t know about?” Kai called from the bathroom.

“What?” Cinder replied, not really paying attention. She was sitting on top of their bed, covers still drawn up, and though she still needed to get up and brush her teeth, her limbs felt heavy with fatigue, soldering her to the bed. Her fingers lazily scrolled through the article on her port—a review of a new optical sensor in droids and how to install it.

“Well, it looks like a cardboard box volcano threw up in here,” Kai commented, slightly muffled by the sounds of the cardboard knocking into each other as he began sorting the mess.

Cinder let out a sleepy laugh. “Oh, yeah, that was the result of Cress’s paranoia. I forgot to clean it up.”

“And you wonder why our bathroom is always messy,” Kai said wryly.

Cinder set aside her portscreen, allowing herself a moment to rest her eyes. She was so exhausted from work that morning, and then Cress and Thorne’s arrival, Cress’s subsequent crisis and the ensuing dinner, that when they all retired to their rooms she made a beeline for the shower, dressed, collapsed on the bed and hadn’t moved since.

“Come to bed,” she yawned. “I’ll clean it up in the morning.”

A snort. “I can’t exactly brush my teeth with Mount Vesuvius of boxes in the way.”

And so Cinder slumped back against the headboard, telling herself that she would wait until Kai was finished to get up and brush her teeth. But with the soft mattress beneath her, Kai’s humming and sorting drifting from the bathroom, she was lulled into a sleep-like state.

After what could have been mere seconds or a full hour, Kai’s voice roused her from the fringes of unconsciousness, sobered of all joking tone from before. “Love, how many tests did Cress take?”

She answered after a moment, barely able to conjure the number from her recollection. “Two,” she called back, loud enough for him to hear but no less slurred.

He didn’t respond straight away, and when he did, he sounded almost clinical. “There are three tests here.”

Waking up a bit more, she stretched out her arms and legs. “Oh, yeah, I took one as well. For moral support. She was panicking.”

“Cinder, one of these tests is positive.”

Cinder catapulted from her bed to the bathroom. Her metal foot nearly slipped as the carpet cut into tiles. Bracing herself on the door, she managed to stop herself from slamming flat on her face. Kai—who ordinarily would’ve rocketed over to catch her—was fixated on the stick on the bench. Then he took her in. He looked just as shocked by her appearance as she felt, all tendrils of sleepiness instantly sloughed away.

The boxes that had littered the bench were gone, leaving only the three tests neatly lined up next to each other. She snatched them up in one swoop, holding them for her eyes to confirm.

There was the pink test Cress had taken which read in bold letters Not Pregnant. But the other two tests were identical in colour and shape. The only difference was that one had a single line, and the other had a clear, unmistakable two.

Perhaps it was the cold lighting of the bathroom, but Kai’s face looked pale. “Do you know which one you took?” he whispered, wide-eyed.

She dumbly shook her head. “I—I—no.” Tossing the blue test into the bin, she compared the twin sticks. “We both took one each of this kind, I—I can’t tell who it belongs to.”

As he pried the negative test from her, Cinder realised his hands were trembling. He dropped it into the bin. “Then you can—you should take another one.”

Clutching the positive test like a lifeline, she nodded. But then the flicker of unfathomable hope rising in her chest was snuffed out. Disappointment left her in a sigh. “Tests are only reliable for ten minutes,” she explained flatly. “After that, the results can change with the atmospheric temperature and it develops an evaporation line; it becomes a false positive.”

Kai gave a disheartened, “Oh,” He rubbed at his wrists. “I guess it’s just that, then.”

She chuckled, a weak, hollow sound. “Yeah.”

“I mean, if you looked at the test when you took it and it read negative, then it doesn’t make sense that it would change.”

“I never checked it,” she cut in.

His eyes bored into hers, silence enveloping them for a beat. Two. Three.

“You should take another—”

“—I’ll take one right now.”

Rushing over to the sideboard, Cinder rifled through the top shelf, unapologetically destroying Kai’s neat stacking. She seized the box tucked all the way at the back—the one her doctor had recommended to her. Of all the tests, it promised the highest accuracy and would yield a clear result early in her cycle.

Once she’d taken it, she laid the test on the bench and washed her hands. Kai had a strange, indecipherable look on his face, and she could tell he was experiencing the same tidal wave of emotions as her but was trying to keep it contained. Perhaps he didn’t want to get his hopes up and transfer that excitement to her.

The small window on the test blinked every five seconds. While some tests offered a loading bar, agonisingly, this one did not. Cinder got the eerie sense that this was a bomb waiting to erupt.

“How long does it take?” he asked, probably going through the same muddle of thoughts as her.

“Three minutes,” she said, setting a timer on her retina display.

Kai moved from one foot to the other, his arms swaying up and down like they refused to stay still. “Well, from the time you took the test to bringing it out and washing your hands, that’s got to be at least thirty seconds already, right?”

“Right.” She removed thirty seconds from the timer. It made little difference. Two minutes and fifteen seconds felt longer than the entire Lunar Revolution.

Unable to keep himself from fidgeting, Kai shifted to take her hands into his own. Only when he steadied her did she realise she was also trembling. “It’s going to be okay,” he assured her, unknowingly echoing Cinder’s own words to Cress earlier that day. “If it is a false positive, it isn’t forever. One day it will be positive.”

“You’re right,” she said, but it wasn’t true at all. Because although she had been chanting don’t get your hopes up like a mantra in her head, she was weak. After a year of negatives, this single, completely unreliable positive had trashed all traces of patience and endurance. A foolish, illogical part of her screamed that if it wasn’t positive now, it would never be.

Kai ran his hands up her goosebumped flesh and pulled her towards him. His kiss was gentle, comforting, and tasted like their dinner of steamed pork buns and pickled cucumbers. She was sure she tasted the same; they both still needed to brush their teeth. She couldn’t care less.

When they separated, Cinder inhaled deeply. No, it wasn’t fair to Kai to be so pessimistic. If it came back negative, she would plaster on a brave face, make some quip about blaming Cress for this whole debacle, and promise that they had time. To reveal to him how hopeless she felt would only dash his hopes. She was also vaguely aware that she was being maybe a touch overemotional and unreasonable. Her retina display told her as much, from the flashing warnings of an accelerated heart rate and increased hormones.

“How much longer?” he murmured.

“Thirty seconds.”

She could only catch a glimpse of the test before she had to rip her eyes away. Oh, she felt mean for thinking that Cress was overreacting. She flipped it over so the loading bar was hidden. She really couldn’t look at it. It was unbearable.

“You’re right,” she repeated, talking as much to herself as to him. “It’ll be fine. It’s probably just a fluke anyway. We have time. Plenty of it! And we’re young anyway—maybe it’s a good thing that we wait a little longer! I mean, we still have places to travel and we won’t be able to do that with a baby and if I am pregnant I’ll be sick all the time and we’re right about to head into the busiest political season of the year so it’s not great timing anyway—”

“Love—”

“—so maybe I dont even want it to be positive!” Her voice cracked and she forced out a strangled laugh, feeling hysterical. But then she saw the tsunami of emotions crossing his face.

“I do,” he confessed.

And her resolve crumbled.

Zero. She grabbed the test, yelling, “Oh, just say yes, damn it!” His hand gripped the other end, and together they flipped it.

Pregnant.

Flinging it over her shoulder, Cinder leapt into Kai’s arms, who was just as quick to reach for her. Their delighted shrieks echoed off the tiles as he spun her around until they were both dizzy. Only when he set her down and kissed her, deep and full and blissfully awkward with their lips stuck in smiles did their bawling quiet down.

Eventually, after enough tears from Kai to make up for both of them, they retrieved the test from the floor, holding it between them so tenderly it was like it was their baby itself.

———

They visited their doctor the very next morning at 7:30 sharp. Normally, you couldn’t drag Kai out of bed for anything at that time, but in this very special circumstance he was the one nudging Cinder awake. Though they’d spent the rest of last night cuddled together, glowing over the news, it hadn’t fully sunk in yet as being real. So they sat across from the doctor in the Palace medical ward, hands entwined and buzzing with anticipation as they waited for her to confirm it.

And she did. Cinder’s long-time doctor smiled and assured them that, yes, she was pregnant and—after performing an ultrasound—that the baby was healthy, everything was according to normal progress and she was exactly four weeks and three days pregnant.

The tiny fetus in the ultrasound resembled more of a reptile than a human, but Cinder and Kai were besotted all the same.

When they left the appointment, the receptionist—who ordinarily tried very hard to treat them as any other patients—couldn’t reel in a gasp when she saw the prenatal vitamins the doctor had prescribed. She stared at the couple, jaw slack and eyes wide, until Kai posed a finger over his lips with a shh and a wink. Jolting out of her stupor, she nodded vigorously, but was unable to fight the grin on her face.

When they returned to their wing, no signs of life could be observed. They couldn’t help but be glad that Cress and Thorne were still sleeping. They would need some time to school their expressions from pure unbridled joy into something less suspicious.

Though Kai immediately cleared a space on the fridge to stick the ultrasound picture up, Cinder stopped him. “Hang on, we’ve got to tell them first.”

“Sorry, I just got excited,” he said, tucking it into his pocket.

She leaned up and kissed him, long and slow. “Me too.”

Kai got started on breakfast while Cinder read through the long list of instructions her doctor had sent to her portscreen. What symptoms to expect in the first trimester, foods to avoid, which vitamins to take and when. Some things were obvious, like ceasing consumption of alcohol. She hadn’t had a drop of the stuff since they’d started trying to conceive a year ago—never wanting to risk harming her baby. Some of the other rules, such as avoiding sushi, were tougher to accept.

“No sushi for me,” she grumbled.

Flipping over a rasher of bacon in the pan, Kai sighed sympathetically. “That is tragic.”

“Or deli meat! How random is that!”

His brow furrowed. “When was the last time you ate a ham sandwich?”

“It doesn’t matter that I don’t normally eat it, it’s the fact that now I can’t. What if I have a weird craving for it?”

A ferocious yawn echoed off the tiles. “What can’t you have?”

Turning, they watched Thorne trudge out from the hallway, hair mussed and shirt wrinkled. He yawned again and plopped onto a stool. Cinder grabbed the bottle of vitamins and shoved it into a drawer, but it didn’t matter; Thorne was barely cognizant. Still, she was glad she hadn’t said ‘pregnancy cravings.’

“I can’t have water anymore, I’m allergic,” she blatantly lied and silently laughed when Thorne muttered, “huh, cool.”

“Want me to make you some coffee?” Kai offered, grinning aside at her.

Laying his head on his elbows, Thorne closed his eyes. “You’d better, or I might kill you both.”

Since Kai was already cooking, Cinder offered to make it and was struck by a roiling in her stomach at the pungent smell. Neither she nor Kai usually had coffee in the mornings, and though she was only four weeks along, she wondered if this aversion was a new symptom. But at least she wasn’t throwing up, so she set the coffee before Thorne and watched as he was slowly resurrected with each sip.

Cress eventually trailed out, swallowed up by her floppy pyjamas and even wilder hair. She hugged Thorne from behind and stole the last few gulps of his drink. “Morning,” she greeted hoarsely.

“Good morning, Cress,” Kai and Cinder chirped back, working together to plate up the bacon, eggs and breadrolls. It wasn’t the usual breakfast choice for them, which was simple if they made it themselves or extravagant if the palace chefs were cooking. But with Thorne’s recent condition, it was probably best to stick with something familiar to him.

Cress frowned at them. “You look and sound too chipper for this time of morning.”

“Oh, we’ve been up for hours,” Cinder mentioned casually, stirring honey into a cup of tea. “We didn’t want to wake you. Figured you needed the rest with how you’ve been the last week.” She set the tea before Cress.

Cress grimaced and took a swig. “Right. About that. I just wanted to apologise for yesterday.”

“Why?”

Taking the seat next to her husband, Cress laced her fingers through his. “I—uh—sort of freaked out over nothing and”—she stared down at her lap shamefully—“I also got my period this morning, so…it was a waste of your tests.”

Cinder saw a smirk forming on Kai’s lips. Their eyes met, exchanging unspoken words.

“Well, actually, about that, Cress,” Cinder started, affecting an anxiousness in her tone and scratching her ear the way Kai did when he was nervous. “I looked again at the tests last night, and, um…”

Her expression instantly shifted from embarrassed to guarded. “What?”

Twiddling her fingers, she let out a shaky laugh. “Well, I…I looked at the tests and…”

“And?” she pressed, paling.

“And one of them was positive.”

Thorne, who had seemed more invested at staring at a piece of bacon than listening to this conversation, jumped to attention. “What? But you said it was negative.”

Cress met his frantic look, equally as shocked. “But…I…I’m…?”

“You—you’re…?” he spluttered, grabbing her shoulders. “We’re going to be…?”

Redness flooded Cress’s cheeks. “I’m…I’m…wait, no! No, I got my period this morning—I’m not pregnant!”

“Then what—”

Biting her lip to dam the laughter threatening to spill out, Cinder decided to put them out of their misery. “You’re right. It wasn’t your test. It was mine.”

When they whipped their heads to her in sync, matching confusion scrawled over their faces, she and Kai couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

And then, after five seconds, Cress screamed. Her arms were around Cinder before she could blink. “Really?!” she cried, tears dripping into her smile.

“Really,” Cinder confirmed, the throbbing at her temples confirming her eyes wanted to be just as watery.

Cress ugly sobbed and squeezed the life out of her.

Thorne stared dumbly at them, motionless behind the bench. But when his wife squawked out, “Oh, you’re going to be parents!” the realisation on his face was brighter than a solar flare.

Whooping, he followed Cress in crushing Cinder in a hug. Then they both pulled away to embrace Kai, laughter and incoherent sounds from all four of them.

“Are you really pregnant?” Thorne asked in disbelief.

“Yep,” Cinder squeaked, feeling lightheaded. “Kai, show them the picture.”

Kai held it up for them all to admire, which sent Cress into another round of sobs.

“It’s so ugly,” Thorne said, beaming. Cinder slugged him in the shoulder.

“It’s our baby and they’re beautiful,” she cooed, then took the picture from Kai and stuck it on its rightful place on the fridge.

Then, once some of the surprise had settled, Thorne wagged at finger at Cinder. “What was all that about? Tricking us into thinking Cress was pregnant?”

“Yeah—hey, what was that for!” Cress agreed indignantly.

As Kai wrapped an arm around Cinder, she smirked, feeling only the slightest bit guilty. “Oh come on, you made it too easy not to.”

“But truthfully,” he said, his gaze warm upon her, “we have you to thank, Cress. You were the reason Cinder took the test in the first place.”

Cress cupped her cheeks. “Oh, all that freaking out was worth it!”

“Okay”—Thorne clapped his hands—“we’ve had our crying time. Now let’s celebrate with breakfast, because I haven’t eaten properly in days and I am starving.”

All in agreement, they dished up plates and brought them over to the table. But when she tried to eat, Cinder found that she was so full on joy that she didn’t feel very hungry at all.

“Hey, Cin,” Thorne said, tearing a piece of bacon with his teeth. “Given that Cress was the reason you found out in the first place, and since you won’t be drinking anymore, think you could donate your liquor to us?”

Cinder lobbed a breadroll at his head.

———

“So you’re telling me that you told Carswell Thorne you were pregnant before you told me?”

Cinder laughed at the image of Iko on the portscreen. No matter that androids were technically incapable of emotion—Iko looked furious.

“That wasn’t my fault, Iko—you had no service!” defended Cinder.

Leaning his chin on her shoulder, Kai chimed in, “Besides, we’re still telling you on the same day.”

“I don’t care,” she huffed, crossing her arms. “I could’ve been on Neptune and you still should have told me first. In fact, you should’ve sent a military officer, nay, an entire military regiment to tell me the very second you found out.”

“I’m sorry. But I promise you’ll be the first person to find out the sex. And you can come along to some of my appointments if you’d like,” she offered.

Iko scoffed, flipping her pink braids over her shoulder. “Honey, I’m going to be at the birth. This baby is going to know who their favourite auntie is from the millisecond they come out of you.”

“Of course, it’s your baby, after all,” teased Kai, nudging Cinder. But Iko only nodded like this was completely obvious.

She said something in reply, but it was lost as the connection crackled. Iko was in a remote village in Guatemala, a town recently affected by an outbreak of Letumosis. While the disease was mostly eradicated and vaccines were available worldwide, smaller rural towns were still at risk. When an outbreak contaminated the entire village, the local doctors simply lacked enough antidotes to cure everyone in time. Iko, in her role of ambassador, volunteered to visit with Kinney to support the locals and bring them supplies.

“Well don’t rush back,” Kai ordered sternly. “Wait until you’re fully clear of any disease. I won’t have you getting my wife sick.”

Iko deadpanned. “I don’t get sick, Your Majesty. I’m an android.”

“What? Since when?”

Iko let out a very un-android hmph! and declared, “I’m coming back in a week’s time. Don’t go anywhere.” And then she was back to the thrilled squealing from when they’d first told her the news, to which she’d screamed, “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”

“Iko, you’re going to break a window,” came Kinney’s distant voice.

She stuck out her tongue in his direction. But, sighing, she calmed. “I’ve gotta go. I love you both, and my future niece or nephew! Stars, I have some major baby shopping to do.”

“We love you too,” they echoed, with Cinder adding, “Say hi to Kinney for me.”

Iko blew them a kiss, and just before she cut the line, yelled. “And don’t you dare start planning the nursery until I’m back!”

Cinder tossed the port at the end of the bed, groaning. “Well at least that’s over with.”

Lying beside her, Kai took her waist in his palm and pulled her close. “Oh come on, you were excited to tell her.”

“I was,” she admitted, nestling into him. “But her exuberance tired me out. I think the baby’s already draining me.”

He gave her stomach a gentle poke. “Be nice to your mother, little lizard.”

She covered his hand with her own, keeping it there. With her back against his chest, his warmth radiated into her body, comforting and safe.

“I have a secret,” he murmured into her hair.

“Tell me,” she whispered, because there were no secrets between them.

“I already planned the nursery. I’ve been thinking about it for over a year.”

Her heart swelled. “What does it look like?”

“Dusk. Lilac and orange walls with a moon and sun and stars. I was thinking—sunset is the bridge between Earth and Luna. Look how the colours from the sun and moon swirl together and become one.” He pointed out at the dusk enveloping the sky outside the window. “It sounds a lot like our little one.”

“I love it.” She had no objections at all. Kai was the more artistic of the two of them, after all. And it was beautiful.

Blinking at the melting sky, she imagined it painted onto the wall of the room they’d reserved for their nursery. She had observed the sunset from this window countless times, but suddenly, it felt completely new. Somehow, this small, magical thing growing inside her made her feel like she’d stepped onto an entirely different planet.

Perhaps they could’ve fallen asleep right there, but Kai whispered, “You’re so beautiful.”

“You won’t be saying that in a week’s time when I’m hunched over the toilet hurling up my guts.”

He dropped a kiss on her shoulder, pulling her impossibly closer. “You’ll be beautiful then too.”

“Oh no,” she intoned. “This isn’t a sign of what’s to come, is it? You’re not going to be one of those obsessive husbands who dote on me my whole pregnancy, are you?”

“I’ll dote on the baby, not on you.” His hand, tender and firm, suggested otherwise.

With an impish smile, she pulled away and sat up, sticking her nose up at him. “Well, right now the baby wants a cup of tea.”

He rolled away from her. “You have legs, get it yourself.”

“Hey!”

They fell back into each other, laughing as freely as they always had. As teenagers, engaged and then married. Cinder suddenly realised that that would all change. It would never again be just the two of them. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that yet.

“A summer baby, huh?” she pondered once their laughter died down.

“We’re going to have so much fun with you nine months pregnant during a heatwave,” he drawled.

The mere thought of hot flushes and swollen ankles (well, ankle) made her shudder. Would she be as blissfully elated in eight months time? “I’ll be twenty-seven by then,” she realised. “Can you believe that ten years ago, we were only just meeting?”

The thought made her sentimentally wistful. No doubt her younger self would have been terrified at the idea of being a mother. But in retrospect, she suspected she would have still been secretly excited. It wasn’t that different from her current feelings. Being a mother, raising—not a baby, but a person—still brought on a surge of muddled feelings, and fear was definitely in there. But as she stroked Kai’s cheek with his thumb, imagining their child with his copper brown eyes that shone gold in the fading light, that fear was quieted.

“Imagine if we told those kids who they would become. Would they believe that would be married, let alone having a baby?”

He yawned. “We’ve always been married.”

“No, we haven’t.”

“Technicalities. To me, I’ve been yours my entire life.”

She shoved his shoulder, rolling her eyes. “You’re so lame. Please don’t pass that onto our child.”

“Oh, I’m going to make sure of it,” he challenged, eyes sparkling.

Just as she was sarcastically groaning, he sat up and swung his legs to the floor.

She startled. “Where are you going?”

“To make your tea.” Because of course, he would dote on her.

Grabbing his wrist before he could walk too far, she reeled him back to her. “Not yet. Stay with us awhile.”

And with the word us, and its brilliant, wonderful, brand-new meaning, he lit up brighter than a sunrise.

Settling back together, Cinder again traced the lilac and gold swimming through the clouds. Blending together in a dance, the two—so different—creating something new, something magnificent. She was certain in that moment that the world would never again behold something quite like it.

Pressing her hand to her stomach, she thought of something even better.

Notes

I've had this story in my head for like 3 years now, not quite sure why I never wrote it. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it!

There are several kaider pregnancy reveal fics out there, and I love those, but I noticed that in them the pregnancy is usually unplanned. So I wanted to see one where the pregnancy is planned, and I also adore the idea of Cinder and Kai finding out together.

@cindersassasin @hayleblackburn @spherical-empirical @salt-warrior @just2bubbly @gingerale2017 @slmkaider @luna-maximoff-22 @kaixiety @snozkat @mirrorballsss @skinwitch18 @bakergirl13 @cyborgcourt @linh-cindy @therealkaidertrash21 let me know if you'd like to be added!

#Also pay attention to what Cinder and Kai are wearing in this for a not-so-subtle metaphor #lunar chronicles #tlc #the lunar chronicles #emperor kai #linh cinder #kaider #carswell thorne #cress darnel #cresswell #married kaider #kaider fanfiction #the lunar chronicles fanfiction

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