If I Could

{85} - Charlotte

This chapter is dedicated to MaiKhiwi00 ❤️

We are composed of 270 bones at birth that make up our human skeleton. Over time our bones fuse together, decreasing in quantity to 206. Most of these bones are in our hands and feet, 26 in each foot and 27 in each hand.

By the time she was nine years old, Belle Taylor could name every bone in the adult skeleton and all of the muscles in the anterior compartment of the forearm. Reading about Medicine was her favourite hobby — distraction — because it required a lot of her attention and left her no time to think about things she didn't want to think about, such as the fact she had not seen her father in weeks because he was on tour, or the fact her parents had argued, or the fact it made her sad to think she couldn't leave her house without being chased by a bunch of paparazzi.

Time passes because that's what time does. Sometimes she can't believe she's come to that point of her life again; pregnancy, and this baby was growing at an alarming rate because it's been two months and one week since that cold September night when she told Ben she was pregnant, meaning Belle was now four months and one week pregnant, surprisingly. She wanted to talk about it with someone else that wasn't Ben, he had been planning to tell Freddie but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Two months and one week of living with nothing but anguish inside of her brain. It's amazing, really: how time isn't long or short when the mind is stuck in one place:

Neither here nor there.

Some things never change. It's a snowy November afternoon, and Belle Taylor is trying to ignore reality by remembering random medical facts. By reality she means her baby bump of seventeen weeks, by reality she also means the fact that Roger doesn't know she probably will become a father again.

Speaking of her husband, two months and one week have gone by since the night Roger saw that paper on Belle's bedside table, two months and one week since the day Roger Taylor started being the happiest human alive: his biggest dream was becoming true — he was going to have a child with his beautiful, beloved Gabrielle. The thought of his fourth child being Belle's child was the best thing that had ever happened to him: to have a mini carbon copy with her big brown eyes and painfully gorgeous smile seemed to be the most beautiful thought in the world. He wondered, though, why she hadn't broken the news to him yet: two months and one week of waiting for Belle to announce to him that they were having their first baby together with some cute, well-thought announcement, he would be happy even if the announcement came in a simple sentence said before going to sleep at night.

But no, Belle had not even pronounced the word "baby" in any talk.

There was a moment — a horrible one — when Roger had even suspected Belle had a miscarriage, hence her silence. But no, Belle still looks very much pregnant: her stomach seems to get bigger every day, her sense of smell seems to have gotten ten times stronger, she eats such weird food combinations. He knows what those kind of things mean: he's fathered three children before.

However, it doesn't help that Roger had spent three weeks overseas on a business trip, missing out on any new details on Belle's pregnancy. Roger isn't the only one who doesn't know, actually nothing much has changed on that matter - Ben remains the only person Belle's intentionally told the news to.  

"Are you pregnant?", Rami Malek asked the mother of his only child on the morning of Alice's christening after spending solid thirty minutes staring at her stomach and trying to decide if asking her if she was pregnant was a decent decision.

Belle's eyes widened a little:

"I am."

Rami chuckled. "Congratulations."