Out of the corner of her tear blurred eyes, on the seventeenth hour of pushing -the baby was stubbornly refusing to 'drop'-, her eyes deceived her. She felt him. She felt his presence. She would always know if he was there, and she could have sworn he was. One of the guards who had been stationed at a window had shown her his reflection. She knew it was impossible. He was dead. He left her. He abandoned her. She knew she was hallucinating, she had to be. She was delirious with pain and exhaustion. His brilliant blue eyes urged her to continue on, to bring the last remaining piece of him into the world. But, it was good enough for her.
Five minutes later, their baby boy came out into the world, letting out his kittenish battle cry. The midwives and ladies laughed in joy after gently placing Mary's exhausted frame onto the sweat slicked bed.
It wasn't fair. None of it. It should have been his hand holding her hair back all those mornings. It should have been his hand she held as their baby came into the world. It should have been him that felt their baby kick with her. It should have been him to rub her feet and get her water in the middle of the night. It should have been him that helped her sit and lie down at night. It should have been him that woke up with her in the middle of the night when their baby wouldn't stop kicking. It should have been him that she called for when her labour started. It should have been him to hold their baby first. It should have been him to help her through those brilliantly torturous few months. It should have been him.
Her baby was placed on her chest immediately after coming out, the joy of hearing the fact he was a boy piercing through her chest as she looked down and saw his scrunched up face crying, dawny blonde hair on top of his head. Catherine hugged her tightly and cried with her and the boy and kissed her head in pride. Soon after, the most beautiful blue eyes opened and instantly locked with her fatigued ones, his pale little fingers interlocking her smallest finger, his small fingertips touch the ring that used to be on his finger. Her baby quiets instantly as the afterbirth comes out and the chord is cut, contently mewling, his head over her heart. She can't let him go. She never wants to close her eyes. She never wants to be away from her baby. She cries in joy as his eyes lock onto hers again, as the only grandmother he'd ever know announces him as the King of France.
She keeps her eyes on her baby as he's cleaned up and checked over, and when she's cleaned and on another bed, her baby crying until he's returned to her arms. He's still and content, and mother and baby are finally left alone to the silent candlelight of the large room that had once inhabited the missing member of their family.
She looks up at the stars of that cold December night, smiling contently for the first time in over eleven months.
He's beautiful, Francis. And he's ours.
YOU ARE READING
Rebirth
Historical Fiction~Reign AU~ The King is dead, a new King emerges from the shadows. Who could guess that the new King would be the key to unlocking the former Queen's every desire?
