Jane smiled as she made her way into Carlos' clinic; Dude's carrier slung over her shoulder. She could hear Dude's small whimpers as he normally trotted by her side when they went to visit Carlos but this time was different. This time, she wanted Dude to be a surprise for Carlos.
Or rather, she wanted what Dude was wearing to be a surprise for Carlos.
"Mrs. DeVil!" The receptionist said with a smile. "I hope everything's okay with Dude, Dr. DeVil was rather taken aback when he saw we'd squeezed you in for a last minute appointment."
"Oh Dude's fine but I appreciate the concern River," Jane said. "Is he very busy today?"
"Not at all," River shook her head. "After he saw that Dude was on the schedule, he asked that we move all the other appointments to tomorrow or whenever worked for the client."
Jane smiled as she heard that; glad she wasn't adding to her husband's workload or stress. Normally, there'd be a fear that Carlos might lose clients by prioritizing his own dog but considering the fact that he was the vet to the royal Cerberi of Auradon, Jane knew there was no likelihood of client loss.
Status still mattered to the Auradon populace after all and who would want to say they were going to a different vet than the High Queen of Auradon?
"Go on back, I'll let him know you're here," River said with a small smile that Jane returned as she made her way into the back room. Since Carlos owned his own clinic, there was really only the one room but he made it feel as spacious as if there were multiple vets working out of the clinic.
Jane gently set Dude's carrier down on the table and slipped a treat into the bag. "There you go Dude, just a little longer and you'll be out of the carrier. Promise."
Dude gave a small snort but accepted the treat, so Jane considered that a win.
Sure enough, as if he'd been aware of the promise his wife had given their dog, Carlos rushed into the room. Actually, Jane had to hold back a chuckle from how Carlos seemed to almost slide into the room; grabbing the doorframe to make sure he didn't fall to the ground.
"Jane? Is he okay? What's wrong with—?"
"Carlos, Carlos, calm down," Jane said gently. "I'm sure Dude is fine but I wanted you to look him over because he's important to you. I know if anything happened to him and you had to wait to find out, I'd never forgive myself."
"Hey, hey," Carlos said as he looked over at Jane. "You know I'd never blame you if anything happened to Dude, right?"
"I know," Jane said, giving Carlos a loving smile that she knew he was returning under his mask. Carlos always wore a mask when meeting with his four legged clients, stating that he didn't know what he could possibly pick up and then spread to Jane. "But you might want to let Dude out of his carrier, you know how much he hates that thing."
"I can't imagine how much you had to wrestle him in order to get him into it," Carlos chuckled, taking the mask off and then opening up the carrier. "Come on bud, let's get you out of...Jane, is he wearing a shirt?"
"You had Evie make him a mini leather jacket and yet it's a shirt that bothers you?" Jane shook her head as Carlos pulled Dude out of his carrier. "Read what it says."
"Why would I need to read what a shirt says...?" Carlos asked, his words trailing off as his eyes took in exactly what the words on his dog's shirt said.
Excitedly waiting for my litter mate!
"Jane...are you...?"
Jane nodded and took out a small, pink stick from her purse and showed it to Carlos. "Took the test this morning. And then actually went to the doctor to confirm it via a blood test since the store bought tests can sometimes have a false positive and of course they put a rush on it, what with our relationship with Ben and Mal—."
Jane didn't get a chance to finish her explanation/ramble as Carlos had gently set Dude down before scooping Jane up into his arms.
"We're having a baby," Carlos said, his soft voice sounding muffled as he spoke into Jane's hair.
Jane nodded. "We are, we're having a baby. Is this...I know some of the VKs have said having kids wasn't something they thought about—."
"I'll be honest, I never did think about having kids," Carlos said as he separated from Jane. "But that's just because I never wanted to expose my hypothetical kid to Cruella. At least now, they'll have Anita and Rodger and Clay and Ava and Ginny and Chad and Diego and your parents as family."
Dude let out a small bark and Carlos had to smile. "Oh yes, and you would be an excellent litter mate to my kid," he said, gently petting the tan dog.
"Who do you want to let know first?" Jane asked; her hands gently resting on her stomach. She knew it was too early to feel anything but just the knowledge that there was a being growing inside her, that was more than anything Jane could have dreamed of.
"...Am I a bad husband if I say Clay?" Carlos asked, looking over at his wife. "I just..."
"Carlos, I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know the answer," Jane said, walking over and gently cupping Carlos' cheek with her hand. "Clay's your brother, it makes sense you'd want to let him know."
Carlos gave Jane a small smile before kissing the top of her head. "I want to let Ginny know too...I just...I know how hard it's been for her, not having a child of her own and I almost feel like me telling her would be like rubbing salt in the wound," he said softly.
"And we will tell her, her and Chad, we won't leave them out of the excitement but I can understand not having them be the first to know," Jane said before her smile grew and she gently took one of Carlos' hands and rested it on her flat stomach. "We're having a baby, Carlos."
"We're having a baby," Carlos repeated, his smile growing to match Jane's in size. "Do...is there a gender you're hoping for?"
Jane shook her head. "Just as long as they're healthy, that's all I care about. I know the Fae tend to prefer to have female heirs but I don't care about that. I'm only half-Fae anyway but...are you hoping for a specific gender?"
It was Carlos' turn to shake his head. "If living on the Isle of the Lost taught me anything, it was this. The gender of your child doesn't matter and if it does matter to you, then you're a bad parent."
"And if I know you, Carlos Oscar DeVil, it is you will not be a bad parent," Jane said; gently brushing a bit of Carlos' black and white hair out of his face. Yeah, learning Carlos' middle name had been...well honestly it just left Jane with more questions than answers. "In fact, if you looked in the dictionary for the definition of a bad parent, you'd be the antonym."
"Jane...this is our first kid."
"Did I say you'd be a perfect parent right off the bat? Of course not, and neither will I," Jane said, taking both of Carlos' hands. "But there's no one I'd want to be on this journey with than you."
She gently kissed Carlos on the cheek. "Come on, I know for a fact you're free for the rest of the day. Let's go tell your brother the good news shall we?"
"I think that's a wonderful idea," Carlos said as the three of them left the room. Quickly letting River know where he was going in case anyone called in for an emergency, Carlos and Jane made their way to Clay and Ava's home.
Of course Jane made sure to shoot a quick text to them so it wasn't a complete surprise.
"Carlos! Jane! Come in, come in!" Clay grinned as he came to the door. "Ava's at her dad's bakery otherwise she'd be here too, she'll be sad she missed you."
"Oh, it's a shame we missed her though I'm sure we'll be seeing her again," Jane said as Dude trotted into the home, hopping onto to the spot where Clay was going to sit.
"Dude!"
"It's fine Carlos," Clay chuckled. "Honestly, I can't tell you how great it is, seeing you over your fear of dogs. Auradon's been good for you."
In more ways than one, Carlos thought as he wrapped an arm around Jane's shoulders.
"Huh...why's Dude wearing a shirt? Did he have a surgery you didn't tell me about?" Clay asked as he picked up the tan dog from his spot. "Excitedly...waiting...for...my...litter mate?"
Clay looked up and over at Carlos, as if asking for confirmation of the news. Carlos nodded and gently rested a hand on Jane's stomach.
"We're going to have a baby," Carlos said and Clay grinned.
"Oh that's fantastic news! Wait, have you told Anita? Rodger? Fairy Godmother? Lumiere? Gin—?"
"Clay, Clay, calm down," Jane said, shaking her head at her brother-in-law. If he continued to list people, he'd run out of air. "You're the first person we've told. We didn't want a huge announcement so no big party, plus...we didn't know how some people might take the news so we thought individual visits would be better."
"I get it," Clay nodded, knowing Jane was likely referring to Ginny. Clay knew his little sister wouldn't take her disappointment out on Carlos or Jane but he could also appreciate them not wanting to hurt Ginny either. It was a tricky balancing act, Clay wasn't going to lie. "So, any names picked out?"
"Clay, we just found out Jane was pregnant," Carlos said with a small chuckle. "Give us some time to actually plan out the names."
Jane bit her lip. "Actually...while I don't have any ideas for a first name...if...if we have a girl, would you be alright if we used 'Jennifer' as a middle name? After my mom?"
What? Her mom did have a name other than Fairy Godmother after all, plus with Auradon's naming convention it would make sense that her mother would have a name that started with a 'J' considering Jane didn't have a name that started with an 'L'.
"Of course," Carlos said, giving Jane a small smile. "I mean, I'm certainly not going to be fighting to have our hypothetical daughter's middle name be 'Cruella'."
"I think I'd have to disown you if you did that," Clay said, shaking his head.
Jane chuckled softly. "I just...I wasn't sure if you wanted to use 'Anita' as a middle name if we have a daughter or Ginny for that matter..."
"And I'm sure we'll have plenty of chances to use Anita as a middle name," Carlos said. "The good thing about Anita? She's not so egotistical that she'd be offended if we never use her name in naming our hypothetical future children. And neither is Ginny for that matter."
"That goes for me as well," Clay said. "No matter what, as long as you're happy with the name, that's all that matters to me. Besides, I don't see you going the King Ben and Queen Mal route of having a super long name for your kiddo or kiddos."
"...Twins aren't a possibility are they?" Carlos asked, looking over at his wife and trying hard to hide the panic that was beginning to bubble up.
"Not to my knowledge," Jane said. "My parents never had twins in their family lines. What about your family?"
"I mean I know Cruella has siblings, otherwise Diego wouldn't be born," Clay said. "But I don't think she ever had a twin. I don't know about Carlos' dad though."
"Well even if we do have twins, we can handle it," Jane said. "After all, Mal and Ben are handling having twins just fine and they have a boatload more work than we do."
"They also have servants and staff out the wazoo," Carlos said.
"So? We've got family out the wazoo," Jane said, giving Carlos a small kiss on the cheek. "We can do this."
Clay nodded. "Your wife's right, Carlos. You need anything, you know you can always call me or Ava for assistance. In fact, would it be better if Jane stayed with us? I know sometimes you have to travel to attend to one of your clients."
"Oh no, I wouldn't want to intrude," Jane shook her head. "I can always call mom if I need help. She's just a bibbity-bobbity-boo away!"
Carlos chuckled. "She's not wrong about that, it can sometimes be scary how fast Fairy Godmother can get to us if we need help."
"I mean...she is one of the most powerful magic users in Auradon," Clay said. "Not to mention, she's a mom. Not that I've got much in the way of experience with good mothers but I've heard that a good mom will stop at nothing to help their kid when they need it. And from what I saw at your wedding, Fairy Godmother seems like she's a good mom."
"She's one of the best," Jane said with a small smile. "In fact, we should probably go and tell her our news."
"Are you up for it?" Carlos asked. "I remember Mal had really bad morning sickness, according to Gil."
"Carlos, we just found out. I likely won't get morning sickness for a while."
"I know, I just...I don't want to wear you out, that's all," Carlos said and Jane smiled before kissing his cheek once more.
Clay shook his head. "Well before you guys head out, do you want something to eat? Drink? Something for the road?"
"That might not be a bad idea," Carlos said.
"Honestly, I think you might be worse than Ben, Emir, and Akiho combined," Jane said with a small chuckle.
"You take that back!" Carlos said.
"Never!"
Carlos smiled and held his wife close. While he hadn't expected the news, he also knew that there was nothing better he could have received.
He was going to be a father. How could you beat that?
...Okay the fact that Hiro Hamada had written to him wanting to patent and produce his idea for an animal version of Baymax for animals that came from bad situations was a close second!
Memo to me, memo to me, thank Will for getting me in contact with Hiro and allowing me to present my idea to him, Carlos thought as the three DeVils made their way out of the door and back to the car. They had more people to tell the good news and only so much time in the day.
And yes, it would later be confirmed by Lord Hades that Fairy Godmother's squeal of delight at becoming a grandmother could in fact be heard from the Isle.