You spent the entirety of Easter wasting away the daylight by pacing throughout the lair in spaces where Pitch was too far off to notice. The deep contemplation on how you were going to break the news to him put you so on edge that you were on the brink of chewing your nails off and tearing your hair out. If he could not see how worried you were all day, he could certainly sense it from the other end of the kingdom, so you knew you had to get it over with at least by the end of the night.
Lots of women would normally get their partner a card and a goodie bag with one of those “#1 Dad” mugs to capture a recording of the reveal for safekeeping later on. Others simply stuck a bread bun in the oven and called it good when laughing over their husbands not understanding the reference. But it would not be that easy in this case. The usual mortal traditions were too glittery and glorified to fit in with your significant other’s taste when the topic was rather a touchy one for him. You had to figure out a way to loosen up the jar without breaking it and reawakening some resting trauma within from his past attempt at parenthood. Not to mention how you were not about to fish out your old dead cell phone from the pond in the woods to catch anything significant. Maybe instead of stashing a certain stick of plastic from last night away someplace hidden, you should have left the result sitting around in the waste bin again for him to find so he could approach you about it and you wouldn’t have to.
It wasn’t like you also were not already thrown for a loop. In the midst of trying to think up ways to say it to Pitch, you were still very much lost in a daze from wondering the chances of this happening. An invisible cloud sat over your head and fogged up your mind until it rained over you with further debate over how this had not been known to be possible, whether or not this was a dream even though it obviously wasn’t, and how you were going to get through the rest of it. Sure, you knew how this happened in the first place, but the next steps were not going to be as basic to understand as another biology class.
Later that evening, Pitch had found you in the throne room sitting back in your seat and zoned out before he approached. When you caught sight of him making his way up to you while adjusting his cloakings, you sat up straighter and snapped out of your dissociations. He then asked you if you were ready for the night. You narrowed your eyes, but quickly recalled your planned outing with the mares for dream-polluting. You instantly realized this was your chance.
“Um…” you began before trailing off at a loss of how to word your thoughts. Already off to a confident start. “I was actually thinking of skipping tonight.”
“Is that so?” He wondered aloud. You sat as still as a statue with the assumption that he was seeking what your alternatives would be for the night. You blinked, trying to brew up something that would give you the guts to open the can to spill. Your suggestion came out as an impulsive blurt.
“You wanna take a walk?”
Pitch eyed you for a moment. You would be lying to yourself if you attempted to convince yourself that he was not already sensing that something was off. With that familiar crinkle in his brow and a moment of hesitation, he then agreed to your suggestion.
The forest seemed more comforting at night when the two of you made it out there on the trails. Or perhaps that was the closeness of Pitch’s presence and his elongated strides kept slow to stay at your pace. There was barely an exchange of words between the two of you. In between the mostly-kept silence, one of you would make a remark about how pretty the night was or how the air breezing past your cloakings was unusually cold for spring, but not much beyond that. The usual vibrant greenery of the woods were tainted with the pale blue of the moonbeams streaming down from above. Your hands at your sides would either graze past the ashen knuckles of your partner to your right or brush the leaves of cool ferns bending down from their height at your left. You did not notice yourself getting lost in the sight of it all with the loudness of your internal thoughts blaring over your soft footsteps in the soil until the Nightmare King pulled you out of it when he spoke.
“You’re awfully nervous.”
Your lips parted with nothing coming out, unsure of how to respond to the fact. You did not look up at him, instead keeping your eyes forward toward the rest of the path.
“I can tell,” he continued, “You’re fidgeting your fingers and your breathing is shallow, that’s why your heart is beating harder but you don’t want me to hear it.”
“It’s that obvious, huh?” You spoke through an exhale.
“That or you should sit down a moment,” he joked. “Where are we headed?”
It crossed you then that you did not think you would even make it that far in the first place. The forest had an end to it, so your only other option would be to turn back around and head home - which would technically defeat your want to get away from the space in the first place. You still felt too closed in. You needed more room to open up.
The clearing where the edge of the woods opened up to a grassy hill could be seen ahead. The tree line thinned and spaced out further down the trail. The rising wideness between the partings of the trees welcomed you.
“You’re hiding something, aren’t you?” Pitch went on beside you, now intrigued by the many potential causes for your worries that were anything but the truth. “Care to drop a hint?”
You weren’t ready yet. You wanted to speak, make another humor-filled remark to counter his own, but you did not want to let anything come out. The dark forestry towering over you was still vast while it was ending. Your stomach dropped at the pressure weighing down on you. It was as though every barky trunk lined with branches of pine needles were twenty-foot shadows in disguise, hunched over you and listening in. You instantly recalled the chilling sensation you felt during your walk home with the rabbit yesterday. The eyes you could feel at every corner of where you stepped were back, and they were on you again. Whether or not it was your symptom of heightened senses that was also messing with your fears, the gut-twisting feeling of being watched could not go ignored.
That’s when you began speeding up ahead of Pitch’s tracks to quicken your pace in front of him.
“(Y/n) -”
Trusting that he would follow regardless, you bolted for the clearing of the tree line.
“(Y/n), where are you going?”
Your jog became a run toward the edge of the forestry. You went on even when your heart squeezed at the general concern in Pitch’s tone. Even when he called out again in a shout of your name, telling you to stop. The reassurance of the sound of his pace picking up behind you to catch up allowed you to keep going with the knowledge that he would not leave your side. Your sixth sense screamed at you to keep running like an alarm blaring and flashing lights. Your combat boots carried you past the opening of the meadow at the end of the tree line and up the hill. The light of the nearly full moon above surrounded by stars led your way as you stamped your way to the top.
Your climb slowed when you reached the peak overlooking the rest of the open meadow. You stopped in your tracks to catch your breath and slow the rush of blood racing past your ears. The cool air filled your lungs as you brought both your hands over your head for the expansion of your chest. Over the slowing of your breathing, you could hear the Nightmare King catching up behind you. Taking him out without the mares was one thing, but having him rush after you was now making you reconsider that choice which probably riled him up when you preferred if he were calm in this situation.
“(Y/n), what is going on?” Pitch spoke more sternly this time when approaching you from behind. He returned to your side and turned to you to glance down at the look in your eyes in search of where the sanity went. It was either the wave of hormones that has been flooding your system for weeks now or the overwhelming fear that made you feel like you had to choke on a sob even though no tears were welling up to blur your vision. Your arms fell back to your sides.
I wanted to make sure we were alone, you wanted to say. But that had to be a different conversation. You came here for something else. It was now or never. You took in a final deep breath past your lips, then faced Pitch.
“I have to tell you something,” you winced. You could tell he heard the distress in your voice, at which he instantly straightened and calmed his tone.
“...What’s the matter?”
You pressed your lips together to whip up a starter sentence or two to hopefully ease him into it. “I need you to promise me that you won’t…freak out.”
Pitch’s eyes rolled up to the navy skies before returning to your gaze. “Then will you tell me?”
You nodded.
“You have my word.”
“Okay,” you began under your breath. You brought your hands up once more to run your fingers through your hair, pulling the loose strands from your face before dropping your already clammy palms back to your sides. “I know this may not be easy to believe when I say it, but I just need you to hear me out, and let me explain.”
With crossed arms this time, Pitch lifted a thin brow while awaiting your next words. You could tell he was no longer as amused as he had been a few minutes ago on the forest trails, but it was too late to turn back now.
“Do you remember when you said to me that it wouldn’t be possible for us to have children together?” You forced yourself to ask. “That I can’t have yours?”
He didn’t respond at first, and you worried that you had been a little too straightforward in introducing a shock that was already leaving him speechless with uncertainty of how to react until his eventual reply disproved that. “I do…”
You knew you had to act fast at the wariness in his voice, so with no more hesitation, you dove right in. “I’m going to have to prove you wrong right here,” you admitted softly and slowly, “...because I am.”
The silence between the two of you was loud. Pitch had already caught onto what you were implying before but figured this was not what you meant. Unlike your occasional indecisiveness, he knew that he had not misheard. You shrunk back a bit, having no evidence to support a guess on how he was about to react to such a fact that had not come across him in centuries. It was when you found him lowering his stare to where the ends of the jacket tie around your waistline hung at the front of your hips that you anticipated a more verbal reaction. Irises like solar eclipses trailed back up your figure and landed back on your stare. The next low-spoken words running past his lips were less than expected.
“...You’re not,” he muttered. Your brows raised, stunned. You almost preferred that he had instead expressed some form of anger. Denial of existence should have been something he was familiar with enough to know it changed nothing.
“Yes, I am, I -”
“We’ve been over this,” he countered, “whatever you’re thinking, it’s anything but.”
“Then how do you explain everything that says otherwise?” You argued, standing taller and speaking up now that you had gotten what needed to be said off your chest. This earned you a funny look, so you took the opportunity to go on. “The tight-fitting clothes, the snacks from the Warren, the oversleeping, all these strange dreams - and that’s only half of it…what more do you want me to say?”
The Nightmare King watched as you counted on your fingers while listing off the handful of evidence supporting your claim. He listened at your allowance to speak with preparation to repeat the impossibility of it all as he had more than once before. However, something else clicked in his mind. It did not take him long to piece together the rest of what you were saying through your vent. You didn’t even notice the way his expression was slowly shifting from doubtful to realization with the softening of his eyes before you restated your point.
“I’m pregnant,” you clarified more officially now, “and it’s just as yours as it is mine.” You stood your ground. You felt you had made your case crystal clear. Though just as you were thinking he would continue to argue back, his next words yet again came as a surprise to you.
“How long?” He murmured more seriously now. “For how long have you noticed these?”
You paused before you spoke, taken aback by his shift, before looking up into the dark of the sky to mentally process the last several pages of a calendar. “Well, I definitely wasn’t carrying two months ago so it can’t be any more than a month…month and a half?”
With the assumption that your math was correct, this would set certain expectations to be due at around the early dates of December or at least at the end of the autumn season. You nearly brought that up as well, but you were still attempting to maintain the steadiness of your explanation. You were too busy quietly wondering the cause of his change from disbelief to taking the matter more pressingly, and if you actually were that good at having convinced him so fast. With that, Pitch smoothed his pale fingers through the dark of his hair as he turned to look back out to the forestry behind you both, apprehension drawing him to look back to you and step a few inches closer before his further interrogations began.
“Are you sure?” He asked sternly again. “Are you absolutely positive about this?”
You glanced off to the side and pressed your lips in a line before murmuring your answer. “The test I took sure was.”
Pitch’s eyes widened as he disregarded your humor, that being the rest of the confirmation he needed to hear. “(Y/n), you don’t understand, this has never happened before.”
“I know,” you replied hastily. “...You’ve said that.”
There was a new heaviness in the atmosphere - and it definitely was not the extra pound or two you were already holding onto. The way Pitch was coming off more concerned over the chances of this occurrence rather than the fact that it already happened and what to do next was actually starting to freak you out. You had mentally prepared more for if he were to show at least a hint of unhappiness. When he brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, you realized it was one of the only times you had seen the King of Nightmares give off a flicker of his own fears.
“Does anyone else know?” His piercing glare struck you once more. Your eyes met the moonlight-tinted grass.
“Bunny knows…” Your whisper in embarrassment hid how glad you were to miss out on Pitch’s sudden raised brows.
“You told the rabbit before you told me?”
“He said that he knew before even I did - he could…smell it or something,” you scrunched your face up and shook your head at your own defense, “I don’t remember everything he said.”
It was then where Pitch moved to cross in front of you, as if to start a back-and-forth pace. “I’m coming with you tomorrow.”
You frowned, questioning what the next day’s post-Easter celebration with the Guardians had to do with any of this. “Why?”
“I just am.”
You then saw, in your astoundment, Pitch face the forest again and begin heading back toward it past you. “Is that it?” You called to regain his attention. “Do you have nothing more to say?”
He swung back around, his towering height over you from the few feet of distance stirring the unease back into you. “This is serious,” he stressed with more urgency. “This can’t be taken lightly.”
A chilled breeze rushed over the top of the hill where the both of you remained and brought a shiver up your spine. Your numbing fingertips in search of the pockets of your dark jacket slid momentarily over the fabric covering your lower abdomen. Goosebumps shook through you like the rattle of your trembling legs barely holding you up in your stance. If there had been any looking forward to gathering a clearer idea of how you felt about this situation tonight from Pitch’s reaction, the original hope to feel better about it over all now reflected the distress from his warnings. Just then, he let out a sigh as he remained by you.
“We’ll have to let the others know as well,” he stated calmly this time. “They may know something more about these things.”
Your glassy eyes studied him still, wanting to hear what you came out to the seclusion of the nighttime meadow for. “Would you at least tell me how you feel?”
It almost looked as if Pitch was about to answer, just as he held back his tongue with an internal change of topic. “We shouldn’t speak of this now,” he murmured. “Not here…”
The dark of the woods waiting at the bottom of the hill below whispered something back unintelligible to you.
“Tomorrow, (Y/n),” Pitch confirmed with reassurance. “Wait for now.” He then held out a hand for you to reach for. “Come home.”
You wanted to beg for any of his further emotions, pry them out of him if you had to. There was no use in wasting the rest of the night waiting. The only thing that was stopping you was noticing how he was casting glances over his shoulder and past yours every few moments, much like your raised awareness sending your protective instincts into overdrive each time you had set foot in the forest during these last few weeks. The greater understanding of this mirroring behavior allowed you to trust in the likelihood that he already knew as much as what you left unsaid, and possibly more. While you had not yet admitted it to him, it was more than what he would allow either of you to mention at this point. It was meant to make you feel safer to wait until you were elsewhere to discuss the other elephant in the room, but it instead drew the opposite upon you.
With the smartest choice being to do as Pitch was telling you in this moment though, you outstretched an arm to set your palm in his. You paid little mind to how your free hand automatically set just below your clothed navel for a few seconds until falling back into place while walking back to the lair in Pitch’s close guidance. The unusual first occurrence of Pitch actually intending to go to the Guardians on purpose tempted you to keep your mouth shut also. In the silent agreement that there was still more to be said, while it was frustrating as it was unsettling, you had a feeling that the one you were relying on already had a sureness of what both he and you were doing.