"She's howling for you." The languid figure that, when in repose, looks like nothing but ropes of black hair draped over the stone archway overhead murmurs to Ramon as he walks beneath. The castellan pauses and turns, first to look back the way he came, then up at Shikome.
Then he hears it as well, and without another word or glance at the Japanese demon, is off and running.
When he arrives, he drops down from a balcony, slides partway down a pillar, then rebounds off another wall, landing lightly a short ways from where Hippolyta now stands.
"..." She actually is caught totally flat-footed by his acrobatics, and just stares stupidly at him for a moment. She expected him to come running, but not quite like that.
"The baby looks like you," she says bluntly, realizing after it's out of her mouth that it totally understates the problem and that she's still sort of in shock about it all.
"Gah, no, I didn't mean it like that. Can we go sit? This is a big deal."
The look on her face is...unreadable. Even to Ramon. Even to herself. She doesn't know what her face looks like right now, and she's on the inside of it.
"It-...what? Si, all right, sitting down. That sounds like a good idea." He's already taken her hand and is walking his wife to the nearest sitting room. Inugami floats a little ways behind, tail wagging hopefully, but Ramon waves him off; this isn't a time to be nosy. The dog demon's ear droop, and he drifts off elsewhere. He'll catch up on these matter another time then.
Once in the room, he sees Hippolyta to a seat first, then takes one next to her, hand resting on her knee.
"All right. What's going on? Something about the baby?" Still completely weird to regard that there's a baby at all...
"He's half plaga, Ramon. He's got six legs. He looks like you when you're merged with your parasite."
It comes tumbling out of her mouth in a weird monotone, the words flat and yet at the same time impassioned. Like she has forgotten about the way voices should rise and fall naturally when excited, and instead the excitement is just inferred. Because it's not showing on her face.
She almost looks paralyzed, in a way, at least in her face. Her eyes aren't even darting around. This is an entirely new behavior for her, and she almost feels like she's watching it from the outside. She's not freaking out, that's a good sign, and then she realizes she's thinking about herself.
She's not the only one to be caught off-guard or sounding blank with shock in the past few minutes now.
"W-What. How do you even know? I-...You're certain of this? Dios mio, how are you sure?!"
Already, he's try and failing to grasp the implications of this all. His child's being born as a monster? His child's never going to be able to function in normal society like Ramon never has? His child is going to have to be hidden and probably pursued by others as some kind of freak that has to be destroyed or controlled?
Ramon's hand has covered his mouth and his eyes have gone wide without realizing it, still too deeply caught in the dawning realization of what his child, his child, is now facing if this is true.
"I saw the ultrasound. Sharpe suspected, they ran genetic tests ages ago and didn't tell me. I saw the ultrasound, I don't even know if it's a boy or girl. Look."
She pulls the rolled up black and white photograph out of her back pocket. It's been crumpled and cracked since she received it, but she was running on automatic pilot to get this far and it seemed the right thing to do. She hands the picture to him, her face and eyes and voice still weirdly flat and calm.
She's either taking this very well or very badly indeed.
He gingerly takes that glossy print-out, idly smoothing out some of the creases with a fingernail as he unfolds it, looking with still-wide eyes at the living thing depicted in greys and whites on a backdrop of black.
The fetus is just a curled little blob, with tiny a tiny black spot for an eye and blurry fingers that are its forming arms.
And the lower half is elongated and has three little protrusions, like more fingers, sprouting from it. The legs. Three on the side facing the device that captured this image, and three more on the other side and left unseen.
Ramon's thumb is tracing the curve of that bulb that is the infant's developing head.
"My baby...My baby..."
His shocked expression has given way for one of tenderness.
Now she's silent, just nodding slightly, as everything else just falls away and she hears the tenderness and awe and love in Ramon's voice.
She's been wanting to hear that tone for the last three months. He finally seems to be accepting of the fact that he's a father, and all it took was...well. This. She should have known.
It's like the weight and the shock of this revelation finally lifts, and she relaxes, allowing a small smile to curl the corners of her mouth.
"We should have known. They say that he's perfectly healthy, too, and developing as normally as can be expected. All his little important bits are functioning so far. He's just...him."
He's still staring at that photo, now holding it once again in both hands.
Then he clasps it to his chest, shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath. The sudden swell of unconditional love is one that's taken him by surprise as well. The connection, long overdue, has finally been made, thanks to the fact that now the child is someone Ramon knows he can raise and teach, someone who he will know the hardships of, someone who will need protection that Ramon knows he can and will provide.
A normal, human child; Ramon would never be able to relate to that and he'd be too worried of steering the child wrong thanks to their differing species. But this...
"He's beautiful, Hippolyta," he only now notices he was on the verge of crying when he hears his own voice crack and tears slip down either of his cheeks.
Her breathing hitches, picks up, and resembles something like a gasping laugh for just a moment. Then she starts crying too, amazed and shocked all over again. That she's not losing her husband after all, that she's not going to be raising a baby on her own. That she's actually going to have a family, just like she always wanted.
Okay, sure, the baby's probably going to have problems. (Hopefully not health problems, gawd, please, let the baby be healthy...) But the proximity of the Nexus and the miracle of her conception in the first place makes her sweep all of that under the rug. Ramon is along for the ride.
She immediately scoots out of her chair, sitting heavily and carefully on the floor, resting her head in Ramon's lap. She's still not as big as a bloody house, so she can get away with it.
"I'm-...I'm going to take good care of him, Hippolyta. He'll grow up perfectly happy and healthy and he'll take on the stead as the 9th castellan someday..." Because like hell he's going to let that birthright be taken from his firstborn son simply for the way he looks. Now it'll just be a toss-up for the historians to determine who was the stranger castellan, the 8th or the 9th.
Ramon holds the picture out in front of him again, looking at the round little fetus with its too-many legs and too-long body.
He's never seen anything more wonderful in his entire life.
"I'm going to make sure he's happy. That he'll never be hurt because of who and what he is."
Ramon hastily wipes away his tears, now smiling a little through them.
"Oh, Ramon..." She moans his name, still letting those tears leak out, and then her face is in his lap once more.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you." She keeps repeating those two words over and over again, muffled by his lap. "I was so scared. I was so stupid scared that I was losing you...I was so scared our baby wouldn't have a father..."
Her arms wrap around his calves to hug him. Her breasts and stomach are now pressed up against him, too, and he should notice how fast and loud her heart is beating, how utterly relieved she is.
One hand pets her hair slowly and he breathes a happy sigh. He's not going to deny that those fears of hers weren't unfounded; like he was thinking earlier, if their child was a perfectly normal human, Ramon knew he would have a hard time connecting with it. He'd still do his best to raise it and give it the childhood neither of them ever had, but...
"I-...I hope you don't think this is unkind of me. T-To only be attached to the baby when I learn that he's going to-...Going to be-..."
'Special' is such a pathetic word, and he's not ever going to say anything like 'freak' or 'deformed'. 'Different' isn't right either.
She reads his mind, of course, and deftly drops in the proper words. Because that's what this baby is; just like his daddy.
"I kinda hoped that, you know. That you'd take it this way."
Still holding him, she lets the words go, and just lapses into images and concepts, talking directly to his mind...and it almost seems like there's a third participant in the conversation. Almost. She shows her husband how mad she was, how scared, how lonely, and at the same time so happy and excited for the baby. It's been a stressful last three months.
Carefully, mindful of that bump in her stomach, he pulls her up just enough that he can hug her good and tight around her shoulders.
And then he goes quiet as he listens to Hippolyta pour out all her anxiety and relief, echoing with his own. The uncertainty and insurmountable fear of being inadequate, the worries of being an unfit and unprepared father, the overwhelming joy he feels now towards this all.
Carefully, she sits back up, and kisses his cheek, mindful of her stomach. It's now a much bigger bump than when Gale first arrived here, and she is really and truly showing now. It happened so quickly, to go from nothing at all to BIG baby bump. And she's getting bigger every day. (She's already gained ten pounds.)
"You always uphold my hopes. You are my hope. And I'm scared of being a crap mom, you know. But I'm gonna do it anyway."
She sniffles a bit, and then settles back on her haunches, rubbing at her stomach again.
"I think I need a nap. I've been running on adrenaline all day today. I feel weird and shaky and hungry."
Then he hears it as well, and without another word or glance at the Japanese demon, is off and running.
When he arrives, he drops down from a balcony, slides partway down a pillar, then rebounds off another wall, landing lightly a short ways from where Hippolyta now stands.
"What is it? What's the matter, mi amor?"
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"The baby looks like you," she says bluntly, realizing after it's out of her mouth that it totally understates the problem and that she's still sort of in shock about it all.
"Gah, no, I didn't mean it like that. Can we go sit? This is a big deal."
The look on her face is...unreadable. Even to Ramon. Even to herself. She doesn't know what her face looks like right now, and she's on the inside of it.
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Once in the room, he sees Hippolyta to a seat first, then takes one next to her, hand resting on her knee.
"All right. What's going on? Something about the baby?" Still completely weird to regard that there's a baby at all...
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It comes tumbling out of her mouth in a weird monotone, the words flat and yet at the same time impassioned. Like she has forgotten about the way voices should rise and fall naturally when excited, and instead the excitement is just inferred. Because it's not showing on her face.
She almost looks paralyzed, in a way, at least in her face. Her eyes aren't even darting around. This is an entirely new behavior for her, and she almost feels like she's watching it from the outside. She's not freaking out, that's a good sign, and then she realizes she's thinking about herself.
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She's not the only one to be caught off-guard or sounding blank with shock in the past few minutes now.
"W-What. How do you even know? I-...You're certain of this? Dios mio, how are you sure?!"
Already, he's try and failing to grasp the implications of this all. His child's being born as a monster? His child's never going to be able to function in normal society like Ramon never has? His child is going to have to be hidden and probably pursued by others as some kind of freak that has to be destroyed or controlled?
Ramon's hand has covered his mouth and his eyes have gone wide without realizing it, still too deeply caught in the dawning realization of what his child, his child, is now facing if this is true.
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She pulls the rolled up black and white photograph out of her back pocket. It's been crumpled and cracked since she received it, but she was running on automatic pilot to get this far and it seemed the right thing to do. She hands the picture to him, her face and eyes and voice still weirdly flat and calm.
She's either taking this very well or very badly indeed.
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The fetus is just a curled little blob, with tiny a tiny black spot for an eye and blurry fingers that are its forming arms.
And the lower half is elongated and has three little protrusions, like more fingers, sprouting from it. The legs. Three on the side facing the device that captured this image, and three more on the other side and left unseen.
Ramon's thumb is tracing the curve of that bulb that is the infant's developing head.
"My baby...My baby..."
His shocked expression has given way for one of tenderness.
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She's been wanting to hear that tone for the last three months. He finally seems to be accepting of the fact that he's a father, and all it took was...well. This. She should have known.
It's like the weight and the shock of this revelation finally lifts, and she relaxes, allowing a small smile to curl the corners of her mouth.
"We should have known. They say that he's perfectly healthy, too, and developing as normally as can be expected. All his little important bits are functioning so far. He's just...him."
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Then he clasps it to his chest, shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath. The sudden swell of unconditional love is one that's taken him by surprise as well. The connection, long overdue, has finally been made, thanks to the fact that now the child is someone Ramon knows he can raise and teach, someone who he will know the hardships of, someone who will need protection that Ramon knows he can and will provide.
A normal, human child; Ramon would never be able to relate to that and he'd be too worried of steering the child wrong thanks to their differing species. But this...
"He's beautiful, Hippolyta," he only now notices he was on the verge of crying when he hears his own voice crack and tears slip down either of his cheeks.
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Okay, sure, the baby's probably going to have problems. (Hopefully not health problems, gawd, please, let the baby be healthy...) But the proximity of the Nexus and the miracle of her conception in the first place makes her sweep all of that under the rug. Ramon is along for the ride.
She immediately scoots out of her chair, sitting heavily and carefully on the floor, resting her head in Ramon's lap. She's still not as big as a bloody house, so she can get away with it.
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Ramon holds the picture out in front of him again, looking at the round little fetus with its too-many legs and too-long body.
He's never seen anything more wonderful in his entire life.
"I'm going to make sure he's happy. That he'll never be hurt because of who and what he is."
Ramon hastily wipes away his tears, now smiling a little through them.
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"Thank you, thank you, thank you." She keeps repeating those two words over and over again, muffled by his lap. "I was so scared. I was so stupid scared that I was losing you...I was so scared our baby wouldn't have a father..."
Her arms wrap around his calves to hug him. Her breasts and stomach are now pressed up against him, too, and he should notice how fast and loud her heart is beating, how utterly relieved she is.
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"I-...I hope you don't think this is unkind of me. T-To only be attached to the baby when I learn that he's going to-...Going to be-..."
'Special' is such a pathetic word, and he's not ever going to say anything like 'freak' or 'deformed'. 'Different' isn't right either.
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She reads his mind, of course, and deftly drops in the proper words. Because that's what this baby is; just like his daddy.
"I kinda hoped that, you know. That you'd take it this way."
Still holding him, she lets the words go, and just lapses into images and concepts, talking directly to his mind...and it almost seems like there's a third participant in the conversation. Almost. She shows her husband how mad she was, how scared, how lonely, and at the same time so happy and excited for the baby. It's been a stressful last three months.
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Carefully, mindful of that bump in her stomach, he pulls her up just enough that he can hug her good and tight around her shoulders.
And then he goes quiet as he listens to Hippolyta pour out all her anxiety and relief, echoing with his own. The uncertainty and insurmountable fear of being inadequate, the worries of being an unfit and unprepared father, the overwhelming joy he feels now towards this all.
"I love you, Hippolyta. And I love our child."
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Carefully, she sits back up, and kisses his cheek, mindful of her stomach. It's now a much bigger bump than when Gale first arrived here, and she is really and truly showing now. It happened so quickly, to go from nothing at all to BIG baby bump. And she's getting bigger every day. (She's already gained ten pounds.)
"You always uphold my hopes. You are my hope. And I'm scared of being a crap mom, you know. But I'm gonna do it anyway."
She sniffles a bit, and then settles back on her haunches, rubbing at her stomach again.
"I think I need a nap. I've been running on adrenaline all day today. I feel weird and shaky and hungry."
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