Dark Times -2 season

We

"Can you let me talk to him for a while?"

Mal asks his friends in relation to Ben. The conversation with him will be the hardest, and it's better to be just the two of them.

"Sure."

Jay says, and he and the two friends head for one of the rooms in the house.

"This morning you already knew?" She asks, trying to start a conversation with him, who keeps the same countenance as half a minute ago, but confirms her question. "Why didn't you tell me instead of shouting it across the house?"

Ben laughed wryly.

"Are you seriously accusing me of not telling you something?"

"Ben, please at least look at me."

She hates not being able to look someone in the eye while talking, especially if that someone is her husband.

"I can't look at you Mal, you lied to me again, it's like a habit of yours that will never change. Why is that? Why do you always decide what I should or shouldn't know? I seem to be able to take care of an entire kingdom, except my family."

Mal can't stand the sight of him like this, Ben is always so calm and hardly ever gets angry about anything.

"You talk as if I've been hiding it for ten years, it's only been three days since I found out."

"And for three days you've had thousands of chances to speak up, but you haven't."

"You're right, forgive me, but do you know how hard it is to give you any more bad news when you talk all the time about how happy you are to be a father?"

"I didn't marry you just for the good times, Mal. If there's something wrong with you or the baby, I want to know."

"Now you know."

"Yeah, but no, thanks to you, give me a break okay? I'm still angry."

Mal sees him leave Evie's house without being able to say anything. She doesn't want to go on like this, especially knowing that in a few months' time everything will change Forever.

(...)

One of the things that makes Benjamin a normal human being, like others, is that even when he's sad or angry, he's still king and has to get behind a desk and solve other people's problems while forgetting his own. However, today it won't be entirely bad to spend the whole day at the office and not come home early, as he normally does.

It was already evening in Auradon and even with all his work done, he continued to sit in his chair, reflecting on the latest events. He suddenly thought how silly it was to keep getting angry with Mal when there was more at risk.

Yes, she shouldn't have hidden the truth, but looking at it from another perspective, his wife is speak at him in no uncertain terms that in a few months' time she won't be with him anymore. This time, there's no kiss of true love that will bring her back. No, Mal couldn't do that, Ben couldn't imagine a world where there was no Mal in it. He had to convince her somehow.

(...)

Mal spent the whole day in her room, Ben should have been back two hours ago, but so far there's been no sign of him. She didn't think she could convince him, but she wanted to show him why she had chosen the baby. So she put on the recording of her ultrasound and picked up the present Belle had given her three weeks ago.

"This is stupid." She says to herself. "What am I thinking? Ben never gets angry about anything, but guess what? I've managed to stress out the personification of calm." Apparently she's talking to her daughter now. "Why do I always do stupid things like that?" She thinks for a moment before taking another look at the tiny outfit her mother-in-law gave her baby. "You know, at least five years ago I would never have imagined myself holding a baby's clothes or having a baby, but now I'm here imagining you in these clothes."

She's so focused on the conversation that she doesn't even notice a certain king appear in the doorway and enter the room.

"Excuse me." He asks as he enters the room. Is it strange that he doesn't know how to start a conversation with her? He sits down on the bed and can feel her eyes on him, waiting for him to say something. "Is that your last ultrasound?" Mal confirms. She hasn't said anything until now, because she feels he wants to say something. "Cool. Can I see it? I mean, if you want and let me."

"Sure, go ahead."

She laughs at seeing him act like he's seventeen and doesn't know what to say in front of her.

He walks over to his laptop and puts on the recording. He moves closer to her on the bed, and she in turn takes the opportunity to put her arms around him.

It's nothing much, it looks like a blurry image with a small white background, at least to Ben. Mal laughs at the look on his face as he tries to understand.

"Here she is at 16 weeks, here are her arms." She points at the screen for him to see. She looks at him to make sure he understands. "And if you turned up the volume, you'd hear that." She pressed the button, and then she could hear the big heartbeat.

"Wow, that's loud."

He said, smiling at the noise, and hearing the sound of his laughter relaxed her.

"Yeah, Rashid says she's always very agitated."

"And that's normal?"

"I think it's asking too much for one of our children to be calm."

She says wryly.

"Yeah." He took courage and took her hand. "Mal, I'm still pretty upset. I'm a father too."

"I know, forgive me."

"Now, you and I are going to sit down and talk, because that's what we do."

He smiled at her and sat down opposite her.

"Okay."

She smiled back at him happily, and even more so after he took her hands.

"So, to begin with, that's it? Our daughter has a lot of magic?"

"Yes, she does."

"And you want to give up your magic for her, because that's the only way she'll be born healthy?"

"Yes."

"Mal, I don't want to choose that."

"You don't, I do."

"We're one, have you forgotten? Everything that happens to you affects me, especially this." He held back a little to keep from crying. "I feel like I still don't understand everything."

"And you really think I've understood it all? Ben, I only have one certainty, that I'm not going to lose her."

"And you? Can she do without her mother?"

"She'll have you, and I'm sure you'll be a great father."

"But what about me? I'll be without you, Mal."

He ran his hands over her face.

"Don't talk like that, okay?" She kissed him on the cheek. "I swear to you months ago that would have been easy for me, but I love her so much, Ben, I love her too much to let her go."

"Yeah, I know. Look, we've got months yet, until then promise me you'll let me find a solution and if I can't, I'll let you go."

Saying that out loud made his heart ache, literally.

"Okay, but will you respect my decision?"

"I will, I love you, I can't be without you."

He admitted, kissing her hands.

"And I love you with everything I am."

She pulled him by the scruff of the neck and kissed him.

"And I love you too, little girl."

He left a kiss on her belly.

"So, are we okay?"

A question just to make sure.

"Yes, we're all right, Queen Mal."

He kisses her again. They're fine and nothing will change that.