A/N - hey everybody. Just a quick reminder to drop a comment down below after you read. It's super super disheartening to spend so much time preparing chapters only for it to have 0 payoff, hence the really slow updates. If I get comments or feedback (I know a ton of you out there HATED giving me feedback when I was a frequent poster 😂) then I'm more inclined to write more, and you all get better, more frequen updates. So, drop a few words down below and we'll all be happier in the end :)
"I'm in awe of you." Francis whispers as he cradles his newly born son, leaning over his wife as he sits at her side so she may see their first child. "You're so beautiful, so strong, you've given us a beautiful boy. I love you, Mary." He kisses her damp forehead.
They've been blessed with their son not three hours ago, and once his wife and son were declared healthy and safe, he had asked all of the midwives and physicans, men of the cloth and his wife's ladies to leave them all so he may have a few minutes alone with them both.
The little prince of France and Scotland has been washed clean of his mother's blood, and now sleeps happily in his father's arms, while his royal mother has only been wiped down with wet cloths. She's still bloody and exhausted, and no matter how disheveled she looks and feels, to Francis, Mary Stewart is the most beautiful woman in the world.
"You look good holding a baby in your arms." Mary whispers, her throat still raw from her cries that lasted a day and a half after her waters broke. She reaches up to touch her sons perfect skin, fluffy, downy hair that escapes his blankets the softest thing she has ever felt. She can't move much, her womb is hot and sore after five and a half pounds of regal heir had slipped from between her thighs. The afterbirth had been a horrible experience, and the tonic Catherine had prepared had not fully taken away her pains just yet. But even still, with how sweaty and sore she is, she cannot stop smiling at the sight of her precious boy and her beautiful husband.
Fancis leans his head onto Mary's, and he closes his eyes to breathe in deeply. Yes, he smells sweat and soap and blood, but his mother always said that her babies gave off the best scent she had ever smelled when she had given birth, and he cannot help but agree. Bring here, in the birthing chambers with Mary and their precious little son, it felt so right. Like there was nothing else in the world he wanted more, feeling so contented and happy here. It just felt so right, in ways it never had with Lola and Jean-Philippe.
Although he loves the podgy little toddler who has just passed his first nameday, being with him always hurt knowing that he was not and never would be Mary's son. And Lola, knowing he had been with her in all the ways he shouldn't, knowing he should never ever have fathered a child with somebody other than his wife. The awkwardness he always felt, being part of a trilogy that never should exist, the whispers of the courtly vipers who bit into his wife's neck with every sharp word, none of it ever felt as right as it does now.
Because he is not in a stinking peasant shack with the plague outside these walls, he is not overcome with shock and grief and anger, and he does not have to run from the disease and be away from all who need him. No, he is here, in his court with his country's cough as wet as it has been in years, he is in his courts birthing chambers and his wife lays next to him, tender and exhausted in her chidbed. And this child carries the blood of Stewart, Tudor, Medici and Valois. And he cannot wish for anything more.
Francis slowly passes the baby into his mother's arms, and the baby barely stirs in his sleep as the King of France leaves this beautiful sanctum for a moment to walk to the other side of the room.
"Where are you going?" She asks him, her voice gentle, still raw and low enough that the baby still sleeps peacefully.
"An old trick my mother found out after Claude. Something about the lost nutrients and replenishment." Francis says, turning back from a scene so beautiful and back to his task.
He pours cold water into a large silver jug, adding the pureed ginger his mother added to all of Mary's meals throughout her pregnancy to ward off any sickness to keep her and her baby safe. Juice of apples, oranges and cranberries go in next, as well as honey and basil. He stirs his concoction, one his mother schooled him on thoroughly when Mary went on her bedrest almost three weeks ago, before pouring her a generous helping in a large jar, and coming over to his family once again.
Mary goes to lift a hand off of her baby to grab the cup, but Francis shakes his head.
"No, my darling. You've given me the most precious gift. Let me serve you now."
He lifts the cup to her lips, and Mary smiles at him, before swallowing down the sweet concoction.
"Good." Francis whispers, placing the jar on the table before brushing her hair from her face. "I'm going to send for the midwives once again, have the servents draw you a hot bath to clean yourself and relax. Bring you up some food and water so you can rest and heal. Nothing matters more than you two, my love."
"Your mother will maul you to hold him again, you must know it." Mary chuckles, relinquishing the baby to his father again.
"I do." He sighs with a grin. "And we thought she was bad bursting into our chambers every morning, she'll be even worse now he's here."
"Especially as he's your son. Her precious golden child having an heir? Court doesn't stand a chance of getting in her way of you two."
"Come on, then." Francis chuckles. "Let's see how many moments I get with him before he's swept away. I think he may have replaced me as the apple of her eye."
"Please, you'll always be first. It's the one thing we agree on. How much we both love you."
"And yet, I love you more."
YOU ARE READING
You Are My Light Part II
Historical Fiction-Reign Oneshots/Taking Requests- The world can be dark, Mary, and uncertain and cruel. The only thing that matters is that we face it together. No matter what happens, you are my light. Part 2! -Read TEML first!-
