The Crown (Prince Harry fanfic #5)

Chapter Six

Lucy stood in her fifth month of pregnancy, with now the baby belly being shown. The flowing dresses were able to help when certain events occurred. But with normal events, the dress never flowed. Media picked more and more up, and even at the most boring events, there was an audience. Sometimes it wasn't the media but rather random people had come out to see Lucy. She wanted to say it was because Harry or their amazing work, but it was all because of what grew inside of her.

The rest of the house would have to be baby proofed later. For now, Lucy and Harry stood in the room chosen for the nursery. They had already designated where some of the things in the room would go, since the room was mostly used for storage. Neither of them wanted a lot of space, but they certainly had it here.

The sex of the baby was yet unknown, and they wouldn't find out at least until Lucy's next doctor appointment. However, they weren't painting the room. There wasn't going to be pink or blue on the walls, no gendered anything, not even gender neutral colors. The child, boy or girl, would play with Barbie and G.I. Joe. The child, boy or girl, could play football or do ballet.

Lucy's baby belly protruded and Harry liked to link his arms around her. Every day, he did this. He waited for the baby to kick. Yet, it didn't. This was abnormal, when babies usually didn't start to kick sixteen to twenty-two weeks, and usually in first pregnancies, it happened later. Harry still waited.

Because of the belly, already Lucy had a hard time picking up large boxes. Harry didn't want her doing it anyway, which got him a deathly glare from his wife.

The day was really just meant to clean out the room, when baby presents were already arriving. Clothes were everywhere along with toys. Every time Harry went to an event, he received at least two gifts for baby. Lucy tended to receive them too but she didn't go to many outside events with many people. Since she was attacked two years ago, she didn't do many of those. On the plus side, many things wouldn't have to be bought for baby, but they had the money.

Harry and Lucy cleaned out the room by themselves, wanting to be "normal." Harry wouldn't have minded the help with a few heavier things, but Lucy wanted something normal. She already didn't like so many people inside of her home, so this would be less people.

"Where do you want this?" Lucy asked, holding up a large mask, which happened to somewhat scary.

He paused. "I think that was in storage for a reason, not to disrespect the culture, but that gives me nightmares."

Lucy looked at the mask and nodded. "Could be scarier."

Harry shook his head. "I don't want to even know how."

"Are you sure?" Lucy walked over and held the mask in front of her face. "Am I still beautiful?"

"I want to say yes," Harry bit his lip, "but no. Please put it away."

Lucy put the mask carefully into a box. "When the kid gets older, we're so scaring him with that mask."

"I think you mean scarring."

She scoffed. Glancing through the boxes more, Harry had a theme going: no scary masks or figurines. Her husband wasn't scared of many things, but his imagination tended to run wild. Her fingers grazed along a picture frame and picked it up. It was an old photo of Harry and his mother, from when he was a baby.

"Why is this in here?" she asked.

Harry walked over and took the photo frame from her hands. He studied it. "I didn't even know this was in here, or that it existed anymore."

Lucy looked at him. "When did you last see it?"

"Before I went to boarding school," he said. "You don't get to take much and a lot of things were packed up. I guess this was packed up here."

Her hand ran along his back, rubbing in circles. Lucy's cheek rested on his shoulder. "What do you want to do with it?"

Harry breathed deeply, still looking at the old picture of his mother. "I don't know."

Lucy's fingers hesitantly reached for the photo. "May I?"

He handed the picture over to her, and she moved it to the dresser that would stay in the room. The picture faced the room, as if it watched everything.

"Perhaps," Harry said, "she'll watch over baby." His eyes stayed on the picture of his mother for a moment and then went to his wife. Harry gave Lucy a quick kiss on the cheek. He turned back to the boxes and started rummaging through them.

"Harry," she said, and he glanced up at her, "no boarding schools."

"Luce, I don't think that'll be option. They're royal, so boarding schools is where they go."

"No," she said, "public school is an option, with the people of London, maybe the suburbs if you want to move out there. But no boarding schools."

"Luce--"

"I said no." Anger lit up in her eyes. "And don't say we'll talk about it later because I'll say the same thing. No boarding schools. I want them to have a normal life-- you want to have the most normal life they can. They aren't Heirs and they aren't spares. They're down the line. No boarding schools."

Harry nodded, mouth closed.

She looked through some boxes and he looked through some more. Then they took some boxes downstairs, or Harry took some boxes downstairs for Lucy since he didn't want her carrying heavy boxes and she didn't want to walk up and down stairs.

When Harry returned upstairs, Lucy had her hand resting on her stomach, looking out the window. He was quiet behind her, only walking in. She didn't notice. Her blonde hair skewed her face from Harry's sight. Lucy shuddered. He stood beside her. Harry noticed Lucy cried.

Immediately he pulled her into a hug. He said nothing, and Lucy started to ball loud sobs into his shoulder. His t-shirt was drenched quickly, but she didn't seem to be stopping any time soon. Body trembling and heart thumping, Lucy let it all out. Harry's hands ran up and down her back, pulling her closer. They had been closer once, but now a baby happened to be right between them. Harry kissed her on the head, and she melted into him.

After a while, Lucy slowly began to calm down. Tears still rolled from her eyes but she breathed more easily again. Harry hushed her nicely.

"I know you're scared," he said. "Everything is going to be okay. Let it out. You're okay. Everything is good." Harry knew when he looked into her eyes. This was fear. "I got you. You're okay. We're good. I have you. I love you."

"I love you too."