The Crown (Prince Harry fanfic #5)

Chapter Seven

At the twenty week checkup, Lucy laid on the long and hard cot, which resembled more of a table covered in cloth. Harry held Lucy's hand as she stared up at the ceiling. They had done this numerous times before, each time Harry bounced up and down. He bounced up and down now, though it was different.

Harry liked to keep the sonogram pictures in his wallet, always around. He was the parent to make scrapbooks and keep all the pictures. The sonogram pictures were no different. He would've added to his collection today.

Then there was a bet: Harry bet on a girl and Lucy bet on a boy.

Today, the gender was to be found out.

The doctor came in, and Lucy always bit her tongue so she never made a comment. The doctor, who would deliver the child, oddly looked like the tenth Doctor from Doctor Who, down to the voice. He didn't do it on purpose and apparently was the one Briton who never had watched the show, but that didn't stop from Lucy making comments when they first met. When it came to the choice of physician, Lucy had no choice and neither did Harry. The physician was chosen by the reigning monarch, even if they were male and had no business telling a woman what to do with her body.

"I assume we know why we're all here," the doctor said with a smile.

"There's a fetus growing inside of me," she answered.

The doctor only nodded at her. He never responded much to Lucy, especially when she made comments such as this. Most people didn't engage her.

"To see what the gender is," Harry responded, hopping up and down on his chair. Of course he was the one to be excited.

"We want to know the gender today?" the doctor asked. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Lucy said.

Harry nodded, even though he answered excitedly before.

Remembering back to the conversation she had with him about it, it had gone over only a bit well. Lucy wanted to know the gender; Harry didn't want to know the gender. He preferred it to be a surprise when it happened. Lucy didn't want that. Nowadays, Lucy got what she wanted most of the time. Harry tried to convince her that a surprise would be good, especially because there wouldn't be slip ups. The gender of the child wasn't to be known to the public until after the birth. Lucy had smiled at that but said nothing else about it until a few days later. When she came into the room, she had sat down on the couch and stared at Harry until he looked up at her. Her words came out clearly and crisply but had a softer tone about them. Then Harry ended up siding with her. Harry had tried to be somewhat mature, to follow in his brother's footsteps about not knowing the gender, and then he said fuck it. Harry was more than excited now.

Lucy's shirt was rolled up so that her stomach showed of twenty weeks. The cold gel squeezed onto her stomach before the doctor started. He pressed the instrument to her stomach and fished around for a heartbeat. Three grueling and silent seconds later, Harry and Lucy heard the heartbeat of their child fill the room.

The doctor turned the screen so that Harry and Lucy saw their child. It was a white and gray blurb swimming in a black screen. A 3-D ultrasound was to be planned for later. The head was easily seen, especially the nose and lips. The legs were curled up but they looked strong.

"There has been no movement," Harry said.

"Common," the doctor said, "especially with the first pregnancy. Some women do not feel movement with the fetus ever." The doctor went back to the screen.

Harry's blue eyes watched the screen. "With the legs like that, will we still be able to know the gender today?"

The doctor glanced at the screen and then moved around the instrument on Lucy's stomach. "Yes, I think so." The instrument was moved a little bit more and then the doctor nodded. "Would you like to know now?"

"Is there another option?" Lucy wondered, annoyance in her voice.

"I could print out the gender and you could answer it in privacy. Some patients choose to do that."

"Are people usually upset by the gender?" she asked, confused. "You don't get to choose a gender usually. So, you get what you get and you don't have a fit."

Harry smiled at her but his eyes remained on the screen. "Doctor, you can take that as we want to know the gender now."

The doctor nodded and then studied the sonogram on the screen to be certain. As much as Harry looked at the picture, he didn't know if it was a boy or a girl. The doctor reached out and touched the screen, pointing. Harry leaned forward, on the tip of his chair, as if he would now notice the difference. When Lucy looked at the screen, she had no idea.

"Do you see this?" the doctor asked. "It's a boy."

"You mean it's a penis," Lucy said, "and it makes the fetus male."

The doctor glanced down at his patient. Even with knowing Lucy for more than a year now, he didn't understand her sense of humor, or he assumed it was a sense of humor. It probably wasn't.

"I'll print out the picture and then be back." The doctor excused himself.

Harry managed to take his eyes off the picture for more than five seconds to look at his wife. She had a smirk on his face. "Do you do it on purpose or is it just natural?"

"You mean questioning him?"

"Correcting him," he said. "You make him very confused."

"Harry, we're more open to things," Lucy began.

"You're right, we are, Luce. That's why I know our child, our son is a son, for now. And when he's older, he'll still be my child even if he believes he is a girl. And then I'll call him my daughter." Harry was never like other royals. "I know a lot, the simplicity of things, the gender expression is made up of biological gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. I know.

"But until our child tells me otherwise, I'm going to call him a boy. It doesn't mean that I'll stop loving him if he wants to be a girl or if he loves other boys. He's still my kid. My son, our child, can play with anything he likes. And he can do any sports that he wants." Harry held tightly onto Lucy's hand. "For now, can we just say boy? Can I call him my son?"

Lucy nodded. "We're having a boy." Her voice squealed. Her normal voice, an usual alto, managed to make to a high soprano.

Harry's voice went up as well. "We're having a boy!"