Valkyrie stood in the Maplewood room of the Stonecliffe Mansion, sorting through her bag of clothes while Skulduggery lay out of the bed. Skulduggery said he made some sort of deal with Mr. Bacon to let them stay as long as they needed and have the room of their choice, though Skulduggery wouldn't tell her what the deal exactly was.
Valkyrie had also talked to Tanith before they left and Skulduggery had been right, Ghastly had told Tanith everything. When Valkyrie showed up at Tanith's apartment, Valkyrie got an earful. But when she finally calmed Tanith down, she convinced her that she was in love with Skulduggery and this is what she wanted. She even got Tanith wanting to do a baby shower.
Valkyrie sighed as she gave up on her clothes and laid down on the bed next to Skulduggery. She let her mind wander before a thought popped into her mind.
"Skulduggery?" Valkyrie asked, her hand gently grazing over her stomach.
"Hmm?"
"How does this name thing work?" He sat up and looked over at her.
"What do you mean?" he asked. She hesitated.
"I mean, like when this baby is born, what would its last name be, or in a marriage, the last name, how would that work?" Skulduggery ran his hand through his hair.
"Well, in our case, it would work like a normal mortal family. We would use our given names and keep our taken names the same." He slid a hand over her stomach. "When this baby is born, we will give it a name, it's given name, and when it gets older, it will choose it's own taken name." Valkyrie was silent for a while as she slid her hand over Skulduggery's.
"That was your name wasn't it?" she asked suddenly. Skulduggery raised an eyebrow at her.
"What?" Valkyrie turned on her side to face him.
"Lorcan," she replied, "The name you used for my parents, that's your given name." He hesitated.
"Yes," he said slowly, "it is." Valkyrie smiled.
"So, the great Skulduggery Pleasant's name is Lorcan Connell ." She bit her lip and cocked her head. "I like it." Skulduggery sighed and laid back down on his back.
"Seems only fair," he mumbled, "I knew yours now you know mine, plus, given the circamtances," Valkyrie wrinkled up her nose.
"That doesn't sound like the Skulduggery I know," she stated firmly, "The Skulduggery I know would not use something like that so recklessly, what's going on?"
"Nothing's going on. I simply thought that I was doing right in telling your parents my name. I couldn't use Skulduggery because that would have surely remembered me from the reading of Gordon's will I needed something simple and easy to remember in the case that I should have to use it again and what's easier to remember than your own name?"
"Why tell now though? What made that moment so special? Why didn't you tell me first?" Skulduggery cocked an eyebrow at her.
"You ask a lot of questions." Valkyrie shrugged.
"I'm a detective," she said, "it's what I do." Skulduggery smiled.
"I guess I'm a pretty good teacher then," he said smugly. Valkyrie slapped his stomach.
"Leave your overly large ego out of this and tell me before I make you tell me." Skulduggery smiled coyly.
"I'm almost interested to see you make me." She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"Stop thinking below your belt for once and tell me." Her voice got softer. "Seriously, did you not trust me?" Skulduggery's smiled dropped and he flipped on his side to face her.
"No, nothing like that, Val," he said, reaching out to stroke her cheek," I just...was waiting for the right moment to tell."
"But why my parents? Why was that the right moment?" Skulduggery just smiled and kissed her forehead.
"I have my reasons," he said, winking at her. Valkyrie groaned and stood up, turning to face him with her arms folded across her chest.
"You are so...difficult. Did you know that?" Skulduggery just chuckled softly. Valkyrie sighed, rolling her eyes and turned back to her bag of clothing.
"So, tell me more about this vampire problem." Skulduggery leaned back on the bed, folding his arms behind his head.
"Well, apparently there's a couple of vampires loose up here somewhere on the island and are creating mayhem by infecting tourists. They want us to find these vampires before they turn the whole island into their own army of infected." Valkyrie snorted.
"Just sounds like a couple of idiot vampires thinking that they can take over the world one island at a time." She sighed and plopped down on the bed again. "Why do they always pick us for the stupid cases?" Skulduggery just shrugged.
"I don't know, but it makes my job a whole lot easier which means more time I get to spend with you." He smiled and kissed her forehead while she rolled her eyes. She then smiled as she a thought popped into her head.
"Hey Skulduggery, do you know Irish? You know, old Galiec?" Skulduggery looked at her strangely.
"I know a fair bit amount," he said, "Why do you ask?"
"To see if you understand this." She leaned over him and whispered in his ear: "Me' want your tarnocht druim pressed against liome e'." Skulduggery stared wide-eyed at her.
"Where did you learn that?" he asked. Valkyrie smiled as she stood up.
"I took a year of Irish in school, well, the reflection did, I just picked it up." Skulduggery shook his head.
"I whole year of Irish and all you can recite is Irish sex talk?"
"Hey I know other things," she countered as she climbed over top of him and ran her fingers through his hair, "Besides, I can't be that bad, you knew it too." Skulduggery smiled.
"Your right," he said, "So here's one back at you." He held her waist tight, pulling her close to him and whispered softly in her ear: "Me' want to de'anaim gra' to you uilig o'rche fada." Valkyrie smiled and pressed her forehead to his.
"I think I like that idea," she whispered, then gripped the back of his head and crushed her lips to his.
