The months since her announcement of her pregnancy had been blissful, wonderful. Her heart wildly happy, and he with her, beside her, in it. He was so attentive, glad, touching her slowly growing bump, and even putting up with the tearful moments or when she craved some strange food or another with eagerness.
But as she began to grow, so came with it the disease, the frustration. It became harder to stand most things as she got rounder. With how often she needed to sleep, or eat, or found herself irritated by the smallest things. She missed her family, even though they had all sent gifts, all the things she would do to keep her mind off it strained as well. Even the intimacy that came so easily with him became difficult. Too often she was too tired for more than a few touches before she fell asleep on him, despite all her best attempts.
Perhaps it was inevitable, when the servant came with her rumour that struck straight to where she felt weakest. So utterly undesirable, exhausted, her ankles hurt, her chest heavy - and it seemed that her husband lost interest in her too. Or so said the rumour. With the up coming birth, she had taken on new maids in preparation - and it was perfectly natural that her husband would want to sate his desire with one of them, whispered the servant, who heard it no less from her brother-in-law in his chambers.
It shattered something cold in her gut, furious and ugly, it reared like a great wave that choked her throat, her sense, burning in her gut, like bile in the back of her throat. Her head pounded as she fought for the composer she knew she must keep. Her fingers tightened on her chair, rapidly trying to go through every moment she'd seen, in that new light.
Until she could not, lurching to her feet and her ladies-in-waiting lept up in surprise. But the suspicion surged in her heart. "Out!" Came the snap, and when they did not move quickly enough, she smacked the nearest cup clean off the table with a clang as it banged off the floor. "Out! All of you!"
And the minute the door was shut, she made a horrible, wracked sob, smothered into her hand. It couldn't be true. It couldn't. He wouldn't do this to her. He wouldn't. Not with her own maids.
Though the voice whispered, low and familiar like it always did: did she really thing she could keep him content? That she could be enough? He was the brilliant, fierce Prince of Eiru, like a lion bedecked in golden flame - and he had wed a mouse. A timid, unsightly, miserable little creature. What else did she expect? She had left him to his own, not dug into his business - he'd said his brother had matters for him, urgent and long. But maybe... it maybe...
It hurt - even if it made no sense, they had been arranged for politics, not love, it was common for their rank to take lovers once duty was done. But yet it hurt and hurt to think of. Ripped and gnawed in her heart as she snatched for the next nearest thing - the drink pitcher - and knocked it over, and when it was not enough, the chair went with it.
Angry and furious, she shattered whatever she could get her hands on, until the exhaustion once again won out and stumbling, she found the bed to sit on, yelling as squarely at the next servant that tentatively poked her head in. She wanted to see no one, was her order. Especially not her husband.
Of course, the minute he did return, it is him they seek. Hurriedly explaining that she was well, no harm had come to her - but he had best see to her immediately. They didn't dare, not if they wanted to leave the room unscathed.
It had been concerning to see the cluster of fleeing maids, even more so to hear the clatter of things in her room. He hadn't bothered to slow and listen to what the women were trying to tell him; his destination is obvious.
Sweeney's stride moves to full extension, so fast that his attendants have to jog as they try to keep up. He is at her door before he realizes they are still following him. When he grabs the latch, Sweeney spins back with a snarl, ordering them to fuck off. Whatever it is, it's between him and Gilia. If they need a doctor, he'll call for one.
He doesn't wait for them to leave before he yanks the door open, taking a quick peek to assess if he's still in harm's way. But it seems the maelstrom has past, at least for the moment, and he shoves the door closed behind him without looking. Sweeney's already continuing to her side.
"Luv, what is it?" he asks hastily, trying to get a look at her, clearly concerned for both her and the baby.
"What's wrong?"
It's very obvious he's freshly returned. Sweeney's cloak is still fastened over his travel wear, and he's ripe with sweat and dirt from the journey. His hair and the fur over his shoulders is damp from the rain that's been drizzling for the last half hour of the journey. None of that matters. She's distraught, and that's the only issue in his world, at the moment.
She surges up suddenly, unsteady, in his presence, her hand protective over the now obvious bump showing as she got her feet under her. Her face screwing up, twisting in hurt.
"Get out! Get out I do not want to look at you!" The angry tears, never having left. Her other hand balled up tightly at her side.
Sweeney frown. Clearly, he's missed something. A big something. Given his absence, it could be just about anything, but when she covers her belly, there's a touch of relief that he doubts it's something wrong with the baby.
"No," he states plainly. It's the familiar tone of tender firmness. She's not going to change his mind, but he's not looking to spat about anything. Though apparently, she is.
"If ya don't wanna look at me, ya best close yer eyes, 'cause I ain't leavin' 'til we talk this out." It can be sooner or later; that's really up to how she wants to get do it.
During the course of her pregnancy, there have obviously been shifts that have occurred aside from her shape. Though this is his first child, he understands the basics. The basics being 'she's going to be highly emotional about random things, and have a lot of unusual cravings'. Sweeney's guessing this one's the former. If it's not, he's ready to commit some grievous violence to whomever has her in such a state.
She can hear the instructing words that tell her to show restraint and temperance, that is befitting a woman her station, not a shrill fish wife. A foreign Queen no less, that is not secure of her position, at least until the child was born. Yet it hurt, hurt beyond words how he could - could just -
It might be the right thing to do, but the wound is old, the hurt raw, and she finds herself so quickly without grounding to the onslaught of how it feels.
"You ought to tell me! Did you think I would not find out?!" She rises forward, closing the distance between them. "Or did you simply not care!"
"What the fuck?" he swears under his breath. Sweeney continues forward, ready to wrap his arms around her in hopes of locking her in place before she gets to swinging. His goal is to get her to calm without putting their child at risk. And his face, preferably.
"Of course I care!" At this point, he's just trying to catch up, as he scrambles for her.
It might stop her having any range, but oh she certainly tries. The only time she's ever lifted her hands to anyone seriously in her life- yet the furious feelings need to go somewhere. Shoving as hard as she could, hands slapping on his shoulders for all she was worth.
"My Ladies! My own Lady! You could not keep your hands to yourself for a few months?!"
Now the tears come again, hot angry down her cheeks. "How could you! How could you?! I had to find out from my maid! Am I not enough for you?!"
"My maid! She sent a message to your brother and she heard them! Heard him laughing that your are bedding my ladies while I'm -"
It cracks, exhausted and worn out and slumping into his arms because despite everything. All of it. That was the simple truth of the thing. He was the one she wanted. Despite all the warnings that there was politics between them, not affection, that romance was nothing they should expect. Duty was her warmth alone.
"I love you, even when they told me it was a stupid thing for us, why isn't that enough? Why aren't I enough?"
Sweeney struggles to follow along through her passion. It's increasingly difficult at the revelation that his brother is apparently involved. It shouldn't be a surprise, but it is, nonetheless. Now he just has to focus on smothering the flames as fast as he can, lest hers only stoke his hotter.
"You are!"
He fights to force her gaze to meet his, his eyes bright emerald.
"Gilia--I swear it!"
Sweeney wills her to look, to see the truth in his soul.
She looks up at him at last - her eyes red rimmed with the tears, the inevitable exhaustion of her hurt and fury - along with everything else. Her curls a tangled mess as they fall, her hands gripping tightly more in desperation than wanting to hurt him now.
"Then why would your brother say such a thing? Where anyone could hear it! It - I am humiliated-, everyone has heard it."
It is not the first time in her life, a great many things in her life she'd swallowed.
She takes a second - not to dismiss, but to try and wrangle the churning in her chest, writhing and twisting. Trying to shut out the hurt and walk every day they'd been married back.
At last, she looks back up and shakes her head. "You... you always... tell me the truth." The wet hiccup of a sniffle follows as she tries to clear her head. "But why... why would..."
Sweeney obviously doesn't have the answer, but he does have a few ideas. Most of them center around a generally obvious factor. He cautiously eases his grip, enough to place his hand over the swell of her belly, while keeping her close. His eyes remain fixed and unblinking.
"I suspect there're members of both our houses that see this as a threat they hadn't planned for."
That is to say, they were obviously meant to procreate; that's the point of most arranged marriages; but the practicalities have spread outside of the intended design.
"We were forced together," he explains softly.
"But we weren't meant ta be together." Sweeney hopes he's explaining it well enough.
"If you only bore my children--if you were tucked away, only fer that duty--we'd fulfill our obligations, an' it would be easy to gossip ta that fact." He wets his lip.
"My brother--he doesn't want me at home. With you. He doesn't want me wantin' ta come home ta you." His eyes search hers.
"If I'm out an' fillin' my bed with a string of pretty faces that don't mean anythin'--or worse, keepin' a proper mistress here--it's easy ta prove that there's one more reason he's meant ta be king."
As if he doesn't have his own stable of ladies worthy of that gossip. Sweeney lifts his hand to cup her cheek.
"But, instead, I love you an' you, me. What does that say, when we stand together, instead of you bein' nothin' but an oven?" His thumb slides over her cheekbone.
"We are one, where both our People meet. It leaves us stronger, 'specially if we're earnin' the love of those People by the purity of our union, an' the fruit it bears."
And that doesn't serve either of their brothers' designs of control.
She searches between his gaze, flicking between his eyes. Trying to catch up, wetting her lips as she tried to catch her breathe. His brother would do that? She had stayed out of their clear ... strained relationship. Not that she could speak on her own strained family relations.
"... He would do that...? Just because we are happy together? Love one another...?"
She doesn't want to believe it. How could she? Naive as she was, she knew that others were not always kind... but to make them be hurtful at each other?
"I don't think the lovin' is the problem," he notes gently, letting a flicker of a smile sneak past before moving back to the topic.
"I won't swear ta who's doin' what or why." Sweeney's can't lie, after all.
"But where's the harm ta either of our brother's standin' if I'm labelled a philanderer, an' yer left ta be shamed by it?" It's a hard truth, but the truth, nonetheless.
"Neither of them lose anythin', whether or not folk believe it."
It's actually a pretty clever tactic, which might be a mark against the theory that it's his brother behind it.
Yeah...that's kind of what he was thinking, at least, in some regard. Sweeney dares to loosen his embrace; not abandoning her, but bending to kiss her tenderly. When he breaks from her, he keeps his face close.
"My love, I'm not gonna leave ya ta suffer it alone. We'll figure this out." Sweeney wets his lip.
"We'll track down this maid an' follow the rumor back ta the root." And punish whoever needs to be. A breath later, another idea springs up.
"I'll stay here 'til the babe is born. I'll send a general in my place." Back out into the field he'd just come from. He keeps his gaze intense, even as he walks through the plan as he makes it.
"I'll share our bed e'ery night. Keep a pair'a guards posted at the door." His eyes roll briefly beneath their lids, long enough to make his point. "Always some reason ta do that." One that doesn't involve 'serving as witness that he's not stepping out on her'.
"I'll see you attend meetin's, if that's what ya want." Even if it's not exactly orthodox. "I don't want anyone ta doubt I value you fer more than heirs." Sweeney pauses to tuck an errant curl back where it belongs.
"Yer my queen." His inflection implies that she's that because he chooses her, not because he owns her. "I don't need someone else, whether or not yer belly is full."
She looks alarmed, then taken, and - a different sort of tears cover her face. She loves him. She utterly loves him. More than she thinks she has loved anyone. Never felt so seen. Or wanted. Or valued.
"You would do that - just for..."
But he keeps going, clear that he would make sure. No matter his own discomfit. She follows the first kiss with another gladly given.
Then resolves, her hand lifting to wipe her face as best she can.
"You do not... not have to do all that. I want you here because I do not want to do this without you-" she hoped, she prayed, and like all women she wished for the best. But they both knew what the risks were.
"... If your men need you, that must come first, I will never resent that." Trust given as she turned to nuzzle into his cheek. "Forgive me, for being so angry. I never want to be cross with you."
His gaze doesn't stray, but he gives her the time to wipe at her tears. Then he dares to loosen the rest of his grip so he can bring his other hand up and cup her face between them.
"My wife needs me," he corrects with warmth.
"There are other who can handle the field. Only I can handle her."
There's a sense of resolve that he isn't willing to let her find comfort elsewhere any more than she is with the idea of him doing it. Sweeney isn't going to entrust her heart (or her sex) to someone else, just because he's busy with other matters.
"I'm gonna be here, with you." He shakes his head slightly, but his eyes remain fixed.
"'nless the army's on the cusp of fallin', I'm needed here far more."
The thrumming in her heart slowly settles, little by little, with each of his words taking the edge off the hurt and the fear that gripped it for the last day. That he took it as seriously as she felt it was - so new. Undid all the pain of the days before.
"I missed you." She admits. "I've been so afraid, that you would not - make it back."
But most of all, in the time he was gone, one important thing had started to happen.
She took the hand that held her cheek and guide it down - down to the growing bump was now so clearly showing. Settling his palm over the swell to cup the child that took up more space by the day. "He missed you."
And there, right on cue, was that first kick, the straining twitch that was faint.
Sweeney had been ready to offer soothing assurance that he is here now, safe if somewhat worse for wear, but the way she moves his hand causes the words to die before they fully take shape. His focus follows it down, and a small crinkle cuts into his brow as he tries to understand.
Then he feels it.
His eyes flicker wide, bouncing from her belly to her face and back a few times. Looking for some other sign, now that he has the context, the next kick is far more noticeable, even as small as it is. Sweeney's smile blossoms, riding on a soft sound, like a laugh that surprised itself quiet before it gets rolling.
A second later, he drops to his knee, the pain in his side only pinching for a moment. Sweeney barely notices the weight of all his layers; the whole of the world is her and her belly and the treasure inside. His other hand moves to cradle it.
"Hello, little one," he murmurs with affection. Sweeney kisses the swell delicately, though it's out of reverence and not concern. This is his. Theirs. How could a man not be struck dumb in that realization?
She cups his head as he kneels in front of her, and the tears that sting now are different. A happy, loving well that bubbles up as quickly as the rage had. Washing it away with that warm reverence for the babe growing more and more, day by day.
"He is well. Stronger by every day." She cards back red strands of hair from his brow. "He started moving a week ago, and has not stopped since. I am not getting much sleep. I told him you would be home soon, and not to be impatient, but..."
"...he takes after his mother," Sweeney teases, finishing the thought. With one more kiss, he comes to a decision and stands. Brushing her hair over her shoulder, he lets his eyes wander down the length of her.
"I wanna see you."
The thought isn't out before his fingers are plucking at her clothes. One hand plays for show along the gown's neckline while the other slips to a more functional role, tugging at the lacing beneath her arm.
It doesn't matter that he's still dressed for riding in the rain; the same that still clings to the fur of his heavy cloak; his focus is on getting her naked in short order.
The protest would probably be more believable if she in anyway stopped him, and in fact, did not go to help him. Hooking her fingers to her other side, and begin to loosen the ties that held her dress snugly to her.
Turning her face up, she takes a hungry kiss as readily, tear-salt on her lips still bleeds between them, washed away between each one. "You should rest." And another kiss follows it, as the dress loosens to start falling over her shoulders, catching only when her arms wind around him, wanting another and another.
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thesunandthesea2025-06-09 03:32 am
no subject
But as she began to grow, so came with it the disease, the frustration. It became harder to stand most things as she got rounder. With how often she needed to sleep, or eat, or found herself irritated by the smallest things. She missed her family, even though they had all sent gifts, all the things she would do to keep her mind off it strained as well. Even the intimacy that came so easily with him became difficult. Too often she was too tired for more than a few touches before she fell asleep on him, despite all her best attempts.
Perhaps it was inevitable, when the servant came with her rumour that struck straight to where she felt weakest. So utterly undesirable, exhausted, her ankles hurt, her chest heavy - and it seemed that her husband lost interest in her too. Or so said the rumour. With the up coming birth, she had taken on new maids in preparation - and it was perfectly natural that her husband would want to sate his desire with one of them, whispered the servant, who heard it no less from her brother-in-law in his chambers.
It shattered something cold in her gut, furious and ugly, it reared like a great wave that choked her throat, her sense, burning in her gut, like bile in the back of her throat. Her head pounded as she fought for the composer she knew she must keep. Her fingers tightened on her chair, rapidly trying to go through every moment she'd seen, in that new light.
Until she could not, lurching to her feet and her ladies-in-waiting lept up in surprise. But the suspicion surged in her heart. "Out!" Came the snap, and when they did not move quickly enough, she smacked the nearest cup clean off the table with a clang as it banged off the floor. "Out! All of you!"
And the minute the door was shut, she made a horrible, wracked sob, smothered into her hand. It couldn't be true. It couldn't. He wouldn't do this to her. He wouldn't. Not with her own maids.
Though the voice whispered, low and familiar like it always did: did she really thing she could keep him content? That she could be enough? He was the brilliant, fierce Prince of Eiru, like a lion bedecked in golden flame - and he had wed a mouse. A timid, unsightly, miserable little creature. What else did she expect? She had left him to his own, not dug into his business - he'd said his brother had matters for him, urgent and long. But maybe... it maybe...
It hurt - even if it made no sense, they had been arranged for politics, not love, it was common for their rank to take lovers once duty was done. But yet it hurt and hurt to think of. Ripped and gnawed in her heart as she snatched for the next nearest thing - the drink pitcher - and knocked it over, and when it was not enough, the chair went with it.
Angry and furious, she shattered whatever she could get her hands on, until the exhaustion once again won out and stumbling, she found the bed to sit on, yelling as squarely at the next servant that tentatively poked her head in. She wanted to see no one, was her order. Especially not her husband.
Of course, the minute he did return, it is him they seek. Hurriedly explaining that she was well, no harm had come to her - but he had best see to her immediately. They didn't dare, not if they wanted to leave the room unscathed.
no subject
Sweeney's stride moves to full extension, so fast that his attendants have to jog as they try to keep up. He is at her door before he realizes they are still following him. When he grabs the latch, Sweeney spins back with a snarl, ordering them to fuck off. Whatever it is, it's between him and Gilia. If they need a doctor, he'll call for one.
He doesn't wait for them to leave before he yanks the door open, taking a quick peek to assess if he's still in harm's way. But it seems the maelstrom has past, at least for the moment, and he shoves the door closed behind him without looking. Sweeney's already continuing to her side.
"Luv, what is it?" he asks hastily, trying to get a look at her, clearly concerned for both her and the baby.
"What's wrong?"
It's very obvious he's freshly returned. Sweeney's cloak is still fastened over his travel wear, and he's ripe with sweat and dirt from the journey. His hair and the fur over his shoulders is damp from the rain that's been drizzling for the last half hour of the journey. None of that matters. She's distraught, and that's the only issue in his world, at the moment.
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"Get out! Get out I do not want to look at you!" The angry tears, never having left. Her other hand balled up tightly at her side.
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"No," he states plainly. It's the familiar tone of tender firmness. She's not going to change his mind, but he's not looking to spat about anything. Though apparently, she is.
"If ya don't wanna look at me, ya best close yer eyes, 'cause I ain't leavin' 'til we talk this out." It can be sooner or later; that's really up to how she wants to get do it.
During the course of her pregnancy, there have obviously been shifts that have occurred aside from her shape. Though this is his first child, he understands the basics. The basics being 'she's going to be highly emotional about random things, and have a lot of unusual cravings'. Sweeney's guessing this one's the former. If it's not, he's ready to commit some grievous violence to whomever has her in such a state.
"What's happened?"
no subject
It might be the right thing to do, but the wound is old, the hurt raw, and she finds herself so quickly without grounding to the onslaught of how it feels.
"You ought to tell me! Did you think I would not find out?!" She rises forward, closing the distance between them. "Or did you simply not care!"
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"What the fuck?" he swears under his breath. Sweeney continues forward, ready to wrap his arms around her in hopes of locking her in place before she gets to swinging. His goal is to get her to calm without putting their child at risk. And his face, preferably.
"Of course I care!" At this point, he's just trying to catch up, as he scrambles for her.
"What? What would ya have me tell you?"
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"My Ladies! My own Lady! You could not keep your hands to yourself for a few months?!"
Now the tears come again, hot angry down her cheeks. "How could you! How could you?! I had to find out from my maid! Am I not enough for you?!"
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He has a few more (important) pieces, but that doesn't mean he has the actual context of where the slander is coming from.
"Of course you are!" Sweeney squirms to keep her against him.
"I wouldn't--I haven't!"
But apparently someone was pouring poison in her ear.
"Gilia--I haven't laid with anyone--" He winces, trying to keep himself tight even when there's fire in his side due to a couple of cracked ribs.
"Who told you such lies?"
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It cracks, exhausted and worn out and slumping into his arms because despite everything. All of it. That was the simple truth of the thing. He was the one she wanted. Despite all the warnings that there was politics between them, not affection, that romance was nothing they should expect. Duty was her warmth alone.
"I love you, even when they told me it was a stupid thing for us, why isn't that enough? Why aren't I enough?"
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"You are!"
He fights to force her gaze to meet his, his eyes bright emerald.
"Gilia--I swear it!"
Sweeney wills her to look, to see the truth in his soul.
"I swear--there's no one else!"
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"Then why would your brother say such a thing? Where anyone could hear it! It - I am humiliated-, everyone has heard it."
It is not the first time in her life, a great many things in her life she'd swallowed.
"You are all I have, and my pride with it."
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"Gilia. I love you. Have you ever known me ta lie?" His brow lifts.
"'specially ta you."
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At last, she looks back up and shakes her head. "You... you always... tell me the truth." The wet hiccup of a sniffle follows as she tries to clear her head. "But why... why would..."
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"I suspect there're members of both our houses that see this as a threat they hadn't planned for."
That is to say, they were obviously meant to procreate; that's the point of most arranged marriages; but the practicalities have spread outside of the intended design.
"We were forced together," he explains softly.
"But we weren't meant ta be together." Sweeney hopes he's explaining it well enough.
"If you only bore my children--if you were tucked away, only fer that duty--we'd fulfill our obligations, an' it would be easy to gossip ta that fact." He wets his lip.
"My brother--he doesn't want me at home. With you. He doesn't want me wantin' ta come home ta you." His eyes search hers.
"If I'm out an' fillin' my bed with a string of pretty faces that don't mean anythin'--or worse, keepin' a proper mistress here--it's easy ta prove that there's one more reason he's meant ta be king."
As if he doesn't have his own stable of ladies worthy of that gossip. Sweeney lifts his hand to cup her cheek.
"But, instead, I love you an' you, me. What does that say, when we stand together, instead of you bein' nothin' but an oven?" His thumb slides over her cheekbone.
"We are one, where both our People meet. It leaves us stronger, 'specially if we're earnin' the love of those People by the purity of our union, an' the fruit it bears."
And that doesn't serve either of their brothers' designs of control.
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"... He would do that...? Just because we are happy together? Love one another...?"
She doesn't want to believe it. How could she? Naive as she was, she knew that others were not always kind... but to make them be hurtful at each other?
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"I don't think the lovin' is the problem," he notes gently, letting a flicker of a smile sneak past before moving back to the topic.
"I won't swear ta who's doin' what or why." Sweeney's can't lie, after all.
"But where's the harm ta either of our brother's standin' if I'm labelled a philanderer, an' yer left ta be shamed by it?" It's a hard truth, but the truth, nonetheless.
"Neither of them lose anythin', whether or not folk believe it."
It's actually a pretty clever tactic, which might be a mark against the theory that it's his brother behind it.
no subject
"... in my home... in my home it is... it is well known that I am... I am not so well thought of as my... my sisters."
It's a wound, and a well known one. That she might be found wanting. That he could easily choose to look somewhere else once duty was done.
"That this sort of gossip... it wound hurt me most of all."
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"My love, I'm not gonna leave ya ta suffer it alone. We'll figure this out." Sweeney wets his lip.
"We'll track down this maid an' follow the rumor back ta the root." And punish whoever needs to be. A breath later, another idea springs up.
"I'll stay here 'til the babe is born. I'll send a general in my place." Back out into the field he'd just come from. He keeps his gaze intense, even as he walks through the plan as he makes it.
"I'll share our bed e'ery night. Keep a pair'a guards posted at the door." His eyes roll briefly beneath their lids, long enough to make his point. "Always some reason ta do that." One that doesn't involve 'serving as witness that he's not stepping out on her'.
"I'll see you attend meetin's, if that's what ya want." Even if it's not exactly orthodox. "I don't want anyone ta doubt I value you fer more than heirs." Sweeney pauses to tuck an errant curl back where it belongs.
"Yer my queen." His inflection implies that she's that because he chooses her, not because he owns her. "I don't need someone else, whether or not yer belly is full."
no subject
"You would do that - just for..."
But he keeps going, clear that he would make sure. No matter his own discomfit. She follows the first kiss with another gladly given.
Then resolves, her hand lifting to wipe her face as best she can.
"You do not... not have to do all that. I want you here because I do not want to do this without you-" she hoped, she prayed, and like all women she wished for the best. But they both knew what the risks were.
"... If your men need you, that must come first, I will never resent that." Trust given as she turned to nuzzle into his cheek. "Forgive me, for being so angry. I never want to be cross with you."
no subject
"My wife needs me," he corrects with warmth.
"There are other who can handle the field. Only I can handle her."
There's a sense of resolve that he isn't willing to let her find comfort elsewhere any more than she is with the idea of him doing it. Sweeney isn't going to entrust her heart (or her sex) to someone else, just because he's busy with other matters.
"I'm gonna be here, with you." He shakes his head slightly, but his eyes remain fixed.
"'nless the army's on the cusp of fallin', I'm needed here far more."
no subject
"I missed you." She admits. "I've been so afraid, that you would not - make it back."
But most of all, in the time he was gone, one important thing had started to happen.
She took the hand that held her cheek and guide it down - down to the growing bump was now so clearly showing. Settling his palm over the swell to cup the child that took up more space by the day. "He missed you."
And there, right on cue, was that first kick, the straining twitch that was faint.
But could not be mistaken.
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Then he feels it.
His eyes flicker wide, bouncing from her belly to her face and back a few times. Looking for some other sign, now that he has the context, the next kick is far more noticeable, even as small as it is. Sweeney's smile blossoms, riding on a soft sound, like a laugh that surprised itself quiet before it gets rolling.
A second later, he drops to his knee, the pain in his side only pinching for a moment. Sweeney barely notices the weight of all his layers; the whole of the world is her and her belly and the treasure inside. His other hand moves to cradle it.
"Hello, little one," he murmurs with affection. Sweeney kisses the swell delicately, though it's out of reverence and not concern. This is his. Theirs. How could a man not be struck dumb in that realization?
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"He is well. Stronger by every day." She cards back red strands of hair from his brow. "He started moving a week ago, and has not stopped since. I am not getting much sleep. I told him you would be home soon, and not to be impatient, but..."
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"...he takes after his mother," Sweeney teases, finishing the thought. With one more kiss, he comes to a decision and stands. Brushing her hair over her shoulder, he lets his eyes wander down the length of her.
"I wanna see you."
The thought isn't out before his fingers are plucking at her clothes. One hand plays for show along the gown's neckline while the other slips to a more functional role, tugging at the lacing beneath her arm.
It doesn't matter that he's still dressed for riding in the rain; the same that still clings to the fur of his heavy cloak; his focus is on getting her naked in short order.
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The protest would probably be more believable if she in anyway stopped him, and in fact, did not go to help him. Hooking her fingers to her other side, and begin to loosen the ties that held her dress snugly to her.
Turning her face up, she takes a hungry kiss as readily, tear-salt on her lips still bleeds between them, washed away between each one. "You should rest." And another kiss follows it, as the dress loosens to start falling over her shoulders, catching only when her arms wind around him, wanting another and another.
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