WHO: Bess and Drystan Fawcett
WHAT: Big news before the big game!
WHEN: TODAY before Scotland and Italy!
WHERE: World Cup Stadium!
Pregnant, she was pregnant,
pregnant, she was
pregnant!
Bess hurriedly moved through the back hallways of the world cup stadium, tugging on the sleeves of her jersey with twitchy, nervous fingers. How had this happened? She'd been so careful about everything, two children was a
lot for a newlywed couple and of course she wanted to have more children with Drystan but she wanted them to be
planned and to have
discussed it with her husband and---She hated being nervous. She hated this feeling of not knowing what to
feel. Should she be happy? Should she be worried about what Drystan would say? Oh, God, he'd been the most amazing man she'd ever met, he was the perfect husband, the perfect father, but what if---
What if! All these situations kept posing themselves in front of her mind and she couldn't take it. Bess absentmindedly waved her backstage pass toward some security guards and barely acknowledged their greeting as she rushed toward the locker rooms. The thought of being pregnant had not crossed her mind until Phoebe had made
her announcement yesterday, and before they had gone off to the stadium this morning (because last night had been too busy with parties and putting babies to bed---) Bess had swiped up a pregnancy exam (because every sexually active woman should have one spare hidden
somewhere) and in the women's loo of the world cup stadium, Bess found out she was indeed with child.
She'd come straight from the loo to find Drystan, a distraught expression on her face, because he is who she went to when she was in a crisis. Bess couldn't even
think of holding back this piece of news from her husband while she took time to digest the news because she wouldn't be able to. She would not be able to go home and deal with this, or sit through the match knowing that their lives were about to change drastically. It was one thing to have toddlers, they could
function, but a newborn was---it would change everything. As she neared the crowd of reporters which were surrounding the team, Bess felt her nerves get the best of her.
No, no, she would have to wait. As she saw him giving a response to one reporter's questions, Bess stopped in her place. She couldn't throw this at him right before a bloody
world cup match! What was she thinking? Even though she did believe that Drystan was the most level-headed person on the planet and would be able to focus a million times better than she would---Bess would force herself to be strong and handle this by herself. She would go and cheer on her husband and
then, after the match, she would tell him that they were expecting.
Bess bit her tongue as she turned, hoping she'd be strong enough to get through the match and that Drystan hadn't caught sight of her.
As it happened, Drystan did not get nervous before Quidditch matches. He was very calm, very sure of his skills on the pitch, confident that if he'd practiced enough, was confident enough, that would see him through. Nerves were nothing but self-doubt and apprehension, usually due to the belief that there was slacking in preparation for the event.
But oh, bloody hell, was he nervous today. His face was as calm as ever, but his heart beat such a fierce and irregular tattoo, he was certain everyone else in the vicinity could hear it. There was something very unsettling about playing for a team that represented one's home country. It wasn't for just for himself or his team that he was playing, it was for the country! National pride was at stake, and as fierce a patriot as he ever was, Drystan was not quite certain that would be enough to pull him through the game to a victory.
It almost might have had something to do with the slightest bit of performance anxiety he was facing, having to play with Griffith Kirkham again.
But he put on a brave face for the reporter, finding himself being able to talk with relative ease about what it was like playing in these mish mash of teams with only patriotism binding together, and what the Montrose Magpies were planning for the upcoming season, with the return of some of their players. In the midst of his speech, however, he saw that familiar flash of blonde making its way away from him. He frowned lightly and broke off, asking the reported politely to excuse him.
"Bess?" he called, starting forward. Perhaps it was the already unsteady beating of his heart, but he suddenly felt nervous that she'd come to see him before the match but hadn't stopped to talk to him. Was anything the matter?
She winced at the sound of her name and stopped, trying to compose herself and get rid of any anxious feelings before she faced Drystan. How terrible that sounded! Having to take deep breath to look her husband in the eye, it shouldn't have been something she ever had to do! Bess felt her shoulder clench involuntarily and she cursed her nerves. Trying to put her best face on, she turned to Drystan, grinning before taking his hands in hers (though it was more like snatching, with the way she practically lurched toward him).
"I wanted to say good luck!" she lied. Well, no, she
did, but the match had been the last thing on her mind since she'd left the loo. Her grip tightened on him; now that she had Drystan right here with her, she didn't know if she could let him go without telling him about the baby. Bess could not
handle things like this, she needed
someone and Drystan was her someone! He would always be her someone and now she had to force herself not to frazzle him right before the biggest game of his life!
Oy. When had she stopped being self-centered and selfish? Bess smiled again, hoping she could shake her nerves well enough to make him believe everything was fine, "Plus, you needed to see me in my jersey."
"Well thank you, Ms. Fawcett." He took a step back from her, still holding her hands, and gave her and her jersey a once-over that was equal parts lascivious and approving. "Very nice," he said with a smile. Of course, it was more than that, she was more than that, but it seemed appropriately joking for the atmosphere. He liked that he could tell those things with her.
But as he looked at her face, smiling so brightly at him, he couldn't help but find himself wondering with an even stronger curiosity why she hadn't stopped to talk to him. And it wasn't that she'd never come to see him just before a match previously, but they were rather rare occasions.
"Was that all you came to say?"
"Do you promise not to freak out?" she blurted before she had time to think.
Bess' smile had disappeared and she would have looked very serious were it not for the tint of green that had flushed across her cheeks. He had
asked, hadn't he? She had absolutely given him the chance to accept her little detour as nothing more than a good luck wish, and he had gone and made it more. Bess failed to note that her actions had been more than a bit suspicious, but if she were going to defend herself, she already had the evidence needed to win this case. She had
tried to avoid the subject, it wasn't her fault that her husband was caring enough to notice the frazzled state she was in.
Her hands never left his as she tugged him closer to the wall, hoping to be out of earshot of the reporters who would
love to know what was going through her mind. Bess looked up with an anxious expression, as if waiting for a verdict in court.
That caught him completely off-guard. He could feel his heart skip more than just a beat as he looked into her anxious and terribly serious blue eyes. It might just have been human nature, but the simple fact that she was asking him not to fly off the handle was making him want to fly off the handle before she was even speaking. Drystan tried to promise her, but knew he wouldn't be able to keep it. So, he settled for a half-truth.
"I—will do my very best," Drystan told her uncertainly. And suddenly, his thoughts went to
Chester, and in spite of his engagement and the unspoken promise they'd secured from him that he would remove himself from their lives, he wondered how true that had really been. He could not stop his jaw from tightening as his brows drew closer together, watching her like a hawk.
Oh, God. Why had she said that? Why had she brought anything up? Now she had to
tell him she was pregnant, and Bess knew her husband! He had his serious face on! He had that
face like when she got court papers from Chester or---one of his teammates did something
stupid and landed on the front page of the Prophet. She didn't want that look! She wanted his flirty eyes and seductive smile. Bess felt like the biggest idiot in the world, and even though she was terrified of upsetting Drystan even more, she pulled herself closer to him, refusing to let go of his hands.
"I'm--I just found out that---" Bess was reminded of the fear she'd had when she had to tell Chester that she was pregnant, and that immediately brought back memories of his terrible reaction. Babies never brought anything good for her, and her eyes welled up, ready for a fight to start. "I'm pregnant, I just---I took a test, and---I'm pregnant."
Bess shut her eyes, ducking her head to Drystan's chest hoping that he didn't pull away from her.
As Bess launched herself into him, Drystan stared down at the top of her golden head in a look that was not quite amazement, but more politely puzzled disbelief. Surely he had misheard her—Bess was not pregnant. In fact, there could be no feasible way in which she was pregnant, so he really must have misheard her.
But, even if his mind couldn't quite wrap around what she was saying, the way she was clinging to his chest made Drystan question whether anything he misheard could have driven her to react quite so strongly. He felt a bit of ashamed of himself, in the back of his mind. Was he so stand-offish she was scared to admit such a thing to him?
Though, truth be told, when he considered where he was, what he was about to do, the fact that he had unwittingly become a father and a husband in the space of a very short time (not that he regretted any of it, of course, just that it wasn't realistic to say everything was always paradise), and how he'd always secretly thought his adult life had been robbed of him, given the circumstances, perhaps she was not so wrong to be apprehensive.
"Aye, well then," he said softly, clearing his throat. His hands were still tight around her, and he squeezed her slightly before pulling back, his face mostly the calm masked he'd adopted before, but there was no escaping the dazed look in his eyes. "We'll—discuss this when I get back?"
Even though this was a much, much better reaction than she had received from Chester, Bess still felt a terrible knot in her stomach. But, really. She was standing he here ready to burst into tears, why should she have expected a better reaction from Drystan? Bess was hesitant to let go of her grip on him, but she finally did, only to quickly pat his chest,
"Yeah--I'm sorry, love, I just---I needed you," she admitted, flushing and pushing her hair out of her face. That was what it was, really. She needed her husband keep everything from going insane, "Before I completely---freaked out and---sorry."
She smiled tightly, thoroughly embarrassed and finding it harder and harder with each passing second to keep herself together. With every thought about being pregnant or having another baby in the house terrifying her, Bess wondered how she wasn't going to completely lose her mind for the how ever many hours this match lasted. Thinking about Drystan coming home to her would keep her from losing it, she knew, but it was going to be so bloody hard to make it through. Bess didn't know how she'd let herself become so dependent on the man, but she didn't hate herself for it. "Okay, right--you've got a match to win."
Later, much too later, he mentally blanched, knowing he should have done something differently. But he couldn't have predicted what she was going to say, and it was true that he was absolutely floored right now. All that being said, however, he couldn't let her walk away from him like that.
He took the few steps towards her, grabbing her waist. "Kiss for luck?" he asked.
Bess smiled. She could never resist a kiss from Drystan, no matter the situation. Reaching up to sling her arms around his neck, Bess felt a great sense of relief as she finally kissed him. This wasn't terrible! It wasn't
great, but it was definitely not terrible, and if she could focus on screaming her lungs out for her husband for the next two or three (or four--) hours, they could go from not great to okay, and maybe to even good.
"Kick some Italian ass, will you?" she said, adding a few extra good luck pecks, "I've got seats next to the most
obnoxious women from Sicily and would really like to shut them up."
He pulled her in for one last kiss, smiling crookedly as he stepped back, preparing to exit onto the field with the rest of his team. "I'll do what I'm able."
And wondered how quickly they'd be able to run the Italians into the ground, because he didn't believe the match could hold him for more than fifteen minutes.
