WHO: Danielle and Donovan Rookwood
WHAT: She has some very startling news for him!
WHERE: Donovan's offices
WHEN: TOOOODAY!
This was a panic that Danielle had never before experienced. She was quite sure that she’d left her patient with a branch still sticking out of his ear, and that there was a good amount of blood on her robes, but she couldn’t dare to look or notice. The lift of the ministry was going
too slow, and all she wanted to do was curse the many stops it was making, curse the people that were looking at her strangely, and
curse the intern who had brought back her test results while she was in the middle of a procedure!
Who did such a thing? Her wand had dropped from her hand and it felt like she’d lost her ability to see or hear. Her
test results were supposed to be delivered after her shift, and her shift wasn’t over for another two hours, because a sensible healer like Danielle did not want to have the enormous news about whether or not she was pregnant simply
thrust upon her in the middle of her workday.
But it had been, and she was. Pregnant, that is.
Every time she thought about it her vision went fuzzy again, and her heart pounded in a furious beat. The only person, the only
thing that had ever been able to get Danielle out of one of her panics was Donovan, so it didn’t seem at all strange that she’d found herself talking to her receptionist, asking where her husband might be.
“He’s----with a client?” the woman said, her eyes wide as quaffles behind her glasses. Danielle’s face grew red, and she rung her hands together, “Are--are you okay? You look...”
“Couldyoupleasegethimforme?” Danielle let out in an uncharacteristic squeak, her eyes darting from the woman to the door of the conference room. She had every urge to go in there and interrupt, but now that she was so close to revealing everything she seemed frozen to the spot.
Donovan was not a man who liked when his schedule was disturbed – he liked getting his work done so that when he went home, he didn’t have to dwell on all the things he needed to do when he went in the next day. Of course, in his line of work, there was always something that needed to be done, which made him feel as though his work was never truly completed. Today was one of those days where he felt no matter how many steps forward he was taking, he kept being pushed back even further, making him feel as though he had to keep starting at square one. A lot of that had to do with the client he was currently dealing with – a man who was being charged with 4 counts of murder in a muggle community, who not only kept wearing a smug look on his face whenever Donovan asked him a question, but could not grasp the concept of just keeping his mouth shut when he was going over what the persecutor was going to ask him.
He was leaning back in his chair, the fingertips of one of his hands massaging his temple as the other rested flat on the table in front of him. He was getting frustrated, and losing his patience…and then he heard someone knocking at the door. His brow raised, and he shot a look of annoyance at the mousy woman who was standing there.
“I-I’m sorry, Mr.Rookwood, but um, your wife is here…”
Donovan furrowed his brows.
“…she’s
here?”
“Yes, sir…”
“Did she say what she wanted?”
“No sir, she just requested your presence…”
He straightened up in his chair, clearing his throat before turning to the man who was looking at his receptionist like she was some meal he wanted to devour at a later date. He really didn’t need this right now.
“Think about what we’ve gone over until I get back.”
Rising to his feet, Donovan adjusted his tie before stepping to the door, past his receptionist to the main lobby where Danielle was waiting. The look on his face spoke volumes about his current state of mind, but so did hers.
“What’s wrong?”
His eyes wandered down from her face to what she was wearing, noting the spots of blood on her scrubs. Worry was etched across his face as his eyes lifted back to hers, hoping this was actually an emergency, and she wasn’t panicking because she overcooked dinner or something stupid like that. He could never be certain with Danielle, but he also knew that she was smart enough to not interrupt him while he was at work unless it was truly important.
Oh, she could not do this. She could not do this at
all. Danielle decided right then that she would go along with this pregnancy under the guise of gaining a tremendous amount of weight and reveal to Donovan that he had a child when she had to ship him or her off to Hogwarts. It was decided a second later that she sounded like an absolute
lunatic, and her fingers continued to chip off her nail polish. Oh, he looked perturbed. Perturbed and
concerned. Danielle took a second to look down at her self and went pale at the sight of her robes. Her hand immediately fumbled for her wand in her pocket, but she didn’t make too much of an effort; any spell she might cast in this instant would backfire and cause more damage than good.
This was supposed to be a good thing. This
was a good thing. Having children was something she had never been vocal about, but she wanted for Donovan and herself. Danielle liked the idea of creating something so amazing with her husband, she liked thinking that they could pass down stories and help a new person enter the world. What she didn’t like was all the unexpected details and scenarios she would soon be hurled into. For someone who always had control of every aspect of her life, it seemed like pregnancy would be the last thing she wanted to do. But, she did want to do it, and she wanted Donovan to experience it, but how could she relax in this very instant?
“N-nothing,” she stuttered, immediately feeling faint at the sound of her voice. Danielle ducked her gaze and tried to catch her breath, but she felt like the shock of her test results was still strangling her, “I’m---it’s----we....”
She put a hand to her cheek, feeling extremely hot. Her mind flitted over the idea that it was her now surging hormones causing her to behave this way, and with that wave of rationality hitting her, Danielle used it to gain some composure before it washed away. She looked up at Donovan, managing a smile,
“You are going to be a father.”
She could not utter the word ‘pregnant’ out loud yet. She did not regain
that much composure.
Donovan watched his wife curiously, one of his brows lifting a little higher than the other as a way of indicating that he was running on very little patience in that moment, but was so desperately trying to allow her to take as much time as she needed to tell him whatever it was she had come to tell him. Never in all the years he had known her had she ever done anything like this – coming to his place of work (a place he never wanted her anywhere near, considering the type of wizards he was meant to defend in court), interrupting him while he was with a client, looking so panicked and frazzled, struggling to find her words.
The latter wasn’t too uncommon, her being overwhelmed about something or another, but this was…different. He didn’t even know what it was yet, and he could tell that this was something that couldn’t have waited until he got home.
He blinked, stunned when she finally blurted out that one sentence that cause
him to be at a loss for words. He tried to speak, but nothing came out but a vowel noise. He was soon distracted by sound of a several objects being knocked off his receptionists desk, looking over to the mousy woman who kept apologizing for the mess. That woman apologized for things that weren’t even her fault, but apparently she had been distracted by the conversation the Rookwoods were having in front of her, causing her to completely miss what she had been reaching for. Running a hand through his hair, he took a look around, finding an empty room before reaching out for Danielle’s hand, leading her towards it so they could have a bit more privacy.
Closing the door behind him, Donovan turned to look at Danielle, getting back to what they were discussing before all the commotion. He still didn’t know what to say, so he asked the one question that came to his mind.
“…you’re sure?”
Of
course she was sure. Danielle was sure about everything, being the Ravenclaw she was, and if she
wasn’t sure about something like this, she wouldn’t have come all that way. He just needed to hear a confirmation so that the news could really sink in.
Was he questioning her? Danielle stared, unsure of what to say. Would...Donovan actually think she would be lying? No, not lying. He knew her well enough to know that she rarely, if ever, had anything false to say. Was his question one of concern, did he not want her to be right? Donovan had been very behind this idea of having a baby, of ‘seeing what happens’ after they were married, so that...did he want to see the exam? She should have brought it, but she’d rushed away so quickly!
Danielle blinked, feeling as if the nerves and neurons rushing around in her head were coming to a screeching halt and bursting into little explosions between her ears. She let out a strangled sound as she nodded, unable to verbally confirm that she was, indeed, pregnant.
Pregnant. What were they going to
do with a baby? Danielle thought their friends’ children were very cute and adorable, but rarely did she ever take on playing with one, or taking care of one. She had
tried to go pumpkin picking, but the children who could run just ran around and the ones who couldn’t did not want to leave their mothers’ arms. Was she going to have to practice daily on the children in the hospital to make sure that she was prepared for their little one?
Their little one. That sounded better, that made her feel better than saying she was having a baby. Baby meant crying, screaming, kicking, but her
little one said something different. Her little boy or girl. Danielle hadn’t realized that she’d dropped down against one of the conference tables, and she looked up at Donovan with a nervous, but excited smile, “Are you happy?”
He really should have known better than to question her, seeing how if he ever brought even the smallest shred of doubt to something she said, it usually wound up driving her crazy the entire day until she was able to prove she was 100% right. For example, he had foolishly questioned some trivial fact she had pulled out of thin air one afternoon about Mermaid lore, and the next day he woke up to find at least 5 books that were dog eared and highlighted, with all the necessary information to prove her point. Still, this was one of those things that he just felt compelled to have her reiterate, so when she did, even though she didn’t actually say anything, he felt a flip switch inside of him.
He damn near smiled for the first time that day, but the expression faltered momentarily as he helped her down onto the table. He stood in front of her, noting the way she looked like she might faint at any moment, ready to catch her in case she did. He wouldn’t have been surprised, what with the way she let herself get so worked up over nothing. Not that this was
nothing, this was definitely
something, but he didn’t want his pregnant (he still couldn’t believe it) wife collapsing, especially in the middle of some dingy conference room.
It wasn’t until she asked him if he was happy that he was able to actually express that he was. The corners of his lips lifted into a small, but pleasant smile, something that not very many people got to see him wear. His hands lifted, tucking her hair behind her ears before his hands were placed on either side of her face.
“Of course I’m happy, darling…”
His head canted a little to the side, searching her features. He’d be even happier once he was sure she was okay, and that she wasn’t freaking out like he suspected she was.
“Are you?”
“Yes, of course.”
Danielle blinked, then looked quite surprised at how easily and quickly she had answered that question. It hadn’t even
been a question, it was just---this known fact. She was happy about this, she was
very happy about this. Not only because it was what they had wanted, this was far better than performing a spell or brewing a potion correctly. Danielle often found great joy in being right, or doing things first, or----this was a different sense of accomplishment that she’d never experienced before and it was absolutely glorious.
She smiled widely up at Donovan, feeling her face heat up. All she wanted to do was kiss him now, but she was a mess and he had a nasty looking client waiting for him. It would be quite obvious as to what they were doing if they didn’t leave this office for twenty minutes, only to leave all disheveled.
“You need to send your client away,” she said, her hands gripping the front of his cloak, “And make it home as soon as you can.” Danielle’s eyes took on a rare glint of mischief and her chest heaved with a deep breath.
