Chapter Text
Elsa regained consciousness only to immediately bump the back of her head against something hard. Her ears were ringing, Her head was throbbing, and her entire body felt like she’d been kicked in the chest by a horse. Everything around her seemed to shake, as if she was inside some sort of vehicle.
She forced her eyes open to see a pair of green eyes looking back at her. Jack looked terrified, which could not be a good sign.
“I think she’s awake,” he said, twisting away from her to face someone. “You said she left the stone back at Pedro’s flat?”
Who was he talking to?
“Yeah, it’s in her pack.” That was Layla’s voice, wasn’t it? “We should be there in a couple of minutes, I already told him we’re coming.”
“Assuming cullen doesn’t catch up to us.” Jack said.
“He wont; I shook him off five blocks ago.”
“What’s happening?” Elsa groaned. “Where are we?”
Jack twisted back around to face her. “Heey,” he cooed, “hold still, we’re on our way to see your friend, the one who helped you find me.”
Elsa realised she was on the backseat of a car, with her back against one of the doors and Jack straddling her lap, as he pressed a cloth against her shoulder.
“Oh right,” she thought bitterly. “You got shot.”
Then she suddenly remembered.
“Is it silver?” she demanded.
“What?”
“The bullet, is it made out of silver?”
Jack seemed confused.
“No, it’s not,” he said. “Don’t worry, we’ll get the bloodstone and you’ll be fine.”
`“No, I-” her voice cracked; she could not believe she was about to say this. “I left the stone back home, I haven’t worn it in weeks.”
“What?” Jack and Layla screamed in unison.
“Elsa, why would you do that?”
Fuck. This was not how she had wanted to tell him about this.
“Because–” she took a deep breath. “Because I’m pregnant.”
Jack froze. His entire body went still, as his lips quivered and his eyes glared over with tears. For a second the biggest grin split his face, then his excitement faltered as fear and apprehension darkened his gaze; his mind probably going over the countless reasons why this was insane. “Elsa,” Her name got caught in his throat as tears began rolling down his cheeks.
“I’m sorry.”
“What? No, don't say that.” He brought a trembling hand up her face. “Don’t you dare apologise, you have nothing to be sorry for.”
Tears rolled down Elsa’s cheeks. She wished this didn’t have to be this way, she wished that she could just throw her arms around him and hold him tight. That they could just cry and laugh and comfort each other.
But the blood loss was getting worse, and Cullen was still chasing after them, and-
“It’s okay,” Jack sniffed, stroking her cheek and wiping her tears away with his thumb. “Everything is going to be okay, don’t worry.”
They both knew he was lying, neither of them had any idea of what to do. But she wanted to let herself believe him, at least for a moment.
“There's a hospital a few blocks from here.” Layla called from behind the wheel. “It’s probably our best bet right now, assuming this is a regular bullet wound.”
“It is; no silver or wolfsbane.” Jack swore under his breath, “the fucker walked into that tunnel already planning on shooting you.”
“And what are we going to do when they inevitably ask how I got shot in the first place?”
“We can worry about that once we make sure you stay alive.”
The police officers finally left the room after taking Elsa’s statement. Unsurprisingly, showing up to an ER with a gunshot wound and covered in bruises was more than enough to raise a few eyebrows.
Fortunately, they'd had the forethought to get their story straight beforehand. After some deliberation, Elsa Jack and Layla had decided to go for the ‘naive tourist gets mugged while carelessly walking in an unsavoury part of town’ story, which Jack had insisted the police would be more inclined to believe.
Elsa wasn’t entirely convinced that the officers had actually believed her, but if they suspected something, they didn’t seem to care enough to dig any further.
Jack came back into the room as soon as the officers were gone, surely having been eavesdropping so he could come back the moment they left them alone. Laya had told her that Jack hadn’t left her side since she came back from surgery.
Waking up to his warm smile had definitely been a welcomed change of pace after having spent days fearing she might not see him again.
“Hey, how are you feeling?” He balanced two paper cups in one of his hands and a paper bag in the other. “I brought tea, if you’re feeling up to it. The doctors said it was fine.”
“And the bag?”
“That’s for Layla, unfortunately. They said you can’t eat any solid foods yet.”
“Who would’ve thought getting shot would be such an inconvenience,” she chuckled.
Jack placed the bounty on a small shelf next to the bed and sat on a stool by her side.
“I can’t believe I’m still alive,” she groaned.
Looking down at herself, she hesitantly ghosted the pads of her fingers over the coarse sheets covering her abdomen.
“I can’t believe I’m still pregnant.”
“It’s kind of impressive, really,” Jack let out a slight chuckle, then bit his lip and knit his brow as if in thought.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. It’s just,” He held her hand and laced his fingers with hers. “We were really careful.”
“We were.” A cheeky smirk tugged at her lips, “then again, there was that one time before the blood moon?”
Jack’s eyes widened and his face became the colour of a ripe tomato; he looked positively mortified.
“Oh god, I'm so sorry. We never should’ve-”
“Don’t apologise as if we weren’t two consenting adults fully aware of the potential consecuences of our actions.”
“No, I know but-” He cut himself off, suddenly frowning as the gears began turning in his head.
“Wait, hold on,” he said slowly, “the last blood moon was over two months ago.”
Elsa bit her lips, looking down to avoid his gaze.
“Almost three,” she said quietly, “Although I only found out about a month ago.”
She had been dreading this conversation for weeks. The truth was that she really had wanted to tell him. There had been a part of her that had wanted to tell him the very moment she found out; the part of her that was - maybe a bit surprisingly - genuinely happy about it.
But there was another part of her that kept insisting she would never be a good parent, that she didn’t deserve to be. She was a hunter after all; a killer and a monster. Surely any child of hers would be doomed to endure the same neglect and abuse she had.
Elsa knew that that line of thinking wasn’t entirely rational, she knew that if she were a parent she would want to be a good one; to give her child the chance at happiness that no one had given her.
And there were aspects of parenthiood that she actually thought she would enjoy; children were always so curious and eager to learn. They were free from prejudice and malice... they were hopeful.
But that didn’t stop the shame and self loathing from plaguing every single one of Elsa’s waking thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I really wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how. I could barely wrap my own head around it, and I was afraid...” I was afraid you’d be mad and leave.
Jack brought her hands up to hold them against his cheek and looked into her eyes.
“I hope I don’t need to say this, but just in case; whatever you choose to do, however you want to move forward with this, I will support you.”
He let out a deep breath.
“I love you Elsa. You are my family, and you will always be my family. Whether or not you decide to keep this pregnancy will not change that.”
She shouldn’t have been surprised to hear him say those words. Elsa knew Jack was probably the best man she knew and he would never pressure her into doing anything she didn’t want. But hearing it out loud filled her with an unexpected sense of safety that she hadn’t felt in weeks.
“What if...” She couldn’t believe she was about to say this. “What if I wanted to keep it?”
“Then we will do this together. You and me, always. We’re a team, no matter what.”
“You don’t think it would be irresponsible?”
“I mean, we might not want to get shot as often.” He let out a small chickle. “Althought, maybe we shouldn’t be doing that regardless.”
“No, I mean what if I’m a bad parent. What if I’m neglectful or abusive? What if I hurt them?”
Jack bit his lip and knit his brow, as if looking for the right words.
“Elsa, did your parents ever worry about neglecting or abusing you? Did your father ever ask himself if he was a good parent?”
Elsa almost wanted to laugh; the ide of her Ulyssess Bloodstone even remotely questioning his own actions was ludicrous.
“Look, the choice is yours, but I do need to make one thing clear; you are not abusive or neglectful or cruel. You are a fundamentally good person, and regardless of what you decide, I do need you to understand that.”
“Do you really think that?”
“I think that you just got shot trying to save my life. I think that you had every opportunity to kill Cullen, but you didn’t becasue you felt responsible for him.”
He looked down at her hands and gave them a gentle squeeze.
“You are a wonderful woman,” he said. “You are loving and caring, and absolutely nothing like your family.”
Elsa swallowed the lump in her throat and took a deep brath.
“I think–” she sniffed, “I think I want to keep it.”
“You don’t have to make a decision right away.”
“No, I know.” She sniffed. “But I want to.”
He leant forward and cupped her cheek in his hand, whipping her tears with his thumb.
“Any child would be lucky to have you as a mother Elsa, and nothing would make me happier than raising that child with you.”
She leant into his touch and looked up into his eyes, a smile tugging at her lips.
“We’re having a baby,” she heaved through the tears, still trying to wrap her mind around it.
“We are,” he whispered, leaning his forehead against hers. “Elsa, we’re having a baby.”
Despite the pain in her shoulder, she pulled him into a hug and kissed him.
“I love,” she whispered into his mouth.
“I love you too. More than anything in the world, I love you.”
