Choosing Life

Chapter One

Mal smiled as she leaned on the door frame of the office she shared with her husband. Sure, it was his office a majority of the time but he'd gotten marginally better at splitting the work. There was at least another desk in there where Mal worked and it would often have about 35% of the daily paperwork.

It was hard to believe that three years had gone by since their wedding—there were still days when Mal felt as if they were newly married and yet time had done what it did best.

Her mom had given birth to her baby sister not long after the weddings, a joyful squealing bundle of joy named Pyrenea. Mal had quickly granted the baby the nickname of Rea though and it seemed to stick.

There'd been a part of Mal that had been worried that Hadie might get jealous of their sister, since she wouldn't have to deal with the horrors of the Isle that her older siblings had to. But thankfully, Hadie had taken a shine to Rea and had been a big help with the baby after her birth.

Rea, surprisingly enough, had become good friends with Henry's daughter Clara Rose and also with Clara's little sister Hali Tia. Yes, even Mal was amazed that Henry had managed to have two kids. Though the two girls were treated like the apples of their parents' eyes—and their grandparents as well.

Honestly it's amazing how well Aurora and Phillip had welcomed Clara and Hali into the family, Mal thought. Though with how they adopted Claudine, maybe it's not as surprising as I thought.

"Hey you," Ben smiled as he looked up from his paperwork and saw Mal. "What brings you by?"

"You mean besides the fact that I'm Queen and yet you insist on doing all the paperwork?" Mal teased as she walked into the office, going over to wrap her arms around Ben's shoulders as she pulled herself out of her thoughts.

"Mal, you shouldn't have to worry about this. It's just—."

"It's the job I agreed to when I married you Benny. To help run Auradon and the Isle, and make sure everything's running smoothly," Mal said, her voice gentle as she looked at Ben. "But that's not why I'm here."

"Is something wrong?" Ben asked. "Is it Hadie? Rea? Uma? Harry? Jay? Carlos? Gil? Evie? Lonnie? Dizzy? Akiho? Emir? Celi—?"

"Okay Ben, calm down," Mal chuckled as she cut off her husband's list of everyone they knew. If she let him keep going, he'd have run out of oxygen and then they'd really be in trouble. Well maybe not since Ben was immortal but Mal didn't really want to test that. "Everyone is fine. Nothing is wrong."

"You're sure?"

"I'm positive."

Ben smiled slightly as he leaned back into Mal's embrace. "But then, if everyone's okay, what are you doing here? Not that I'm not thrilled to see you of course."

Mal chuckled as Estelle poked his heads in and trotted over to them. "Ben, do you remember that talk we had? About starting a family?"

"You mean the talk we had after Dean brought his daughter Dawn in and Estelle had a ball playing with her?" Ben asked.

"The very same."

"Yeah I remember," Ben nodded. He also remembered how they got a head start in preparing to start a family even though they had originally wanted to try that night. Hey, it helped that their schedules were cleared for once and they could have a moment alone.

Mal chuckled. "And...you know how I haven't exactly been feeling my best lately?"

"That would be an understatement Mal. I'm pretty sure you've raised the stock prices for ginger ale and saltines singlehandedly. In fact...they're the only foods you've been able to eat. I mean other than your dad's garlic crispy chicken of course."