Three Heartbeats|a Dolores x Mariano Short Story

Chapter One

Dolores rested her head against Mariano's shoulder, listening carefully to his light breathing and gentle heartbeat as he slept. Mixed in with her own, as she felt her own eyes starting to flutter closed again. Drifting right back into a gentle sleep, Dolores found herself able to get in only a few more minutes before she found herself wake up again. This time to three new sounds. Three brand new heartbeats. Them mixing in with hers, her husband's, her familia's and everyone else in the Encanto's.

She listened hard, and carefully, but she couldn't pinpoint exactly where they were coming from. And she could guess pretty much anywhere.

"Dolores, mi corazón? You okay?" her husband's gentle voice grabbed Dolores's attention and she sat upright in bed, looking at him with a gentle, small smile forming on her face. A loving one flashed across her husband's as he lightly kissed her. They pulled away within seconds.

"I'm fine," she uttered. "Buenos días, mi amor."

"Buenos días," Mariano repeated, giving Dolores another kiss as they slid out of bed to get ready for a new day.

As she and her husband got dressed, Dolores couldn't help but think back to the three new heartbeats she'd picked up on this morning. They were much more apparent now, she could almost immediately tell as she put her hair up into its usual bun style and slid her head wrap down over it. Those three new heartbeats were, besides Mariano, of course, now all that was on her mind—

"Dolores, mi corazón?" Mariano's voice cut through her thoughts and she turned around to face him. "Everything okay?"

"Todo está bien, Mariano," Dolores said softly. He nodded, then gently helped her over to their bed; gently sitting her down on it before taking a seat on it beside her. Dolores looked down at the floor of her soundproof room. Her gaze flicked to Mariano, when her husband rested a hand on her shoulder.

"Are you absolutely sure?" he asked. "Did you pick up on any new sounds?"

"Three new heartbeats, but I can't pinpoint exactly where or who they're coming from..."

The second part of Dolores' reply came out much softer than the first part, but Mariano could still make it out. Dolores fixated her head wrap, and looked up at her beloved.

"And they could be coming from anywhere," Dolores continued, when Mariano said nothing in response, and paused. She focused her attention away from her husband and towards her door, tilting her head a little and drowning out everything except for her heartbeat, Mariano's heartbeat and the three new heartbeats she'd been hearing. "Hang on. Let me just..."

She drowned out her husband's heartbeat and listened harder. Now the three heartbeats she had been hearing were much louder. Compared to her own.

Her. The heartbeats she'd been hearing were coming from her. She was pregnant.

A look of clear surprise was made apparent in Dolores's eyes as she focused back on her husband, all sounds she'd chosen not to listen to in order to figure out where the heartbeats were coming from no longer drowned out.

"Mi amor. Mariano," Dolores uttered out softly, but calmly.

Gently resting her head against her husband's chest, Dolores felt hot tears of happiness start to form and drip down from her face onto the floor. It didn't take Mariano long to figure things out just by the look in his wife's eyes.

"You're pregnant?" he said, tone surprised. "Dolores, mi Corazón. That's amazing! When are you going to tell the familia?"

"Soon," she said as he wiped the tears from her eyes and held her close. "Very soon."