Ever After - Ella Enchanted AU

Ever After - Epilogue

 "Excuse me! Pardon me! Coming through!"

Servants narrowly dodged their king as he bolted past, desperate to get by as quickly as possible. The young man tripped and fell over himself too many times to count as he made a mad dash from his cabinet meeting to the opposite side of the castle where his wife would be waiting for him to arrive. He had quit his advisors the moment a servant girl had come in to tell him the news and he didn't even bother with being cordial about abandoning those who helped to run his country. He had better things to do at that moment than deciding how much to tax the imports on tropical fruit at the harbor.

He cursed his robes and crown as they undertook a scheme to make him trip and fall as he climbed the stairs two at a time up to where he shared a bedroom with his wife. He panted, desperate for air as it scratched his hoarse throat, throwing open the double doors into the king's sitting chambers with a loud thud. The servants bowed and scraped just like the others had as he flew past them, acting as if his disheveled and wide-eyed expression were as common as the sun rising every morning. He handed his stifling robe off to one of them, placing the crown on a nearby table before he crossed the room in a few well-placed strides to enter one of the adjoining rooms.

"Am I late?" He inquired, out of breath but incredibly delighted as his gaze rested on his young wife sitting by the window. Marinette smiled at him and giggled in a soft tone that made Adrien's world go round. She rose from her seat to meet him where he recovered at the doorway, pressing a tender kiss to his cheek. "When I sent Manon to get you, I didn't expect you to come quite so quickly."

"How could I not?" Adrien said holding Marinette close to him as he looked at the crib where he had once lay as a baby. "Today's a very important day."

He relinquished her to go and kneel by the crib with the most loving gaze possible as he watched the baby resting in it with a wondrous look on his face. "Today's the day my son gets his gift."

Adrien held out a tentative finger, watching in awe as his son, His Royal Highness Prince Hugo of Kyrria, wrapped his chubby finger around his father's larger one. He was only three months old, and as far as Adrien was concerned, the most precious thing he would ever have, far more than gold or all the riches in the world. He could be a peasant in the slums and still find Hugo far better than a king's ransom in precious stones.

Marinette gently combed through her husband's hair as she watched them interact, listening to her son's gentle coos as he babbled to his father. Hugo was a beautiful little boy, his hair dark like hers but with his father's mint green eyes that seemed to look on everything with glee. She would never forget the way Adrien had run through the castle shouting in complete ecstasy to anyone who would hear that they were to have a child. It made her wonder if her own father had acted in much of the same way when her mother told him the news.

"Would you like to hold him?" Marinette asked quietly, smiling when Adrien looked at her with a puppy dog expression, like she could command the tide to rise and fall with her command. Adrien had held his son numerous times, he held Hugo before Marinette could after he was born, but still he acted as if every time was his first. Marinette lovingly stroked his hair one more time before she reached past him to cradle Hugo gently in her arms. He was quiet, looking up at his mother with green eyes like the new grass of the fields, as she cradled him close to her chest, waiting for Adrien to stand. He looked apprehensive, looking down at their child as if he could break him with the slightest touch, but she rested Hugo in his arms, making sure that he raised Hugo's head, the largest grin broke out on his face.

He looked gleefully from his son to his wife before pressing a kiss into his wife's forehead, Hugo giving a large yawn in his arms as he got comfortable. "Have I ever told you how much I love you?"