Work Text:
I.
Martin looked over at the princess and smiled a little. She was bent over reading something on a plaque on a wall. Her bangs falling in to her eyes. She was intoxicating. His life had been changed and he loved it. Every single second on it.
She looked up at him, grey eyes shining. “What Martin?”
“Nothing, just watching you.” He replied.
She stood up and went over and wrapped her arms around his waist and smiled up at him. “You’re thinking about something…tell me.”
Martin looked at her a moment. “Just how much I love you.”
She just smiled.
II.
She loved the way he called her princess. He said it like it was a prayer, like he was always amazed that she was there with him. She ran her hand over his shoulder and down across his chest and she smiled. “Martin, my darling…”
“Hmm?” He said quietly looking at the small television on the case in his room.
“You really love me?” She asked. They hadn’t said much about it since he had said it to her.
He turned and looked at her and nodded. “With all my heart, Princess.”
“Then marry me, I have to ask you.”
III.
“She asked you to marry her?” Douglas asked as he sat there looking at, what he had come to realize was his best friend after he was gone. “And you said?”
“Yes…”Martin smiled.
“Brilliant Skip!” Arthur said and popped another chocolate in his mouth.
“You’re going to marry Princess Theresa of Liechtenstein?” Douglas said again still not getting everything to exactly gel together in his head.
“I am. And I want you to be my best man.” Martin said in to his coffee cup.
“Brilliant!” Arthur mumbled, mouth gummed up with candy.
“I don’t know what to say.” Douglas replied.
IV.
Wedding planning was hard when heads of state were involved. It wasn’t just who was going to be sitting here or there, it was who was going to be sitting here, there and who would not start a war if they insulted some ones wife’s necklace. Martin was glad Theresa was doing all of it. But he could tell she was stressing more and more over the details. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the prince of some place he had flown over but never stopped.
“Stop worrying about it now.” Martin said. “Come to bed.”
She did.
V.
“Do you still love me?” She asked him one say as they lay in bed. He was off on a full day of rest and she wasn’t doing anything princess like.
“Yes, that’s never going to change. Why?” He looked at her and pushed a lock of brown hair from her eyes.
“Let’s elope. I can’t do the planning any more. Get Douglas and Carolyn and Arthur and I’ll get Maria-Louise and we’ll go to Paris and get married there and rent one of those boats on the river and never come out and make love for 10 days straight.”
VI.
Carolyn fussed once more with the lapel on his uniform. She met his eyes and he could see the tears. “You look handsome, Martin.”
“Thank you.” He replied. “I am glad you could come. Maybe you and Herc next.”
“Oh no.” She replied. “Never.”
He leaned in quickly and kissed her cheek and wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you for being my mum today. My mum would have been…well my mum. We just wanted to get it over and done with. You’ve always been…the mum I would have chosen, if I could have. So, thank you for that.”
“Welcome.”
VII.
Theresa woke up pressed into his body. She stretched and rubbed her hand down the front of his chest and to the very edge of the sheet that left very little to the imagination. He moaned and his eyes fluttered open. He looked at her and grinned. Leaning in he kissed her quickly and pinned her back down to the bed and settled his weight on top of her. She laughed underneath him and shook her head to avoid his kisses. It was a fool hearty attempt, each one landed on her right where he intended it too. Every one.
VIII.
To say the King was mad was an understatement. To say that Martin and Theresa won him over by Martin promising flying lessons and them bringing him back three dozen little bottles of champagne that he loved and had to sneak, was the understatement of the year. It took them no less then fifteen minutes to get his blessing and another twenty to get the rest of the families.
Especially when Theresa announced the reason she wanted to elope in the first place was because they were having a baby and the stress was becoming too much.
Martin passed out
IX.
“Slow down Arthur, what do you mean Skip’s having a baby?” Carolyn asked.
“I was playing a video game with Max and he said that Martin was having a baby and passed out and it was very funny when he did.” Arthur said. “Mum, can skip have a baby?”
“No Arthur, Skip can’t have a baby. But Theresa can.” Carolyn said looking at Douglas across the small table that was in her dining room.
“Why would she do that without Skip? They just got married!” Arthur said.
“I don’t think she did Arthur.” Douglas replied.
“Oh,” Arthur got it. “Oh.”
X.
Martin went to every appointment. He sat in the chair and looked concerned and in awe when the small alien that was his child would appear on the monitor. He cried. Theresa cried. When he went and showed off the grainy, black and white pictures he cried all over again. Everyone was really quite for a moment and then Arthur finally got out the words out that they were all waiting for. “Brilliant Skip, brilliant.”
He smiled and nodded. “It is. I created that.”
“In your own image.” Douglas said. “Let’s hope it looks just like Theresa.”
Martin just laughed.
XI.
It was too soon, much too soon. She gripped him in the middle of the night and moaned. “Martin.”
There was pain in her voice, and worry. He flipped the light on and saw the blood. He called out and one of the stewards came rushing in. It was a flurry, of people, sisters, a mother. He didn’t dare leave her side. He went with her in the ambulance, the sound of the siren wailing in the distance.
Prince Stanisalas Nikoli Edward Crieff was born tiny but fighting. They whisked him away. He kissed Theresa’s head and said a prayer.
XII.
Theresa looked over at her husband and smiled. He had fallen asleep again in the chair they had set up next to the incubator. Eddie was asleep, the tuft of auburn hair visible from under the tape and baby sunglasses they had strapped to him. Martin’s mop of red, equally disheveled. The baby was barely three weeks old and they were already best friends. Martin filled his hours of not flying at the hospital reading to their baby, touching his little hand or foot, whispering words of love to him. Theresa went over and curled up in his lap, happily.
XIII.
“Look whose Nanny Carolyn loves her poopsie…”She said and kissed his tiny head. He was being christened. He had been home almost a month, and was getting bigger and stronger by the day.
“Really Carolyn that is what you are calling him?” Douglas said.
“Yes, that is what I am calling him. Cause he is nanny’s good little sweet thing.” She said and kissed him again.
Edward crunched his face up and let out a tiny noise.
“Mum, I don’t think he likes it when you do that.” Arthur said and ran his hand over the tiny head.
“Pish posh.”
XIV.
Theresa leaned in the doorway and looked in. Martin was swaying in the middle of the room, holding Eddie close to him and humming some song. He looked up and met her eyes and smiled.
She came in and stood close to him and wrapped her arms around him and kissed the baby. Martin dipped his head and kissed her and looked in to her eyes. “Thank you, Theresa.”
“For?”
“Giving me my fairy tale. This, you and him, this life we live. This is my fairy tale.” He said quietly.
She smiled. “You’re welcome, my cute little Christmas Tree.”