May 5, 1894 — Minister's Residence, London

June, sometime. He had been doing his best not to think about it, and for the most part he'd been successful. There were plenty of other things to command his attention from work, and plenty of social obligations to fulfill when he did tear himself away from work. And, of course, his ongoing campaign to reach the other side of Thomasina's apparently limitless irritation with him. And there weren't many things to remind him; he hadn't heard from Sophia personally since they'd parted ways in December. He'd had to deal with ballet business in January, but since acquiring her shares of the ballet he'd taken a mostly hands-off role as a patron. But there were still moments where the thought bubbled up, while he was looking at a datebook or being told about some state affair scheduled for June, and he would think June, sometime, it's happening in June.

He hoped Sophia didn't do anything stupid and sentimental, like write him and tell him the baby's gender or its name. The less he knew about it, the better. He would have preferred not to have even known it was coming in June, but he'd already done the math — they both knew exactly which night had started this nightmare, in which encounter they'd been too sloppy — and he couldn't un-know it.

So a month, give or take. In some ways it would be over in a month; in other ways it would never be over at all and this would only be the start of the latest chapter.

"I've been thinking," he announced to Thomasina. Dinner had come and gone and the servants had cleared the plates, leaving them at a bare table with half-full glasses of wine. Oz walked his fingers along the rim of the cup. "About the future."

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Thomasina Dempsey

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   Pandora Foxglove

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Thomasina had been informed that she had to plan The Minister's Ball, because apparently it was not the Minister's business to do so. She probably could have handed this off to one of her in-laws, but she did not trust them to not make it poetry-themed, and could not abide more rumors about her own inadequacies at the moment. At least the Greengrass/Farley incident had drawn some of the heat off of her societally for a month; she had been able to talk about them rather than about anything else.

Sina took a sip of her red wine after the plates were cleared and raised her eyebrows at her husband. "I'm not moving again," she announced. (Since the Voss incident, Thomasina had suspected her husband would want her out of London — but it had now been long enough that maybe he thought she would not associate retreating to the country with his penchant for ballerinas?)

  

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This declaration surprised him; moving hadn't been on his mind. They'd picked this house with his position as Minister in mind, and it was well-suited to purpose. As close to the Ministry as one could be while still being in one of the best neighborhoods in London, and with good rooms for hosting, and more space than they could ever reasonably need (and proper house had more space than the two of them could ever reasonably need, while it was still just the two of them). The only complaint he'd been able to make of it at the time they'd purchased it was that it had no suitable space to become a workshop for him, but since taking his position as Minister he hadn't been able to spare a thought for invention, anyway, so it was an immaterial loss.

"Glad you like it so much," he remarked with one eyebrow slightly raised. He didn't think Thomasina was especially fond of the house, and her tone had seemed more like she was trying to be contrary about something, but since he didn't know what she was being contrary about he was happy to deflect.

"I could have someone out to measure the back garden for a mausoleum," he joked dryly. "If you really never want to leave."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

"So you're planning for our deaths?" Thomasina said, flippant. "I intend on being buried at sea." (This was, obviously, a joke — but she did not care much for whatever happened to her body after she died. She also had every intention of outliving her husband; given the amount of time he spent with Lockelyn, he seemed far more likely to find a traveling-based accident than Sina did.)

  

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Oz considered this — the question about whether he was planning for their deaths, not the quip about being buried at sea, which was so ridiculous he discarded it out of hand. "I suppose," he agreed, though he hadn't exactly been thinking about it in those terms. When he thought of the far-distant future he thought of it without him as a living character in the scene, but he'd never been one to spend much consideration on the fact of death itself.

He tipped his wine glass towards him and looked at the dark wine but didn't drink. "I was thinking about whether my siblings would ever pull themselves together enough to procreate."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

"Don Juan could procreate any day now," Sina offered helpfully. "But I imagine you have something more official in mind." The sisters, if any of the remainder married, could not be relied on to have Dempsey children — and Endymion and Don Juan were hopeless.

  

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"Mmmm," he agreed, regarding Don Juan. Would having his own bastard, raised abroad by a ballerina, try to wrest the Dempsey estate into their control after his death be at all preferable to having one of Don Juan's by-blows do the same? He had never considered. He intended to go on not considering. Endymion was supposed to have had legitimate children; Oz wasn't supposed to have had bastards. This was never meant to be a question with an answer that was uncertain.

He had too much respect for his family's legacy to leave its future in jeopardy. The Dempsey family may not have been able to trace their ancestry back to one of the Hogwarts founders or the original Wizengamot; they might not have been the darlings of society or the most powerful business moguls; but he was proud to be one regardless and he had no intention of letting the name or the house or anything come to ruin because he'd failed to hold up his end of the bargain. His mother or father had never particularly impressed upon him his duties as heir to an estate, but that didn't mean he wasn't cognizant of them.

"Well, you know where this is going," he said with a diffident shrug. After a beat, he continued (mirroring her 'helpful' tone), "This is probably the least obtrusive time of our lives for you to spend a year being pregnant. We can't do anything fun anyway while I'm in office."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Sina's expression was full of disbelief; eyebrows raised, mouth pursed. After a beat, she said, ''You can't do anything fun. I'm rather busy.'' The time Sina had been worried they were pregnant, the two of them had been on the same page — they did not want children. Having children would disrupt their lives in ways that they did not want.

Sina felt betrayed, lightly — that he had gone and changed his mind.

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   Ozymandias Dempsey

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"Busy complaining about every aspect of the one ball you're expected to throw?" he asked archly. This was all the response he offered before moving on as though she hadn't voiced any objection. "And this would be the best time of year for it, too, I think. You wouldn't have to retire from society until November or December and you'd be back to it before the start of the next season." The timeline for retirement from society was a little nebulous; there wasn't a specific range that was recommended (or if there was he didn't know it), but he did know that it was considered inappropriate for a visibly pregnant woman to be out attending events. And he'd had plenty of occasion since October to be thinking about pregnancy timelines. Sophia had still been dancing, in skintight clothing, for the first three or four months; she had presumably left England by six months. He also didn't know how long women typically recovered after a pregnancy, but however long it took the average woman he assumed Thomasina would manage it in half the time.

"You'd miss the New Year's tea," he said with a shrug; she hadn't liked hosting it anyway. "You could shuffle it off to Christabel. She's desperate for something to do since she gave off the performative mourning."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Her expression shifted; her eyebrows drew closer together. The last time they thought she was pregnant, they'd turned it into an argument about whose fault it was — not a discussion about how maybe it was too soon, or maybe they were excited, or maybe they could come around to having a baby. Since then, Oz had been more careful of pulling out before he finished on her chest or dress or face — not the behavior of someone who was trying to get her pregnant.

"I don't want a baby," Sina pointed out.

  

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Oz failed to see how this was relevant. She must not have been paying enough attention, or maybe he hadn't explained his rationale well enough.

"Neither do I," he responded with a shrug.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Sina slapped one hand, more confused than irritated but wanting a sharp sound, against the dinner table. "Then we're not having one," she said simply.

  

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Oz sighed in irritation. "I'm not proposing we rearrange our lives around one. The only thing they have to do is exist." He thought he'd been clear enough by mentioning his siblings before he brought it up; he thought she would have known him well enough by now to know that he didn't actually want to be involved in the act of parenting. He could possibly conceive of some distant future where he interacted with a teenage child or a young adult, provided some words that could vaguely be construed as mentorship, but he certainly had no interest at all in spending time with a baby. But no one would really expect him to; even at the best of times fathers were only as involved as they chose to be, and Oz had a wealth of very good excuses to be busy, given that he was running the country. Thomasina would have more expectation, and fewer excuses — but she had hardly let expectations stand in her way in the past.

"Exist and be born with male genitalia," he clarified. "My only concern is succession. Someone will inherit the Dempsey estate after me."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Sina huffed out an annoyed breath at him; she'd rather hoped that her exclamation would be the end of it. "Having a baby does rearrange my life," she said. Her life, not his — she would lose her work, and her ability to faff about as she pleased, and all she would get is maybe a son out of it. And what if they had to keep trying for a boy? She enjoyed the Dempsey estate, but did not have emotional connections to where it went after she was dead; as far as Sina was concerned, succession had nothing to do with her.

"Someone else will manage it," she said. Surely Endymion would marry eventually.

  

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Her unfounded faith in his family might have been endearing had it not been so inconvenient to his purposes at the moment. "They clearly will not," he contended. Endymion was supposed to have already married someone, by Oz's reckoning, and he hadn't so much as shown a significant interest in anyone other than veela. Don Juan, on the other hand, was interested in everyone with a beating heart (and Oz might not have put it past him to be interested in a few humanoids without a beating heart if the opportunity arose). He might have any number of children, but clearly none of them would ever be Dempseys. When it came to sisters Oz had always supposed Christabel would eventually marry, but when she had she had chosen someone useless — even before he'd ended up dead. Which left Porphyria (ha), Shallott (ha), and Lycoris. Lycoris was, perhaps, their only real hope — but she had terrible taste in prospective partners. He ought to know; he'd seen the way she made eyes at Locke.

"It doesn't even have to live with us," he offered; a compromise. "I'm sure my mother would be glad to take it off our hands once it's born."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Thomasina wrinkled her nose. "I don't want any part of it," she said, "Being with child, having the child — any of it." It was not that it was just pregnancy or just raising it; it was that she wanted no part of it at all. Wystan would have children, Ani would have children — Thomasina considered herself closed to business on that front.

  

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