"Yep. Now we just have an unprecedented pregnancy in the middle of the Atlantic but without any need to think of cover stories for every human that knows me." Pause. "... Wow, uh. Us. Parents. Of an unprecedented half-vampire baby."

"...I think I want to get to America as soon as possible and maybe enlist your brother's help."

"And definitely enlist my brother's help," she agrees, with a firm nod. "Normal parenthood is terrifying, how are we even supposed to feel about a baby half vampire!!!"

"We will figure it out," he says, confidently.

"Careful there, you'll get vampire whiplash. Being moody is supposed to be my job."

"Not moody! I am going to be very confidently optimistic about things so that I do not get overwhelmed by fretting! Maybe I should accelerate the boat."

She snorts.

"Yes, yes, okay. Go ahead. I'll do some reading and maybe actually try to process my complicated feelings. You'll hear me if I call you, yeah?"

"Absolutely, light of my life."

"Okay. Go channel your definitely not fretting emotions into something productive, my love." And she gives him a kiss goodbye, and heads off to nestle in bed with a book and think.

Mostly her head is full of screaming? It's just running in useless circles of I can't be pregnant and I am so incredibly unprepared for motherhood, let alone motherhood of an unprecedented half vampire baby and Probably the fetus isn't even viable and will actually just kill me despite what my nonsensical visions say, and the smart thing to do is to terminate the pregnancy early to stay alive, and But we made her, and it's not her fault! and the like until all she wants to do is crawl under the covers and hide from the world. She does that, and then (very quietly) cries to herself over the pressure. She is terrified and so incredibly unprepared, and God, she'd planned to not be one of those women that got accidentally pregnant, her plan had been to only conceive a child if she damn well meant to, and yet here she fucking is, and it's not fair. Other mothers get nine months (or so) to finish freaking out, and if she's showing already, she will have significantly less time than that! This is, in fact, too much pressure. No wonder James is just completely failing to introspect about this at all, that's probably the smart thing to do!

Aaaaaaa.

He only takes a couple of minutes to set the boat to autopilot its way before he returns to hug her in bed.

"I have been caught," she sniffles, hugging him back. "Hi, love."

"Hello, light of my life. We're on our way and I'll be able to tell if I need to steer the boat so I can just be with you, here. What do you need?"

"I have no idea. Everything is scary and overwhelming and I just want to hide."

Hug hug hug. "We have a plan, we'll figure it out. Our... daughter... seems to think so, anyway."

"What if I'm not having visions at all, just a psychological break! What if I am having visions, but they're exactly what the child wants me to see because otherwise we'd actually just, just. Not try. And even if everything works out perfectly we will still be parents!!"

"We will. We will be parents."

He sounds... not exactly sad about the prospect actually.

She peers at him.

".... are you excited to be a father, James," she says, a little amused despite herself.

"I," he says, "am a vampire and can only feel one emotion at a time. I am processing.

"Yes."

His wife snorts, and then giggles a little into his shoulder. It's just a trace hysterical, okay, she's fine.

"Well. Okay. Good? I'm extremely worried about whether a hybrid is even possible, will she be able to grow up okay, will she have any medical issues?? I mean I guess vampires were made from humans so there is some obvious overlap in biological systems, but, but. ... I want her to be okay."

"One day at a time, love. Let us take this one day at a time and we'll figure it out together."

"Okay. I'll try. It's just. Scary." Pause. ".... can you go get me some more blood to drink?"

"Yes, of course. I shall return anon."

Off he goes.

"Okay. Thank you, love."

The pregnancy progresses.

Yvette is constantly ravenous, for both food and blood, and eventually professes a preference for protein and mammalian blood, respectively. She gets better about keeping down food, which is nice. Her stomach becomes more visibly pregnant at a speed that's kind of alarming, which is less nice. Within a few days, she starts having something like hot flashes, and more inconveniently cold flashes, which she cannot trivially treat by snuggling her husband. The first time the latter happens, they bundle her in blankets and eventually end up solving it by dumping her in a warm bath until her shivering stops, James anxiously hovering nearby. The second time it happens, they have already rigged up a series of hot water bottles and blankets that are already warmed for just such an occasion. Fortunately, they'd planned for her to potentially be chilly, what with marrying a vampire, so they have this equipment at all on the boat.

It's hard to tell if she's doing well or not. The best answer they have is 'probably.' The pregnancy is clearly not a kind one; she's losing weight everywhere except her stomach, which continues to grow at an alarming rate. But she remains ambulatory, if a bit uncomfortable about it, and doesn't have any sharp declines in health, strength, or cognition. There are no dramatic fainting episodes or delirium or anything. Being pregnant with a half vampire baby is... actually surprisingly boring? Uncomfortable and often concerning, but it's not like interesting problems like the cold flashes crop up particularly often. She mostly ends up hanging out in bed reading, while her husband brings her whatever it is that she needs. The 'visions' (or whatever they are) come less frequently, but with more clarity. They're not usually very helpful with the couple's day to day pregnancy management problems, but they are (for the most part) pretty and reassuring. Apparently their little girl will be a redhead like her mother, Yvette will make it through turning just fine. They get an exact timeframe for arrival, some tips for catching just the right breeze to get to their destination a little bit faster, and the forewarning that Blair will be waiting for them when they arrive. Less reassuringly, the child will apparently start breaking ribs soon, though it seems they still have some time before that actually starts. So. That'll be exciting.

She calms down a little, mostly settling into the idea of motherhood to a half vampire (dhampir?) baby, and is definitely affectionate and protective towards her baby bump and child inside. Motherhood in the future is a distant and terrifying prospect, but the little girl in the visions seems like an absolute sweetie, and Yvette does feel some level of closeness to the little life she's devoting so many resources to making. It's sort of like watching something in her garden sprout, except she's the proverbial pot for the little seedling to grow in, and there's no wandering off to check back in on its progress later. The progress is obvious, at all times. It's weirdly comforting. Eventually, she takes to sarcastically narrating things to her unborn child, which turns out to be a great coping mechanism, and furthermore, hilarious. ("Your father's off to go kill unsuspecting wildlife again, I know, the poor whales won't know what hit them," "Okay, kiddo, bathroom time, this is what happens when you sit directly on my bladder, you have no one to blame but yourself," and "I'd read this book aloud, but actually, it's kind of terrible, and I want your first impression of literature to be more positive than this. Maybe later.")

James has a lot to juggle, as his wife's sole caretaker. Steering the ship, cooking ridiculous amounts of food, hunting down whales and the like for their blood, keeping the series of hot water bottles warm, snuggling his wife when she needs him to, for hot flash reasons and for 'Aaa I'm pregnant with a one of a kind half-vampire baby' reasons, and generally running errands for her, since staying in bed seems like the best move.

Not to mention pushing the ship: whenever Yvette is asleep, James turns the boat's engine off, jumps into the water, and pushes the ship at top speed. It's unpleasant and terribly boring but he's nothing if not diligent, especially when it comes to his wife's survival, and does make them move faster than they otherwise would.

He assumes a can-do proactive stance on the whole thing after he has finished having all the emotions he needs to have about it, one at a time. They're doing what they can, there's no point in moping or freaking out or worrying. One day at a time, as he said, although this is not that many days anyway. Running errands (even entirely frivolous ones) during the day helps alleviate the boredom of pushing the boat at night, and fills him with a strange sense of fulfilment. Making himself useful is good to calm whatever nerves he has leftover, and when Yvette starts taking to talking to the baby he can't help but to the same. Surely if their daughter can send visions and break ribs she must have vampire superhearing and be able to hear them. He takes to singing, sometimes, some songs he collected here and there (the less bawdy ones), his favourite ones and the ones he wants her to be exposed to from the start. Nothing but the best for their daughter.

The days pass, their honeymoon has substantially less sex than he had hoped and substantially more fear for his wife's life than he had ever expected, but they carry on.