Marcello shook his head a little; he was getting distracted. His eyes were staring at her various assets, and he realised he must have been for quite a few moments. He forced himself underwater for a moment and then resurfaced, as if he had been cleaning his hair.

Natalia found him adorable when he stared. It made her feel wanted, and she wanted to feel wanted. "It's fair that you weren't waiting for me. How could you have known you'd even find the love of your life? And even with my good breeding and limited access to men, it was hard to wait eighteen years... let alone over one hundred..." she laughed. "But I'm glad I did. I can't imagine anything could've compared to you." She looked into his eyes for a moment, dreamily love-struck.

When she gave him that signature enamored stare, it made him feel so loved. She cared about him for more than power, wealth, or his ability to turn her. When she said that no one else compared, it made him smile wider. She could have had her dream human husband and served him like a proper lady until they both died. Yet she still preferred the life she had with him. There was no greater compliment.

"I assume you've done everything there is to do, and things I would've never even thought of!" She giggled. "If you're so potent and virile, did you never worry you'd end up with a vampire baby? Or did you not sleep with humans? Or, did you just assume it would kill her?" They were all very viable options.

"I, err, never slept with a human. My parents made it very clear that if I did, they would have her killed for risk of pregnancy. Our line is the purest and hence we create the strongest of offspring. We can't just have them running unchecked and unknown, revealing our power." It was partially true. Everyone he had slept with had either been turned or killed shortly after. He only made the mistake of sleeping with a human once, and the punishment of watching her brutally die was enough to put him off doing it again.

"And what actually happens if a girl is born?" She knew he'd given her some sort of hand waving explanation. "While it's true she might be loved, she's useless from a line continuation perspective. She can't carry life. She can't hold a title. She could never be married off for an alliance. All the political possibilities are... not possible, and if her mother is turned, she can't give another child. Has anyone actually survived two pregnancies?"

Her next questions were much harder to answer. He stared into her eyes intensely as he tried. "I'll be completely honest with you, Nat. If it is a girl and you turn, then in the future I will have to try again to conceive a son. If you do not turn, then there is only one case a long time ago of someone conceiving a second. Most die trying and get replaced with another wife. Which is why I made that promise to you."

In his heart of hearts, he really wanted them to have a lovely healthy son and for her to be turned so they could live out their days as a happy family. Even if they had a girl, he would still want her to turn. So he asked her. "Have you had enough time to think about what you'd like to do after the child is born?"

She nodded. "If I'm close to death... turn me. If I'm not... wait." She said matter-of-factly. "If I can wait and experience being their mother—really being their mother—let him or her nurse from my breasts, feeling all the human things that go along with being a mother... I want to." There were tears in her eyes. "Once I've experienced that, then I'll join you. You can change me, but if I can, I just want a little while...to be me as their mom..." The tears rolled down her cheeks, and she tried to wipe them away.

"Sorry... I didn't... mean to get emotional..." only a few hours before she had been terrified of the child inside her. Now, she felt such a strong connection to it. She... loved it. So much had changed in such a short time, but she had always wanted to be a mother. The fact that her child would be different didn't change that.

He was happy that she wanted to be turned, but sad that she was so hopeful of getting to be a mother in the human sense. That she felt if she turned, she would no longer be herself. "You'll always be you," he promised, picking her up and lifting her out of the water, wrapping some towels around her and him, wiping away her tears and then cradling her once again.

"Come on, sweetheart, it is time for bed. It's very late." He walked with her back upstairs, slowly and quietly, taking time to gaze at the starlit sky visible through the hallway of windows. He only walked this way at night, but the outside world seemed beautiful by starlight.

"I will turn you only when I have to, I promise you. You will get time with our child to be you as a human," he promised her.

He did not mind her request. No, it was a reasonable thing to ask. What upset him was she somehow thought she would be different when she turned. That it would alter her personality, the core of who she was. It scared him to think that she believed vampires were inherently different, and the act of becoming one would wholly change her.

He returned to their bedroom and sat her on the edge of the bed so she could towel off any remnants of water as he did so himself. "I will sleep with you tonight, not sleep as in sleep," he waved a hand dismissively "You know what I mean." He pulled back the covers and slid inside. Natalia quickly followed suit.

She snuggled up to him: her head on his chest. It was strange not to hear the sound of a heartbeat within it, but that was something she would never hear. It was just how it was. "I love you, Marcello," she whispered as she closed her eyes. Perhaps tomorrow they would finally go on that walk or perhaps not.

The next morning she awoke feeling nauseous, and she sprinted toward the toilet and vomited violently. It was only after the wrenching had stopped that she noticed her stomach touching her knees as she kneeled. It had once again progressed while she slept. Though with clothing on, no one would've been able to tell. Still, she looked closer to two or three months pregnant than two or three days. She stood up and rinsed her mouth, letting her hand slide over the abdomen that had been flat the day before. A sharp pang hit her once more.

She winced, then grumbled, making her way toward the bottle in the room. She poured it into a glass and drank it down, gagging again. "You are so demanding." She complained, looking down at her stomach, realizing that she was still totally nude from the night before.

Marcello laid in bed relaxing as he watched his wife suffer through a rough start. "To be fair to him, he's probably been awake all night waiting for you to drink." He meant it to be a joke, poking fun, but the disapproving look she gave him made him feel guilty.

He looked her body over, eyes focusing on her larger stomach. It was growing fast! He had felt her body move and shift during the night, but did not want to look at the changes as they happened.

"Dare I say, you are looking beautiful today," he motioned for her to look in the mirror. His eyes had spotted some further changes, but she would know better than he would what actually had changed overnight.

He didn't move from the bed as he watched her make her way over to the large mirror in their bedroom. Her movement seemed to carry some extra grace. She had perfect posture before, but now it was almost as if she could float. He laid back again, closing his eyes and drifting, in no rush to get up and face the morning sunlight. "Do you think you look different?" He asked without even opening an eyelid.

She looked herself over. She did look different! Her hips were slightly wider, her bottom rounder. There was, of course, the stomach, and her breasts felt heavier. Her cheeks had a rosy hue to them, and her skin even looked clearer and creamier than it ever had before. The whole beauty thing clearly was real. She'd considered herself pretty, but she had definitely become more beautiful overnight. As she leaned forward, continuing her inspection, her eyes even looked greener, and her lashes had grown.

"This is so strange..." she said, studying herself carefully. "I mean—I know what you said I just—" She knocked back the rest of the glass of blood, only wincing slightly that time. Slowly, she was getting used to it. She still hated it, but it was becoming an acquired taste.

She crawled back into bed with him, kissing him gently before laying her body against his side, her breasts wrapping around his arm, the slight roundness of her stomach against his hand. She kissed his neck, up to his ear, and nibbled gently at the lobe before laying her head down to look at him. "What do you think looks different?" She asked, wondering how observant he was. He couldn't really miss her breasts or stomach, but she was curious.

He rolled to look her over, his eyes dancing across her body, trying to identify differences. He kept one hand resting on her abdomen, feeling the tiny bump and stroking it. She really had become more alluring, more so than he thought could occur in the space of a single night.

"Breasts, butt, hips, cheeks," as he said cheeks, he lifted the other hand up to caress one. Giving her a small kiss. "Lips? Skin. Hair, I think, but that could be the bath. Oh, and stomach." He had good eyes, but even he wasn't sure about everything, some of them had been guesses. "And those eyes," he added, at last, looking deeply into them.

"Do you like your new appearance? Not that you look drastically different. You're still my Natalia," he did not want her to think that everything was changing.

"Yes. I didn't think I would change so much so quickly, and you're right, I suppose it's not immense changes. They're small but lovely." He listed off more than she'd noticed, but it was possible that there had been changes there too.

He repositioned in the bed, pulling her back against his front, wrapping his arms around her waist to settle on the small curve in her stomach. Typically, when they cuddled, it would be face to face, but Marcello secretly wanted to test how well their bodies still curved together. She fit in snugly: her bottom firm and hips even more suitable for childbearing. His thumb gently brushed over her abdomen, thinking of when the baby could finally hear them, feel their touch through her skin. He settled now for just breathing in her scent and tracing patterns over where it rested inside her. "How do you feel now? Got all the nasty stuff out of your system? Is he happy now after the blood?"

It was funny. As they laid there together, things almost felt normal. They weren't, but it felt so natural to lie with him and have his hand gently stroking her. "I feel alright. I'm going to assume that was just normal morning sickness... not that there's much normal here." She smiled. "Except this. This is nice. And yes, he's happier now."

"What do you mean, not much normal here? This was exactly the same way I was born!" He joked. It was not exactly the same. He had not been as fast a grower or as painful. He had been what they called a resting baby, biding his time and energy for when he was born. It was a fancier way of saying lazy.

Laughing him off, her mind wandered back to saying "he" for the baby. She wondered if her predilection for saying "he" was intuition or wishful thinking. She couldn't help but wonder so many things as he ran his hand over her abdomen. "If it's a she, and I keep calling her he... I have a feeling when she's bigger, she will be very offended." Natalia laughed, letting her own fingers run over the bump. It was so strange. It was still so small, but the rate at which the child was growing was astonishing.

He chuckled a little as she made her point about the baby potentially being female. "Boy or girl, the way its growing, it's going to be a feisty little one. If she is offended, then I will dutifully apologise as a gentleman. She would only find out if you tell on me though." If it was a girl, it would be unfortunate, not just for him, but for the child. She could not be married off, would spend her early years in secret, and would have no chance to have children. It would be a cold, empty life. Maybe that was why Abrielle turned into what she was.

She closed her eyes, just enjoying their closeness. "So, do you have the ability to sleep? Or.do you just sort of lay there with your eyes closed as the hours tick by maddeningly? When I'm not able to sleep, just lying in bed often is very frustrating to me."

"I have slept before. It's only when we reach adulthood that we don't need to anymore. We never sleep as long as humans, but no, I don't have the ability to sleep anymore." She gave him the most bewildering look, as if asking how he could cope. "You have to remember, we don't tire. Laying in bed is just another part of one long, never tiring day." He kissed the top of her head.

"Vampires are able to do something akin to meditation. We just sort of just don't move, left only with our thoughts. We drift but don't actually lose consciousness. That's essentially how I remember sleeping to be, is it not?" It was so long ago. That was all he could really remember of it. When he watched her sleep, she was just limp, sometimes wiggling or moving for what he assumed must be comfort reasons. There was an odd beauty to it, though.

"No!" she laughed. "Sleeping is glorious. I completely have no cognizance of the world around me. I just... drift off and disappear, and then I wake up feeling wonderfully rested. Sometimes I dream. I guess if you can't sleep, you can't dream, and that's too bad." Though not having nightmares might be nice. But not dreaming, that would be sad. "I mean, not getting tired seems nice, but..." she sighed. "Never getting to rest... check out and just disappear... seems sad..."