"Well, that was a rather short nap, wasn't it?" Max moved towards her, blocking the bright sun streaming through the window.

Reine blinked, adjusting her eyes to the light. She tried to push herself up, but he placed a hand on her shoulders. "Oh no, you probably aren't ready to be out and about yet. Are you feeling any better?"

Her head was throbbing, her vision was still unclear, and she had no idea where they were. "What happened?" she asked groggily.

Max chuckled. "I've told you four times already, but I guess I could explain again." He sat on the chair next to the bed and took her hand in his. "You fainted and hit your head. Don't worry, the baby's fine," he added, as she drew her hand to her stomach. "Do you know where we are?"

She looked around at the whitewashed walls, sterile furniture, and IV drip connected to her arm. "Hospital?"

"Very good. Now, what's the last thing you remember?"

She squeezed her eyes shut and strained to recall. "Morgan, I think. Yes, we were on the way back to London. No, wait! We stopped and met you. I think that's it," Reine said as she rubbed her temple. "How long have I been out?"

He checked his watch. "About ten minutes."

Reine shook her head. It didn't add up. "How did we get here so fast?"

Max smiled again and stroked her hand. "We've been here for over an hour, darling. You've been slipping in and out of consciousness. Bit of short-term memory loss, too. Let me go tell the doctor you're awake. He's been waiting to properly examine you." He began to stand, but Reine pulled him back.

"Wait. I had the strangest dream."

He sat with a sigh, and Reine studied his face. The cheerful expression had disappeared, replaced by worry.

"It wasn't a dream, was it?" she whispered, pulling her hand away. "We saw him."

Max sighed again. "Can't we discuss this later? The doctor--"

"No! I've waited three months for the truth, and you will tell me everything right now," she demanded.

"Reine--" He reached for her face, but she swatted his hand away.

"Don't touch me! You're the reason he doesn't know me!" she yelled.

Max leaned back in his chair. When he spoke, his voice was calm and quiet. "Yes and no. I made him immortal, but only because he begged me to."

"What? That's a lie!" she exclaimed as she sat up straight. "How would he have even known?"

"Now that's one thing I will take full responsibility for. But it was a stupid slip, I swear I had no intention of telling him," Max said.

She shook her head in confusion. "What? How?"

"After we left the hospital in Williamsburg and I dropped you off at the hotel, Gabe called me. He acted fine when you were around, but the kid was scared, Reine." He looked her in the eyes in emphasis. "I had to go back and talk to him."

"And?"

"And we talked for a while. Mostly about you."

Reine's face flushed. "That must have been awkward."

"Quite." He smirked. "But it made me realize his feelings for you were real. I was just trying to reassure him that he needn't worry about the future when I inadvertently mentioned that he's like us."

Reine leaned forward. "How long have you known?"

"I've always known he had the potential, just as you probably felt it from the moment you met him," Max said as he rubbed his chin. "You just didn't know the signs."

"Signs? What signs?"

"An automatic attraction that was otherwise unexplainable. It's a kind of 'ping' you get when you're around our kind, even those who haven't commenced physical stasis. Call it an immortal radar, if you will. It's the same thing that warned us of Sylvan's presence. Surely you remember how that felt."

Knowing this did clarify some of her previous experiences, as Reine recalled the internal alarm that went off when Sylvana last got close to her. And she did feel an unusual pull to Gabe on that snowy night in the hotel lobby. She'd felt it perhaps even before she had seen him at all. It was as if she sensed there was something special about him before she knew he was there. A similar jolt of electricity ran through her when she had entered Max's mansion for the first time. The dozens of immortals there had also given off a distinct vibe, which at the time she wrote-off to nerves and exhaustion.

Things were finally beginning to click. "We were made for each other," she whispered Max's words from that night at his pool, but he chose to ignore them.

"You shouldn't even be concerned with how I knew, anyway. The point is how he reacted to this news."

Her thoughts snapped back into the present. "Oh, right. Well? How did he take it?"

Max crossed his arms. "He first thought I was lying."

"Naturally." She nodded. "Then what?"

"Then he got the foolish idea to want to turn then and there. He asked me to do it and when I refused, he threatened to slit his own wrists or jump out the window himself."

Reine gasped and covered her mouth with her hand, pulling the IV line taught.

Max scooted his chair closer to the bed. "You know there's no way I would have ever let him go that publicly. It would have been all over the news, for Christ's sake! But I knew he was serious, so we did it my way."

Reine closed her eyes to let the information sink in. Her mind still hadn't completely cleared of its fog, but the gravity of the situation didn't allow her to let Max off easily.

"Fine. Let's say that makes sense. It doesn't by the way, but let's pretend. Why didn't you tell me all this before I left for London? You had the chance." She stared into his eyes.

"Do you remember when I said that I had a plan? Back at the race track."

She nodded.

"I used you coming to England as the perfect excuse to contact Wescott. Not only that, I made a deal with him to look after Gabe until I was ready to tell you the truth."

She wrinkled her brows. "Why would you do that? And what was in it for Wescott?"

"Me coming to him for help - seemingly out of desperation - took Wescott by surprise. So much so that he didn't even suspect that I was just setting him up." He laughed. "Wescott still thinks that because of what he did for me, I now owe him. What he never realized was this is exactly where I wanted to be so I could destroy his rotten Order from within."

Reine's mouth fell open in shock. "You used me!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, and I'm sorry for that." He leaned away again. "I didn't want to keep you in the dark for quite this long. I actually considered reuniting the two of you after I found out you were pregnant, but decided to wait until we'd spoken with Antonio. Then all that mess with Sylvana happened." Max paused, raking his fingers through his hair. "When the Order derailed that train, I started second guessing my entire plan. Wescott was ready to reveal Gabe to you that day at his garden party, but since I skipped out, he backed off his end, as well."

Reine leaned back on her pillow and sighed. "What now?"

"Now, I need you to be furious with me. From the looks of things, it shouldn't be hard for you to pull off." He grinned. "Wescott will eat it up. He'll get his chance to publicly humiliate me for what I've done to you, and I'll get a chance to make further amends with him. The details aren't important. You just focus now on the baby. Which reminds me, I'll go fetch the doctor now." He left without waiting for an objection.

A few minutes later, a short, olive-skinned man in a white lab coat entered. With his head buried in a medical chart, Reine didn't recognize him until he stood next to her and lowered his papers. They'd met at Greer's birthday party.

"Hello again, Miss Baldwin. I hear you're significantly more alert than when I saw you an hour ago," he said with a smile.

"Yes, Doctor Kostopoulos. I am feeling better, I think." She shrugged. "Honestly, I don't remember talking to you at all today."

"That's quite natural for your diagnosis. In the medical field, we call this a wicked concussion." He chucked. "And please, I would still insist that you call me Giorgio."

He placed the medical records on the nearby table and sat down in the chair next to her.

"Is my baby okay?" Although Max told her she was fine, Reine couldn't hold back the most important question she had for him.

"There's no need to worry. Your pregnancy hasn't been compromised. I would, however, like to examine you properly. Will that be all right?"

Relieved, she nodded. "Yes, of course."

He reached for nearby cart holding a monitor and computer, pulling it next to the bed. "I don't suppose you've received any prenatal care?"

Reine avoided the doctor's gaze and shook her head.

"If you were mortal, I would of course give you a lengthy lecture about how careless that would have been. However, as an immortal, I completely understand your need to remain inconspicuous. Lift your shirt, please."

Reine pulled her blouse to below her breasts, and the doctor squirted a clear, cold gel onto her belly.

"I'm going to do a bit of measuring and such first, if you don't mind." He turned the monitor toward himself. Keeping one hand on the keyboard, he gently pressed the t-shaped head of the ultrasound transducer against Reine's taut bump. Slowly scooting the tool over the smooth skin, he paused periodically to tap information into the computer. Remaining mostly quiet, he occasionally vocalized a faint "hmm" while tilting his head slightly to look at the picture in front of him.

Reine tried to remain patient, but after the doctor's multiple, failed attempts to get a good view near her left hip, she finally spoke up. "Is everything okay?"

Snapped out of his state of total concentration, he set the transducer down and blinked repeatedly before answering. "Oh, yes. Quite. It's taken me longer than expected, but you'll soon see why. Can I just ask when you believe you became pregnant? We usually ask for the date of last menstruation, but that's hardly relevant with immortals, now is it?"

Reine didn't have to think hard about the answer. It was the day before Gabe died, and the date was ingrained into her memory.

"March twelfth."

The doctor pulled a small, circular chart out of his coat pocket and turned a dial clockwise. Stopping at the desired location, he nodded. After putting the chart away, he swung the monitor toward the examination table and leaned back in his chair. Using the computer's mouse, he drew the pointer around the static, white image on the black background.

"So, here we are. Based on my measurements, this fetus is between sixteen and eighteen weeks old. The assumed date of conception would place it closer to nineteen, so in terms of size, it's on the smaller side. However, developmentally everything appears quite normal. The heartbeat is strong, and all major organs are functioning well. The placenta is correctly placed, and while the amniotic fluid appears a bit low, I'm not worried about it at this stage."

Although she caught the doctor's main points - namely that her baby was healthy - Reine was too distracted by the image on the monitor to listen to the details. She was overwhelmed by the rush of emotions at seeing her child for the first time. The perfectly formed little arms and legs curled up around the pudgy little body, and even its tiny nose and ear were visible.

She wiped an errant tear from the corner of her eye. "If everything's fine, then why did the examination take longer?"

The doctor leaned forward and smiled. With a few keystrokes, he pulled up another image.

"What you were looking at before was just a close-up of this picture. See the difference?"

Reine gasped. Next to the grainy ultrasound image of the baby she'd just been examining was another one almost exactly like it. She stared at the screen with wide-eyed amazement. "Twins?"

"That is correct. And baby B is actually somewhat larger than its sibling. Closer to the expected nineteen week size, for sure."

"Is that normal for them to be different sizes?"

"Absolutely. Even with identical twins who share an amniotic sac or a placenta, we find that one baby may usurp more of the nutrients. We call this discordance. Your babies, however, are fraternal with individual support structures. Their genetic makeup is also different, so you'll see variation in their development accordingly. Nothing to worry about." He pulled out a few tissues from a box and wiped the gel from her stomach.

"So you've seen cases like this before?" she asked.

"Of course. We see more and more multiples--"

"No, I mean with someone who's lived longer than usual becoming pregnant," she clarified.

"My apologies. Yes, how silly of me." The doctor threw the tissues into a nearby bin. "It's probably no surprise that immortality and reproduction are mostly mutually exclusive. It makes sense of course. There isn't a need to guarantee your progeny when you yourself could be around for millennia. Now, I did say that it's mostly mutually exclusive, which means there are rare instances pregnancy is possible. Until now, I've encountered three types of scenarios."

Reine pulled down her shirt and listened intently.

"The first, I believe, is one you're already familiar with. Max Baldovini's daughter was born under such circumstances. Her mother was mortal when she conceived, but turned while she was still pregnant. The human body, it seems, can no longer maintain the pregnancy at that point. The fate of the fetus depends on how far along the mother is when this happens. It'll only survive if it can be sustainable outside of the womb. However, if the baby does make it, then it's guaranteed to turn immortal at a very specific time later in life."

Reine slowly nodded. The story was very much like the one she'd heard from Max regarding Amara's history.

"The second scenario for our kind having children is when the woman loses her immortality, physiologically becoming just like any other human being at that point in their life. If she's still at a child-bearing age, then she can become pregnant through the usual means."

This was all informative, but neither applied to Reine. "And the third type?" She anxiously urged the doctor to continue.

"The third is what must have happened to you. That scenario, however, is a bit more complicated and unfortunately, a lot less clear-cut." He frowned. "We've seen more of these here in England than anywhere else just because of the Order's habits. You see, this type of immortal pregnancy can only occur thanks to the antidotal properties of juniper."

"Juniper," Reine repeated quietly.

"Correct. As you know, when ingested by an immortal, its chemical components begin to immediately reverse our cells' inclination to continually regenerate. Additionally, if we die during this time, we will lose our ability to ever be immortal again."

She stared off into the distance. "Yes. I recently found this out."

"While we haven't been able to clinically replicate any of the anecdotal evidence, fertility only seems to be restored for a brief time period. That is, there don't seem to be any pregnancies that have occurred either while a woman was still immortal yet ingesting juniper extract, or more than a few weeks after she's lost her immortality. Thereby, conception must take place quite soon after this has happened. During this time, however, she still has most of her regenerative properties, but only thanks to her child. Once it's born, she becomes fully mortal."

She remained silent, taking in the information.

"This all sounds familiar, doesn't it? Drinking gin, dying with it in your system, briefly losing your ability to heal, but becoming pregnant within the next few weeks?"

Reine nodded.

"There you have it, then. That's the answer. I must warn you, however, that all of these cases have had a difficult time carrying to term."

Reine's eyes widened at the revelation. "What does that mean for me?"

"Unfortunately, I haven't encountered any such cases reaching forty weeks in their pregnancy. Most are two to six weeks premature. Because you're already in a higher risk group for multiples . . . I'd say expect to check back in here in less than three months time."

"Wow." Reine sighed just as someone began tapping on the door.

"Knock, knock." Noor stuck her head into the room. "Can I come in? Max called me and said you were here."