The angel… this was the angel… did that mean…?
“You’re back,” she gushed in excitement. “You have come back to us at last. Have you found, everyone? Did you manage to find my father? Oh God, please tell me Dad is here because I’m so sick and I can’t do it without him anymore. I haven’t been this ill since I was with him and a child…”
“No.” Raegan’s heart sank as the angel shattered her illusion with one soft word. “No, you aren’t sick, Raegan. Haven’t you worked it out yet? This isn’t an illness.”
She clutched her stomach hard and stated at the angel through her eyelashes. If this wasn’t something as simple as illness, then it had to be worse. Perhaps something she had picked up from another world along the way, something which would take her off this world and kill her just as she was starting to adjust to the idea of finally taking over.
“What is it?” she spluttered out, desperately frightened now. “What’s happening to me?”
“It is a miracle, dear Raegan. For you are carrying the greatest gift of all. The gift of life.”
Gift of life? Okay, this made no sense. Perhaps the virus was causing her to hallucinate or something. She needed to see Miguel so he could straighten out her brain.
“I don’t know what you mean…” All of sudden, it hit her hard like a knockout punch to the face. “Oh wow… the gift of life… do you mean I’m pregnant?”
The moment the angel nodded, changing everything for Raegan forever, was the moment her vision pin-holed and her body took a tumble. The universe turned to blackness around her as this overwhelming piece of information damn near consumed Raegan whole.
She was pregnant.
Having a baby.
What did this mean for the future?
Twenty-One
“Raegan?” The sound of her father’s inquisitive voice shook her from her thoughts about the baby growing deep within her. It was probably the only thing that could. “Is that you?”
“Daddy!” She let go of her stomach and raced to him while flinging her arms around him. “Oh wow, I can’t believe you are here. After all these years we’re finally back together.”
The emotions rapidly swallowed Raegan up whole and she burst into floods of tears. The baby and now her dad… how could she not fall apart? As she pulled back from the hug, she found a wetness to her father’s gaze as well.
“Wow, I can’t believe this is you. You are… you’re a woman,” he spluttered out. “I mean, I knew that I was going to have to prepare myself for a decade gone by, but I’m still stunned.” He took Raegan’s face in his hands. “And you have grown into a beautiful woman at that.”
“You look older than I remember as well, Dad.”
“I probably look haggard in my older age.” Alan had a jovial nature to his words. “But that’s to be expected, isn’t it? It hasn’t exactly been a normal decade, to say the least.”
“You can say that again.” Raegan nodded slowly as her own wild adventures span through her mind, with the ones shared with Miguel standing out like they were in technicolor. “What have you been through in the last ten years, Dad? I want to know it all.”
“I’m sure Miguel has filled you in on a lot of it. Sweet boy. I’m glad he survived.”
Raegan couldn’t hide the redness staining her cheeks. She hadn’t expected to get into the depth of her relationship with Miguel quite yet.
“He told me some, yes, but we didn’t always have time to talk about the past.”
“Yes, so I’ve heard.” Raegan winched at the cagey way he said this. “You couldn’t focus on the past because you were working on getting Earth back and creating the True Ruler.”
As his eyes fluttered to her belly, Raegan found herself gobsmacked. How much did her father know about everything? Seemingly even more than she did!
“So, you know about the baby then?” Her eyes darted downwards. She couldn’t stand to see his reaction. This wasn’t the news she ever assumed she’d be greeting him with. “And me ruling, which I think is insane…”
“Oh, it definitely isn’t insane,” her father insisted. “I have heard all about you. I can see it in you as well. You are the absolute perfect person to rule this place, Raegan. That might be hard for me to say since you’re my baby girl and all I want to do is protect you. But you are the right person to be in charge. It has to be you anyway.” Raegan stared at him with confusion. “Because you need to be in place to train up the True Ruler.”
“What is this True Ruler you keep talking about?” Raegan demanded. “I should really know everything since I’m the ‘leader’, but this I have no clue about.”
“The angel didn’t tell you? About your baby…?” Raegan shook her head. “Your baby is the True Ruler, the one who will make the whole universe run smoothly once more. Probably even better than before because humans will have learned now. They won’t make the same mistakes as before. They will work with the other planets as well…”
“This is too much.” Raegan waved her hand to shut her father up. “I can’t wrap my head around it yet. You’re telling me my unborn child will rule everything?”
Her father extended his arms wide and smiled. “You know what they say, it is written. But for now, it’s your turn to rule, and the humans who have returned with me want to meet you. Miguel is greeting them all at the moment, but they need to see your face…”
“Miguel.” It hit Raegan hard. “Oh no, I haven’t told Miguel yet.”
“About the baby? Don’t worry, he will be over the moon. That boy loves you. I haven’t even seen you guys together and I know how much he adores you… thank goodness, or we might have had some trouble.”
Raegan nodded. Much as her and Miguel were young to be parents at only eighteen, everything was going to work out just fine. She knew that and not just because ‘it was written’, but because she had total faith in the love that they shared.
“Will you help me rule, Dad?” she asked as they walked down to greet the lucky humans who had finally made it home after a treacherous decade. “I can’t do it without you. I already have so many worries. I want things to be peaceful always, especially after what happened with Earth last time, but do we need to have a fighting plan of action in place in case someone attacks us? And how are we going to work with other species? I keep trying to plan…”
“Raegan, we will all help you with this,” her father reassured her kindly. “We aren’t going to leave you on your own to do this. You might be the leader, but the human race is going to show everyone else that while we might have had faults in the past, our core spirits are good, and when it comes to a situation such as this one, we can pull through as a team.”
Those words roused an unexpected confidence in Raegan. She had been so fearful about how she would make this all work, but within a few short moments, her father had strolled back into her life like a superhero and made her believe in herself once more.
He was amazing, she had never forgotten that, and now she was determined to never lose him again.
“Okay.” She nodded and smirked. “Let’s do this. The human race, we can make everything better somehow. We just need to be a team and never enemies again.”
Raegan sincerely hoped that wasn’t too much to ask.
Twenty-Two
“So, you have the building team on schedule,” Raegan said to her father through gritted teeth. She had her hands rested on her very swollen belly, wishing the child to remain where he or she was for just a little bit longer. There was still so much to do. “And the council have been communicating effectively with the other planets? I know they had some issues before and were working on it, but has that been straightened out? I need to find out…”