[Keifer's POV]
The ten minutes it took for Dr. Aris to arrive were the longest 600 seconds of my life. I paced the length of the Blue Suite, my eyes never leaving Jay's pale face. Every shadow, every shallow breath she took, felt like a personal failure of my security protocols.
"Keifer, sit down," Pappa Keizer commanded from the doorway, his voice steady but his eyes wary. "You're vibrating at a frequency that's making the windows rattle."
"I can't sit," I snapped, my hands clenched into fists. "The system is failing, Pappa. She doesn't just faint."
Dr. Aris finally entered, his team carrying portable diagnostic equipment. He gave me a brief, professional nod and went straight to the bed. I stood at the foot of it, a silent, looming sentinel, watching every movement of his stethoscope, every reading on the monitor.
"Blood pressure is low, but stabilizing," Aris muttered, checking the results of a quick-draw blood test on his tablet. He paused, his eyebrows shooting up as he read the data. He looked at the screen, then at Jay, and finally at me.
"Is it a virus?" I demanded, stepping forward. "An exhaustion glitch? Tell me the variable, Aris."
Dr. Aris set the tablet down and actually smiled. "It's not a glitch, Keifer. It's a feature. A very new, very small, and very high-priority feature."
I blinked. "Analysis. Use plain English."
"Jay isn't sick," the doctor said, his voice softening. "She's pregnant. Approximately five weeks. The nausea and fainting are just the body's way of rerouting power to the new project."
[Jay's POV]
The world didn't come back all at once. It leaked back in—first the smell of sandalwood (Keifer's cologne), then the sound of low, masculine voices, and finally, the feeling of a heavy, warm hand clutching mine like a lifeline.
I opened my eyes to see the ceiling of our bedroom. Then, I saw Keifer.
He wasn't moving. He was standing by the bed, looking at me with an expression I had never seen on his face. He looked like he had just seen a ghost—or a miracle. His "CEO" mask hadn't just slipped; it had shattered.
"Hubby?" I croaked, my voice dry.
In a second, he was on his knees by the bed, his face inches from mine. "Jay. Don't move. Don't even think about standing up. The system is... the system is under heavy construction."
"What?" I asked, confused. I looked past him to see Mamma Serina wiping tears from her eyes and Pappa Keizer grinning like he'd just won the lottery.
"Jay, dear," Mamma whispered, leaning over to kiss my forehead. "You're going to be a mother. There's a little Watson in there."
The world stopped. My hand instinctively flew to my stomach, which still felt flat and normal, but suddenly felt like the center of the universe. The Glow—the one that had felt like a fever—suddenly transformed. It wasn't a glitch. It was a 1,000% surge of new life.
"A... a little Watson?" I breathed, looking back at Keifer.
Keifer didn't speak. He couldn't. He took my hand and pressed it against his cheek, his eyes shimmering with a rare, crystalline moisture. He looked terrified, awestruck, and more protective than I ever thought possible.
"A new Constant," he finally whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "The Watsons just gained a new shareholder, Wiefy. And I'm already drafting the security protocols for the nursery."
"Keifer, it's a baby, not a hostile takeover!" I laughed through my own sudden tears.
"It's both," he murmured, leaning down to press a soft, reverent kiss to my stomach. "And it's the only project in this empire that matters now.