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For the first few weeks, it could be said that Chrom truly doesn't realise that his wife is pregnant. The physical realities of her new condition don't occur to him. It is not that he's irresponsible or blinded by his excitement to be a father—he actually has been getting better at concealing his great happiness in front of company likely to quip about it.
As it is, pregnancy may as well be a new concept to him. He remembers vaguely when his mother had been heavy with Lissa, and how distant she had become towards the end. He had assumed at the time that she was becoming ill, if she was not already so. He still has not connected her absence in his life those two months with the reality of his mother's experience. And because his wife is as accessible as ever, the connection in his mind between then and now is nebulous at best.
When the couple turn in at night and she's willing but too fatigued to manage more than a couple of kisses and mischievously roaming hands, he understands. He tells her she ought to relax a little. She remains as fast-pace and vivacious and efficient as ever during the day. When she wakes him with her failed attempts to make it to the chamber pot he shepherds her back to bed after the last of her dry heaves, in the chance of catching a bit more sleep. He alerts a servant, and instead of returning to sleep himself, he sees that the mess is cleaned up. Then he watches his wife, as usual, sleep fitfully until dawn.
After the sixth or seventh time she misses, Chrom has a pail placed strategically at foot of their bed, much closer than the few meters she previously had to travel. Some of the maids share with Chrom their own self-vouched cures for morning sickness. Robin won't hear any of them. She understands that he's worried. But, she says, is it really a sickness if it is just in the morning? Is it so bad? That's a sensible argument that he can't bring himself to refute, so he returns to his breakfast. He can only eat guiltily. She can manage just sips of water between their bits of conversation as they go over the day's affairs. She has a habit of reviewing all petitions before dressing.
And that's just it, he thinks later: her normalcy, her not making a big deal of it. It causes her state to simply slip his attention at first. It is like her transition into court—so seamless, it hadn't occurred to him then to worry about her arrival into circumstances people are vetted an entire childhood for. Robin has never been as gay or fragile or festive or acted quite like other female courtiers her age, but he has never had cause to doubt his trust in her ability to manage. Not in any way.
She remains astoundingly capable.
Then one day she emerges after dressing with a pronouncedly rounded belly, and he becomes aware and awed and afraid. The gown she's wearing is a pale, pale yellow, has fluted sleeves and a bodice shaped to a point that emphasises her waist and stomach— it's gorgeous and self-conscious, not something that she would pick for herself.
After a few moments in silence she frowns at him and sighs."Well, then, go on. Tell me you don't like the style on me. I told Lissa—"
"No, not all," Chrom stumbles, trying quickly to pick up so that he doesn't reveal how lost he's feeling. "You look staggering—stunning."
She gives him a look. Scowls, because she's plainly uncertain about how to receive his compliment; he certainly hadn't seemed convinced while giving it.
"Anyway, come on," she says. "We're late already to your first audience."
"Right, then."
While they turn down the hall, he sees that her back lacing is deliberately loose. It strikes him as a statement of the obvious. Yet it affects him deeply, a feeling that nudges at the recesses of him, like one of her perfectly planned and executed subterfuges, or the sight of her protruding shoulder blades. Her bare wrists.
For the duration of that audience, his attention is only mostly on his subjects. Some part of him cannot get over the presence of this basic human condition. Not when it is so new and so close.
...
After several months she has not stopped. As her belly grows, so does the talk. Ought he not be able to control her, or at the very least command her to slow down? Out of concern for both mother and heir, of course. Try as he may, the sheer kinetic energy of her is too much. And it is more now than it ever has been, growing greater every day. So he does what he can to ease the load that she can take upon herself. Hiring a small army of extra scribes, having council members and magistrates deal with each other to resolve matters, asking his sister to recommend several competent candidates as ladies-in-waiting.
Robin defers to tradition and takes on two of them. More would befit a queen but she doesn't consider herself as such yet and, as she points out, most of the women are older than herself. They are less vital than her, even if more knowledgeable. She figures she will learn from them. After that she can manage on her own and with the help she has accepted.
The sight of the two young girls—one a little shorter than Robin and the other much taller—trailing his wife around the castle does reassure Chrom. Also it strikes him that it may come across as comic, and soon several popular court jests involve two maidens who cannot keep up with a pregnant woman. Their sensibilities are their flaw, not their constitutions.
Robin complains that Sully would make a better companion—if only she would would accept the title. She does mean it with a hint of acerbic wit, though she also would never ask the knight to abandon her much more important duties. Chrom's left feeling guilty for it all; he makes sure that his next attempts are less intrusive. There are several hundred other hints he tries to leave her over the weeks. They all fail, however, or she simply overlooks them.
This keeps up until Chrom, as they say, puts his foot down after nine moons—some two hundred and fifty days. One evening he pulls Robin aside from her desk in her claustrophobic study. Though not pleased at being interrupted, she gladly follows her husband after temporarily delegating several tasks to the clerk she has stashed away in a corner.
Chrom has to smile sympathetically at him.
He leads her to the castle's new, pleasantly decorated nursery. Even the little drawing room, where they are now, is prepared and waiting. In this room, the only thing not apparently expecting is her attitude.
"Ah, these paintings turned out lovely," Robin says as she examines several canvasses displaying natural scenes. The inspiration had been the changing seasons and her predicted delivery date in spring. In particular, she's drawn to a butterfly rendered in uncannily delicate detail. Its wings and the dewy leaf it's forever on the cusp of landing on remind her of blue velvet and green silk.
"Mm. I'm pleased with the painter. He did a wonderful job, I think. I might have him do portraits soon."
She looks at him over her shoulder.
"What is it, though? You wouldn't insist I come just to see these and ask me about that." She nods at the paintings. Chrom comes over to her and embraces her from behind. His hands capture hers and rest them atop her belly, as he leans her weight against him.
"I've been thinking about the baby."
"Yes, my love. What else have you thought of recently?"
There's a pause. She recognises the signs of him steeling himself; he cinches his arms around her. There is tension.
"Not just the baby. You and the baby, together."
"We'll be a unit a little while longer yet."
"That's just it, my love. The baby is coming soon. I want you to just worry about that for these last few weeks. Just that. No state business."
"Chrom, I—"
He puts his head on her neck, lowering his voice to the point of intimacy that leaves her breathless. "Let me do this for you."
In his grasp, she slackens. For the first time in a long time, she's completely supported by him.
Then he pulls his head up, giving her some space to think back, and he rests his head atop hers. "Believe it or not, we can manage without you for a bit. Somehow."
At that she laughs and kisses him. "I doubt it, but I will just have to trust you for now, won't I? Though if matters come to it, I will have to step in despite my love for you."
"Of course. I would never question your sense of responsibility to the people."
Though he's smiling, she gets what she supposes he's trying to hint: there's this new person now. A little subdued and tender—suddenly feminine in a way that rouses him—she looks down and rubs circles on her stomach. "But for now, you'll get all of my attention, and almost all your father's." Then, to him, "Though I will do other things. Even if being pregnant is a full-time bit, it isn't an occupation."
"Certainly not," he says, rocking them back and forth. His sigh is content. "I would have you two at my side as much as possible, so that all may know I've the world's two finest gems."
"With Falchion, that makes three treasures."
"Yes," he says, and then and there they fool around more than they have managed in weeks. Certainly the midwives would've sternly advised them against it, had they been consulted.
...
Though the midwives do have their say two weeks later. Robin has refused confinement up until now. Then she collapses after the noon meal. The midwives are mortified and scandalised to discover that she had planned to "suppress" her contractions until after the monthly dinner with a Plegian good-will ambassador. After she's lain up, they call in reinforcements to make sure that everything about this delivery is monitored from now on.
Word of her collapse naturally has an effect on Chrom. He senses that something has happened before someone is sent to tell him, and he is compelled to leave an audience early to have a moment to sort himself out. Though that doesn't really help. The rest of the day he has to contend with a wave of potential freakouts and a constant stream of sympathetic men commiserating their own stories of waiting through their wives' labour. The stories harrow him as they filter through his current mental state. He misses more than a couple punchlines.
Finally, with an eternity of diplomatic purgatory survived, he goes to where she is. Or he tries to, only to be primly turned away after knocking several times on locked doors.
His presence, he's told, is not needed. It is not wanted.
He says nothing. Can't think. The screams of his wife reach him and tear at him, render him impotent. The only thing he can process is his need to do something.
And still the one hundred sixty centimetre midwife before him is insurmountable. Unstoppable. Her authority is absolute in this territory he does not know.
His departure would be appreciated, so that she might return to assisting his wife in her labour.
Chrom's fairly certain that there are at least six other midwives and women in that frenetic chaos beyond him, but he simply nods. Walks away as he's told, dazed, lingers down the hallway once he hears the doors shut and re-locked. Not certain what to do, torn as he is.
Eventually a particularly strong scream is loud enough to echo in the hall and cause him to leave. He finds Frederick. They spar. For hours he's at it, until a part of his anxiety has run its course.
In the morning, he has a daughter cradled in his arms.