Note to readers: Okay, let's get the obvious stuff out of the way. This story is based on characters from the movies The Princess Diaries and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, which are the property of Meg Cabot and Disney. No infringement is intended.

For those of you who have read my first story here, Quiet Strength, I just want to make it clear that this particular story is not the upcoming sequel to Q.S. that I'm currently working on. This is a completely different, stand-alone story that has nothing to do with that. Now, as far as this story is concerned, if you've read the summary, you already know that yes, I am basically going shamelessly over the top, here. From time to time, I've had moments where I've really hated it that Clarisse and Joseph got married too late in life to have a child together. (And really, c'mon, be honest...how many of us here haven't had those moments from time to time? LOL) Well, I just recently got to thinking about it, and this story just suddenly came to me out of the blue, and it really is perfect for Mother's Day, so this is my official, albeit over-the-top, C/J Mother's Day fanfic. If anyone decides to review it, please be as kind as possible, LOL. Thank you very much for stopping by, and I hope you all enjoy. :)

Chapter 1: Happy Late Mother's Day?

For Clarisse Renaldi, the Dowager Queen of Genovia, the past four months had been a mixture of both bliss and frustration. Four months ago, after officially turning the Genovian throne over to her only grandchild, her twenty-one-year-old granddaughter Mia, she was finally free to marry the one and only man she'd ever truly wanted to be with, her longtime bodyguard and Royal Head of Security, Joseph Romero. Ever since then, she and Joseph had been settling into both married life and retirement quite smoothly and they were happier than they'd ever really been before. But the past four months had also been difficult and frustrating from time to time because while her young granddaughter was as sweet as she could be, she hadn't had very much experience living the life of a royal at all, and unfortunately, it showed.

Despite all the problems that had happened along the way and all the mistakes Mia had made and all the royal blunders that had occurred throughout the process of getting ready to ascend the throne, Mia still got off to a good start as Queen, doing things like converting their family's second palace in Libbet into a children's home for orphans and foster children, helping to get the sexist law overturned that required a crown princess to get married before she could ascend the throne, and helping to make sure that women were finally allowed to serve in Parliament along with men. However, she was still inexperienced, naïve, and sometimes immature in the way she handled her daily life as a royal, which often made her the target of both palace and national gossip, much to Clarisse's dismay. Just two short months after ascending the throne, Mia discovered her then boyfriend, Lord Nicholas Devereaux, in the act with another woman, and rather than keeping her emotions in check and handling herself like a proper young queen, she made a big, emotional scene about it, which resulted in endless gossiping and hounding in the media and in the tabloids. (It also resulted in another "We're held to higher standards of behavior" lecture from Clarisse during a particularly painful argument between the two of them.)

However, even though there had been some difficult moments along the way for Clarisse with her granddaughter, overall, she was still very, very happy, and so in love with Joseph. In her new life with him as his wife, she felt more joyful and carefree than she'd ever felt before, and no longer having the weight of an entire nation on her shoulders certainly didn't hurt, either. Now that Mia was finally Queen and that difficult part of her life was behind her at long last, her heart felt free and as light as a feather.

On that chilly autumn morning in November, Clarisse only found herself wishing that her stomach could also be as light as a feather! For over the past two weeks now, Clarisse woke up every morning to a very upset stomach. Sometimes she won the battle with nausea, but more often than not here lately, the Dowager Queen of Genovia was spending her mornings not on any kind of royal throne, but rather, in front of the porcelain throne! During the first week that she started feeling sick at her stomach, Clarisse reassured her very protective husband that it was just an ordinary case of the stomach flu and nothing to be concerned about. But as his wife's symptoms continued to drag on and on with no improvement whatsoever, Joseph began to worry. For the past week, he had been getting on her case to go see Dr. Mackenzie about it, who was the Renaldi family doctor with his own office in the palace. But as usual when it came to doctor's visits (and most everything else in their lives), Clarisse was stubborn and refused to go.

As Clarisse continued to hold onto either side of the porcelain throne and hopelessly vomit that morning, she suddenly felt Joseph behind her, and while she felt awful because of the nausea and vomiting, it really touched her that he would get down in the bathroom floor with her and sit behind her to comfort her, regardless of his knee replacement. All the vomiting was very unpleasant for Clarisse, obviously, but feeling Joseph gently rubbing her back was comforting to her. A few moments later, the urge to vomit finally subsided for a little bit, so she simply tried to relax as much as she could while she leaned back into Joseph's arms and rested her tired head on his chest. As always, Joseph was ready with a cold washcloth he started dabbing all over her face and forehead.

"Thank you, Joseph," Clarisse told him in a tired whisper.

"Clarisse, this can't go on," he lovingly scolded her.

"I know; I know," she sighed.

"Now I talked to Dr. Mackenzie and he is expecting to see us in a couple of hours." In that instant, Clarisse opened her mouth to try to protest, but Joseph interrupted with a stern, "You're going, Clarisse. We are going together this morning, and that's all there is to it. Understood?"

"Understood," Clarisse responded with a sigh of defeat. She knew her husband was right, of course, but that still didn't mean she had to be happy about it. Like most everyone, Clarisse never enjoyed a doctor's visit, no matter how necessary it might be.

At nine o'clock that morning, Clarisse sat at the end of the examining table, Joseph standing right by her side in Dr. Mackenzie's office with his hand resting protectively on the small of her back.

Dr. Mackenzie was a middle-aged, heavyset, and very friendly man with glasses, thinning brown hair, and a beard, and he did have a nice, easygoing bedside manner. He gave them both a pleasant smile, then asked, "What's the trouble today, Your Majesty?" (Even though Clarisse had abdicated her position as Queen in favor of Mia, it was still customary to address an abdicated King or Queen of Genovia as "Your Majesty.")

"Oh, it's nothing that serious, doctor. Just a bit of nausea I can't seem to get rid of," Clarisse replied, clearly downplaying the situation.

"She's been vomiting almost every single morning for the past two and a half weeks straight," Joseph answered the doctor more honestly. "At first we thought it might be the stomach flu or some other kind of virus, but it just simply does not get better."

"I see. Any other symptoms? Headaches? Fever? Dizziness? Fatigue?"

"No, not really," Clarisse answered, again not being completely honest.

"She has been unusually fatigued lately, doctor," Joseph truthfully told him.

"And, Your Majesty, is there anything, anything else at all going on that's unusual for you? I want you to tell me, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem. Being in my exam room means you're in my courtroom and I am the judge, and you have to tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, just like your husband has been doing," he teased, which got a small laugh out of Clarisse.

"Well…" Clarisse began, but she really wasn't sure if she should say anything. It seemed so silly to mention.

"Well…" Dr. Mackenzie repeated in a more teasing tone of voice, again making Clarisse laugh a little.

"It would seem that…well…despite all this nausea and vomiting I've been having lately, in the afternoon and evening hours, I'm famished. I simply cannot seem to get enough to eat later on in the day. Even though I've been so sick at my stomach in the mornings, I've actually gained a little bit of weight, as a matter of fact, because I've been eating so much in the afternoon and at night. And for some strange reason, it seems that I just cannot get enough bananas. I am constantly craving them."

"I've got it!" he said after he snapped his fingers. "I've just figured out your diagnosis, Your Majesty."

"What is it?" asked Clarisse.

"You're turning into a monkey!" he teased, and Clarisse once again laughed, and then she jokingly rolled her eyes at the doctor. His silly, humorous personality often helped put her at ease over the years.

"Doctor, with all due respect, can we just please get on with this and find out what's wrong with my wife?" Joseph asked pointedly. He didn't want to be rude, but he was beginning to get really worried about Clarisse, and he was not in the mood for jokes.

"I'm sorry, Joseph. Of course. If you'll just lie back, Your Majesty, I'll do a little examination, here. And in just a minute or two, I'll get Nurse Johnson in here to draw a little blood and take it to the lab for some bloodwork, just to be on the safe side."

"Is that really necessary, doctor?" Clarisse questioned. She always hated needles and blood tests.

"Clarisse, don't argue with the doctor. If he says you need it, then you need it."

"Oh, very well," she grudgingly sighed, knowing there was no way she could win.

About an hour later, after the doctor's exam and after Dr. Mackenzie got the results of Clarisse's bloodwork back, she and Joseph sat together in his office across from his desk waiting, with Joseph holding his wife's hand. When Dr. Mackenzie came into his luxurious royal office filled with landscape scenery all over the walls, which was similar to the rest of the palace, he was the perfect professional and his face gave nothing away – something that Joseph knew in his gut was not good. Dr. Mackenzie had always been a real clown at heart who was constantly cheerful and kidding around with his patients, so whenever he actually was not getting ready to joke around and was being professional instead, it was never a good sign.

"Your Majesty, Joseph, I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid I can't tell you anything definite. Not yet. I don't mean to alarm you, but we are seeing something unusual in your bloodwork, Your Majesty, and I need to run more tests, including an ultrasound."

"Whatever you need to do, doctor," Joseph said quickly before Clarisse could protest.

"I just made some calls and I'm having an ultrasound machine brought to the palace today so I can perform the procedure. I know you like to avoid having to go to the hospital for tests if you can possibly avoid it due to the press."

"Yes, that's very true," Clarisse agreed.

"It should be here soon. When it arrives, I'll have Marjorie inform you so you can come back for the ultrasound." Clarisse's good friend, Charlotte Kutaway, had been her right arm as her personal assistant back when she was Queen. After Mia ascended the throne in Clarisse's place (and after the law preventing women from serving in Parliament was changed), Charlotte left her old job at the palace for a new career in Parliament, and when she left, Marjorie Willis, a very sweet, shy, small lady in her fifties with brown hair and blue eyes, took over as personal assistant to Queen Mia. Although Marjorie was a spinster and never had any children of her own, she took a real motherly kind of interest in the young queen, and was an excellent assistant to her. The two got on incredibly well right from the very beginning.

"Thank you, doctor," Joseph said quietly, and then after they all got up from their seats and shook hands with each other, Clarisse and Joseph went back upstairs to their suite.

A couple of minutes later, they were joined by Mia, who'd just gotten out of session with Parliament and had heard the news about her grandmother needing an ultrasound. Naturally, she was concerned about her grandma and had to check things out.

"Something unusual in your bloodwork? That's it? That's all he said? He didn't say anything else?" Mia questioned her grandmother.

"No," Clarisse replied, shaking her head. "That's all he said. He did seem rather interested in my abdomen for some reason. When I told him all about the stomach trouble I've been having, he wanted to examine my abdomen, and he did feel around my lower stomach a good bit, but he didn't say anything, so I assumed that meant everything was normal."

"I don't have any more meetings or appointments until later on this afternoon. If it's alright with you, Grandma, I'd really like to be there with you when you have to go back to the doctor."

Clarisse really would have preferred for it to just be herself and Joseph, but she knew her loving, sensitive granddaughter was only asking to come along because she was so concerned. "Alright, my love," she conceded. "If it'll make you feel better, then you can come along too."

"Thanks, Grandma," Mia responded, and just a moment later, the telephone in Clarisse's suite rang and Joseph answered it.

"Yes?" he said. A couple of seconds later, he hung up the phone and told the ladies, "The machine has arrived. It's time to go back downstairs."

A few minutes later, Clarisse was in a hospital gown, lying on the exam table under hospital sheets, and Dr. Mackenzie was performing the ultrasound as discreetly as humanly possible. A short while later, he said to Clarisse, Joseph, and Mia, "Joseph, Your Majesties, I'm going to come right to the point, here. Now I don't mean to scare any of you, but I'm also going to be honest. In all my years of medicine, I have never seen anything quite like this before, unless someone has been lying to me in the medical records about the Queen's age and she's actually younger than the records say. Queen Clarisse, the hCG hormone, which is the hormone for pregnancy, showed up in your bloodwork."

"What?" Clarisse said with surprise.

"Wow, that's strange," said Mia.

"And that's not all. When I was examining your abdomen, I was certain I felt what appeared to be about an eight- to nine-week-old fetus." Joseph's eyes grew as wide as saucers the moment he heard the doctor say that.

"Oh, you're pulling our leg, doctor!" Clarisse insisted. She knew better than anyone what a prankster he could be at times.

"I do like to kid around with my patients, Your Majesty, but even I have my limits. I never pull jokes or pranks when it comes to my patients' diagnoses. I am being perfectly serious. And in case you guys still don't believe me…" he said, and then in that next moment, he turned the ultrasound machine around and let the trio look at the screen for themselves. They may not have been trained medical professionals, but they all knew what a fetus looked like on an ultrasound screen.

"Impossible," Joseph gasped.

"Oh, wow," Mia whispered.

"There it is, you two lovebirds!" Dr. Mackenzie said cheerfully. "This is a live ultrasound picture of your unborn baby. Mommy, Daddy, congratulations!"

"Daddy?" Joseph whispered.

"Mommy?!" Clarisse gasped in shock.

"Oh, wow," Mia whispered again.

"If I weren't lying down already, I'd faint!" Clarisse cried out.

"You're not the only one," said Joseph, who thankfully, was sitting down in a chair next to the exam table.

"Oh, wow," Mia whispered yet again.

"Impossible," Joseph gasped. "Impossible!"

"Oh, wow."

"I need to lie down," Clarisse groaned.

"You are lying down," Joseph told her.

"Oh, right. Well then in that case, I need to close my eyes for about the next ten minutes…or ten years!" Clarisse said as she laid her head back on the pillow, put her hand on her forehead, and shut her eyes.

"Oh, wow."

"Mia, will you stop saying that?!" Joseph snapped. He didn't mean to be rude to his new granddaughter, of course. In a lot of ways, she really was both the daughter and the granddaughter he never had and he really loved her with all his heart. He'd merely responded that way because, understandably, getting news like that at his age was an enormous shock to his system, and certainly to his wife's!

"Sorry," she said sheepishly. "How about I say…Happy Late Mother's Day?" In that moment, Clarisse and Joseph both shot silent daggers at Mia with their faces. "I'll go away now," Mia said even more sheepishly, and then she left.

"Oh, wow," Clarisse said a couple of moments after Mia was gone.

"Indeed," Joseph agreed.

"Doctor, is there any way you can sedate me for about the next twenty years or so?" Clarisse asked.

"Me too," said Joseph.

"Oh, come on, kids! It's not that bad! Just think how much fun it'll be to have little junior around. Why Joseph, I can already see this little guy's resemblance to you."

"How so?"

"He's bald, just like his old man!" In that moment, if looks could have killed, Dr. Mackenzie would have been dead where he stood with the kind of look Joseph shot at him. "I, uh…I think I'll leave you two alone for a little while; give you a chance to just let this news sink in."

"I think that would be best," Joseph snapped again, and then the doctor quickly removed the ultrasound instrument from Clarisse's lower abdomen and wiped the gel off her stomach with some paper towels, turned off the ultrasound machine, and left.

"Clarisse?" Joseph said after he was gone.

"Huh?"

"Is there enough room for two on that exam table?"

"I think so. Why?"

"Because I need to lie down, too. Move over."

"Right," Clarisse said as she moved over to give Joseph some room, and then he climbed on the table next to her and held her close. After Joseph was lying with her, once again, Clarisse said, "Oh, wow."

"Oh, wow," Joseph agreed.