Something twisted in his gut, the way her words jerked along. A compulsion that grew out of an inability to stand to see his mother in any measure of pain, he couldn't let himself just... avoid. There was a right thing to do here; there always was. She didn't need to see the ambiguous sense of guilt he didn't want to acknowledge. Technically, she'd been alive more years than he had, but he quite suddenly felt the difference of the years that made him feel older. He'd been through this before and she hadn't.
His gaze paced across her form, rough from working hours at a dangerous job that a pregnancy wouldn't be able to endure, not without a serious alteration of her assignment. And at the moment, all she had was him. It seemed acutely unfair to her. Meanwhile, what was James doing? Being completely useless. His father would have given him a swat to the back of his head. When you knew what you had to do, you found a way to do it. Pure and simple.
"Hey," he said to draw up her eyes, pushing off the counter. Cutting through the space between them James slipped his hand behind her neck, pulling her head to rest against his chest. "It is going to be okay."
He didn't have to fabricate something. She wasn't going to have to deal with this alone. The world wasn't going to end. Remember how well that panned out the last time you had a child, prompted the back of his mind. Merlin, barring some ridiculous prophecy, if she was carrying his child, that came with a very specific set of obligations on his part and James was going to meet them. There were things that needed doing and he managed to realize that on top of not wanting a child right now, it was entirely possible that she really might no a want a child whose upbringing James would have any say in. If she really was pregnant, then she'd just have to get used to it. Even if he could be a bit... overprotective. Almost more than with any other child James reckoned he had a right to that, given the decided lack of precedent for this sort of thing.
He gave a bit of a sigh. "Just anywhere but Spain. I'll find someone who will work off the books or something. It's not safe- not for you, not for... it just isn't safe."