Arthur learns that she's pregnant two months in. Lotte is curled up in the bedroom at three AM, hugging around her stomach and trying so hard not to break into tears. It looks like she hasn't come out since Arthur had left for his shift at work.
Fearing the worse - and there are a lot of very bad things going through Arthur's head - the eighteen year old slips next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and pressing her head against him.
"Love, what's wrong, tell me."
"Arthur," Lotte hiccups, tears still in her eyes and slipping down her face. "I'm two months late - and not with the rent."
In the third month, she starts getting cravings.
Arthur gets calls to pick up the strangest items - KFC scones (he refuses to call those things biscuits), salmon, fish-and-chips toppled with whipped cream - the possibilities, he finds, are nearly endless.
But even as she complains that she's getting round around the middle, he laughs and licks the whipped cream off the side of her cheek, telling her that no matter what weight she is, she's absolutely perfect for him, and he'll never find anyone like her.
They curl up after Arthur's gravenight shift at his shitty bartending job and talk about the future, sometimes one of them rubbing absent fingers against Lotte's abdomen.
The fourth month, Arthur figures out the finances and realizes that they can't afford to keep a baby. They had been talking about whenever to get a new flat, as their tiny residence couldn't have a baby's room squeezed in - not with the one bed, one kitchen, one bathroom flat they have.
He checks in local places that they could move to, but everything is out of their price range - even with both of them working, that would only account for a few more months' precious paychecks - Lotte would not be working once she hit eight months, Arthur would make sure of that - and even if Arthur took on a third job (apart from the bartending gig and his fast food job from noon to about five) - there still wouldn't be enough to support them.
They're eighteen, and Arthur realizes that even if they desperately want to keep the baby, they can't.
He doesn't tell Lotte. Not yet.
In the fifth month, they learn that their baby is going to be a boy.
Arthur had been against learning the sex of the baby at first - knowing that their situation probably wouldn't improve - not even if Arthur went crawling back to his parents - but Lotte insists that he know as well, because, well, half of that child is his genes.
When he sees the ultrasound, sees his baby living and breathing and growing inside of his girlfriend, all of Arthur's breath whooshes out of him and, for the first time in recent memory, is speechless at the sight.
Lotte laughs and tells him that they should call him Peter. Arthur doesn't think for even a second before agreeing.
Arthur's taken to strumming his guitar and playing it for Lotte and their boy, humming his own lyrics under his breath to the tunes. Peter kicks and wriggles and that's how they both know that their son is glad to hear his daddy play, and Arthur even jokingly suggests that the boy will become a musician too, just like his daddy.
In the sixth month, Arthur tells her that they can't keep the baby.
Lotte tells him that she already knows that.
The seventh month rolls around while they've been busy fretting around and looking at other options. Finally - after little debate, to be honest - they choose for an open adoption. It's not quite usual for teen parents with their first child to choose open adoption, but they've decided that they want at least a little knowledge of where their son - of where Peter - would be going. They assure the adoption agency that while they can't care for Peter, financially, they do honestly want him to have a good life and wish that they could keep him.
During the duration of this month, they're busy looking at prospective adoption parents information and their records, making sure to check and double check (and triple check, in some cases) each file before choosing, still rubbing absently at the swell of Lotte's stomach in the little moments.
They choose a nice looking couple, who moved from overseas about a decade beforehand; they're in their thirties and look like decent parent material. Lotte decides on them after reviewing each of their case histories carefully.
They meet up with Berwald and Tino in a little cafe close by to Arthur's daytime job - Lotte had taken her maternity leave a few weeks before that - and are delighted to find that they click instantly, even with the generational and cultural gap. Berwald is very shy, opting to let his husband do the talking as he fiddles with his coffee mug and face flushed as Tino talks a mile a minute, assuring them both that they would be sending photos, and allow visits if (when, Arthur corrects, and Berwald smiles at that) they ask for them, and even asking to touch Lotte's stomach, to feel Peter kick, which Lotte is happy to oblige.
After they talk an entire afternoon away, Lotte and Arthur both agree that these are the right adoptive parents for Peter - a little unconventional, for sure, but Arthur points out that so are they.
In the eighth month, Lotte goes into labor during Arthur's midday workshift. He gets the call from their neighbor and close confidant, a French prat by the name of Francis, and he nearly jumps over the counter during the lunch rush before desperately telling the manager that he needs to go, that something is wrong and he needs to get to the hospital right now.
A little premature, but nothing to worry about - the doctors assure Arthur of that, trying to sooth the teen's frazzeled nerves and calm demands to ask when she'll be out, when will she be out, he needs to know that they're okay, that's his son and girlfriend in there.
He's allowed in when the birth is over, and his breath catches in his throat as he sees Lotte holding the little swaddle of cloth and cries before hastily running over.
"Arthur," she whispers, and she's crying because she knows, she knows that they can't keep him and she knows that this hello is going to turn into a goodbye far too soon, and why couldn't they keep him, it's not fair because they're both already in love with the blond baby boy who's crying in his mother's arms and soon enough Arthur is crying too, and they're left alone by the nurses until Arthur and Lotte's tears subside.
They leave the hospital three days later without their boy. And they don't speak, for a long time, not until they're both under the covers after Arthur's bartending shift (because he still had that damn job and was still expected to come in) and Lotte finally whispers.
"He had my eyes, Arthur."
And he holds her again as she dissolves into tears.