After a night spent reflecting on what had happened, complete with asking Marianne for the pictures back (only for her to say they were in the box the poppers had been in), Hilda woke up the next morning completely uninterested in sharing the news with everyone else. "Either we do it, or word's gonna get out through your brother," Claude pointed out, a truth that was too hard to ignore. "Much like other things we've been through, I'd rather this be our news to share than anyone else's."

"Okay, but I'm not even going to pretend to be happy about this," Hilda replied, sounding just as sour as she had felt in the moments following the confetti explosion. She hadn't once found a reason to be excited or looking forward to meeting the baby anymore, knowing that she was going to have to eat crow and name the poor thing after one of her life-long friends. "I won't tell anyone why this is worst-case scenario type stuff, but I hope you know it is."

"Look, just because he's a he doesn't mean you can't, you know, dress him up in frills and pink and everything you've been dreaming of." Giving her a completely serious look, Claude got her to at least consider that option before dropping the second half of things on her. "And you know who grew up getting to live the frilly life? The very same man we're going to be naming him after. Just like clockwork."

Wincing as all of her good feelings flew right out the window, Hilda said, "Yeah, well, maybe in that case I'm going to lean hard into the boy mom thing, just to make sure that he grows up nothing like Lorenz. Even though…"

As she trailed off, Claude let his gaze drift downward, until he was looking at the floor between where they sat, rather than at her. "I'm going to see what we can do to make this as painless as possible. As long as it looks like we considered him in the name, I think that's what's going to matter here. I highly doubt Lorenz is so self-centered that he'd expect the child's name to be an exact replica of his."

"Oh yeah? I dare you to go ask him, see what he says about that, because we both know he's expecting it to be identical."

Grimacing and nodding slowly, there was a moment where it seemed as if Claude had something more to say, but he let all further comments slip away into the still air, before leaving the conversation to handle some cleaning duties Holst had pointed out to him the day prior. "Don't do any bridge-burning while I'm not around," he cautioned her, only for her to mock his words and have him nod again like he understood she didn't care. "Right, because I'm doing this for my health completely."

"No one ever said you had to listen to my brother," Hilda huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and giving Claude an expression full of her nasty attitude. "But you do you, I'll do me, and we'll meet back up when we're both done with things we don't actually want to do."

"Not sure where you got cleaning up rooms we're not using to make space for baby things as something I don't want to do, but you're right, I'll do me and you'll do you." He didn't sound the happiest as he left the room, but at that point Hilda couldn't be bothered to care as she was once again faced with the reality that she had to tell people what had happened.

The one bright side to it all was that the pictures Holst took were genuinely good quality, and she wasn't finding herself looking at herself in disgust in them. She wasn't the cutest in what she'd picked to wear, but it showed off her newfound curves that mattered most and didn't overshadow the rest of what was going on. Even the confetti, despite being the wrong color in her mind, didn't drown her out and instead made her colors pop more in the pictures; there was the issue of her only smiling for a few frames before her confusion had overtaken her face and she was clearly unhappy with the result, but she didn't have to post those pictures when there were good ones right from the start.

She decided that she was going to make her post on the general moms' group first, as she had actually gone ahead and written that post after the reveal had happened, choosing not to share it right away because she wanted to sleep on what she'd said. Her thank-yous to Marianne in it were genuine, and she did her best to put on a pleasant front for the public that she didn't actually know a whole lot about. While comments and reactions began to pour in after that post was shared, she started over at square one on her Hot Moms of Garreg Mach post, deciding that just editing it wasn't going to cut it.

Before she trashed her draft, she read through it one more time, wishing that it had been the way things ended up and that she could share her happy news with her former classmates exactly as she'd envisioned it. Instead, she was writing about how she'd be raising a ladykiller who'd be staying far away from the little girls born to the group members to keep their families from crossing trees in the next generation. She knew almost immediately that Dorothea was waiting for that very post from her, and was going to start something over it, but there was zero reason to fake happiness or excitement over things and therefore Hilda just wasn't going to do it.

Lo and behold, moments after the post was sent and shared, there came a comment from Dorothea before anyone else probably had read the damn thing. Not wanting to immediately grow more irritated about things, Hilda went to read the responses on the other version of the post first, saving the ones that would be coming from people she personally knew until she couldn't avoid them any longer.

The general consensus was that the reveal was tastefully done as a surprise to the couple, and their reason for choosing to do it was a problem that so many couples were currently experiencing and needing to deal with. The validation she felt in seeing all of these strangers tell her how lovely she looked and how lucky her little boy was going to be growing up with her as his mother made her think that maybe, just maybe, being a boy mom wasn't going to be the end of the world. But that all changed when she went back to the other group and had to face Dorothea's comment for what it was.

"I must say, you did an excellent job at doing the bare minimum," she wrote, punctuating her statement with a few laughing faces. "Bet you and Claude worked hard to make that happen with your lack of planning skills."

There were already comments chiding her for being so rude, but as much as Hilda appreciated the others coming to her defense, the person she wished could see that most wasn't in the group and wouldn't know firsthand how nasty and catty things were at the moment. "We didn't originally plan on doing anything, because this whole concept is suuuuuper tacky," she shot back, her fingers flying over her phone screen to get the words down exactly as they sounded in her head. "Not like I haven't enjoyed seeing other people's reveals, but this wasn't for us until Claude couldn't go to the appointment with me and we didn't want to find out at separate times. Bet you don't really care about the why, though."

"Both of you, calm down." With her voice of reason showing perfectly in her expressionless message, Byleth got her point across. "Dorothea, there is never any need to criticize someone doing something simple. Hilda, don't waste your time defending your decision, what you put together was lovely enough and made your point exactly as needed."

While Hilda waited for another response from Dorothea to finish the conversation, she began reading the other comments that had nothing to do with her being put down like she had been. There were several voices of support chiming in about how much they loved the setting and the colors, and there was once again talk rising about bringing all of the babies together after birth to start friendships right out of the womb. None of that mattered as much as seeing Dorothea feign an apology for her mean choice of words, which she merely reacted to with a thumbs-up emoji to show that she didn't truly care.

It wasn't until a couple of hours later that another comment came by that had Hilda as invested as that one had, and she happened to be in Claude's earshot when her phone went off with the notification for it. "Look at that, Lysithea decided she wants to jump into this post and say something," she remarked, opening the notification to see what had been said, while Claude looked at her, waiting for further explanation. "In the hot moms group, the one that she definitely shouldn't be in for any reason, she's commenting on my pictures."

"Maybe you can use this to find out why she's in there?" he suggested, a thought that had in fact crossed Hilda's mind but that she'd disregarded as she didn't want to derail things out in the open.

"Surprise, surprise, she's bringing up the name promise, even though she's clearly not in any need of having someone else's kid named after her." While Hilda did wish she hadn't ever brought that promise up to begin with, something told her that Lysithea would've been there talking about it regardless of how recently it had been mentioned. "How do I break it to her lightly that she's not getting a baby boy named after her, no how and no way."

Claude hummed for a moment, before saying, "By telling her that the kid's already got someone he's getting named after, and it isn't going to be her."

"Simple, I like it."

"Thanks, we've actually got to talk about the name thing before this goes on too much longer." At that, the air between them grew heavy, as Hilda paused typing her response to what Lysithea had said, her eyes widening as she glanced at Claude, who seemed confident in his own choice of words and didn't so much as flinch at her reaction to things. "No, I didn't talk to Lorenz, and no, I haven't come up with how we're going to get his name involved, but I've come up with something we can start with."

"A start's better than nothing," she decided, going back to typing and sending her message, just for her phone to go off with another notification. "Oh goddess, Dorothea's trying to chat with me in private now, should I just ignore her?"

"Do you value your sanity?" It was a trick question, as both replying and not replying would result in Hilda wishing she was bashing her head into a brick wall when it came to interacting with Dorothea. "I'd personally choose to just block her and call it a day, but I know you. You're going to want to see what she has to say, then get under her skin until she'll stop messaging you."

Pursing her lips together, Hilda thought over Claude's perspective on the matter, before deciding that she didn't need his opinion anyway. She was ready to tear into whatever Dorothea had to say with venom in every word, but then she actually read the message that she was sent and almost dropped her phone in reaction. Hey, look, I get that I went way over with my negative reaction to your news, and I'm sure you're not interested in hearing me out, but do know that I didn't mean any harm with what I said. I kind of wish that we'd been able to do something like you did, but we already knew what our princess was ahead of time so there wasn't any real surprise in it for us.

That doesn't excuse you treating me like I'm below you for doing something simple when I didn't know ahead of time. Maybe keep that in mind next time you decide to say something to someone. Hilda didn't know what else she could possibly put in that message to accurately express how she felt while getting to tell Dorothea off for a change, so she merely left it right there, not wanting to spend too much time on the conversation. She couldn't waste all of her energy on someone who didn't matter in the end, and whatever she got in return just wasn't going to be worth the time.

"I think I'm already under her skin, so we don't need to worry about her trying to talk to me further today," Hilda told Claude, silencing her phone and setting it face down so that if she did happen to get a follow-up message, it wasn't going to steal her attention from whatever it was he needed to talk to her about. "Now you mentioned something about a start for the name? Want to tell me more?"

"Hey now, no amount of batting those eyelashes and giving me those pouty eyes is going to get me to spill my secrets right here," Claude replied, raising his hands playfully as he pretended to be innocent in what he'd said. "We can talk about it later tonight, when you're just tired enough to think it's a good idea to begin with."

While the implication was there that Hilda was easier to sway when she was tired, she wasn't going to argue with that because she knew it to be true most of the time. Sure enough, after dinner and a long shower together, she was curled up against him on the couch with her eyes heavy-lidded and her mind barely comprehending the world around her. That was when Claude decided to drop his idea on her, and it shot her sitting straight up, looking at him like he'd just suggested they blow up the moon for the fun of it.

"You already told me you didn't want to name the kid Khalid, and I fully agree with that decision, so what's this about naming him after you first?" She was shaking her head, trying to make sense of what had just been said.

"Nowhere in my legal name is the name Claude, it's just an alias that got so far out of hand that it's basically my real name at this point, but we can give the name to the kid so that at least one of us has it." Claude raised a finger, showing that what he'd said was one prong of what he wanted to suggest, and soon after he was lifting a second. "Then, when we figure out how we're getting Lorenz's name involved, we make the name the kid goes by that name, or some form of it, so that there's zero confusion between him and myself. Following?"

"I think I might be," Hilda said after having to trace through the idea in front of her with a finger of her own. "What you're getting at is that his legal name will be something actually decent, but his nickname is going to be what sticks and it's going to be where we make good on our promise, or am I completely misunderstanding?"

"Nope, that's pretty much exactly what I was getting at with this. You picked it up quickly, Hilda. A lot faster than I expected you to, given how tired you were when I first started talking about it."

She puffed out her cheeks. "I'm not ignorant when I'm tired, cut me some slack!"

Claude responded by gently flicking the tip of her nose, before watching her recoil and only grow more adamant that she wasn't ignorant. "You're adorable, did you know that? An absolute treat to get to spend all of my time with, for the rest of our lives."

Almost sure she knew where he was going with that, Hilda gave a loud yawn and stood up, stretching her back as far as she could once she was standing. "Tell it to someone who hasn't heard it a million times before," she teased, starting to walk toward the stairs to head up to bed, Claude remaining seated instead of following. She almost considered turning around and asking if he was coming with, but when she thought about it, she knew that he was most likely already thinking about what else they needed to come up with, and she wasn't going to be the one to break his concentration. Even when she had to backtrack and get her phone from downstairs despite having gotten halfway up the stairs when she remembered where she'd left it, she didn't dare ask Claude to stop what he was thinking about for her own personal gain.

There would be plenty of time for her to ask him to follow her wherever she went, but that night didn't need to be one of those moments. He'd do just fine cleaning up and shutting all of the lights off while she was already in bed, he didn't need to do it so that they could retire for the night arm in arm…even if she would have loved to be escorted into the bedroom.

One of the things that Hilda wasn't doing a very good job about regarding her pregnancy was keeping up with exactly which week she was and when. She did love seeing other people's posts about hitting week milestones, often with accompanying pictures, but as far as she was concerned for herself, as long as she knew when her next doctor's appointment was, she didn't need to know any other details about matters. But where she failed at keeping track, she had Marianne around to give her some friendly reminders and prod her into doing things she wouldn't have known to do otherwise.

"You should make a 'halfway' post this weekend," Marianne told her on one of her visits, a rare occasion where the best friends could be together without one of them having a million and one things to plan for everyone else. "It's not that big of a deal if you don't, but think of it this way: you only get halfway with your first baby one time, and you'll never get that experience back."

Rolling her eyes, not because she thought it was a bad idea but rather because it was a reflex that she oftentimes struggled with keeping in check, Hilda replied, "If I take any pictures for that reason, I'm not going to play the attention-grab game and post them like other people would. They can be totally for myself and Claude and maybe you, no one else."

"That's fair, actually. Didn't think you'd be so against getting people to care about you, but this whole journey's full of surprises for everyone." Smiling gently, Marianne knew she'd struck a nerve with Hilda when her friend was staring at her with her jaw slowly dropping, but she didn't say anything else on the matter. Instead, she took the conversation to other necessary places, namely discussing the logistics of a possible small baby shower when the time came, because the time frame in which it would happen would be so crammed with everyone else getting their celebrations in.

The problem was that, even though cases of illness in Fódlan hadn't ever gotten extremely high and it was slowly getting to the point where the world started to feel normal again even with all of the changes the sickness had brought, there was no telling what things would be like when that time frame was upon them. Marianne, with the calendar that had been made of all of the due dates in hand, had taken it upon herself to also document when everyone else planned on doing their celebrations, whether private or public, and she was adamant that Hilda get to do something as well, but was wary of when it would be.

"So what if it ends up the same day as someone else's, it's not like I'm going to be inviting all of them anyway," Hilda pointed out, looking at the calendar with equal parts awe at the level of detail and disgust at how many people she was sharing her spotlight with. "In fact, I don't think I'd be inviting any of them, really."'

"You'd be inviting me, though, and they'll all want to do the same. Just because you're my best friend doesn't mean that I can throw all of them to the side to cater to you all the time." Marianne didn't sound very happy to have to say such a thing, and Hilda certainly wasn't happy to hear it, but it was a truth that needed to be spoken. "Besides, maybe inviting some of them will give you presents that you didn't expect."

Scrunching her face as she considered that possibility, Hilda ultimately ended up putting her foot down on the matter. "No, they're all gonna be so busy worrying about what they're getting and what they need for their kids that they're not going to care at all about mine. I just need this to be a day where our families can show up and we'll call it good."

"I…don't know if that's something we can exactly count on."

The look that was shared between the two reminded Hilda that they were still dealing with a worldwide pandemic that had Fódlan's borders more or less closed for the foreseeable future, and as half of the family that would be wanted lived across one such border, expecting them to attend wasn't reliable. "Right, totally forgot about that. So in that case, what days are there that we can make work for others to show up if they want?"

"If we want to avoid anyone skipping out because they're in labor and can't make it, unless it's super early and unexpected, which we can't avoid…" Marianne sucked in a long breath, gritting her teeth as she went over all the dates in her head. "It'll have to be far before the turn of the year. But, in that case, at least Dorothea won't be attending, most likely?"

"Sign me up for that," Hilda blurted out, very nearly interrupting the last couple of words that Marianne had said. "If I can keep her firmly out of everything to do with my life, I'll be better for it."

Marianne nodded, scribbling something down on her calendar as a future reference. "Something told me you'd think that way about all this. I'll sit down and give you a solid weekend to aim for, but right now we at least know it'll be sooner rather than later."

"Gives me a little bit of time to do some planning, then."

"Of course. And it also gives you a lot of time to know what you have and what you'll still need before it's crunch time." Bringing her finger to her chin, Marianne tapped it a couple of times before adding, "But, you know, I don't really expect you to do much planning. Not because I don't think you're capable of getting it done, but because it's not the mother's job to plan this sort of thing. You can leave this all to me and I'll make it happen."

While Hilda certainly didn't want to be responsible for putting yet another weight on Marianne's shoulders, she also didn't want to turn her down and hurt her feelings. "I mean, if you're willing to do this for me, I'm not going to say no."

"It's what friends do. Between you and me, I'm not planning any other baby showers because there's always someone better to do it for everyone else, but I'm your best friend. I have to step up at least once in all of this." Her sweet smile returning yet again, Marianne seemed to be at peace with not being the one responsible for all of those parties, but then she went on to say, "Besides, between working on getting a large party for everyone arranged and all of these photoshoots that I've been asked to coordinate, there isn't too much room for any other party planning in my schedule."

How Marianne knew that there was talk of a big gathering for all of the so-called Hot Moms, Hilda could only guess, but she was clearly getting insider information from the group without being a part of it. Suddenly, it dawned on her that she could very well ask Marianne about the person she was most curious about right then and see if she got any sort of updated answer from the last time she'd approached the whole situation. "Okay, sorry to change the topic, but can I ask you about—"

"If the name you're about to say is Lysithea, I'm sorry but I don't have anything I can tell you. If you want to know what's going on with her, you'll need to address it with her yourself, because what I've been told is…not anything worth sharing. Not from my own voice, that is." There was a hint of sadness as Marianne spoke, one that made Hilda want to back far away from the topic and never think about it again.

So, naturally, she apologized for heading in that direction and went somewhere completely different once more. "So what's all this about photoshoots? You mean you're setting things up for people to get pictures taken that aren't with phones in their backyard, in this upside-down world? How are you managing that?"

"It's not easy, but it's far enough out that photographers are more comfortable with making things happen in rough plans. I'm sure that if things get worse again they're going to cancel everything and I'll be sharpening my camera skills to make something work out." Marianne sighed, letting her hands come to a rest interlaced against her chest. "May the goddess bring peace to everyone and to the world so that we can live our lives as intended again."

"You think that's actually going to happen anytime soon?"

There was a moment of silence between the two, before Marianne gave Hilda the most serious look she could muster. "For someone like me, perhaps, but someone like you who already changed their lives too much to correct? Your life is forever going to be different after all of this is over."

True to her word, Hilda did take a picture of herself on the day that all of the records she'd been given considered as halfway into her pregnancy. Also true to her word, she intended fully on it being kept as a private memento of the occasion, because she didn't dress up fancy and she certainly didn't do her part to make herself look done up by any means. She was lucky to have rolled out of bed willing to actually get dressed that morning, although if she'd chosen not to then Claude just wouldn't have taken the picture to begin with.

He'd asked her, upon her thrusting her phone at him with the camera open, for the reason she was deciding then that she wanted her picture taken. When she'd explained it, he'd nodded along with his reasoning, but being someone that wasn't as heavily involved in things (despite his intimate involvement to begin with), he wasn't completely on board with what he was being told. "So it's the 'thing' to take these pictures, and for what? To look at years later and wish you'd never done that to yourself?"

"I'm sure it'll be a highly effective birth control someday," she replied, forcing a smile as she got up against a bare wall in their hallway and struck a pose that could only be described as

"pathetic" by them both. "Just take the picture so that we can say we did it, because I'm not standing here to do this forever."

He obliged, going as far as taking several shots as she adjusted her poses, before coming back to grab her phone once more; it was then that he held it above his hand, far out of her possible reach. "You gave a cute reason, but I'm not buying it. Who's pressuring you into doing this? Is it Dorothea? I swear, if she's harassing you into doing yet another thing against your will, I'm going to handle her the moment I can."

"It's not Dorothea, I promise," she replied, not particularly wanting to throw Marianne under the bus for suggesting it in the first place in case Claude took it up with her. "I just saw some others in the big mom group doing it and decided I wanted to do it for myself."

"So you're posting this for them to see? Is that what you're getting at?" He was trying his best to make sense of what had prompted his dear fiancée to make such a strange decision on a relatively random morning, and Hilda was definitely endeared by his attempts at understanding. "Come on, you've got to break it down into small chunks for me, I'm just not getting it."

She sighed, deciding that explaining everything to Claude would be too much effort and that she needed to just tell him the relevant details. "Not posting it, I don't think that's necessary and I really just don't want to keep putting my face out there. It's all for our own memories and, yeah, the birth control thing too. Expect me to ask you for more of these pictures going forward to convince us both that we don't need to do this again." Pausing, Hilda looked up at where Claude was still holding her phone hostage. "If you're going to keep that up there, can you at least do me a favor and order lunch or something for me? I'm starving."

That elicited a small chuckle from Claude, who chose instead to bring the phone back down to Hilda's level, where she was able to snatch it up with ease. "How about we make something with what we've got in the kitchen, instead of spending twice as much on delivery charges on food you're going to eat in three seconds."

Having already pulled up an online menu to start ordering from, Hilda looked at Claude over the screen of her phone, crinkling her nose as she did. "That doesn't sound as convenient. Or as delicious. Or as fun."

"Having money is usually fun, though." Giving her a shrug as she continued staring at him, they held eye contact for a few moments before she dramatically closed the menu, puckering her face at him as if he'd just fed her something sour. "We've got plenty of food to choose from, there's no need to pay so much for something else. Let's go downstairs and you can see everything for yourself."

"I know what's in the kitchen, I helped supervise you putting it away when it got here. It's not like I've completely forgotten what food we've got waiting for us, I just like not having to cook any of it." Not wanting to hear the argument that cooking lunch would take less time than ordering it for delivery, Hilda left the room in front of Claude, taking the stairs slowly to purposely hold him up and forgetting entirely that it was only going to hurt her doing that in the long run. They got downstairs at the same time and she was immediately looking to him for answers as to why she didn't have lunch already, a problem she had just caused for herself in how she'd chosen to get down there.

Thankfully, they had quite the selection of easy and quick meals that only required boiling some water on the stovetop, and as that was a relatively painless activity it wasn't too much longer before Hilda had something to eat and would finally shut her mouth about wanting to order food for at least a little while. That did come with the problem of her complaining that what she was eating would have tasted better if it had been delivered, but every time she started down that path Claude would hush her and tell her to just eat instead of talk.

"We're going to bleed ourselves dry if we're ordering delivery every meal, you need to understand that," he reminded her, a fact that had never once left her mind but the convenience was just too nice to give up on. "Unless you're in there making bracelets and necklaces for days and I risk your life to go get a job for myself, we've got to make the money we've got last."

"You know, we seem to have this conversation all the time," she replied after swallowing down the last bite of her meal, pushing her bowl toward where Claude was sitting and watching him narrow his eyes at her for it. "If money was going to be such a problem once we moved in together and started living our lives how we wanted, why did we do it in the first place?"

With eyes still narrowed, Claude's mouth opened slightly, his hand reaching up to cover it as he thought about how in the world he should respond to that sort of question. "I don't think we expected that the whole world would shut down after we moved in together and made things a bunch harder than they would have been otherwise. Not to mention everything else that's happened since we started living here."

"Okay, and?" Meeting his glare with one of her own, Hilda stood her ground as she said, "You're starting to make it sound like you've got a million excuses for making it so family money isn't enough to sustain our lives how we want to live them. Everything's going to be fine, we're nowhere near as close to being in danger as you pretend we are."

His hand slowly reaching out as if he was going to grab her face, he closed it into a fist right in front of her and retracted it immediately. "I never thought I'd have to say this to you, but you're delusional if you think either of our families are going to sustain us any longer than they need to. We're adults, Hilda, we've got to act like it."

"Holst will send me anything I ask him for. If that's enough money to last us years, so be it."

With fingers still clenched and itching to do something to prove a point, Claude turned his eyes away from Hilda's, expecting her to follow, and when he didn't see her doing the same he said, "You're really planning on relying on your brother for the rest of your life, aren't you? Even though that's not what we should do."

"No one said anything about it being what we should do, but it's definitely what I want to do. Holst isn't going to get married, he's not going to be having kids of his own, he's got no one to support with his money but himself and he can share with me." Indignant, and certain that what she was saying was making sense, Hilda stood up from the table and came around to stand behind Claude, putting her hands on his shoulders and gripping them tightly with extended fingers. "I know that you want to be a self-made man and all, not relying on anyone other than yourself, but let's make it easy, shall we?"

"Then I dare you to ask Holst, right now, for as much money as you think we need to survive for the rest of the month." It was a challenge that Claude knew Hilda wouldn't be able to resist taking on, and sure enough, she was soon at her phone doing the honors. When she claimed victory in getting money from her brother, he remained certain in his convictions that Holst wasn't going to be as generous as she claimed he would be, and he asked her exactly how much money she'd just asked for. The amount, which Hilda was more than happy to share with a big smile, was barely enough to cover her food expenses for a single week, let alone getting them through just about an entire month, something that he enjoyed getting to point out to her.

Watching her face fall as she realized that she hadn't asked for nearly enough and that she couldn't ask for more without sounding greedy, he almost wanted to comfort her but he knew that this was a prison of her own creation. "I'll ask him for more next month, how about that?" she offered, trying her hardest not to sound like she was on the verge of crying. "He'll do it, I know he will, I just needed to…soften him up before I ask for too much."

"Admit that you're wrong and that he won't send you as much as we actually need, and let's move on. You've got to agree that this is exhausting, and stupid, that we're here arguing about this." Claude forced a forgiving smile in Hilda's direction, and while she didn't seem interested in giving up the fight quite yet, she agreed that it was tiring to have that kind of argument on such an important day.

"You're still not planning on posting those pictures are you?" he asked a little while later, after they'd curled up on the couch together with a cheesy romance movie on the TV. He'd been more focused on what Hilda was doing on her phone than he was on the movie itself, watching her scroll through her different mom groups and see all the pictures that they had to offer. "I know that it's something these ladies do, but you don't have to share everything with everyone else."

"Nah, I'm planning on saving these for when I can post them somewhere to make a little money off of them." There was a pause, before Hilda couldn't help but laugh and add, "That's a joke, Claude, I'm really just keeping these for myself. Maybe print them and keep them somewhere to look back on in the future, but post them? Please. Not worth my time."

"I wish you'd have used that same energy when it came to some of the other things you've done in those groups since joining them," he grumbled, thinking about the harassment and rude behavior she'd been treated to from people in the groups over the past few months. "It just doesn't seem like the best use of your time right now, worrying about how people perceive you in all of that stuff."

"It's not the best, but you know what? You're only pregnant with your first child once, you can't spend all of your time not doing anything at all because you'll never get those moments again." With that, she shut her phone screen off and set her phone on the floor beside her (although Claude wasn't actually certain she'd done that intentionally, given how it had sort of slid out of her hand and onto the floor). "Let's just worry about watching the movie, I'm done worrying about the groups right now."

He couldn't be sure if Hilda stayed true to her word about not posting the pictures or not, but he did know that she definitely shared them with someone that wasn't him; he found that out after Marianne came by the next day and was carrying with her printed copies of the pictures, one even put in a special frame that she'd been getting together with other pictures she'd seen since the start of everything. "It's a gift that I'm only making for my best friend, no one else," she explained with a small grin as she handed it over to the couple, neither of whom were expecting it. "Instead of a photo book or a digital album, I found this frame and set it up for all sorts of milestones you're going to be crossing over the next half of this magical time."

"That's a lot of work you've put into this," Hilda remarked, looking at the frame and admiring how much detail had gone into creating it. "Like, a lot more work than you should have done. Why are you being so helpful with all of this, for everyone? You totally didn't have to go this hard on everything you do."

"Because I'm living through everyone at this point, more or less. I'm giving to everyone else what I know I won't be getting for myself, by my choice." Her grin fading fast, Marianne looked at Claude with longing in her eyes. "Cherish every moment of this time, for my sake and for yours. I'd do anything to get to be a part of this for myself, but I'll settle for just being a part of it as I currently am."

"Sounds to me like you're on the market for something," he replied, winking at her and watching as she shook her head rapidly. "Well, if you insist you're not, I'm not going to push the issue."

Marianne mouthed a silent thank you before she looked back at Hilda, who was still transfixed by the picture frame. "I can help you with getting the rest of the pictures you'll need to finish filling it out, but a lot of them will be coming right around the same time as the baby does."

"That's fine, I'm putting you in charge of it right now so that I don't forget to do something about it and the frame goes unused forever." Laughing, Hilda set down the gift so that she could use both arms to hug Marianne, who was thankful to be given such a pleasant reaction to her gift. "Thanks a million for this one, I'm really looking forward to seeing how it turns out when it's all filled up with pictures of me. I'm probably going to hate looking at it after a while, but it'll be a good memory."

"And good memories are all we can ask for in this crazy world," Marianne said softly, speaking more into Hilda's shoulder than anything else. "I'm glad I can be of service to you in as many ways as possible through all this."

There was a definitely sadness in her voice, leading Claude to begin to suspect that something was going on with Marianne that she wasn't letting them know about, but when he saw his fiancée hugging her so tightly and seeing her expression turn to one of happiness, he didn't try asking any more questions about it. If Marianne had something she was hiding, she'd let them know the truth soon enough, because any secret she had to hide wasn't going to survive being kept from her closest friend.

With the world slowly starting to open back up around them, it seemed that every day there was some more news about something reopening or starting again that had been shut down due to the lockdowns. Even though she would have loved to get to do some of those things now that they were accessible again, Hilda knew that it was forever in her best interest to stay at home and keep herself from getting into any trouble with illness by coming into contact with strangers out in the public. Once it seemed that there wasn't as much of a risk to catch something in their area, she begged Claude to let her go out to the store for the first time in actual months, because she missed the experience.

"I'll let you go, but you're showering and doing laundry as soon as you get home," he said, despite that not being a rule he held himself to when he went out places. "I'm not risking you picking something up on your clothes while you're out."

"Come on, how is that even fair?" It wasn't fair, she knew that and she was sure he did as well, but he was being as protective as possible for her in such a vulnerable time. The last thing either of them really needed was for one of them to get sick, because it would get the other sick and then there was always the chance that harm would be done to the baby at the same time. Still, she had been given the okay to go out and do something, even if she had a stupid stipulation attached to it. "Whatever, I'm going shopping."

That was when Claude put his hand down to try and stop her from doing as she pleased. "With what money?" he asked, knowing that nothing had changed in their spending habits or their earning ones since the last time they'd talked about money. "You can't afford to go out shopping and buying whatever you'd like. What are you even planning on getting?"

She looked down at herself, wearing clothes that Marianne had brought over for her as a surprise gift a few days prior, which had been used by someone local in the bigger mom group and had been picked up after they were no longer needed. "I'm planning on getting myself my own clothes to wear," she decided, tugging at the oversized drape-like dress she had on. "This is cute and all, but it's totally obvious that whoever owned it before me was a lot, and I mean a lot, bigger than I am."

"Then you can save it for later, and grab a couple of things to wear now, but this isn't the time to replace your whole wardrobe." Sounding defeated as he spoke, Claude couldn't even bear to look Hilda in the face while he was talking to her. "Maybe I should go with you, if this is what you plan on doing today, just to make sure that you don't go too over the top with your buying…"

"I mean, if you don't trust that I can limit myself, then you're totally welcome to come with, but I can do it on my own. I really can." Actually, Hilda knew that she couldn't be savvy with her spending on her own, but she didn't want to tell Claude that and have him insist he go with her every time she went shopping going forward. By coming off as sarcastic, it was a less direct way of telling him, and that way the ball on going was in his court.

But Claude knew that was the case, having known Hilda for so long, and he responded by placing a firm hand on her shoulder and squeezing it. "We'll leave in ten minutes, then, because if I'm aware of anything, it's how tempted you'll be to buy everything you see if you're there on your own."

Twenty minutes later, they were at the front door with masks in hand, ready to take on the world together for the first time since before lockdowns had started so long ago. Taking the lead, Claude got behind the wheel of the car, but Hilda told him where it was that she wanted to get to shop, a little store that was located in a grand shopping center not too far from their house. When they arrived at the store, the first thing they both noticed was the long line of people standing outside of its doors, a sign on the window stating that there was only a limited number of people allowed inside at a time, and to wait in line if the limit had been reached.

"I don't want to wait to go in there," she whined, banging her fist against the car door. "But I also don't know anywhere else we can go that's not going to be super expensive for me to buy new clothes, and I'm not going to a thrift store right now. Can you imagine how germy those clothes might be?"

"Anything at the store is going to have germs on it," Claude reminded her, before catching the look of annoyance that Hilda was giving him at his comment. "Well, it's true, even if you don't want to hear it. You're just picking which kind of germs you get from the clothes you buy. I'd say that it'd be safe to get used clothes, but if you're so insistent that we get new ones, come up with somewhere else to go."

The thing was, Hilda wasn't super insistent that she needed to go buy new things, she just wanted to get to spend time in an actual store and see what was considered in style at the moment, instead of seeing things people no longer wanted. "I think there are some more stores on the other side of town we can try out," she said after consulting her phone and what options it had available and marked as open. "One of them even says that it'll sell things that you might be interested in too, but it says it's kind of expensive at times."

"Promise to limit yourself on what you buy?"

"If it means we go to check the place out, then of course!" With that, she gave Claude the location and he was driving them over there, literally crossing town to get to another shopping center that seemed just as busy as the one they'd left; the only difference here was that the store they were looking for didn't have nearly as long as line outside, only a couple people standing in front of the door. Deeming that acceptable, they got out of the car and got in line behind the others, donning their masks as soon as they got close enough for it to matter to anyone if they had them or not.

Even though the line was short, they waited there for a while, until finally they were told they could go inside by the employee at the door, under two very strict conditions. The first was the obvious one, that their masks had to stay on at all times, but the second one immediately brought a lump of uneasiness into Hilda's throat. They weren't able to try anything on in the store, having to buy it and take it home before they could wear it, because the fitting rooms were closed due to the spread of illness. Just hearing that made Hilda wish she hadn't suggested going shopping for clothes at all, because she didn't have the slightest idea of how anything was going to fit her straight from the rack, and she didn't want to have to come return things in the future if what she bought was already too small. After assuring her that it would all work out in the end, Claude was able to convince her that shopping was still going to be fine and they'd have a lot of fun with it.

They went their separate ways once they'd entered the store, him heading for the expansive selection of men's clothing and her dragging her feet as she shuffled over to the women's section. There was a sizeable area set up for maternity clothes, and she felt her chest growing heavy as she approached it, never having been shopping in that part of any store before and not knowing how the clothes were going to look. She was soon pleased to find that the sizes looked similar enough to the ones she was familiar with that she could do some guesswork on what would fit her best, and she loved some of the styles of clothing that they had there for sale. Naturally, there was the issue of the price, but when she had that many cute options to choose from, there was nothing stopping her from buying far more than she probably should have gotten.

It worked out, though, because when Claude came by to find her, he was carrying a lot of clothes of his own choosing in his arms. "A worker walked by and told me how we can get this stuff for super cheap, so we're going to be able to get a bit more than I thought we would," he told her, sounding genuinely excited to be saying it. "Come on, grab everything you think you're going to want so we can get this discounted and get out of here."

While the worker had not lied to Claude about how they'd be able to knock over half of the price of their trip off the receipt, he hadn't explained that the process in which to do it would take a long time, a lot of standing there at the register waiting, and a bunch of signing away information to receive a credit card for the store neither of them had shopped at before. But seeing that total price, followed by how much they'd saved on their purchase, made every last bit of money spent feel worth it, and they left the store with arms laden in bags of clothes they hadn't expected they'd be able to get. "What all did you buy, anyway?" Hilda asked as they were putting the bags into the back of the car. "I saw you had some pants there, but what else?"

"Just the basics, plus I…might've swung through some other parts of the store to look at other things and grabbed some other stuff." He smiled sheepishly at his fiancée, who immediately took that as a reason to be concerned. "Don't worry, it's nothing too crazy, just some towels and one other thing I'll show you when we get home."

"Okay, but if it's some tacky shirt that you're expecting me to wear for your enjoyment, you're dead wrong about it," she warned, winking at him and making him laugh. The ride home was full of talking about their time at the store and how they'd managed to get so much for a lot less than they'd figured they'd be spending, deciding that it would be a place they'd go again in the future if they were on that side of town.

Once home, it was time to sort the new clothes, try them on (they all either fit, or were too big, which in Hilda's case was perfectly acceptable), and then de-tag them and get them into the washer. While she was taking care of making sure all of her clothes were ready to be washed, Claude was getting his special purchase arranged for her to see, and once he was ready to show her he did it without much in the way of fanfare. Holding it up right in front of her face, he clicked his tongue to get her attention and watched as she looked at what was in his hands, before gasping at the sight.

It was an article of baby clothing, a tiny little onesie that was covered in a light deer print, with the words I love you DEERly on it, and just the sight of those words had Hilda starting to tear up. "Is this what you found at the store?" she asked, choking out her question and watching as he nodded, the onesie shaking as he did. "That's adorable, we're going to have to take so many pictures with him in it when we get the chance."

"My thoughts exactly, I couldn't pass it up when I saw the print on the back, and the front was the deal-maker." Lowering the onesie until it was laying on the bed, Claude grabbed Hilda's shoulders and began thumbing at them in a massaging manner. "Sorry I didn't walk you through the baby clothes but I figured, hey, you'd probably gotten your fill shopping for yourself, no use in shopping for the kid then too. But that one, I wasn't letting it slip away without buying it."

"You think we're going to be able to find more things like that when we get to actually shopping for him?" Sure, there had been some online browsing, and Hilda had put in the work to start setting up a couple registries for people to buy from, but this was the first actual item they'd gotten for the baby at a store themselves. "I can't let him be style-less just because he's a boy, even if it'd fit given who he's going to be named after."

"What do you mean by that? Lorenz has plenty of style, even if it's not our kind of look. The haughty, 'I'm better than you' look fits him perfectly." Chuckling, Claude added, "Besides, just because the name's going to be similar doesn't mean they're going to be the same person. I'd rather choke than actually raise a kid to be like Lorenz, and he's one of my closest friends in the world."

"You'd rather choke then do that, sure, but that definitely isn't stopping us from," Hilda sighed before finishing, "naming our son after him, even though promises made in school really shouldn't matter."

Claude was inclined to agree, but he had one little detail to remind her of. "Of course they shouldn't matter, but someone here had to bring it up as being a thing we needed to keep in mind and now we've gotten his hopes up about it. Lorenz isn't going to let us live it down if we name the kid something completely unrelated to him, you and I both know it."

It was an unavoidable pickle they'd gotten themselves into, and no matter how they tried to spin it there was someone who was going to end up unhappy in the whole exchange. The reasonable choice would have been to disappoint Lorenz, and that was the direction Hilda was starting to lean in, until she was woken up from a dead sleep just a few nights later, a name striking her like lightning from the goddess above. She scrambled to grab her phone, jotting down the name in a text message that she sent to Claude, and when she heard his phone buzz she collapsed right back into the sleep she'd been woken from.

A/N: I literally had everything but the last paragraph written for over a MONTH and forgot to make sure it was done, whoops.