There was a strict one person per appointment rule that greeted Hilda when she arrived at the little office of the doctor she'd found, which she'd known was coming before she even left home that morning. She'd expressed a bit of sadness when she'd realized that meant Claude wasn't going to be there with her when she got the confirmation of the news they'd discovered the day before, but she wasn't going to wait until he could go with her to get that definitive answer. "It's not fair, you deserve to be there with me," she'd lamented, but there was no arguing with the rules as they currently were across Fódlan.

As some sort of reassurance, he told her that he'd be just a call away if she really needed him, but he felt like she'd have it all under control on her own. "Just remember that, for all legal reasons, we're still unmarried and you can't lie to these people about that," he said before kissing her good luck. "It's all going to go great, I know it."

There was no reason to think anything otherwise, and so when she went into that office, she had high hopes for everything going flawlessly, minus her having to wear a mask out in the heat of the day with no way of getting out of having it on. She could suffer through that for a little while if it meant getting what she wanted, but if it was going to be a regular thing she was really going to have to limit how often she went out in all of this. The receptionist was kind when they spoke, handing her a freshly-sanitized clipboard and pen to fill out—before being told that she needed to take it out to her car and wait there until the doctor was ready for the appointment. That was when Hilda took a look around and noticed that the waiting room was completely empty, with no chairs for anyone to even think about sitting in. For someone like her, that wasn't too much of a problem, but she could only imagine how hard it would be for someone really close to having a baby to have to wait in their car.

With the paper and clipboard in hand, she went back outside and sat in her car, which was right near the front entrance of the building. Filling that information sheet out was difficult, not because she didn't know the answers but because she didn't want to see them written out in her own handwriting. "I'd rather not tell you about these details," she grumbled as she had to write out how much she (currently? oh geez that modifier was nothing but trouble) weighed or when the start of her last cycle had been. "But, I guess if it's what you need to know, then I'll have to do it."

She was out there for a while waiting for the doctor to come grab her, and in the heat she had to turn the car on and get the air conditioning blasting to keep herself from melting into the seat. Eventually, though, a friendly-faced woman wearing an official-looking lab coat came to the door and waved her inside, and she was right in to meet her, remembering to put a mask on before she got too close to the doctor. "I'll go ahead and take that sheet from you, if you don't mind," she said, holding a gloved hand out to Hilda, and once she was holding the clipboard she separated the paper from it, depositing the pen and board into a bin right inside the doorway while she carried the paper with her. "I'll be the tech getting you prepared for today's visit. Have you been into our clinic before?"

"Can't say that I have, no," Hilda replied almost right away, not wanting to come off as promiscuous or anything like that. This tech held the paper that said she was legally single, she didn't want to raise any red flags. "I'm a bit nervous about being here, actually. You're not gonna do anything to me that'll hurt me, are you?"

"Not in the cards, my dear." Laughing behind her mask, the tech pushed open the door to an exam room and escorted Hilda inside, directing her to sit on the edge of the exam table. "So the doctor's going to come in and discuss things with you in just a bit, but before we get to that, we have a test we need to run."

Hilda offered up one arm to the tech, who laughed again. "I'm ready for a blood draw, I looked up what you're going to do to me and I know that you're going to stick a needle in my arm to test…something."

"You can go ahead and put that down, it's just going to be another test similar to the one you took at home, which you indicated you did take two." Setting the paper to the side for a moment, the tech changed her gloves and ran some basic wellness exam things before giving Hilda a single, small cup. "I assume you know what this'll be used for?"

As much as she didn't want to think about it, she said that she did and she was sent down the hall on her way. While she was in the bathroom, she had the desire to ask the goddess to put an end to this craziness by causing her to see blood when she took down her pants, but she refrained from making such a last-ditch prayer and went on to do exactly as expected of her, leaving the labeled cup on the shelf where it was designated. After washing her hands carefully, she went back to the exam room, finding the tech and her paper both gone; she sat there for longer than she'd sat in the car waiting to come in before someone new entered the room, another person in a lab coat that didn't look nearly as cheerful as the previous one. There were a couple of introductions and basic pleasantries before she jumped right into the thick of things. "Start date of your last menstrual cycle?" she sharply asked, causing Hilda to scramble for her phone to check because she didn't remember exactly.

Whatever date she gave didn't seem to be the right answer in this doctor's opinion, because she was told to lay down on the table. As she was doing that, the doctor closed the door behind her and gave further instructions, leaving Hilda laying there with her pants pulled down and a blanket covering all exposed parts. "Are you seeing anyone? I know it's a personal question, but answer me." The doctor sounded less angry this time, as she was starting up the machine in the room with them, a thin wand in her hand. Hilda remained tight-lipped, almost wanting to pull her legs in together so that the inevitable with that wand didn't happen. "Miss, I promise you this isn't a judgment thing at all."

"Y-yeah, I'm actually engaged, you just can't write that on your paper," she finally answered, thankful that she had a mask covering her mouth so that the way she was holding her lips, disgusted at having answered that, wouldn't be seen. "But is it even appropriate to ask that sort of thing to your patient?"

"Based on the way your test reacted to the hormones in your sample, it's highly likely that you're carrying multiples, which you would need a strong support system to help provide for." That was one heavy bombshell that the doctor delivered, but before Hilda could find the ability to say anything, that wand was wrapped up and put under the blanket to do its job. "It would be far too early to see anything resembling a child on a scan, but what I will do is look for the sac—or sacs—that would be sustaining life."

"And you're going to tell me what you see, right?" she managed to say, wincing at the pressure the wand was putting on her insides. "Like, you're not going to keep this as some huge secret I have to wait to find out about?"

The doctor froze for a moment, looked at the screen closely, then continued moving the wand around. "I'll tell you if it's something out of the ordinary at first glance, but if it all looks fine then you'll find out after I print some stills." There was no indication of what would be considered "out of the ordinary", which only made Hilda worry that no news was still going to be bad news. How was she going to explain to Claude that they were in even deeper trouble than they'd first feared?

There was nothing more terrifying than hearing the doctor mutter something under her breath after what had already been said. "What, what is it?" Hilda asked in her panic, nearly considering throwing herself up to sitting to see the screen for herself. "You told me only out of the ordinary so there better be—"

"Turns out the test reacted that way because someone's been tracking their cycles wrong," the doctor cut in, "which happens more often than you'd think. I won't say you didn't experience bleeding last month, but you certainly didn't have your period when you thought you did."

"—what do you mean by that?" Her eyes going wide at the possibility that she'd miscalculated something, Hilda waited with a drawn breath for further explanation.

What she got was a rundown of how sometimes, a woman can be pregnant and also still experience completely harmless bleeding, which would be how someone could get super far into their pregnancy without ever suspecting a thing. With that being said, the doctor assured her that it wasn't anything quite that extreme in her case, but that she wasn't just a handful of weeks pregnant as she thought she was. That was made very obvious when she was handed a printing of what the doctor had seen and found that the images looked vaguely like something that could be human-like, instead of just a bit of a blob.

"Just based on your answers on your questionnaire, you seem to have a longer cycle than most, which would put you at roughly ten weeks gestation. Now, that's not a confirmed statement quite yet, we would like to get some tests done on a blood sample just to check for anything else, but…" The doctor, having pulled the wand out and set it aside for sanitizing, looked at Hilda with stern eyes. "We'll expect to see you back here in a couple months for another viewing, but between now and then, and afterward as well, you should come back for regular visits to check on fetal health. After you get ready to go, we can get the next appointment set up and send you out on your way."

Laying there on the table, Hilda didn't really want to get her clothes back on in any quick fashion, but the doctor asked her to get a move on so they could get the room cleaned for the next person who needed it, so begrudgingly she got redressed and headed out to the waiting room to see the receptionist. By that point, they'd already been filled in on what her story was, and after a quick congratulations, it was on to scheduling an appointment for the next week, with the following one to be scheduled after that. It all felt like a blur to her so she was glad she only had to remember when one appointment was going to be for the time being, but that didn't stop her from reliving the moment the doctor had told her that she'd been wrong about when she'd gotten pregnant. That put it at being before they'd had their fake wedding photoshoot, which meant that somehow, deep down inside herself, she'd known that there'd be something to jeopardize her dream wedding long before she'd ever actually suspected a thing.

Claude was waiting for her when she got to the house, a weary smile on his face when he saw her come inside holding the small envelope that the doctor had put the pictures in for her. "Wow, didn't think there'd be anything to see," he said, oddly echoing something that had been said earlier at the appointment. "So how did it go, if you got pictures already?"

"It went better than I think the doctor thought it would," she told him, handing off the envelope so she didn't feel like she was carrying all that weight on her own any longer. "I guess something went a little wild with my body before this because, well, me being pregnant totally isn't a new thing. Isn't that fantastic?"

"Fantastic? I'm not sure what you're talking about." Opening the envelope to look inside it for himself, Claude saw one of the images then was looking right back at Hilda, her still trying to come up with a way to explain things better. "I think they gave you the wrong pictures, didn't you tell me last night that—"

"They're not the wrong pictures!" she interrupted, sitting down on the couch in the room to bury her face in her hands, head thrown back against the cushions. "I'm just as surprised as you are about it, really, I am! Turns out that last month, when I thought I was lucky in having a really light month, wasn't actually me being on my period at all, so I…" She trailed off as she pried her hands off of her face, looking to see what Claude's reaction was. He seemed stunned, eyes shifting back and forth as he processed what he was hearing. "I don't think our little 'plan' is going to save us after all."

"What do you mean? It'll work out just fine, I've already made the papers and they look just about legit." Still holding the envelope, he joined her on the couch, placing a hand on her thigh and giving it a reassuring squeeze. "We stick to the plan like we'd planned and no one'll ever realize we deceived them once we get the actually legal papers taken care of."

A breath caught itself in Hilda's throat as she looked at him, at how confident he was in the plan they'd hastily made the day before, and she didn't want to have to crush that confidence with what she had to say next. But there wasn't ever really a choice, she was going to be the one to be realistic here. "Claude, if what the doctor said is correct, even if we got 'married' on our supposed-to-be wedding day, this baby would still be from beforehand. We're not friends with idiots, they'd catch on to that fact pretty quickly, and then…boom! There go our reputations anyway."

"Oh, uh, yeah, that'd be a problem lying to everyone wouldn't be able to fix." He seemed a bit disappointed that his work had been for nothing, but when he looked at Hilda and gave her the softest smile, framed by the whisps of a beard he had been growing since the wedding pictures, she knew that he wasn't too bothered by it. "Guess we'll just have to own up to what we've done. People can't fault us for it, what else were we supposed to do while locked in here together?"

The way he laughed at what he'd said was an assurance to Hilda that everything was going to be okay, somehow. "I'm more worried about how everyone's going to take it, we're supposed to be good kids who follow all the rules our parents asked us to, and I'm pretty sure having a kid before we're married isn't following those rules," she said, trying to keep the biggest problem in the forefront of their minds. "Like, I can already hear Holst getting angry at me the moment he finds out, and I don't know how your parents are going to take it but it's probably not going to be much better."

"They'll all get over it, I think that rule's more meant for one-night hookups and things that aren't done out of love. We were going to get married during all this, after all, so it's not like we were just sleeping together out of boredom." With the hand that still held the envelope, Claude carefully set it down on his lap and pulled its contents out, allowing them both to see the top picture and how it showed something that was definitely a growing baby, even if it didn't fully look like one. "This isn't a mistake or something meant to ruin our lives, it's a way of showing our love to each other that the world couldn't take away from us. I'd like to think of it as the goddess' way of apologizing to us for the stupid lockdown to begin with."

"If the goddess really wanted to be sorry about the lockdown, it wouldn't have ever happened in the first place," Hilda said with a laugh, leaning into Claude's shoulder as she looked at the picture he was holding, him having switched it to the second one in the stack. "I really think this is her way of punishing us for getting too comfortable with each other before we were married. I mean, there were tons of ways we could've prevented this."

"We can chalk us not doing any of those up to the lockdown and how much of a hassle getting groceries and everything has been. You think some poor store worker wants to pack a bag full of stuff so that the buyer can get down and dirty at home?" Claude gave a single chuckle to that, which Hilda didn't find as amusing in any way, shape, or form. "Just accept that this is what was meant to happen to us, and we'll make it through the judgment or whatever everyone's going to put us through. That's a promise, Hilda, and I intend on keeping it until my last breath."

"I'm sure you do intend on keeping it now, but when people refuse to talk to us because we're unmarried and having a kid, you might want to take it back." She was already mentally going through the list of friends they had and deciding which ones would cut off contact with them once this news became common knowledge, ultimately settling on that they may only have Marianne to talk to outside of their families. "But we're not keeping this secret from anyone, I don't want to have to stay locked down forever because we don't want to know they're judging us."

It seemed that was what made it obvious to Claude why Hilda was so concerned about how people were going to handle this news, and he responded by giving her leg another squeeze, shifting so that he could look at her and the pictures both. "I don't think we're going to be judged as much as you're afraid of, think about how many others are going to be in the same boat as us! Imagine all of everyone getting locked down with someone attractive that they love, now imagine how many kids are going to come of that. I think we're going to be having quite a bit of company on this adventure, and everyone's going to be so worried about their own new families that they're not going to have the time to judge us for ours."

"You honestly think that?" she asked in a quiet, almost whisper voice, and he nodded to tell her that he did. "Well, I guess that makes some sort of sense. We can't be the only ones who ended up in this situation."

"Exactly. And, if we somehow are, we can remind everyone that we intended on getting married but the world shutting down put a stop to that." Nodding again, Claude tucked the pictures away in the envelope and left it laying on his lap. "Sometimes life's a bitch when it comes to how things happen, but this? If it'd been a normal year, it would've happened pretty damn near perfectly for us."

She couldn't argue with that, and so she remained silent for a while, listening to the resulting silence there in the house as she thought about what else she wanted to say. What else she needed to say. She was thankful that she had someone like Claude who'd be able to stay level-headed in the face of this daunting unknown, and she was glad that they weren't just some fling that had gone off the rails, but at the same time, she was terrified of seeing the reactions of people when they found out the big news. "I…think we need to make sure that however we announce this, it's large and unforgettable, because I want people to be so distracted by the glitz and glamor of it that they forget the tiny details and maybe lay off of things for a bit."

"That can be all up to you, I'll just be along for the ride on it," he said after giving her suggestion a bit of thought, "but I agree that it needs to be something unforgettable. Have to have something to remind people about in the future when they start trying to pick a fight."

"See, you're getting it! This is totally going to be something worth talking about for a long, long time, so we need to make sure that it lives up to that hype!" In Hilda's mind, she was going big on the explosion of grandeur she wanted people to think she lived with, but reality hit her hard moments later when a crucial detail came to mind. "Oh, damn it, I'm either going to have to do all of the preparations online or have you go buy things, aren't I?"

"What do you mean by—oh. Right. The whole 'illness that shut down the world' thing probably isn't the best time for someone who's pregnant to be out shopping whenever she wants." Grimacing as he glanced at the envelope in his lap, then at Hilda and her wide-eyed nodding, Claude clacked his teeth together a couple times before shrugging. "Either option will work, I'm fine with having to do all the prep myself, but I know that'll kill you inside so you can do it online as well. As long as this announcement gets done, right?"

Hilda tried her best to make it clear that she was not just thinking about the announcement, but she couldn't find a good way to speculate on how things would be even a month in the future. "No, if you can go out and do it in person, it'd probably be better. Can't always trust what you find online, even if you're as savvy of a shopper as I am." Now it would just be a matter of figuring out what they were going to do for the announcement in order to even know where to start with the shopping. And then after that would come more shopping that it would be best for her to not go out and do, so she really hoped that Claude didn't get too annoyed with all of the things he was going to be buying in the near future.


Almost like all of Fódlan had been waiting for the lockdown to be over, the day people were allowed to go out and actually socialize with others from out of their homes (but not too many others at a time), it was a mad dash to make plans with the right amount of people first. Hilda had been texted by Marianne the night before lockdown lifted, asking her if it would be okay if she came over the next day, and as she was starved of time with her best friend, Hilda was more than eager to let her come over.

So when Marianne showed up before lunch the next day, it wasn't a surprise to one of the people in the house, but Claude hadn't been told a thing so when he saw a blue-haired woman in his home, he had to do a double-take before saying anything at all. "Shouldn't we be playing it smart and not having anyone else come visit right now?" he asked Hilda, who at that point was lounging on the couch while Marianne was looking through the pictures from the doctor's visit. "Or are you trusting her enough to think it's safe?"

"I've been in no other places, and when I've gone out I've either gone to the park by myself or to the store and stayed in my vehicle the entire time, there's no way I could possibly be sick," Marianne told him, her eyes glued to the pictures as she was smiling out of joy for her friends. "The moment I found out that you two are expecting, I swore to myself that I would play it completely safe for your health, since I want to be a part of all of this. Father knows about it as well, I explained to him the day that I went to the store for you, and he sends his best wishes to you both."

"That's rather sweet of him," Hilda replied, before sitting up, looking at Marianne with furrowed brows, "but why did you tell him about it?"

"Because he asked where I was going since I'd already made plans to go out to the store later that day, and he wasn't sure why I needed to go twice. The truth of it all kind of spilled out on accident, but he's understanding and knows that the child will have a good home with you both." Bowing her head apologetically, Marianne mumbled something else before setting the pictures down on her lap. "With that in mind, what kinds of things would you like me to start making and finding for you? I know a good number of mom groups in the area and could probably get some things for you second-hand, if you'd like…"

Her nose scrunching up further than it already was, Hilda glanced at Claude, who shrugged and walked out of the room rather than replying. "I think we're planning on getting most things new, but if your mom group friends have any suggestions for, like, brands to look for, I'd be all over that. We're kind of newbies to this whole thing, and they've got to have some sort of experience with all of the preparations."

"You'll probably be in good company, I've heard that there's been quite the uptick of supposed expectant mothers over the course of the last few weeks of the lockdown, and they're only anticipating there being more in the coming weeks." That would be something Marianne would have to know from her church connections, Hilda guessed, because it wasn't any sort of statistic she'd heard so far, and with the church being so prominent in the lives of most Fódlan residents, someone who was familiar with the church would get insider information. "Why, I've heard that a couple people we went to school with are in similar positions to you two, but I haven't been told for certain if it's true."

"Oh really? Who, exactly?" That was what got Hilda's face to relax, her annoyed expression replaced with one a bit more inquisitive. When Marianne shook her head and insisted that she couldn't answer that, she gave a resigned sigh and leaned back against the arm of the couch. "Fair enough, I guess I'll find out eventually. Probably when we announce our surprise, or when they announce theirs."

"You're going to do an announcement?" Marianne sounded like that came out of nowhere, but when Hilda laughed she realized that it was par for the course with who she was dealing with. "That's so exciting, I'll definitely help in any way I can. Have you figured out what you're going to do for it?"

From the other room, Claude yelled, "We're still getting that sorted out! She keeps finding all sorts of inspiration online and we're trying to find some way to make it our own!"

"That certainly makes sense, you two would never directly copy something that someone else has already done." Thinking for a moment, Marianne pulled her phone out of her purse and began fiddling with it, eventually handing it over to Hilda with a smile on her lips. "This is one of the mom groups I got added to as an 'impartial moderator' after the last mod decided she'd had enough deciding whose posts were allowed to be seen and whose weren't. I know there's been plenty of announcement ideas posted in here, and I could even add you if you'd like. We have a former classmate who's in this group, so there's that for you at least."

"Wow, some of these people are super creative," Hilda muttered as she scrolled through the wave of pictures the group had to offer. Some were irrelevant to what she was currently looking for—baby shower inspiration, gender reveal tactics, even some birth pictures—but when she saw the banners and balloons and staged photoshoots for announcing that a baby was on the way, each one made her want to copy it exactly. "I'd never think to make it look like a movie poster, or have balloons spell out the important words. Here we were, thinking the best we'd get to do would be a row of shoes or a onesie or something like that."

"There's a lot of those in here too, but usually people only post the big ones." After Marianne got her phone back, it was a couple of seconds before Hilda's phone was dinging on the table, the screen alight with the notification that she'd been sent an invitation to the group. "Don't worry about it right now, I'd wait and accept it when you've got announcement pictures to share just in case our classmate sees your name pop up."

"Well, I'm going to hazard a guess that it's definitely not Leonie, and she's the only one I'd be scared to meet in a place like that, so…" Against Marianne's suggestion, Hilda grabbed her phone and accepted the invitation, finding herself in the group she'd just been looking at, but with a lot less functionality as she wasn't an admin like her friend was. Now that she was in, she was able to go through and start liking and favoriting the posts she liked best as inspiration, so that she could show them to Claude when she got the chance. Of course, just like she'd been warned, it seemed her arrival had been noticed, because on the side of her screen she had a message notification coming from someone that it said was also in the group, whose first name and smiling profile picture took her back to a time when she'd been a student at the monastery in Garreg Mach at the center of Fódlan.

No way, this can't be THE Hilda Goneril, joining this little old group for moms, the first message read, which made Hilda's blood run cold, having been called out so quickly. Now, either you're here because of your friendship with Marianne, which I totally get, or you've got something to share. Care to tell me?

When Hilda had said there was just one person she'd be afraid of seeing in the group, she'd clearly forgotten that they'd had a fair number of socially-aggressive classmates who'd want immediate answers. I don't think I have to tell you anything, she replied, glancing over at Marianne to make sure she wasn't getting overly suspicious about what was happening next to her. We haven't spoken in years and this is how you're going to approach me? Maybe you should explain why you're here first.

So we're going to play like that? I understand completely, with that unchanged name I can only assume you're hiding a bit of a shame right now. It took the mention of names for Hilda to realize that the person who'd started messaging her had a hyphenated last name of her own, but the particular name that it was blended with struck her as odd. No worries, I'll keep it secret for a couple days before telling your brother. He's been quite the patron of the arts in the past few years, after all.

Flinching, Hilda's fingers brushed across her screen a few times before typing anything at all, trying to mentally organize the words needed to respond to such a demand. Why do you think you've got to tell my brother for me? That's none of your business, Dorothea, same with why I'm here in the first place.

In response, she was sent an emoji that was blowing a kiss, followed with: You may think that it's none of my business, but Holst has been very vocal about his enjoyment of my singing, even during this lockdown, and he'd be heartbroken to know his dear sister is keeping such a big secret from him. He dotes on you when we talk, I wonder how it'll change when he finds out!

"I…think we're working on a time crunch now," Hilda lamented as she set her phone down, unable to formulate a response to that last message without losing her cool. Marianne was shaking her head as if she knew this was wholly because she'd been ignored without Hilda having told her a thing. "Claude! Get out here so we can talk!"

He came quickly, looking like he was interrupted in the middle of something important but dropped to see his fiancée's problem. "What's up? You feeling okay?"

"Definitely, I'm feeling great, minus the pressure that we've got a deadline to get this news out to the world before someone's running and telling Holst for me." At the mention of her brother's name, Hilda expected a serious reaction, but what she got was completely unexpected; Marianne had covered her mouth and gasped, while Claude had gotten closer to where they were sitting, audibly whispering an oh shit that she knew was a bad thing. "I'll explain what happened soon enough, but we're deciding this announcement thing here today, or else…yeah, I can't let anyone else tell my brother what's going on."

"You could always call him and let him know in advance," Marianne said, trying not to make things get too hasty in the house. "He'd appreciate hearing it come from your voice rather than a picture, I'm sure."

"We'll call him and tell him, but only when we're telling the whole world right after. Claude hasn't even told his parents yet, so we should've still had time until this happened." She motioned towards her phone, which earned her a confused stare from Claude, so she had to explain about the group and how she'd gotten messaged by Dorothea immediately after joining and now she was in a lot of hot water with her for no reason other than being easily intimidated by her brother's opinion of her and how easily someone could change it.

Claude was trying his best to follow what was going on, but he was lost at the point of getting messaged. "Hold on, why is Dorothea in a group for mothers? I thought she wasn't planning on kids."

"I'll show you both, don't worry." Getting into the group on her own phone, Marianne went right to Dorothea's profile and opened it up, showing off her collection of baby-related posts that had been made to the group over the past months. "She's expecting a little one of her own later this year, she was just able to find out that it's a girl the other day and now—"

"That sounds like nothing but trouble," Claude interrupted, immediately apologizing to Marianne for cutting her off. "I mean, go on, you were saying?"

"—yes, now Dorothea and Ingrid are going to be preparing to dive into parenthood when, well, you probably remember how they were in school so she's bound to be mindful of that being how her daughter grows up to be, especially since the father won't be in the picture so it's all on them to raise the girl."

Closing the profile, Marianne looked over at Hilda, who was staring off into the third distance like there was something interesting there. "What are you thinking about?"

Shaking her head to bring herself back to the conversation, Hilda shrugged. "About how I'd prefer having a daughter over a son, really. I can't imagine having to raise someone who just wants to play all day and get dirty, I want to raise someone who's just like a little me."

"Complete with laziness and the need to have everything done for her?" It was a harsh joke to make, but it was a completely valid one, and if he'd been closer Claude definitely would have gotten a playful smack for it. "No, but I get you on that, I think the world could do with another stunner like you and maybe not another someone like me."

Marianne hushed them both, trying to keep things positive. "Let's not get harsh on ourselves right now, you're speaking about your future child and you don't want to be mean to them by being mean to yourselves. No matter what they are, they'll be lovely just because they have the two of you as parents."

"Sounds like you're just trying to be inspirational now," Hilda said, shaking her head but choosing to respect what Marianne had put out there. "But there's no time for debating what our kid's going to be like, we've got to figure out how to tell everyone that they exist in the first place. Wanna sit down with us, Claude? I've got all sorts of things to show you that we can work with."

He motioned for her to move her legs so that he could sit in between the two ladies, and once he was there and comfortable he was being shown Hilda's phone and all those bookmarked posts of other people's announcements. There were a lot of them that she seemed over the moon in love with that he wasn't as fond of, and there were others that they both liked but Marianne was there to tell them how unreasonable it would be to get the materials needed for it on such short notice. When they finally got to one that the three of them collectively found interesting and able to be modified to meet their own standards, planning for how they were going to make it happen started, which was much easier with the moderator of the group sitting right there with them.

"If you wanted, we could order the supplies right now for pickup and go get them, then take everything to the park and get this done in the sunset light," Marianne said after running through the plan with them a second time. "That, or we can do it tomorrow, I'm fine with either option. I'd hate for Dorothea to be able to ruin this for you, when I'm sure she's just trying to be helpful about things."

"We can get it done tonight," Hilda immediately replied, after glancing at Claude to see if he was going to have any reservations about it. "But since you can actually go into places and it's not going to be just the essentials, why don't you guys both go and get the things together, and maybe pick up some extra stuff for in the future if you find any. I'll totally just stay here and find something to wear for the occasion, which is what I do best."

"I mean, that's definitely a plan we can work with," Claude agreed, him now looking at Marianne to see what she was going to say, and when he saw her face contort and twist he knew that there might be a problem. "Or I can go by myself, that'd work too."

"Father will be so unhappy if he finds out I went inside anywhere that isn't here, but I'll do it, on the condition that you drive. He has a tracker on my car to make sure that I'm not going anywhere I shouldn't be during all of this." Invasion of an adult's privacy aside, the plan was settled and after making sure they knew exactly what they'd be going to get, Marianne and Claude set out to go do some shopping, while Hilda lazed around on the couch a while longer before heading upstairs to search her closet.

Just looking at her, no matter what angle one chose, there was no way to tell that she was currently pregnant by way of her stomach, so she didn't need to worry about hiding or accentuating that, but her chest had definitely grown in relation to how it used to be, so her plan was to find something a bit more modest on top to hide her extra cleavage she was showing off at all other times. That was easier said than done in her closet of clothes, with her love of push-up bras and low-cut necklines, and by the time she'd settled on a nice dress she'd worn to someone's wedding once upon a time, she'd realized that she was starving and could use something to eat before they got to work.

Which meant that she was calling Claude, interrupting him while at the store, asking him to bring her home something for lunch when they were on their way back. "We have a bunch of food in the kitchen, why do you need something brought for you?" he asked, sounding muffled due to him wearing his mask while in the store. "Don't tell me you don't want any of it."

"More like, I'm upstairs and don't want to go down to the kitchen to make something, just to have to come back upstairs because I'm not getting ready until it's time to go. Can you imagine how hard it'd be to keep my cute outfit clean all day if I did that?" He laughed and told her he'd buy a meal on the way home, and she hung up on him, satisfied with her actions. From there, she climbed onto the bed with the intention of taking a short cat nap to tide her over until she could go to sleep that night, but the universe seemed to have much different intentions for that choice.

She was woken up an hour later to the smell of fries coming into the room, and she sat up feeling like she was about to throw up. "Ugh, what did you bring me?" she questioned, seeing Claude in the doorway holding the bag from a nearby burger place. "Please tell me it's not just fries in there."

"You never answered me about what you wanted, so I figured I'd get us a little bit of everything we usually get and you could pick exactly what you want to eat out of it." He came into the room and set the bag down on the end of their bed, something that they usually tried to stay away from doing but in this occasion, with her sleepyhead self having just woken up from a much-longer than intended nap, he felt it was acceptable to break the rules. "Go on, you pick what you want and I'll eat the scraps, it's no big deal."

She got up and grabbed the bag, rummaging through it until she'd pulled out everything that wasn't the fries. "Let me guess, Marianne's eating by herself downstairs?" When that got a nod, followed by a disappointed glance into the bag, she giggled. "Oh Claude, you'll get more than just those nasty things, I'm definitely not going to be eating all of this. You go on downstairs and snack with her, I'll call you back up when I've got more food to give you."

It wasn't the most fair of agreements but he wasn't going to argue with her on the matter, so he and his bag of fries headed down the stairs, leaving her to enjoy the rest of their lunch by herself. She had initially planned to only eat most of what she'd taken, but a voice inside her mind told her that she needed to have more than just some of it, and so when Claude came back up of his own volition to check on her, he found her surrounded by empty containers with a blissful look on her face. There was only one thing he could ask in that moment: "What happened to sharing?"

"I, uh, think that my body decided that I needed a lot more to really provide for this baby, so I kinda ate it all, sorry." Was she actually sorry? Not particularly. But there was something about having made Claude's lunch amount to nothing but fries that felt wrong to Hilda, although she had no way to solve the problem beyond telling him to go check the kitchen for food himself. He didn't seem too bothered by the turn of events, though, so figuring it was no harm, no foul, she decided that they could just move on from the matter. "You have to understand that I can't help it."

"No, I get it, you and the baby are way more important than me and getting to eat, so fries for lunch it is." Grabbing what was left of the originally large meal, Claude did his best to not look super disappointed in the turn of events. "Besides, I actually like these fries, so it's not the end of the world over here. I'll be downstairs keeping Marianne company for you, until you're ready to join us again."

Blinking a couple times, Hilda tried to even remember why she'd come up in the first place, her hunger and subsequent devouring of the meal having caused her to forget momentarily, but when she saw the dress she'd picked out to wear she instantly remembered. "Let me get changed and I'll come down, unless we're not ready for me to look fabulous yet," she said, Claude immediately assuring her that she always looked fabulous and her choice of clothing for the picture would only amplify her beauty. "Please, no need for all that flattery, I know I'm gorgeous but I want people to see this and remember that about me too."

"I really doubt anyone's going to forget how you look, but if that's what you want, we'll be ready after I finish eating. You can get dressed and join us, or you can wait until I'm up here to get ready for myself, either way works for me." With the bag containing nothing but fries in his hand, Claude blew her a kiss and headed back downstairs, her lingering on his choice of options for a while before deciding that she was going to fully feed into her laziness and stay right where she was for a while. Now, Hilda had always been on the lazier side of things, but she had also wanted to maintain her look of beauty and grace, so she'd put in the effort to keep up her physique but rarely exerted effort for anything else; since the start of the lockdown she'd grown exponentially lazier, and now that she had the world's greatest excuse for keeping activity down to the bare minimum, she was going to lean into it.

Still, it was rather rude to keep her friend downstairs with her fiancé while she was up living the lazy life, so Hilda grabbed her dress and everything she planned on wearing with it and took it downstairs with her, so that she could change down there and have her clothes to change back into later already on hand. Proud of herself for coming up with that idea, she headed down the stairs and found herself picking up the smell of whatever Marianne was eating, her full stomach starting to churn at the scent. If she'd been able to tolerate what Claude got for lunch, she could tolerate that as well, she told herself, and so she powered through and made it all the way down, finding the two of them eating silently on the couch.

After swallowing down her current mouthful of food, Marianne waved towards Hilda with a kind smile. "I really think we've got the best possible plan for what we're going to do, on this short of notice and planning," she told her, which made Hilda thankful that someone else was willing to do all of the thinking. "Dorothea's going to regret trying to blackmail you on this, but I do want to remind you that I did warn you about this happening."

"You did, and I'll never forget how much help you've been in sorting this whole problem out," Hilda said, setting her dress and other items down in a chair before sitting in the empty one next to it, just to distance herself from the scent of the food a bit. "If you weren't so willing to jump in and help with all this planning, then it'd be her telling Holst instead of me and I wouldn't be able to live with myself if that's how this all went down. He's already going to be mad, but let's try to limit his anger a bit, you know?"

Marianne nodded, taking another bite of her food, while Claude turned to look at Hilda where she sat, confused about why she hadn't taken the open spot still on the couch. "I don't think you sitting over there's going to really sell your thankfulness," he pointed out, but before Hilda had a chance to explain her reasoning, he was moving on to other things. "Anyway, we're gonna do this out in the backyard, to keep nosy eyes from seeing what's going on before we're ready for it. Nothing too fancy, but given how things are around us right now, how fancy are we really going to be able to get?"

"Not super fancy, I know, and as much as I'd really like to do this at a park or something like you said, I bet those are all crazy crowded and I don't want to be going out with everything else going on and facing strangers who might get me sick and…" Hilda shook her head, thinking about what could happen if she crossed paths with someone who didn't care about anyone else around them. "I definitely don't want there being stupid masks in my picture, so backyard is best for this."

With that seemingly settled on, the two finished their meals and work began on getting dressed and final preparations made for the picture itself began. Once Hilda was in her dress and was as ready as she was going to get, Marianne led her out into the backyard to find the best spot for what they were going to do. It ended up being almost identical to the spot they'd picked for the fake wedding pictures, which felt almost fated in a way, but Hilda was more distracted by the process of getting ready to comment on that. However, that didn't stop Claude from saying something when he came outside, wearing a button-down shirt that was covered in tiny deer up close, but looked plainly pattered at a distance. "First we had wedding pictures here, now we're having baby ones, how about that," he remarked, coming up to Hilda's side and watching Marianne shake her head at him. "What, did I do something wrong? Told you I was wearing the deer shirt."

"You did, but I thought that it would be another of your practical jokes that you're so fond of, the deer shirt isn't exactly…appropriate for this sort of thing, after all." She didn't sound like she was actually disappointed in him, and one look at Marianne from them both let them know that she was trying her hardest not to start laughing about the situation. "At any rate, it's Hilda's call to make, not mine."

"I like the deer shirt, reminds me of our time in school together," Hilda said after giving it next to no thought, knowing that her reasoning was less because of the memories and more because she liked how snug that shirt was against Claude's shoulders and chest. "We're going to look great in this picture, and looking great isn't even the biggest selling point. We're here to announce something huge!"

Where this burst of energy had come from, she didn't know, but she wasn't going to question it, not when she felt like she could stand there and not start falling asleep. Marianne did an excellent job of posing them both, keeping them separate so that they weren't touching in any way, but because of where she was taking the picture and what was happening in it, that was for the best. Hilda's job during all of this was to hold one of the small sonogram images up against her stomach, because to anyone just looking at her, there was no way to even guess there was life growing inside of her. She got to feign surprise and shock, her high ponytail she'd carefully put up tousled so that it looked like she'd just whipped her head around to the side even when the picture was taken.

This was all necessary because of what Claude's job was in the picture, him having had to blow up a balloon that they'd previously decorated for the occasion. He wasn't actively blowing it up when Marianne took the picture, but he had to make it look like he was while keeping his face visible and showing off the words that they'd painted onto the other side of the light-colored balloon they'd prepared; the intended effect was to make it look like he was blowing the balloon up to popping, and when they'd gotten to see the final picture it was clear that he had done just that, while keeping a smug look on his face that really sold the entire scene.

"You think we're going to get a bunch of questions about why we went with this instead of something, like, cutesier or something?" Hilda asked when she looked at Marianne's picture, pleased with how she looked but thinking about how people were going to perceive it. "I mean, they're going to be like, 'why weren't you holding hands or in each other's arms?' or they're going to be like, 'why did you go with something that cliché?' and I don't know if I'm going to be able to answer those questions."

"I'll handle them if they happen on the group page, as a moderator, as your friend, and as the photographer, but I think the effect of it looking like the balloon was being blown up right next to you without overshadowing you was a nice one." Smiling gently, Marianne looked at her friends, who'd ditched the balloon and were predictably holding each other closely as they were looking at the picture. "Plus, the term 'going to pop' is cute and I think the fact that we went with details underneath the words rather than just leaving it at that, and that these words are all actually on the balloon, will take this thing far. You have nothing to worry about when it comes to people taking it wrong."

There was a moment of silence between them, before Claude said, "Except, uh, people taking it wrong because they personally feel disappointment in our decision to make this happen. You really think a couple of crudely-painted words are going to erase the disappointment of our families over this?"

The happiness that had been flooding Hilda's mind during all of this picture-taking vanished as she thought about how Holst was going to get this picture and immediately get angry at his sister's poor decision-making. "Maybe we should retry it, I don't want there to be a lot of problems caused by what we've done."

"There's not going to be any problems because of the picture, so there's no need to retake it. That's a promise that I can swear to the goddess for, if you'd like."

"N-no, there's no need for any swearing here," Hilda assured Marianne, realizing that starting to go down the path of wanting a retake would be getting offensive to the friend who'd put all of the effort into making this happen. "We'll just roll with whatever comes from this, and if it means my brother coming to bust the door down to throttle us, then that's what we deserve."

"You're looking too deeply into the negative possibilities here, no one's going to be mad at the two of you for being adults in a relationship who made an adult decision." It was clear based on how levelheaded Marianne was being that she was used to needing to have this conversation with people, most likely from that mom group. "Now let's get this thing to you so you can post it and not face the consequences of Dorothea's blackmail."

That detail had been looming over all of them, whether they'd tried to ignore it or not, but now it was easy to see that it had been nothing but a threat intended to motivate them into making the announcement. Once Marianne had transferred the picture over to Hilda, she was able to post it to the group and send it to her brother, and while she was doing that Marianne had been getting the picture to Claude so that he could send it off to his family. There were immediate consequences of this decision, as everyone who saw it that they personally knew wanted to react right away—there were a lot of congrats and well-wishes, but there were also a couple messages that were asking them if they were sure this is what they wanted to be doing with their lives right then.

One such dissenter was not Holst, who actually called Hilda to give her a verbal congratulations. "Gonna be honest, I thought this would've happened a long time ago, so for you to make it this long? Nothing but pride from your big brother," he told her, making her beam at the slight praise. "If I were a woman, I'm sure I'd have a kid or two by now, so you've done great at keeping your legs closed as long as you have."

"Thanks, Holst, really means a lot to hear you say that," she replied, trying not to mention that perhaps his compliments weren't as complimentary as he intended for them to be. "I've been with Claude for years now, which is a lot longer than you can say you've ever been with someone, so I'll take your praise and run with it."

"Right, good plan." Chuckling on his side of the phone, Holst repeated how he was proud of what Hilda had done, before tacking on one small request in his closing message to her. "Now, since your brother's not intending on having kids of his own, you're gonna do him a favor and name the little one after me, aren't you?"

Hilda laughed, until she realized her brother was serious about the request. "I mean, we could, maybe possibly, but that's a huge decision that we haven't even started thinking about yet so, uh, ask about that again later, will you? Love you, bye!" And with that, she hung up the call and looked at Claude, who was in the middle of typing out a message to one of his Almyran family members who was inquiring about something relating to the announcement. "The nerve of my brother, I swear. Thinking to turn my big moment into something that he can use to make himself look better? Real mature."

"You can say that about a lot of people in this situation," Marianne said, turning her own phone screen to show Hilda what was on it. It was the comment section on the announcement picture in the group, and while a lot of the comments were from strangers that were being genuine in their congratulating, there was a comment from Dorothea that immediately rustled feathers. It wasn't harmful, but was definitely taking all of the credit for the announcement happening in the first place, and that wasn't going to sit right with just about anyone actively involved in its creation.

"Should I jump in and rip her a new one?" It was the first idea that came to Hilda's mind, and seeing Marianne's eyes grow wide as she insisted that not happen immediately put a stop to it. "Well, if not that, what should I do? Call her out for blackmailing me?"

Marianne's response was to turn her phone back and begin doing something on it. "I've already taken care of that, don't worry. I'm hoping that this diva-like behavior of hers is only because of her current situation and hasn't become a new, permanent trait of hers, but just in case she's always going to act like this going forward, I have set some ground rules for her."

"Why should you care what she thinks, anyway?" Claude asked, finally having sent off his message and tucking his phone away for the time being. "You never cared about what she thought when we were in school, there's not really any reason for that to change, right?"

The truth was that he was right, but Hilda didn't want to admit to that. "I care about what she thinks because she's in the same boat I'm in, and she's been on this journey longer so she's got some kind of insider knowledge that maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to make use of."

"Hilda. Listen to yourself. You're making excuses."

"Okay, and what if I am?" She huffed, rolling her eyes at Claude, who stuck his tongue out at her in return. "She's just already settled into this mom group and I'm kind of the outsider right now, I can't pick fights I'm never going to win, whereas she can fight me all she wants because she's got the knowledge, the power, and the personal connections with so many others. I might be cute and popular, but I pale in comparison to her."

"Never thought you'd be so worried about the opinions of others you'd never cared about before all this started." Claude's take was one that Hilda had needed to hear, even if she didn't want to hear it, but she didn't take it very well, choosing to leave the living room and head up to the bedroom in a stomping fit of frustration.

When she was up in the room, she looked at herself in the mirror, admiring her dress and how great she looked even though she wasn't feeling like she was on the top of the world at the moment. Everything was going to change, whether she wanted it to or not, and she knew that her days of being able to storm upstairs and lock herself in the bedroom uninterrupted were numbered. After all, as their picture announcement said, she was going to pop, and that wasn't a matter of if, but rather a matter of when. Her phone fell from her hand as she reached down and cupped her still-flat stomach with her two hands, fingers brushing against the fabric of her dress as she stared at herself, imagining what was going to be coming for her in future days.

As long as she carried herself with pride and grace, it didn't matter what she looked like; as long as she kept a good attitude about things and didn't give into the bitterness that had clearly enveloped Dorothea's heart, she'd be well-off no matter what.


A/N: if you're reading and enjoying this, please let me know! this story is a huuuuuuge passion project for me!