The second group for mothers that Hilda ended up in was not one of her own choosing, nor did Marianne have anything to do with it. This time it was done as a surprise, without any formal invitation; Hilda just woke up one morning later that week to an onslaught of notifications from people in this new group. There was something undeniably strange about the situation immediately, but before she could put her finger on it, Dorothea's smiling face was popping up in the chat messenger.
I hope you don't mind what I did, as a bit of an apology for how I previously acted, she wrote, making Hilda instinctively roll her eyes. It felt only appropriate that I add you to the "Hot Moms of Garreg Mach" club. You surely understand why.
Aw, you think I'm a hot mom? Hilda replied, despite feeling like hot and mom were two words that shouldn't be describing her currently. Real sweet of you, Dorothea. But okay, apology accepted, but did you need a private group to make it?
After sending that message, Hilda slowly let her head roll from one side of the pillow to the other, looking at Claude as he too lay there on his phone. "Dorothea's calling me a hot mom," she giddily told him, his response coming as a single chuckle. "H-hey, it's not funny! I happen to appreciate the compliment."
"Sounds too good to be true, coming from her. If it was from me, it'd be the truth, but her? I think she's trying to butter you up for something." They were honest words, but even though he was being honest, he was saying things Hilda didn't want to hear. She wanted to believe that she was being given a genuine apology, and being called something so flattering was unexpected and uplifting.
What makes you think this group was made for that reason? You're getting kind of cocky that I'd start a group made up only of moms I know from our school days just to make you feel better. That was the response that made Hilda take a closer look at the group itself, and seeing that others outside of her (including Dorothea herself) had been there for a week minimum came slightly as a surprise.
The only thing more surprising than it not being a newly-made group was who some of the people there were. She wasn't looking at posts specifically, just the names and faces of members, so she had no idea if any of them were there because they were moms, or if they'd been added for the fun of it. But there were former classmates of theirs that Hilda was shocked to see in there, and she didn't know how to bring any of that up, or at least, how to bring it up with Dorothea.
"Take a look at this, will you?" she asked Claude, shoving her phone in his direction and waiting for him to take it from her with a grumble. "You hear anything about any of these ladies having kids?"
"No, but I don't hear anything about any of them to begin with, so I wouldn't take that as a good answer." Despite having been given the phone solely to look at what was on the screen, Claude began touching things, navigating away from the list of people in the group to the content itself, which was when he let out a low whistle. "Oh yeah, this is definitely another one of those groups for moms."
"What's with the whistle? You realize you're into moms all of a sudden?" Before he could answer that, Hilda had snatched her phone back, mostly to see which picture he'd found had earned such a reaction. Expecting to find something a bit flirty and fun, she quickly understood that the whistle had not been an indicator of something being incredibly attractive, and she dropped her phone on her face at the surprise of what she saw.
Stifling a laugh with the back of his hand, Claude said, "To answer what you asked, the only mom I'd say I'm into is you, but I whistled because…damn, you saw that picture, you know who they are. How'd a guy like that bag a girl like her?"
As Hilda, flustered at what had happened, picked her phone back up, she felt she was inclined to agree with Claude's interpretation. It was an announcement much like the one they'd shared weeks before, except this one took place in the waters just off the shore of a beautiful beach. Only two pairs of legs were partially visible above the water's surface, and between them was the tiny sonogram image of their barely-there baby, with the whole picture captioned Baby's first beach day—more coming next year!
"You'd think for being someone so pale, he would've thought twice about going along with this plan," Hilda remarked after looking all over the picture again, taking in its staged beauty with a bit of bitterness in her heart; she would've loved to have been able to do a destination announcement like that if it had been possible. "But, like, good for them! Bet that child's going to be a stunner like their mom is."
"And royalty, can't forget that part." Claude looked at Hilda, giving a couple of small nods to try passing off his reminder as being most important of all. "Which leads to a lot more questions about how this happened, but maybe the lockdown over there in Brigid is worse than the one we had here? If it's driving a princess to desperation…"
"Please don't finish that thought," she cautioned, moving past the picture but keeping it in her mind as she looked at everything else that the group had to offer. There weren't a whole bunch of people who were added, but she knew each and every one of the names to some extent, none too personally but all of them at least to recognize them on the street, and she wondered if any of them would remember who she was whenever she got around to posting something in there. They really didn't have any reason to remember her, she'd done nothing but be lazy during her school days, but perhaps someone would recognize her name and her distinct hair color and piece who she was together.
Later that day, she went ahead and took the leap with posting the announcement picture they'd taken within the group. It had been so well-received by everyone outside of those digital walls that it didn't feel quite as daunting of a task as originally posting it had been, but these were strictly people that she knew to some capacity, so there was a bit of nervousness involved. The very first comment she got after posting it came from Dorothea herself, who made it clear that she'd already seen the announcement but wanted to give "congrats again for such a lovely time in their lives", which felt like an almost forced message that Hilda didn't want to accept.
There was a second comment that came moments later, from Ingrid, who had to have only been in the group because Dorothea didn't want to leave her out, as she was technically a mother to an unborn child as well. It was just an image that wished congratulations, but that was more than enough to calm Hilda's nerves on the matter just a bit more, and she was able to stop worrying so much about what was going to happen with her picture, or even on her phone in general, for the rest of the night. That was, until she received a message that she initially thought was related until she saw that it was from Leonie, who she definitely knew was not in that group.
"Hey Claude, you won't mind if I take care of this, will you?" she asked, looking at him as they were sitting together on the couch watching some sort of action show they'd put on out of boredom one day during lockdown and had gotten invested in. "I'll just watch the episode again later if I miss something important, but Leonie's trying to talk and I know better than to leave her hanging too long."
"Go ahead, I know ignoring her can end with her at the front door trying to talk in person, and that's not the smartest idea right now." He gave her a peck on the cheek as she stood up and headed around to one of the other chairs in the room, so that her phone screen didn't become a distraction for him as he kept watching their show.
Fingers moving quickly, Hilda opened up the message to see that it was, in fact, Leonie asking if she could come by to have a talk, but if that wasn't possible then a phone call would work just fine. Knowing that both of those options were not ones that she wanted to deal with right then, she stepped out into the backyard and sat down on one of the deck chairs they'd purchased to make the area a bit more usable. She didn't respond to the message itself but rather just called Leonie on her own, letting her know that was the option she was taking. "You didn't waste any time humoring me," Leonie said upon answering, her voice sounding a lot less confident than it usually did. "Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, though, I'm losing my mind."
"What happened? You lose your job or something and need a place to crash?" That felt like a possibility, given how Leonie's work as a freelance security worker would have been destroyed by the lockdown and getting back to a steady income might have been hard to come by. "We can't let you live here, but if you need it, I guess—"
"I'm actually not in a bad place when it comes to my living situation, but thanks for the offer." Cutting her off without apology, Leonie continued speaking right away, wasting no time to get her thoughts out. "I just wanted to know how long you were sick for, that's all."
"How long I was…sick for?" Hilda repeated, not sure if she'd caught that.
Speaking plainly, but with that same lack of confidence, Leonie said, "Yeah, how long you were sick for. I feel like I've been doing nothing but lay around and throw up for days now and I'm kind of over it."
"Hold on, what are you talking about?" It wasn't so much that Hilda was confused about what was going on as it was her being completely shocked by who she was hearing this from, almost like she'd called the wrong number on accident. "You can't just throw me into a conversation like this and not give any context! Explain yourself!"
On the other end, Leonie went dead silent, the only sound letting Hilda know they were still connected being the occasional breathy laugh that seemed more nervous than anything. "I've been sick for like a week now, just downright miserable, and I was wondering how long you were sick when you realized that you were pregnant? You looked too good when you posted that picture to—"
Now it was Hilda's turn to cut her off, with a high-pitched shriek as all of the dots in her mind fully connected. "Oh goddess, who the hell did you let knock you up? I can't answer your question because I never actually got sick for more than a bit at a time, but I can definitely direct you towards people who can, but you better get to explaining yourself even more because I'm super curious! Who've you been sleeping with?"
"—wait, you didn't know? How in the world did I not tell you when I found out? I told Marianne and had a long talk with her about it but she didn't know how to help specifically because she's obviously never been in these shoes." Now that it all made sense why Leonie was sounding so deflated and not her usually strong self, Hilda wanted to push her from talking about her specific problem to talking about the bigger picture, but she knew that time would come soon enough. "Here I was, thinking that asking you would come with a list of remedies and ways to feel better, but I guess your lazy lifestyle helped you out from the start on this one, huh?"
Every additional statement was leaving Hilda reeling harder than the previous one, so when she finally found it within herself to speak, she was doing little more than just rambling about how she'd just gotten multiple across-the-face slaps from what she'd heard. "I can't say it was anything to do with me being lazy, it was more just super good luck than anything else, I think? But that's not what's important here, I don't think, because you've come to me looking for help because you, strong, independent, completely reliant on no one but herself Leonie Pinelli, has found herself dealing with morning sickness because she's pregnant? Am I getting this right?"
"Look, I know it's kind of hard to believe, but yes, that's what's going on right now. Trust me, when I found out I was super in disbelief as well, but that's what I get for approaching the guy I'd been living with during lockdown asking him to sleep with me when we'd been drinking." Even though it was a phone conversation, Hilda knew that Leonie was over in her place shrugging off her problems. "Guess I should've made it clear that we both couldn't drink at the same time, because when he was sober and I was drunk he wanted nothing to do with me in bed."
"I didn't even know you had a boyfriend," Hilda pointed out, "so for you to call me asking about how to handle being sick and pregnant just kind of threw me for a loop. Want to start explaining from there before I hook you up with some people who might know more than I do about all this?"
Leonie took a second before she replied, and it came in a whispered voice. "As long as your help has nothing to do with certain people, I bet I can accept it," she said in the hushed tone, before speaking up to continue. "I've had a boyfriend since just before the lockdown happened, we'd been seeing each other off and on before then but we made things official, I came to visit him at his home in Faerghus and…" She stopped speaking at once when she heard Hilda let out a surprised chirp, not saying another word of her own volition.
Realizing that she may have come off as a bit too shocked at that admission, Hilda made the motion to apologize right away. "Sorry about that, never thought I'd heard you talking about having a long-distance thing. Then again, shouldn't have come as too much of a shock given that your job literally had you running all across the corners of Fódlan doing all sorts of strange jobs. Let me guess, you met this guy through work?"
"No, I met him at Garreg Mach, just like the rest of you seem to have met your other halves, but I didn't have anything close to interest in him until way later. That's just how it happens sometimes, after all, you just kind of fall in love randomly when you're not looking for it." She sighed, before audibly gagging and the phone falling mute for several minutes, time Hilda spent waiting patiently for her friend's return. When Leonie did come back, she was sounding even more feeble than she had before, and it pained Hilda to know she didn't have the first clue of how to solve the problem. "But anyway, yeah, I spent lockdown in a part of Faerghus I wasn't super familiar with, and might've gotten a bit dependent on their local brews to get me through not being able to work."
"And now you can't work and you can't drink, how about that."
There was a clear eyeroll being made as Leonie said, "Don't remind me, I've been dreading the day someone outside of you, Marianne, and Felix finds out about—"
"Holy shit, you've been sleeping with the Felix? Quiet asshole who never wanted to open up to anyone? How'd you manage that one?" Having gone from being sorry for being surprised to fully accepting that she was far too shocked at what she was hearing for her own tastes, Hilda could feel her grasp on the phone tightening as she thought about the man she knew with that name, who she'd only spoken to a time or two in school but knew to be nothing short of an aloof prick. "Wait, no, how you got with him doesn't matter, what matters is how he took this news. Bet he wasn't thrilled at all about it, was he?"
"—will you stop your brain from running a million questions at once so that I can actually process what's being said when you're saying it?" Leonie didn't seem to be too annoyed, all things considered, so Hilda couldn't feel bad about cutting her off like she had. "I already told you, we just kind of fell in love after we reconnected while I was out there for a job one time, and then lockdown stuck me there with him and nowhere else to go. At least it was him and not someone who'd just throw me out for this happening, that's all I'm going to say about that."
"He didn't take it well, did he?" Hilda asked, curious about the specific details, but the way that Leonie groaned told her that it was a story she wasn't going to be hearing anytime soon, if ever.
"Point is, you three are the only people who know about this, and as much as he wants to keep it secret from everyone, the moment I stop showing up to do security work at the places I've always been working, they're going to send help to see what's keeping me away." There was a clear sense of not wanting that to happen in Leonie's voice, and as much as Hilda wanted to give her some sort of assurance that everything was going to be fine, she didn't know how to based on that and that alone. Thankfully, there was more Leonie wanted to say that became easier to work with. "I know he's worried that people are going to look down on him for what he's done, because he's got no intentions of marrying me anytime soon if at all, and I really don't blame him."
"Look, if the princess of Brigid can have a child out of wedlock, then so can he," Hilda replied, thinking back to that morning's revelation. "He's, what? Future duke of a piece of land there in Faerghus? He can get over it and let you live not in seclusion because he didn't know how to tap it safely."
For a moment, Hilda thought that she'd crossed a line or two with that, but then she heard Leonie laugh and she knew everything was going to be okay. "Thanks for that, really needed the reminder that he's not most important in the world and that I should be allowed to share what I want when I want it."
"That's what I'm here for, the reminders of how this world's supposed to work. But, uh, mind if I end this call here?" Glancing back inside to see that Claude was no longer watching their show and had moved to watching her from the other side of the door, Hilda was flooded with guilt for stepping out for so long. "We can always talk and catch up again sometime soon, and obviously I'll help you out as much as I can because we're in this together, but I've got other things to take care of tonight."
"Right, sorry for keeping you so long! Have a good night, and thanks again!"
The moment Hilda could pull the phone from her ear, Claude opened the door and stepped outside to join her. "What was that about?" he asked, curious to know what had become such a large distraction from their evening, but when he saw the way Hilda was clearly thinking about something he backed off. "Don't worry, don't have to tell me right now. Whenever you're ready for it."
"No, I'll tell you, you knew it was Leonie I was talking to and her business that becomes my business is obviously going to become your business as well." Her phone may have been a bit warm to the touch, but Hilda pushed past that discomfort as she got into the new group she'd been added to and invited Leonie to join its ranks, giving her the opportunity to refuse in case she wasn't ready to jump in. "Let's just say that we can add someone else to the ranks of becoming a lockdown mom, and we're going to leave it right there."
His jaw dropping as he stared at her, Claude was clearly attempting to form words with his stunned mouth, but no sounds ever quite came out. "Yeah, I know, but I'm not going to say everything else she told me, because that's her deal and I'm not pulling a Dorothea on her and convincing her to tell everyone everything before she's ready."
"I had no idea that she even had a boyfriend, or a guy she was seeing casually," Claude finally admitted, shaking his head as his eyes finally shifted from off of Hilda and up to the evening's sky, which was cloudless and adding to the lovely night out on the deck. "At least that kid's going to have friends to grow up with? How many kids is that now among the people we went to school with?"
"I…don't even think I want to count and find out the exact number," Hilda sharply replied, knowing that the moment she tried to get an exact count she'd find out there was one or two she was missing. "It's a lot, and that's just with our class from Garreg Mach. Imagine how many more babies there are all across Fódlan from this!"
As the news made very clear about a week later, there really wasn't a projected baby boom happening from the extended lockdown, which meant that the ladies of the "Hot Moms of Garreg Mach" group were an exception, not the norm. As she lay on the couch, sprawled out after having taken a mid-afternoon nap, Hilda's eyes were watching the TV screen intently, listening to the statistics the broadcaster was talking about in regards to the effect of the illness on Fódlan and how the lockdown had impacted lives.
Aside from the fact that she wasn't going to be a member of some huge, country-wide collective of new mothers, the biggest takeaway she got from the report was that there were still daily cases of the illness, and it was still advised to go out in limited amounts and with masks and sanitizer if it was necessary to go anywhere. "Guess that means I'm doing all my shopping online, if they want people to be staying home still," she said with an eyeroll, one of her hands falling onto her stomach from where it had been perched on the back of the couch. "Here I was, thinking I was going to get to do all these fun, huge shopping trips with lots of trying things on and modeling in the fitting room for my friends, but that's not happening I guess."
Her fingers started playing with the fabric of her shirt, which was still fitting her comfortably, but she'd noticed that it had become tighter across her chest every time she wore it, and she knew that the day that it was straining against her stomach was coming sooner rather than later. It had been just that morning that she'd woken up and seen that there was the tiniest, almost unnoticeable bit of a bump starting to form between her hips, and she'd gasped when she realized she could feel the gradual change from her formerly flat self. If Claude had been in the bedroom when it had happened, she certainly would have grabbed him to feel it as well, but he was out hanging with Lorenz (and possibly other friends, but Lorenz was the only one who'd been mentioned) and he was gone all day.
"Even if I can't go shopping for my clothes in person, I'm still going to be the best-dressed pregnant lady in all of Fódlan, and I personally know some of my competition so it's not like I'm talking too big of a game," she continued, her fingers having transitioned to just touching the tiny curve of her stomach, which was amplified after having eaten lunch. "They're all gonna be coming to me looking for fashion tips of how to accessorize and make your bump look fabulous, and I'm going to have things to say to each and every one of them."
A commercial came on after the news report, for a summer fun retreat that somehow hadn't been cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic, and her initial reaction was to go wide-eyed and think about how much fun it would be to go to it, getting to ride water rides and camp in style in the cabins provided. Then, as quickly as she'd gotten excited, she remembered that participating in such things while pregnant would be nothing but frowned upon, and her spirit deflated back down to how it had been. That was a consequence of her actions that she was just going to have to deal with over and over again, knowing that there were many things she physically would not be allowed to do. "I'll save that plan for after the baby," she decided, sighing as she relaxed into her spot on the couch a bit more. "But for now, I think I'm going to return to my nap."
Sure enough, she was asleep within ten minutes, and woke up a couple hours later starving and in desperate need of stretching her legs a bit. While she got up to make food and pace around the kitchen while it cooked, she had her phone on hand and was getting herself up to date on what was happening in her mom groups she'd gotten to be a part of. The one that Marianne was a mod for was a lot of people's pictures that she knew she'd want to replicate when the time came, but because none of them were people she personally knew she found it harder to care about leaving comments or reactions. The other group, for the Garreg Mach moms, didn't have too much activity that day, but it did have a discussion post open about due dates and if anyone was planning on having parties open to more people than their closest family and friends.
Piquing her interest, Hilda jumped into the comments to see what everyone was saying. Naturally it was Dorothea who'd started the conversation, and she was talking about how her due date was coming up before the end of the year (which wasn't going to be the case for many of the others there, unless they'd conceived right at the beginning of lockdown or before), and how she was disappointed that she wasn't going to be able to have a baby shower like she had wanted. "I've had to attend so many appointments on my own—one place even allowed fathers but wouldn't let Ingrid in because she's clearly not a father, so that sucked—and now our little girl isn't going to get all the gifts she deserves from her adoring family and all of our friends. That is, unless we do one right around her due date, but I'm not going to assume that'll work out in my favor."
"Oh no, that sounds horrible!" That reply came from Mercedes, who was the only other person in the group beyond Dorothea and Ingrid, as far as Hilda knew, that had been married and actively trying to have a child before the lockdown had happened. "I know that you two have wanted this baby for so long, we've talked about it so many times over dinner, and now you don't get to have the celebrations you've dreamed of. As I'm having a late Pegasus Moon baby, we are hopeful that we'll be able to have gatherings with family, friends, and all of you here in preparation."
"If only we could be sure the world's safe before the Wyvern Moon rolls around," Dorothea replied, adding a smattering of emojis to express her distress with the situation. "You know that us and the little one will be there for you if we can be, we wouldn't willingly miss being there for the world!"
Knowing that she could very well jump into this conversation, Hilda decided she was going to read everything that was said before she gave her own input. Aside from what Dorothea had said, all of the claims for due dates came in either the Pegasus or Lone Moons, and just based on the fact that the lockdown had initially started in March, that meant that those babies were late-lockdown conceptions. With a shaky hand that she typed her message out with, she gave the desired information as well as she could, knowing that everyone else was going to be a bit judgy about it. "Early-year due date here, we're talking middle of January/Guardian Moon, and I haven't thought any about what we're going to do regarding a baby shower. Do I want one? Yes! Will I have one? I don't know!"
The first response came almost right away, with a pair of emojis that signaled that the person posting was curious or intrigued about something that had been said. They followed it up with a written comment soon after: "Weren't you supposed to get married early Harpstring Moon? Did this baby come as a replacement instead?" It was from the only person currently in the group who wasn't actually one of their classmates, but rather the professor who'd started at Garreg Mach and taught for their class, but gave up teaching at the conclusion of the year because of her romantic connection with one of the students. "It would not be too much of a surprise if that were the case, because you and Claude seem like the type of people who would trade one big thing for another."
"That's exactly what happened, you're totally calling us out correctly!" Oh, she hadn't even thought about that perspective before, so for this former teacher of hers to literally throw it in her lap, she was beyond lucky. "I'm not surprised someone brilliant like you would know that without even thinking, though. You were always such a great professor."
The flattery was nice, but it fell flat when the response was a lot less receptive to it. "Yeah, I was great at my job, until I fell in love with a student and had to retire for my feelings."
"Enough of that, ladies, we're not here to dwell on the past but rather be happy for out futures! Byleth, you're not even going to acknowledge that you're here even though you can't answer the question my post posed?" Dorothea was stepping in, which was immediately receiving of an eyeroll from Hilda, but then there was the fact that someone was among the members of the group without being actively expecting motherhood that dragged her right back into being invested. "Do you want to talk about why you're here?"
In a new comment thread on the post, Byleth did just that, almost like she'd pre-typed the message to begin with. "I'm here not because I'm currently pregnant, but because this group is for moms and I am an adoptive mother, due to my body being unfit for carrying a child in any capacity. Just in case anyone was worried." She then continued about something about her position as an advisor to the church, working in tandem with the government of Faerghus because of her boyfriend that she'd had to initially quit her job for being a part of their government, and how she had chosen to adopt a child they'd met while on a visit to Duscur a year before. Hilda mentally spaced out somewhere in the middle of the explanation of the adoption process, and she was only brought back when she heard the sizzling of the food she was cooking begin to overflow from the pot she was cooking it in.
There was really only one other response she was looking for, that being Leonie's; she knew that her friend had joined the group on her invite but she hadn't said a word in there, and replying to that post was going to be the defining moment of this part of her life. Was she going to remain scared to announce things to the world, or was she going to maintain her strength and independence and do things her own way? Only time would tell, but as the time passed, dinner was finished being cooked, and Hilda got to eat everything she made without the guilt of leaving Claude out because he was going to be getting food without her anyway, she kept checking to see if there was any post at all from Leonie.
One never came, which was understandable enough, but in all of her checking Hilda did come to the conclusion that just about every girl from their class at Garreg Mach was now in this group, minus the very obvious omission of Marianne. For whatever reason, the desperation of being close with someone during the lockdown had really struck their class hard, and now they were all paying the price, but had the company of so many others to get them through. She had to sit and think about who all was missing, and came up with a short list that was only three names long: Marianne (as everyone knew), Edelgard, and Lysithea. None of those were actually that shocking to not have there, but that meant that everyone else had made their choices and were suffering the consequences.
"It's going to be crazy when we all can get together and there's a bunch of kids all the same age there," she said to herself after double-checking her list against the group itself. Some of the others who were in the group hadn't commented on Dorothea's post, so she didn't know what their stories were, but based entirely on what she'd seen so far, Hilda could guess that they were all going to have their kids at around the same time as the rest of the group. She could only hope that there'd be someone else who was an outlier with her, not quite as far separated from everyone else as Dorothea herself was, but still not in the mix with the majority of the others.
Her night was low-key, and when she started falling asleep on the couch yet again, she dragged herself upstairs to go to bed, but ended up collapsing in her spot on the bed fully dressed and in no state to actually sleep. That was how Claude found her when he got home later, though, and he had to shake her gently to wake her up. "You planning on going somewhere tonight?" he asked her, not sure why she'd be dressed in her normal clothes while in bed when she had quite the collection of nightgowns and sleep shorts to pull from. "I would hope that you intend on staying here, storm's rolling in."
"I just…" She yawned, blinking a couple times as she looked at Claude's face to see that he was slightly drenched with rain, and she could smell the earthy scent coming in through the bedroom window she'd opened at some point earlier in the day. "I got tired and crawled into bed without changing, I don't have any plans other than sleeping right now."
"Good to hear, I'll join you in bed in a few minutes." He let her be, and while he was taking a quick shower, she got out of her clothes and into a lacy nightgown that she'd bought once upon a time as a means to entice him to sleep with her. Now she was wearing it casually, because it was comfortable, not restrictive on her chest, and she didn't have to use too much energy to get it on or off. Since she knew he was home, she didn't want to fall back asleep before he was there with her, but her eyelids were heavy and even sitting up in her spot wasn't stopping her from drifting off.
The loud sound of thunder outside did the trick, though, and as it echoed through the sky she heard the water in the shower turn off. Moments later, the flash of lightning burst through the window, and she felt her hair on her arms and neck stand on end. "Can you hurry up in there?" she called, hoping Claude heard her and would heed her word. "I'm getting lonely out here waiting for you!"
He cracked the bathroom door open, his wet face and hair peeking out while the rest of him remained in the room. "I'll be out in a moment, unless you'd like to get soaked while we're sleeping," he reminded her, and the door closed on him as he got to work on drying off. Hilda huffed, not content with that answer but mostly because she wasn't thrilled with the thunderstorm that had taken hold over their home. When the door opened again, it came in time with another thunderclap, and she visibly jumped at how loud it was, but if Claude had been looking he wouldn't have seen it because the power shut out in the second after the sound, lightning having seemingly struck a transformer in their neighborhood. "Get your phone and shine the light, please," he begged, and she did as demanded, so that he could deposit his dirty clothes in their hamper and turning the bedroom light switch off before getting into bed with her. "Guess we're sleeping without power for the time being, huh?"
"What I've always dreamed off, a sticky, hot summer night in bed with you, with no chance of there being any relief from the heat." She spoke sarcastically, because they'd shared many a hot night in bed with each other, but this time it was different because it wasn't a sexually-charged thing. "You want to tell me how your day went, or are you going to keep it secret for now?"
"Just hung out with Lorenz at his place, nothing too crazy. Raphael and Ignatz were supposed to come by for dinner, but neither showed so we just made pizza in that giant-ass kitchen Lorenz never uses and called it a night." Scooting closer to Hilda, Claude grabbed her and wrapped her in one of his arms, so that he could lean his wet head against hers, which had a cooling effect on her in the heat there in their room. "How was your day of being here alone? Unless Marianne came by, which I doubt."
"She didn't, that's true," Hilda replied, thinking about how she could have easily invited her best friend over to keep her company, but that wouldn't have allowed her to take so many naps and have just a relaxingly lazy day on her own. "I found out some things about the mom group for our class from Garreg Mach, but they're things everyone would learn sooner rather than later anyway."
He chuckled. "Want to tell me what those were, or are you going to keep them secret?"
"Ha, funny using my own words against me, but I planned on telling you anyway. Guess just about everyone we went to school with is popping out a kid next year, which is just wild to me." She could hear him murmuring something in surprise at that, so she followed up with, "It's not exactly everyone, I mean, we know Marianne's not got anyone, and Lysithea's not in the group, but Edelgard isn't either? Thought she'd have wanted in on this to further her bloodline or make an heir for her role as leader of Adrestia or whatever."
"Maybe she's looking into alternatives? She's not exactly the kind of woman I'd expect to, well, let herself be relegated to light duties while she's carrying a child." Claude paused, lifting his head so that he could listen to the rain falling outside with the intermittent thunder and light show outside their window. "I'm more surprised about who else you didn't just mention there. Everyone else, really?"
"Well, you know Ingrid's only in there because of Dorothea, but all the other ladies are. Even our old professor, kind of!" Now that was one that she was excited to share, mostly because she'd known that, despite them being a thing for much of their time in school, Claude had always gotten a little flirtatious with Byleth when he'd gotten the chance. "And basically everyone's having their babies in the same two months next year, because of the stupid lockdown giving them nothing better to do."
"Teach doesn't have a kid, I'm sure all of Fódlan would've heard that their archbishop-in-training was pregnant if it had happened, lockdown or not," Claude said, but once Hilda explained that she had a child through adoption, he accepted it as possible. "Now that, that makes sense. It's bound to look good on her for adopting a kid in need, even if…she's still with ol' Dedue, isn't she?"
"That she is, she made it clear that she's still with him because of talking about her connections to the Faerghus government. Which I guess means that he's still working as Dimitri's right-hand man, but…" Hilda trailed off, thinking for a moment about everything she'd seen that day. "Do you think Dimitri's got someone that he's with? Honestly, until it came out that Byleth wanted a thing with Dedue and he was willing to be with her, I totally thought that he was with Dimitri, but since he's clearly not, I wonder what's going on."
She could feel Claude tense up against her, followed by a slow relaxation. "I don't know, but if he had a kid on the way, we'd know about that because he's a prince, even if it's mostly for show under the church's rule. If he was suddenly having a kid with someone while unmarried, it'd be a big deal that none of us would've been able to miss."
"Maybe, just maybe, he hasn't had a kid yet." That seemed like it had to be the most likely outcome here, because Claude was right about how it would've been discussed if the prince of one-third of Fódlan was having a child out of wedlock. "Then again, we only know that Petra's having a child because of her post in that group, and she's the princess of Brigid, so maybe we're overestimating how much the public cares."
"It's possible, but either way, I don't think that he's got a child coming anytime soon. If he does, I'll personally go to his doorstep and congratulate him and whoever's crazy enough to be willing to sleep with him and his unhinged ass." Claude laughed, shaking his head and dripping some water down on Hilda's cheek. "I'll even say it that way to them, because they'll need to hear it. You think someone would really want to have a kid with him?"
"Probably, he's a prince!" There were many people that Hilda would act that way about, and Dimitri was not one of them, but she wasn't going to lay there and tell Claude that she'd say that exact thing to his closest friend if he ever found someone to have a kid with. "Everyone wants to get with princes, it's just the way of the world! I'd have thought you'd understand that sort of thing."
He let out a long sigh, showing that perhaps he was going to admit defeat in that contest. "Point still stands, if it happens I'll warn whoever it's with that they're making a huge mistake, but I'll do it as a joke because you're right, anyone'll want to get with a prince just because he's royalty. Never mind the fact that he's been known to threaten to kill everyone around him, and the fact that his position holds little power in Fódlan."
"I'll accept that as you telling me I'm right."
"As you should."
Since she hadn't been able to do it right when he'd gotten home, due to the thunderstorm and all of the other circumstances that surrounded that night, Hilda had been forced to save her showing Claude that there really was something growing inside her until the next morning. She woke up with him on his phone in the bed next to her, muttering something to himself as he was looking at an article on his screen. "You'll never guess what else happened yesterday, outside of the whole mom group conversation I got involved in," she started, her voice still showing signs of being tired as she'd just woken up. "But I'd like you to guess anyway, if that's okay with you. Don't wanna just tell you everything."
"Your brother called and said he's going to give you all the family money?" Claude suggested, not serious in the slightest because he knew that Holst would never do such a thing unless it was on his deathbed. "But, really, I don't know. Tell me."
"I noticed that I'm starting to get a bit of a baby bump going on. Wanna see it?" She didn't really wait for an answer, kicking off the blanket and pulling her nightgown tight to her skin, the tiniest of curves showing up underneath its taut fabric. "Can't believe that someday soon this thing's gonna be huge and—"
He set his phone down and put his hand on her stomach, completely obscuring any sign of there being a change at all. "Don't tell me it's going to get big, that's just telling me that we're running low on time when it comes to getting anything done around here to prepare for their arrival. Can't be the one doing all the work myself."
"—I don't think I'm gonna be doing much to help you anyway, remember? I'm not built for working hard, and preparing for a baby when I'm the one growing it sure seems like a lot of working hard to me." Hilda loved the feeling of his hand on her, and she couldn't wait until there was more for him to touch, but right now it felt like he was trying to keep her from changing any more than she already had. "You'll have to get your friends to help. Lorenz and Raph and Ignatz will all be great at getting the room set up, and obviously Marianne's going to help with decorating and getting clothes picked out. I'm just gonna sit back and watch the rest of you doing everything for me."
"Uh, no you're not, you're going to help as long as you can because those guys? They're going to have to help everyone else who's having kids as well, since they're able-bodied and don't have anything holding them back." She hated when Claude was rational and correct about things, and this situation was no different. "You're just going to have to deal with doing some work so that I'm not shouldering it all for the little guy. Or girl. When will we find that out, do you know?"
She shook her head. "Not anytime soon, I don't think. Dorothea just found out that hers is a girl not long after we found out when we're having ours, and hers is due a lot sooner than ours is. Guess that's something I'll have to ask about when I go to my next appointment in a couple weeks."
"My birthday's in a couple weeks," Claude pointed out, lifting his hand off of Hilda so that he could grab his phone again. "Just saying, it'd be a nice birthday gift to find out when we're finding out what we're having, so that we can get a lot of the work done sooner. Like, you know, decorating appropriate and their name."
Naming the child was something that Hilda had kind of thought of, not since she'd gotten pregnant but in the years before that. She'd known that if she was ever going to have a baby, chances were it would be Claude's, and so she had been trying to come up with names that would work well with his last name. Hearing him mention that they'd need to actually put in the work to make a name reminded her of how much she hated the idea of needing to name a baby Riegan, and she looked to him with disgust. "Do you think we can take an easy way out and name the kid after either of us? Think that'd be simple, sweet, and predictable."
"Hilda, that's a great idea, except I'd rather us not name the child your exact name, and…if you really want them named after me, you're getting Claude as the name, not my actual name." The way he said that last part hit her hard, and she noticed that he was matching her look of disgust with the same expression. "There's a reason I don't go by Khalid around here, and I'm not subjecting someone who's more of a Fódlan citizen than I am with that same kind of stigma around their name."
"Okay, okay, fine, we'll have to come up with some other choices when we know what we're working with. Even though I'd love to get to name the baby after myself." She laughed, but Claude wasn't overly amused by her insistence that they go that route if needed. "I'm joking, don't worry, I'm just going to go with whatever sounds right when we start talking about it."
His expression relaxed, less disgusted but still not thrilled with what he'd heard. "I'm okay with that, but don't think this is where this conversation ends. We'll have to have a long, more detailed talk about this when the time comes. For now, though…remember, my birthday's in two weeks." When he winked at her, she knew that he was just trying to get her to think about more pressing matters, but she was admittedly a bit focused on the baby name thing to think too much about what she was going to do for his birthday.
There was still so much uncertainty in the world that trying to make concrete plans for what to do for a birthday so soon after the end of lockdown was difficult at best. There wasn't any way to guarantee that they'd be able to go anywhere—and if they could, it would probably be for the best if Hilda didn't—and inviting people over for a party could end in disaster if someone came while sick or unaware they were carrying the illness. Hilda didn't want to just tell Claude they couldn't do anything for the occasion, but she didn't want to risk her health or the health of their baby to make something happen.
When in doubt, like always, she reached out to Marianne looking for assistance. "I can come over and we can celebrate together," she offered over the phone, "and I'm sure that he can invite one of his friends to come by as well. I highly doubt Lorenz has gone anywhere since the first case was found in Fódlan, so it'd be good for him to come by and get to spend time with more than just Claude for a change."
"You'd willingly spend time with Lorenz for this?" Hilda asked, slightly incredulously because she knew how little Marianne liked interacting with most people, and how much of a pain spending time with Lorenz could be. "I mean, as long as the two of you had presents or dinner or something on hand, I think Claude could get behind a night in with the two of you, and he'd be thankful we got to do anything at all."
"Oh, yes, I can spend time with Lorenz for the sake of Claude's birthday, I just wouldn't willingly search him out to spend time with him." There was no reason to question Marianne's honesty on the matter, and so that became the plan for the birthday celebrations, which Hilda did tell Claude about so that he wasn't expecting anything too over the top when the time came.
The day before his birthday, however, came that appointment that Hilda was dreading because she didn't want to have to go out wearing a mask and be there to talk about the baby all by herself. She wanted nothing more than for Claude to be allowed to enter the building with her, but there was still the sign up on the door about the one person per appointment rule, as well as the mandatory mask usage, and when she saw them both she inwardly groaned for a solid couple of seconds before going inside. Like before, the office was empty minus the receptionist, but when she mentioned why she was there the doctor was called up right away to take her back, no waiting in the car needed.
"Before we get started," the doctor told her as she was walked to the exam room, "I'm going to have to let my tech come in and get your vitals and all of that good stuff, as well as a test to make sure you're not spreading any germs we don't want around here. I'll see you again once all of that is taken care of." She opened the door to let Hilda inside the small room, and closed it tightly before she'd even had a chance to sit down somewhere; the tech appeared minutes later with a kit of testing materials in addition to the normal check-in necessities.
The test was done first and the tech left right after, coming back once the results had come back negative so that the appointment could properly begin. "I'm not looking forward to having to do that every time I show up here," Hilda grumbled, rubbing at her nose from where the test swab had been inserted. "It's not even a bad feeling, it's just annoying."
"Trust me, you think it's bad to receive it once a month for an appointment, try once a week to keep your job," the tech said with a laugh, muffled behind her mask. "I'm looking forward to when Fódlan has this completely under wraps so we can get back to our normal lives. Now hold still, I need to get your blood pressure to make sure you're doing fine."
The cuff was as tight and compressing as usual, which meant that there was nothing to be worried about in that regard, and every other aspect of the check-in process was pretty standard as well. Even when the tech took her weight and commented that it was just a hair higher than the previous visit, that was seen as perfectly acceptable. "I mean, I could've told you I put on a little weight," Hilda remarked, her hand almost protectively covering her stomach. "You still can't tell when I'm wearing clothes most days, but there's a little something going on here."
"Exactly what we want to hear at this point." Checking the charts, the tech tapped on some inputted data with her fingernail. "Now that you're out of the first trimester, if there's ever a visit where you haven't gained a steady amount, we're going to have to figure out if there's a problem or if your metabolism is just working in your favor." She paused, looking at Hilda to see that she had shrank back a little, not wanting to hear that sort of news. "Oh, don't worry, with you I could see that being the case and you could easily bounce back as soon as you've delivered and healed up. As long as you don't give in too much to any crazy cravings you might get."
"No guarantees on that, I'm afraid." When she laughed, it came as nervous, almost uncertain about what she was saying. "I'm playing this all up to be as lazy as I can be, just so that I can get out of doing a lot of work around the house. But, I guess, if being careful can mean that I don't have to put a lot of work into getting back to my old body after delivery…"
The tech's eyes closed as she gave a single laugh, before reopening them to look straight at Hilda with a serious expression on the exposed portion of her face. "Let's not get too hopeful, women getting back to pre-baby bodies isn't exactly a given. Just live your life how you want to, and take things easy if that's the way you plan on taking them, but know that your days of flat abs and small hips could very well be past you."
"Noted!" She felt like she was being taught about things that were supposed to be a scare tactic to keep her from being too lazy, but Hilda was determined to spend as much time as possible laying around and making Claude do all of the work for her. "Now, uh, on to the actual appointment, what am I doing here today?"
Once again, the tech tapped the chart, before wheeling her chair across the exam room to grab a machine from against the wall. "Just checking on the health of you and the baby, making sure there's still a heartbeat and that they're thriving. Next appointment, you'll be in to actually see them and get a good glimpse at how much they've grown since your first peek in at them."
"Is that when I'll find out if they're a boy or girl?" It sucked that she had to say that in the singular, because Hilda knew that she wasn't the only one curious to know, but as long as that sign was up outside the office she knew she wasn't getting Claude in to see anything. The tech nodded and explained that it wasn't a guarantee that they'd be able to find that out during the appointment, but it was a strong possibility. "Good, because my fiancé and I have been talking about decorating and names and that stuff's really hard when you don't know what angle you're working with."
"I hear that all the time," the tech said after turning the machine on and directing Hilda in how to prepare for her using it. "It's not anything I'm super well-versed in, seeing as I don't have any children of my own, but the strategy I've heard people swear by is to make plans for all options and prepare that way. Then, when you know, you've already done the legwork to get ready either way."
Her face contorting behind her mask as she considered that possibility, Hilda was stopped right in her tracks when she realized doing it that way would mean having to come up with two separate names, when the idea of one was hard enough. "I'll run it by him to see what he says," she told the tech, who nodded in understanding. "Can't say we'll exactly fully do it that way, but we'll come up with something that works for us."
"As long as you make some preparations, I think that's all that matters for your sanity. Now hold still, I want to hear how strong this is coming through." The tech held her machine close to Hilda's stomach, which had been uncovered at some point in their conversation, and after a bit of searching, the room filled with the distinct sound of a rapid heartbeat that made them both look at each other, clearly smiling despite their obscured faces. "That's definitely one healthy child you've got there," the tech mumbled, before reaching back and knocking loudly on the wall. "Bet the doctor would love to hear this for herself."
The doctor came in seconds later, masked and gloved up to see the two ladies already in the room. "Usually when I get summoned in here like that, there's some sort of complication that I need to come listen to," she admitted, to which the tech snorted in laughter. "I'm glad that today I'm just being called in because of how great the baby's sounding."
"Our patient was curious about when she'd be able to find out the baby's gender, and I figured that while we're listening to the heartbeat, you'd be able to tell her a bit about why we can't do that today," the tech said, moving the machine slightly and picking up the sound even clearer. "I'm sure you know why I think now's the best time."
The doctor, after a moment of confusion, nodded, and Hilda looked to her expectantly, waiting for her to impart her knowledge. "There's an old wives' tale that says you can tell the gender of a baby based solely on their heartbeat, but it's merely that—a wives' tale. If we wanted to buy into it," she looked over at the monitor the machine was inputting data to, just to see the measured speed, "then the tale would tell you this is a girl, but it's nothing better than a guess. Just as likely to be a boy as it is to be a girl."
"So I really do have to wait until next time to find out for real?" Hilda asked, kind of feeling like what she'd just been told was done to get her hopes up for nothing. "Or is there anything I can do to find out sooner?"
"There are things you can do that would be reliable, but they'd cost you out of pocket. If you really do want to know before next month, you can easily look into running full panels of genetic testing or going to a 'first look' clinic, but I'll tell you that the time it'll take for them to get your results in the first case, and the money in the second, is ultimately not worth it." Drawing herself a chair further back from the two, the doctor took the charts out of the reach of the tech and began marking things on her own. "Besides, at the end of the day, what matters is that the child's healthy, isn't it?"
"I guess, but I was kind of hoping I could find out." She may have sounded completely upset over the denial of what she wanted, but she wasn't really upset on her own behalf. Hilda knew what Claude had said about his birthday, and she knew that he'd liked to have gotten to know for then, but if the doctor really knew what she was talking about, it was nothing but a dream that wasn't going to be realized on their time frame. "Oh well, I'll come back next month and we'll find out then. I'm not sure what I want more, but I know that as long as they're healthy, they'll be perfect."
But somewhere inside her heart, Hilda felt like she already knew what the baby was, even if she couldn't explain why or how. She would just have to wait until that next appointment to find out for sure, and then she'd be able to talk to everyone about how she'd had the premonition of what they were before she was told. It was only another month, after all.
A/N: coming up soon in this fic is one of the things I've been most excited to write and share for a LONG time, so stay tuned!
