The world was still a mess, that much was for certain, but there was at least a tiny sense of normalcy when they woke up the next morning and it genuinely felt like Claude's birthday. While Hilda had been in her appointment the day before, he'd done the honors of getting plans drawn up to have a small, but meaningful, get-together at their house, including sending someone out with a grocery list and asking someone else to do the honors of buying decorations to string up. That led to them waking up to a bedroom that was filled with balloons scattered all over the floor, as well as a large banner hanging directly across from the bed.
"Someone got in here?" Hilda asked, not recalling having been woken up for the decoration, nor remembering a time where Claude got out of the bed to do it himself. "And instead of stealing things, they made our room all birthday festive?"
"Calm down, it was just Marianne," he replied, getting up and kicking away the balloons gathering at his feet. "Or, at least, it should have been her that decorated in here. I didn't tell anyone else they could do that."
Narrowing her eyes at Claude while she got up as well, Hilda wasn't as lucky when it came to stepping down off the bed safely, and the sound of a balloon loudly popping under her foot echoed through the room. "Of course I'm the one to pop something," she muttered, watching as he tried his hardest not to be consumed by laughter at the humor of the situation. "I'm not cleaning this up, by the way."
"Wouldn't ask you to, everyone else'll take care of it when the time comes." Without elaborating on who that meant, which was only slightly worrisome given what was going on outside of their walls, Claude went through the motions of getting ready to head out of the bedroom, finishing up quickly and going downstairs before Hilda had even gotten dressed. She was too busy trying to decide what she wanted to wear, a choice that had only gotten harder as her stomach had started looking less like she'd had a large meal and more like there was a small ball trying to make itself seen. No longer did she have to pull shirts against it to make it obvious, and while it still wasn't big enough to be causing problems with the fit of most of her clothing, it was definitely making some of her cuter things just a little less wearable. At least she still had no problems with any of the summer dresses she'd been hoarding over the years, all easy to slip on and off.
But as she picked one more in line with Claude's favorite colors instead of her own and slipped it on over her head, the very first thing Hilda noticed about it was that it made her chest—which she was well-aware had gotten much larger—look double its size, thanks to the way the neckline plunged at her cleavage. "Hm, maybe I shouldn't do this one," she considered, twirling herself where she stood to watch as the dress flared out around her legs and barely kept hold on her chest, before shrugging it off. "It looks fine enough, no one's going to complain about getting a little extra to look at." Based solely on examining her reflection in the mirror, she was sure that the revealing top of the dress would distract from anything else, so after brushing her hair back into a high ponytail and giving her bangs a bit of a curl before freezing them in place with hairspray, she headed down the stairs to join everyone else.
Of course, her appearance was given away by how she stepped on a second balloon and popped it before leaving the room, meaning that everyone who was gathered there was already waiting at the bottom of the stairs for her. "That's, uh, that's quite the dress you've picked for today, don't you think?" Claude asked, covering his mouth and looking away from her once she'd fully come into view. "Wouldn't you want to wear something a bit more comfortable, that can't be that nice to wear."
"I feel perfectly fine in it," she replied without so much as flinching, her eyes being drawn to Marianne and the way she'd covered her eyes at the sight. "Come on, do I really look that bad right now? I thought I looked fantastic upstairs!"
"You do look fine," Marianne assured her, still not uncovering her eyes as she spoke, "but it was kind of a shock to see you coming down looking like that. You really are proud of what your body's doing, aren't you?"
Her lips curling as she tried to come up with the words to give a proper answer, Hilda was struck with a realization that Marianne was asking her that because of other things she'd seen already. Other people she'd seen, at that. "Uh, yeah, while this wasn't planned at all I'm totally prepared to rock great looks no matter what. I'm making the best of this situation, and if that means everyone here gets a huge look at my even huger tits, then so be it."
That was the last straw for what little control Claude had left, because he fell to his knees laughing, his face bright with how hard he'd been restraining himself, and Marianne had to back her way out of the conversation to collect herself. All the while, Hilda kept standing there, one stair from the bottom, holding herself in such a way that her chest was the only thing anyone would have wanted to look at about her.
And that was when Lorenz walked by, stopping mid-stride as his eyes were attracted straight to the cleavage on display, his jaw dropping at the sight. "Oh, goddess, you're here?" Hilda scrambled to pull the neckline of her dress up a bit so that she wasn't quite so revealing, given who her new audience was. "A bit of warning about you walking around here would've been super nice to have!"
"My apologies," he said, after clearly struggling to get the words out in a way that sounded convincing, which did not help Hilda feel any better about what was happening. "I merely came to see why I heard Claude wheezing as he was, and perhaps doing that, being a decent friend, was not in my best interest." By the time he'd finished explaining himself, Lorenz had turned quite a deep shade of red, and before Hilda could say anything else to him he was sprinting away in the direction he'd come from.
"You should've—I don't know why—goddess damn Hilda, you're making it hard to not march you right back up to our room," Claude managed to say from where he was still on the floor, his words all breathless like he'd been running a marathon but the look in his eyes showing that he was interested in a different sort of endurance event. "How'd a guy like me get so lucky to be with someone as hot as you?"
"Please, you're flattering me," Hilda replied, a blush of her own forming across her cheeks as she let go of the top of her dress and it fell back to how it had originally been. "But seriously, when was anyone going to tell me Lorenz was already here? Now I'm all self-conscious about actually wearing this today, if all he's going to do is ogle what I've got."
Claude picked himself up off the ground, offering Hilda a hand to get her down the last stair, a relatively harmless but useless gesture that she adored. "To be fair, you should have expected that he'd be here already, one, and two, if you didn't want to be ogled you shouldn't have worn something that dramatic. They're…really out there, you know that, don't you?"
After finding herself standing solidly on the bottom floor, Hilda took her hand back from Claude's grasp and used it to try and gather her whole chest to grab it and squeeze it together, but struggled to get more than half of it firmly in reach. Undeterred by the failure, she shook what she held and said, "Of course I know that, I looked in the mirror before I came down. I can't help it that they've blown up like this, it's all part of the journey. A journey, might I add, that you're responsible for."
Raising his hands to try and show innocence, Claude laughed before leaning in toward Hilda, eventually grabbing her and wrapping his arms around her shoulders so that he was forcing that chest of hers against him. "And it's a journey I'd never want to go on with anyone but you, I promise. But maybe if you don't want Lorenz looking you should go up and put something else on instead."
"You know what, I don't think I mind him looking too much at all, he definitely minds it more than I do. I mean, if I minded at all I wouldn't have thought wearing it in the first place was okay, right?" That was true, and Hilda always enjoyed getting to play mind games with Lorenz, especially if they didn't harm her in any way. "I think it'll all be perfectly fine, Claude, and besides, think of it this way: it's your birthday, don't you deserve to get a little bit of eye candy for the occasion?"
"That's a lot more than a 'little bit', but I get your point." After planting a gentle kiss on her cheekbone, Claude unwrapped Hilda from his arms and stepped back from her, sighing contently. "This is already a great start to the day, and here I was thinking a birthday where we can't even go out celebrating was going to be lame."
"Wait, we're not going out today?"
"Hilda, think about it for a moment." Gesturing broadly with his arms, Claude elaborated when he saw that she wasn't quite connecting any dots. "What's going on out there in the world that's kept us staying in here where it's nice and safe?"
"I know what's going on," she said, feeling like her question had been misinterpreted. "Trust me, I'm all too familiar with the masks on out there, and the constant warnings that I shouldn't be out there more than I need to be. But I would've thought you'd have decided to ignore all that for a day of fun for your birthday."
His eyes shifting all around as he processed what he'd heard, Claude ended up laughing about the whole idea. "Hilda, I know you're familiar with the rules, and it's that exact reason why we're not going anywhere! I couldn't willingly risk your life out there in all this, even if it'd be a lot of fun to get to do something out on the town."
"That's oddly sweet to hear." Hilda's lips curled into a smile as she looked at Claude, thankful for his selflessness and mindfulness when it came to keeping her included in his birthday celebrations even if he didn't need to. "I guess that the four of us here can have a good time together, even if it's just at home."
"'Course we can. Oh, but it's not going to be just the four of us, if you know what I mean." She stared blankly at Claude once again, definitely not picking up what he was trying to imply, and instead of explaining it right then, he heaved a sigh and let his shoulders hang. "I guess you'll just have to see what I mean when it happens later. Because it will happen, Marianne worked too hard to make it happen for it to not."
"As long as it's not more people in our house, I suppose it can't be too big of a deal," Hilda decided, seeing how hard Claude was taking her not figuring it out on her own. But could he really blame her, she was working off of just about no information! If he wanted her to come up with a genuine guess, he needed to give her something more to work with, but it was obvious that more details weren't coming anytime soon.
Just like their bedroom upstairs, the living room, dining area, and kitchen had been decorated with various birthday banners and streamers, Marianne finishing hanging some twirled décor as Claude and Hilda came into the room, Lorenz alerting her to their presence with a feigned cough. "I had hoped to have this finished before you two woke up, so my apologies that I just now got done," she said, tucking a roll of tape into the box of decorations she'd brought with her for the occasion. "It was a lot of work making this place feel as lively as possible, to make today just a bit brighter than it would be otherwise."
"It all looks amazing, there's no reason to apologize for it taking a little bit longer than you expected." Nodding at Marianne as he spoke, Claude looked around the whole area at how bright and festive it had become. "Really takes you out of the whole 'world's in disarray' thing going on outside and brings you back to the good old days."
"You mean the days a few months ago?" Lorenz interjected, breaking Claude from his admiration of the work done in order to give him an unamused look. "The last time I recall somewhere getting this decorated, it was my bedroom and you were doing it to annoy me."
"And the fact that you remember that so clearly tells me it worked like a charm." With a happy sigh, Claude clicked his tongue and pointed toward Lorenz, who huffed in annoyance at the display. "Come on, what else was I supposed to do with the leftover crap from decorating Hilda's room for her birthday? Just toss it out? Holst said he didn't want it staying there a second longer than it needed to."
Under her breath, Marianne mentioned that it could have been given to her, but it was Hilda who spoke loudly next. "You know that his bark is way, way worse than his bite sometimes, especially for silly things like that, don't you Claude? He totally didn't mean saying that, he just meant that he didn't want to be the one on the hook for cleaning it up. Since, well, I definitely wasn't going to do it."
"Exactly, I had to haul it all back with me to Lorenz's place and what good was it going to do me there? None at all. So up it went on his walls, as a bit of a present from his best friend." Claude grinned, while everyone else stared at him for a moment before realizing that he knew that he hadn't had to do any of that and had done it only to get Lorenz to react. "But anyway, thanks for doing this, Marianne. Really, truly, it means a lot to me."
"I wouldn't think of letting your birthday go uncelebrated in this way. Besides, I think I'll need to get used to decorating this place for in the future, you know." Marianne gestured toward Hilda, who momentarily forgot what she meant by that and nearly asked if it was about her own birthday. "I'm going to be busy with all of these babies I'm helping with, but this one means more to me than any of the others. Just, um, don't tell anyone I said that, especially not…certain people."
While Hilda knew who that was referring to, and Claude seemed to get it, Lorenz was the one left looking confused. "Are you talking about Leonie? I really doubt she will mind you preferring your best friend's child to hers."
"How do you know about that?" Hilda asked, forgetting to not sound overly shocked. "She didn't exactly want the world knowing, so how did you find out?"
Lorenz, surprised at how accusatory Hilda's question had come off, gave a flippant shrug. "I was told by her personally, during a conversation where she asked me for a bit of support in case the man she decided to procreate with decides he wants nothing to do with her."
"This isn't about Leonie, so can we stop talking about her like this?" Marianne sounded at the end of her rope as she raised her voice over the others, both of them falling silent and respecting her wishes. "It's about Dorothea, which I know that Hilda's aware of, because I don't want to be responsible for her lashing out again when she finds out that I prefer whatever this baby is to her little one."
Part of that sentence made Hilda realize she had something to say, but she attempted to swallow that down and react just to the part that made her feel good. "She's not going to lash out about something that dumb, I'm sure she's already super aware that you're going to be playing favorites with me and not her."
"I'm sure she is too, but that doesn't mean she's not going to make comments about it to try and sway me back to her side. She genuinely is hurting about how many others she knows are 'stealing her spotlight', whether she says it to everyone or not." Marianne's hands began to wrestle with each other, showing that she was beginning to grow uncomfortable with where the conversation had drifted. "And I want to do whatever I can to keep my promise to her that I made at the start, that I would support her through everything, but I have to also be there for others too."
"Enough of this heavy stuff, will you?" Claude interjected, trying to break the tension that had settled in. "We're not here to dwell on anything outside these walls, we're here to have a good day together celebrating everyone's favorite person. That being me, of course." The way he acted overdramatically as he was speaking, concluding his thought with a wink that was aimed straight at Hilda, made everyone chuckle, and they moved away from what they'd been talking about just moments before.
It didn't fully leave Hilda's mind, though, no matter how much she wanted to think about anything but the whole baby situation for at least one day. She'd told Claude what had happened at the appointment the day before, but she hadn't told anyone else about it, not even a thinly-veiled comment or post on any of those mom groups, so deep down she knew that the question was going to be asked eventually. When Marianne had alluded to the child before, she'd almost expected it to be followed up with asking if she knew yet, and she'd been preparing (and dreading) the moment that question properly came up. Things were not helped with the way all of their conversations that day kept stubbornly retreading ground already covered about children and babies and who was having one and what they were having, no matter how much Claude kept asking them to stop talking about that.
"Look, I get it, it's a topic on everyone's mind, but can we stop bringing it up every chance we get?" he asked after pausing some sappy drama movie they'd downloaded for the sake of shredding every second of. In the ten minutes they'd gotten through, Hilda had already cried once from how dumb it was, laughing herself to tears, and Lorenz had remarked on that by accusing her of only finding it so funny because her emotions were all out of whack, which had led Marianne to start trying to justify it other ways, ultimately ending in the movie being paused as Claude couldn't hear what the character on screen was monologuing and he didn't have a version with subtitles. "I just want to take the piss out of this movie, but the three of you are making that pretty hard right now."
Dabbing at the corner of her eye with a tissue to try and sop up tears, Hilda looked at him with a bit of a scowl. "You can't blame me for this one, I clearly thought that scene was so bad it was hilarious, your fight's with your guests."
"She's right, the problem you have is with us," Marianne said softly, rising from her seat to walk out of the room. "I'll start preparing lunch, since it'll keep me out of the room and away from ruining your fun."
Lorenz, after thinking for a moment, hopped up as well and followed her out. "Actually, Marianne, recall that we'd made plans for a delivered lunch, not one made here. Please, let's not change what we'd drafted as the plan for the day just to appease someone's bad taste in jokes, it will do nothing but…."
"Did I do something wrong?" Claude asked Hilda as the conversation between the other two faded out as they exited the room. "Seems like they're a bit, you know, upset about me just wanting a moment's break from everything."
"I don't know," she answered, scooting away from him so that she could maneuver herself to be laying with her head on his lap and her body sprawled out on their couch, making sure to hike the top of her dress up so that nothing spilled out. "But them deciding they're too good for movie shredding means that I get to lay down, so who's the real winner here?"
Claude laughed before resuming the movie, which they were able to get a few more minutes into before it was stopped again, this time because Lorenz had come back with the intention of sitting down and watching with them, only to find that his spot had been taken by Hilda's legs. "Are you going to sit up so that I can be with you, or are you going to make me take the floor?" he asked, giving her a look that told her that she was supposed to pick the first option; when she made it clear she was staying right where she was, he sighed and sat on the floor in front of where he'd been on the couch itself, and Claude was able to start the movie again.
About halfway through the movie, time spent completely eviscerating the acting and the so-called plot of the film, there was a knock at the front door that almost went unnoticed, if not for Marianne coming out of her hiding in the kitchen to answer it. She spent a bit of time talking to the person on the other side, wearing a mask while she spoke through the barely-opened crack of the door, then opened it wide enough to step outside, coming back in moments later and closing it firmly. "Sorry, that wasn't for anyone here," she explained, as Claude once again paused the movie so they could all pay attention to what Marianne had to say. But when she noticed everyone was looking at her, she froze and shook her head violently. "No, no, don't focus on me, I'm doing things for others right now, you just get back to your movie in peace."
"Whatever you say," Claude muttered, hitting play on the movie yet again, just for the loudest, shrillest screech to come through the speakers immediately upon resuming, leading to Hilda just about throwing herself off the couch and over Lorenz, who had taken an attack stance where he sat from the shock.
There were no further interruptions beyond breaks from laughing through the end of the movie, which they agreed was a pretty bad film that wasn't worth the download time it had taken to pirate. "Next time, we should invest in a foreign award-winner and see how it compares, I know of some recommendation lists we can look through for ideas," Lorenz said, standing up and stretching his legs that had grown tired from being folded under him on the floor. "There are many perks to having been raised in a high-society home, one being the access to such critically-acclaimed fare that ends up being laughably bad when you have no concept of the culture it stems from."
"Sounds boring," Hilda quipped, sitting up and looking at him with a devious smile. "I'm totally in, though, I could use all the nap time right now."
"That's three votes for your idea, then. Good job, Lorenz, you've just signed yourself up for preparing our next movie roasting party, hope you've got room on your plate for planning such an endeavor." With a grin, Claude gave his friend two thumbs up before getting off the couch and pacing around the room. "Now what's next on the agenda for today? Should be just about lunch time, yeah?"
"Ooh, good, because I'm famished." Placing a hand on her forehead, Hilda pretended to swoon at the mention of how hungry she was. "Can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I'm down for just about anything, except something super starchy and fried, if you know what I'm saying."
"I really don't think these two planned for us having a lunch of fast food fries today, so you're probably in luck," Claude assured her, still looking at Lorenz for any sign of what the menu might have been. But Lorenz's face was still contorted as if he was deep in thought about what movie they'd watch next, so Claude wasn't getting any answers there. "Eh, I'll go ask Marianne myself, might make things easier."
As he headed to the kitchen, Hilda's sights followed him, which made Lorenz speaking up all the more unexpected. "I…cannot say for sure that she remembered to order lunch as planned," he commented, punctuated with a sigh. "When I went with her, she made it clear she was going to use her time for planning some other events, and I can only fear that she got wrapped up in that rather than what she needed to do for us here."
"Marianne wouldn't do such a thing, I believe in her!" While Hilda had no idea what those other events might have been, she had full faith in her friend that she'd be able to look past all of her other commitments to get things done right for the birthday she was actively supposed to be celebrating. She was proven right, as Claude came back a minute or so later saying that their lunch was just about there, the delivery driver had gotten lost on the way and was getting there as fast as they could. Lunch did in fact arrive not long after, Marianne being the one to answer the door and accept the delivery, and she made a big deal of taking the box of food past them all to the dining area and its small table surrounded on each side with a single chair.
"I hope that I ordered something everyone will eat," she said upon setting the box down in the center of the table, everyone having followed her and the scent of what she was carrying. "Lorenz and I worked hard to do this without asking either of you what you wanted, as to not spoil the surprise of the meal, but if we got something wrong I really do apologize."
"Hush, it smells great and probably tastes just as good," Claude assured her as he looked inside the box, eyes widening at what he saw. "Hold on, this stuff isn't exactly cheap, why'd you decide to go all out for my sake?"
Lorenz took the reins of answering that question, while Marianne blushed and had to hide her face behind her hands. "With the way the world's been, it felt wrong to do anything but the best for a dear friend of ours. Are you taking issue with this order?"
"No way, it's been forever since I've had authentic food like this, it just caught me a bit by surprise, that's all." Grabbing a container labeled SPECIAL, Claude pulled it out of the box and opened it, taking in the strong scent of the food within it and grimacing. "Okay, whatever this one is, it's not for me, who wants it?" No one spoke up, and he set it down, grabbing a different container and going through the whole charade again until he'd settled on a noodle and vegetable dish that had his eyes watering from how strong the sauce was. The first one he'd grabbed eventually went to Marianne, who explained that she'd had it labeled the way she did so that she knew it was hers and that no one else would try taking it from her.
"Just because we're treating our friend didn't mean I couldn't treat myself too," she told them before taking a bite of her special meal, the other three having already settled in and started eating what they'd gotten. It wasn't quite the same as eating the same food in the restaurant they came from, something they'd done for special occasions when they'd been students, but there were no complaints about the quality of the food that had been delivered.
Even Hilda, who had found reason to be picky with so many meals over the past few months, couldn't muster up a tiny issue with what she'd ended up eating. "Everything tastes so delicious, it's like the best meal ever, and I think I'm going to want this again and again pretty soon," she laughed between bites, causing Claude to nearly choke on what was in his mouth before swallowing it and asking her if she was serious. "Don't know yet, guess we'll find that out soon enough."
"This wouldn't be the most out-there desire someone's had lately," Marianne said before taking another bite of her own food. "There's been a lot of posts about weird food cravings, and if this were the weirdest you got, Hilda, it wouldn't even come close to any of those. Be thankful for that if it's how it goes, Claude."
"Oh, no, she's been showing me some of the posts she's seen, if she asks every day for this place's food I'll be hurting in the money department but thankful that she's not asking for something I just can't get around here, or something that costs even more than a good lunch does." Claude pointed a finger toward Hilda, who merely smiled back at him. "So don't get any ideas to try and drain us of our money faster than we're already blowing through it."
"I make no promises, what happens is entirely up to what the baby wants. If they decide they want imported jams, then that's what I'll be asking for." Batting her eyelashes like she was trying to be endearing, she got him to laugh again before they were back to eating.
"Actually, what you've said there reminds me of something." Pushing her food away from her to keep it from being a distraction, Marianne looked at Hilda with her lips pursed together in thought. "You never told me how yesterday went. I assume it was all fine, but you usually update me on that sort of thing."
"Ri-i-i-ight." Drawing the one word out as she tried to come up with some excuse for why she hadn't said anything, Hilda decided that honesty was the best policy and that she couldn't lie her way out of things. "It went well, doctor said that I'll find out what the baby is next appointment. Unless I wanted to go pay a bunch to find out early, which is super tempting but I can be patient. So I guess this next month is getting our hopes super up about what we want it to be, and then we'll know next time."
"Did you want to do anything to announce it? I've been helping plan some of those reveals, and I'm more than willing to do it for you two as well." That checked out, Marianne having stretched herself so thin trying to help everyone that she was offering to do yet another thing for someone. "Even if it's super simple, it could be fun."
Her mouth moving in circles as she thought about how she wanted to answer, Hilda glanced at Claude before saying anything. "I don't think I'll be able to handle the suspense, honestly, so thanks for the offer but we'll handle it ourselves. I…kind of think I already know, and I would hate to be caught on camera being wrong about it." But when asked to elaborate and give her guess, she remained silent, merely shrugging about it.
"She won't tell me what she thinks either, it's really a well-kept secret with her." Claude paused for a moment, then looked at his friends. "But, who's to say that we couldn't make an announcement for everyone else to know, but we already know when we do it? That could work, right?"
"If that's what you wanted to do, certainly," Marianne replied, "but you'll have to tell me what you want to do so that I can help arrange for things to get here for the reveal. I've gotten rather good at ordering those decorations and balloons and anything you might need for the occasion."
Lorenz, who'd stayed quiet during the conversation once it had gotten started because he'd been focused on eating, couldn't help but roll his eyes at what he'd just heard. "Who would have guessed that this would be a role that you would have to take upon yourself like this?" he asked, not looking anywhere but the table so people's reactions to what he had to say wouldn't dissuade him from continuing. "All of this started because of the lockdown and people's inability to remain chaste during such a trying time, and now you have to shoulder the stresses of everyone else's mistakes. Thank the goddess that I had the sense to keep to myself as told during those times."
"It wasn't like people were running out finding strangers to sleep with," Marianne hastily replied, almost like she'd sensed needing to make that argument someday. "Everyone who got themselves into this position did it with the person they were stuck with during lockdown, you just were unlucky enough to be stuck by yourself."
"Unlucky? I would say it was quite lucky!"
"Lucky that he wasn't getting lucky, never thought I'd see the day that Lorenz would think such a way," Claude said under his breath, catching an angry side-eye from the man in question. "H-hey now, I'm just saying, with how much of a big game you talk sometimes, it's kind of wild to think that you're happy you weren't out there getting it in."
Bringing a hand to his chest as he recoiled in shock, Lorenz sputtered before saying, "I'm merely happy that I have no personal stake in this baby game that the rest of you are mired waist-deep in, that is my stance here."
"Until you end up having to step in and help a certain someone out, that is." Now Hilda was jumping in, ready to dogpile on Lorenz as much as she could. "Then you'd be, like, involved by proxy or something like that, I don't know. It'd be hilarious if you ended up being permanent pretend daddy to Leonie's baby, because you know you're going to play the role at least a little bit."
Exhaling entirely through his nose, Lorenz seemed a bit miffed that something he'd previously said was being thrown back at him. "I will not be the only one performing that duty if it comes down to it," he insisted, "and I certainly will not be taking on the role in a permanent manner, there are far too many others more capable of such a job."
"I shouldn't have said anything," Marianne murmured as she pushed herself away from the table, getting up and leaving the room without anyone following in pursuit because they'd erupted into a back-and-forth about how much Lorenz really did want to be a part of things or how much he didn't, from his perspective. It wasn't until they'd started going over the same points for a second time that Claude looked away from the other two and noticed Marianne completely gone. He silenced the others, gesturing to her empty chair, and without any closure on the conversation they all got up and started looking for her.
After scouring the house, she wasn't found indoors, nor was she out in the backyard, but her shoes were still by the door so she hadn't left completely. That was because she was sitting out under a tree in the front yard, phone pressed to her cheek as she was talking to someone, and when they found her there she didn't seem interested in ending her call to clear the air with them. In fact, when her call did end, she got up and walked right past the three of them, as if they weren't even there. "Come on, Marianne, we weren't really fighting in there, you know how it goes with us," Claude tried explaining, but she wasn't hearing anything of it from him.
"I'm sorry, I have so many other things I'm supposed to be doing today that I can't spend my time or energy being part of such negativity toward someone I care deeply about," she replied as she kept walking, not even turning around to face Claude and the others as she was talking. "I have parties to plan, orders to make, details to get ironed out…"
"Marianne's being asked to do so much for everyone right now, I think it's starting to stress her out more than I think anyone realizes," Hilda said, feeling somewhat guilty knowing that she'd piled on all sorts of work for her best friend to handle. "Maybe we need to give her a break from some of what she's going through."
"That's an excellent idea," Lorenz replied, sounding haughty as he spoke. "In fact, as one of the few people not throwing fuel onto her burning fire, I will leave that decision of what to stop asking her to do to the two of you."
Hilda rolled her eyes, thinking of a snarky comeback to that, but Claude put his hand on her shoulder and gripped it tightly before she said anything. "You're allowed to completely verbally demolish him another day," he told her, "but today's still my birthday and I'd still like it to be at least a somewhat good day, all things considered."
"My bad."
They headed back inside to see Marianne typing something on her phone as she sat on the couch, her focus on what she was doing and not on anyone around her. While the two men hung back and whispered between themselves, Hilda slowly walked toward her friend, trying to decide what would be most appropriate to say in such a moment. She almost didn't want to cause an interruption, but she knew that a wrong had been done and she needed to try her best to fix it. "Hey, uh, Marianne? Everything okay?" she asked, careful not to speak too loudly to startle her from what she was doing. "We're kind of worried about you and how you're handling everything."
"It's fine, everything's fine and so am I," Marianne replied, eyes not coming up off her phone. "I forgot just how mean the playful banter here can get and it set me off, but I'm really fine."
"That doesn't sound so fine to me," Hilda huffed, sitting down next to her friend and trying to break her lock on her phone with a quick wave of her hand; the gesture worked, as Marianne was soon looking straight in Hilda's direction. "You have to know how to step back and say no right now, you're starting to run yourself ragged! I know everyone wants you to help because you're damn good at it, but you have to take care of yourself before you're taking care of everyone who got themselves into quite the pickle."
"Father says the same thing, but he's proud that I've been helping everyone without needing to see them in person, minus you and Claude, of course." Setting her phone down on her leg, as she was no longer actively using it, Marianne tried her best to muster up a smile but couldn't manage one, her lips quavering too much. "I didn't ask to be in this role, it was thrown on me completely unintentionally and now I'm running with it and I can't back down, not until everyone doesn't need me anymore. That time just won't be soon enough, I fear, because even still there's moms being added to the group that are looking for support."
"Why don't you narrow down your scope of help, then?" Hilda suggested, knowing exactly what she was going to suggest if Marianne seemed curious, which she was. "Why don't you stick to only helping moms you've met in person before, so really just everyone in the 'Hot Moms' group I guess, but it's a lot fewer people begging you to do things for them."
"That's…the problem, Hilda, what you're suggesting is in no way lightening the load I'm carrying. Everyone I'm helping is in that group, Dorothea's made sure to keep me well-updated on who's in there and who isn't accepting their invite." That was the tipping point for Marianne's tears to start falling, Hilda not sure what to do other than give her stressed friend a big hug and tell her that everything would be okay, somehow.
Still standing closer to the front door, upon the ladies starting to hug (even if it was entirely Hilda doing the hugging), Claude looked at Lorenz and nudged him in the ribs with a well-aimed elbow. "Say, good buddy of mine, since it's my birthday and you clearly owe me something for the occasion, want to go break up their fun?"
"Claude, I would never wish breaking their hug on anyone, especially not myself." Shaking his head, Lorenz continued, "Besides, I helped plan today's events alongside Marianne and paid entirely for lunch, I would say that, right now, you're the one who owes me."
"That's pretty fair, but need I remind you that it's my birthday? I don't owe you anything for you doing something nice for me today." Claude went to rib Lorenz again but his arm was grabbed and held in place by his much taller companion, who looked down at him with murderous intent in his eyes for a split second. "Er, actually, I think we can call it even. Let's just end this party, or whatever we want to call it, on a good foot."
"That sounds like the best idea you've had right now," Lorenz calmly replied, letting go of Claude's arm and going back to looking unamused at best. "And let us keep from causing more drama for those who don't need it in their lives currently."
Marianne and Lorenz left separately not too long before dinner, both citing their need to get home for various reasons, and when they left the house it felt strangely empty for just a little while, until Hilda had the idea to try and invite others over for a drive-by birthday celebration for Claude. He was all for it until he realized that it wasn't going to be quite the same as them coming in and getting to spend time with him, and that made the whole spectacle almost depressing in his opinion. While it was nice that he got to see some of his other friends, it wasn't like they were able to sit around and talk like they would have had the world not fallen apart, and he was left wishing things were different after every last car had passed for the night.
Not one to take failures lightly, Hilda tried to come up with something else she could do to make up for the whole mess, but everything she thought of would put one or both of them at risk of being around strangers that didn't have their well-being in mind. Most people in Fódlan were cautious about wearing their masks, but that didn't mean it was incredibly safe to go out if it wasn't necessary, so even if she could arrange for Claude to have a night out with people it could have been detrimental to his health, and in turn to hers.
A few days after the birthday party had mostly faded from memory, Hilda woke up to the sight of Claude taking down the decorations that had been left hanging in their room. "You didn't want to just leave those up for next year?" she asked with a yawn, rubbing at her eyes and feeling like she'd only just gotten to sleep before waking up. "You could've saved yourself so much time and energy if you let them keep hanging."
"I figured it was time to put that past us and look to the future. There's a lot that'll be happening in this house before it's my birthday again, so why keep it up when we can always decorate for other things instead?" He punctuated the sentence with popping a balloon that had been dangling from the ceiling, Hilda laughing softly at his dramatic way of making his point. "Besides, I'm sort of over the balloon pieces all over the floor."
"Yeah, sorry about that one, my feet must be a magnet for them or something because I'm always stomping on those suckers." Peering over the edge of the bed to see that the floor no longer was swarming with balloons, Hilda went back to resting her head fully on the pillow, her eyes tracking Claude where he was standing on top of a stepladder. "I kind of can't believe you didn't rope Lorenz or even Marianne into doing this before they left that day. Was it because it was still your birthday then?"
He paused, looked at the half-hanging banner, and shrugged as he got back to work. "Can't say for sure on asking Marianne, but you know how Lorenz gets when you expect him to do something. It just doesn't happen unless there's something in it for him."
"Plus I don't know how much I really want Lorenz in here anytime soon," she remarked, snuggling back down into her spot on the bed as if she was going back to sleep. "He might get jealous being in the room where the magic happens, might want to take a knife to our sheets or something."
"Hilda, sometimes, you are the most imaginative woman I've ever known." Popping another part of the banner off, Claude chuckled before explaining what he'd thought of. "You know, with that imagination of yours, I'm honestly surprised you haven't thrown a million names you like out at me."
Her blood ran cold as she lay there, dreading the moment they started seriously talking about this again. "I don't know how much I appreciate you thinking about baby names immediately after I was talking about Lorenz destroying our stuff," she said cautiously, not moving a muscle from where she still lay. "You better not tell me those thoughts are connected or something."
"They weren't, not at first, but now you've got me thinking about it." Now removing the last pieces of tape holding the banner against the wall, Claude let it fall down to the floor before he came down off the stepladder, setting his removal tools down on the top stair and turning to face Hilda, hands resting on his hips as he looked at her. "I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I think I've got a way to make them connect."
Just looking at Claude and seeing the seriousness in his face told Hilda that she was in for it, but she had something to admit as well. "I've got a way too, actually," she said, moving so that she was sitting with her back against the headboard of the bed, still partially under her blankets. "It's really dumb, but it's a way."
"Go for it, I'm all ears."
"Okay, so back in school, there were a lot of times that I'd ask people to do things for me, because I was too lazy to do them myself. You know, like homework or writing papers or things like that. Nothing too big." Handwaving the specifics off, Hilda watched as Claude was staring intently at her, waiting to see where she was going with things. "Well anyway, I probably hit Lorenz with the majority of those requests, and I…" She trailed off, gritting her teeth as she didn't want to say what came next.
"I'll tell you something right now, I know what you're going to say you told him, because I did it too." Claude saw Hilda's mouth start to open, but whether it was to speak or in surprise he continued anyway. "Him and Lysithea, those were the two I'd ask to do most things for me, and when they'd deny me what I wanted I'd swear to them that I'd…well, you know."
"Name the first-born child you never thought you'd have after them?"
"Exactly that. It's almost like what we did wasn't planned, huh?" He couldn't help but laugh, Hilda doing the same, when they'd realized that they'd both done the same sort of thing regarding others in their time at Garreg Mach. When he collected himself, a much easier task than her doing it, he said, "I doubt either of them would actually hold us to it after all these years, but it's something funny to think about, isn't it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, if either of them remember what we'd said they'll hold us to it in a heartbeat." It wasn't something Hilda wanted to really think about, given that she was already working with a name she wasn't super thrilled with when it came to naming their baby, but there was a fear beginning to build in her heart that they would be held to those joke promises they'd made in school. Combined with her little suspicion of what their baby was, it was starting to turn into a giant mess she wanted no part of. "I think we should just pick family names and tell them oops, sorry, couldn't make good on that promise, thanks for all of the free grades back then but my end of the deal isn't being met."
Claude snorted, waggling a finger toward Hilda. "I think you're completely overthinking this, neither of them would actually expect us to make good on that bargain. And you know what, I'm so confident in this that I'm going to ask them both."
There was something about that statement that felt more like a threat than something that actually needed to be done, that it was enough to get Hilda out of bed and hanging on Claude's arm to get him to reconsider. "Please, you're going to remind them and they're going to want it because you've said something, you can't just bring that up with them!"
"We were teenagers making dumb promises, we're not going to be held to anything we said or did back then. Look," he said, pulling his phone from his pocket with his other hand that wasn't currently being used as a hook, "I'm going to ask Lorenz right now. 'Hey, do you remember us trading homework for baby names back at GM?' There, sent, now he's going to see it, laugh, and tell me to forget about it."
"I don't think you realize how much I asked of him," Hilda whined, wishing that she'd chosen to hang off both arms instead of just one. She let herself down and went back to sitting on the bed, watching Claude intently for what his facial expression would give away about the answer he got. When he grimaced and typed something rapidly in return, she expected the worst and got something on par with her expectations—that Lorenz did remember those promises, and did expect something to come of it someday.
"I'll, uh, try to talk him out of it," Claude decided, before saying that he'd message Lysithea then too and get it all over with at once. She wasn't as quick to respond, taking several hours before saying something similar to what Lorenz had, and by then Claude had already worked out some shaky ground rules about what honoring the promise with one would look like, so retreading those boundaries with the second wasn't too difficult.
While he was doing that, Hilda was taking part in one of her current favorite activities, that being scrolling through the Hot Moms of Garreg Mach group just to see what in the world her former classmates were up to. A lot of it was Dorothea getting far too personal and expecting others to do the same, wanting to know some of the more intimate details about everyone else's lives so that she could share the same about her own. On occasion she'd have someone with a bit of sense about them, usually Ingrid but once or twice it was Byleth telling her to calm down, but when no one tried stopping her, things tended to get wildly out of hand. Who could blame her, though, when the group was full of overly-hormonal women trying to keep connections in such a broken world?
"I think I've decided what we need to do once it's safe to be around people again," Hilda said seemingly out of the blue, still looking at some of the chaos unfolding on the group page as she tried explaining her idea to Claude. "We need to get all of us in this group in the same place, with or without significant others, and see how long it takes for everything to boil into a physical fight."
"Let me guess, Dorothea doing her thing again?" he asked, getting it right in one and knowing it without any verification. "Something tells me that getting her in the same room as any of the rest of you, even with others present, wouldn't end well for anyone else there."
"That's fair, I don't know if I could handle some of these questions being asked to me out loud by someone I knew in school." Just the thought of some of the more personal questions being spoken by anyone, especially a former classmate, made the hair on the back of Hilda's neck stand up. "I also don't think I could stomach hearing some of these answers said, they're kind of really wild sometimes."
Claude raised an eyebrow at Hilda, but didn't ask for explanation. "Okay, well, I'm going to go ahead and say you're limited to only a few of those women at a time, not all of them at once, and if it's Dorothea, then you get one other. Who you choose is up to you."
"That's fair, honestly." Hilda went back to looking at the group, scrolling past a couple of pictures before nearly slamming her phone down. "Someone's making a calendar of when we've said these babies are supposed to be due, and it's wild."
"Wild as in what, exactly?"
"As in completely insane how not spread out they're all going to be on paper. Aside from the one in the Wyvern Moon, which was obviously unrelated to the lockdown, everyone else is clearly having theirs after getting a little…frisky when they had nothing else to do." Seeing the names written on the calendar, even if they weren't on specific dates unless one had been given, made Hilda fully realize that their child would have no shortage of possible friends growing up, because they would be surrounded by kids born to friends of their parents. She'd already been aware of that fact, but seeing how many there were going to be, both near and far, was making it feel a bit more real.
Obviously first on the calendar was Dorothea and Ingrid's baby, who would be able to brag that she was older than all the rest and hold that over their heads for a while. Following her would be a short lull, before there'd more than likely never be a week without someone being born in that group for a while. After carefully counting on her fingers and using the names on the calendar, Hilda determined that it really was just about every lady she'd gone to school with in the group, with the same exceptions she'd known about before. That was going to make any future class reunions a lot of fun to schedule and arrange, but something like that would never be her problem.
Her attention was pulled away from the calendar itself to look at the comments on its post, just to make sure that no one was going to be making any stealth announcements in them. It ended up being a wise decision, as it was there in the comments that she noticed a name that she hadn't seen in the group before, causing her blood to run cold. "Hey, uh, Claude?" she asked, blinking a few times and leaning closer in to her phone's screen to make sure she was seeing things right. "When you were talking to Lysithea, did she mention anything out of the ordinary to you?"
"Can't say that she did, why?" he replied, his voice catching at his question as he looked at Hilda, remembering what it was she'd just been doing. "Oh. Oh. You're not asking that just because you're worried about her, are you?"
"Worried about her, why would I ever be worried about her?" After forcing a laugh that sounded far from amused, Hilda actually slammed her phone down in front of her. "She's in the hot moms group now, which means either she's added because someone's trying to annoy her, or she's added because she's been up to something, and with her, I can't say which one I'd prefer. Wait, yes I can, I'd prefer the first one!"
"All she said to me was that she was busy today and couldn't answer me right away. Didn't specify, didn't give anything more than that, and I wasn't going to be prying." Claude shook his head, watching as Hilda was trying her hardest to resist taking her phone again and causing drama by asking about her inclusion. "Let her tell you what's going on when she's ready, don't try and badger her into it. Don't do to her what happened to you."
Her mouth opening as if she wanted to retort, Hilda slowly closed it, nodding as she accepted that Claude was telling her what was best. She picked her phone back up and continued to read through the comments, not paying what Lysithea had said (it was about how many names were crowding some of the moons) more mind than necessary. Instead, she focused on how some of the moms she'd known were having their babies in the Guardian or Pegasus Moons were already trying to put together meetings for their little ones, as long as the world would allow it.
"If we can get back to Fódlan, it would be lovely to be included in these meetings," Petra had written under the discussion, followed with a few sad emoji faces. Why anyone would be sad to be stuck in an island paradise during such a tumultuous time, Hilda didn't quite relate to, but she didn't see a problem with that inclusion if it were possible. She didn't feel the need to comment that, however, as everyone else involved already seemed to take care of it.
"Our hope is that by the time the new year starts, things are close enough back to normal that we can actually do something with everyone to celebrate all of these new lives being brought into ours," Mercedes said a little further down in the comment chain, given all sorts of reactions of approval. "It may be at a time where some of these children are with us and others still aren't yet, right now we are playing with right at the start of the new year as our ideal timeframe. That way, it's before the room would be filled with too many wailing children and we can genuinely celebrate each other."
"The implication that you wouldn't be fond of the sounds of all that crying hurts a little," Dorothea had shot back as a response, followed with a winking emoji. "If all goes according to schedule—which babies usually don't, but whatever—then you'll only have to deal with one 'wailing' child then. Maybe two, if you allow older siblings."
That was a new one, siblings being mentioned. From what she had learned so far in the group, the only person there who had an older child was Byleth, and it had already been made incredibly clear that she wasn't currently expecting another one. "Of course we would be willing to have all children there, they deserve to be part of the festivities as much as anyone else." As typical, Mercedes gave a patient and friendly response, but it was what came after that had Hilda contemplating throwing her phone yet again.
"I know she doesn't post here ever, but how fun that the person who would need the siblings being allowed is the same person most likely to not follow the schedule." Dorothea was being actively antagonistic as usual, calling someone out without naming them, but what she said only added more intrigue to everything, and that frustrated Hilda. She wanted to know what the deep gossip was, she wanted to know everything about everyone in the group, she wanted to be the one who people told things to for once in her life!
When in doubt, she knew to message Marianne and ask her for all of the details, but even she didn't know how to definitively answer any of the questions. They ended up on a call to discuss everything quickly, during which Marianne answered what she could with what information she had. "I'll check on Lysithea and get back to you on that, but based on how Dorothea doesn't want me in the group because I'm not a mother in any form, that should be confirmation enough. As for the other part, I can't say for certain what she means by that schedule bit, but I do know that not long before the lockdown started, I heard word that Bernadetta and Caspar, dear lovebirds, had welcomed a son together, but…"
"That doesn't make any sense, though?" Hilda quickly jumped in, trying to sort things through mentally but failing. "Her name's on the calendar, I know I'm not seeing things when I look at it and see it there. You mean to tell me that they had a baby at home and still managed to find time to make another one?"
"I…suppose that is what I'm telling you, yes." Marianne sighed, her voice barely above a whisper when she spoke next. "It feels like I'm dealing forbidden knowledge right now with how you've asked me this rather than gone to the source themselves. Surely someone in the group, if not Bernie herself, could have answered this for you."
Not wanting to admit that she didn't ask someone in the group simply because that'd mean reaching out to Dorothea, Hilda decided that she'd leave that thread for another day and tried moving on. "Okay, well, I came to you instead and I know better now. But can you please check on Lysithea for me, Claude was literally talking to her earlier and she didn't mention a thing but she's in the group. She has to be hiding something."
"I'll get back to you as soon as I know anything. Please don't get too wrapped up in learning everyone's business, Hilda, it's not going to be good for you or for your baby. I'd like to know that everything ends up all right for you, and if that means you keep your nose out of everyone else's drama, then that's what you should do." After Marianne left the call, those last words lingered on Hilda's mind, her desperately wanting to be the one to know things but recognizing that it would be a detriment to her time and energy.
She could do without getting a solid answer on the question she'd had about siblings, but the stuff with Lysithea had a much deeper reason for needing clarification. There was no way that she was going to devote mindpower to thinking up a name that could relate back to hers if she was going to be having a child of her own to name instead. That promise could be completely forgotten in that case, and even if it didn't fully erase the promise problem on both sides, it would erase it on the side that Hilda was leaning towards with what she felt her baby was going to be, and that was what mattered.
Oh, if only it was the next month's appointment so she could find that out for certain!
A/N: okay so I'm having fun digging myself deeper holes in this story, hope you're having fun reading them!
